Critical Role - C3E88 Seeking Sedition

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

While seeking contact with the Volition rebellion, Bells Hells find themselves cornered with no way out of their underground hideaway as enemies close in... Twitch Subscribers and YouTube Members gain instant access to VODs of our shows like Critical Role, 4-Sided Dive, Candela Obscura, and Exandria Unlimited. But don't worry: 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 and YouTube Members also gain access to our official custom emote set and subscriber badges. "It's Thursday Night (Critical Role Theme Song)" by Peter Habib and Sam RiegelOriginal Music by Omar Fadel, Hexany Audio, Ghiya Rushidat, Karam Salem, Neal Acree, and Colm R. McGuinness"Welcome to Marquet" Art Theme by Colm McGuinnessAdditional Music by Universal Production Music, Epidemic Sounds, and 5 AlarmCharacter Art by Hannah FriederichsAnimated Introduction by Kamille Areopagita, Kevin Areopagita, Mark Adams and Peggy Shi 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

Here at Critical Role, we love telling stories and making narratives come to life, which is why we're so excited to share that we're bringing a new semi-improvised fiction podcast into the Critical Role fold with our show, Midst. Journey to the small desert town of Stationary Hill on the planet Midst and follow the intertwined lives of three complicated antiheroes as they deal with unsolved murders, cult brainwashing, supernatural darkness, and, oh yeah, their moons suddenly falling from the sky. Ugh, freaking moons, they're so unreliable these days. The story's created by an extremely talented group of friends known as Third Person.

These playfully omniscient, fourth-wall-breaking narrators describe all the action, play every character, and take an unorthodox approach to storytelling that really makes the experience come alive. Look to the Midstle of the Week, that means Wednesdays, for new weekly episodes at midst.co, your favorite podcast app, or Critical Role's YouTube channel. We hope you enjoy this amazing story as much as we do. Oh, hi folks, it's me, Sam Riegel, and I'm here to welcome you to the wonderful world of Exandria. Although it might be called something like Critical Role, wherever you're streaming it on.

If you would like to watch the stream as it airs, you can tune in on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific at twitch.tv slash critical role or at youtube.com slash critical role. The video on demand versions are immediately available for our Twitch subscribers or on YouTube the following Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific. Podcast episodes are right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network on Thursdays, one week after the initial broadcast. All right, the adventure awaits. Let's roll. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's ninth anniversary episode of Critical Role! Yay! Where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.

We're nerdy-ass voice actors! We love you, BBs! We are ancient, and now you're here to share in our ancientness. Happy nine years, y'all. This is crazy. It should never have gotten this long, and it won't, I'm shutting it down now. No! No, this is crazy. It should never have gotten this long, and it won't. I'm shutting it down now.

No! No, this is wild. For all you newer kids falling into our sphere, thanks for being here in our chaos. Those who've been here for a long time or since the beginning, let us rub our aching knees together in friendship. Indeed.

But thank you all so much for joining us. Before we jump into tonight's episode, we do have some announcements to get through. First up is our sponsor, Chebaku. Sam, once again, please, what is that? This is my new fragrance, Mathieu. Cologne? An eau de toilette, Mathieu.

Chebaku is a Patreon page offering subscribers access to more than 4,000 beautifully handcrafted... It's the crystals, I can't see them. No, I'll read it off of this. I got it, I got it. Just go to the cordial. There you go, now can you see? Chepicou is a Patreon page offering subscribers

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Okay. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Sam. Mr. A, what's your 3D? So sorry. Chippie Coop. So folks, the Daggerheart open beta playtest is live! Now! It is open!

Oh shit! It's open! We've had a blast playtesting it ourselves over the past few years and all of its iterations up until now. We can't wait for you all to finally give it a try. Please dive in, tear it apart, break the game, tell us what works, tell us what doesn't. Whatever you love about the game, the things you'd like to see adjusted, the things that work really well, the things that you're like, it's so close, let us know. That's the fun part about this process, is we all get to make the best game it can possibly be together. Your feedback is truly

invaluable, and the more people who play the game, the better we can make it for all of us. So to help get you started, we've uploaded a ton of new content on our YouTube channel, including a quick one-on-one on the system of Daggerheart, a session zero to show you how to set up a campaign, and a character creation video to show you the process of creating your new character.

It's so fun! We also played a live one-shot of Daggerheart earlier this week, and you can watch it on the VOD right now to see how an actual game of it flows. You, yourself, you, I'm talking to you, can join the open beta playtest at daggerheart.com now. Go do it, go play. Go do it!

I mean, after the show, after the episode. We'll do it now. Put it in your tabs. Laura, you're up next. Hi. Guess what? Hi. We're doing it now! Put in your taps. Laura, you're up next. Hi! Guess what? Hi! We have merchandise. Woohoo! And this time, it's a celebration of our anniversary. We decided to make some nice, core CR stuff.

Yes! So. Ooh! We have a lot of stuff. You can certainly try. That's actually really cool. So good. Happy. Oh, with our logo on the back. I'm a huge fan of our other tie-dye hoodie that we made, so we wanted to make another one,

because I kind of live in my other one. And then in addition to that, you may have seen it sneak peeked on our shop already, but oh! Ooh! Oh my god! Such a good day. We haven't had a hat in a long time.

I know. So it's amazing a hat in a long time. I know. So it's amazing. Look at all the strings. The strings are tie-dyed. Maybe they are on the other one, too. It says, how do you want to do this? How do you want to do this? On the back.

So yeah, our artist is Chris Gladys, designed the calligraphy of how do you want to do this on the back of this hat, which has been designed for forever. So there you go. And then, in addition to that, our pals at YouTube created four adorable plushies for Mighty Nein. Jester and Caleb are joined by fluffy pal Sprinkler! Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness! Look at that kid! This is like him before we killed him a thousand times. Give me! Oh my god! Oh my god, it's so cute! Look at that cute face!

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It's so cute. We got all the little animals in a row now. Oh wow. Find your D&D therapy plushie. Yeah. That's what you better do. My pest. All right.

Lovely, that concludes our announcements on this fancy ninth anniversary night. Nine! So. Nine! Let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. 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 He might 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 When one thing's for sure We never give up on the fight Oh, get ready It's Thursday night night

And welcome back. Bless, we left off. Bells howls after arriving on Ruidus and sneaking, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, across the surface amongst a few waypoints of civilization. Here on the surface of the Red Moon of Ill-Omen, you eventually came to the city of Kravirus, or what you've come to know as Calumna Kravirus,

the top-facing surface city, which seems to be at various levels of destitution and militaristic presence. A number of these thin, spire-like towers protrude from the top for viewing vantage points across the upper region of it called the Banners. There's the main focus of the city that is referred to as the Clutch. That's where the majority of the populace that live here do so. Then there's also the Crumble, which is the series of crevices and cracks where a number of ruins and falling elements

vanish within. You've been told that's the more dangerous region here of Kiluma Craveris. But in search of the Volition, the resistance against the Craveris Imperium that holds sway over the entirety of this Red Moon and is currently one of the two major driving forces to releasing Pardathos, the God Eater. You manage to get into a small scuffle in a street,

but manage to cover your tracks rather rapidly. You then, through some information that you had gathered from some locals and some keen eyes, found your way to the Jagged Edge Glassworks. through some information that you had gathered from some locals and some keen eyes, found your way to the Jagged Edge Glassworks. This is a glasssmith building. You've seen this strange, bluish-green glass that's been pushing its way through

or exists in veins throughout elements of the rock here. You can see now, upon coming here, and I've seen a few examples of tools and weapons that use this glass, as well as parts of the housing structures, and just as one of the main materials between bone, leathers, and other fungal-type materials that have been dried and stretched into a cloth fabrication. There, you met with Zesh, and Zesh and Jado

looks to be the true purveyor of the establishment, who then stepped out to leave Zesh some timeadoe looks to be the true purveyor of the establishment, who then stepped out to leave Zesh some time to speak with you. You convinced them that you are no ally to the Vanguard, though you wear their colors, and that your intent was to find information in hopes of eventually helping the Volition. Zesh wasn't forthcoming with them being a member necessarily,

but an ally who occasionally helps out the Volition and gave you some information as to where to locate, where their current pass house haven might be, to search upon some of the highest spires, recommending the Overspoke, to look for the darkest of deep blue coloration as a marker as to where the entrance would be. You want to take a rest in the subterranean basement

of the Jagged Edge. Towards the end of this rest, you begin to hear footsteps above and we're told to keep quiet as the entryway to this basement was closed. Laudna, you cast a Sphere of Darkness within to plunge it into a void-like absence of light. You all sit there in the quiet, listening.

Let's hope this was a good idea. So, here beneath, you hear the footsteps, a bit of silence, and you hear a voice poke out like it's halfway through a conversation. Yeah, we've come to collect something. Then no more conversation. It's odd, you begin to realize

this is a group of conversing individuals, but only some of them telepathically communicating. You're catching bits and pieces of information. Another one goes, Around here somewhere. We got to make good, right vengeance, if we're losing them. Another one says.

We can talk to each other, right? Because we're mentally connected. The voice again creeps in like, what later? Three, three of us dead. Someone's got to pay. Oh, that's us. I know. Silence. What do you all do?

You can't hear them or hear the thoughts. It doesn't work like that, right? Not really. I mean, I could open... No, unless they're directing the thoughts at you, you can't hear what they're saying. You can cast Detect Thoughts. I can cast Detect Thoughts.

You won't hear the conversation, you'll just hear Can I tell roughly how many are walking above us? Make a perception check for me. So I'm at an advantage, but I'm in the dark. So straight roll? This is just listening. Yeah. You'll be able to see.

I say this is a straight roll because you're just hearing. Actually, in darkness, you're able to focus. I'd say it's a straight roll. Oh, that's good. That's 25. 25. You hear six sets of footsteps. And this odd low growl. And this odd low growl.

It's almost cute, almost like a. New sounds to me. It sounds weirdly familiar. Okay, so maybe they have their own little... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you rat us out? Oh, fucker. So fast!

No, I bet it didn. We don't know. It's way too far away. Nobody brought us out. If anybody brought us out, is that guy up in the tower that we didn't talk to after he saw us? No, Pate talked to him. Yeah, Pate threw the fuck out of him.

Yes, he frightened him. And then we left. Pate. Somebody could have tailed us from the street. It's possible. This may not even be about us entirely. They might just be here because this is where you go to broker a conversation,

and I think they want a patsy. Can I just try and stand on my tiptoes and smell any whiffs of occupants that might be on the floor above? Yeah, go ahead and roll advantage for using your keen scent and hearing. Just in case there's something new. 20, I'm sorry, 16.

16, okay. I mean, the interior of the chamber upstairs is filled with all manner of burned and burning materials. The forges up there that melt and bend the glass and the materials they use in here. It clouds the atmosphere with a lot of chemical scents and things that blink at the majority of what you're looking for, but you do catch up

what you're now becoming more familiar to you, the smell of Vylora, a handful, and something else. Once again, it's slightly familiar, but you're not quite sure where you smelled it before. Matt, we're in complete darkness, right? Yes, you are. So I'm just going to go around and just touch my friends.

Sorry. Sorry? With consent. Just to make sure I know where everybody is. I'm also going to sympathetically bond myself to Ashton, Orym, Chetney, and Laudna. You're moving around extremely quietly. Extremely, yeah, I oil myself. I oil.

You're lubricating? I lube. I use lube. Yeah, you do. It's about to hear that you hear, out of the silence upstairs, that voice ring out and you're going to be like, I agree.

Maybe we go ahead and just have a look around. Oh, Jesus fucking shit. Just in case. What do we do if they come down here? You hear some of the footsteps begin to separate, and you begin to hear that new sound that you didn't recognize before, almost like a grinding or something sifting.

Like a. Like a slithering? Possibly. Or maybe they're using a rain stick? Maybe. Jesus. They're real popular here. Maybe they're looking for holes in the floor, like spreading sand on the ground.

Oh yeah, shit. That's smart. Hey, just so I know how magical darkness works, if we're inside the magical darkness bubble and they open a door, we can't see them. Nope. Shit. We can't see them. They can't see us, though, as well.

They see impermeable darkness, though. I can see through magical darkness. You're the only one who can. Whoa. Great. So Laudna is just like at the bottom of the stairs looking up at them. But they can't see her. No, they can't see her, but she'll see them.

Yes, I see. It's the Travis nightmare. Definitely look like a night terror. Look like sleep paralysis, even. I'm calling it into existence. To people looking around. For some reason, I envision it as one of those night vision cameras, you know? Oh my god. Just the eyes.

I can't do any ranged stuff. I can't do anything that's triggered by the space. Do we have anything that we would want to put underneath the trapdoor? I know, I was thinking that, too. That they would walk into? I don't have any of that stuff. Oh my god.

Everything is like, what about the hole? I know. I was thinking that. We got to go through the hole. We're going through the hole. What if we stand around the hole and let them jump down out? Then we can, so do you think we can press it up against the ceiling, like flat?

Absolutely not. You think the hole would fit on the ground in here? How would we even know if it does? But even if they, if we put it on the ground, if they come down the stairs, they just fall right into the hole. Then the people outside of the hole wouldn't be able to hear that they fell in the hole

because it traps a sound inside. Then we just fold them up and then we let them suffocate. That will take. Then we just add more bodies to our body count. X amount of enemies out of the picture right away. Even if they don't all go in, that is two less, three less.

Let's see if we can open the hole down here. I recall we can open the hole down here. Yeah, do you? I think we did. I think we did. Can we fit it? Can we have the hole down here. Yeah, do you? I think we did. Can we fit the hole down here? The space in here, I mean, you can certainly try. Hey, hold it up, hold it up.

First shout out. Gotta try. Where'd I put it? I don't know. You're not sitting on the merch? You're supposed to sit on the merch. We make our money. Because it requires. Oh, you stole it! I forgot it was over here. Here's what I'll say.

It requires a fairly flat surface to roll it out for it to become the hole that's there. There is enough room here, but a lot of the room edges of it right now are occupied by supply crates and things around it. So you can do it, but you just have to move a few things to make the space. No, fuck that. We're not rolling for that.

Negative. We'd be so loud. I'll tell you what. I mean, it's possible, I'm just saying. Unless we have like, guide me to the stairs. You look really good. Thank you. I know, you look really good.

You look great, too. Guide me to, where was I? I can't actually see you. I assume you look good. Do it with your eyes closed. Guide me to the stairs. You're welcome. I'd love that.

You just feel Laudna's breath on you because I'm covering too close. That's... I know who you are. It's really cold. Oh no. Oh. Oh, that's like one of the cheap vaporizer. I can lock the hammer between two of the steps,

so if they come down, they'll trip. Ooh, that's cool. Ooh, that's cool. Ooh, that's cool. That's cool. Okay. Very good idea. I'm going to give you a little blessing of a d6 to use. Let them hang out down here? What do we do if they trip? Maybe they'll break their necks

and it's just a terrible accident. If they come down here at all, we have to wrap this up like we thought we did on the street. Nobody leaves. Yep. We've the street, nobody leaves. Yep. Yep. We've got to keep it contained. Yep. We drag them in, we finish it, no one leaves. But no one's, we're not going to kill anyone though, right?

I mean, we're the good guys here. Never have, not yet. We'll just talk to them and convince them. We don't kill people. We power them down. All right, put them in sleep mode. Yes. Okay. For a very long time. All right. Put them in sleep mode. Yes. Okay. For a very long time.

Yeah, we can't search for exits. There's nothing we can cast. Well, well. Oh. So I've been thinking I could try something that feels like a very high-level situation for something like this, but I feel like I can make something look different.

So you can make it look like the room is empty? Yeah, I think I can. Whoa. I think I can try to project something to make it look like this is a completely empty hole. Amazing. Whoa. Even with the darkness? Or should we drop the darkness?

We'd have to drop the darkness. Oh shit. And do that. Well, I can drop the darkness. I mean, if you cast it above the darkness. That too. Oh, that too. It's an option. It's an option. Illusion. And a hole.

Yes, yes. And a triple eye. No more bullshit, we just go for it. The darkness is stuck down in the hole, right? It doesn't go up above the hole at all, right? Asher, what is it? No, it's about 10 feet from the floor to the ceiling. So creating the darkness in the bottom,

it just fills the entirety of the basement, so it doesn't go beyond it. I feel like that's worth dropping. Well, like she said, you can layer it, theoretically. So if they look in, it just looks dark. You would assume, yeah. What are you trying to cast? Hallucinatory Terrain.

Ah. Hallucinatory Terrain. Go. Hallucinatory Terrain. Go on. By Chiboku. Chiboku. Chiboku. Does that work? I mean, the only downside is it takes 10 minutes to cast. Never mind.

