Critical Role - Persona 5 Tactica One-Shot

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Thank you to Atlus for sponsoring this one-shot inspired by Persona 5 Tactica. Persona 5 Tactica is now available on Game Pass, Xbox 1, Xbox X|S, Windows, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and STEAM! https://persona.atlus.com/p5t/ Join gamemaster Liam O'Brien as he leads the rebellious players Robbie Daymond, Xanthe Huynh, Krystina Arielle, Jared Goldstein, and Matthew Mercer in a one-shot inspired by Persona 5 Tactica! 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 PLAYERS/ GAME MASTER Liam O'Brien: https://twitter.com/VoiceOfOBrien Robbie Daymond: https://twitter.com/robbiedaymond Xanthe Huynh: https://twitter.com/ItsXanthor Krystina Arielle: https://twitter.com/KrystinaArielle Jared Goldstein: https://www.instagram.com/heyjaredhey/ Matthew Mercer: https://twitter.com/matthewmercer Overlay Graphic Design by Bryan Weiss Character Art by Justyna Rerak (@Justyna_Rerak) http://instagram.com/justyna_rerak

Once upon a time, a group of curious storytellers breathed life into epic tales set in the wide fantasy world of Exandria. This is Liam O'Brien, here to welcome you to Critical Role. We'll dive into the story in just a moment, but first, a few notes. This is the audio-only version of our broadcast that streams Thursdays at 7pm Pacificm. Pacific over on twitch.tv slash criticalroll and youtube.com slash criticalroll. If you subscribe to our Twitch channel, you can watch the video on demand immediately after the broadcast.

And it's also available Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific on YouTube. And of course, for all you wonderful podcast listeners, freshly minted episodes release right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network one week after our broadcast on Thursdays. With all that said, let's get into the story. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our very special one-shot in collaboration with our friends at Atlus and their brand new game, Persona 5 Tactica. Game's out now, so check it out. Now, while you may recognize the places

and characters explored tonight as inspired by elements from Persona 5 Tactica game, just wanna emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot are our own creations and not official content from the Persona 5 Tactica game. They're merely inspired by it. We'll get into it in a moment, but before we do, I just want to acknowledge friends old and new at the table

playing with me, Liam O'Brien, your Game Master. Let's go down the table and we'll start, eeny, meeny, I guess we'll start here. I'm Mo! Yay! Oh wait, no, I'm not Mo, I'm Rothy. Hello. I'm so excited to be here playing with you guys, everyone. Welcome back. What does your jacket say? Rob.

It says Rob. This is my Letterman's jacket. Take that on. That was tough and cool. I'm here to play with you guys. I'm so excited. Yay! Hi, I'm Xanthe. I'm new new here and I'm very excited to be here, too. Very happy to have you. Hi, my name's Christine Ariel. I'm not technically new, but technically new, but I don't know. So here we are, hi. Yay!

Hi, I'm Jared. I've never done this before. I don't know what's happening. Woo! Wonderful. I'm Jared. I've never done this before. I don't know what's happening. Woo! Wonderful. I'm Steve. I'm also new here. My name is Matt, and I'm happy to be on this side of the table, a rare but delicious occurrence. I'm in. I'm in the chair. It's been a hot minute. See if I remember how to do it. Anyway, thank you, Atlas, for letting us play around,

mess around on the world of Persona 5 Tactica, and without further ado, the best damn tabletop RPG and board game cafe in the city. Sugar and Dice, it might not be the flashiest tabletop shop around, and it certainly isn't the biggest. But the shelves are lined with well-loved, well-used games. Its lovingly painted miniatures and terrains stand on epic display. The comfy chairs and couches here offer a place to crash,

get cozy, and play a good game with friends. And the fresh-pressed coffee and infectious confections the cafe has to offer make this local mom and pop shop pretty dang unbeatable. The vibes, immaculate. But there's actually something extra special about this little slice of TTRPG heaven. Because this shop doesn't just provide the world with good gaming, lattes, and crumb cake.

Oh no, that's just by day. At night, a whole other game is afoot here. Sugar and Dice is also the secret meeting spot for a circle of rebellious youths who spend their nights dipping into the dreamscapes of twisted, double-dealing adults stealing their corrupted hearts, all to make this world a better place. This city might not know of their exploits, but thanks to their nightly rebellion,

this world has gotten just a little bit better, one corrupted heart at a time. Here in the everyday world, there are a handful of college kids making their way. Where are they? Downtown. Waited for it. But at night, they are the party crashers. Are they dreamwalkers?

Dimension hoppers? Rebels with a metaphysical cause? Well, my friends, this is a persona one-shot, so the answer is yes, all of the above. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Where was I? Where was I? Right. Sugar and dice, friends, and tabletop role-playing games.

It's five minutes past closing time here, and we begin our story with the shop's manager. The 21-year-old young man who has just hung the close sign in the front window locked the door and begun a mad dash around the shop to prep for the weekly campaign he runs right here in Sugar and Dice. A stack of game books in his arms, he grabs a few bags of dice, a fistful of pencils, and a few choice miniatures from their shelves. He pauses a second to squint out at the sheets of rain hitting the city streets this evening, outside the confines of this safe haven of gaming. Matthew Mercer, free from the GM chair,

why don't you tell us a bit about who you will be RPing here today? I'll be playing Ezekiel Peters, known as Zeke, to his friends. He's a computer science major who is the elder classmen of this troop of folks, but he's made his friends the best way he knows how, through games here in the shop.

So as he runs around, around, books in his arm, you can see his shoulder length, somewhat tousled blonde hair, very much in that photograph era Nickelback sort of vibe. His sweater vest over his long sleeve gray sweater, a little bit of scruffy hair on his chin. He has the very tall and lanky posture of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo,

I guess if he had to point it out, as he rushes back to the table and starts setting his stuff down rapidly in the space, looking about for the rest of his players to arrive. Well, mere seconds later, the door behind the counter leading to the stockroom swings open, and a young woman

carrying a tray of treats that is almost too big to manage comes spinning into the shop's common area. She too is another employee here at Sugar and Dice. Astronomy student during college hours and the master of the finest latte in all of downtown here at the shop. Xanthe, welcome to the table.

Tell us who you will be rolling as today. My name is Van Nguyen. I have like, I just really casual t-shirt and jeans. I have an apron that says the Sugar and Dice logo on it. And I put the tray down. I'm like, oh, okay. Put everything down on the table and then I push my glasses back and rearrange my hair to make sure that it's properly covering

all of my face. I'm kind of anxious but excited for our game tonight and seeing everybody. I'm glad that the day is done, getting to finally relax a little bit. At that moment, a young man comes wandering in from the Annex, which is a secondary room of gaming tables in the back of the shop. He's carrying what looks like a handful of character sheets and he's puzzling over them as he shuffles through all the choices.

The youngest member of this secret squad and also new to TTRPGs in general. Jared, care to tell us about your gaming newbie? Yes. Youngest, like you said. I want to, that bears repeating. Extremely young. Really, really young person. And I'm playing Patty.

He is new here. He's studying cosmetology. He is bad at it, but he might have a bright future. Visually, if you could imagine what a shiny, raven, chin-length bob might look like, that's what his hair looks like. He's wearing all white. He's going through something.

He's in college. He's wearing all white. Leave him alone. It's his thing. He's excited to be here and learn. Well, following in immediately after you from the annex, we see the total opposite of gaming Greenhorn. Sporting a smartly packed backpack

with a little dice trinket hanging off of it and carrying a perfectly balanced stack of manuals, character sheet, dice tray, dice card decks, hefty notebook of notes, and a miniature like a cherry on top. This is a young woman who has come to game. Christina, tell us about your TTRPG enthusiast. I'm gonna be playing Penelope Penny Matthews,

and she is extremely, extremely organized and put together, and she's very excited about this, and she takes her campaigns very, very seriously, so I'm very excited to spend some time with her and to spend some time with you all, and to get this game underway. She's, um, when she gets nervous she talks a lot and she talks really fast.

Familiar with that. You'll see it over here tonight. And with that, the time for game night is upon us. Zeke looks like maybe he has all his gear and notes for the night in place. No classes, no studying tonight. This is one of those rare moments for you guys. Instead of diving into the twisted house of mirrors

that rest in the corrupted hearts of the criminally hypocritical, the gang is taking one night to kick back and have a little fun. And the gang's all here. Woo! Well, sorry, almost all of them. There are five chairs at this table,

but only four gamers right now. One member of the party crashers is conspicuously missing in action, but speak of the devil and he shall appear. The locked door of Sugar and Dice suddenly rattles as a waterlogged young man beats on the spattered glass with a wet hand. Robbie man beats on the spattered glass with a wet hand.

Robbie Damon, how the hell are you? Wet. I'm good, and I am Jackson Sloan. Six foot six, corn-fed American muscle. Like every 19-year-old, he is 260 pounds, 29-inch waist, 46-inch shoulders, built like a JoJo. You know it's the average build for a protagonist-type person that he fancies himself to be. Jackson's worked up because Coach kept him late. He wished he hadn't because he loves game night desperately.

He's also soaking wet and sad out in the cold by himself. And his head's down, not just to cover the rain, because his head's usually down. Wears a ball cap and tends to hide himself from the world, even despite his imposing figure. If you were to get to know him a little bit better, you'd be surprised by his major, which is Japanese Studies.

Easy to write off, easy to underestimate, and we'll see if any of those things are right or wrong. Don't know yet. Hello? Oh, there he is. All right. Patty, if you wouldn't mind just letting him before he gets too soaked. Oh, sure.

We're on the floor here. Hey. What's up, Patty? Hey. How are you, Jackson? Oh, I'm doing good. You're all wet. Yeah.

Let's dry you off. Let's just mop this floor. Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to let you all know that I have made proper copies and sent them to all of your emails and I have put them in a Google Doc just in case you didn't get my email

and it went to your spam. And I have all of my notes from the previous campaign and if you want to know all of the things you should go ahead and check those. But I just want you to know that they are all itemized and sectioned off so you can go to your particular tag and you'll know exactly what your character did

in the game, okay? Every good campaign needs a patty. Penny, even. Well, you two, you're all so great. No, I appreciate that. I'll go ahead and put the link up here. Everyone else got their character sheets here, hopefully dry? Yeah, yeah, it's good. All right, perfect. We got snacks. Perfect. Thank you, Van. Anyone else need anything else? Or we can get this going so we don't stay too late, huh? Let's do it. Yeah.

Yeah, party crashers, the minutes are ticking away, and it can be tricky as hell to schedule these flipping games together. So yeah, I think it's time to real play. All right, so look in here, we left off. So many notes. Wait, where did we leave off? Oh, you're right here. Oh, okay.

Here, I'll do a quick review. The four of you, after trudging through the obsidian glades and the terrifying nightmare swamps, you eventually emerge at the base of the giant night-climbing castle. There, as you got your weapons at the ready, you burst through the opening front double gates. There before you, the rising, climbing, circular steps pull you up into the shadow above where you know exists the great vampire lord, Skrad. Currently looks to loom like a shadow over the landscape.

You came late, so we'll say, Targaryen, what are you doing? Yeah, I'm going to... I'm confused. You said it's a climbing castle, but then we climb up the stairs and we're up the stairs? It's a title, yes. It's called that because you climb it, being clever. What are you doing with your action? Oh, I don't know, man. Are we fighting? Are we supposed to roll for? Is Skrod bad?

As far as everything you've heard, Skrod is quite bad. Here in Krontovia, he has been looming large over the populace. They live amongst the mists and shadows, and he is a terrifying tyrant. Page five. Exactly.

Well, here, we'll come back to you. Fluid, Fluid, our fantastic druid, clever name. How do you enter this interior shadowed space? I'm just going to try to sneak around the edges of the wall to make sure I'm not noticed, to see if I can get a closer look at Scrod. Okay. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm going to duck down by her,

and I'm going to be sneaky, too. All right, we got a dual sneaky session over here. I'd like you both to go ahead and roll a stealth roll for me, if you don't mind. The best part of this is that I've offloaded all of my GM duties onto my player Matthew. Yes, I was unaware we were doing that, and we're just rolling with it. Rolled a 20? That's really good. I rolled a 12.

Okay. You seem to just vanish into the darkness. You watch as fluid calls in the nighttime powers of nature and just disappears into the stairs above. Targaryen, our barbarian friend, goes lumbering after with a series of loud, heavy footfalls on the stone floor. At that point, Constance, Kona, what are you going to do? Well, it seems like they've got a pretty good handle on it, so maybe we just let them?

Patience, okay, okay, that's a tactic. Maybe we could work together, or... Ooh, you stand watch, and I... How many spell slots? I have three spell slots left, but if I... Resource management is a tough part of the game. Okay, I would like to kill Scrod. Yeah, I want to kill Scrod, too.

Yes! Yeah! All right, so you're going to go ahead and ascend the steps after them. Sure. Are you going stealthily, or are you fully charging into the fray? I'm fully charging into the fray. Right, so the two of you, you caught off guard by the sound of Targaryen's

lumbering, heavy footfalls, catching you initially worried about the ascent. However, the two of you, in your slow, methodical arrival towards the precipice of the castle top, are immediately passed by as Kona begins charging in. Constance, are you also following into this fracas? Yes, I'm going to come up and I'm going to have my bow at the ready, my composite bow.

All right, composite bow knocked, ready to go. Your tense muscles pulling back to make sure a kill shot is at that point of readiness. As you, Conan, go stepping out into the open tower precipice, you can see the heavy clouds above rain, much like the rain of this night. Lightning and thunder flashing around, and there you see the altar built, the rising stained glass,

this arcing up into an odd double cross-like structure. There you see above it the cape fluttering in the night wind. It's like. Scraw. Jesse does sound effects. My favorite GM does sound effects. But as the cloak flutters, he suddenly transforms

and you watch as a large, toothy, mawed, flying bat-like entity screeches and begins diving down towards you. The first thing it saw, Cone, I need all of you to roll initiative. Oh my god. Yes. As everyone begins to roll their dice in this moment at the table, and I'm so sorry if you got excited for rolling high, Everyone begins to roll their dice in this moment at the table. Chris!

And I'm so sorry if you got excited for rolling high. Oh. You all think, oddly, that you can feel like a barely perceptible vibration in the table, causing you to pause a moment, but then you know you do. All the miniatures and dice in front of you sort of shift, just a tiny bit, as the entire table shudders once. And then, with no further warning,

the entire room starts to shake all around you. The shelves of minis begin to rattle, the board games on the shelves clatter about, all the furniture, the baked goods, the cash register, everything begins to shake violently. For a few seconds, all you can do is wonder if this earthquake is going to end you all. And then suddenly, as abruptly as it started, the entire shop goes still.

You feel a hint of relief for a moment, but then realize all the gaming gear you've been using, board games, blueberry scones, all of it, it's all hovering, frozen in midair. I'm sorry, are you all seeing this? Is this part of it? I only wish I was that good of a gem. You know what? Finish it. I'm going to go ahead and stand up carefully and look towards the window to see if the rainfall still greets us.

You look to the glass window at the entrance of Sugar and Dice. It's been pouring all day, and the sound of rain has been a constant background. Until now. Looking to the front door, you don't see any rain falling. You don't see anything at all. Instead, the glass of the door now glows a bright amber color,

and a strange monochromatic symbol hovers in front of it. A gear, with an icon of a flower in the center. What is that, Zeke? I don't rightly know. Vann, you didn't mess with our treats at all, right? Just checking. No, not today.

Okay, all right. I just had a scone, I'm fine. It's a really good scone. Where'd the rain go? Where'd everything else go? Is the gear outside or inside with us? It's inside. It appears to be hovering maybe one to two inches

away from the door, flat, and just slowly rotating. I'm going to pick up a d20 and just chuck it at the gear. It flies through the symbol, clatters, and bounces back out and onto the floor. Oh. flies through the symbol, clatters, and bounces back out and onto the floor. Mm-mm. You guys have seen some weird shit in your day of crossing over to the other side. You have never seen this.

You've never seen anything even like it. For science, I feel like we should touch it. I mean, we're not in the other side right now, right? I mean, I'm not changed. I'll touch it. I'm going to walk over and touch it. All right, Jackson. As I put my hands out in front

and pull everybody else further back. Does anything happen? Your finger disappears through the image. Ah! How do fingers work? I forgot. And then you feel glass. Catch it. Like the glass on the other side of the door?

The door itself. You've just reached the door. Your hand passes through this image. Are my fingers still there when I pull it back? It sprays blood on your hand. Turn it again! Your finger's fine, but it still continues like a hologram just to hover slowly. Why don't you open the door?

Does it feel like anything? No, it feels like air. Oh, I guess I'll try and open the door. Okay. As soon as you turn the latch and open the door, your vision, all of your vision, the entire shop flares with light. Everyone shields their eyes, the room around you gone.

As you are near blinded. You are just in a plane of nothingness. You can't see, you squint, and slowly your sight returns. And as you look about you, you haven't moved from the spot you stood on, but there is no shop. There is no rain.

Nothing you recognize. Instead, you find yourself standing in a strange and unfamiliar city street under a purple sky. The buildings that line the thoroughfare here are all gleaming white, and every roof a deep red. The faces of the buildings around you are

adorned in stone carvings of rose blooms. There are also flower boxes lining every window and walkway everywhere you look with gorgeous, blooming white roses on display. In some cases, those flowers are stretching out of their cradles and trailing into the road along long, coiling vines. The street itself is a deep crimson trailing into the road along long, coiling vines.

The street itself is a deep crimson and is mostly empty, aside from a few white wooden crates scattered haphazardly about the road. There isn't a soul on these streets. As you look at each other in this shared moment of confusion, you notice yet a final perplexing detail. You've never been here, never seen this. It looks nothing like the strange places you have visited. Yet all of you somehow are dressed

in your party-crasher attire. The gear you wear whenever you slip over to the other side on your nightly hunt for corrupted hearts. Everyone feeling okay? Don't we usually make this happen? How far is this going to go? We could possibly go wrong. Look at sweeps, baby, we got to make this work.

Every act of the game, you lose another act. Where are we? Someplace that apparently wants us here. Usually this is our prerogative to make this journey. Penny, you're the Loremaster. Does this look familiar to you? I don't know. Everything seems a little... No, I don't recognize any of this. I don't even know where we are. I don't even think we have maps for this. This feels like an unpopulated part of MMORPG,

you know what I'm saying? Where you're walking around and you're like, there should be people here, but there's no people here. Where is everyone? Is there people here? You slipped into the back rooms or something. Like a video game after you beat it. Yeah. Right. Do these buildings look like domiciles?

Are they skyscrapers? They're three or four stories high, most of them. Most of them just seem like very immaculate townhouses. Ooh. Do we know anybody that likes flowers? I mean, they're everywhere. It's kind of a prominent thing. Who doesn't like flowers?

How much do you think the Wren is here? Thinking of staying? I mean, in this economy, probably. Looking up into the rooftops, glancing to see if there's any movement at all along the skyline. Yeah, make the first roll of the one-shot itself. All right. Oh, you will.

I guess at this point, Zeke, though now in his other side attire, known as Nexus, as his part of the Party Crashers, the hair now flared back in places with the heavy bang in front, has a single green monocle over one eye, and has a long, almost like Neo-Victorian coat that hangs down.

As he walks, his shadow seems to stretch behind him, almost like it's lagging a little bit. Uh. I think so. Glances about, turns his monocle, almost like he's trying to adjust a lens for a fine 14. 14?

