MATT: Welcome back, everyone, to the next episode
of Critical Role! This week, we have a full party.
We'll be continuing just after the climactic
battle with the twisted beholder, K'varn. We're
going to go ahead and play a couple of videos here
while we're waiting for the rest of the party
members to settle in, so we'll be back here in
just a few minutes. Sit tight and we'll get this
party started. We have some fun announcements,
some cool gifts that came in we'll be opening
towards the end of the session today, but we'll go
into those details shortly, so see you
in a little bit.
[dramatic music]
TRAVIS: Right, Listen up! If you have ale, then
you have a friend in Grog Strongjaw. A goliath of
towering height and size, this barbarian has an
appetite for the two great loves in his life:
combat, women, and ale! (chuckle)
(record scratch) Wait.
Easily the brains of the group, Grog is often
consulted for his vast knowledge of shapes,
colors, and (chuckle) shiny things!
Also ale.
In his early years, armed with his two-handed
great axe, Grog often enjoyed proving his might
amongst the ranks of his family's wandering herd.
But after coming upon an unsuspecting elderly
gnome in the woods, he objected to the killing of
such an innocent life. A creature of impulse, Grog
felt only pity for this-- well, this terrified
little thing. And his disobedience
cost him dearly.
Beaten bloody and banished by the herd leader, his
uncle Kevdak, Grog was abandoned and left to die,
exiled from his herd. It was then that the
relative of the very gnome he fought to save,
saved him. It was the kindness of a gnome cleric
named Pike that healed Grog, bringing him back
from death's edge. And they have remained close
friends ever since.
Most nights, Grog can be found challenging entire
taverns to wrestling matches! Ha! Or accompanying
Scanlan to the nearest house where you pay for
lady favors.
Also ale!
MARISHA: A first impression of Keyleth would leave
you with little information on the half-elven
druid. You might even think that her social
awkwardness due to her sheltered upbringing is
kind of sweet. (chuckle)
Of course, it would be unwise to underestimate her
based on first impressions. (thunder) Under that
unintimidating petite frame is a vicious beast
waiting to be unleashed, whose natural powers have
made even the fiercest of champions pee their
pants, literally! (soft chuckle)
Born to the Air Tribe of the Ashari people,
Keyleth was raised with a deep love of nature and
the elemental magics. It is her people's inherent
duty to protect the delicate areas in Tal'Dorei
where the four elemental planes begin to bleed
with this realm.
Since she was a little girl, she had quite a knack
for air manipulation and beast shaping abilities.
Well, if you consider kittens and flying squirrels
to be little beasts. Which, I do. (clears throat)
Anyways, it wasn't long before the headmaster of
the tribe, her father, Korren, realized her true
prodigious abilities and she was inveterated to
succeed him as the next headmaster.
Just like that, her jovial childhood was stripped
and replaced with endless spell memorization,
teachings from ancient traditions, and exceedingly
high expectations. Every druid leader to be must
embark on a journey to seek out the sister tribes in
order to introduce and establish respect amongst
the fellow headmasters. They call this the
Aramente, or Noble Odyssey. When her father felt
she was ready, he set her on the path to truly
discovering herself, not knowing when, or if, she
will ever return.
As she hiked down the mountain towards Stillben,
she meditated on the task ahead. Part of the
Aramente is proving yourself a strong warrior, a
valiant protector, and a wise and compassionate
leader. With this knowledge, one thought plays on
repeat in her mind: Is she even worthy?
TALIESIN: Percy was the third of seven children,
born to a noble family who lived far to the north
in the ancient castle of Whitestone. With so many
siblings to share the burdens of lordship, Percy
turned his attentions to the sciences,
engineering, and naturalism.
One day, a mysterious couple named Lord and Lady
Briarwood came to court. During a feast held in
their honor, the Briarwoods violently took control
of the castle, killing or imprisoning everyone who
would stand in their way.
Percy awoke chained in the dungeon, only to be
freed by his younger sister. Together they fled,
chased by the Briarwoods' men. As they ran,
Percy's sister took several arrows to the chest
and fell. Percy kept running, eventually jumping
into a freezing river and floating unconscious to
freedom. He did not remember waking up on a
fishing boat. He barely remembered the next two
years, as he slowly made his way as far south as
possible.