Ah, bonkers. Boom. So if you can distract them for a while. That's why it says 10 minutes for this. Cadence, it's right after 10 minutes. However, that is an extremely useful spell for situations at all the time, so good to keep in mind. Well, let's just see what happens.

I've got to maybe, I can maybe just. Let's do that trip thing, though. That's great. Yeah, let's do the trip thing. I'm putting it right below the shadow so that it's not visible. Okay. They might not even look in. They might not look in, and if they do trip, he might just go, ow, a trip to start,

and then go straight back up. You hear some things like shift, up above, they're moving furniture. Should we all start whispering horribly so that if they look down into the darkness, they just hear. Well, to be fair, that was part of my plan C. Yes, I'd, yes. Okay, we'll keep it as a secret.

Yeah, we'll see, we'll, yes. You hear the footsteps scattering around a little bit. Then one of them comes to the side door, not far from here, and you hear that voice, and you're like, What's in here? Then open it! You hear the.

The door open and the footstep above, behind it. It sounds like slithering, I think. Can you see what's happening? I don't think they've opened the chamber yet, like the hatch yet. Not the hatch. but you can now hear the steps above you. What is that noise? What is that noise? Get ready.

Everyone is. Please don't find us. And you hear all the other footsteps beginning to. Except for, you clocked five sets of footsteps. You hear three approaching from the one that was here and that other odd sound that followed it. So there's one unaccounted for

that seems to be remaining in the other room because your perception is super fucking high. You would know that. Anyone want to prepare any spells or? I'm pulling that out. I'm like, one in the antechamber, five above. There's rats down here. Sure.

Yeah, that's great. Maybe I'll just, yeah, if they open the hatch, I'll just make sure there's rats down there. What if they're friendly for some reason? That's really good and really cute. That is a really cute little rat. That is. We spend a lot of time alone as children.

All right. My poor little sister. Shut up! So what's the plan? I think we're sitting tight. We're sitting back and we're against the wall. Getting ready to roll. Okay.

Just in case, let me go ahead and set up a little visual so we know at least where everyone's set up. Do we have to put the hammer? Could you put the hammer through a latch on things so they can't get the latch open? This just in case is brought to you by WizKids Minis. Bell's Hell's Plush are now available. Fresh Cut Grash, Ashton Graymoor, Fearne Calloway are ready to join your couch party. This Just In Case is brought to you by WizKids Minis. Bells Hells Plush are now available.

Fresh Cut Grash, Ashton Graymoor, Fern Calloway are ready to join your couch party. Order your plush friends today. Bells Hells Plush at wizkids.io slash bellshellsplush. That is a small space. Yeah, it's a teeny teeny little. Matt, do we remember when we came down, if the thing opens?

You could put the hole here if you wanted to, but you have to move things out of the way to do it. Okay. It's too loud. Where else are you guys all arranged? I don't know, against a wall? I'm practically underneath the stairs because that's where I'm at. All right.

And I'm under the shadow. Okay. Yeah, Matt, did the hatch door open upward or did it open downward? It opened upward. Was there a latch or a handle on the underside? To where that we could slide the amoeba broad to keep it.

Like if you wanted to put it through something? Oh, no, there would be. Because you want, I mean, besides pushing it up, there's also a latch internally. So we could slide the hammer through the latch? You could. What if they're going to be like, open it?

Yeah, why won't it open? Why isn't this opening? Yeah, for sure. I mean, to be like, open it? Yeah, why won't it open? Why isn't this opening? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you could just make it one more obstacle, and then they open it and it's just dark as hell. I've got my movable rod. Orm will go across from Ash and just crouch like Daredevil, waiting for this to start. Leave your hammer.

I'll go up and across from Ash on the other side of the ladder. So if you're spidering, maybe get up. Yeah. All righty. Well, be prepared to other side of the ladder. So if you're spidering, maybe get up. Yeah. All righty. Oh my god, you can have this, see if I can. Be prepared to get up on the roof. They open the latch and I'm on the latch.

On the latch. Like a fucking jack-in-the-box. Yep, yep. All righty. Oh my god. How about the rest of you? Anywhere, Matt, anywhere. Like against a wall somewhere. Yeah, against a wall, against a wall.

Can't see anything anyway. Probably just be holding onto a wall for... I have hopped, against a wall. Yeah, against a wall. Can't see anything anyway. Probably just holding onto a wall for... I have hopped up on a box. I can't see. So Matt, I climbed up, and I'm going to take my immovable rod and latch it through the handle on this side. Okay, so you're up at the top, essentially?

Yeah, very... Like spider climbing along? Very quietly. Okay. Now, make a stealth check for me, if you don't mind. Do we have Pass Without a Trace? Yes, we do, Pass Without a Trace! Wait, you're casting it now?

No, wait. Fuck! I have an advantage. I'm saying, does it have verbal as a... I have an advantage on this. Okay. You're good. Pass Without a Trace requires verbal, somatic, and material components, so you have to mutter

incantation, which you can do. I just need you to go ahead and make a... It's so counterintuitive to pass without a trace and have to make noise. And then you're like, It's a preparation spell. It's not impossible, once again, but I will ask for a stealth check.

But it's the whisper. It's the verbal. It's the noise that she's going to make sliding the rod through the handle. Very quiet. I've got this. She's got it. Why's the noise that she's going to make sliding the rod through the handle. Very quiet. I've got this. She's got it. Why are you rolling with it, guys? Because I sucked in that ring

and that rests for 24 hours. I think it's only been like... It hasn't been nearly any time. Yeah, six hours? 15 minutes. Yeah, it's been like 15 minutes. I rolled a natural 19 for 25. Okay.

It slides in smoothly and without any sound. Did he feel it? Fucking 25. That's the Vax journey there. Did you do it? Laudna, you can be Colin Schatz. MatPat. Okay. Shortly after you get that into place, you hear the rustling of metal on metal, and then... Metal on metal.

You hear. That same shifting sound again. And the voice goes, Is it locked? Open it! Guys. I said, open it! And you hear, and boom!

They're going to fuck up the owners. Yeah. And there's just quiet again. That's not a good answer. And you just... We can't let him take the heat. We got to come out. What if we're just making a porno? It's worked before.

We could just act like we're dead. I'll do it again. Yeah. I'll unlatch the thing. Okay. You hear the sound of someone getting up and futzing with it again, and then it I crawl back down into the darkness.

Pulls open, and you all hear the footsteps curve around the front. What do you see? What the hell? What do I see? Now, where are you standing now? If you're down below here, where are you? She's looking right up into their faces! Yeah, pretty much.

Okay, you glance up inside and you see It's a horror movie. the bottoms of two feet and the edges of what looks to be one of those tall, furry, gray and white-haired entities that is dressed in similar armor as to the other sentinels you saw of Kraviris that you had fought earlier. The Sasquatch-esque? Yeah.

You see from the waist down from your vantage point, and you see it snaps at his fingers, and it carries over a lantern, one of those weird glass blue orb lanterns that is lighting up. What the hell? Unsettling presence. Okay.

Takes two steps back. There's a loud whistle sound. You hear that weird shifting sound. You watch as a familiar-looking creature slithers around the edge, its singular central eye and its massive tooth-covered jaw. Those creatures that you saw frenzy-feeding in the middle of the dust,

it looks like there's one that's been trained and domesticated by this figure. That comes up to the edge. It points down. And it bounds down the ladder. What are you all doing? It's down here with us? It is down here with you.

Does it seem like it has, oh god. Does it seem like it has? Well, we can't see it. I don't know. Does it seem like it has seen us? Yeah, tell us what's happening. Does it seem like it's seen us? Tremor sense? It does look like it has.

It looks like it's emerged down below. It stumbles off the edge of the ladder. I see in our brains, I give a location of where it is. Yeah, it is right in front of you. Like, it doesn't see you. It's interesting because the little eye that you see flitting on it.

It doesn't see us. It's... Make an insight check. An insight check. Nobody move. Not a muscle. There's just a fucking wolverine in the middle of the room between us all.

21. 21. You're looking right at it. And you're used to seeing creatures with an eye up here, where there's the slit with the thing shifting around it, but you don't see a pupil. You see this slight little gap that occasionally opens in it.

You realize it's not an eye. It's part of its censoring apparatus, but it's not sight-based. It's almost like it's tasting the air through this other additional eye-like appendage. And it's like. And you watch as it begins to, like, outside of its body has these,

now that it's this close to you, hundreds of little tooth-like spines that come out of the sides of its body has these, now that it's this close to you, hundreds of little tooth-like spines that come out of the sides of its body that just protrude out like cat claws that begin to shift, and the rock around it begins to break away and it begins to gently burrow, like wading into water.

I say in everybody's head, What's the matter with you? I say in everybody's head, it's covered in teeth, it's covered in teeth, it's covered, it's covered in teeth, it's covered in teeth, it's covered, it's covered in teeth. It is coming in your direction, like testing, like checking around the room. Towards me? What do we do?

We can't move. I tell everybody to hug the walls. Hopefully it keeps coming towards me because I want to lightly navigate around it. Okay. I'm going to ask for a group stealth check on this. Sorry, guys. There's no without a trace now, correct?

No. No without a trace. I know, I know, I know. This is going to be great. I'm still at disadvantage. Oh dear. You are. No! It's all good. Nice talk, thank god.

It's a group. Is this a group? This is a group. It's a group? It's a group. It's a group, so check. Right? Yep. All righty. We'll start right here with you, Ashton. Double checking, yeah, okay. That's, no.

Nine, 16. 16? With disadvantage, great. All right. 13. Okay. 23. Oh. Okay. 91. Oh. Okay. 91.

Ooh! Okay. Four. Okay. 23. Okay. Natural 20. Ooh! Yes.

For a 30. That negates. That negates a 91. That negates the natural one. Okay, okay. It was a group check. It was a group check. I just had a single roll. Make it, make it.

21 are gone, two high 20s. And a four. A couple of teens and a super low one. Yeah, the most important one is you because you're the only one who's moving in this instance. This is to see if the rest of you can stay still while it's this close to you in the presence. Yours is the primary one on this.

As you begin to slightly shift backward and move, as it sifts through the sand itself, and it begins to run in perimeter of the room. I'm trying to get any boxes between me and it, but like. It bumps into one. You shift around on the other side of it. Sips around, scoots around past you, Imogen. I say in her head, Just coming for you, Imogen.

Just coming for you. Should we give it any body parts again? My little snake? Scoots. Now past you, Fearne. Is it taller than Orym? It's about your height. Oh god! Oh no.

Like, it's about this wide. That's huge, it's so much bigger than I imagined it. He's no taller than you. Should've gotten out of box. It's okay up here. Thought it was like a cat. So there's a unique, the rest of you don't see this, but there's a unique Mission Impossible dance

that Laudna's attempting to try and avoid its movement and hide off behind one of the boxes as it snaps into things and smashes into other parts and does a little pass. Orym is still devoting a lot of his CPU to listening to people up top, and does it still sound like they're on the lip looking down at us?

It sounds like there's one right at the edge, and there's three others at the doorway that leads into this small closet. Okay. It finishes its pass around, comes over in the direction past you, and you can feel its presence, that sifting sound as it burrows through the rock a little bit.

Then you watch as it dips into the rock and burrows entirely into the ground. Uh-oh, where's it going to pop up? Where's it going to pop up? I don't know. It bursts out of the nearby wall for a second. Rock tumbles into it. Did it hit any of us?

I'm going to go ahead and say, I'm going to need a dexterity saving throw from you, Ashton. Oh, saving throw, okay. Yeah. I still have that d6, saving throw, okay. Yeah. I still have that d6, by the way, thank you. This isn't going to do damage, but it will be your attempt to move out of the way

without making too much movement yourself. Oh my gosh. It's like you made rocks fall on the ground. Or do I have to roll it into the roll? It hides the sound. You get to use it. But this is him if he can manage to not draw his attention with movement.

You made rocks, just sound like rocks. If he can manage to not draw his attention with movement. You're made of rocks, just sound like rocks. I'm working on it. Oh, okay. He rocks, you know that. I don't need it yet. That's what you think. Actually, just throw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

22. 22.. Then barks, almost like a puppy, up towards the figure at the top of the steps. I need one. Don't. You fucking hey. Nothing down here. Whistles again, and the creature

bounds up, and you watch as it bounds, because you can see it, it's not really landing, it's hovering and using the ladder almost like it's a fun little, like a bit of an obstacle course. What's this shit? Is it up inside? Well, you saw them before.

They were hovering when they were burrowing through the ground and stuff for moments. There's something unique about their movement. Trout jumper. It's not looking at us. Yeah. Then he comes up. Yeah.

And as he whistles, two more burst out of the nearby walls and follow up behind it that you didn't even realize were burrowing in the ground outside of the tunnel. Whoops. The last thing I need here, based on where they were going, I'm going to roll some dice to see where those emerge from. The first one's going to be on a two.

A four is going to be next to Imogen, and the last one's going to be Fearne. I need both of you to make dexterity saving throws for me. Dexterity saving throws? You got it. Come on. You got this. Come on. Do we have advantage on anything? We're so close.

We don't. And you didn't give either of us sixes. Not yet, because it's still active with good old Ashton. I burned it. No, he burned it. Oh, you burned it. Well. Yeah. Too late. Oh, not for that one. Oh, never mind.

Okay, okay. Okay. 10. 10, okay. 21. 21. Ooh! Okay. 10. 10, okay. Uh, 21. 21. Ooh! Okay. The one that bursts out beside you, you duck out of the way, it catches you in the side of you,

holds your breath, and it just burrows off and picks up and floats back up the ladder after the other one. Shortly after that, the one hits you from behind, bursting through the wall behind you, Imogen, knocking you to the ground, some of the rock covering on you, and you instinctually breathe out

as it knocks the wind out of you for a moment, and you're trying to catch yourself. The creature turns and focuses in your direction. You're watching this, and you can feel that odd breath. Like as it's just creeps up close to your face. It's a gayling.

Opens its mouth and just bites down on your head. Opas its mouth and bites down on your head. Almost gently, like it's testing what's there. Pain surges through you as you, not knowing what else to do in that moment, let this creature bite into your head. Rows of sharp teeth digging into your scalp and the part of your shoulder.

You take. He's so cute, though. 14 points of piercing damage. Oh, I did. Do you do anything? It's a love bite. Nope. I don't want to do anything.

The world's largest tattoo all at once. It continues to chew. Oh my god. It seems to have found something it likes. And just like, almost like a small creature gnawing on a toy, but then it gets the treat in the middle of it. It's like,

and it starts tearing into you again. I can't return at all. It seems like I know. So are we in the clear, everybody? I can't see anything. I'm trying to find something that's not verbal. That's going to be another 13 points of piercing damage. Why is everything verbal?

Can I take out this Ryloren behemoth finger that I have and just slowly wiggle it in its mouth and try and try and slip it in and slip Imogen's head out. Or just toss it on the floor. I'll say. Or just, yeah, toss. Everything's verbal. There is a metamagic ability that helps improve that.

Oh, wait, wait, let me see if I have that. Do I have that? Silence Bell, Quicken's Bell. It's Silence Bell. I know, but I don't have Silence Bell. Aw. Well. I found the creature's mouth. Why'd you build a broken character?

Why didn't I know that I would have a creature gnawing at me when I couldn't make noise? On your dome? Why wouldn't I have planned for that? It's not yours, you didn't figure it out yet? I'm going to try and bait it with this. I understand. Give it a little beef turkey. I'm going to need you to make an animal handling check.

Oh! As you're trying to draw its attention from a fresh piece of bleeding meat to an old piece of no longer bleeding meat. Get your bull's-eye. There's a lot of meat on bleeding meat. Get your bull's eye. There's a lot of meat on that bone. If something has a purple. This is the juggernaut finger you said?

Yeah, it's a meaty, it's like a sausage. Yeah. Did the other creatures already leave the thing? They did. Natural 20! Yes! No fucking way. Yes! They've been waiting.

Okay, where do you throw this? You watch as you pull the finger in the way and it looks up at you. You can see the blood streaks down the outside of its jaw, and you just see this red mess that's the back of the unmoving Imogen's head. You instinctually grab the finger

and hold it in front. As you do, it. Can I trail it to the door a little bit, and then just, yeah, the direction the other one's going to get out. You throw it out the... What? I don't want to throw it out. Where do you throw it? No, no, no, no.

Like, towards the ladder. Just a finger flutter. Okay. You chuck it towards the ladder and it and immediately it lunges over, digging into the ground and catching it like a shark out of water. If the water was rock being burrowed through. Takes it, the ladder gets bumped

and almost gets knocked out of the hole for a second. It makes a bit of a clatter above and you hear some of the foots stepping over to the edge. One of them's looking in and can't see anything, holding the lantern again, looking at him like, Hey, come on, what's going on? Go, please leave. Please fucking go, please leave.