The group quiets themselves and watches as you spin the monocle and scan the rooftops, looking for something, any sign of life. You look for a good five or 10 seconds. You don't see anything, but just when you're about to give up finding anything, you do hear something in the distance. You hear the sound of crashing wood, maybe? It's getting closer.

It's on another street somewhere. Getting closer. Closer. You hear another crash, something breaking up the road and around a corner out of view. And then you hear a strange warbling voice shout angrily,

She's getting away! Take her down! Yep. Yep. And the young woman darts out from the side street, sprinting across the road ahead of you. She has a lavender wavy bob cut, wears a deep red skirt, dark black coat, very sharp,

and as she runs, a single silver leg of knight's armor rings with every step on the road. She runs right past you, maybe 50 or 60 feet away, and dives into the doorway of a white gleaming townhouse, slamming it shut behind her. As soon as that door slams shut, gunfire erupts against the wood of the door and the wall of the building. Seconds later, a whole pack of strange white-clad soldiers, like a troop out of France in the 1700s, come spilling out into the intersection, every one of them armed with a rifle. of France in the 1700s come spilling out into the intersection, every one of them armed with a rifle.

A soldier in the lead shakes his fist. She can't hold us off forever! And only then snaps his neck in your direction, as do the others. Weirdly, they have no actual faces. There's definitely a neck, but instead of a head, there is just a wide, flat, bicorn hat, think Napoleon, adorned with a single white rose

and two glowing, lamp-like eyes, just glowing amber, staring at you. Interlopers! They raise their rifles at you, take aim, and we're rolling initiative right here in this one shot. We didn't shot at it, we just got it in town. Oh great. 30.

All right, so get your numbers in your head and we'll go from the top to the bottom. I need to roll too. We are using a modified 5E tonight with a nice persona veneer, gang. All right. Did anyone get 20 to 25? No.

15 to 20. Awesome. 10 to 15. Two of you, all right, what'd you guys get? 12. 13. 13, all right. Nice of you, all right, what'd you guys get? 12. 13. 13, all right. And that means that I'll let you introduce yourself

when you get up to battle. I want to hear all the rest of you look like. All about it, okay. So, and what did you get? 12. Sir Robbie Damon. Wow, wow. All right. Five to 10? Nine.

Six. Six, okay. Did you get your initiative modifier? Oh, minus one. Oh, cool. Also a six. You got twisted ankle. You got a six as well?

I need a game of rollies. So what that means, Xanthe and Jared, is I need you to each grab a d20 and just roll it and see who gets higher. Okay. 14, or 15. 16, if I'm lying. Okay, so.

Okay, Patty. Takes time for the new player to get in the groove of things. Thank you, Zeke. Okay. Aye aye. Thank you. All right. Yes, Hudson.

Hudson, right? No, that's not me. Don't wipe it off. Your real name's on the screen. That's very smart. Okay, guys, we have left IRL, the real world, behind. You are now in your dimension hopping outfits tonight. So starting with you, Penny, who are we looking at now

as you stride to meet these strange soldiers? Okay, so we're going over and that's when Penny sees a mirror. Beautiful, beautiful mirror. And looking back at her, it's her code name, goddess. And, oh my gosh, she looks so good.

She has a hair, her hair is curled, it's kind of in like an upper chignon, and it has little curls kind of spiraling around her face and actually covers one side of her face. And then it's connected with a one-shoulder gown that is fitted and has a slit and a smooth leg with a very nice heel. She's gorgeous. Yeah. But now she realizes she's here, so she decides that she can lean into it. Okay, these soldiers, whatever they are, about 50 or 60 feet away from you,

all drawn, guns drawn on you in a clump. What happens next? I call upon my goddess. I call upon Aphrodite. So you're summoning your persona. I am gonna summon my persona. All right. So summoning your persona,

this is something that all of you have done in your past travels. You've never been to this place, but standing here in your souped up suits, the ones that you're so accustomed to, you know that you can summon your personas like you always have. What happens when you summon a persona, goddess? All of a sudden you see hearts start to float around. And they come up and out, not out of her pocket or any kind of ball-like subject that would contain a thing. You see her arise, the goddess, hair down.

She's draped in pinks. Just lots of love and hearts. And as she goes to open her eyes, you just see the seriousness of her. You see that though she's love, you do not mess with her. And I am going to use her power of the Ku-Ha. Oh! How far away are these gentlemen? Just within range.

60 feet. I said 50 to 60. So as she comes out, at the same time as you start to see the hearts rise, you slowly hear And with that, the subtle enchantment that she throws at them, if they can hear me, they must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage and have disadvantage on the next attack roll.

Okay, here we go. We'll see if this one soldier in the lead, right in the front row, makes it. That is a natural one for my first roll of the night. So that is a fail. That's a good trend. We'll keep up. Okay. Keep rolling. Pat.

All right, so that is, so it is fail. It takes 1d4 psychic damage. So why don't you roll that for us? Oh, it's a three. All right. So, um... Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. See if I can reach it.

Do-do-do-do-do-do. The musical note strikes this soldier, and you see the hat sort of spin around three times as he shudders backwards, and his gun drags along the ground, and you just hear him going, What are you doing to me? And he just raises the rifle

and begins to shake it in your direction. But that's where we leave that soldier in time. Do you want to do anything with the rest of your turn? Kind of go, that was so cool. Okay. All right. With nothing left to add, we move on to who?

You're going to move on to who? You're going to move on to Kensei. You are looking at what every weeb fantasizes themselves to be. Jax is now transformed into his codename Kensei. He's got big flowing Hakama

pants on, wooden two-strut sandals. His shirt is open and his varsity jacket is over his shoulders like a cape. His ribs are bandaged. He has an eye patch. His hair is pointed backwards, and he's got a little piece of wheat and straw

sticking out of his mouth that he's just chewing on. He's cosplaying as every Bleach character. Correct! Beat me too. And... He is, this, his demeanor has changed from this sort of shy guy, almost, that belies his sight, and now he's this massive, imposing figure.

And we're, you said we're like 50, 60 feet away? Yes, 50, 60. He's going to use all of his movement, 30 feet, to sprint straight in the middle of the group, and then as he sprints and stops, is Penny's target still electrified? Not electrified? Not electrified, just really weirded out

by the power of love, which it is seemingly unfamiliar with. Oh, okay. Well, while they're enjoying the throes of love, I'm going to throw a shuriken between their eyes. Okay. Or try to. Okay, okay.

Yeah, I'll do my very best. Let's see. 14 plus five, 19. For sure, and you're hitting this very same one? I'm aiming at that same guy, so I'm going to like, he sprints up full stop into a pause, his feet on the ground, and he drops down and goes as hard as his 6'6 frame can throw. So this giant of a teen goes sprinting forward. You use all of your movement and get within 15 or 20 feet of this group of armed soldiers drawn on you. And a shuriken flies out and strikes.

You got a total of what now? What'd you say? Oh, it's not a ton. It just sounded cool. I think it was high enough. Wait, what did you say? What'd I hit? 19. What did you say? Oh, it's not a ton. It just sounded cool. I think it was high enough. Wait, what did you say? What did I hit? 19. What did you roll your attack roll? More than well enough to hit. The shuriken sinks dead center into the middle of the hat

between the golden eyes, which go. Why don't you roll for damage? Sure, it's not a lot. Three. Oh my gosh. All right, so star sticking out of this hat between these golden eyes. I actually think you can throw two of these at once

if you wanted to. Oh, you're right. I can throw two at a time. Do I have to roll another attack road? You do. You for sure do. But it is staggering back, and this fellow does not look well.

By the power of sub only. No, it's a one! It's a ten! How appropriate! Dubs over subs, baby! That's what I get for putting my teeth in the wrong side! So you come... It's a five.

Yeah, yeah, you come... Oh no, it's a one, my friend. Oh no, it's a one, my friend. Oh, no. It's a one. You're right. You come running up and think of every show you've ever seen. They're all your favorite. And you throw one star and it sinks.

And you feel so awesome. You feel like a superhero as you reach for a second to go and go, and notice that it has not flown from your hand, but instead stabbed into the palm. And there is blood trickling down your wrist. You take one point of piercing damage. Of course, of course. But that one strange, lamp-eyed soldier

is like eyes to the sky, waving his gun around, crying out in a warbling pain. That brings us to Nexus. All righty. So Nexus, seeing this play, pushes his one lens up a little bit closer to his eye and gives a heavy sigh. Don't let a large boy do a man's job.

We all know that saying. It's fine, it's classic. We all grew up with it. He reaches into his coat and pulls out this pistol. You see it leaves this streak of almost like this shadow smoke behind it that seems to almost rubber band like his shadow does behind him.

As he aims it at the same fellow that's staggering backward, it's going to go ahead and wink the one eye a little bit close to focus and then fire. The bullet has a tracer behind it, but the tracer itself is jet black. Four pistol shot. Oh, with a fantastic four. Four?

Sorry, six, even better. Six. We're so cool. We're so cool. Open this right! Hell yeah! You brought a gun? To a knife fight? Never bring a gun to a shriek fight. Did you have that at the cafe?

No, it's part of the whole, just help! Okay. Patty, the TTRPG aspect is the brand new thing to you, but you have summoned personas and fought alongside these people many a time, so this is something you're very accustomed to, guns apparating out of nothing.

That's normal. Okay, so you shot from the very place you were standing, correct? Correct, and I'm going to stay towards the back. I'm not a front- the line type engagement individual. Help! Oh, ew, help! And guns lower and begin to fire, guys. Here it comes. Oh boy.

I'm going to say that the first one is too messed up and terrified by what's going on. Well, actually, no. He's going to try to attack. I am going to try to kill you all. Bring it! First round! Shortest one-shot ever. Yep. Okay, so at disadvantage, that fellow fails, but the other soldiers who have not been touched, just like a line in a Revolutionary War movie. Right down the line at you guys. Here we go. First one, let's do it to Kensei

because he's right in the front. Hits. Damn. More than enough. You take... Where's all my dice? Where are your dice, Matt? They're mine now.

There you go. Oh. Okay. Oh, that's a one. So you take two points of big piercing damage from that gunshot. The next one also goes to Kensei. Oh.

Let me see. What did you do to him? Where'd you go? Well, he ran forward and threw a shoot at you. Oh no, I was talking. Yeah. You take five points of damage on that one, buddy. Then another shot at you.

It strikes the red carpet at your feet and splits open, missing you. One, two, three. A shot whizzes past your head, Hudson, missing you. Same for you, strike. You duck down as you feel your hair almost whip as a single shot fires through. And then the last one.

Your hair. You're a C. Where'd you go? Oh, it's 12. You take a shot. You feel a shot sink into your leg. Despite you being in the back, you take five points of damage.

You guys just got shot up. And that brings us to... Is everyone okay? Is everyone all right? This is what 24 hit points looks like. Where you at, babe? Not as good! Not as good in the leg.

Oh no! Did anyone else get shot? Not me. No. No. Great, just us! Cool! I like it here, I think it's cute.

Strike. Introduce your new, give us the vibe. Yeah, a strike, instead of my hair being in my face, it's all slicked back and no glasses here. I can see just fine. I've got a cool leather jacket and these gloves and a big studded belt. Yes.

Knee-high leather boots, really cool mask on. Yeah, I'm feeling really good. Ready to rock and roll. No bullet holes in you. Not yet. I'm gonna stay where I, how far are they? They are about 50 to 60 feet away from you guys. Okay, I'm going to move a little closer.

Okay. But not too close. I saw what happened to them. I'm going to summon my persona, Galileo. He's going to come in, there's going to be like a huge thundercloud, and he's going to come down up here in a lightning bolt. What does Galileo look like? For the folks watching at home.

Galileo is kind of big and imposing and has these really piercing eyes. Kind of almost like, Zeus-like, really huge and powerful. Large parts of floating armor, as I remember, right? Yeah, really shiny, really cool to look at. And speaking of shiny, I'm going to have him cast Pulipi, Pulipa,

to attempt to blind the enemies there. Okay. Slick. Okay, this will deafen one foe. All right. Let's get whoever's closest to Kensei. Help him out there. Okay, so there is one who is sort of staggering back and waving his rifle at the sky,

but there is one still trained on Kensei and looking at his bleeding hand. Yeah, let's get that guy. Okay. Do I need to roll? Yeah, you're gonna roll. No, no. Your persona just unleashes this blinding flash

of lightning and a deafening boom of thunder fills the city streets and this gentleman has to make a constitution save. He fails with a seven. So, the target is either blinded or deafened, your choice. Let's blind them. The large amber lights just blink out of existence

and you just see a hat going. How'd that go again? There it is, Jack. Yeah, that was good. Thank you, thank you. That was good. I guess amber wasn't the color of his energy. Ah! Then I also want to use my bonus action to-

I've got puns way worse than that. Chamber and atherity. Yeah. Use my bonus action to also create this huge gust of air around me and it's gonna push me back a little bit further away from getting struck. Got it. It's possible.

So you rush forward, summoned Galileo, who released this huge burst of light, and just like a storm erupted in the middle of the road, and the wind just scoops you up gently and blows you back 10 or 15 feet away to safety, or relative safety. Relative safety. Excellent, all right, now we are on to Hudson. Yes.

Looking fresh. Looking really good. You're, Patty's gone, you're not looking at Patty, you're seeing Hudson. Hudson, unlike Patty, who's wearing like baggy white clothes, seems kinda like nervous, Hudson is form-fitting, jet black, head to toe. Looks like... sex.

Looks really, really good. That's Hudson. Cool. Oh, also has a cat mask on. Hell yeah. Hell yes. Yeah, that too. That is redundant. Yeah. Hat on a hat, I love it.

On a cat, I love it. On a hat, you mean. Ah! Ah! What's happening? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm also gonna summon my persona. Okay. Yes. Huge godlike figure for you, or?

You would think, wouldn't you? Most people would think that, but they'd be so wrong. They'd be so wrong because you hear the tiniest little footsteps, like almost like a little tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, and then like a bedroom door creaking in the night slips a tiny little cat with one eye. If you thought she had two, you're wrong, one eye. Blink two you're wrong one eye blink blink just one blink and this is little miss my persona and she has a lot of powers that we're gonna learn about. But for now, she is going to summon a meha,

which will hurl a bubble of shadow at two creatures within range. Okay, all right. So, right, so they just have to react. So Little Miss leaps into the air and begins to spin almost like a spinning shadow in the air, like five or six feet off the ground. And suddenly two globules of darkness

just whip off her tail and strike out at two of these soldiers who see it coming and go. And we'll see how they do. That's a three. That's a six. So they are both struck. Yes.

And they each take 1d6 necrotic damage. You wanna roll that damage for me? A d6. You got it. Here we go, 1d6. Yep. Four. Nice.

The shadow eats away at this figure and the pristine white soldier's uniform starts to darken and corrupt. Number two. Roll again. Yeah. Four! Four, even better.

Even more of this gleaming white soldier's uniform is eaten by darkness. Okay. No shuriken, but it's fine. Which gets us back to the top of the round. Goddess, you are up. I'm really, really sorry, but I have to say this. Your persona in Little Miss, and Little Miss was successful.

So like, Little Miss, Little Miss, Little Miss can't be wrong, and I'm so sorry. Wow! Wow! And Little Miss was successful. So like, Little Miss, Little Miss, Little Miss can't be wrong, and I'm so excited. Wow! Wow! All right, I'm good now. So, Goddess is now standing, and ooh, you know what? I think she's in the mood for a little violence.

So I'm gonna go and grab my composite bow, which is also pink and has a pink little cord through it. And my arrows are pink with little hearts. So, but it's like a heart with the like, little pointy butt part. It's like, out, like that's your arrow part. So it's still a heart, but it's a, like, wrong way one. So it's a weapon of war and love.

Yeah. It's beautiful. What is it good for? War. Anyway. So I am going to... Ooh, I can head up to 80 feet. Ooh.

Okay, hold on a second. Are there two of these Napoleon hat-wearing peeps Ooh, okay, hold on a second. Are there two of these Napoleon hat-wearing peeps in a row? They're for sure, they're knotted together, but they're in a loose pair of rows, one in front of the other. So there are plenty where they're right by each other, and there's also two instances

where you can see one behind the other firing over their ally's shoulder. Fun. What's up? I'm gonna go stand directly in front of those two and fire my bow with hopes that it goes right between the two of them. And puts them together like a little kind of like kabob. Oh, you want to spear two at once? Yeah.

Well, let's see how high you roll, goddess. Oh, she good. So that's a 17 plus four, dirty 20. For dirty 20, okay. So that will for sure strike the first one. Why don't you roll for damage on that soldier. Oh come on, that would've been so cool. Oh, just stay with me.

So that's seven plus two, so nine points of piercing damage. Okay. Now, because that finishes off the one in front, why don't you roll a 20, and if you roll higher than a 10, I will allow that arrow to travel through. Don't mess this up for me. Well, I can add my modifier, right?

No, not on this roll. So what happens is- It's a nine! That is a nine to one! And it comes that close to the eyes of the soldier standing behind who goes, at a heart-shaped arrowhead just hovering between its eyes.

But alas, you only murdered one soldier who keels over with an arrow through the hat and the eyes go as it falls to the ground. That one is no more. Call it back to me? The arrow? Yeah. Is that what you do? Yeah.

That's what you do. How do you call it back? By doing it in reverse. So usually, to shoot the bow, I would pull back, but with this, I'm gonna pull it and push in, and then it pops back. The arrow vanishes in place, and suddenly, like light,

crystallizes into an arrow right in your hand with the bow. Do you want to move anywhere or do you want to hold your ground? I would actually like to use a bonus action. Okay, okay. And I would like to grant some inspiration to the friend that comes behind me. Who's next?

Who comes right after you? That would be bleeding hand Kensei. From whatever holes I have in me as well. Hey Kensei. Yeah? Hey God. And I grant you inspiration. Oh sweet.

And you have a D6 to add. A D6? When you need it. Nice. All right. Cool. Over to you. Bleeding. A warrior's blood cannot quench my thirst for vengeance!

Pull the shuriken out of my hand, run up shoulder to shoulder with my inspiration bearer, close the gap to get face to face, and pull up my katana and try to do a katana strike. You're running up to... I'm going to get as near as I can to Penny. To Penny or to a soldier?

Well, whatever soldier's nearest Penny. Well, she just fired off an arrow from a distance. Oh, I thought she closed the gap. I thought you were close. I wanted to close them like a gap, but it didn't work out. My theater of the mind was off on my mark. Your mind palace was different than her mind palace. I thought you were close. I wanted to close them like a gap, but it didn't work out. The mind was off on my mark. Your mind palace was different than her mind palace. Correct.

That's right. Then I'll just close the gap straight into the middle of the horde. Okay. You've got one soldier that looks totally messed up and is stumbling about, and two, well, one that is really badly hurt, one that has got no eyes and is just doing this. Who looks the strongest? The strongest?

In this front row, there is one soldier who looks a little injured, but still got a gun trained at you and sees you coming up and keeps it ready to fire. Cool. Hopefully I can move fast enough. Okay. Maybe I'm moving so fast they won't be able

to see my moves. If I know anime, I think you can. Sweet. As quick as I can, I'm gonna close that gap up to Homeboy. I'm running all the time. And he's not drawing his sword, he's dropped down, and he looks into the single eye of his enemy,

and he goes, will you be my rival? And before I actually attempt my strike, I'm going to use my bonus action, which gives me advantage on weapons attacks. And I also get an extra five temporary hit points because I ain't looking great. All right, and I'll try to hit him. Might need it.