Then one night, Percy had a dream. A roaring cloud
of smoke offered him vengeance against those who
destroyed his family. When he awoke, Percy began
to design his first gun. (gunshot)
ASHLEY: Pike grew up on the outskirts of town,
near the Bramblewood. Her ancestors were a family
of deep gnomes with quite an unfavorable
reputation. Thievery, destruction, and trickery
left them with the curse of the last name
Trickfoot. Sarenrae, the goddess of healing and
redemption, had other plans for Pike's
great-great-grandfather Wilhand, who left his
family at a young age after a dream: a dream that
changed the course of the Trickfoot family.
Wilhand devoted his life to Sarenrae and pledged
from then on that him and his family would live a
life of service and devotion.
As a child, Pike seemed to have an affinity to
heal. Whether it was animals, people, or even
flowers, she felt she had a purpose in making
things whole that had once been broken. She
studied and learned the ways to heal though divine
magic.
She lived a peaceful life, quiet and simple, until
one day, Wilhand was captured and almost killed by
a group of goliath barbarians. One of the goliaths
took a stand against the murder of the innocent
gnome and he himself was beaten, bloodied, and
left for dead, abandoned by his herd. Wilhand went
to Pike for help. She prayed and healed this
barbarian as best she could, bringing him
back to life.
When he awoke, she discovered his name was Grog
Strongjaw. After that, they were the best of friends,
a rather unlikely pair. Little did she know that
in a few years' time, Grog would soon return the
favor and bring her back from the clutches of
death. (roar, crunch)
After being killed in battle, Pike felt angry. She
wanted to be stronger so that it would never
happen again. She spent four months at sea
training with the men and women aboard a ship
called the Broken Howl.
Gripping her holy symbol in one hand, and her
morningstar in the other, this time,
Pike is ready.
SAM: Oh, you haven't heard of Scanlan Shorthalt?
Well, gird your loins, ladies, because he has his
eye on you.
A talented musician, master of disguise, and
dashingly handsome in his own mind, Scanlan sings
songs almost as much as he sings his own praises.
Born a poor gnome, Scanlan used his endless charm
and soaring tenor voice to croon for coin and
support his single mother. One day he was
discovered by a half-orc promoter and joined Dr.
Dranzel's Spectacular Traveling Troupe, where he
learned the ways of the world and honed his skills
as a bard extraordinaire.
A loner much of his life, Scanlan has never quite
come to terms with the violent death of his mother
at the hands of a goblin invasion. While his years
on the road provided many, shall we say,
educational experiences with the opposite sex,
deep down, Scanlan yearns for the one thing he's
never known: the true love of a fellow gnome.
Still, Scanlan considers himself a lover first,
performer second, and fighter distant third. On
the battlefield, he'll support his allies, but
rarely draws blood, unless it's to protect fellow
gnome, Pike.
Count on Scanlan for a hearty laugh, a rollicking
song, and a twinkle in his eye that melts hearts
and makes the females swoon.
ORION: Greetings and salutations. I am Tiberius
Stormwind. I hail from a town called Ty'rex,
located in the heart of Draconia.
From a politically respected family, at the age of
15, I succeeded in passing the Sorcerer's Rite,
showing prodigy-like control of my magic. The
judges and the Draconian high council were amazed
at how powerful my spells were for how long I had
been training. At 20 years old, I was the youngest
appointed member of the magic guild in Draconian
history. For the next few years, I almost went mad
from the malaise of being a guild member, as it's
rather boring.
However, one day I happened upon a chamber, unused
for quite some time. In the room were stacks of
books and maps of the surrounding cities and areas
around the known world. For months, I would
frequent the chamber, and learned of artifacts
from legend.
After a long period of research, I made a list of
artifacts that caught my eye. I brought these
findings to the high council and was told that all
of the information in the chamber I had stumbled
upon was either believed to be fiction, or
unsolvable mysteries, and hence were lost forever.
I found those answers to be unacceptable.
A year later, I devised a ruse and managed to
convince the city council to lend support in me
leaving Draconia on a mission of peace and
diplomacy for the surrounding kingdoms, going from
town to town and making friends and allies, in and
for the name of Draconia. Being a red dragonborn,
I had quite the task on my hands in that respect,
but it was exactly what I needed so I could
explore the world and find these artifacts, as I
felt the truth was out there.