Spits a chunk of the partially chewed section, then eats it. It turns to look back towards where Imogen is. Get out of there! Okay, when it left. While it's distracted, what are you doing? Can I, is there, can I feel a box behind me? From where you are, yeah, there is definitely,

like a box got shifted as it burst through the wall, yeah. Can I try to get up onto the box while it was distracted jumping after the thing? While it was making noise and clattering around. Make another stealth check for that. I can't give you a d6, because I said Orym Ashton, checkmate. I know, you didn't bind with it.

Fucking log. Why fucking me? Oh no. Oh no. I rolled a seven. Give him plus things. Seven, it? I rolled a seven. Give him plus things. Seven, no, I rolled a three. Oh no.

It turns back around. You ready? And like, . It's fine, it's fine. It just goes over towards you. The minute it makes the noise at me. Jesus Christ.

With your head bleeding profusely. Sure. I'm going to, let me make sure I don't have to. Maddened with blood. Fuck, I don't know, I can't see. I can't see! You bet. Could you turn to one of them that you saw earlier?

I did see one earlier. And then just pretend to leave with them for a minute just to get them to go away. Do I know, would I know, does Shock Flare make noise? Shock Flare? Or speed out with that one? Or would I know what noises my spells make? You would know that Shock Flare makes

a little bit of a staticky noise, like a. Okay. Okay, then the minute it gets to me. We took our short rest. Yeah, you took your short rest. I'm going to, the minute it makes noise, I'm going to reach forward and try to touch it. We did take a short rest.

Okay, so you grab it. I'm going to try to inflict wounds on it. Okay, now because you cannot see it, you roll with disadvantage. So go ahead and roll to make your spell touch attack, your melee spell attack with disadvantage. It's a one. Wow!

This is a series of really good after-hours. Yeah, they are. Wow! It was going so well. I'm sorry, guys. We have an idea. Maybe it's because there's two of us. Yeah, they are. Wow! It was going so well. Do you have so many dice? Sorry, guys, we have an idea. Maybe it's because there's two of them. Travis, shut up!

You go to reach towards it, and your spell grabs the empty space of the inside of its open gullet as it snaps over the front half of your body. The rest of you just hear. I don't like this. You see now just the legs of Imogen kicking outside of it.

I'm going to say for this instance, let's go ahead and roll initiative since we are now actually in a battle. Legs curl up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for this point in time, you've backed off to the side, and this is now right over here,

and you are restrained. Okay. Shit. Aw. Oh, fuck. You're not restrained. You can't see anything. So everything's going to be at a standstill. You can't move, but you essentially are grappled by it. I can drop this.

I can drop this. But then they'll see it. No, they'll see it. They're walking away, though. Are they, though? You said the other two they'll see it. They're walking away, though. Are they, though? You said the other two were walking away. They were all walking away, and then when that one hit the ladder,

some of them started coming back because they heard the clatter, and one of them's looking over with the lantern right now, but can't see anything down there. We had some good ideas. But nevertheless. We had some good ideas. All righty.

Laudna had a good idea. Let's go. Okay. It's going to be... Ooh! And... Hmm. Okay.

So, I would like to give us 25 to 21, or 25 to 20? Oh, I didn't even fucking roll. Not this time. All right. Well, shit. All righty. 25 to 20? 19. Sorry, 19. Yeah, that's true.

20 to 15? 17. 17, okay. So that's Fearne. I rolled a 15 as well. Okay, this is on Dick. All right. Rollies. Rollies.

You win, because I'm rolling like. Three. 12. Oh! Get it out! That's true. Get it out, get it out. All right, 10 to five. Eight. Okay.

Oh, five. Ooh. Rollies or? Did anybody else roll a five? It's okay, one of them rolled really bad. Is there some rule that says near 10 is just going to suck ass? I'm at eight.

Okay, you're at the top. We're dead near 10. Uh-huh. I cannot get over that top face. It's like someone took you, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Pete Davidson, and put you into a gene splicer. Yeah, it's weird.

Yeah, it's kind of strange. What is that? I don't know. It's terrifying. I can't see it. That's what Laura was wearing Sam's face. It looks like, oh, that's what that is. That's why it's so, yes, that's right. He does look like Brennan Lee Mulligan.

Yeah, that's a cop. That's not true. He's far more handsome, John. It looks like Peter Lorre, to be honest. Yeah. Ain't that right? It's important to know what we're doing in our game of Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, it does!

Which is weird because Brennan does not look like that at all, so it's weird that. I don't know where you're getting that from. I don't see Brennan. Sorry, Brennan. I don't see Brennan in the end. Shout out to Brennan Lee Milligan. Prayer to Brennan Lee Milligan. Save us! I don't quite remember his name.

All righty. So it's going to be, it was, sorry, Chetney, you had an eight? Yes, and then Ashton was a five. Steve Buscemi. Yeah, there's a little Steve Buscemi in there. That's true, that'sney, you had an eight? Yes, and then Ashton was a five. Steve Buscemi. Yeah, there's a little Steve Buscemi in it. Yeah. And Sméagol when he was still a halfling.

Yes! Yeah. Oh boy. Oh my goodness, okay. I thought it was me, too. It is not me. It's me? It's just all you. They're all you.

I thought that was Taliesin. It is not me. You are wearing a shirt full of heels. All righty, so. Sorry, going back to the top of this now. Yeah. Top of the initiative here, it is Laudna with FCG on deck. What do you got?

All right. You can actually see. I can see. I'm going to try to just quickly lead this, and I'm going to just tell everybody, everyone remain calm and shut the fuck up. I'm going to throw everybody, everyone remain calm and shut the fuck up. I'm going to throw Fearne as one of these creatures through the top of the roof.

Yes. Oh. Yes. Amazing. I tell Fearne. Are we trying to kill the thing? Yes, but let me get rid of this thing first. I would get rid of them. I tell Fearne,

turn into one of those little tadpolly things that we saw, but like, Aurum-sized. Yeah. See what it looks like. So what the tadpole thing is, and what you were in the room? What we're fighting.

She's trying to look like the thing that we're fighting. Try to look like those piranha teethies. It's one of the things that we already saw. Correct. It is technically a beast. The Ruidian beast. So, okay. Oh, isn't it cool? She can do it? So wait, are you transforming,

like using your wild shape into it? I was thinking about it, but I also could disguise self. No, that's different. Disguise self, right? Disguise self has to be closer to your humanoid space. Yeah, beast shape would work.

You don't know. Beast shape would work, though, right? You could try it. Okay, I'm going to try it. All right. It's going to be like a fly. You've had a decent look at this up close. Actually, you have not seen this creature up close. You only saw it from a distance,

but you did see it when you were trying to go over the top. So you go ahead and will yourself into a form and your body shifts into an uncomfortable state. And indeed, you are currently now the form of a slither. Slither. And I'm going to hold my action. So Fearne is. I will say, so this will be for you, Fearne.

I'll surround this with a green marker so you know which one is you. So that's you there. Oh! Look at the face! Oh my goodness, he's kind of cute. Shit, what? He's cool. He's another kind of cute.

Yeah, the way a piranha's cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then can I hold my action while we're doing this all at once? I have to say, I thought the mouth was much smaller that was biting me. I didn't realize it was the size of half my body that was biting me. Right.

That's scary. The mini's a little larger than I intended it to be, but it's just a little bit smaller. It could swallow half my body. Yeah, it's about that big, this large of a sphere with a little tail behind it. Cool. All right, so you.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bigger than one of those. All right, what are you doing? So you, sorry, you told her to do that, and then? I want to hold my action until after Fearne turns. Okay. Technically, there's an FCG sandwich between us.

Technically? Technically. And then I want to toss Fearne's ass up through the hole. Okay. You got it. You don't, I mean, you probably wouldn't even need to toss her up. She could probably walk herself up.

So are you going to move over? Cover up. Are you going to move over to where she is then. Are you going to move over to where she is? Oh, yeah. Are you going to move over to where Fearne is, or are you moving by the bottom of the stairs? Or the bottom of the ladder, sorry. I need to guide Fearne.

I'm the only one who can see. Okay, yeah, so you step behind and hold onto Fearne and begin to force movement, drag her over this way to the bottom, I'll say. You can do that with your movement. I was going to say, that's a movement, not an action. Yeah, I'm holding my action. But she's touching the ladder.

Yeah, if she can get to the ladder and she can plump, plump up. I'll say you're getting in position for that. This is not your action, you're just reaching and tugging and you're drifting. Because remember, we also don't know how they move. Just because she looks like one, we're assuming that she can.

She can't levitate like these things do. Not that many of us see this yet. Yeah. So you go ahead and drift, pulling her over while you hear the gnawing sounds of your friend being eaten in shadow. All right, so you hold your action for that. Darkness, FCG, you're up.

What are you going to do, buddy? We're killing this thing, right? You can't see anything. I can't see, but I can hear. I've heard some chops. Yeah. So our attacks are going to probably be at disadvantage. We got to attack. Yeah, we got to. Yeah, let's set something else. Everything is verbal, as you well know.

That buzzsaw isn't. I'm going to quietly, Yeah. quietly affix my coin to my palm and I will use it to cast Guiding Bolt at 4th-level. Holy shit, okay. Which will not make any light because of the darkness. Yeah. Nice.

Which means it doesn't give you the secondary benefit, but it does, not while it's dark, because you have nothing to guide you. That's true. So go ahead and roll a disadvantage. Go ahead and make your spell attack. Disadvantage. That's a natural 20.

Hey! And a seven. Oh! It's disadvantage. Plus, what is it? That's okay, it's still going to be good. Plus 10, that's 17. That definitely hits. Okay.

Go ahead and roll damage. And I think I did it good. Plus 10, that's 17. That definitely hits. Okay. Go ahead and roll damage. I think I did it at level four, so that's 76. Yes, it is. Okay. I'll just do these first. Okay, 12 plus... Oh. 23 points of damage.

That's good, that's good. Dang. All right, cool. So you release it and you hear a ROAR! And that's all you hear. Does it look like that fucked it up? Like how many hit points do these things have? Hit points of a kitten?

Does it look fucked up? It looks hurt. It's got teeth on the outside of its body! If you have more time to inspect it with a little more light, maybe you could tell, but in this instance, in this instant, you're uncertain how hurt it is. Okay.

Does that finish your turn? Bonus action, I will sense Orym near me and I will give him a bonded blessing to help him in his attacks. Okay. A d6. Like a d6. There you go, so you got your d6 ready to go for that? And now.

Please, no. They learn in time. All right, that finishes FCG's go? Yep. Now the slithers go. Yes. Oh. Okay, wait, here's my question. Yeah?

Because did you take one bite on me before, or did you do multiple bites on me before? Two bites. Okay, what was the second bite for? Because I didn't mark it. Oh, I was 13. 13 was the second one? Okay. Mm-hmm.

Two bits. Don't like it. I have a feeling I don't want it to be true. Okay. I marked the first one, but I didn't mark the second one. Okay. So the one that's still on you is just going to continue to chew. Oh, okay, to be true. Okay. I marked the first one, but I didn't mark the second one. Okay. So the one that's still on you is just going to continue to chew.

Okay, that could be worse. So vice bite on you. The cave is shipped like a heart because Matt loves us. That's going to be, now that you're inside, it's going to be an 18 to hit you. Oh, yeah. Oh! Right, because it didn't even have to roll to hit me because it was already chomping on me.

Yeah, you were still, so it just went. No. That chomps me. Okay. So with that, you take, ooh, okay. That is going to be 17 points piercing damage. Okay. Okay. The grapple is maintained.

It is just now rolling you around in its mouth, trying to chew and throw you a little bit and catch you. It's like a creature playing with its food as it eats it. Yay. All right. That finishes that slither's turn. There is movement upstairs a little bit.

Finishing that go. Fearne, you're up with Orym on deck. All right. Okay, I'm going to keep you guys posted about what's up there. Just try and get him to go. I'm going to get him to go. As long as they walk out the fucking door.

You can still hear my thoughts while I'm inside of this thing. Ah! Nelstay, just for reference, too, because it's good to be here. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. That poor girl. Ooh, yeah. Just to remind you, there's a...

She looks hurt. At the top, there's the one guy with the lantern who is looking through the shadow that's just standing, not right in it, but just at the lip of the... That's what Laudna sees, because we're still in darkness, right? Correct, that's what Laudna sees.

You're going to look all happy that you cut her. All right, so I'm going to... They do these little bounces. They do little hops, and I'm going to help you get up out of there. He's right at the gate. All right, all right. I'm going to just get up there and...

I help her. Okay, as you follow with the momentum, you find yourself drifting and floating ever so faintly. Then suddenly the shadow emerges and you're inside the room above gliding. You realize you can gently hover, not fly, but hover just a little bit above the ground. There you see the figure standing there with the lantern

goes like, ah! Just wondering what is going on. I'll just move around. Make a deception check with advantage. Come on! Come on! I mean, I'm going. I'm going. I'm not. I wasn't planning on sitting there like,

Chakram, run! No! You're a shark, Worm! Try to be the goodest boy. Yeah, be a gooder boy. Yeah. Just get some scritches out of this. You're a good boy!

That low? It was okay. It's okay. It's okay. Good shot, Rue. Advantage? It's advantage. Uta Hagen!

Uta Hagen! I said, what's advantage? Oh, advantage. What? Let's cock. Let's cock. Gotta throw your dice into the parking lot. Ashley. I know, I know. Okay, I'm going to take the first one.

Okay. Deception? Goddamn it. Roll five to ten. That's really good. I mean, one of my senses has gray. It's weirdly, but it's okay. Oh, oh, no, no, no.

You have a really high deception, right? That's right. By the way, Matthew. I don't. I just want you to know, I noticed that the downstairs chamber is shaped like a heart and the upstairs chamber is shaped like a cock and balls. Ooh!

That's so sweet! Dick heart. That is a round. Heart cock. That's how my dick looks. Oh no, it's a Scanlan cube right there, see? Ooh. Yeah, there you go.

Huge, swollen testes, little cube dick. That's got a throat on the side. Oh boy. All right, she's emerged up top. What'd you roll? I'm just going to, as I'm walking by, a 20 total. A 20 total, okay.

Lots of fucks. If you emerge and come out the top, you... I'm getting an eye on it. I want to see who everybody is so I can tell everybody. Oh yeah, you can let us know what's happening. Wait, can she see? Yeah, no. Oh yeah. Oh, can you? But how do you see?

I thought they just smell or? But you can feel everyone. I don't know. I'm up here. I can't see shit. So you don't see, you have blindsight for 30 feet, which means you can just sense and tremor sense. So you can like, oh yeah, it's more tremor sense than blindsight,

where you can feel movement around you and in a very much daredevil-esque way, you can make out the shape and movement of things around you. You do see, back over here, there's these two figures by the edge. There's one back there that has one of those bone wands with a crystal at the end. Oh. There's one back there that has one of those

bone wands with a crystal at the end. Oh. Yeah. And what looks to be a shrike that was also emerging up here. There's also... This one is so bad. You can sense them just outside the space.

This is happening. This might be. Oh no. Two. Oh, I. This might be. Oh no. And two. Shit. Oh, I don't like those. Oh, so it's because she can feel their movement even through the walls? Yeah. Oh.

There are so many of them. There are two beyond that area, and then over here in the far corner. Jesus! I'm marking this one as a friend because that is technically Zesh. Oh, okay. So I'm putting green there.

Oh, Zesh. Zesh is back against the wall, letting them basically toss over the place. You can see it's like, shit's been knocked over, weapons have been fallen off walls, the place has been rolled a bit. But as you emerge, the one who's with you is like, , go, go!

Well, this is your life. I don't know. Yeah. I'll go to the door. I don't want to go outside or get closer to the other ones so that they don't really see. Just a little more tucked into there. I'm just waiting. Over here?

Yeah, waiting to go. Okay. Just hovering. It's odd. This is a new, weird form. This is so weird. I'm literally floating. But there's a lot of people up here. So don't come up here. Ow!

Just kill it and we'll keep going. The guy who had the lantern, is he like, cool, dope, I got my pet snake back and I'm walking away? Make an insight check. Come on. I can see. I can see him. Yeah. I can see him. I still advantage on all these.

Okay. 17. Yeah. I can see them. I still advantage on all these. Okay. 17. 17. Oh, whispers! You did a whispers! Whispers! I'm sorry, I fucked this up, y'all. But I didn't bid on the head. You had a head.

That was the only mistake you made. Yeah, it was really the dice. Wizkids.io slash Bells Hells Plush. Oh my god. All right. Happening on your anniversary. Ah! All right, I just tell everybody,

keep remaining silent. I think it's working, but we need more time. I just have to walk away. Just hold on. I'm just going to try to bark at the door or whatever. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to shut up and stand by the door. Do what you want, Fearne.