That was a 14. And that was a 14. And that was a 16. Okay, you run right up low, like you said, and your blade comes out fast on an upward angle and then right back down into place. And the hat just separates and flower petals go trailing away as the soldier falls down to the ground. That one is no more.

Ooh, tasty. I'll take it. Okay. That gets us down the order to Nexus. All righty. Kind of begrudgingly swallowing his pride at the not-quite-so-fantastic display, he's going to go ahead and reload the pistol underneath. No, you know what?

There's the one that's blind. Mm-hmm. And one that looks even worse than that. Even worse than that. The one that's even worse than that, he's going to go ahead and, as he goes to reload, put the pistol back in the coat. Instead, he's going to summon his persona, Umbra. Like any edgelord gamer kid who goes to run his own games, he puts forth his hand and goes, I call you forth,

Umbra! As he puts his hand up to the sky, you watch that stretching shadow suddenly spill out around him. From behind, you watch this large black shape loom up and form into this lightless figure with a tattered fedora and a long trench coat, these arms that seem to stretch long beyond the shoulders and bell out like Shienko in Darkstalkers, with these black clawed hands underneath. As he puts his harm outward, you watch as it sinks down and travels across the ground, this long stretch of black shadow that ends up erupting beneath the one who's been staggering from your song previously.

If only you knew anything about anime and video games. It's like, I play these things occasionally. You watch as Umbra begins to rise up and wisps a torrent of smoke blades around the figure. He does make a wisdom saving throw. Oh, which, sorry, which of your? Sorry, this is an aiha.

Aiha, okay. All right, so wisdom save. That is dog shit. That is an eight. That's an eight, and he has taken damage previously. Yes. So that's going to be a d12 on that. That's eight points of necrotic damage to him.

Boy, one would have been enough to do it. The shadow's just- Unnecessary overcorrection. But he's so cool! This soldier, whoever he is, is having the worst day. Just the worst day. There's a shuriken and love one guy, is it? Oh, no. This is shuriken.

This is the one that you struck with a shuriken, which is still sticking out of his hand, and he's trying to knock it out with his rifle, and suddenly shadows just start reaching up around him, and he actually gets pulled down into the ground, down into a pool of darkness and just vanishes completely from the scene. Nexus immediately turns his back on the figure

and pushes his one monocle up and grins. Side runes, side runes. Exactly. Worth it? That's his turn. Worth it. Okay, so the blinded soldier thinks he hears the screaming of Kensei, so he tries to take aim.

Nope, that's not going to do it. That's a 10 for his disadvantage. So you feel a bullet just go right past your ear. And then more shots start to get fired. First one at Patty, which definitely, not at Patty, excuse me, at Hudson. There's so many names in this one shot. You take two points of piercing damage

as you feel a shot split your shoulder, just glancing there. One goes towards. You took my shoulder? Yeah. Whoa. Mm-hmm. I have a bad shoulder. I'm spooked.

Had a bad shoulder or now have a bad shoulder? Have. Have a bad shoulder. Now it's worse. Any remedies, put them in the comments. Okay, okay. Goddess, you hear a shot go, just maybe a foot to your left, missing you. Strike, you also get missed.

They are rolling very poorly. One, two, three, that's all of them. So that gets us back around to strike. Yeah. How many are left? Is it just the one that's left? There are four left. One of them in the,

so there was a front row and a back row and the front row is just a blinded soldier now with no eyes on their bicorn hat. And then there is three still standing in the back. All right. And I'm gonna summon my persona again and then I'm going to cast Ziogna. Okay, Galileo apparates again here in the street.

That's gonna be 14. For sure hits. Oh, that's a lot of damage. So, right. Galileo pulls back one arm and just this chaotic, undulating mass of energy forms in its hand, and then it just juts its arm out and a blast of energy fires across the street and strikes, you were aiming for the back row, correct?

Strikes one spotless, untouched soldier full on. Roll all of that damage for me. I'm doing it. Six. Let me know if you roll two eights. I did not. Did not. I wish I did. So that's six. I wish I was better at math. 15 total.

15 total. It strikes this being, and the hat is the first thing to go. It starts to burn and singe and disintegrate from this thing's head and there's nothing there. The last thing you see are the amber eyes hovering in space which flit out and then a headless soldier just goes and falls down into the street and crumples away to nothing.

That one is destroyed. Do you want to stay put? I should also remind, if anyone wants to hide from bullets, there are a bunch of, there's probably three or four wooden crates that are four or five feet high. That was in my opening narration of this area.

Just think of it as character building. I would have never. Tactics. Tell that to my shoulder. Oh yeah! It's a hard lesson to learn. For you, and mostly for me. I'm going to remember that. So funny. That this crate is over here,

and I'm just gonna tiptoe back there. Oh yeah, guys, the crates. As you do that, all the rest of us go, Oh! Pfft, pfft, pfft. Okay, so you hide behind one of four of these boxes, and that gets us back around to Hudson. Okay.

How many are left of these creatures? There are now three total, one of which, which is the closest to you, seems to be still looking wildly about. Okay, great. Or trying to look. Okay, I'm going to summon Hudson. She's going to tiptoe back.

Little miss. Oh, little miss. Sorry. Yes. She's going to tiptoe back into the room, and she's going to use, just like that. Yeah. And she's going gonna use Iga.

Okay. She creates three balls of shadow and hurls them at our three targets. Got it. So what happens is Little Miss daintily piddles out closer to the enemies, right between two wooden two obvious wooden painted boxes and her tail starts to spin like,

gosh, what are those fireworks where it just goes, they have a name. I know what you mean. I can't think of it. Spinnies. Spinnies. Fire spinnies. Shadow spinnies and it gets faster and faster

till it's almost like a helicopter blade and then three black shadow globules go. You have to roll for each of these. Yes. One at a time and they can hit all one target or each one can hit a different one. So yeah, you're gonna roll your D20 there and add. Oh, D20.

Mm-hmm. And this is to find out if I hit them. Yeah, one at a time. One at a time. Right. What's the number I'm. Yeah, one at a time. One at a time. Right. What's the number I'm looking for? It's a secret.

It's a secret, okay, secret number. But you get to roll that and add plus two for this ability. Plus two to this part. Okay, all right. 13. 13 hits. Yes!

So you can roll damage for that one. Let's go one soldier at a time. Are you hitting the one that has been blinded in the front or one of the better off? Well, actually, there's an injured and a better off one in the rear. Let's hit the better off one. Okay. So one is still primed and ready to fight.

You can roll one at a time or you can roll them both together. Roll both? For a quicker result. Oh, it's 2D6, got it, got it. Guys, we have new players. We have friends come over and we teach them the games we play and that's the whole point.

Roll that 2D6. Okay, here we go. Oh! That was you. Okay, here we go. Oh! That's you. Okay. I don't have to know this game to know this is bad. I got snake eyes. Snake eyes. I got one and one. Okay, so one globule of shadow just goes on one of this particular soldier's amber eyes, and suddenly

there's just, as it runs down, that eye disappears, and one amber eye goes, bonk, bonk, roll for the next. You can try to finish off that one with the next globule of shadow. Okay, so this is a D20. D20 plus two, yeah. Okay, let's see what we can do.

Okay. Six, eight. Eight for total? Eight for total. That one splatters on one of these white townhouses 10 feet behind, and shadow spreads out out and then slowly shrinks in and the wall is spotless and clean again. Last one.

All right. Nine. Nine. Same deal. You actually, it goes wide and hits one of these wooden crates and there's a big of shadow and which slowly, slowly vanishes. And that is Little Misses around. She's ruined an Airbnb.

And with that, she raises one leg and pees on the side of another wooden crate, and then disappears in a swirl of shadow. Do you wanna move anywhere? Do you maybe wanna hide in a box? Yeah, I'm going to hide from the bullet. Okay. So, Little Miss just peed on a wooden crate

and vanished in shadow. And Hudson goes and dives behind that. That gets us back to the top, back to Goddess. I want to try this game. All right, I would like to summon my persona. And as she appears and she steps out, you start to see the little hearts coming off of her feet with each of her steps. And the hearts start to go up her body,

like she starts to get surrounded in this really beautiful swirl. These little pink hearts of various sizes. They look kind of like those everlasting gobstopper hearts that used to come in the different colors and they had purple, pink, and white ones, but it's all of those in different, different shapes. Just the sound of chimes as they swirl around her. Yes.

And then you start to see the color, the pink, drip off of it, and it starts to turn just a little bit. The hearts become little arrows, and she turns them up, and she creates a cube of five feet around the gentleman. Are we doing giant slice? Giant slice.

Okay, so you're summoning this around. So Hudson just injured one of the soldiers. There's another injured one right next to it. They're in the back row. And then there is still this blinded soldier in the front. Which one are you targeting? I would like to, well, actually, because if any of them have to move forward in their things,

then they're going to have to step through it, because it's going to stay there. It's like a little cube. Oh, cute. So, I'm going to take that. You can summon it and surround one of them where they stand, or you can place it anywhere you wish. Which of them would be the person to say, I'm not hurt,

just badly injured? Which one's hurt, not injured? Not dead, but just like badly injured. You got one of these weird fellas who is looking okay, just is aiming in the wrong direction. He's like turned completely sideways at this point. Oh great. You've got one in the back row who looks fine,

and another one in the back who's going like. All right, so my persona is going to step towards the unmarked man and smile, and it's gonna surround him with the hearts. She just waves her hand, and all these little deadly steel hearts begin to and that hat just starts spinning and looking all around it as they start to cut and slice

all around on every side, like he's in a blender. Could you roll your damage for us, please. Nope. Oh, actually. No. I'm getting my stuff confused. It starts to slide around it, and when he goes, that's when bad things happen. Gotcha.

Right, and each time it's gonna take damage. Yes, so you set them spinning, and he's seeing them get closer and tighter around him and just sort of cowering and pulling his gun into himself. So we'll put a pin in that. Do you want to move anywhere you yourself, goddess? Me, myself, I'm going to step just off to the side and kind of like marvel at the fact that this is happening

and kind of look at the spinning of it. Okay, got it. Because it's really pretty. Enjoying your work. That gets us to Kensei. Who'd you cast your mojo on? The gentleman who was in the back that was getting out of stuff. All right. I'll transition over and rush over to the blinded guy. Someone please put this guy up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's right in front,

and I'm just standing right in front of him, and I'm going to say, Uh, uh, uh, there's no honor in this. We'll leave in the score. And then another eyepatch, for some reason, he pulls it over the other side and blinds himself, so now he's got two eyepatches on him. Are you really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now he's got two eye patches on. Are you really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But in case that puts me at disadvantage. It does. I'm gonna use my bonus action to give myself advantage. And make it a straight roll? And make it a straight roll. I love it. I'm gonna tempt the gods. I love it.

And he just goes, What are we playing? The most important game of all. Natural one! My merciful. Incredible. And that was your katana. Don't you cut my hair, dog.

Ah! I'm just kidding. Yes, my katana! You lunge forward in such a graceful motion. It goes three feet wide to the left, and you're pretty sure you got him. And then as you spin it to put it back down, the blade just goes along your own cheek

as you slide it back into its place and you take one point of slashing damage. Oh, oh, oh. A little detail. And you hear, through your two eye patches, . Do you want to move anywhere? Blindly?

No. I want to stay exactly where I am. Oh my goodness. I'd like to stay right where I am, please. Oh my gosh. That gets us to Nexus. Okay. The sigh that resounds from within his chest

at this next display, it reverberates in the surrounding area. You got him! You got him, Kensei! I knew it! He's going to pull out his gun that he loaded the last round and aim for the blind fellow.

Not you! Over my shoulder now? Yeah, over your shoulder. Oh my god. Using both eyes? Using both eyes. I'm just going to aim for the one that he was going for. Okay.

That will put me at a 22. There you go. I think that'll hit. For... Ooh! That will put me at a 22. There you go. I think that'll hit. For 10 points of piercing damage. Okay, you strike the side of the hat, and it just spins, and you see the things, and you hear a little, and the hat, I guess head,

continues to spin around, and it finally comes around, and the hat, I guess head, continues to spin around, and it finally comes around, and the eyes go, and crashes down to the ground and begins to evaporate on the city street. How could we put the gun away? Great, great blade work, Kensei. And now we'll move behind the crate. All right.

Okay, one of our remaining crates, although Kensei is still there just with two eye patches going. Why does my face hurt? Guys, these mosquitoes are real bad. Okay, so that leaves us with two, well, one of the soldiers immediately has like pulled his gun in and those hearts are getting closer and closer

and he begins to take real bad damage. I need one of the pointy ones. Oh, you should roll the damage. Why don't you roll the damage? You're the one doing the hurting. That's true. Come on, goddess. Oh wait, this one I have the...

What's the damage on this one? This is 4d4. 4d4. Not 44, but 4d4. Seven. Seven? It's like a Cuisinart. There was a soldier there one moment

and all these heart-shaped, they almost look like shuriken, but they're only pointed on one side. They begin to rotate faster and faster and faster. And he, just like putting a pencil into a sharpener, just the hat gets cut up like little tiny bits of confetti and he just evaporates away like his compatriots. There is one injured soldier left

who sees that happen and goes, fires at you. Rude. Rude indeed. Can I duck behind a crate? Not this time. And you take... You just got to stand out in the open.

I rolled a one. Yeah, you stood to marvel at your work and take- It was really cute. It was very cute. It was, and then you feel a shot through your calf. Just the back of your leg, right above your killer shoes. You take two points.

Blood on my shoes? Not yet, maybe you can stop it in time. And with that- You got a red bottom, though. Yeah. We'll play. We come back to strike with a single quivering soldier in the middle of the street

who is questioning his life choices. Let's go. I'm gonna pull out my Glock and aim around the right place. Magic? Persona? You're going to what now? No. Yeah.

It's in the game. It's in the game. That might be the cutest anyone ever said, I'm going to pull out my Glock. I rolled a five, yay. A total five? Huh? It is a, yes, total five. That's a 12-sided die, which means you get to do it again. Oh, did I put, oh, this is the wrong one.

That's all good. Wait, for this one? Yes, here we go. I didn't know that one. This is the one, I can feel it. Nine. You miss! I didn't do that,

and I'm just gonna go back behind the crate. You step out from the crate, train at that soldier, and a wooden crate just goes behind him, 10 feet behind him as you obliterate a wooden box and then hide behind a wooden box. That gets us to Hudson. Yes.

I'll do the same. I'll get, I'm gonna pull out my revolver and. How many guns do we have? All a us. We're the party crashes, bro. And I'm going to point it at the one soldier left. Well, fire away. Okay.

Take a d20 and roll it. D20 and you add five. And then I add five. Yeah. Okay. Oh, God. Oh, it's actually under my butt. You can try to get it. I'll just do it. Yeah, Okay. Oh god. Oh, it's actually under my butt. You can try to get it.

I'll just do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to see a butt roll. No! No! What is it? It's actually under my butt. So I'm gonna have to roll it again.

What did you roll under your butt? Yeah, yeah. It's a two plus five, it's a seven. It's a two up to seven, yeah. It's a two plus five, it's a seven. It's a two up to seven? Okay. You also pull out and aim at this thing and fire, and it just shoots the wreckage of a wooden box ten feet behind that soldier.

There was, like, one plank sticking up, and it just goes poof, and now there is nothing sticking up. Do you wanna hide behind that wooden crate you have there? Yes. Okay. Party Crashers, we're gonna get back, we're going to the ring. We're not getting the security deposit back.

It's weird, I've never actually used this. We have destroyed this place. Yeah, yeah. Back to the top of the round, Goddess, your spinning hearts of doom are still spinning in place where once there was a soldier. Can I move them?

You can. Oh, sick. Oh, wait, you can't. Oh, no, they just, they stay there. Okay. Yeah, those are frozen in one spot. Am I right about that? I'll find it, I'll find it.

Oh, I have an idea. Yes. Sorry. They stay where they are. Sorry, I know you're not supposed to say that. You're just supposed to say the idea. But my persona is going to come out, and she is radiant, light glowing from her. The pink surrounds her. You just see this slow, beautiful walk

as she makes her way towards this lone soldier. And she's smiling, serious look on her face. She's making complete eye contact with him. Get on your knees. Make an intimidation check on behalf of your persona. For my dazzler? Huh? For my dazzler? Yeah. Aw, bitch. Sorry.

Oh no, so this, I'm sorry, sorry. You just want to use the dazzler ability, right? Gosh, it feels intimidating, but you're right, it is a wisdom saving throw. That is a big fail, that is an 11, which does not beat. So it falls to its knees before you and just drops its gun on the ground and the eyes just blink in silence.

Can I do a close range attack? The drum's seed, yes, becoming and stand up. Yeah, you wanna make a close range attack from here? I think that's your action. Yeah, the only thing I can do for a bonus action would be to give the thing. Oh, well then I'll just admire my work. Okay, so your persona hovered through the air,

this Grecian statue of beauty, and raised up a hand, and hearts just went out in a ring around it, and it was told to sit, and it falls to its knees. The gun clatters to the ground and it just looks up and your persona vanishes in petals and hearts. But the soldier remains on the ground, entranced by the being that just ruled it.

Do you want to move anywhere or do you just want to stay to watch the show? No, this time I would like to move behind a crate. There actually are no crates left. You can huddle behind with Strike or with Nexus. Can Aphrodite build a crate? A crate of hearts? Check the paper.

Which brings us around to Kensei. So there's only one person left? Well, you can't see that. Okay, okay, I can control my own eye flap. Okay, so I'll put my eye flap up and I see the soldier prostrate in front of me on there. Staring at nothing. So you have chosen Sepico, an honorable choice.

I will be your second. And I'm going to walk around behind them, draw my sword and hold it up high, and say, are you ready, brother? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then, yeah, finish it for him. Okay, he's a- I'm going to try to do my katana strike.

Yeah. Downward and decapitate them. Okay. Right, and he just sits there, doesn't move, and he's on his knees, so I'm going to say it's prone. Why don't you roll at advantage? All right. Oh my.

These are cursed. No. That was another natural one. You can change them out. 22. Here we go. Okay, I think you strike. So roll a little damage.

Sweet. All right, and can I... I'm gonna need some bardic inspiration health, actually. Can I use that? You can't use it on damage. It's over. You can't do it on damage, that's right. Yeah, everything else. It's only for checks and stuff.

Ability checks to hit saves. Got it, let's see how this goes. Seven. You slash on a diagonal through the hat, and it just goes. And the city street is quiet. All the soldiers are gone, and now it's just you guys in this strange place

that you've never been before. I'm going to flip my sword around and wipe it off, except I'm actually wiping blood on it. I go, dang it, and then put it back in the machine. The door was open. That could have gone better. I mean, I think a lot of us were just trying to get our footings when we began, so just kind of, but that was so cool. As you guys are taking stock, a door, riddled with bullet holes, swings open, and you see that woman poke her head out again, the lavender bob of hair. Hey. I suppose I should thank you, but I don't suppose you'd mind if I ask who you guys are?

We are the Party Crashers. I'm Hudson. This is Hudson. Also part of the, who are you? Name's Arena. You guys are definitely not from around here. And where exactly is here? This is my city. It's my home.

Always has been. But maybe not for much longer. You really took care of that pack of legionnaires there. Did we just murder your local law enforcement? No. They don't follow any law. They're lackeys. This city, this town,

we're under the boot of oppression right now. There's a woman who's out of control. Her name is Lady Marie. The city was a happy place not too long ago, and now these legionnaires, her legionnaires, they're everywhere, and I don't know where it's going to end. I've been doing my best to head up a resistance,

but things are only getting worse. Marie's forces are everywhere, and one of her goons is just blocked off a nearby city center I think the folks over there are trapped in their homes listen I don't know you you don't really have any reason to trust me

but we could use your help people are hurting here and I'm looking for any out. I'll go ahead and tweak the signs of my green monocle to really take in her micromanerisms. Does she seem trustworthy to me? Yeah, make that insight check.