Some may describe me as buffoonish, but I say
poppycock to all that. I am much sharper than most
give me credit for. I just don't pay attention to
things sometimes. I've also been known to be
rather cunning, loyal, happy-go-lucky, and well,
dangerous. I can't help but show my true scales
every now and then. But overall, I think I'm quite
friendly for a dragonborn!
LIAM: Never entirely welcome in the company of
elves or men, Vax'ildan learned at a young age to
skip past formality, preferring instead to invite
himself in your door.
Along with twin sister Vex'ahlia, Vax was born by
a chance encounter between elven royalty and human
peasantry. Raised by their mother in their early
years, the twins were eventually sent off to their
father in the elven capital of Syngorn. But their
cool reception among the elves there never warmed,
and their time in the capital didn't last. The
siblings stole away one autumn night and set out
on the open road.
After a few years of wandering, they eventually
decided to return to their mother, and journeyed
back to the lands of their youth. But instead of
finding their childhood home, they returned to a
pile of rubble. Their mother was gone, their home
burned to ash. Pressing the townspeople for
answers, they learned of the day the dragon came.
(roar) With their ties all severed, Vax'ildan and
his sister set out to find their fortune together
in Tal'Dorei.
An outsider since birth, Vax quickly learned to
solve life's challenges in his own particular way,
often by side-stepping them entirely. And when his
knack for circumventing adversity isn't enough,
(knife scraping) the way of blades the elves
schooled him in more than makes
up the difference.
LAURA: Like so many half-elves, Vex'ahlia has
spent most of her life suffering the cool
reception of a people who don't fully accept her.
Born of a human mother and an elven father who
only later in life took an interest in their
existence, Vex'ahlia and her twin brother
Vax'ildan quickly realized the only people they
could truly rely on in this world
were each other.
It was at the age of ten when the two were taken
from their mother and brought to live in Syngorn,
the isolated elven city for which their father was
an ambassador. He quietly took them in, but always
kept an icy distance, and after too many years of
disdainful looks, the pair decided to leave his
indifference behind, and set out on their own.
Vax took to the cities, stealing small trinkets
and learning the ways of the thief, while Vex kept
to the woods; she preferred the isolation.
Always the keen observer, she learned to hunt and
to track, to spy and to shoot. And through a
series of fateful events, earned herself a
companion in the form of a bear-- her own stolen
Trinket-- to fight alongside her and protect her
fiercely.
Also, he is adorable, and gives expert massages.
[dramatic music]
MATT: Hello, guys! Welcome back. Thank you for
your patience. We have the whole group, finally
seem to have defeated the horrible atrocity that
is 13th-level Los Angeles traffic.
(cheering)
ZAC: What's up, internet? I've got a quick
announcement.
MATT: Yes.
ZAC: Guys, we have a big giveaway today, when we
get to 3,300 subscribers. I think we're 50 away or
around 48, something like that. When we get to
3,300, we're giving away a dice box, a signed
t-shirt, a starter set, and a signed Player's
Handbook all in one box for a lucky winner, so if
you guys get those subscribers rolling in, that's
what helps pay for this show and pay for the
entire channel as a whole, so get on that! And we
wanted to say thank you to Aaron's Books in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for sending us this
stuff to give away to you guys.
(cheering)
MATT: Seriously guys, seriously, that was so cool
of you to send that out there, and we want to say,
happy sixth graduation, Aaron, congrats to you,
well done.
(cheering)
ZAC: Aaron's a little young to be running a
bookstore. That's all I have to say.
MATT: I consider that a very fine entrepreneurial
position. You're getting started young, good man.
ZAC: So guys, enjoy the game.
MATT: Thank you so much, and thank you again,
Aaron and Aaron's books. That's awesome, guys.
TRAVIS: Who was that strange masked man just now?
MATT: I don't know, it's so weird. Okay, so a
couple quick things. First off, thank you guys for
coming back and watching. Last week we had a few
members away, so we had a fun little mini-game
with a few folks, some who had played before, some
who hadn't, and it turned out very interestingly.
I hope my DM's tips were helpful for some folks
out there. There's been some great feedback, and
hopefully we'll do more things like that in the
future for off-days. So, thanks to you. Welcome
back, we're getting back into the main story line.
Couple other quick things I wanted to mention:
first off a big shout-out, birthday shout-out to
Kit Buss, our fantastic artist for the show.
(cheering)
TRAVIS: Happy Birthday, Kit!
ORION: We love you, Kit.