Do something fun. Do what you want, Fearne. What do you want to do? I'm going to just... Well, I feel like this is my turn. I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. This is your turn. Okay, I'm going to just... You've literally just moved, so.

Okay, I just moved. I'm just going to try to... I'm feeling like there's something, whatever we're looking for is out the door. So I'm just getting antsy, like a dog that wants to go outside to go pee. Okay, what sound do you make? Hell yeah.

All right. So you begin to shift and turn towards this way. I need you to make a deception check to try and see if you can figure out in this space a way to convey that sort of intent. I'm just going method. I'll say deception or performance, your choice. Okay.

Just better. Oh, ooh! Ooh, okay. Deception or performance check? Forever. Forever. I don't know. Not a lot of performance-based characters in this campaign. 26.

No, wait. 25. 25, okay. As you do that, from this direction, you, for the first time, really feel those teeth grow out, and you're like, that's weird.

But as you do that, it's almost like a creature putting its spines up out of interest or anxiety or anticipation. And as you do, the two other creatures, they put theirs up, too, and shift over to look in the direction theirs up, too, and shift over to look in the direction that you're looking. The ones outside just hear the sound

and look over in your direction. So you definitely, you've made your intent known and it seems to be having some sort of reaction. Oh boy. All righty, Orym, are you doing anything? Yes, I am. So I heard that go up and I've heard the plan, so I just turn towards the darkness in the room,

and in my head, I'm thinking, covered in teeth, covered in teeth, covered in teeth. Covered in teeth. And I bite the insides of my cheeks, and as soon as I feel teeth on my hand, I'm going to start filleting this thing as fast as I can. Okay. Guys, I am covered in teeth.

Thank you, Chef. Oh my word. Come here, come here. Okay, Guys, I am covered in teeth. Thank you, Chef. Go on. Come on, come on. So disadvantage on these guys? Indeed. Your hand immediately, it's like touching the outside of a wall of fish hooks. Now, when you touch it,

because they're not out at the moment, it's like feeling the outside of the curvature. You can feel where the point is, but you're not dragging against the hook, but you can sense they're there. I just made my hand sense. Oh, like if you run your finger over a grater, but like a nice way.

A nice way, that's how you catch it. The other way would be awful. Yes. Go ahead and roll. Okay, at disadvantage. It's a natural one, so I get to roll it. 20, 17, 28 to hit. 28 hits.

That is a lot of drama there. I know, I don't know what any of those numbers just meant. Please, all the things. Three versus eight. And I will make this a goading attack, just so it hurts more. Okay. Natural one on its saving throw.

Yay! Okay, so disadvantage against everyone against me. That's 17 for that hit. Natural one on its saving throw. Okay, so disadvantage against everyone against me. That's 17 for that hit. Whoa. The next one is a 14 to hit. 14 just hits. Ooh! 15 for that one.

17 for the third. 16 for that one. How do you want to do this? Yes! I didn't even have to action surge. I just come in really fast going and push the roof of its mouth, I think, I hope, back and toward the wall.

Yeah, as you carve into it with each, like the third strike goes through as it's already falling out of its telekinetically lifted self. As it drifts to the ground, you catch and pull the mouth open, and Imogen, you pull yourself free. The pain released, and here in the middle

of the shadow and darkness, you feel that surge of freedom and thankfulness wash over you. Then you hear about a foot away from you, Don't move, Shani, don't move. Don't move. Don't you dare, Rich. All right, that finishes Orym's go. I reach over and put my hand over his pukey mouth.

God. Just a little tiny, little bit of paste. Aw! Just a little hand salsa there bit of paste. Aw! Just a little hand salsa there. All right, that finishes. Imogen, anything else you want to do on your turn, aside from put your finger in the halfling? No, I'll just tell.

Happy anniversary, you guys. It's a layered reference that also didn't work. Anyway, please continue. I mean, if the thing's dead and we are still trying to be quiet, then I'm just going to sit in silence and wait for it to. Sit and bleed.

Sit and bleed. I'm just going to bleed, have a little puke on my hand, and get a little puke in my mouth at the same time. Okay. If you hear that warmth of the heartbeat as you can feel the blood running from the wounds as you just sit in quiet and contemplate

that odd vibration of the landscape, especially as the blood's running and the adrenaline's spiking your system, you can feel that latent connection to that energy that's buzzing all around you, especially more so here than any other place you've been in the city, now that you have a moment of heightened awareness.

Kravirus itself, definitely there is a proximity aspect to it that gives you a little sharper. Finishing your go. Sharp enough to roll better dice. That's exactly what I was thinking in my head. But I didn't say it out loud. Oh no, no, no. I have to, I'm rough, man.

I was about to say, man, you're married to her, it's your funeral. All right, the Slither Lord is going to go ahead. Enjoy your time here. The Slither Lord's going to come by over to where you are and be like, hey, hey, what do you see? What do you see? Where?

Just full, I'm trying to just put my teeth out as far as they can go. All my teeth. Okay, it's like... Still pointing out the door. I think they're on the trail. This place is done. The two other Rylorans here at the front

that you can see waiting there look at each other quietly, look back over at Zashu, puts her head down and they both start walking alongside as the rest of the surrounding slithers start darting out the windows, out the front door, pushing past and opening it. They all begin to dart outward together as he's starting to prepare his exit. What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

What are you going to do? You're going to have to live in this forever now. Am I still inside? You're actually one of these. You could. No, I think you're leading them outside. Yeah. Am I able to move into the stone? You can certainly try. Like they can? Okay, so if they're not loo-

Well, wait, what do we do? Is it my turn? No, it's not. No. What do we do? I'm just telling you what they're doing. So next round, they're following the intent that you gave. Sorry, I don't have ideas, but I'm like, wait. That's okay, we'll come around to it.

Okay. Fun things about initiative. You got to wait your turn. All right, that brings us to Chetney. Anything you want to do on your end? Was it Imogen before? I just sat and puked in my mouth. Yeah. Yeah.

I will hold my turn. Okay. Hold my action. Hold my mouth. Yeah. I will hold my turn. Okay. Hold my action. Hold my attack. This figure over here who looks to be a vanguard, but also is wearing a shoulder piece that looks like Kravirius. They've begun to assemble,

or at least try and cross the streams of, maybe this person's been here for a little longer than some of the other recruits you've seen? With my bonus action, I will do a Crimson Rite just on my hand and get the little chisel on fire in the darkness. Yeah, which is you hear it crackling on the edge. And a hold on action.

This faint little flicker of flame, but no light emits around you. It's an odd experience. Feels a little disappointed until you go ahead and get that barking sound and then looks out the door and leaps out and starts darting off this way and begins perusing the street outward, looking to see where you might have been referring to,

if anyone had run by or anything. Ashton? I am going to hold my action. And my action will be to unlock the hammer if someone comes down the stairs and uses it. I'm just going to unlock it once somebody's in trouble. Get it ready? Well, it's still up on the stairs.

So yeah, if it works, then. Great, all right. You're going to prep yourself up there on the side. At the top of the round, Laudna, you're up with FCG on deck. What can I see? That he has moved away? Yeah, he's left.

You're now at the bottom of the stairs. A recovering Imogen. Everyone's still and quiet, and you've sent Fearne off to a new life. I think they're starting to leave. Matt, where was this side door that we heard open before they opened the hatch to this room that we're in? It would be over in this area.

Okay. Oh, got it, got it. Opening that side of the chamber. Sweet. Would have a door there, but I left it in the map room. There's still only one exterior door to this whole building. That you've seen, yes. Got it. That we've seen.

Is there a second entrance? I'm just going to hold. I will hold to drop darkness when, if it's needed.'s needed and when I feel safe, but until then, just still maintaining this hold. Fearne has told us all that they're leaving, so just sticking with the plan. You got it. FCG?

I want to heal you, but it makes noise. You can wait until they're gone. Okay, I'll just feel around, find where you are, so that I can heal you eventually. You find them. What are these things? Oh god. Jesus Christ.

Perfect, here. That light. Hello! All right, so you hold that. The rest of these slithers here now begin to scatter off in this vicinity. One slacker finger. Trying to pick up, looks like they're like,

their weird little sensors in their head are looking for, trying to follow what you pointed towards and aren't picking up anything. So we're reaching out into the ether to try and pick up whatever scent or sight you're sending them towards. Finishing their go, that's up to you, Fearne. What are you doing?

Oh, boof, boof. Yeah, I'm still going. I'm still just trying to get them all outside. I'm just going crazy. Like, come on, we got to go! Okay. All right, so. Are you just going to glide out?

We got to go! So I'm maybe just trying to wiggle next to everybody. Down the street. I'm just getting excited, so I'll start going out the door, but also just, not fully out there, but just still staring back at them, like, come on! In the doorway, you mean?

Yeah, in the doorway. In the doorway. Which way did they go, Jerry? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right, so you're just trying to like, Come on! Come over here! Oof! Come over here!

Over here! Come over here! Okay. You're going to stay in the doorway while you're doing that? No, I'm going to stay outside a little bit. Okay. I'm going to go outside. There's room. I'm like, let's go. Okay, so you drift outside and continue that way. You can see the rest of them are

looking back at you for intent. Eventually, the rest of them, the rest of you are waiting for anything to happen at this point. Yeah, just let the next line. Slowly, they begin to emerge from the glassworks, the jagged edge, They begin to emerge from the glassworks, the jagged edge,

and begin to scatter as a group in search of whatever scent you're leading them towards. We'll come to you in a moment. What are the rest of you doing now as you feel? The moment that I feel them be like, all right, cool, leave, door closed, I'll drop darkness. This was a single-story building from the outside as we were approaching it, correct?

Correct. Okay. It had a risen area, but part of it's just a higher apex and there's a massive chimney and a series of smokestacks emerge from the top of it where a lot of these furnaces and elements for processing the glass and other materials exhaust out.

Now that darkness has dropped, how does Imogen look? Does she still have a scalp? Yeah. She looks fairly rough. To my mind, however you want to describe it, your instinctual sorcerer capabilities almost try and protect you in ways, and so it still pushes through and still tears you,

but you're not shredded with hunks of flesh hanging off or anything. There's just little arcing sparks of electricity coming off the little bite marks as he's trying to skin back together. Yep. Oh boy. I'm going to cast a second-level Cure Wounds on you.

That's seven plus four is 11, plus another two, 13. Two. When we heard the place empty out above, there's no sounds left, right? For the time being, it sounds like it's emptied out. All right, Orym's going to sneak up and peek out the windows.

Okay. As you sneak up, you can see Zesh is currently riding one of the tables up and looks over and he goes, starts setting up things, goes over and closes the door, goes and pulls these large swaths of leather curtain to close the windows, just open windows that are there. There's no glass in the windows themselves as they were left open for ventilation,

but the curtains do shudder it in. Fjord turns around and going, Are you all right? Is she all right? Are you all right? Not bad. They rough you up. I've gone through worse. I'm just surprised you managed to... I thought they had found you.

Honestly, same. Yeah. Yeah. That's a genius. Darkness came through this time. That was very resourceful. She steps over and looks down in the basement and goes like, You killed one!

Is that okay? It must be hidden. We can do that. Oh yeah. We have ways of doing that. Yeah, let's unroll it. All right. Without a knife and fork. I'm going to pry a bunch of teeth off of it if I can. You can indeed, yeah.

Yeah. Takes you a little bit, but you can manage to. We have a little hole. It's getting real gross in there. We're going to have to do something about it. It is pretty gnarly in there right now. How many bodies do we have in there? It's like fucking Sweeney Todd.

Straight up. Yes. Bells hell's living up to their name. We're going to open the hole one day and it's going to be like the Shining, like from just one blood. Wait, what about Fearne? Yeah, I turn to Zash and I say. She can still hear us, yeah.

What are you doing? How you doing? Give him a little bit of a squawk. I'm having the time of my life! Which, coming over to you, Fearne, now. You have a troop of four Imperium members and one Vanguard member and a cluster of four other slithers that are all wandering now through the neighborhood

and looking to you for the scent you picked up. The one sasquatch-looking figure that looks to be the one that's guiding them, the one that's whistling and calling them around. It's going, What do you see? Where are we going? I'm just going to do that thing where I lost the scent.

Fff, fff, fff. Fff, fff, fff. Make a deception check. Come on. This is what I want to do. Shit. Is that a performance or deception? Deception. Eight. Eight, okay.

He's like, What do you mean? Pick it up! And as it says that, he takes this, it looks like a writing crop. He goes like, whack, on the side. All right, I'll just start moving. Roll it.

And he just follows, and all of them follow you. You continue. I'm just going a little slow. Shit. You hear it again on your back, and you feel the sting. All right, all right. Okay. You've now led them down about two blocks away, and the open streets of the Clutch are around you.

So if I just see a building, the nearest whatever I can see building with a door, I'm just going to take off to it and start barking and going crazy at the door. Okay. Like I found the scent. going crazy at the door. Okay. Like, I found the scent. You dart towards the nearest closed doorway. The rest of you here are echoing this

and then others like a whole group of terrifying beasts all found their prey, that hunting call of coyotes or wolves that all gather in the distance, echoing down the street edges. For a brief moment, you're afraid maybe Fearne had been found out or something worse.

You've now, they all rush to the door, and the four around you burrow into the ground, out of sight, in the direction from underneath. All right, I'm going to do the same. You burrow down. It's like pushing through light mud. The resistance isn't strong enough to slow you down.

You actually have a fairly fast burrow speed. In fact, a burrow speed of 30 feet. You can burrow as fast as you can hover. You just glide through the ground and rock as it. All right, I'm going to try to burrow away. You go down and then back? Go and then back the other way. Double back, yeah.

Okay. You vanish and eventually, cruising on back, you say, Make a nature check for me. Make a dig dugdug check. You are burrowing in unfamiliar territory with only the basis of a memory of the direction you were traveling.

Rolled a two, and I have a minus one for nature, so what? We're on a moon. You burrow. We're on a moon. You burrow and burrow, and you think you're nearby, but it just keeps burrowing. Oh no. You're going to fight for Dothraki. Yeah.

So hot! What time is it? What time is it? As you carve through, it just continues to go. Rock-a-bye, baby. You're like, it can't be this long. So you double back, and it's just more rock.

Oh no. And you're not sure which way's up, which way's down. You're just pushing in a direction to try and find your way back. You are lost underground. Oh no! Can you still talk to us? Is she still close enough that we can hear her?

The distance on it is anywhere on the plane, right? Let me look. Is it miles or is it anywhere? it is anywhere on the plane, right? Let me look. Is it miles or is it anywhere? This is telekinesis, right? It's the telepathic. Sorry, telepathy. Telepathic bond says up to acres of other. 30 feet. Oh no. Can communicate through the bond.

Possible over any distance, though it can extend to other planes. Yeah, over any distance. So yeah, you can hear. Hi, I'm on my way back. I'm just a little lost. Lost where? Define the streets, where?

I'm in the dirt. I'm in the ground, and I'm going, you know, swimming back through the dirt to you, but it all, I think I lost him, but I don't know. It all looks the same. So I don't know where I am. I'm going to try to go where I think is up, and then I'll get report back.

Wait, wait, wait. If you go up, it might not be up. It might be going down. Little bubbles. Maybe. I can find her. I can find her. I can locate creature. Oh yeah, if you can ping and then.

I could locate her and then we can get above her and make a big noise that she can. Bring them all towards us. Bring them all towards us. Yeah. We could wait an hour and do it. I'm going to take, I'm just going to do like a...

Saving a haircut? Do you feel this? Do you hear this? Nothing. Hey, fuck. No. Not with a one. No. Okay. All right. All right, it's fine.

I'll take care of it. I'll figure it out. Do it how? I don't know. I don't know. Does Locate Creature, so you can just see where she is, so we could probably talk her back. Oh, right. You could say, oh, you're going down now. Come back up the other way.

It's just like our trust exercise that we did back in. Right, you! Okay, I'm going to cast Locate Creature. All right, all right. And sense where she is. Maybe you can be made invisible by somebody and the two of you guys can just go invisible scouting? Maybe just bring her back.

As you finish the spell, you immediately feel, you can sense Fearne pretty straight down and a little bit away from the current position where you're standing in the middle of the shop. Okay, go to the direction that you think is up. All right. I'll turn one way and just start going really fast. You watch her descending rapidly.

You're going down. Okay, okay. So go back the way you came. I think I'm turned around 180. I'll go up again. She's now turning up a little bit even further away, but now on an upward trajectory. Okay, that's up, and now, shit. She's going down.

So can you pull up on the yoke? Sure. Can you get it? On your belly? I don't think so. It takes you a good 20 or so minutes, but eventually you do manage to maneuver her in a very zigzag pattern. You rolled a one.