Oh yeah. That's a majestic seven. Seven? She does seem on guard. She looks like she wants to trust, but doesn't, maybe? I don't know, you've still got adrenaline rushing through you, and she seems like a cool customer. Where do you think she gets her bob done?

You can ask her. I mean, I can hear you, too. She's an NPC. What's an NPC? An NPC, she's like an NPC. You know, when you go and it's like, go on a quest. She's sending us on a quest, but I want to know where she got her bob done.

It's also a derogatory term used in social media for people that have protagonist syndrome, but anyway. I cut my own hair. Oh, great job. Thanks. Yours is really great, too. Oh, thanks. You know, lavender purr, big fan.

Why were you running from those legionnaires? Well, I can handle myself when it's just a few, but they can start to swarm and I'm on my own right now. It's not about the hair, I promise. Is this something, like, have they been here for a while? Have you been dealing with... This has been going on for a few weeks. And they just appeared one day?

Yeah, this Lady Marie rolled in on a white convertible and she brought these goons with her. Some people left town, others have been hiding in their homes. A lot of people have been imprisoned. And now there's blockades all over town and there's something going on. Back the way I came, I was trying to get a look,

but I didn't get in. I got to try again. Well, we happen to be a rather seasoned group of recon soldiers, if you will. You shouldn't go alone. Look, I have friends on the inside. I want to get to them. I actually do want to scout ahead.

But back that way that I came from, around that corner, there's a blockade there. I'm a little scared to take it on by myself. I'm going to try to go around town and come in from the back. You guys are strangers, but I'm throwing myself out there. Do you think you can help? We don't even know how we got here.

Not really. This Lady Mariette, when she arrived, was she wearing clothing that looked like your people? Did she seem out of place? She's a little larger than life. She almost wears, like, a white band outfit, if that makes sense. She's got a car just bathed in flowers. She rolled into town with an army behind her.

And your world has changed since her arrival. Well, it's quieter and people have lost hope. There is a resistance, but it's underground. Do you have a point of contact within the resistance? There is a resistance, but it's underground. Do you have a point of contact within the resistance? Well, I'm the resistance right now. There were more of us, but I watched a lot of my people get taken away. I'm on the run.

This prison they might've been taken to, is this in the direction, past the blockade you were mentioning? Well, I think that's way on the other side of town. I can't even get back there. I've been trying to make my way through. There's sort of a plaza about a quarter mile away and I can't get through it.

So we got to take down this blockade and try and move forward then? I think so. I've tried repeatedly to get by it and I can't. Wouldn't happen to have any access to, I don't know, large form explosives or any sort of materials that we can utilize to sabotage this blockade outside of a frontal assault, would you?

Oh man, that'd be great. All I have is this and she holds up her own block. Oh cool, rematch. Oh, wow. You any good with it? Practicing. Okay, cool. I'm gonna hold mine too, just. Okay. Cool. I'm going to hold mine, too, just in case. Okay, well, I heard the gunfire from inside, so I guess that's how you handle it. Nice work.

All right, so what's the plan, then? Do we want to go ahead to ambush this blockade, see if we can open a passageway for the Resistance to make its continued journey? What are we feeling? Who is this woman? Do you think it's possible she's from a horror world? Could be, if she brought her unique aesthetic here. To have this much of an impact on the realm on the other side, though, that speaks of a dire ability or someone of very strong dark intent. If you're cool with it, here's what I propose. I want to try to skirt all the way around

and come in from the back. I wonder if you guys can make a ruckus on your way in. Distract? Yeah. Nope. I don't know about that. I was for it until just that. No, she seems extremely trustworthy. Believe me.

I got a good look. Okay. Something about her that just... Straightened her soul with that seven, huh? It's like seven out of 20, I would say. Somewhere in that realm, yeah. You had to quantify it. Yeah.

I'm just... I mean, I'm down to go, because as a fellow Glock owner, I feel like you're very trustworthy. Well, I wouldn't put my stock in that, but I'm really coming to you with a hat in hand. I've tried everything I could to get through, and I'm stuck.

I feel like this is a sign. You being here now. I'm completely won over. You are? Yes, yes. Discussion of faith and bonding over guns. This is the American part of this. Hoo! Fine, then.

A blood oath! You're signing on to Operation Human Shield! Yes, I am a human. It's also a pretty good shield, let's be honest. That's true. Unsure, she holds out her hand and you guys clasp at the forearm. Those, that's a real one.

Uh-huh, for sure. This is just for me, you don't have to, if you don't want to. We're not going to. Yeah. I'm going to let you have that. Can we have a moment to try and manage ourselves, prepare ourselves for what possibly might await us at this blockade.

Yes. Good, good, good. Yeah. Okay. Let's go inside the house where you would hide, maybe, and we'll give you a time frame. Wait for the noise to start getting real loud and real chaotic, and that might be your sign. Okay.

I'm going to start moving around the outskirts now. It's going to take me a while. Take some time, not too much. Just enough to maybe not be bleeding. I am bleeding profusely. It is really worrying. Why do you have a second eyepatch folded up? Some mysteries of this life are not meant to be unlocked.

Right. I'm going to be unlocked. Right. I'm going to walk into the house. I go over and grab his arm and lead him actually into the right way. You're about to walk straight into a window and you feel Nexus's hand take your arm and force correct you and you walk into the house. Okay.

I'll see you on the other side. With that, she darts past and behind you and starts running along the city street, opposite from where she came. As soon as she passes out of eye and earshot. Well, this is extremely weird, right? We don't know her anything. I don't know her.

I am sorry I swore a blood oath so quickly. It was just instinct. Go make a loud distraction in front of the dangerous thing so she can sneak. We don't know her. We'll see what the barricade is. If it's not that much of a problem, maybe we can find some fun way to distract them. Maybe take out some more of these weird hat dudes,

help her out and not put ourselves in serious danger. Maybe we can run past, too, find this Lady Marië. Apparently, we're drawn here for some reason, and if our past journeys have told us anything, we can be successful. We walk out of this a little with a sense of pride. I feel like I don't need barricades and the Song of Angry Men to be fine.

I think we should just kinda go and get more, maybe like get more information, find out where the underground is. Do we really, are you, I don't know. So I'm bandaging my leg. Well before we go, I would like to summon Little Miss because she has a power called diorama. What?

And a creature she touches, I'm thinking Kensei, regains a number of hit points equal to 1d8 plus three. Okay. Ooh. All right. So it's a very generous move for Hudson. I am honored, Hudson. Okay.

I did not know. I didn't hear you say thank you. I certainly say thank you. There's a flash of shadow and you hear and a one-eyed cat Here she comes. is suddenly purring and sliding along your ankle and Make it quick.

Why do we always forget this? Do good, do good. Okay, here we go. You start to feel your throat close up. Yeah. Oh! What? It's eight! Hey!

Plus three, it's 11. You maxed me out. Thank you so much. I was not looking great. Look at that. Appreciate you. My shoulder still hurts, but I hope you feel good. Say again?

Thanks, we're worth it. Of course. You guys enter into this house, which the walls are white in here, too, but there are red loveseats and a red sofa and a small white wooden desk. Everything, all the furniture, there's a decor. There's a vibe here.

You close the door with the two holes in it and you find yourselves alone and all is still and quiet. You feel relatively safe. Can we check around? Can we investigate? Absolutely. Our persona abilities reset after a battle, is that correct?

Yes. But do our unique abilities? No. Oh. Yours don't. Oh, poopies. So we get our persona abilities back? Yes, yes. They surge back to full for every new battle.

Each square is how many of them we have? Yeah. You're having a look around, goddess? Okay. I'm going to look in the restroom. So 13 investigation. 13, okay. So people start to sit down and lick their wounds and catch their breath,

and you take a moment to sort of search the home. It takes you like five minutes. It's a three-story building, and you walk from room to room. It looks like the house at the end of your five minutes is totally abandoned and quiet, but you do find two meals at a table in a kitchen that are left uneaten, or half-eaten.

There's a book left open on a table by a fireplace that is cold and dead. You get the sense that this place was left in a hurry. Life just stopped here. Hmm. This table is still set. How was she here? She just came upon this place and was hiding here? Was this a partner of hers?

Is that why there's two plates here? Well, she just ran in here while fleeing from the troops. It might have been just a grabbing whatever seemed to be a safe space in the moment. She said that most people were taken by this Lady Marië and imprisoned, so it could very well be that everyone either tried to flee or was taken without being able to finish their dinner?

I don't know. Hmm. Do I know how old this food looks? With your investigation check, I mean, it is a little moldy, not horribly so. So it's not like there's still, like this was a today meal? It's definitely not fresh, but we're also not talking about,

like the rapture didn't happen 10 years ago and this is turned into dust. It's maybe, you would guess, like sitting out for a week or two? Oh, so like pizza, when you leave it out for like two days and it does that little weird curvature thing? Got it.

That's so specific of me, yeah. Yeah, that's true. So what do we do? Do we... We're not going to go help that lady, because I think that's just a really different. I'm not doing their dishes. That's like...

Oh. Well, no prestidigitation. Is there an entryway to the rooftop? There is. If you follow Goddess up, eventually there is a final little stairwell that goes to a rooftop garden with a little white iron fence around it,

pretty little spot. Goddess. Mm? Garden up here. Hmm. Hudson, Strike, Kensei. Got a rooftop garden. Maybe have a better vantage point

to see what we're dealing with. Everyone joins you on the roof, and you see just hundreds of homes stretching out far into the distance and the city from where you are almost goes on a light gradual decline away from here. It's slight and you can see this plaza that this arena was talking about.

You can just see through a couple breaks of city street, just the barest glimpses of it, and there is some sort of green mass rising up and just poking up above the rooftops in the distance. Make a new investigation or perception check for me. Anyone here real good at perception? Nope.

I mean, all plus one. 13. Am I reading that right? That's your passive wisdom. Bonus perception is plus three. It's pretty good. Plus three. You know what? If you want to go ahead and take a look, I'll go ahead and assist you so you can roll with advantage.

Okay, great. The two of you stand, the elite gamer and the newbie stand looking out over the strange city. A familiar relationship in storytelling indeed. So you can roll 2d20. You can roll that twice and choose the higher of the two. Choose the higher of the two? Okay. And then add your three.

Hudson, what do you feel and I see? Nexus. Let's see. 16. Okay, that's pretty good. Let's see if you do higher on the second. 16! Yeah!

That's my three. Wow, 16. Yes! My three is 19. So you can just barely see poking out above those rooftops. It's vegetation. It's green, more vines,

a little bit like you saw some flower boxes down below out in the street that were overgrown. And there was like one or two feet of vine spilling out onto the street that were overgrown. And there was like one or two feet of vine spilling out onto the ground. It looks like vines and there's little pinpricks of white dotting all throughout it. Is it a massive rosebush? Is it a tree?

It's impossible to tell from here. You think that might be the blockade that she was mentioning? Maybe. Is it more roses? Are the white flecks roses from far away? Could be. If it's that tall, though, that's pretty massive for a rose bush. I will fight a plant if necessary. Is it time to set this town on fire? I would say that with all your time here, moving through the house, nothing going on,

taking some time to breathe, looking at two-week-old bread rotting on a table, and now catching some fresh air on the rooftop, you can have your short rest. And use hit dice if anyone needs to heal up a bit. Can I survey the area a little bit? I'm looking specifically for anything. Oh, right.

Not too crate-like, but any other kind of obvious infrastructure. Like, do these houses have boilers? Is there a red barrel with a little explodey sign on them? Is there anything in the environment? You're saying within this house? No, like, if we've got a view of the city, I want to

look at the houses and see, like, are there basically, like, are there water heaters outside? You know, like, do you notice anything in the infrastructure that looks stuff? This is closer to, like, Main Street and Disneyland if everything were bathed white. Okay. It is industrial it is not new york city today it is beautifully manicured uh homes and uh with again i mentioned this earlier but there's like on the edifice of all these houses there's like carvings uh elaborate carvings that roses appear again and again in the design.

It is just like a beautiful, almost too perfect looking city. And there are real flowers in flower boxes. And there is actually a fountain. If when looking down on the street, you're in look further down in the direction that arena traveled. There's a fountain down there that is all white and just sprinkling water. You don't see anything that looks industrial. You definitely don't see any explodey barrels. Tankless. It's a bougie city. In our previous adventures to the Other Side,

as we took these journeys, the missions that we had before, were they typically linked to a person or an event? A person. Yeah. I believe. I got to ask you because my legacy of Persona is Persona 3. You three are Persona 5, so you might actually know a little bit better. I know more about Persona Tactica. Yeah.

So we need to share knowledge here. Mm-hmm. Right? They steal the hearts of corrupt individuals. I've heard of another group that did such a thing, and we're just trying to make our own version spin on it. Would you code Nick? Is that one better? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Would you code name the meta? Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um.

Okay. So we've heard rumors. Indeed. So if this place in its creation initially is formed around one person's particular true self, perhaps this corruption is based in another. This Lady Marië may be responsible for this strange, corrupt rose jungle incursion. If we can get to her, maybe we can steal her heart. Maybe then we can set these people free.

If I were to be intimidating, like my I were to be intimidating, and like my mission were to be intimidating, or to overtake a place, I mean, personally, I have a lot of respect for using the florals. I think it's really nice, it's not too like off-putting. Oh, points for theming, like I completely give that, yeah. But it's also like, it's just her signature.

And she just wants to make the place beautiful and maybe people are misunderstanding the motive? I think misunderstanding with firing lines and imprisonment does still cross a specific line. To play a little devil's advocate here, we kind of went straight to battle less talky-talky. They didn't shoot at us first without asking. They shot at her and then they fired on you.

Yeah, so they're the enemy of her. Put my trust in her more than I would in this Lady Marië, but we can go to Marië and talk to her and see how we feel about her perspective, because who knows? Maybe this Irina is the true villain. But we've only heard one side of this tale, right? Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But who's our enemy right now? We don't know. So let's go ask her. We're just going to, what? Go ask Lady Mari, right? I'd take that, rather than go and jump in front of a firing squad for someone we've just met 10 minutes ago. I kind of agree.

All right, Trucks. So roundabout plan here to go ahead and find this lady, Marië, and ask what she's got going on. Mm-hmm. Wasn't she on the other side of the barricade, or was that just the imprisoned rebels? It's possible. I think that's further in the city where the barricade is.

Where this growth was, was there any sort of change in topography or the city structure where there's massive structures, anything that looked important? Everything is really uniform here, and possibly so. Arena did say that this Lady Marië was on the other side of the city and that she can't get there. She hasn't been able to get through.

And from where you are on this rooftop, you see that the town sort of moves down a hill a little bit and then whatever that green growth is that you're only seeing like a little bit poke out above rooftops. Past that, you see buildings again start to then slope up and just further and further and further and further. It's a massive city.

And the direction that Arena was running was running from, was toward the growth, or is the barrier somewhere else? If I'm you guys and I'm looking out at this weird greenery poking up, Arena went off. To circle around. This direction. She claimed to be skirting around,

to hit that area from the side or the back. Oh, okay. But when she was originally running away. Originally? Yeah, yeah, and then she said? She was running towards this, she ran towards this building that you're in now. Okay. And this building has got one street running away from it, from the front door.

Not directly, but like a little bit up the street and away. Mind Palace. Mind Palace. And the street that it's on is running sort of on a curve, and that curve is where Irina ran off on. This is a person that cares about beauty. Like, there has to be a throne room of sorts someplace with a throne made of roses. In my mind, of course.

I'm not saying that's necessarily what's happening, but if you needed to set up base... There has to be an... She said there's a group underground. Could we go underground to get there? We can look for one. Is there like a, what are those things? A sewer system of sorts.

Do we see any sort of signs of subterranean? I don't think we need to go to the sewer. Well, she's put flowers everywhere. Maybe there's flowers in the sewer, especially if this is the route that's being taken to get through. Well, all I'll say- We do not agree very often,

but in this specific moment, I agree with you. There's probably a sewer. Let's not go. I will say from the roof, you can't tell if there's a sewer system, and you search this home top to bottom, and didn't find, you actually didn't find a basement in this place.

No bathroom? There was a toilet, yeah. So where does it go? Yeah, why don't you go find out? Who votes sewer? That's what I thought. How close are the rooftops up here? A little traversable?

The street that you're on right now, if you wanted to, you could hop onto the buildings on either side of this one. But you're certainly not going to get to the roofs across the street. But it does look pretty traversable up here. We can't take the old thieves highway. Like, can't run across the rooftops. Well, there is a large street-sized gap between city blocks,

but there is some amount of traversing the rooftops seems possible. What if we run across the street into one of the opposite buildings and climb up to its rooftop and see how far that can get us? Only if we can run with our arms behind our back. There's no way to do that.

Makes you faster. Of course. It can't take us all. Okay. All righty. Let's do that. Keep an eye out for any sort of sewer openings. I will.

That way, if anything gets too dangerous, we can abscond into the depths. Of the rosy sewer that nothing else could possibly be in that is off putting in any way. Entirely. Your faith in me. Definitely not the whole town's diarrhea. Rooftop's whole town's diarrhea.

Y'all wanna jump across a building and potentially fall to your doom and die in this world and possibly in the next. But oh, it's me that has the problem. Look, if we were very focused on self-preservation, we wouldn't need it. We're piss and shit. Yes. Then yeah, that'd be a great idea.

These are only two options, fall to our death and a child's worth of diarrhea. I think we can find some things in between. All right. But regardless, we got to start moving in a direction here. Because this is a one-shot. Stick around. Happy medium.

Happy medium. So Alis, maybe. There's our happy medium. All right, all right. We'll do some alleyways. If there's places to climb where we have rooftop access, we can go ahead and dart across, where in case there's any more of these weird rifle-holding, hat-wearing bastards, we can leap and hide if we need rooftop access. We can go ahead and dart across in case there's any more of these weird rifle-holding, hat-wearing bastards.

We can leap and hide if we need to be. If we get just a little too hairy, maybe there's a sewer system we could dive in. We'll head in the direction of this barricade and we'll see exactly what this Reno is talking about. If it seems like it's something that's not worth our time, I mean, I imagine we can buy a rooftop around it. This is why you're our GM.

Exactly. I'm two years older than most of you. I know what I'm talking about. Okay, so the first phases of this plan are to what, exactly? Head down to the street, we're saying, from here? We're going to take the rooftops as far as we can, then move through the alleys to get in the direction, without being in the direction,

without being in the wide open thoroughfare, to try and sneak our way, without being seen, in case there are any more of these roving, rifle-wielding troops ahead in the direction of the barricade. So what I will say is, you know that you're, so you're on a rooftop here. Let's say that this screen here is the rooftop you're on. And off past other roofs is this weird green mass.

You can't get over, this is just a jump to your death from here. You can go this way and you can go this way. So if you're just exploring and seeing what you can see. I'm just going this way a little bit to see if there's any things that would be useful. If there's nothing, then we'll head down to the street level and...

So you all start to, are we going stealthy? I assume so, right? Oh yeah. Let's all make a stealth check. Oh, oh. All right, so I'll make a group stealth check. Oh no. That's kind of out of corner. You should trade those out.