ASHLEY: Happy birthday!
MATT: She's awesome, she's amazing, and I've seen
a couple little previews of the next piece of art
she's been working on and it looks pretty awesome.
I think you guys are going to dig it. So she's not
done, when she's finished drinking her birthday
shots, then I think we'll hopefully see that soon.
(laughs) Awesome, thank you so much, Kit!
MARISHA: Yes, shots first, then draw.
MATT: Exactly, it's priorities! Also, anyone have
any announcements they want to mention before we
start the game? Any upcoming stuff?
TRAVIS: The Justice League thing!
MATT: That's true, yeah! DC Kids on Youtube just
released their new Super Friends animated series
that both me and Travis are in.
ORION: Who are you? Who do you guys play?
MATT: Well, you play Lex Luthor.
TRAVIS: Lex Luthor, and you play Superman.
ORION: Son of a bitch!
SAM: Interesting choice.
TALIESIN: You can feel the tension.
MATT: It's a really, really cute show, it's a lot
of fun, it's very much a playback to the classic
Super Friends cartoon, that kind of comedic
atmosphere. You should check it out.
SAM: You're Superman?
MATT: Yeah.
SAM: (Clarota voice) Does he talk like this?
MATT: Yeah, it gets a little weird around episode
three. I don't think DC's happy with how we
treated the license for that one.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: That's the best.
MATT: That's every character I do now. Matthew
Mercer, reading for Superman: (croaking noise)
Also, if anyone else has any other announcements
they want to mention?
MARISHA AND ORION: Yeah!
MARISHA: You go first.
ORION: Whatchamacallit, a few weeks ago me and
Matthew wore these really cool shirts with the
vermilion bird from Rubrum, which is in Type-0,
the Final Fantasy that we're both in! That shirt
was made from Greven, g-r-e-v-e-n, at Redbubble,
and we wanted to thank him for those shirts, along
with this awesome Final Fantasy shirt, made by
August8913, where she did this super cool, it says
Nine on the back, his says Trey. Thank you guys,
for the really cool shirts.
TRAVIS: Aw, yeah! Jumped on the jam, boogie-woogie
jam-slam.
MARISHA: I'm going to be at Lock and Load this
weekend in Seattle, which is the War Machine
Hordes con for Privateer Press.
TRAVIS: Really?
MARISHA: Yeah! It's awesome, I'm going to be
dressed up in my Scar costume. It's going to be
awesome, I'm going to be doing a big
transformation with Espionage. Yeah, and we're
actually going to be pushing the stream; they're
going to be streaming it and Geek&Sundry is going
to be hosting the Lock and Load stream, so tune in
and watch me prance around at
Lock and Load in Seattle.
TALIESIN: Those are impressive shoes to prance in,
by the way.
MARISHA: Yeah, some intense stripper heels, yeah.
ORION: Who'd you play?
MATT: Kreoss.
ORION: You were Kreoss, by the way, War Machine
Tactics, Matthew Mercer is Kreoss.
MATT: Kreoss, Asphyxius, couple other guys.
ORION: Yeah, yeah, check it out.
MATT: It's fun, it's on Steam.
LIAM: Asphyxius?
MATT: Asphysius is the character's name, lich lord
Asphyxius, he's bad in town.
MARISHA: I'm Haley and Deneghra and Fiora.
LAURA: We're going to be at MetroCon next
weekend.
MATT: Awesome! MetroCon next weekend.
TRAVIS: (sings) In Tampa.
LAURA: (sings) In Tampa, Florida.
TRAVIS: Tampa, Florida.
MATT: Okay. Real fast, before we get to that, I
will be, for those who are near--
MARISHA: You already did it?
TRAVIS: How many did we have to go?
ZAC: 50.
LAURA: Ridiculous.
MARISHA: 50 subscribers.
MATT: Well, we already hit the mark!
MARISHA: Don't we normally hit that in, like, a
show?
MATT: That works, you guys are amazing!
ASHLEY: Yes, that's awesome!
ORION: Thank you, everyone!
MATT: I'll finish my last announcement, then we'll
go to that.
ZAC: I'm going to go ahead and start the
giveaway.
MATT: Go, start the giveaway!
TRAVIS: When is the next giveaway?
ZAC: We're going to do-- Those pictures already
exist, they shared them with the chatroom. Yeah,
so we're going to do this. We're going to do a
whole other set of these when
we get to the next 50.