The floor of the, I know. That's amazing. Can I try to at least come through the floor of the? I know, that's amazing. Can I try to at least come through the floor of the? You do. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's basically how it worked.

And the reason it takes so long is because of that care you're taking. You're having to, you don't want to just emerge in the middle of the street near them again to set the whole thing off. So it's slowly, as you get closer and closer, it's now little movements. All right, narrowing it in.

All right, all right. And then eventually you push through ever so gently out of the ground. Oh! Hi! Hi! Oh my goodness! Wow, it is wild going under the ground. I don't know how you do it.

You can't even see anything. Have you shifted back or no? No, but you can talk to her. Yeah, she can talk to him after. Oh, you're actually doing it, yeah. That's right. I just like having all these teeth. We should move. We should move.

We should get off this, Zach. Yeah, we should go. Yeah. Zash, is there somewhere safe we can go? There is nowhere safe in this area. Not after all that. How close are we till sunset? I know dusk was when we were going to go. We have enough time.

That took a little longer than... Well, I guess't know, dusk was when we were going to go. That took a little longer than... Well, I guess right now, the safest would be here. The purple lightning does not strike twice so quickly. So... The purple lightning? Yeah, they're bad guys. What's the purple lightning? Is that what they're called?

The storms you've seen have the purple lightning. Oh, they have purple lightning? Oh, I didn't realize they had purple lightning. I was like, what does that stand for? Cool. So we are able to stay here for? For a bit. I guess for right now, this would be one of the safest because they are turned away from it, perhaps,

but best to be hidden just in case. But you should not stay long. They might be bringing others back to double check. How much longer until sunset? Dusk-ish, or general? Make a nature check for me as you glance out through the window. You can also ask Zash.

Well, I did ask Zash. Oh, you asked Zash? Oh, sorry, I thought you asked the GM. Maybe another couple of hours. Okay. Okay. But they're moon hours. It sounds like 49 minutes. Yep. Yeah. Since we're killing time,

you got some cool shit in here. What is it exactly that you do? And I'm actually just going to start looking at this shit now that clearly we're not being quite as chill. We are crafters of the Ruidian Glass. We make adornments, we make collectibles, we make weaponry, we make whatever can be made from the glass.

Show off my ridiculous hammer. Might I? Oh, yes, please. I have not seen this. It's the same as this. This is very unique. Thank you. Looks like it was put together.

Separate materials, two types. Quite a few times, but most recently, yeah. Hmm, impressive. Thank you. Should you ever want to get rid of it, let me know, I would be interested to work on it myself. I will keep that in mind. Yeah, you got a scythe last time.

Yeah. You do see there are little spears with glass-pointed tips, like that obsidian chipping to a very, very fine razor edge on a lot of them. You see there are longswords, longswords, short swords that are made of glass. Longshorge.

Jorts. Longjords. No, shortswords. I think you have yours. I put the site in your inventory for you. Oh, did you? Okay. Bruining glass side. Yeah.

Jorts? Glass jorts. side, yeah. Jerts? Last Jerts. Jerts. Long Jerts. Jorks. Okay. The strongest of the glasses, the bits that are mined from the deepest sometimes have unique properties.

Vengeful Knight looks over and points to one of the blades on the wall and walks towards it. As they slit their eyes at it, you watch the glass glow faintly. What does it do? I got to walk over to this thing. Yeah, it glows when it's near a Ruidus-born or someone of natural psychic ability.

Wait, you're psych? The one that they're walking over towards. Have you been underground? Yeah. When I was younger, it was, for a time, easier to try and acquire these materials myself, but most of those mines are Imperium-controlled, so.

How large is the blade that they're referring to? The one they were pointing to is a longsword. There's a shortsword over there as well. There's also a massive greatsword of its type. There's all sorts of tools made from it. It's just a material that seems to be abundant and multipurpose, and to what Zesh has said, in certain situations and certain crafts

can have occasional benefits. Just out of curiosity, in addition to the mood ring thing, the mood ring thing, the mood gem that I was curious about before, could you, I'll whip out my saw blade. Oh. This saw blade, very cool, doesn't do very much damage.

Is there a way that you can make a blade like this out of your material? Remember, that is an interesting challenge. You see they look outside the window for a second, and she looks back. Let me see what I can do, and puts her hands out towards the end. I will remove it and give it to you.

Carefully sets it down, goes and puts her goggles arrangement on, and begins to sketch out what it would look like, and begins to go to work. Good. Good to have. Maybe. The rest of you do anything else? How much?

What do you even sell these for? We trade for resources, materials. You provided some of that gold material, which is extremely rare here on this surface. Does not have worth in monetary currency, as I believe you dreamers use, but it does have occasional uses as a softer material. Oh.

What do you use? Not monetary? We are what you would call a barter-type system. Oh. What do you use? It's not monetary? We are what you would call a barter-type system. Okay. Do you have any interest in, I'll pull out a piece of platinum. I mean, this is also occasionally useful.

Like all metals, some have various strengths, some have purposes based on that softness or hardiness, but nothing quite like the glass. Do you know what makes the glass? How it's produced from within the moon? It's always been here, like all the other minerals. We don't make gold, we do not make platinum, we do not make glass.

But we find and we mine it. The only renewable resource we have is bone, and that we get from hunting, from those we've lost. Does it seem to push out of the ground? Like grow? Not to my knowledge. It's just always been there. Hang on, go back to the bone being a resource thing

and getting it from those you've lost? Hunting. Hunting? I thought I also heard of those you've lost. They're at the end, kind of rushed over? Some cultures on this moon remember our ancestors by crafting things from their remains to keep them nearby.

Oh yeah. For some, it's a keepsake. For some, it's for protection. For some, it's to protect ourselves. You use their bones? You watch as she pulls out this thin, stiletto-like blade that is just this sharpened, looks like a femur that's been ground to this fine point.

The tip is slightly broken, but has been filed into two separate points with a groove down the center now. It's been broken and then remade in a way that still makes it useful. I love that. I would absolutely make weapons out of all of your bones. These ones belong to my father. I like this.

That's interesting. So what are your death rites? Do you bury people or is it generally? We take what is useful and the rest we let the land reclaim. I very much like that. Often it helps us to keep the bane worms away. Oh yeah.

Oh, because they eat the corpses? Oh. The bane worms aren't related to the slithers, right? They're two different burrowing? Two different creatures. Okay. How big are the bane worms? Just like...

Hope you don't find out. Okay. Burrowing? Two different creatures. How big are the Bane Worms? Just like... Hope you don't find out. Okay. I figured as much, but just... Is there anything, if we happen upon one, is there anything that you would suggest as a way out, a way to deal with them? Either don't move or say your prayers.

Comforting, okay. Don't move it is. Copy that. Is there anything to wear? Is any of this, like, I'm digging the vibe and I'm not really looking for another weapon or otherwise, but boy, I like this stuff. What do you think? I have these, too. I don't know if these are interesting. looking for another weapon or otherwise, but boy, I like this stuff.

I have these, too. I don't know if these are interesting. I pull out a handful of gems. He looks them over. These are quite rare. You sure you want to be rid of these? Well, I... What's the good of something valuable if you're not doing something with it?

So, and all I can do with this is get other valuable things. You've already come in and, one, destroyed parts of the shop, but then also managed to keep all of our necks above water with the Imperium. And you seem to have strong,

strong moralistic intent, and that is important. Most of what we make here is temporary. So if you see something of use, she reaches over and takes a handful of gems and rolls them in her hands for a second. Take what you need. Can I try the heft of one of these? Of course.

Or I'll take the short sword that is made of this. The color is blue? It's like a blue-green, almost like a turquoise-ish tint that changes in the light when you look at it. It's just a slowly go through the Zephyr of Time, yes, in the room, testing the weight of it. Yeah, it's quite light. At first, it feels off balance because the handle yes, in the room, testing the weight of it. Yeah, it's quite light. At first, it feels off balance

because the handle is heavier than the blade, but once you get a feel for it, it feels like it has very little resistance at all. You flick it, you can feel it vibrate ever so faintly, picking up resonance, the vibration. It's interesting, as you step and walk, as you're swinging it, you see it almost glow for a moment.

Then you look where it glows. You step a little closer towards Imogen and Fearne, and as you step in that radius, that vibration intensifies, and you can see it give that faint glow. Oh shit. That's good. Are you?

Just they have those. It would make killing Imogen so much easier. Yeah. If we needed to. Sure. If we needed to. I don't have any gems. Have you ever had one of these? And I druidcraft a strawberry.

Oh, you're in for a treat. I immediately draw another one. We're millionaires. Start a fruit stand on Rudas. That is a memorable experience, thank you. How many of those memories would you need for this guy? Well, your friends already paid for what you need in here, but I'll take as many as you're willing to give

in the time that we have. You're welcome. I start to make a basket of strawberries. I'll help. I'll help you make some strawberries. Take a strawberry. Those wands. Do they? Just like horse apples.

They pour out the door. The wands that we've seen people using, do they amplify powers that are already there, or is it just about? I've only crafted the basis of the tips. The actual mechanism is beyond my skills, but from what I know, they at least need to be recharged

by someone of mental capabilities. I understand. Do I see any tiny stiletto daggers? Like really tiny? Yeah, you can see like a letter opener. You see one that's a little larger than you'd want, but you think with a little bit of work,

you could probably actually carve it smaller and still be functional. You take it off the shelf. Chetney, you think you can affix this to Sashimi's hand? Yes. Okay. Like Puppet Master. Yes. Amazing. I wantuppet Master. Yes.

Amazing. I want to give sashimi-bladed hands. Yes. And there are about five of those daggers available. Okay. If you wanted to grab a couple. If we have a few minutes. Yeah, you guys are resting here till dusk

and while staying out of sight and Zesh will be working on your commission. Do we have a couple hours here? Yeah. I'm on a short rest. On a short rest. For sure. Also, I wrote down from last session, we grabbed a box off of a cart. We did.

Yes, the silver box. Do we have a box or something? Right, that meat hole. That is. We disarmed the magic on it. It is magically trapped. That's right, we were going to do. Magically locked. We were going to do Dispel Magic, which that's until tomorrow morning. We were about to do it,

and then we heard people above us. Matt, in addition to putting the blades on Shishimi, I'm also going to make a second toy. It'll take an hour. Okay, you can do that. We were going to try anyway. I'm looking for either a nice necklace of any kind, preferably, I love those, the black glass is great,

or I also am a glove down because my right glove didn't stop fitting, and so I have not been wearing it. So if there's anything to just start crafting something to wear on my very bare right hand at the moment, which feels weird in general. What you do, they don't make attire here, but as part of one of the glass forges,

there is a massive thick leather gauntlet that is used for reaching into and out of the furnace. It's blackened and burned from years of use. It looks like there are other pairs that have since been utilized or brought to your here that look like they're ready to use. There's one that looks like it's on its last legs that could be possibly affixed to your gloved hand or to your rock hand if you wanted to.

Yeah, I want to do it up a little bit, but since I already got the vibe. There is leather working here, then, as well? There's minimal leather work done here. It's mainly just finishing off and affixing finished glass here. Most of the materials here are for glass work, intentionally. Zish, do you have a sheath of leather for this blade?

Sheaths I do not have. But you could maybe find one, maybe take one. You seem to be very good at getting into trouble. There's always things that can be recovered if you survive trouble. Do we have any leather in the hole? Give it a couple weeks and there will be. if you survive trouble. Do we have any leather in the hole? Give it a couple weeks and there will be. Yeah.

You probably have some clothes on. I'll also say that in the meantime, it's not insane to get something made out of wood, which is very doable. Wooden sheaths are not unheard of. I've seen a couple before. Could you make a wooden sheath? Yes, indeed. I could just make aen sheaths are not unheard of. I've seen a couple before. Could you make a wooden sheath? Yes, indeed.

I could just make a standard sheath, or I could make a contour to a part of your body. It would just take a little extra time. Do you have enough wood to do that? You need enough wood to make these toys that we're going to give as bribes, right? Yes, but I've been making them very small. It doesn't take much to create excellence.

Now remember, though, when we get over there, part of your mission is to bribe our friend, but also the other part of your mission is to establish an entity named Chetney Claws who lives on the moon and who gives presents to all the good boys and girls. Chetney Claws, like a legal disclaimer? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's like a warning. Okay. Chetney Claws, like a legal disclaimer? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it's like a warning. Okay. Chetney Claws. Just like Tim Allen. Setting up franchises. Yeah. I'm going to hit him up for a necklace with some nice little black glass hooks,

and then probably a couple things for my ear, and then a few things to... She can definitely do that. There's plenty of loose glass. You can see that a lot of it has been practice-shaped. There are just loose pebbles of glass, elements that have been sheared off bigger pieces and that, as cast off, can be easily carved and made shapes.

Using the bag that the gems came in, just grab a few pieces of glass. Okay, no worries. Yeah, easy enough to do so. Excellent. If there's a way to do it, if it might require some self-examination, but I would love to affix a piece of glass. Okay, no worries. Yeah, easy enough to do so. Excellent. If there's a way to do it, if it might require some self-examination, but I would love to affix a piece of glass on my chest that shows my general mood. Yeah, your mood.

Mood glass. In fact, how wide were those? Did we get a bunch of daggers? Is that what they were? Yeah, they were a bunch of little daggers. Are they about an inch, two inch thick? How broad is the blade? The dagger is about 3 and a half inches long,

but it can be flecked down. A lot of the glass has been bashed at the edges to create the fine point. But in width? Super wide? Oh, the wide? No, it's pretty thin. Oh yeah. I'll actually get to work and I'll use a file to create just a slit through a piece of wood

and then I'll create a little belt loop, second edge on it, so you can actually affix your holster wherever you want. Oh, nice. Cool. All right. Like a lowercase g. Yes, Fearne? Yes, could you give me that silver box?

Silver box. Yes. What? What? Should we take it down into the cellar? Just in case. Well, she's got to spell. I know, but just in case.

Oh, I just think so. All right, I'm going to go down there. Just in case anything happens, I'll go down there so nobody gets hurt. How far away from it can you be in order to spell it? I can be pretty far. So maybe we set it on its own and then you do that. And do your thing from the top of the ladder.

Yeah. Do a little fiddling from there, okay. Okay, she's a good guesser. I'm going to put the silver box down there. Okay. I'm going to go back up and I'm going to dispel magic on it. Okay.

Is anyone watching the front door? Nope. Yeah, no, I mean, we would be. I imagine you guys have all been taking turns looking through the windows to see if any of the guardians come back. We can say, because there's something I want to do, Orym has taken off his shirt, his armor,

and I'm using druidcraft to slowly weave little tendrils of vine alongside my other sheath so that I have a plant grasp for the second blade to go right alongside the other one, and I'm just doing that and looking out the window. I'm going to use Press of Digitation to make dun dun dun dun dun. Oh yeah.

Certainly. Natural 20. Ooh! So that's a 30, whatever my passive is. It's enough. 31. You can grow your own grip, too, on it. You can actually like, that's going to trill us up that thing.

You, keeping a pretty vigilant eye as the coloration of the hazy, red, dusted sky gets darker and darker, shifting to an evening purple before the moon sunset begins to take the horizon. Occasionally, you see a few figures scooting by. None that catch your worry. You do see that troop that first came to the shop

and hear the odd baying of the slithers, but they seem to be just encircling the perimeter of this section of the clutch and finishing out their building-by-building pass. They seem to have bought your ruse for the time being, though they're down one slither and a bit worried. One of them just vanished. I occasionally eat a strawberry.

Trishy Scriball. Trishy Scriball. Trisha. Center of the city last time, right? Yep. Still sitting in the center of the city, but shifting and moving. No proximity yet. As the sunset begins to crawl near, the sound of grinding and shifting

towards the back of the glass forge, you see Zesh working on both your saw and shaping some sort of a glass piece, smoothing it, until eventually you see her procure this beautiful little oval, polished glass element. Turns to you, and working together, ends up loosely fixing it into your breastplate. To make it stay, she has to shape the space inside,

which is a bit of hammering to make the space. It's a bit of an uncomfortable experience, but eventually gets to fit it inside. And indeed, you have this central gem now that sits in a way that complements your chest adornment. It's purple, what does that mean? It's like right here. Oh.

It's moving on its own. There it is. It's pretty rough right now. Some color bind issues happening. What do we do? How do we make that stop? How do we make you back to green? Or blue? Reset or power down? Oh! Zesh also lifts this blade.

It has less teeth on it. It's almost like there are six major saw teeth along the outside, but they are incredibly jagged, like six hooked shark fins just in a row around. And it has that imperfect, natural glass texture to the outside. You worry if it'll even work, but as soon as she hands it over to you

and you see where it bolts and similar, she studied very well the device that you affixed to your arm and did the best she could to make something function. She hands it to you and says, Don't rightly understand how this functions with you, but this is the best approximation I can do with the time that was given.