Okay, am I plus seven? Yes, you are. Okay, wow, I'm 23. Whoa! I'm really stealth. Okay, what else we got? 18. Same for me, minus the 20. It's a three.

16. 16. Seven. Seven. Still predominantly pretty good. You guys start weaving your way through and around various rooftop gardens and lots of red tile and beautiful circular windows and attic spaces, and you move off to the side and you find yourself now on three buildings over.

And you can see finally down the lane that Arena came running from. And about halfway up that block, you see green. You see maybe 20, maybe 30 feet high, just this thick mass of green vine stretched across the entire road. Feet high, just this thick mass of green vine stretched across the entire road. And also from this height,

you see passing through an intersection, a group of legionnaires with their rifles over a shoulder and black hats bobbing on their shoulders almost in unison. They walk in front of your vision and then disappear again as they pass through that intersection. How far away is that wall? From where you are now on this roof, 100,

150 feet. Whoa. Maybe longer. What's my intelligence? Mine's actually pretty high. I think we should go, right? Yeah, I'm here for it. Get a closer look at what we're dealing with? Yeah.

Okay. All right, Hudson. You want to lead the stealth mission through the alleys? Yes, let's do it. All righty. You're on point. Yes. I'm going to say, let's go ahead and yeah. All righty. You're on point. Yes. I'm gonna say, let's go ahead and get Striked behind you, the rest of us follow suit.

Okay, so everyone winds their way back down from the third floor, the roof to the third floor, to the second floor, to the first floor. You find that door with the gunshots in it, open it up, and it's a quiet street and some shattered wooden crates on the red carpeted road. That was us, right? That was you guys, yes.

Specifically Strike. I did that. Yeah. You don't hear anything. It is an abandoned ghost town road at the moment. And then from this doorway about 50 feet that way, 60 feet that way, 60 feet that way is that alley, or not alley, excuse me,

lane that you saw leading to a mass of green. Can I just pick some of the flowers and see what happens? Sure. It's uneventful. They're beautiful, lush, white roses. They're all white and you you pluck it and draw back. Is it going to spray deadly poison in your face? Is it going to reach out for you?

Nothing. It smells beautiful. I'm just going to... They're so pretty. I'm just going to gather a couple of them on the way. Okay. Okay, so flowers in hand with Hudson on point. Is the goal just to creep around that one corner?

Well, we're trying to get to this find up, blocked off. Right, so that means going this way and around a corner towards the mass of green in the distance. So there was a road with a wall of green, and then you could kind of see some people in the distance beyond it, from the height that you were at. But down here...

Now it's just green. Yeah, let's say... So I think that's what you want to do. Correct me if I'm wrong. Creeping up to the corner, you peek around and it is an abandoned street and about 80 or so feet ahead of you, half a block away in this town is,

and you can see it better now, the vines are peppered with white roses all over it. You also see thorns coming out of these vines that are the size of kitchen knives. And it looks climbable, but it doesn't look fun. And enemies are beyond it through the slabs? You saw from above. You can't see anything now.

You just see it's high. Right, look flammable. How many rose gardens have you set on fire? Four. Is this in Burbank? Oh, in real life. Two. No.

What are you thinking? I'm thinking if we need to give a distraction, not put ourselves in harm's way, at least mostly, maybe we can set this wall aflame. All right. Where do we go? Should we run and hide after we set it on fire? Maybe. See if they try and put it out, and then ambush him.

Yeah. Got us. What you thinking, got us? and try and put it out and then ambush him. Yeah. Goddess. What you thinking, Goddess? Well, I was thinking, we need a distraction. If we do a fire, are they all gonna run in that area, are they all gonna be alert? Or do we put on a show? What kind of show?

Or we could do both and get the best of both worlds. So we could chill it out, take it slow, set the sun fire, and then rock out the show, and they're going to be distracted. Which one are they going to do? While they're discussing the fineries of this plan, I'm off to the side by myself going, but just in the corner. For 30 minutes. That's all. Continue on. Something's going to happen by the time you make your choice. These rifles that these soldiers were firing at us, are they older-style muskets?

Older style, but not old style, yes. Their uniforms were spotless, and the fluted-out end of the cannon shining silver. Now, when they vanished, did they leave any materials behind, equipment, anything? They did not. Okay, gotcha. Fire, yes or no, Zeke?

I think we should light the thing on fire. Okay, Hudson. Persona! Otakemaru! As he shouts, you hear in the distance, . As he shouts, you hear in the distance, Hello, hello, ma'am. His pronunciation's way too good, and his persona manifests behind him. It's Otakimaru.

He's this massive oni yokai-type character. Full horns, big undercut tusks, ragged loincloth, big club around his shoulder. Yoke down, yokai. And yokai, yokai. And he just goes, Agi! And he goes.

And he shoots out 120 feet, up to 120 feet. A single bolt of flame within range. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're going to find out if that thing's flammable or not. Yeah, I mean, it's a wall. It's not hard to hit. I'm not going to make you roll for that. Okay.

This huge, hulking persona appears in the middle of the road while you guys are peeking out around the corner, except you're off on your own going, I would have to do that to summon him, by the way. And you do it the last second here. And this torrent of flames spews across the distance, strikes the wall, and it just goes,

and the whole wall doesn't just vanish, but it starts to burn up the middle, crackling up. It hits it maybe 20 feet up, and it makes a blast mark, which is blackened and scorched, and the flame starts to creep up and up, and smoke starts to rise up into the sky. Our one seems to be a success so far.

Hmm. Adam, I think that's on fire. The sky. Our one seems to be a success so far. I think that's on fire. What kind of show are you thinking, goddess? So as we also have this fire, she's going to go to the legionnaires, but she's going to... We don't see any. Right? You hear them.

You hear them. So she's going to use her persona as a siren call. Ooh. To kind of use performance to her advantage, if that is possible, kindly storyteller. Yeah, pitch me what you're doing, and then we'll go from there. Basically like a siren song with the, kind of like how the

Kuai is. Instead of doing the one note, she's going to try to distract them and kind of Pied Piper them to her while they get through. So you're just trying to make a large Yes, a large distraction

to get them to go. Okay, sure. So your statuesque persona appears. Do you want her to sing from where you are or closer to the now burning vine blockade? Ooh, maybe a little around it so we make sure that they come towards it. So she's going to call them over.

Like, obviously the fire is there, but she also wants it to be kind of intoxicating to them. Okay. Okay. I'm going to make a wisdom save. I'm going to make it for a guy. Okay. Pardon me, if you don't mind.

Come stroll with us in fields of flowers as the vines doth grow. Prolok in the lovely powers of the blooms below. Play with us, take to the streets. Leave your post, I'm sure they'll keep. I mean, if you're going to write a song, I'm not going to roll shit. Take that, dice rolls! Hearts start to wink in and out of existence around her, and the song fills the city street and just grows,

and you can hear it echoing off of the buildings around you high above and further off on the road as well. And as the song is winding to a close, you start to hear a bell go in the distance, and you hear the sound of feet running as the wall begins to burn. It continues to burn down the middle and it splits away as vines are blackening and it still remains. You'd still have to climb through that if that's the way you wanted to go. But you can now see rising through that gap in the distance, what appears to be a really tall statue of maybe a woman with arm out raised.

And that massive statue is almost entirely covered in vines and roses itself. You can just barely make out the fact that it is the form of a woman, that statue, but not much more. And I think that is where we're going to take our break, as you see through to the city center that Irina warns you about. As a bell rings, a fire burns,

and song fills a downtrodden town. We'll see you in a bit. Why, hello there. This is Critical Role's resident art dad, also known as Liam O'Brien. We are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates. That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m. Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on critroll.com. If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit critroll.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week. Goddess's persona, Aphrodite, vanishes away in a rain of flowers and hearts.

You hear the bell clanging louder in the distance, and suddenly you hear multiple warbling voices, very similar to the soldiers you fought before, rising into a panic not far beyond that burning wall, and the gap is slowly growing wider, showing you a little more of what waits for you beyond. What's the plan, guys? You've started a fire, you've raised a ruckus. The legionnaires are amassing about 100 feet away from you. You think, where are we going?

What are we doing? How many voices in Footfalls does this sound like? about 100 feet away from you, you think, where are we going, what are we doing? How many voices and footfalls does this sound like? Yo, make a perception check. I'd love to. Roll a die, hopefully not the one you rolled for the first half of the game. Mid.

10. 10. I mean, it's at least 15 or 20, at least. Okay, that changes things. So do we, I think we want to try and charge through the middle of that opening and get to the statue point A to point B. We're worried about these guys that we drew over to the space.

Do we have another backup plan to try and keep them occupied and try and sneak around? Are they enjoying the song? Well, you can't see them yet, but it sounds like this. By the water! Yes! Real dance party.

Yeah. They're through here! They're on fire, fire! There's no water in this city! Covered with roses, they're not flammable at all! Well, I think the distraction's definitely situated, and we want to try and sneak through other... To the sewers!

It's a really hard sell on the sewers. Did you find one? Still no, but also wasn't looking for it, because nobody was down for it. Did you find one? Still no, but also wasn't looking for it because nobody was down for it. However, if we've got this situated and we had Aphrodite over here for the distraction, then we could, if she was over here, like projected here. She apparated in this street

and let out a song that was heard, gotta be for a quarter mile because you're still hearing more than you did even two minutes ago, just beyond this now widening, I would say that there's like 10 feet of vine raising up before that V burning its way down through the middle of this wall.

So you're still hidden from view, but maybe not for much longer. Did Irina say that she was going to attack from the other side, or she was just going to? I think she was just trying to get around the other side. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So we should have some time to get through. If we go, if they're going to check the fire and they're still distracted slightly,

then we should be able to go through. Well, we can't waste too much time then. Jari, we going through? Yes. Let's go. Full of skulls, a ton of the grass. You're rushing through the burning mine? Rushing through the, leap over through the vine. 10 feet?

You're going to, you can't leap through 10 feet. You can definitely take this wall, though. Oh, we got to crawl the knives? Climb the thorns. Yeah, we'll remind you, there are thorns about this long, and it does look climbable, but those thorns are everywhere. Right, but the climbing height is much lower now.

That's true. I just take my bat and just whack away. Oh, you're going to whack? You can, sure. Whack a plant? Yeah. Yeah, do it. Whack a hole. I have to pull my short sword

and start backing you up as well. I'm going to do the same. I've got a melee weapon. So do I. I'm going to do the same. I've got a melee weapon. So do I. Okay. I'm going to go opposite side. We're playing gardener? Is that what we're doing? We're gardeners? So bushwhacking our way. But the voices are on the other side of the thing

coming toward us? Sure. You're fighting your way towards the sound of a growing mass of legionaries. Statue, that's what they said. Statue is beyond, so let's be clear. You guys are where you are. This is a wall of vine that is slowly burning down and there's maybe eight feet now,

like a couple, another minute or two, and it's going to burn down and show your faces to what sounds like 20 plus on the other side of the wall. Yeah. You couldn't have aimed down. You had to aim up. What? You know? I side of the wall. Yeah. You couldn't have aimed down. You had to aim up. What? You know?

I aimed at the center. Can I also look around to see if there are other crates or things to hide behind? Yeah, there are maybe five or six crates pressed against the side of the street and one in the middle. There's also doors all around you. There's multiple buildings on the side here.

They look almost identical because the buildings here look very, very similar. Now for this long row, you see this is blocking the middle of this lane. Yes, right. So this is the lane stretches back towards you and past it. And it sounds like there's a lot of legionnaires here. So then is there an entryway to any of these side buildings?

Many. There's doors all around here. Let's go ahead and jump in the left-hand one, see if we can get to the rooftop there, maybe run across the roofs past this barricade while keeping an eye on how much this gathering and stealthily get around. Maybe. That does sound pretty good.

How big are these doors? I'm already clapping. I'm pulling on doors, looking for open doors. Yeah, let's do the doors. First one does not give, second one gives right away. And this is adjacent to where the alleyway that's blocked off. Yeah, you guys are where my hands are, in this lane,

and you try a couple of doors here, and you're in already. And as soon as you spill in, Kensei, you find a little entry parlor and a sitting room beyond that that is completely still and quiet. I think I'll be trying to make my way through the entirety of the, well, oh no, I fell for it! Make my way through the entirety of the, well. Oh no, I fell for it!

Make my, mm. What is make my way? It's a long time running gag on our channel. Oh, okay. It's very easy to say the phrase, making my way. Diggity diggity diggity. I would try to forge through the whole building to try to make it to the other exit

on the other side of the alley. Well, if you go crashing through this home, right, and you go through an open entryway, like a foyer, into a sitting room, you push past and you're into a kitchen. You move through and you find some sort of a den, and there's stairs here, but there's no back, you find no door at the rear of the building. Only way out is up.

That's not the only way out is through. Maybe it's through up. Through? All right. Yeah, I'm going to go up. All right, we're taking this up. Let's go up. Everyone's following as Kensei leads the charge. Okay, you go racing up and you can hear

voices all shouting now outside. You're in the second floor and you can hear outside foot, feet fall clattering on the road where you guys just were. You're running up and this building is three stories as well. You eventually find your way up a little tiny set of stairs that leads to a thin little door and it opens up. There is no garden out here,

but there is just red tile work and just like a little tiny balcony here that's only like five by 10. And you are looking out at, I don't know, 500 feet of rooftops of adjoining buildings. looking out at, I don't know, 500 feet of rooftops of adjoining buildings. And you're close to the edge of the building without looking over it, where you knew you were standing down below.

And up along the buildings ahead of you, you can see two legionnaires looking down up here from sort of lookout positions. One of them looks identical to the legionnaires you fought earlier, but one of them is twice as big and is wearing sort of like a pink officer's uniform,

tiny little white legs in soldier pants, but a huge hulking torso with a giant like pauldrons or yeah, pauldrons I think would be the word. And rather than the flat Napoleon hat, there is like a tall stove cylindrical soldier's hat with a plume of flowers raising up rather than a feather. And there's almost like a knight's visor like a bird beak poking out,

but it's all that helmet, and the visage is all darkness except for little glowing amber eyes, and they are staring down. Don't seem to see you at the moment, and they are like 200 feet away looking down at the mess you guys just caused. Is there a number of,

like are there gaps between the building rooftops, or are there like walkways? No, there's no walkways. This is all buildings jutting into each other. They're all adjacent. Oh, God. So like, there are a few places where there are a little like beautiful wrought iron fences

separating rooftops, but whatever. You can definitely get just about any rooftop up here. And it's a city block. So who wants to go ahead and move ahead quietly, get the jump on them and see if we can take them out before they make any noise to call their comrades? I'm stealthy. Then you should be the charge hudson.

I should. All righty. How about you? Who's the stealthiest of us? I have wooden sandals. I'm going to nickname you Caboose for the rest of this mission. I'm not so sure. My boots are a little bit noisy. Oh man. I'll go alone. I'm not scared.

These guys would know from fighting, we fought together before. Yeah. These guys would know that I'm useless for anything clever. So as I hang back, I'm sort of feeling like my job is not here. You are the party tank,

both when you play your campaign at night at the shop and when you are diving into the other realm. So we should still move as a group and you taking point. When you initiate, when you take point. Okay. When you initiate, when you feel is the right moment to really exact the ambush upon them,

you follow suit and the rest of us try and take them down before they make any noise. Sound like a plan? It does. All right, Hudson, lead us in the way. And tell me, forget about game rules, forget about mechanics, right? It's gone.

I didn't know it in the first place. It was never there in the first place. Never there in the first place. I'd have to remember it. It's easy to get it. Just like that. Yeah. Oh, you're so free. Yeah.

What's that like? So stupid. I want you to forget. What does Hudson want to try to do here, specifically? I want to... What do I want to try to do here, specifically? I want to, I want to, I want to, what do I want to do? That I don't know. Oh. I want to lead the group to success.

And by doing, by like kind of jumping over fences and leaping to different buildings. Are you trying to sneak past these guys? Are you trying to get the jump on them? Are you trying to shove them off the building? Are you trying? You're writing your own comic book here. What happens? It's also the big, giant one.

It's the big, giant one. With massive, gauntleted hands. The hands are almost as big as his torso. Big, grabby hands. Big, big. We have cover on our side. Let's keep it for as long as we can. Okay.

So I wanna sneak by. Let's skip it if we can. Okay, sure. Yeah. Viable. Okay, why don't, you're all gonna move together? Or are you trying to scout the way? Yeah. Well, I'm very stealthy. But I guess we all have to go. What would be the benefit of me going alone? Coast is clear, and then you could come. The coast isn't clear, right?

Or you could lie in wait and then we try and come as a second wave and if we get caught and we get their attention, then you can hit them from behind maybe. Okay. That's also true. Or save yourself. Yeah.

I'll survive a little bit, I like to distract. You're the best team players. Yeah. You were saying. So you distract and you just continue to fight Marianne yourself. Okay, why don't I take the lead. Avenge me!

You follow from behind and hopefully we'll all nail it. Alright, Hudson, why don't you make a stealth check? Okay, let's do it. Nailing from behind. Stealth check. It's all about love. Kitty cat footsteps. I know, right?

Okay, it's doing this thing again where it's getting caught between my notebook and my literally a point is at the time say that's cocked because what is it called cock it's cocked I could do this with you all night, Jared. Okay, here we go. Yes! Do you see? I cannot see. What is it? It says 18. Plus seven. 25.

No one is stealthy like Hudson is stealthy. No joke. All right, Hudson, you get low like a cat and stalk forward, and you guys see Hudson pass under the shadow of a rooftop shed, and then you just don't see Hudson anymore. He just disappears and slinks into it. You start creeping your way along.

Hudson, you're so stealthy right now. you start creeping your way along. Yeah. God, Zayn, this is stealthy right now. I am a convertible. And you're trying to get beyond them and have a ready point. That was the idea, right? Sure. I think that's what was said. Just get past them, and then we try,

and it's a second wave. Yeah. Okay, the two are continuing, It's a second wave. Yeah. I suppose I should roll that. Okay, the two are continuing, big guy and little guy are continuing to look down at the mayhem below, and you can hear, it sounds like, 30 or more legionnaires down below on the street right now. Oh, it's fine.

And the little guy up here has got a rifle train, and he's doing the sniper thing, looking down at the street and you just move behind them and they are none the wiser. You move past them, they're on your left, about 30 or 40 feet away, and you nestle down behind sort of like a stone, there's a garden with a stone vase with flowers,

roses coming out the top of it, and you just creep down behind it and wait and you can see your pack, where you left them, going like, Ooh! Hey guys, this is you! Yeah, yeah. Ba-ba-da-ba-doo! All right.

Well, you brought him in for the impression. I'm glad. Stealthy? Great impression. Yeah, that's why I brought him in, for the impressions. Yeah. Stealthy? Great impressions. That's why he's on the team. Stealthy night live. Yeah. All right.

Oh, hey, I really want you guys to come join me over here for a hot dog, yeah. George Bush! Four score and 20 years ago. Oh my goodness. While we wait, we probably should have established some sort of a sign. Do we just go? Do we wait for a signal?

I think it's been long enough. Okay, let's move. Okay. Are we all going together? You guys are also going to sneak, right? I think so. Let's have a stealth check Are we all going together? So you guys are also going to sneak, right? I think so. Let's have a stealth check from everybody. All right. That's the happy expression, right?

The best. Mm-hmm. Ken say, do you have disadvantage on stealth checks? No. Not that bad. Wait, do I? You're in charge. Is it because of my shoes?

I think you might. Well, I don't see it. I wasn't looking. Special abilities, where is the disadvantage on stealth checks? Oh! Oh my god, you know my sheet better than I do. I was so proud of my 18!