MARISHA: Oh, a whole other set? There's another
one?
ZAC: Technically, we have four sets.
LIAM: See you in five minutes.
MATT: So we have four sets of those to give away.
Every 50 subscribers another set goes out, guys,
so that's amazing.
ORION: I could have Sam fart on this for you, if
you want.
SAM: Again? Already done, friend, already done.
MATT: Whoa. Okay, there we go. (laughs)
TRAVIS: The world just ended.
MATT: That was close. I just rolled a one on my
camera save. Final announcement before we get
to the game, for those who are-- (shushing
noises)
ORION: Sorry. Okay.
MATT: Can't all talk at once. Also, this weekend
I'll be in Sandusky, Ohio, at Colossal Con along
with such great folks as Johnny Yong Bosch, Steve
Blum, other fun greats--
TRAVIS: Is that at the water park?
MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Son of a bitch.
MATT: (laughs) Yeah, because water parks are
totally sanitary. Hot tub's going to be great.
TRAVIS: The dysentery afterwards is--
ZAC: Flyingsquid63 is the winner.
ALL: Flyingsquid63!
MATT: You are the winner of the first set.
Congratulations, that's awesome.
ASHLEY: It's an awesome name.
MARISHA: Oh look, and it's green. You're winning
green speckled dice, like squid colors.
MATT: There you go, that worked out well, very
Cthulhu-ian.
MARISHA: I'm justifying. Shut up, Liam!
(laughter)
MATT: Well awesome, so we hit our next 50, we'll
do another giveaway, we have three more of those
packages to give out, guys, so hopefully keep that
up. All right, anything else or should we get back
into the chaos?
MARISHA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: I'm scared!
MATT: You should be.
ASHLEY: I really am.
SAM: We beat the bad guy! It's fine, it's all
fine.
MATT: Where we left off.
ORION: I forgot to ask you something before the
game, it's fine.
MATT: It's okay. The party, as they ventured deep
into the Underdark beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains
in the dwarven city of Kraghammer, they sought and
discovered Lady Kima of Vord, a folk hero, a
paladin of Bahamut who had been captured and
tortured by the duergar that lived beneath it.
After saving her, they discovered that there was
an even deeper, darker, more dangerous evil
brewing beneath the surface. There was an
illithid, or mind flayer, city of Yug'voril deeper
within these cavern structures, and currently the
Elder Brain of the colony was under the control of
an entity known as K'Varn, they came to find out was
a self-mutilated and advanced beholder, who had
come into contact with a dark artifact known as
the Horn of Orcus that was actually gifted many
many, many many, like hundreds of years ago by the
god of undeath himself, Orcus, to one of his
avatars. Somehow it found its way to this
beholder, and gave it enough power to where it
gained complete dominion over this colony and
these caverns as a whole. The party fought their
way through and made a few allies, including the
ousted mind flayer, Clarota, seeking to return to
his colony, has been fighting alongside them, as
well as Lady Kima, the paladin they came to save.
Upon finding their way into the final cavern, they
used their magic carpet to completely go around
the giant city of Yug'Voril, perch on top of the
temple in the center of the city, and using a
polymorphed fomorian giant (laughs), cascading
down hundreds upon hundreds of feet, through the
glass structure on top, managed to break their way
into the temple, after which a very dangerous
battle with K'Varn the beholder took place. A
number of very close calls. I posted the stats for
them after the fight, if any of you guys got a
chance to see it. They made saving throws where it
counted, or we'd have a lot more party members
that'd be permanently dead. But they managed to
take him out; using Tiberius's Telekinesis, they
tore the horn from its forehead and the beholder
fell to the ground, unmoving and finally killed,
as opposed to its undead form, and that's where we
begin. As you guys all sit there looking around
yourselves, adrenaline still pumping in your ears,
the flow of blood.
ORION: Pike--
ASHLEY: That's me! What do you need?
ORION: Do you have spell of Restoration, the thing
that can reverse stone?
ASHLEY: Yes, I do.
ORION: Clarota, what do you suggest we do? Do we
stay, do we leave, or do we-- what do you? There
are hundreds upon thousands of illithid rushing at
us right now, and they don't like me very much, by
the way--
LAURA: We should get out of here!
MATT: At which point, Clarota turns to you and
says, "You. Bring her." Points to Kima, who is
still frozen in stone mid-wielding her maul.