All right, I'm going to spin it up. At first, it wobbles as it spins up, makes this high noise, and then eventually, it hits that perfect smooth bit where it moves fast enough. Chetney, do you need anything cut in half? Just reflexively, I'll throw a junk piece, like a square chunk of wood, and just toss it up,

like a baseball. It just cuts through it clean. Oh! Ah! That's incredible! SAM and LAURA, Sawdust in the air. That's what assisted woodworking can feel like!

Yeah, that's right. I could just sit here and you could just use me. You could just... Use me as a table saw. Table, yeah. Yeah. That's what he has a table saw. Oh yeah. It's pretty great. It's about this time that you see Zesh looking through the window.

It's about dusk. If you're going to make this happen, do it soon before the next watch takes over. Which way is it? She points out towards the, not the direct center of the clutch, but on what would be the left. Further on the left, you can see amongst the

dozen or so main towers that poke out into the banners. There's one that rises above them all, this thin needle point of a tower that has a number of banners that drift and flow with the wind behind it as it goes, That one. That is the Overspoke. You'll find Eroth there, likely for the next hour or so.

So hurry. And good luck. Did we want to do the box right now? Yeah, yeah, do the box, do the box. Oh, right, right. So at this point, you're finishing up, you cast Dispel Magic. There's a flash of runes,

like this network of rune-like webbing that appears around it, brightens, and then just seems like it shatters, like magical dust that then just flitters away, leaving it dull and dark. Okay, I'll grab it. I think it's gone. Want to open it?

Okay, want to take a look at it really quick to make sure that it's- It was locked last time, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Does it have any traps? Check for traps still. What if there's a regular trap? No, I don't want to. Ah. Go ahead and roll your Thieves' Tools

to do the physical lock on it as well. Guidance! That's a what? Nailed it. That worked. Is that a d4? D4. Yeah, that's a d4.

Natural 19 plus one is 20, plus 11 is 31. Wow. Jesus Christ. I built a block 31. Wow. Jesus Christ. I built a lock pick. Yeah, you did. Yeah, the DC on this was 25. You find this lock, and it's a very intricate lock. You can see it's designed to ensure

that very few people can get into this through physical means, which is why the magical lock on top of it was just a failsafe. But as you finish and pick the point, you hear the spring snap and the latch, because it's a built-in lock, it's not a hanging one, it's built into the box, ends up getting stuck and pulls open and the lid opens up.

The interior is about two feet by two feet, this box, and wedged in there, with almost no room left, there is something wrapped in a dark velvet. It's a baby. It's a head. Even though it's open and it's wrapped in velvet, can I just look for any additional secondary traps inside? Sure, make an investigation check for me. How can I do that?

Very good. Just in case. How can I do it? Very good. 17. 17. You don't sense any of the traps. What is it? You pull back the velvet and you see this, this, you can only say it's beautiful in its simplicity.

This odd device. It's this kind of strange, almost hexagonal-like fucker. No. Sorry. Hold on. I'm fascinated with you.

Apparently, no. This hexagonal device with grooves and runic markings along the interior. You've seen and destroyed contraptions kind of like this at the base of the Malleus Key that were causing those bursts of dispel in the vicinity. But those were rougher. This is refined.

This looks beautiful. It looks almost like arcane creation and art come together, and you've not quite seen anything like this. In all of your travels and all of your research, there's something about this that is wholly alien to your eye, except for some similarities

to some of the arcane devices that you had encountered around the base of the Malleus Key. Is it mirrored? Like mirrored or polished shine? Elements of it look polished. Other parts have been a little roughed up. The part that you see is beautiful, but you can see there's some aging,

there's some damage on the edges and corners. It's either had a rough journey here or it's maybe old, you're not sure. How big is it? It's about this big. It's hexagonal. Yeah, from what you can see on top, it's just inside, it has a hexagonal shape.

The ones at the bottom of the Malleus Key, they dispelled magic? Wait, what? Yeah. They were sending out pulses. How about this? I'll reach in and I'll try to lift it out of the box. It is extremely heavy, but you're a fairly strong gnome. You pull it up, and as you do, you can see

the top of it is almost like a shelf. As you pull it up underneath, there's all manner of, it almost reduces into coils and additional bits of runic configurations around it. As you pull it free and lift it up, the rest of you see it's not elven, but there's definitely arcane design to it.

Can I read the runes with my eyes of the rune keeper? Indeed. Can I read the runes with my Eyes of the Runekeeper? Indeed. This would be a very, very strong piece of abjuration magic. It looks like, make an investigation check for me. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I hold it up and I aim it at Ashton.

All right. I'll it up and I aim it at Ashton. All right. I'll take it. Hold on. Sure, okay. Guidance. That's a national lead anyway. Got to test it on the barbarians. Yeah, true. Cocked.

Natural 20. Yes, ma'am! Natural 20 for a total of? 22. Okay. With my one that I rolled on Guidance. This is, okay. This is part of something.

It is not a whole piece. This is a section of very strong abjuration magic. It looks like it is... It's not about protective abjuration magic, it's about disrupting abjuration magic. Don't open it up with your seal. Ah, wake him up. This is to help wake him up.

Don't wake daddy. Whatever's got him locked. It's not bad. This is to help wake him up. Don't wake daddy. Whatever's got him locked. It's not constructed. The more you look at it, this looks very old. A lot of the runes along the sides of this, you've only seen in one other place, on the inside of Imahara Joe's shop. When hanging on a chain hook,

your friend FCG was laid bare, and you realize this is likely Aeorn technology. Oh shit. And we're going to go to break. Oh! We'll come back here. What is your final few moments? Mama?

We'll come back here in a few moments and pick up at the second half here and whatever transpires from there. So see you here 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. All right, so, as you've been set on your path this evening, you have your equipment that you've gathered,

your materials that you requested, and it looks like dusk is upon Kraviris. Those of you who got glass weaponry, you can put those into your... I put some of it in inventory during the break. You can see the general benefits of an R. Oh, you put it in there? Yeah.

Well, I put it in the, you can put it on your character sheet, but you put Ruidian Glass, like Dagger, Shortsword. Cool. Buzzsaw. This is awesome. Scythe. But yeah, essentially it's, it critically hits on an 18 to 20, but every time you crit, you have to roll,

and then on one to six, it shatters and is destroyed because it's glass. And it has some benefits if it's in the radius of somebody with psychic natural ability. Some benefits? Like it upgrades it? Gets a little boost. Yeah. They are psychically resonant.

And dampens their intelligence. So wait, if y'all are near me with it, then it's going to fuck up my spells? No, it's more likely to hit our target. It dampens their intelligence. So wait, if y'all are near me with it, then it's going to fuck up my spells? No, it's more likely to hit our target. And also, if we do hit, then that target has disadvantage on some saving. Yeah, it has to be directed at you.

Oh, got it. But does that mean that, if they hit you with one, since we're almost always in proximity to Mojin, that it's always amped up. Yeah. Yeah, unless you move outside of the radius. Right, all right. But you also aren't the only ones with these weapons.

Sure. All right, Lava. Zesh begins to usher you out into the evening. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The piece. Yeah. The Aeorian piece, we should put it in the Bag of Holding or the hole or something. I mean, it's like...

Why does Sipn think we put it into the... It will not fit in the Bag of Holding. And just because it's familiar-ish, well, it looks like some of my circuitry, I'm just going to inspect it a little bit and see if there's anything, I don't know, anything that I sense or can glean from it. Make an arcana check. An arcana check. We'll get the whole unfolded.

Oh, we are. Guidance myself. There you go. That's how we got it out the first place. Self-guidance. Ooh! Come on, where's the d4s? I don't think that thing's there yet. Oh, here it is. Okay, arcana.

22. 22, okay. Between what Laudna had gleaned originally and you jumping off at that point as well, indeed, this is a type of abjuration that is reversed the intent of a lot of abjuration magical protective networks. Instead, it is intended to interface with

and scramble other types of magic that might exist out there. Kind of like that Dispel Wave technology you saw before. It looks like it has the intent to diminish or prevent or interrupt some other kind of magic. Some sort of disruptor. I mean, what?

You might have to find somebody with a stronger knowledge of arcana to get more details. You need to find someone. You are in details. You need to find someone. Are you? I need to find a robot man. I mean, we know who robots are. We know a couple.

We know a few robots. Yeah. Yeah. Finally. I hand out the little dagger sheaths for everybody. We each get a dagger? A little dagger sheath. Just like a little clip.

Yeah, so if you want to keep it on outside your person, you can. So if you keep it on your hip, and that way one of them starts to glow. Do we all have shaggers? Do we all have shaggers? Interesting point. These always glow in the radius of

Imogen and Fearne. So if we're gray. How close do they have to be to us in order to? 60 feet. 60 feet. So my buzzsaw is glowing all the time now? Faintly. It's not a massive bright light, but it does give a faint glow to it.

So if we have a Shaggardeeth, it's glowing on us at all times? Yeah. Yeah, remember, like, Roy Lawrence, I have this stuff. Theirs is all glowing, too. Matt, I don't know where I got it, but in my inventory it says that I have a black negligee.

I don't know where I got this in the campaign. Was supposed to be a surprise. Happy 9th anniversary. Wait, what? Happy 9th anniversary. Happy 9th anniversary. Whoa! I guess we found it somewhere. But I'm just going to wrap my... His nine years linger just going to wrap my buzzsaw in a teddy. Yep.

That checks out. So it doesn't glow. Yeah. Little ghillie suit. Yeah. Perfect. I'm not going to say easily done, but done nevertheless. Little lazy ghillie suit.

You're eyeing your buzzsaw now. So Madonna. I want to see the art. A bra wrapped around CJ's hand. A little black lacy number, a little teddy. Sheesh. And a shrimp. Crotches.

There's like parentheses next to the title. Uh-huh. Oh my god. Out into the night? Out into the night. Oh yeah, we got to go to the tower. Okay. Everything that's iffy is in the hall now.

As you guys are all gathering in front of Zeshko's. Good luck. If you are to help the volition, you'll need it. And if all else goes well, maybe we won't see each other again. That's fair.

Thank you for all your help. Make sure it was not in vain. And pushes you out the door, closes it, locks it, bolts it. We're rocking our vanguard looks still. Yeah. Oh yeah? Pass without a trace. Pass without a trace.

So that we just blend in a little bit. Yep, great idea. How about that Treshy scryball? Still below you, somewhere beneath. Like in the same central location? More or less. The ball doesn't have extreme GPS coordinates, but you can gauge, much like you were

with Fearne lost in the rock, you can gauge where the placement is from the center of the sphere, from where the target is from you, and she's below and a little bit to the left. Make sure you update that OS when we sleep. It doesn't give you the address until you book the Airbnb.

Yeah, that's the one. I'm going to keep checking it, especially as we're moving towards the tower. Want to see if we're moving towards her or away. Okay, fair enough. She's super deep. It's not going to change a lot if she's higher up, it will.

We'll still be good to know. All right. Trekking through the street, are you darting from still be good to know. Yeah. All right. Trekking through the street, are you darting from shadowy corner to shadowy corner, or are you walking with confidence as vanguard members? Confidence. Yeah, because do they have... Could we gather when we were listening in on those others,

we didn't hear much of the conversation, but did it sound like they had descriptions of us, or they just knew it was a group? You only picked up bits of the conversation and you didn't hear anything about descriptions. I heard something like three of them at one point. Oh, well, we killed three of them. Killed three of them. Yeah.

So you're uncertain. Okay. But if you're all walking with confidence, I'd like a group deception check, please. Group deception. Really? Oh boy. This is not going to go well. This stealth would be much better. I was going to say, are we not doing stealth, really?

No, we're deceiving. For this one, just deception. Mind you, it's on a high DC, but mixing it up a little bit, since we're not doing the stealthy approach necessarily. Nice. All right, so across the board here, we got? Six. All right.

20. All righty. 15. 15. 13. All righty. Natural 20. Woo! For a 29. All right. Dang. 18. 18.

Four. Four. I've warned you. Far. Far. Far. Far. I've warned you. Far. Far. Far. You aren't bothered by anybody that crosses your path, and few do. At this point, there is no sign of a storm, and it's actually a beautifully clear night. The stars are out, and you can see

a number of the people of Keolumna Creveris have come out here to look at the stars. You can see shifting shapes and you immediately go defensive, but as you watch, you can see some of the families of this poorer, more destitute region of the city come out in clusters and light little fires and look up to the sky,

many of them glancing up at the massive blue promise that lays now bound above them. It's beautiful, but also oddly solemn. Not quite certain what the blue promise is promised to these many people, or if they're even part of what the Imperium's interests are. But they seem to be finding moments of happiness they have. And while your initial impressions of the Rylorans

and the people of this moon were militant and dangerous, here you're reminded that every people is not a monolith and there is a lot of complication and, for lack of a better term, humanity here in this desolate space of the moon as well. It makes you miss home a little bit. Using the description from Zesh, you eventually weave through the clutch

and come to the base of a structure that has three different tiers of clustered homesteads along this tower with an outer spiral staircase that winds up. You can see there are all manner of these tight-stretched banners and bridge walkways that connect to other rooftops and nearby smaller towers that you can certainly attempt to ascend. It looks like there are three posted guards

along the base that are just walking, patrolling, and at the very top, it's the tiniest little crow's nest where you can see those banners are flapping in the light breeze. Right now, there's no storm to give you any cover, but also with the lack of dangerous weather, there's a peace and an almost sense of a lack of danger in the moment.

What would you like to do? Did we get a description of what Aerot looked like? No. Tower guard. That probably would have been smart. Turncoat. Overspoke. That's all I wrote down. And yeah, the purpose of this tower is? Is so we can get a look at the-

I know why we want it, but what does the tower serve? What's its purpose? Did we get, were we, does that explain to us? Best that you know is it's a military watch point for the Dominion of Cruz. So if we want to try to talk, we have to convince them

that the Cruz of Westland will ascend the security tower. And Eirat is the one that's blocking the way, right? So is there a guard at the bottom? Yeah, two or three, you said? Yeah, there's two near the bottom that are patrolling, and there's one that's halfway up. It's walking around the, it's almost like a central disk balcony

that surrounds the exterior of it. And you can see they're just walking around and keeping watch. So yeah, they need to do some really good convincing or some quiet takedowns. Convincing would be better. Who's convincing? I mean, Chetney's bribing, right?

Oh yeah, with the gift. Yeah. That's at the end. Doesn't have to just go up and ask for Eron and see if we can. All of us or just a couple? I can walk up. Okay.

Sure. Guidance. Thanks. And in fact, I actually don't need to present the toy. You could present it. Oh, I could? Mm-hmm. Just keep it. You're Chetney Claws. Yeah, Chetney Claws with a Z.

But just keep it under this piece of fabric before you give it to him. All right, I'll just put it in the fabric in my pouch. Don't look at it. But also, when you give it to him. All right, I'll just put it in the fabric in my pouch. Don't look at it. But also, when you give it to him, say that Chetney Claws gave it to you. He's a jolly old elf. Sure, sure, sure. Chetney Claws, that's the most important part of all this.

Plus, he sees you when you're sleeping. He sees you when you're awake and when you're doing other things by yourself that you could do with a partner. Chetney Claws only looks at you when you masturbate. It is Jesus. Yeah. We'll also note, so when you're masturbating,

does that mean? I see. I'll say at these dusk hours, the light is minimal. It's not quite full nighttime yet, but even from that vantage point, somebody who has keen vision, or somebody who can acquire keen vision

under darker circumstances would also be helpful. Oh. Oh. You can see in the dark. I can. Come with me. All right. Maybe this is going to be so romantic. I know, it's kind of a little date. We haven't got one of these. I know, we haven't gotten so long.

All right, so who's going up? Me and Laudna. Two of you? Sure. Okay. So the rest of you are just hanging back, playing Sentinel here, little ways off from the base of the tower? Yeah.

No, no, keep going. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. The rest of you post up out of the way, the two of you. Any preparation before you approach? I've guided her. Uh-huh. Do you want to go invisible with us or no? It's a good idea.

I'll tell Pate to go invisible and stay with them, so I have eyes down here. Maybe if it comes to talking, if this errat is useful. I'm just going to stare at you. If you tell the middle man, middle person, that he's expecting you and you have the delivery, maybe that'll send the message. Who's expecting me?

Okay. Sure, I'll walk up to the person in front of the door. Okay. At the entrance? Is there someone at the entrance? You do not see a door entrance to this tower. There's an outer spiral staircase that curls up the center. Oh, I was thinking the stairs. And there are layers

and platforms that climb up from there that have banners and bridges that pour off of it. It's a tower, place it. All right, so we can start making our way up the stairs. As you approach the base of the steps, one of the patrols comes up to you and immediately comes up in a huff.