You were! Okay, this will be a high roll, too. 10. So, across the board, we got a 10. Two. Two! 25. 25, well.

Oh, I didn't roll again. You're second. You two. Who got the two? 16. Yeah, I got the two. Okay. I, I didn't roll again. You're second. You two. Who got the two? 16. Yeah, you got the two. Okay. I have three and negative one.

Strike out the two. Wow. Wow, you guys. We're so good at this. That is the worst group stealth check I can remember in the history of sitting at this table. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Aw.

We're number one. We're number one. We're number one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How far away are the bad guys? yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How far away are the bad guys? You guys, like, 150 feet. Well, that's far.

Yeah. We'll be fine. How loud do we have to be to be heard from 150 feet? Find out. Well. You fart with every step. You see, you watch as Hudson sort of like, appears from behind a structure really far away You see, you watch as Hudson sort of like appears from behind a structure really far away

and just waves you over. And you take a step and a single tile breaks out from under Strike's boot and just goes, hitting the ground. And you see the big guy go, like the guy in the bear suit in The Shining. hitting the ground, and you see the big guy go, like the guy in the bear suit in The Shining. Specific. His massive hand grabs the legionnaire,

lifts him, and plants him in front of him. Whoa. And the big hand goes. And this guy raises a rifle, and he sprint. You sprint? I'm going to start sprinting, like a low sprint, trying to use the rooftop separations as cover. He sees you going.

I'm going loosey-goosey with this, but he sees you running and just immediately you watch the gun start to tr- Well, you don't see it because you're running. You see that rifle just train and he fires and at disadvantage, because you're running between things, he gets a 13. What's your AC?

13 misses. Oh! I am the Nexus! There's a lamp post that just goes right by your head as you run by. A little dark spot appears in my pants. The big guy, who's silent, just starts going, you hear this.

They don't, but you hear through this metal knight's visor as it starts running towards your position um guys i'm not doing initiative just throw in what's going on here so you're watching this unfold you're sprinting the big guy is running toward you he's got a lot of distance to cover and and it looks like the legionnaire, the smaller one, is readying the gun to fire again and is following this running man in Victorian garb up here on the rooftop. With a wet spot.

Yep. I'm going to try to get within 30 feet and summon my persona to try to blind him? Well, they're very far away, so you can start running towards them. Right now, there's a massive hulk running towards, more towards Nexus, but your general location, so you're kind of like,

you could close distance towards each other. Depends on the ability you wanna use. Which thing were you looking at? Palimpa. Right in that range. I'm going to say that you couldn't get close enough now, but you could start running into the fray if you want. All right, I do it.

Okay, stealth is gone. Strike is running towards this hulk. You got a 16. I don't know who y'all is. That's valid. You know what?. I don't know who y'all is. That's valid. You know what? Goddess didn't even move. She watched everyone else take a step first.

Watch that all play out and just shake your head and now it's on. Nope. Anybody else? Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. You saw your running, too? Yeah, oh yeah. Full speed directly at the big guy.

Getting ready to try and stop once he's within 80 feet and just start trying to shoot him while he's closing the distance. Best I can make. And goddess of, what about you? Are you just watching? You can. Like, what do you even do at this point?

They're going to do what they're going to do. I'm just going to, once again, not sit back and admire my work this time. I'm just going to sit back and just be a little judgy. I like it. Exasperation or passion? I like it. I like it. I think at this point, so Goddess is over it. You three are sprinting.

I will say, what do you want to do in this moment, Hudson? Okay, so I made it through. Yeah, and you're like 30 or 40 feet past them, behind, they're not paying attention to you at all. The big guy is sprinting away from you towards your friend, and the legionnaire with his rifle is like 30 to 40-ish feet in front of you

with his back turned to you. So I guess I could attack him from behind, but I could also keep going. And we have the advantage of the fact that I'm through. You four can maybe handle this, and then we've got someone. What was the point of me running? What you had talked about is getting into a hiding spot,

and if things went south, spoilers, they did, that you could attack without other side. What you had talked about is getting into a hiding spot, and if things went south, spoilers, they did, that you could attack without them realizing it was coming. Okay. All right, well, let's do that. Okay. So what's your method of attack? Okay, so my method of attack is

I'm going to meha. Okay. So I'm going to Mayha. Okay. So I'm gonna summon Little Miss. Here she comes. And she's gonna hurl a bubble of shadow at them both. Are they within five feet of each other? No, big guy took off running.

So he's twice as far away from you. You have this cool ability. Gotcha. Okay, I do have this cool ability here. So, once per turn, I can deal an extra 2d6 damage to one creature, the big guy with the hands. You hit with an attack with a finesse or ranged weapon if you have advantage on the attack roll. What does that mean to have advantage on the attack roll?

Well, that would mean if you attacked with Meiha, you would deal extra damage. Because you would have advantage because you're hiding right now. They don't know you're there. So you're going to have advantage to attack, which means you would roll for the damage of the Meiha, and then this other unique ability would allow you to add extra damage on top of it, because you're meeting the requirements

that needed to put that extra damage on. Okay. And I get an advantage for the fact that they don't know I'm attacking? Yeah, you're hidden. Okay. And so you've got the jump. Let's hit the big guy. You've got, like, a split second, I'll say, in this freeze frame of time to hit either of them. The big guy is just about to pass too far away,

but you can hit either. Which one's it gonna be? Okay, I'm gonna hit the big guy. Okay. So Little Miss appears before you and does what she did earlier. She leaps into the air and starts to spin rapidly and the tail whips out a globule of black shadow

and it passes over the head of the legionnaire and goes, rockets towards... Oh, it makes a save, so I'm going to see if it... I'm going to make it a disadvantage because it has no idea it's coming. Fail. So, because it failed, it takes 1d6 necrotic damage, which you can roll there.

Wait, what failed? Your target. Your target failed their roll, so you could roll damage. It's the kind of move where you don't roll to hit, it rolls to see if it dodges out of the way. Oh, so it could roll damage. It's the kind of move where you don't roll to hit, it rolls to see if it dodges out of the way. Oh, so it failed to dodge. It booked up. Okay, great.

So you can roll the damage. Roll 1d6. Okay, so now I can roll the damage. Uh-huh. Okay, 1d6. Yeah, that's the cube. That's the cube, okay. Two.

Two, plus you said once per turn, you were gonna use your unique ability, you can deal an extra 2d6 to one creature you hit with an attack with a ranged weapon if you had advantage on the roll. So I can roll two more? You can roll 2d6. Okay.

One! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! I think it says 3d6. Now the transformation into a D&D player is complete.

Let the negotiating begin. Little Miss spins faster and faster and faster and the tail whips out that globule. It sails over the legionnaire's head and hits the legionnaire captain in the back of the head. There is an eruption of shadow on this guy's black helmet, and you see the cylindrical shape of it dent in and melt a bit, and the flowers go

and shatter off of his head. He stumbles, pauses, and shatter off of his head. And he pauses, he stumbles, pauses and goes, and looks over his shoulder. He stops running for a moment and turns to see what the hell just happened. Yeah, okay, so that's that freeze frame. The legionnaire takes a shot. You're still running?

I'm trying to get within 60. You're running toward? Yeah. Okay, you can definitely get there as we rocket around here. So you're within that range for sure, and you're on the move? Yeah.

He's still going to take a shot at you. Yeah, go for it. I'm going to say, and he's- I am the next. That is 15 to hit. Misses. Misses. Wait, no, that hits. I'm right.

That is seven points. It strikes you in the gut. But you're there, and you can follow up, tit for tat. Indeed, first I'm going to go ahead and take my bonus action to regain hit points in reaction to that. Cool. Yep. Once per service, I can do this as a bonus action.

I take the shot, and as it impacts, I start summoning Umbra from behind my persona. As it begins to arrive, the shadows swirl around my stomach and close over the wound, and you watch as the bullet is ejected from the wound, and I heal seven hit points. I just take it right back. Whoa! As the shadow evaporates away from your midriff,

the wound is completely filled in with darkness and then turns flesh-colored again, and you continue to run. With that, I go ahead and pull my gun forward over the top of the half-height wall on the edge of the building, and aim at the big guy that's coming this direction. He's charging. He just paused and turns.

Yep, he's actually a better target for you. I'm going to use Maiga. Okay. I'm using it so as I fire the gun, it fires forward in his direction, and as the bullet travels, leaving that trail of black shadow, the gun, it fires forward in his direction, and as the bullet travels, leaving that trail of black shadow, it seems to grow and swell in his direction.

So he gets to make a dexterity saving throw. Okay. He rolled a 12. Well, it leaves a 13. Fails. So as the bullet strikes him, it splinters like a bullet shattering off of his armor and chest, but the smoke trails

behind it form into Umbra, my persona, on the opposite side of him, these claws gathering. Yeah, that's it for now. Okay. That will kick in for him once it ends its turn, right? Yep. Yeah, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So what about the three, you're still watching, goddess? No. Are you on the move?

Yes. Okay. She's on her phone. Reluctantly. Ooh, like that. No, what she is doing is she finally just looks down, exasperated, and the big giant dude. Yes. I don't know, in my head he looks like a walking mushroom. Like just one of like mushrooms.

So she is going to call her persona, and her persona is going to start to fill the air with spinning hearts over Big Tall Mushroom Man. Okay. So this is which ability? Giant Slice. Giant Slice, all right.

Okay, so the big guy just starts to grunt as he sees these hearts form around him and begin to spin. And he was just about to run towards you, but pauses for a second and sees these things spinning around him and it just stops him in his tracks. He looks confused and angry. He stays in put, he doesn't move as he starts to try to bat them away with his giant hands

as if they were mosquitoes or flies or something. That means that your shadows take effect now, Nexus. So that is, where'd it go? Where'd it go? Where'd you go? There you are. That is 2d6 of necrotic damage for him. Correct.

Would you like to roll it, Matthew, or shall I? I will do it. Yes. Oh, 11 points of necrotic damage. Ooh! That's not allowed. It's allowed. I did a thing. Yeah. Okay.

And he's still like, he starts to grunt in pain going, I should be doing my Bane impression. Oh, this hurts. And then the hearts begin, begin. Where were you born? Where were you born? I was born in this other place. And the hearts begin to kick in as well

as he stands there flummoxed. Boy, I'm jumping around here, you guys. There it is, there it is. Would you like to roll 4d4 slashing damage for us? Yes! Woo! Nice. That's five.

Nice. Eight. Ooh! 11. 11? Wow, yeah. Okay, his officer's jacket just starts to get cut and tear and his pants are black with shadow and that's moving up his undershirt and the coat is getting ripped to shreds.

The hat is... I'm like, damn. I'm like, roll again. The hat is getting... He rips the pull-away pants. Love this game. He's looking rough. Meanwhile, you three are running up. What happens next?

Jump in. There's no initiative here. Yeah, still, we're winging it. Still running in, yeah. You've closed the distance. You're like 20 feet away now. Oh, great. What's the difference, the distance between the back shooter and big guy? Are they close to each other? The distance? They're like 20 feet away now. Oh, great, what's the distance between the back shooter and big guy?

Are they close to each other? The distance? They're like 30 to 40 feet apart. From each other? From each other. Oh, okay. Right. Gesund, stop it. Okay.

Okay, so the big guy's locked in place. Yeah, he's dealing with a lot of shit happening to him in the moment. He was my original target, but instead I'm going to just run toward him and see if I can like... Actually, he said his legs were stubby, so I can't do anything cool.

He's sliding underneath them. Just like a limbo, throwing myself. In this group, you're almost as big as him. Okay. But not quite. All right, well, then I want to try to juke to the right of him and summon my Persona. But I still want to stay close to the big guy. Okay. Like, get behind him

and fire off Augie's shot again. Okay. Like get behind him and fire off Augie's shot again. Okay. So yeah, Persona manifests behind me and out of his mouth. Manifest. Blows a big, old. So you slide past him, your wooden,

did you say clogs? Yeah, the sandals. The sandals scrape along the red tile and he goes seeing you come by, but you just sort of home plate slide past him and then pop up again, like eight or nine feet past him, and you're now between both of these legionnaires, the legionnaire and his captain,

but you're closer. He's right behind you, and the other guy is like 20 feet away-ish. Yes, but I want to keep the strike. I want to keep him close, but try to do my only ranged attack toward the guy further away. Okay.

Yeah, so I'll call my persona, roll some fire. Not fantastic, but probably not. 12. 12 is exactly what you needed to hit. You old nerd! Let's do it. All right, cool. About seven. So your persona, Otakamaru, Oh, d10. belches fire again like before? Yeah, same thing.

That's sort of where he summons it up for, we see him do the same move again, but it's not like a big flame. It's like a concentrated blast that sort of shoots out like an arrow. Two of us, that thin cone of fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah.

Wait, nine. Nine? Nine plus, no, nothing, just nine. The behemoth plants his massive legs and thighs down and the rooftop tiles crack underneath his weight and he just belches this tunnel of flame, a gout of flame at the little legionnaire and you watch as he's totally enveloped

and the hat burns away, leaving just those orbs in the air for a second and they wink out of existence and he's burned away to nothing. Strike, what's up? I'm running up and I'm also going to call my persona Galileo and like you can feel the electricity in the air

and my hair is starting to like kind of float up a little bit. And I'm going to cast Ziagna and try to hit him with a bunch of electricity. Yes please. Okay. Nine. A nine, lightning, a huge chaotic mass of electrical energy sails past this thing

and strikes this white stone urn right next to Hudson and it erupts and you feel like flour and dirt and stuff sort of like pelts you on the side. Not enough to like cause you any injury, but it was that close. You're running towards. I didn't do it. Goddess, you're bringing up the rear.

You're about 15 or 20 feet behind your friends. Oh, could I also? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I wanted to use my bonus action and like whirl up a bunch of air and have it kind of project me 10 feet up, almost like towards it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, go ahead. So we're like, yeah, in the process, just getting my bat ready while I'm up in the air. So around Galileo, this storm begins to swirl and electrical energy is like crackling between miniature storm clouds and there's a blast of air. And as Galileo vanishes, wind just goes under you like a shove and you go flying forward on an arc

and land like eight feet in front of this massive, pained gorilla of an enemy. And there you are. feet in front of this massive, pained gorilla of an enemy. And there you are. Let's jump to goddess. All right, and my giant mushroom man. Yes, with your little hearts are still spinning around. Okay, so I would like to antagonize him so that he moves forward, causing himself

to completely activate the damage. Oh, he's in it now. It's just in this second of time. You already summoned it. It's already damaged him, and he's in it now. If he stays put, he will continue to take damage. If he moves forward, he's gonna come out of it. Oh no, okay, he can stay there then.

So since he is right there, oh fun, yay! I'm gonna pull out my bow. Mm-hmm. Nice. And I'm gonna go for, all right, he has those little ember eyes too, right? Mm-hmm, they're a little smaller and more malicious than the legionnaires, but yes. I think I can hit it.

Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and aim for the eyeball left one. Absolutely. So he's got... Or should I go right? No, I'm going to go left. You know what? Follow your heart.

Thanks, I'm going to go left. I have an eye patch for each, no matter what you decide. I'll help. I patch for each, no matter what you decide. Help. So he's towering over strike right now, and there are these razor sharp hearts spinning around him, and he's having a bad day. You draw on your bow and... 17. 17 for sure hits.

Yeah. Your arrow, tipped with a heart, streaks over Strike's shoulder through these spinning little heart-shaped blades and strikes right in one eye. And let's get some damage for that. It's actually in a heart this time. What is it this time?

No, I'm saying, like, he's, the hearts, they're in the shape of a box this time. The hearts are in the shape of a box? Yep. I'm sorry, I'm just not following. Are you talking about the previous thing that you summoned? Yeah, you know how, like, he's inside the little thing? It's not a circle, it's a square.

It's a cube around it. It's a cube of right angle moving bladed hearts. Yeah. And now you're following up with an arrow shot? Yes. Yeah. So let's get some damage for the arrow. And as I, let's see, that's three.

Five. Oh wait, no, it's one D8 plus two, so. Four, five, six wait, no, it's 1d8 plus two, so. Four, five, six, six piercing damage. And as the bow takes off, I go, I guess you're trapped inside my heart-shaped box. Ah, we were setting it up. There it is. Got it. Oh, I was so curious.

Why is that? Arr, arr, arr, arr, arr, arr. Got it, don't worry, I'm gonna disappoint you all with way worse puns, I'm telling you, it's coming. This guy no longer likes the heart shape. It is his least favorite thing in the world. So he's surrounded by a cube of razor sharp hearts and a heart just dove into one of his amber eyes.

It winks out and the arrow just stays there stuck, and he roars. Roar! That would probably get us to, I'm gonna say him. I'm gonna say him, he's having a really bad day. I would feel bad if I did. And he's gonna reach for the closest thing to him, which is you, Strike. Whoa!

Excuse you. Okay, so he raises a massive frying pan hand, a big steel gauntlet. Oh my god. You're so squishy. And slams it down next to you, and you just slide out of the way just in time. I rolled a four.

The hand crashes into the rooftop tiles, which just splinter underneath it, and you can hear lumber breaking underneath the tile, and he grunts and goes, and then brings down the other one. What the heck does that say? Mm, that's a 14 to hit? That's a 14 to hit?

Yes! Hits. All right, you take. I know. You're wearing, you wearing negligee? The trendiest leather jacket. The gauntlet crashes against your whole, it's like someone took a sign board

and whacked the front of your body with it, except it's not made of plywood, it's made out of steel. No! And you take 10 points of bludgeoning damage as you are smashed down into the tile. My goodness. That would get us to you guys in any order you like. Do you want to go first?

Sure, sure. We got to kill this thing. Seems like a good idea. Yeah. So I need to impress Nexus and I need to do better. I'm really shaken by my last turn. So Little Miss is gonna help me and summon an Iga. Gotcha, okay, so you, okay, all right.

So Little Miss appears next to you, and it's super ranged on that, so she just stays right next so you, okay, all right. So Little Miss appears next to you and it's super ranged on that, so she just stays right next to you. Yeah. And the tail starts going. Now you can roll three times in a row to hit this big brute with three balls of shadow. And I roll.

That'll be a d20. A d20. Plus two each time. A d20. Plus two each time. A d20 plus two each time? Okay. 18 to 20. Absolutely strikes. So that one.

Do it again, do it again. Okay. Three. Goes totally wide. In fact, almost hits strike. Yeah, I was gonna say strike. And it doesn't strike. I mean, yeah. Lucky strike. Yeah, I was gonna say, it doesn't strike. It doesn't. You strike a little bit.

Seven, so it's a nine. Nine, that one just goes completely wide. You see it veer off, almost like a curve ball, and heads down into the street below. But it looks beautiful. But you can roll, mm-hmm. Everyone's like, it is lower. Oh my god.

It is majestic. What an arc. What an arc. I saw it in slow motion. Why don't you roll 2d6 necrotic damage for the one that struck. Okay, 2d6. Two Qs. Okay. Two heart-shaped boxes.

I got this. Believe, believe! Believe! Yes, believe! Six! Yes! Believe! That is six already great. Four! That's great, solid, solid.

Ten! That glob of shadow strikes it in the back, and that jacket is pink, so it is super obvious where it hits, and it just melts its way in, and there is just a gaping, almost like an inward cone of shadow that melts down, drips down the back of his tight, tiny pants. Again.