ASHLEY: To carry her?
MATT: "Stay but a moment; I will talk to them."
SAM: Talk to the hive.
ORION: Very good. Wait, do you want her un-stoned,
or still stoned?
MARISHA: Well, hang on. Maybe before we unstone
Kima, we talk about what we should
do with the Horn.
ORION: This is exactly what has to do with the
Horn. Is there any way, Pike, could you perhaps
half-cast it and hold the spell, don't quite undo
her legs from stone, I don't want her to be
mobile. I want to ask her--
ASHLEY: I don't know if I--
SAM: If I may, very quickly, are you with us,
Tiberius?
ORION: We will discuss that when we get out of
here.
SAM: Because you disappeared for like, the whole
fight. Are you with us?
ORION: I am with you.
SAM: Are you going to disappear again?
ORION: To be fair, Scanlan, I never disappeared to
begin with!
SAM: Well, you weren't there when we needed you
the most. You were out doing God-knows-what.
ORION: Quite the contrary. If it wasn't for me,
you'd still be fighting that damn thing.
SAM: What on earth are you talking about?
ORION: Silence.
(laughter)
SAM: Dispel Magic. Yes, I did.
ORION: Counterspell.
SAM: Do I have a will save?
ORION: No, you're done, you're quiet.
MATT: That low enough level? No, unfortunately.
ORION: The idea, which I will share-- we don't
have time to do that--
SAM: I turn him into a goat.
ORION: He has to say that, it doesn't work.
MATT: I know that.
(laughter)
ORION: So the idea is, Pike, if we ask her why she
wants the horn, if there is any other reason but
to destroy it, we have to--
SAM: Okay, then I'll Banish him.
LAURA: (gasps)
ASHLEY: How about-- well, hold on.
TALIESIN: He can't stop it, he can't talk!
MATT: Also requires verbal casting.
SAM: I have to touch him, right?
MATT: You also have to be able to speak.
SAM: Fuck!
MATT: So while you're talking to them, Scanlan is
tapping you and mouthing words angrily.
ORION: The idea is, if she doesn't want to destroy
it, I say there's something awful, and Keyleth, I
believe you want to destroy it, yes?
MARISHA: Well, yes, I mean why does she want to
take it back up to the surface
if it's that terrible?
ORION: I know this is, did you say Orcus, is that
his name?
MATT: Orcus, yes.
ORION: This thing is no good at all.
MARISHA: Why don't we just throw it in some lava?
ORION: Where is some lava? I would much like to do
that.
MARISHA: Well, we're around lava, right?
TRAVIS: We were.
LAURA: We're not around lava now.
TALIESIN: It's a thing of earth. Perhaps taking it
to the surface is necessary to destroy it. Why
don't we have a conversation with her?
ORION: But she wanted to take it back to Emon.
That is not appropriate, we need to destroy this.
TALIESIN: Let's get some information first.
ORION: I dispel Silence.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Let's get some information, let's figure
out--
SAM: Oh hi, hi there.
ORION: Sorry, I just wanted to get the point
across.
ASHLEY: I can un-stone her.
TALIESIN: We'll un-stone her, it's not like she
can take it from us.
ASHLEY: That's my last 5th-level spell, so we
might need to rest.
TALIESIN: If something horrible happens, we're
going to run anyway at this point.
MATT: I assume you guys have come down in here
then.
ORION: I'm staying up, can I not--
SAM: Then how did we have this whole conversation?
ORION: Oh, then I'd be down there.
LAURA: I was planning on staying up. I'm not
leaving Trinket up there.
MATT: Okay. Good.
TALIESIN: Why don't we find out what happens next?
And if we have to, you can teleport us out of
here, correct?
ORION: Oh, I have a wonderful escape plan.
MARISHA: Okay, so Clarota, how much time do we
have before something happens next?
MATT: As you say that, Clarota turns, and the two
stone doorways on each side of the temple shift
open and you notice three mind flayers glide in
from the side of the room.
LAURA: I notch my arrow.
ORION: No, no! Stop, no don't. It's fine, it's
fine, it's fine.
MATT: Two small, bi-pedal, brain-like creatures.
ALL: No! No.
MATT: At which point, Clarota puts his hands up
like this.
TRAVIS: I'm grappled, so.