You can see they're having these heavier gray robes that are wrapped around them. At first, they look like they're lost in them, they're a little too big for their size. You realize this is a younger Ryloran. They're less elongated, and the crest on the head is a little shorter. And you see this is probably a newer recruit,

probably in their early 20s or so, runs up and looks at you a little wide-eyed for a second with recognition. And just speaks into your mind like, I didn't realize you were coming. Yes, I need to get to the top. Of course. Make a deception check.

Come on! Oh, come on. Your eyes are cold. And you have Guidance. Guidance. Guidance? Guidance. Guidance. You have advantage on this. Of course you have advantage on this. You look like your mom.

Okay. Guidance. Wait, where's my fours? Where's my damn fours? There's one. Okay. Wow, where's my fours? Where's my damn fours? There's one. Wow, I missed that. Okay. 18.

18, okay. Well, that was such a better roll than what I had. Yeah, well, 18. Steps aside and looks, you can sense the dark eyes looking at you out of the corner. In his head, he's going to hear, Stop looking at me.

I'm just going to fall into this role like I'm her bodyguard. Yeah, doesn't even acknowledge you. Great. It just loudly swallows as you begin to ascend the steps, curving around. The second patrol, on the second bit, hears the footsteps and begins to walk over, approach,

and you hear off the side, looks over the side, and the first guard goes like, looks over and sees you both approach, gives an acknowledge nod, and then steps away towards the edge of the tower and looks up at you as you both walk by. In your head, you hear, how long do you think we'll be able to keep this up? As long as it serves us, I hope.

Your mom is really important. Yeah, I've gathered. Okay. You ascend the ever-climbing tower and it becomes this perpetual spiral that begins to grow exhausting. At a certain point, you've now climbed seven or eight stories of spiral stairs,

and you feel a sweat beginning to creep into your robes. As much as the temperature gets much colder here at night, it's quite a heavy drop in temperature. You still find yourself hot from exertion of getting up to the top, but eventually you clamber towards the final bit of that tip where you can see the basket-like crow's nest peak of the Overspoke sits.

And there's the singular point goes to an actual spike point to the very top. As you approach, you can see those blue glass lanterns that are affixed throughout the city that you see occasionally hanging from places. They're dull, but as you step underneath them and get within a certain radius, they glow. You immediately begin to get the sense

that maybe these lanterns are proximity-based. As soon as they glow, a voice goes into, not the air around you, but the minds about you. Hello? Who's there? Aerot? Yes. You look up and you can see over the edge,

there's someone looking over down at both of you. What does he look like? From what you can tell at a quick glance, Ryloren. Looks a little hunched, lanky looking. Looks like he's carrying a book in one hand, clutched in an arm, and has straps and what looks like a heavy spyglass and a walking stick leaning up the edge. Someone who's posted in solitary watch over the highest tower in the city, and unexpected in arrival.

I need access. I haven't lived here before. It's none of your business. He gives you a look. Make a deception check. Come on. Do we even need the toy? I know.

Was it advantage? Not for this guy. This guy's a little more discerning. The toy's already working. Okay. 25. 25. Of course, I...

Of course, I... Bless you. Stop it. I serve the Imperium. He closes the book, quickly hides it, and takes the walking stick and stands up and slips to the side as you both continue to ascend the steps till you get to the peak of the interior where he is, and he just stands there.

With my back to him. Big toothy grin. As we look out, he's going to hear in his head, Aerod, this is nobody's business but ours. He gives a keen turn to the head. Of course. I'll just turn my back and look out. We're looking for, I don't even know

what the fuck we're looking for in my house. Look for a purple house. Purple house, we're looking for, oh, it's dark. How are we going to find purple? Okay, great. It's a reminder of the point of the mission. I'm just trying to get us up here. Interesting point.

Darkvision doesn't have a lot of strong color. It's a lot of gray scales and stuff. So it's not impossible, because it's not night. I know, I know. But what I'm saying is, you have a lower DC than most to see it. But even so, you're here. You're at the highest point.

You have this massive city around you. Are you just going to glance over the edge and look around? Yeah, we're trying to find purple fabric, right? Yeah. Deep purple paint, I think. Can we, I don't want to lean over the edge. Can we stand back from the edge so that we're not like, if you look up, you don't see us? Sure.

Didn't we have a fucking spyglass? Fearne has one. You did see one hanging around the neck of Eirat. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Eirat. No?

I need your spyglass. Of course. Lifts it off and it's this long, looks almost like a scroll case that's segmented, and as he hands it over to you, he's like, I'm just going to use my telekinetic hand to just pull it over to me and Ooh.

Sick. And hand it over to you. Interesting point of order, too. Aerot seems much more tactile than other members of the Imperium that you notice. Many just lord their psychic whims with almost an air of superiority. He seems much more tactile

and hands it over to you. He's reading a book. I like him. I like him, too. All right, I'm going to do a scan. I'm going to try and, knowing that the volition is going to be on the outskirts. I'm going to try and go far

and see if I find something that looks like this on the outer rings. Sure. All right. It's going to take a little bit of time to do this, but you can continue to do a pass. Go ahead and roll a perception check for me. Come on. Glad I got advantage on all this shit,

because I sucked in a ring. While she's looking, I'm just going to turn around and stare at him so I can see what he's doing. Come on. Is he reading a Rylauren translation of Tusk Club, by the way? Oh my god. Or the Trials and Tribulations. It's been localized.

24. It says Tusk Romance. Didn't quite make the full translation, but we're here. Teeth romance. Yeah, a lot of interpretive, dream-based recollections. Teeth romance! Real nail biter.

24. 24, 24 is great. Roll an 18. Within three minutes of doing a scan, like many of the banners here, a lot of the color is just washed away from sunlight, from dust and storms, and a lot of K'elumna Craveris, the surface city,

has this dull reds and browns and grays to it, just washed over with time to where there's not a lot of color that pops, which does make it easier to catch your attention to what looks like a single purple flag, tiny little flag that's off on the outskirts by this massive, what looks like a pile of freshly excavated red and brown dirt.

You can see what looks to see some sort of a metallic gate that's pressed into part of the rock wall on what would be the far right-hand side of the city's encased crown of mountain range that the valley it sits in. But you can see this little flutter of purple flab that drifts in that area. I think I found it.

I pass the spyglass over to Imogen and guide to see if she sees what I see. Wait, it's a little heavy in the front. Hang on, let me, hang on. Turn around, turn around. Everything looks smaller. Yeah. I can't see anything.

I can't see anything. It takes a moment to find it, and you do figure it out, and at first, you just want to make sure to compare and contrast, so you scan other areas to make sure there isn't other purple that's bright or anything,

but indeed, you find flecks of color out there, but a lot of it's muted with time and erosion. Indeed, this does stand out. Not to a distractingly beacon-like degree, like, look here, but definitely seems to bear the symbol you're looking for. And can we see a path to it from where we are, the roads we would need to take?

Yeah, you can glance down and see the shortest paths, the safest paths, the most hidden paths. You have different options at your disposal. Great. All right, I guess we got what we need. We head back down, right? Did you get a present? We don't even need to.

No, same, same. But Chetney calls. You have to start the myth. We already have with the children. I don't want to use up his stuff. I love that you guys can be on the ground and we can still have conversation. Toys are meant to be shared.

Wait, but remember that they said that he was in it for personal gain and he wants presents? Well, yeah, but he also thinks I'm his boss right now. Okay, okay. So volition, right? Volition? Yeah. All right. Let's go. All right.

You trust him? No. I'll put the spyglass back on his chest and pat his shoulder. Good work, son. It is a pleasure to have you in my tower. I wasn't here. Of course, no, no, I'm taking a nod.

I head down. Gosh, shoulder check him just a little bit on the way out, just give him a little bit. Your shoulder pops out. Yeah. All over the place. He's bleeding. Stabs right in his rib.

Yeah. You descend, and at this point, now you can see a few of the other patrol guards are gathered at the bottom, talking. As you approach, they all whisper quietly, and it seems like a few of the folk have come to see the woman. You know, Chutney's toy might come handy now.

As you begin to descend, the central guard that you first passed stalks back up, and as you hit the bottom, the first patrol, still making sure he doesn't look you directly in the eye, takes his position and some of the other ones scatter off a bit and they're all trying to play it off like they're just doing a patrol,

but you can see there's three more gathered patrol that are awkwardly in the area, catching glances over in your direction. You oddly feel there's a sense of mythology that's been woven here around your mother, at least her interactions here on the moon as of late. People are drawn to catch a glimpse. You're famous.

Well, not you, you're not famous. Your mother's famous, but that in turn makes you famous. What's she been doing? Oh shit. Should I give them a furze-up? Um, let me see if I can. I'm going to step in front of her and be like, break it up, break it up.

They all scatter a bit and hold due attention. Almost like, you say break it up, and they form almost into a walkway, like a ranks to the side. Ha! Ten hut! Yes, that is what I meant. Good work.

I'll just keep my head high and walk past him. Okay, as you walk by Orym, you feel a heavy elbow in your side. You're like, and you glance over, and at first, what you thought was Ashton is another vanguard figure that's like, Shh! I'm not seeing anything.

I tell everybody in our heads as we approach them, get into a formation so we can get the fuck out of here. Okay, okay. I similarly nudge Ash, and I pull out the sword and then go about 10 feet out from Imogen, off to, diagonally to the right like a bodyguard. This is definitely the most nonchalant way to travel.

Just as we walk away from the tower, I think. Yeah. To avoid the fanboys. Is anybody following or watching as we head down the street? They watch as you walk away, but nobody pursues or follows. And as soon as you do this way,

you can see them regather to talk and whisper to each other. Cool. That was crazy. Yeah, I didn't use your toy. What? We didn't use your toy. You have it? Yeah. Give it back. Okay.

Trust your scribble. We spent four the whole time! Roll a rocket. I do! You're all thinking of the nose. Oh my god! Delight. Delight.

Long live the new flesh. Once we get out of sight, we melt into a random little frat on the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No worries, kill her. All right, so you, following the directions of the two of you who got the bird's eye view, you definitely begin to, are you taking-

I'm going to pull my hood up so I don't- Are you taking a direct route confidently again, or are you going stealthily? I feel like we should be confident until we get a little bit closer, and then we can dart off into the side streets and be a little more stealthy. Yeah, maybe the last quarter mile.

Yeah, just so we're not super noticeable going to the position. Then also go ahead and make one final Groove Stealth check to make the last bit of the journey's leg to your destination. Vassal of the Outer Trace? Yes, which we do have now. Big roll.

Oh, it's the same roll I'm doing. Oh, single roll? Yeah, single roll, but add 10. 26. 26. 33. Woo-hoo! All right. 13.

Boop. 26. All righty. 27. Okay. 29. All right. 13. Boop. 26. All righty. 27. Okay. 29. All right. 12. It's a good spread. All righty. You stopped some exhaustion? Oh yeah. Two points.

One's your last aid? You have two or just one? Still two. We never addressed it. Ashton said at the end of the day, if there's any spell slots left to restore. There's a cost, also. There is a financial cost. There is a financial cost to it. I have a scroll of Greater Restoration

that was given to us. Oh, that's right, for Plane Rider Vim. But we should probably save that for Plane Rider Vim in case we don't have you. Indeed. All righty. So. I never saw Planerider. You did not see Planerider at the Malleus Key, no. Maybe Planerider's here.

Ah, maybe that'll be our exit. That would be amazing. Or maybe she's dead. As you all carefully dive and shift from shadowed alley to shadowed corner. You eventually come upon the exterior of what looks to be the dump region of an excavation tunnel.

You see these massive piles of rock, large chunks, small crumbled bits, and it is pushed up against the side of this mountain, to this massive wedge pile. You can see there's a few small buildings on the outside with lazy bits of smoke, where it looks like either workers or guards are posted to keep watch.

But it looks like when someone is, and many of you have kind of remembered, like they're digging a new mine. All the rock has to go somewhere. And so it's all been brought back to the surface, pushed onto the side. The fact that it still rests here and it looks fresh means that this is a recent excavation.

As you begin to come across the exterior of it, you see from inside one of these little hovels with the smoke trail, a figure comes out with a big, thick cowl on, himself an older one of those Satchwatch figures. Sorry, haven't learned the name of them yet. But you can see he's older, he's balding on top. There's that little bit of the scalp crown that's showing there, and the longer white hair

that dangles past, and the cheeks pour out from there. He has the big cowl and neck, and the cloak is thrown over to the side. And he has one of those bone wand rods, but it's long and it has the glass crystal at the end, and he emerges and like, What is your business, if I can ask? Is there something we're supposed to say?

I don't know. We never learned what volition people say to each other. Step away from the Dusk Pit unless you're here on the Imperium business. So, okay. Oh! All right, all right. DM, are we close to the door?

Are we at the door? Are we at the door? Is this where the purple fabric is? You can see the flag is affixed to the top of the structure that he emerged from. Just like. Okay, so this is it. This is it.

This is what you saw from the tower. Okay. This weapon that he's got, it's the wand. The glass isn't at the end. Is the glass at the end of it? There was a piece of glass, and it looks like a large bone, almost like a femur of some creature

that has been carved and shaped to have this, or either it was naturally formed in this odd, maybe a rib bone from some massive beast. As he holds it like a rifle, and at the end, there is the crystal pointed. He's just holding it there at the ready. I'm going to cast Detect Thoughts. Okay. Okay.

I'm just going to say, you're not going to need that weapon. We're not here to challenge you or anything. By the way, it's a very finely made piece. We're acquaintances of Zesh. Yeah, did they make it? Make a persuasion check. What's in their thoughts as?

What's in your wallet? What's in his wallet as he says that? They are extremely nervous. 25. 25. Nice. No, I looked at perception. That's different for me. Yeah.

But it's still pretty good, 19. 19. The first thoughts are just nervousness, and the surface thoughts that go are like, shit, shit, oh god, oh god. Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool. Friends of Zesh, I think I know of this. This makes good glass stuff, yeah?

Yes. I actually have a few criticisms of the Imperium. Are you loyal? I don't know anything about that. To the Imperium, are you loyal? Looks at you and just, like, you see his face drop and goes, I am doing my duty. You're not the one who should be asking. In his head, I want to be thinking

what he's thinking in his head, though, as I ask it. So you ask him. I asked him that, but I want to hear what's in his head as he's answering me. Right now in his head is, Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. I'm going to jam Seedling into the ground blade down because we're not.

He's not even looking at you right now. Does he hear those words? Might be. Okay. But in his head, you sense just object terror. I am not who you think I am. I am not my mother. You make a persuasion check. You've loosened him up.

Oh my gosh. I didn't realize my persuasion was that high. 24! You got a mercury tongue, what do you mean? What the fuck? Yeah, but I almost thought, I don't know, I just. Finally breaks eye contact and looks over at you, looks at your sword, looks back at you,

looks at you again with that curious, what the hell are you sort of look. He sleeps. Damn it. This is really old. It's 10. Do you have a chair? Maybe we could take this inside. Maybe we should have a compass.

This is interesting. Waking up sounding like a bike horn. What? Happiness to the best of us. Thank you. Yeah, let's step out of the road. Still nervously holding the mass wand Thank you. Yeah, let's step out of the road. Yes, please. Still nervously holding the mass wand at his side,

the bone contraption, and steps back into this little hut. It's maybe about 15 feet by 15 feet. It's pretty modest, and it's built along where that metal gate sits that closes off the entrance to this wide cavern. It steps inside, looks out through the window. Once you all pull in, it is a bit of a tight fit,

closes the door. Why does this end to your mother? What's going on? We're friends. We're friends of the Volition. And we were sent to find you and to find... Me? Well, not you specifically, but your people. I don't do much.

What's your name? My name is Emido, Watcher Emido. I, um... Watcher Emido. Hold on, we got to get out our notebooks, Watcher Emido. We've come. You're Exandrian, yes? Yes, we've come a really long way.

She's your mother? But we're not allied with her. No. What is your intent, then? To stop her. We know of some of the Imperium's plans and we're not aligned with them. In fact, the Imperium has done a lot of damage

and wreaked a lot of havoc on Exandria. We're not against Ruidians. She's nervous, pressing her thumb against this tusk, almost like to have just a little bit of pain to keep his attention focused. Against Ruidians? He's nervous, pressing his thumb against his tusk, almost like to have just a little bit of pain to keep his attention focused, like a little tick, and he's going to... We want to help you all,

but we do not approve of the way the Imperium has been going about things. Yeah, there's people on Exandria who are working with the Imperium to the detriment of both places. I think we might have common interests here. This is a strange bit of fortune, and I'm not the person to talk to.

You should talk to. You should talk to Rashina. Where's Rashina? Rashina of the Golden Hammer. She's... She's the current head of the Volition. She and Gaztomo would be the ones to talk to. Gaztomo? Gaztomo. And where are they?