Uh-huh. Good job, Hudson! Thank you! He staggers forward, lumbering still over, strikes a really hurting self. What about you, sir? All right, so as Umber's still clutching him from behind, on the opposite side of where Strike is, I'm going to use my action to use the persona power Dia, in which case the smoke begins

to emit from the claws that are in there. You watch as these weird wire-like threads seem to shoot and wrap around you, Strike. As they seem to strike you, you're fearful that this is an attack, but begin to sew your wounds closed. And so with the bonus action, I go ahead and heal you for, that is four points.

You feel two ribs slide into place. With my bonus action, myyga that's still up, I'm going to go ahead and now slam Umbra into the back of this entity. Oh yes, damn! Okay. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. You can move it up to 30 feet,

ram into the creature, make a saving throw. Yep, yep, yep. That is, why am I using the die with the tiniest numbers on it? That's a 15. 15, so half damage. Okay, get this 20. Oh, two fives, so it'd be 10 halves to five, so five points in across damage.

Okay, this thing, he's still big and he's still menacing Strike, but he's also looking, you can hear, through that visor, the big metal visor. They chose violence today. Strike and Kensei! Yep. What is my turn, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so. Kind of fell into a marching order. Yeah. This is all I'm good for. Eight feet away from the sky, back to back almost. Yeah, I think so. Kind of fell into a marching order. Yeah. This is all I'm good for. Eight feet away from the sky, back to back almost. I'll let Takemaru fall away, and I'll just walk up to this guy from behind and pull out my katana,

and I'm going to drop into a mid stance here and take a swing at this nerd. Yeah. How is this possible? No. I'd like to take these dice and throw them into the sea. Impossible.

Seven. Seven? That's plus five. I rolled a two. Plus five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poseidon don't even want those back. Toss those back. It's tossing back. You come in with the strike,

and this big guy, in that second, raises his fist up into the air to smash down its strike, and his giant iron hand hits your sword and flings it away in that freeze frame in time. I lost my sword, too? That would be with a one, no. That was just it glancing off and knocking you back. You're still in the same general spot,

but it definitely didn't go the way you wanted to. Any bonuses, anything? I got nothing to help. You got nothing. I'm just a monster, I'm a bruiser, that's it. All right, Strike, you have got this thing breathing right down on top of you. Save yourself.

You're a strong, independent woman. You don't need no mana to save. Again, calling upon my persona to help, please. Gonna cast a Zeo to hit it with more lightning. Okay. Let's do a strength saving throw. Strength saving throw, okay.

I will use a die I can actually read the numbers on. That is a three, that is a three. So that means I roll an eight. So that's pulled right at you and then takes a D eight of lightning, yeah? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, what? Wait, wait, wait, that's plus,

wait, that doesn't plus anything. Not plus anything. Pass interference. Flag on the field. Your persona appears again and lightning starts to arc around it and the metal in this guy's helmet just starts to pull towards it and flies the metal in this guy's helmet just starts to pull towards it,

and flies forward into the palm of your persona, and it goes, and then your persona vanishes in place, and it is turned away from you, and distracted for a moment, at least. I wanna crawl away as far as I can. You can do that, sure. No. I'm going to crawl away. Okay, so you. You can do that, sure. No.

I'm going to crawl away. Okay, so you're moving away? Yes, wherever there is shelter. Okay, it's a good thing I rolled a two or he would've swatted you like a pancake as you tried to break away. You start to, and it turns and it's one eye, because one's out from an arrow, burns towards Kensei as a strike slides away.

Goddess. Hi. You're on deck. How far is tall, weird mushroom guy? I would say, because you travel a little bit and then it seemed like you stopped, but I'd say it's like 40 feet away from you now, 50 feet. You can move closer if you need to. Okay, then I'm going to move closer, about 10 feet-ish.

And I'm just going to, well, I'm not going to as a matter of fact. My persona is going to float, appear by floating down and standing directly, not standing, but floating directly in front of the face of this weird mushroom man with the short hat. And is just gonna go and use her Dazzler spell. Dazzler, so a little waft of hearts leaves your persona's kiss. And it is overwhelmed by beauty. It just takes its one eye off of you for a second, goes,

and rolled a four, so fails. Yay. Falls down to its knees and looks up as your persona vanishes from the air and just stands there looking up into space. Where did you go? And I think that gets us back around to you guys. Actually.

At the end of each of its turns and each time it takes damage. Yeah, I was gonna say, the giant slice should still be going. So why don't you roll me another 4d4. Ooh! Nice! Oh, that was a three.

4d4. Four. Six, seven. Technically didn't go anywhere. So that's eight, but also with the Dazzler, at the end of each of its turns, and each time it takes damage, the target can make another wisdom saving throw.

The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage on a success. So it can try to break its love spell. Mm-hmm. Ah! That one's gone. It happens when you try to fall its love spell. Mm-hmm. Ah! That one's gone. It happens when you try to fall out of love with me. So it's at advantage. Mm-hmm.

It got a 12, which I don't think beats it, right? It's at a 13, yeah? Yep, fails. So it stays, even though it's getting shredded by razor-sharp hearts in a cube formation, it does not move and it just continues to stare longingly into nothingness as it gets shredded. This is the end of its turn?

Yeah. So if it hasn't moved, it would still be within the range of my Maiga. Yeah. So we need to make another dexterity save. I mean, fine. Umbra's crashing into it again from behind. 14?

14 succeeds, so half damage. Okay. From eight to four, so four points in your credit. Four points. The officer's uniform is gone. There's just a white puffy shirt underneath that is also getting shredded. This thing is near naked.

I don't know what the game model character looks like underneath. You'll just have to imagine. Yeah. It rolls an advantage to break the love spell that it's under, and it got a natural 20. So it goes. Before disappearing, my persona goes,. Before disappearing, my persona goes, that's the power of love.

And I think it gets us around to you. Okay. Hudson. So the monster, is the monster really vulnerable right now because of the- It's on his knees, yeah. Yeah, okay. So I'll- Looks like he's coming out of whatever this momentary lapse of sanity was.

Okay, how close are, where is, how close are you to being dead? I'm okay. You're okay? I'm in a way, too. I'm gonna attack, I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna have Little Miss hit it three times this time with Iga. Okay. Let her rip.

There she appears, she appears, the one eye goes blink blink, leaps and starts to, oh no, this is the three, right? So no, this is cannon lore, the tail spins. Yeah, we all know. Like a helicopter. Don't change it. Shoots bullets of shadow, pure shadow out.

Let's see if we hit it. Okay, so this is D20. Well, it's a D20 plus two. The D20 to C, yes. For each ball of shadow, pure shadow out. Let's see if we hit. Okay, so this is D20. The D20 to C, yes. For each ball of shadow. Okay. All hits. All hits. All hits.

Nothing but hits. No other choice. 15. For sure hits. Plus two is 17, so that one hits. That's all you gotta do. 17. 17.

Plus whatever, 19. You know what, Hudson? I could do some math, but I wanna ask you, how do you want to do this? Yay! In this moment, I need you to narrate how you destroy this brute of a soldier with shadow magic.

Okay! Okay, first I get a stone number. I don't remember. So funny. And then, first of all, Little Miss destroys the monster. That's right. Not me. Speaking on behalf of your cat. Yes. So Little Miss, she just starts, she's really stalking him. And it's sad.

And we all know what's coming and the monster knows what's coming. The monster is just like, I'm ready to be dead. Like, please, like, I'm ready to go to sleep in a way. But Little Miss won't let the monster go to sleep. Because she's just kind of walking all around, you know, like here, here. And he's just like praying for death. But like she's not, it's not time to die yet. And so she says so.

And then she opens up her claws. She sinks him in right here, right on his neck. She's got him. She's basically just like got him like that. And then the three dark globules, they're spinning all around. They come in. Like electrons. Like electrons. Yeah. And his head explodes. Death is a mercy. Yeah! Everybody is jacked with adrenaline. That thing's head just exploded.

Yeah, me especially. Everybody, you just got smashed. That was a bad scene, man. And you look around trying to figure out if you're spotted, are you okay? And you can see in the distance, like across the street and maybe five or six buildings over, there's another pair looking off in another direction

and then turn around and then like 800 feet that way. So they're not everywhere, but there are other sort of like pairs of sentries on other city blocks. Right, but this one appears to be straight away. This one is clear for the moment. Does it lead to a great statue? We did it. All right.

So right now, look at this as the, you came into this building and came up here and then fought your fight up here. Down below, it's like 30 to 40 legionnaires running around, trying to swat out the fire. And the city block continues on this way towards, in the distance, that statue covered in plant life. So if you wanted to, you could try to find a doorway down

and go through another building and out a different side of the city block entirely. Once we're closer, definitely. So I make a run for it, see if we can get nearby and get a better look at it. I have a question. Is there moonlight? Because that's the only way a team

can run across rooftops is if it's in the moonlight. That's all I want to know. Oh no, the sky is a strange, eerie, uniform purple. Can you still do it? I think so. Okay, so you start booking it in the general direction that you saw that mass of plant and statue. Pretty soon, you get to an edge and there is,

you are now, you've left behind that fracas you caused, but there is a city street between you and the next city block and you can see much clearer now, a woman's face peering out of a mass of plant life in this statue and one arm is raised and there's actually a flag in the hand. You don't recognize the woman and the plants around her sort of like pulse

and move and thrive and parts of her are covered and then appear again and then are covered by plant life. You're just seeing like the head and her arm raised in the air with this flag. You're not that far off, but you're not gonna be be able to leap across the distance from this city block to the next. Shall we get down and see what's up?

Let's go. Is there an entryway? Another doorway, some sort of a hatch we can go through? You find a skylight window that just opens like this and it's a 10-foot drop down into some sort of loft space. We can find a skylight window that just opens like this, and it's like a 10-foot drop down into some sort of loft space. Can you catch me?

You can try. Everyone just make an athletics or acrobatics check to not stub your toe as you leap down in here. 15. 10. 10 in here. 15. 10. 10. That's awful. 14. 14.

15. 15. Four. Everyone lands with a clatter and Strikes' boot hits their own and goes and you feel your tailbone strike, smack the wood. You cannot catch a break. Two points of bludgeoning damage on your ass. Ass damage.

Yeah! Ass damage. That's some ass damage. Walk to the table and enjoy your ass damage. I'm so glad you're here, Zandri. I'm doing great. Okay, you hobble back up, it hurts, and you walk with a limp for the next minute,

but you're okay, you move forward, you go down some steps and you find yourself in an art gallery with paintings of weird little people in multicolored coats, red, green, yellow, primary colors, and there are top hats where the brim of the hat almost looks like a smile and there's wide, not amber, just like eyes smiling. And it almost looks like the hats are smiling

from this painting. And there's paintings of the city and there's paintings of flowers. You move through that art gallery down and you find bedrooms, living room. It's abandoned. Still, there's nobody here. Eventually you make it down to a foyer

and there is a door in front of you leading, you would presume, to the street. Is there a window? A window. Yeah, there is a window with very frilly curtains. Just peek through. As my hands are like, I was ready. I know.

Look into the thoroughfare to see if there's other figures around the stacks. You can just barely see through this glass because there's vines creeping up over the glass here with occasional flowers peeking into view, but there's gaps and you look through. Make a perception check for me. Oh, not too bad.

19. It looks pretty quiet, pretty abandoned outside here. And as you, well, I'll save that. What do you think, big guy? Who's gonna kick the door out and into the alley? Oh. Or street, or wherever. Street, it's not a back alley. It's the street. Yeah, fuck out and into the alley. Or street or wherever. Street. It's not a back alley. It's the street.

Yeah, fuck that. Into the streets. Yeah. The door slams open and there is nothing before you. It's one of those stupid white crates. What gives with those? And then you step out and you can hear in the distance. There's just what sounds like Coachella happening

on the other side of a city block from you. But from here, from your view, like it's street here and there's an intersection, there's two intersections really, equidistant. You're about halfway in the middle of a block here and you can see a street on each side, those intersections leading in, you know, in the direction towards that massive statue covered in greenery. And you can see a street on each side, those intersections leading in, you know,

in the direction towards that massive statue covered in greenery. And there seems to be no one here right now. Which path do we want to take then? So are we, we're near the massive statue that was behind the burning wall? Yes, you've closed that distance over rooftops. Okay.

We have to get around it though, right? Slide to get there? There's basically a city block between you and this statue right now. You can go around it to the left or you can go around to the right. We just pick one. Right now they look identical to you.

Hudson, right or left? The left. Left it is, let's go, left. Okay, stumbling? Sure. Left it is, let's go, left. Okay. Stealthing? Sure. There's crates? We've got a crate with us. I put it over the top of my ass.

Ba-da! Are we stealth or are we just running? Either's viable. Let's just go. Go for it. Yeah, let's go. You guys just start bolting down the corner. You hit that intersection and look to the left. You see easily

50 legionnaires with rugs beating the side of this wall, which is burned away, and you can see even past it, but it's just a mess of people. The bell is ringing. You look to the right, and you see the statue in full, about 150 feet away from you,

in a plaza. And it is the centerpiece of this plaza, this statue of a woman with arm at her side and one arm upraised with a flag on it, but just writhing greenery all over it like a parasite. And you start to hear a cackling sound. As you get closer, you hear a And then you can hear, distantly, a familiar voice, much fainter say, get your stupid shrubs off of me! It's Lady Marmalade. We found her. Do we see, is there lavender hair over there?

You can't see yet. Can we make out anything on that flag? Is there a symbol or anything that looks? It's some sort of, I mean, there is a crest on it, but it is more flourish and design, more than any. Gotcha. It's not hidden from you, it's just far away at this point. It's like a city block away.

Keep going? I will run toward loud noises at any time. All right, go for it. Okay, you crest the edge of the street and get to the edge of the plaza, and you arrive to see a town square awash in flowers. They're literally everywhere, wildly growing over all the buildings,

benches, lampposts, even over the white painted crates that are littered about. It's like a h hot house run amok. There's also flowers gathered in bouquets and other floral arrangements, which is new. They're scattered everywhere. They're wrapped in ribbon and lace. And then, as you're now in this city plaza,

you see past the statue, diagonally towards the rear of the statue, there is Irina, and she is being enveloped with living vines, which are like lifting her into the air, struggling as she fights against it. And then she gets tossed down into a wooden crate, the lid of it snapping shut on top of her. And vines just swarm all around the box

and lift it into the air and draw it into the massive network of roses and greenery that is living on this statue, covering the entire thing. And you can hear her voice sort of shouting in protest at the dense overgrowth. You can't see her anymore, but she's in there, somehow held in place. And you can hear her voice rising higher somehow

in that mess. And then the same hysterical cackle, same hysterical, hysterical cackle, sounded really weird to my ears just then, erupts above you and the endless snaking vines and roses part to reveal a strange little man emerging. He's dressed in a sharp white suit and tie with a single pink rose pinned on his lapel.

He's got like a peacockish overblown pompadour and his pale green face staring down at you from above is twisted in a smirk, nose held up high like he's catching a whiff of something disdainful. Lower half of his body remains submerged in floral excess, and he somehow manages to glide through the greenery as easily as one might wade

through water, lowering down, still above you, but closer. Oh, you, you nasty little gutter snipes have been tromping all over my flowers. You upstarts and your hopeless attempts at rebellion will fail, just as they always have. And nothing will stop me from giving Lady Marie the big day she deserves. For her special day needs roses. And roses she will have. No one will stand in the way of our lady's perfect day.

For you see, I am Z. Z Florest! And you are about to be pruned once and for all. Oh. Roll for initiative, dudes. Let's go! We are in a persona boss battle. So here's my question.

Oui. If they're putting people in these crates, and we destroyed some of these crates. Don't think about it. Roll initiative. You saw no sinew, blood, or bones. We didn't check, we just kept going. That's true. That's true.

I can blow up a pit. No, no, no, you're fine. Those are splinters, right? I was like that when we fought. Schrodinger's bystander. All right. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Nice. Yeah.

Roll for your initiative, add your initiative bonuses, and then I'll go down the line. Did anyone get 20 or higher? Ugh! Is that a yes? No. Yeah. 15 to 20.

What'd you guys get? I got a 19. 16. 16, okay. Okay, okay. How about 10 to 15? Five to 10? What the hell, guys?

What'd you guys get? Nine. Five. Nine, five. Six. Nine, five, nine, okay. Nine, five, six. You got the six? Yep, I got the six. You got the six.

And. Sounds like Man with two one, though. You got the five. All right. Yes. And... Sounds like Manatou would know. Five. All right. So that puts us at the top of our order. You guys are standing maybe 30 feet away from this monstrosity. Hudson, you are at the top.

Yes. What's your opening move? It's a persona boss battle. So I'm summoning Little Miss for yet another EGOT. Okay, yes, everybody is topped off for the top of the fight. Oh. Oh, beautiful.

Mm-hmm. Little Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Nobody can stop an EGOT. All right. It's the most powerful magic there is. So you summon Little Miss before you once again. She pitter-pats out in front of you. Yes.

And now the tail begins to spin in a flurry. Let's throw those three balls of shadow. Okay. Eight. Plus two. Plus two is 10. 10, okay, that's a miss. 16. 16. 18.

18 for sure hits. Yes. Hell yeah. Mm-hmm. 19! 19 hits, so two of those balls of shadow. The first one flies up towards this guy and he just shunts to the side to the plant and you see it strike into a window of just stone

as the plants open and then close around it and he just giggles at you as he slides away. But then is stopped as the second and then the third strike. So let's roll for damage on those two. Okay. 4d6, I think? Yeah, 4d6 total. Okay, great. Okay.

High flick. Mm-hmm. Six! Yeah! Two. 19. Six! Yeah! 19!

Eat him! Massive. Eat him! He starts to giggle and then just gets hit in the face by two globs of shadow. Hey, hey, hey! Let's go, buttercup! Let's dance!

That gets us to strike. All right. What's up? I'm gonna summon my persona, Galileo, and I'm gonna do a Zyagna to try to hit him with some electricity. All right. That's a one! No! A one?

We got this. It's a one for...! It's a one for... Okay, so Galileo appears. Chaotic energy. Spell attack. It's better than Team A Strike. Sing quotes. Sing quotes. What happens is Galileo apparates in front of you and the storm starts to swirl in a torment around it and above you and that energy

lashes out towards this little guy with his pompadour and Divine goes and meets it and it explodes, like rushes out to meet it, exploding it like 10 feet away from him, and it explodes above your head, and you take... Damn. Two points.

Awesome. Of lightning damage. Yourself. You're fine. I'm just gonna try to slink back into the wall and just grab roses and and try to hide myself. Homer Simpson? Just accept sweet relief as you enjoy.

I'm not here. I didn't do anything. If you want, you can use your bonus action to get gusted away like you did earlier. Yes. Yeah, okay, so you fly back away from this guy and his octopus of plant life, and there happens to be a wooden crate

right next to you as you land. Your hand's on top of it, you knock on it. I hope there's nobody in there to die. That gets us to Zeeflores. Don't hit this crate! You can use the crate, but... All right, all right, all right. And that vine whips back in

and then shoots out towards Nexus. Yeah, bring it. That is a 14. Don't bring it, that hits. That hits. The vine lashes out to you and you feel thorns rake all around your body. You take... oh dear,

you take 11 points of slashing damage and the vine wraps around your body, yanks you towards it and you are grappled by this vine. The little pompadour man then comes sliding down towards your location and extends outward like he's on a crane arm, and a pair of garden shears appear in his hand and goes, Oh, hey-hey-hey-oh.

You grow, girl. And he slashes you across the chest. I hate this guy. And definitely hits, and so you take four points of slashing damage. Got to delete that from my list of stupid puns. That was a good one. That was fine. Okay. We're good.