MATT: Yeah, you're still being held back, but you
can try to break from the grapple if you want to
roll an athletics check.
TRAVIS: (laughs) I would like to, just because
these things ate my fucking mind away. Seven.
MATT: Nope, you're still held against the bars.
TALIESIN: You're like an extra in Big Trouble in
Little China.
TRAVIS: Oh, it's a 12! I looked at acrobatics.
MATT: Still not enough, unfortunately.
ASHLEY: Wait, but I cast-- nope, never mind! Keep
going!
MATT: Okay. As they begin to move in, and are
hovering forward, looking around the room, taking
in the scenery, but they're all focused toward the
center, they're all just moving towards the Elder
Brain. And they make their way up towards it,
looking very intent and very frightened at the
prospect of what maybe has happened in this room.
As they all approach, you can see that low, dull,
kind of purplish glow of the Elder Brain is still
pumping, but slowly brighter and brighter, almost
like it's coming to more life. You can hear the
cage rattling of the various entities that are
still inside, like the one that's still grappling
Grog off to the side. The horn of Orcus, which is
still being held aloft by your Telekinesis spell,
is just hovering through the air, slowly rotating
on its own, little strips of K'Varn's flesh still
freshly tumbling from the side.
ORION: And it's at the halfway point between where
she is and where I'm standing.
MATT: So right here?
ORION: Yeah, right there.
MATT: Not this big, of course.
ORION: It's really heavy, guys!
MATT: As they all move towards the center,
Clarota, with his hands up, turns around, pulls
back the hood, and steps towards the other mind
flayers, hands stretched out, moving up to the
point here.
ASHLEY: (whispers) Can you instill an
inspiration?
SAM: Inspire him? I think he's pretty good on his
own.
ORION: "Don't do anything." I'm saying this on the
ears.
MATT: The three illithid look over and notice
Clarota, and there's a good 20 or 30 seconds of
silence as they just look at each other. At which
point, Clarota kind of turns around to the rest of
the group and looks at them, looks at all of you
and lowers his head a little bit as the mind
flayers move in towards Clarota, one reaches over
and pulls the cap from the back of his head,
removes it, at which point Clarota raises up, and
if you think you've ever seen an entity with
tentacles for a mouth smile, the creases in his
awful, rubbery, fleshy face almost give a look of
joy, of rediscovered connection, and he looks out
to the rest of you and bows a head for a second.
I need Grog, Scanlan, Tiberius, Vax, and Pike to
all make--
TRAVIS: Tiberius, if he fucks us.
SAM: I think he's about to.
MATT: Intelligence saving throws.
TRAVIS: Oh, I'm grappled! I'm raging, but. Fuck
yes! Intelligence saving throws?
MATT: Intelligence saving throws.
TRAVIS: Thank god I rolled high.
ORION: Natural 20.
TRAVIS: (laughs) I get a negative two modifier,
that's such bullshit.
(laughter)
MATT: Not very wise, there, Grog.
TRAVIS: 17.
SAM: Is this a charm?
MATT: This would be-- no, it would not be.
MARISHA: So wait, am I still an elemental? Is that
the deal?
ORION: It's 23.
MATT: 23, 20. Scanlan?
SAM: 12.
MATT: 12. Pike?
LAURA: She needs better dice.
ASHLEY: I rolled a six.
MATT: Okay. Grog?
ASHLEY: Six total. (laughs)
TRAVIS: Oh. 17.
MATT: Okay! So. Currently, all the mind flayers at
once, including Clarota, angrily lash out with a
Mind Blast. You feel your brains all of a sudden
fill with searing, horrible pain. Some of you
manage to shrug it off, but the rest of you find
your bodies locking in place. All right, everyone
who failed their save, which would be-- Keyleth,
what'd you roll?
MARISHA: You didn't have me roll.
MATT: Oh, you need to roll as well, sorry, you're
in the blast there. You're still
an earth elemental.
MARISHA: I thought I was immune to this kind of
stuff. (groans) What do I-- not good.
MATT: Not good? All right, that'll be 22 points of
psychic damage to Grog, to Pike.
TRAVIS: I passed, right?
MATT: No, you passed this. You're fine.
LAURA: Teleport us out of here!
ORION: It doesn't work like that. It's what I was
trying to say earlier!
MATT: Scanlan, you are currently stunned, you are
actually unable to physically move. Pike, as well.