I'll show you the way, but I can't go with you. I have to stay here to make sure nobody finds it. What's the Golden Hammer? That's her title. Oh, that's her title. Machina of the Golden Hammer. She's probably got a golden hammer. Her father was the Golden Hammer before her.

Oh, sorry, that was of the Golden Hammer. She probably has her father a golden hammer. Her father was the Golden Hammer before her. Oh, sorry, that was of the Golden Hammer. She probably has her father's golden hammer. Okay, tight, tight, tight, tight, tight. It's all said in our heads. That was a shitty, stupid, in-mind conversation. Where do we find her? Where do we find her?

This way. He steps out and looks around, while holding the door there. If he pulls the secret latch, I'm going to be so happy. There's this faint whistle, and someone emerges from the other, little hovel off to the side, rushes over to part of the metal gate. You hear the jingling of metal,

and then the gate shifts open about a foot and a half, and then he darts back inside the hut and goes, Don't go as a group. Give a space of time between each entry. Close it behind you. Should we take these off, maybe? Once inside, yeah. Okay.

We reach up, take him by the hand, and clasp my hand over, and we're in. You're so small. I know. Comes in handy sometimes. Sometimes it's a problem. When I take my hand away, there's seven or eight blueberries in his hand.

What is it? Thank you. They call him the farmer's market. Tarawa. That's good. I feel so bad for him. I feel so bad for that. Carry on. The farmer's finally

found his superpower. Got those blueberries, dog? Like... He doesn't even bring eye contact. He's like... Just making it really awkward. Yeah. You see the eyes wrinkle from the smile,

pulls the hand away, and there's just a mess of blueberry and his long, white-beard, shrouded face. Like a monkey's doggy. Ball. face. Like a walkie-talkie. Yep. Ball. You got to give raspberries next. I want to see. Okay. They're so cute.

Do you want to give this guy raspberries? No, no, no, no, no, no. So the next person. Next person raspberries. I've already started walking towards the gate. Yeah, wait. Okay. One at a time. One at a time. One at a time.

One at a time? We can go in as a group. Not as a group. As a couple. Oh yeah, probably two is okay. I get to the gate, one at a time. One at a time? We can go in as groups. Not as a group. As a couple. Oh yeah, probably two is okay. I get to the gate and I walk through. All right. I'm walking.

Yeah. As I get in, I start taking the reds off. Oh, okay. Trail in one at a time. Scratching my nips. You all take moments to step within the subterranean tunnel until eventually you've all passed through the gate.

And a moment after the last of you steps within, you hear the gate Sorry, as I punch the microphone and make everyone, make the audience at home go, Ow! So sorry. Impactful moments here. Shall we please?

It is a wide 25-ish-so foot opening and the top of it gets low pretty quick. You can feel the, as they glow through and reveal it, you can see that loose dust and dirt and gravel and such have been pulled up and left along the sides, stuff that's tumbled off from whatever carts and elements brought it up. As you continue down, you see some of these carts

which have heavy barding and chains for various large creatures. In fact, the Wukors that you've seen, it looks like it's made for some of the larger Wukors. It pulls some of these carts that carry these heavy bits of excavated dirt up. As you begin to descend around, one of your orbs presses past before a lantern

lights up at about a 60-foot distance from you. You begin to notice that along this tunnel, there are these lanterns, these little blue-green lights that appear in the proximity of your travel. It winds down, eventually dips into a descent that is steep enough to the point

where you have to hold the sides a little bit to go down, and the tunnel begins to thin a bit. You're having to guide yourself. Not quite single file yet, but you have to put your hands down to scoot at times to make sure you don't tumble. Is there any sense of water or moisture down here? Make a perception check. 12.

13. 12? Pretty dry in this tunnel. You don't catch any sort of moisture. You continue to scoot down, it levels out a little bit, and as you come to the base of that one descent, hitting a few rocks with your feet, a voice goes, Who goes?

Friends of the Volition. Broviks. How? That sounds really good. Dead bodies? Watch your imito. We're going to open up a picnic blanket. Imito. And you're going to want someone to look inside.

We'll back away from it. There's no? You'll see what you need to see. That's too much. What are they going to see in there? You'll see what you need to see. That's Jabutash. What are they going to see in there? There's a whole bunch of dead bodies. We look like psychopaths. We're going to look psycho.

Maybe we should just pull out one body instead of the show, huh? Just to warm them up a little bit. All right, so what do you do? Watcher Amito gave us passage. Yeah, I guess we'll- We're here to talk to Rishina and Gaztomo. We still have that head, right?

Yeah, we can pick. We pull out the head of The Juggernaut? The Juggernaut. And toss it. A foot catches it in the shadows. You can see the figure lean in. You can see they have a hood up. They glance past it.

Kick it back. Comes to rest. Thank you. Tongue-lawing out. Starting to get a little soft at the edges. Yeah. I'd peel off a little piece of cheek. No, Chet. A little protein.

It's for Ashina to decide. Walk with me. The figure turns around, and you can see they're carrying another one of these. They look like a cannon, almost, like a hand cannon wand, if you will, with the crystal at the tip. Do you follow?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You continue following. There's a couple of other tunnels that merge with this one from off to the side, almost like they're starting to come to these nexus points. This tunnel also looks a bit, the further in you get, he takes you, this figure that pulls you off

into a side tunnel and winds what looks to be a more freshly dug, smaller passageway, barely braced, with similar bits of curved bone like you had seen some of these carved from it. Looks almost like a curved rib bone that's put up and aside to keep some semblance of bracing to this tunnel. But the dirt is very loose and fresh,

and it looks like whatever tunnel he's taking you through is a very recent addition to the space. This walk continues on for a good 15 minutes of silence as this figure keeps walking and looking past over the shoulder every few seconds just to keep a watch on you. Do we ever get a good glimpse of what they look like? They've been in shadow mostly this whole time.

The minute you would have put any light ahead, they turned and just continued walking, facing away. You press on until eventually you come to a large door. It looks like it's made from wood, but you haven't seen a lot of wood sources in this area. This has this rough, gnarled exterior to it. It's not a shaved wood.

There's almost a bark that's still grown onto it that's split in places. On the inside, the striations, there's not a pattern that's still grown onto it that's split in places. On the inside, the striations, there's not a pattern of straight striations. They almost interweave underneath the bark. Almost like the tree or the wood itself is knotted, almost like a Celtic knot design beneath where the bark is broken and exposes underneath.

The figure approaches it and takes the butt of this rod or cannon and just hits it once. You watch as part of the door pulls back and opens, like a false window is pulled away, and the figure looks out. There's no conversation for a moment before the figure in the hood goes and nods and turns back.

Well, either you're telling the truth or you die tonight. So good luck. And begins to walk past you all. As they do, you get a glimpse that this is a Ryloran figure, a similar physicality to some of the Shrikes that you've fought before,

but you see both of their eyes are snow blind. They have what looks to be a heavy, heavy scar that carves through the jaw, down to the neck. And the speaking they've been doing into your mind, you can see, probably couldn't be done with the healed state of their face. Like they've suffered some serious injury to their face. But they walk past stoically

and continue on the tunnel past as the false door is placed there and you watch as the wooden entryway peels away to reveal an opening. It's not a hinged door. It seems to ungrow in a place, if that makes any sense. It's going to fall away.

Beyond that, you see a figure holding their hands out with a faint green glow on their hands. Which would. Can I go to where the door grew into? Beyond that, you see a figure holding their hands out with a faint green glow on their hands. They're true. Can I go to where the door grew into, just totally forgetting whoever opened it, and just look and try and find where it retreated into? Yeah. As you approach it, look into it

with this curiosity and wonder, it's like the Nottistriations are roots that bound together to create a strong door. You can see it's probably that thick. Like the roots of a tree all were concentrated into one pattern and they grew over and then began to retreat into itself to leave an opening, like a curtain.

Incredible. You step into the next chamber, and it is a plain, open, antechamber-like cavern. Maybe about 20 feet tall, about 60 feet wide, and a multitude of tunnels that splinter off of it. You can see some of those lanterns hang within, glowing and lighting the space.

And there are probably four other figures, also similarly hooded and shrouded, sitting at different corners, posted with their own series of weapons. You see some people that have more of those glass cannons, if you will, and a few others that have large glass weapons, like greatswords that look hooked and carved,

that are affixed to their back. As you step in, many begin to step out. A dozen, two dozen figures begin to emerge. They're forming a rank around all the other tunnels. You're starting to get the sense that they're essentially going to be enveloping you as you step in, and they do. As you begin to walk into the central chamber, you are immediately surrounded by,

now it looks to be about 35 to 40 figures total. Whoa. You wouldn't happen to have 35 of those toys, would you? I've got two. Okay. But nothing like some competition. As they surround you, you can see the shapes. Some of them, with the low light that's here,

you can see they look humanoid. Some have the Ryloran crests, some are tall and lanky. You can see the shape of the Shrike creations. You can see a few of them are massive, hulking figures. Looks to be Ryloran juggernauts or like physicality, all wrapped and covered and trying to stay unrecognized in their intentional attire. It is a motley crew of figures.

Some of them look small. You see some Bormodur in there. You see what looks to be possibly gnomish or halfling figures in here. You see one standing figure that is... Where is it hidden? There.

A green-scaled dragonborn that is heavily armored. They all just stare at you quietly as you step in, all waiting for something, before eventually some of them part in the middle, and one figure approaches, pulling her hood back. You see this powerful, stoic-looking female Ryloren.

She looks a bit gaunt, but serious in her face. She wears a breastplate of what looks like hammered metal. Her dark burgundy-brown cloak drags on the ground behind her. She is gauntleted in her hands. You see swinging at the side of her belt what looks to be a brass gold-colored mallet or hammer of some kind. That clings gently against her leg armor as she steps out from the rest of the crew. Her crest splits into three, almost like

flower petal-type designs on it. You can see there are all manner of tattooed designs that merge and splinter off of it. There are cold iron chains that wrap around it and connect right above the brow and dangle past where the nose bump is, drift past the chin and hang and swing. As she steps forward, you can feel the reverence in the chamber for her. She approaches,

and not telepathically, but speaking as you speak. Who among you would you consider to be your leader? Boy, this is the craziest question. I know. We've debated this, we've talked about it a bit. Who speaks for you, at least? I mean, I'm going to do my best.

I literally push Imogen by the elbow, forward two steps. I do. You. And there's this faint, hushed clenching And there's this faint, hushed clenching throughout the whole chamber as you step into the light a bit and everyone sees the coloration of your hair

and the designs of your scars. All the lanterns flicker brighter as you enter the chamber. You're of her lineage, are you not? This Timot? I'm her daughter, yes. As you say that, the whole room shifts and you hear the sound of weapons

being pulled from sheaths. You see glowing green glass begin to glow from all corners of the shadow in your direction. There is no loyalty that comes with this blood. You fought hard enough to find your way loyalty that comes with this blood. You fought hard enough to find your way to the heart of our safe house. Tell me what it is you intend

before we strike you down and leave you in ashes. We want to destroy Ludinus. We want to destroy Otohan Thull. We want to destroy my mother and everyone who would seek to control the people of Ruidus. What is your intent with the Imperium? What is yours?

I didn't even know of its existence until recently. Ask the questions later. Answer them now. If they serve Ludinus, then we would see them destroyed as well. And we have your assurances that you are not a puppet, an instrument of the Weavemind. Yes. Make a persuasion check.

Go. Go. Go. Okay. Oh yeah, maybe you are an instrument of the Weavemind. We don't know. We don't know. That's fine. Okay, okay. 27.

27. Oh. She said that so flippantly. There's a good 15 seconds of tense silence as this figure turns her head from side to side, looking you up and down, looking at your friends. And each of you feel peered into, peered through, judged, spiritually chewed and spat out in a matter of seconds, like you've been read for filth front to back. I feel sturdy.

Quietly. You're lucky. Yeah. I'm a little teeny bit. Before she steps back a bit onto her back leg and crosses her arms in front. Well, I believe that you believe that. That's something, at least.

Very well. You want to know my intent? Our intent. And she turns around and walks back towards the crowd that parts. Do we follow? We do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do, we're all in.

You fall in and step behind her. As she walks, you see one of the hulking juggernauts steps and joins her at the side. Kind of looks back at you and still untrusting, cracks his knuckles at the side, but What's up? Continues walking.

I crack my knuckles and return. Those are my knees. Towards the opposite side of the chamber, you can see there's a mass of glass that is opaque and barely exposed at the edge that covers about a 15-foot section of wall. As you approach the edge of this chamber to where that glass wall is,

you watch as this figure raises her hand across it, and as she does, the glass, its opaqueness vanishes and becomes somewhat translucent, like a window that is revealed with her fingers. And as it does, you are looking down from the ceiling of the most incredibly large chamber underground that you've ever witnessed. You see this perpetual,

mind-blowing expanse, this open space that is filled with hundreds, more bridges and structures and archways. You see all these little bits of carved stone that bind together like a hive, a network of caverns that all bleed together into this massive, heart-like cityscape. Thousands, tens of thousands more people could live here.

You see thousands of those little sparkling blue lights, like fireflies in the distance, and it takes you a moment to realize that these are lanterns that alight structures that spread on almost forever into the dark. This is the heart of Kraviris. This is the city. And you see the moving energy

and liveliness of it throughout, like a bloodstream of people that just shift and move. The vibrancy of a society you've not yet gandered. You can see spires and structures and temples that seem familiar, but not. A lot of the architecture seems to change. The inspiration's pulled in some ways

from Exandrian history and cultures, but a facsimile of it, repurposed, remade, not fully understood, but claimed as its own. It's like bits of the history of the world, long gone and today, all put together and made new, made unique, and sitting amongst it all,

you can only imagine this quarter mile or higher height of this underground chamber where it all swirls and connects. This singular spire of faintly glowing glass that rises up the center of it, like a tree trunk, where all of these different paths all connect to and weave around.

We were just on the outskirts. these different paths all connect to and weave around. We were just on the outskirts. You can see the bits of stronghold structures built into the side of this trunk. It does indeed look almost like a shadowy tree in the way that everything around the city just breaks off of it in layers and layers and splinters off into the nearby caverns. You can't even see the bottom almost from this height. It's just,

it feels like a dream. As you glance out and try and process all this, the Ryloran figure, the leader, which you assume to be this Roshina you heard about, steps alongside you all. What we want is inside there. The five minds that have enslaved us for hundreds of years. That glowing heart of this city,

we aim to bring it down. That's where we're going tonight. Oh no, you can't! No, Matt! Come on, that's so good! That's so good. The five minds? That tracks, that tracks.

The glowing heart. Wow. No, like 20 more minutes! Come on, Mom! Come on! I just got the whole cavern. I'm not even tired. Like, jam. I know, I know. Can we roll for initiative really quick?

Just to start the next one? Real quick. Fight Manhattan. Ugh! Are we talking Grand Canyon scale underground? Bigger. It's like the depth of the Grand Canyon, not quite as expansive, per se. It doesn't extend that wide,

but it is that kind of like a, if you were to take an equal cylindrical chamber of the Grand Canyon that was about, from top to bottom, about a quarter mile or so, and it fills out from there. And there's just dozens, if not hundreds, of rock shelves and splintered pathways that come out from it, some that have crumbled,

some that have been built on, some that have been shaped. It feels like a slightly more open termite mound with this massive glass cylinder in the center. The luring cityscape stretches out before you. Even from where you sit now, the scale is hard to gauge as you take in the shapes and those thousands of little

firefly-like glittering lights of all the different lanterns of the city coming on and flickering off as people step in and out of their radiuses. So it's fun. It's a far cry from fighting chairs and tables. Little bit. A little bit. Things have shifted.

Aw. Empty chairs. To be fair, they were really nice chairs. They were nice. They were beautiful. They were good chairs. We'll pick up from there next episode after you've now made contact

with the leader of the Volition and figure out what the next plan of action is here under the surface of Ruidus. I'm excited. Wow. All righty. So we'll pick up from there next week. Happy ninth anniversary, everybody.

Yay! Happy ninth anniversary! Nine! Nine! Nine, indeed. Nine, nine, nine! I have one gray hair for every year. Just nine of them. Lucky you. Shut up.

Just nine. Only them. Love you all. This has been crazy and it's only getting crazier. Love you, Maddy. Nine years married. Indeed. Nine more.

Well, thank you all for joining us. We'll pick up next week at this crazy bit, but we love you very much and this is Thursday yet. Good night. And this concludes the current chapter of Critical Role. Your essays on the history

and impact of the various ages and epochs of Exandria are eagerly anticipated. Just kidding. No homework for you, but if you are inspired to do some writing, please leave us a review. Your words can really help new folks find our show and encourage them to give it a try. Thank you so much for joining us on this adventure. Until next time.