That gets us over to Kensei. I am. Yeah, great. Oh my god, is Nexus still grappled? Or did he just? Yes. And does that require any kind of concentration on the part of our little man? We'll see. Okay. So he's extended out from the mass, messing with Nexus.

I'd like to try to move as quick as I can to work my way around to his side or almost behind him. Sort of away from him in the bush as much as distance as I can create. Okay, so near Nexus, but as far away from the source as possible? Is that what you're saying? No. Far from Nexus, close to the little man. I'm imagining the bush and then the man here and Nexus out here. I want to work my way around in between the bush and the man. Or is there

no separation between the man and the bush? Well, he's moved out 10 or 15 feet, extended out by vine work. His legs are, you can't see them because they're just swirled with plant life. You just see his upper half. This is the image you've described that is in my brain. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So next. Yeah, yeah.

I want to get away from Nexus and behind the guy on his little plant stalk. Yes. Clack, clack, clack, clack. Sorry I did that. And yeah, I'm going to use my movement to get around behind him, and I'm going to summon my movement to get around behind him, and I'm going to summon my persona. And old Otake Maru is going to do something we haven't seen him do yet. He's going to kind of like shake and laugh, and his laughing becomes more disturbing and deeper.

Like normally a maniacal laugh goes higher, and this goes deeper, and the clouds begin to darken, and he is going to cast Mazianga, and it is a wave of thunderous force. And that's a 13 con save for you. For the florist. Yeah. That is a, this is con save? Con save, 13. That is an 11. Ah, this is con save? Con save 13.

That is an 11. Ah, this is good. Woo! Cool, so that means I get to roll to the eight. Eight sockets! Yes! I got another one! Eight sockets!

Yeah! Yeah! 16 points of damage. Yes, that's pretty good. Yes! 16 points of damage. Yes, that's pretty good. And because it's successful, I get to push you 10 feet away from me. So my objective is just to push him from behind

enough to maybe let my friend go and lose his concentration? Well, the vine that's around Nexus is separate from the vine work that's holding Pompadour Man. But who controls it all? It's the Pompadour Man, right? So you're trying to shove him out of the vine work?

I'm trying to push him hard enough, 10 feet worth of push, to get him to lose his focus on my friend over here. I'm going to make him do something. Okay. We'll just see. That's a two. He flies out of the vine and rolls across the ground.

That was Zaflorist. Nexus, you feel the vine go slack. And this little guy gets up, and you see his little tiny legs and their little green loafers, and he's like, he looks terrified momentarily for a moment. What incarnation?

No! And he is on the ground at this moment. He's going to use a legendary action. What? And he looks around you in fear, all of you, for a moment, but then just rubs his hands together and starts giggling, and giggling more.

And he just cackles and the sound is so grating and awful, you feel it spike through your ears into your brain. I need everyone to make a wisdom save and tell me what you got. Don't forget to add a wisdom save bonus, new players. Oh damn. Mommy had no wisdom. bonus, new players. Oh, damn. Mommy had more wisdom. Okay, three, two.

Yeah. Two total? Yeah. Okay. 12. 12. Also 12. 12. 14. How much? 14. 14.

Four. Four. Goddess. It's pretty fun. All of you feel, except for Strike, feel your legs quiver and almost turn to jello as you feel a sense of terror in you like you have never known. You stand shaking in your shoes,

scared to death of this little fellow with his tall green pompadour hair and devilish grin. You are all frightened until the end of the florist's next turn. To the end of his next turn? Oh, okay. What does that do? Frightened means we can't get physically closer to him.

And any attacks while he's in sight of us, we have disadvantage on. Oh. So you can still do stuff, but it's a little harder. Okay. Okay. Okay, so that gets us to, that was a legendary action, that gets us to Nexus. I get up from the vines and hear this cackling

coming over my shoulder and see this tiny man. I just, there's something about loafers that is an unprocessed trauma from my childhood. I don't know. So I turn around and start backward crab crawling on the ground like, Umbra, help me! I slam my hand to the ground and my shadow reaches out,

almost two dividing figure eights beneath him as the umber's arms strike out from the shadow and slam on the ground behind him to release a migga on him. All right. Out of desperation. Make a dex save. Yeah, as a bonus action,

I'm going to slam it into him immediately. Okay. So dex save on this point. So that is a 16. 16 is a success. So he takes seven, so three points of necrotic damage. Okay. I just continue to crawl away from him. Someone? Anyone?

Okay. He goes, Oh, okay, Bloomer. Nice try. Ah! I hate him. I don't hate him. How many of them are there? Not enough. More, more. Which gets us on to Goddess.

I've been so excited about these pods all night. Oh yeah, oh, keep it coming, please. All right. So Goddess is still obviously fearful, so she is going to call upon... I would like to, in my fear, whisper for my persona to appear. Mm-hmm. I bet he does.

And I will whisper into her ear, and you will see a little tiny bubble with a little music note inside of it. And it's going to float over to creepy little Florespan. And it's going to come to the tip of his pompadour. And when it pops, it makes the sound as I cast. Okay, okay. You cast. That is a wisdom save.

Well, Zaflorist rolled, got a 17. Aw, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right, you succeeded. That's not balls, I'm sorry. Dang bosses. All right, you succeeded. You succeeded, okay, I'll give it to you. Okay, okay. You win this round. Can't do that, can't do that.

All right, so that gets us to the top of the initiative, to Hudson. Okay, Hudson, terrified, teeth chattering. I walk over to... What's your name? Nexus. Nexus? It's fine, you know, I've just been running games for you guys for weeks.

I'm so scared, I can't remember Nexus's name. That's true, no. It's a very real experience. And I summon Little Miss, there she is, to cast her diorama. She touches you with her little paw. It's so adorable. You can regain a number of hit points equal to 1d plus 3. Great. 1d8 plus 3. 1d8 plus 3. You would roll that 4. Roll that diamond-shaped d8.

She's so cute. It just instills me with fortitude. Three, so six. Six, I'll take it. You get six. I was at four. Ooh! She looks. Thank you, little miss.

Thank you, Lux. Yes. She spins around your ankle twice and then vanishes in shadow on the ground. Okay. Shadow on shadow. Team darkness. Team darkness. Team darkness.

They know. I mean, it's classic team darkness. Right, every time. It's the matching hair, isn't it? Yeah. So I'm completely unaware that anybody's scared. I've just been gathering roses and just stuffing them, so I just look like a giant mass of flowers,

and I peek over the crane. Like a lion peeking out of a box. They would peek out like little petals that are flinging out. I'm just gonna give Galileo a break and pull out my Glock and aim for the little man on the floor. His green pants are so... I'll never get tired of this. and pull out my Glock and aim for the little man on the floor.

His green pants are so... I'll never get tired of you. Sometimes you just got to go with the Glock. Get that front. Come on. Eight? Nine? Nine for the gunshot? Yeah.

I'm so sorry. You shoot at him and it's a little low for a dance back as he dodges the shot. I'm just giving her the clock. Guns don't solve our problems, guys. No, they don't. No, they don't. In effect, they do.

Yeah, they're just going to be like, well, that didn't happen, and just slink back behind the curtain. Okay. That's right, okay. So the rose lion disappears behind the wooden crate. You see the little man with his pompadour go, and he runs on his loafers and dives into the plants

surrounding the statue, and you see him disappear like a diver going into a pool, and you see a lump go up about halfway surrounding the statue again. You see him disappear like a diver going into a pool and you see a lump go up about halfway up the statue and then reappear again. And Vine is going to lash out towards Hudson, who ran over to Nexus. Damn. But I rolled a three, so the vine strikes the ground

as you slide out of the way and go into a tuck and roll and come up next and look at him, miffed, looking down at you. Ugh, you are so God in variety. This is my dream. Yeah. Nightmare, but dream. Something the same. He then plunges out of the vines towards you.

He's pissed, and you see the garden shears in his hand, and he just makes a dive towards you. He's going to attempt to stab you with gardening shears. And that is 16 to hit? That hits, I'm 14 armor. Okay, you feel massive gardening, sparkling garden shears slide into your gut and you take six points piercing damage.

I didn't even hit you in the last round. And as quickly as he's there, you hear a giggle, and he yanks back into the greenery. It appears his face now, just his face, moving through the greenery. I need it. Back at us to Kensei. So technically, does that end his turn,

and are we no longer a fear? Correct. Correct. Okay. Shake it off. It's just real sweaty down here. It's a lot of sweating, that's all it is. Oh boy. I really don't care for this little man.

And can we see his little ass face? You can see his ass face and a lump, so you know where his body is. It's definitely hittable. He's not hidden. Great. I'm just being cheeky with my description. Wait, so you see his face and a little lump?

For his body. Okay. Only thing coming out. So he's really enjoying this fight. We know where to aim. All right, I am no longer afeard of my persona. I'm going to summon my bad boy again. Okay. He's going to charge up. I have to just go for this. He's going to charge up his glass cannon

here and fire off, I can't even say it, Moragion. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's a big gun. and fire off, I can't even say it, Moragion. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep, that's a big gun. That's a big gun. Yeah, that one's a 13 dex. Okay, so Otakemaru appears

and just starts to inhale, pulling his massive head back, and then belches and fire larger than anything else that has happened today, launches out at this guy's face. That is a nine, that is a failure. You get him full blast in the face and you see this. As a wall of fire rushes towards him. No punny words right now, are there, buddy boy? The thing I love about this is that

it's a straight line, like a funnel, so it's just burning all the foliage on a straight train track right into his little dorky face. That's a 3d8. Let's do something fun. Four, two. Wow, not great. Nine plus nothing.

Nine of fire, that's it. Nine of fire. Hey, it all helps. Yeah, he just disappears in this gout of flame and slowly it dies down and you see his face blackened and pissed. Oh, I see you have rose to the occasion. Well, two can play at this game.

And you see all around his face, which is like blackened and ashen, roses bloom everywhere, all around his face in a ring. And for his legendary action, you see the burns start to heal away on his face in a ring, and for his legendary action, you see the burns start to heal away on his face. I thought so. Okay, okay, could have been better for him. But you do see some of the damage you did,

the burning to his face, heal up a bit, and that gets us to, unless you have any other thing you'd like to do? No. Nexus. Nexus! All right. When he ran and dove back into the vines, how far did he travel from where he was? 20 feet. 20 feet?

He's in bonus action to move my persona, who is still seeping in the shadows from where he was before, 30 feet. 20 feet? Yeah. Bonus action to move my persona, who is still seeping in the shadows from where he was before, 30 feet, to travel on the ground and then shoot up and grab, up hiding and swimming in the shadows around the vines to ram him to make another dex save. Okay. That's a 17. 17, success, got it.

For a sixth, there's three points of necrotic damage to it. Three points. It all helps. I'm going to go ahead and then with my action use Ai-Ha. And after the shadows of Umbra have swarmed into this, and they're like, Umbra, tie him up! Then as I put my fingers outward,

you watch as the shadows pierce out and the dark shadows turn into these silver threads, like wires that spread out. Cool. Then weave back in and start shredding around him. So he needs to make a wisdom save. Wisdom save. That's a four.

A four. He's taking damage. That's a d12. Okay. Three points of necrotic damage. Not getting enough. Hey, it's all still going for the right place. It's all good. This all looks so cool.

Yeah, look at it. We got flames, we got fire. Yeah, we got flash. We just need substance. You brought the substance this time. The rest of us are just playing back up over here. All the roses that have bloomed around his face wilt and fall away, and he looks pissed. That brings us back to Goddess. Goddess is going to look at a little man who creeps her out. These. Weird creepy man parts. And she's going to go for the eyeball.

Okay. Work last time. Just going to see how that goes. Ooh! Ooh! I have a lighter in my pocket. Mm-hmm. I'm going to light my heart arrow on fire. Okay. Before I aim it. I'm gonna light my heart arrow on fire. Okay. Before I aim it.

And this little eyeball. Gives me a little shit here. Okay. Jury Reagan arrow. Oh! Is it a 20? What's the first name of that show? Was it like Critical?

Oh, what's the first part, Crit? Hell yes! Love it, love it. All right, roll for... That definitely earns you a fire arrow. Roll for damage, double them dice. Shoot them dice and roll. Oh, seven points.

Seven points. The arrow, you were aiming for the, you were doing a flame arrow, okay. So you hold up a lighter and the heart just starts to burn up like six inches into the air. You draw back and fire just goes and it strikes into his cheek and goes straight in and you hear him shriek

for the first time in real fear and pain and fire starts to lick up his pompadour, which starts to cave in on one side and move up flowers and vine above him. You're welcome. He has no sassy retort, only a grunt of pain. He can't use his legendary action because healing was the whole bag.

Oh, sorry, my bad. Bonus action. Bless your heart, and I'm gonna do a bonus action of inspiration to my dear Custen. I got a what? You can add a d6 to any attack, ability check, or saving throw. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. I feel so inspired. That's what I'm here for. And you are now up, Hudson. And now it's my turn. Hell yeah. All right. I'm going to use this inspiration to attack.

Okay. Yeah. I'm going to do another Iga. It's the best I've got. So here it comes. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to do another Iga. It's the best I've got. So here it comes. Go for it. Start rolling? Yeah.

Do I see him inspired? Let me see, let me see, let me see. Yes, you do start rolling. So Little Miss is just out and around, and she pitter-pats towards this massive statue of horror, and the tail starts whipping around. Let's go. Okay. and she pitter-pats towards this massive statue of horror and the tail starts whipping around, let's go. Okay. Now you can add a D6 to anything that's too low.

Oh, but is a D6 for now? It's a single use. If you wanted to, you could roll this and add to it. If you wanted to. Roll this. One time. And add to that. Correct.

Right, that's the inspiration you just got. Can I use this for hit, for like? Can't use it for damage. Oh, I can use it for damage. One thing you cannot use. Okay, so let me use this. Go for it. Yeah, okay.

Two, so eight, but do I get a plus for something? You get a plus two to these. Nine plus two, so it's 11 plus two is 13. Okay. 13, Shadow splatters it's 11 plus two is 13. Okay. 13, Shadow splatters against Vine, but does not hit. Oh! I got two more, two more.

All right. 16 plus two is 18. That's better. Does hit. That hits, okay. Let's save the third. 20! Oh! Oh, new player gets a crit, here we go! Yeah!

That was the real inspiration. Not the first, that was the inspiration. You couldn't have done that without goddess. Roll the second attack damage first, so that's just 2d6. Okay. Oh, sorry. No worries.

And that I know. Two QBs. Roll two of these. For the first globule that hit. Four. Nice. Two. Four and two is six.

Okay, so Shadow strikes the other side of his pompadour, and now it's almost like a wilting mohawk that's left on top of his head. Now you're going to roll two more times, but you double the amount of what you get for this one. Okay. Okay. One. One.

So I've doubled to two. All right, whatever. Still got another. Two, fuck. Three, so six. Six total. Six and six. So six and six, still 12 points of damage. Come on, it's like you say,

it's all in the right direction. Exactly. It all builds towards the culmination. The final globule actually, as he opens his mouth to say something sassy, flies into his mouth and goes, I'm going to put the petal to the metal now! Yep, terrible. It's terrible.

That now gets us a round to strike. Come on, strike. What are you rolled for already? What are you doing? Tell us! This is your moment. You're just ready. You're fired up. It's all those nat 20s. You're like, it's my moment. Oh, strike, is it? You are in a sorny position, but I'm sure you'll come out smelling like a rose. And I'm still covered in roses. They smell lovely. Summon my persona and Kassa Zyugna, 20. So, Galileo appears with its massive, separated, floating pieces of armor and a head

very much like a large star, and storm clouds gather and electrical energy starts to flash left, then right. Please roll for damage. Yes. I should just keep these out. Oh, this is... Hold on. I'm going to keep these out. Oh, this is... Yeah. One.

Five? Five. Total is five? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Strike, how do you want to do this? Whoa! Yeah! Yeah, so he comes out, and Galileo is just, you know, just throwing lightning back and forth

between its two iron arms, and then builds up all this lightning, and then just strikes down hard right down the middle. The arms spread apart and a massive serpent of electrical energy snakes out in a spiral and strikes the Zeeflorist dead, said in the center of his chest as he's lunging out in that moment.

And just you see his hands start to wiggle back into the vines, and electricity starts moving up through all of the plant life, up to the top of this statue, up to the very tip of the flag, which sparks like the clock tower in Back to the Future. He peels out and smacks into the ground, oh, I have pollen, and I can't get out! Yes!

Hurts. So good. He crumples into the ground and what's left of his pompadour deflates and you watch as he just melts into wriggling vines on the ground and separates into nothing. All the plants begin to peel away from the statue falling apart.

Roses start to die and the petals shrivel up and flutter to the ground. A crate begins to unravel out of all these vines and starts to roll and fall and lands in a pile of bouquets and rotting vegetation on the ground. You hear, ah, on the inside, a steel armor boot kicks open the crate and Irina, alive, emerges from within,

a little rattled perhaps, but none too worse for wear. She turns back and looks up at the statue with a grimace. The statue's finally more visible now as the greenery wilts entirely away. All right, Lady Marie, you're next. as the greenery wilts entirely away. All right, Lady Marië, you're next. And then she turns around and looks at you all. Oh man, now I really owe you one. I'm super tempted to make a flower pun,

but I think we've had enough of those for the day. Thank you. I'm gonna level with you guys. That guy was just a glorified henchman. His boss is the real threat, and she's still out there. You won us the day, but Lady Marie isn't gonna let up. We need all the help we can get here. You up for joining the cause?

What do you say, party crushers? I'm in. Me, too. Raise my glock to the sky and be like, yeah! The rest of us duck. With all the shots we've seen go astray here today. All right, well, welcome to the Rebellion. We've got a lot of work ahead of us.

I'm glad to have you on board. Vive la resistance. We'll be as quick as thieves and as unseen as a phantom. I like it. I like it. Well, come on. I'll show you around town. While we got a lull in the action, she starts to lead you guys

up through the streets and you see people. People? Folk come streaming out of the doorways on this plaza. They're wearing bright, they're small in stature and they wear bright colored coats, red, blue, yellow, all little top hats. They come blinking out at you, shyly, gratefully,

looking up at the statue and vines still peeling off of their homes and crashing them to the ground. You guys all just start marching up to the road, away from where you came and onto who knows what's next. Welcome to the rebellion. And that's where we're going to end our silly little flower pun laden one shot. Yay!

Thank you guys for playing with me today. Thank you players with lots of reps at bat. Thank you for players with none. Yeah! Happy to have you here. Players with lots of reps at bat, thank you for players with none. Yeah! Happy to have you here. Thank you, all of you, for playing with me. And thank you.

Thank you, Persona. I like the idea of Arena being like, cool, let's get everybody outside of these crates. We're like... We kind of did a lot here. Yeah. I'm sure the fire fizzled out on its own. No, it's fine. You kind of did a lot here. I'm sure the fire fizzled out on its own. No, it's fine.

Well, Matt, Jared, Christina, Santhe, Robbie, thank you again. And thank you again to our friends at Atlas for letting us play around in the world of Persona 5 Tactica tonight. A reminder that while you may have recognized the places and characters explored this evening as inspired by elements from the Persona 5 Taktika game, it's not canon, it's just for fun, just for funsies here at our table.

We want to emphasize that the characters and events in this one shot were our own creations and not official content from Persona 5 Taktika. They're just inspired by it. I had a lot of fun messing around with it. I hope you guys go check out Persona 5 Tactica. It's out now. Good night.

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