The rest of you manage to resist the Mind Blast,
but at this point in time you can now see that
this crew, including Clarota, now reconnected with
its people, your purpose serving its end, you're
about to be swarmed by the rest of the entire
city.
TRAVIS: Son of a bitch, taint, fuck!
MATT: Let's roll initiative, guys.
MARISHA: We should've gotten out of here!
TRAVIS: I never trusted that Magneto motherfucker!
Fuck.
MATT: All right, so. 25 to 20?
LAURA: 21.
MARISHA: 21, as well.
MATT: Nice. 20 to 15?
ORION: 19.
TALIESIN: 17.
ASHLEY: 16.
MATT: All right, 15 to ten?
LIAM: 14.
SAM: 13.
MATT: All right, Grog?
TRAVIS: Eight. Against mind flayers. We're fucking
fighting brains and mind flayers again.
LAURA: We're all going to die.
MARISHA: Okay, wait, you guys run.
MATT: Vex, you're up first.
MARISHA: I can start bringing down the palace.
LAURA: I'm stuck at the top. Until we can run,
we're stuck, because there's
only one flying carpet.
TRAVIS: Tiberius has got something for us, right?
LAURA: I'm going to cast Hunter's Mark on the
Elder Brain and shoot Hail of Thorns into the
Elder Brain.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: Yes! I like that idea!
MARISHA: I'm going to start bringing down the
temple! Are we okay with that?
TRAVIS: We're still in it.
ORION: Not while we're still in it.
MARISHA: Well, I mean it'll take some time, I'm
sure.
TRAVIS: Or it could happen really quick.
MATT: As you guys do notice-- you guys are
beginning to see what looks like shadows seemingly
coming out from the outside, and you hear what
seems to be slight cackling of things sort of in
the doorways. So you're shooting Hail of Thorns
down into the Elder Brain? Go ahead and roll for
the attack.
LAURA: 19?
MATT: 19 will hit, yes.
SAM: We're going to be dead in ten minutes.
MATT: What, the teleportation one?
ORION: We'll talk about it later. Plan B, it's ten
minutes.
MATT: One minute.
ORION: Sure!
MATT: Pretty sure it's one minute
MARISHA: Wait, does this mean you can go and we'll
distract?
ORION: No, don't look at it! You said one minute,
that's the DM, DM is god.
LAURA: Do I roll regular damage, plus the Hail of
Thorns?
MATT: I thought it was.
TRAVIS: If someone asks you if you're a god--
ALL: You say yes.
TRAVIS: You shouldn't look! You shouldn't waste
your time.
MATT: Spellcasting time: one minute.
ORION: Oh, yes, I'm so glad I'm wrong.
LAURA: 39 on the first hit.
ORION: How many of us are down there?
ASHLEY: 39?! Yes!
MARISHA: All of us except for Laura and Trinket.
TALIESIN: And I'm on the carpet, so I can head
that direction.
LAURA: And then 18 for the second.
MATT: Okay, so you release the first Hail of
Thorns. The arrow shatters into a whole--
LAURA: And anything within five feet takes damage,
as well.
MATT: That'll be all four of them. How much damage
do they take?
LAURA: They take the same amount unless they
make--
MATT: Unless they make a what? Do they have a
saving throw against it?
LAURA: Oh wait. Yeah. They take half damage on a
saving throw.
MATT: Okay. Against what? So two of them make it,
two of them don't.
MARISHA: Look, look, I do double damage to objects
and structures. That's the thing, I'm really good
at tearing shit down.
ORION: Now, sometimes fighting isn't the right
thing to do!
MARISHA: That's why I'm not talking about
fighting, I'm talking about collapsing buildings!
MATT: All right, so Clarota and the one nearest to
it get behind a pillar for a second and
manage to reduce the damage a bit, but the other
two are completely pierced all over their bodies
where shattered pieces of these kind of jagged thorn
arrows exploded all over them and the Elder Brain.
The pulsing begins to-- you hear this shrieking in
your mind, like the actual presence of the Elder
Brain is starting to yell out in pain. You feel
it's hardy but hurting. I mean, it's very hefty,
it's a large chunk of matter, so god knows how
long it would take to take that one down, but it's
definitely-- (laughs) it hurt. It's not happy with
that. Do you want to move at all or do you want to
stay where you are?
LAURA: I want to do my second attack.
MATT: Yeah, that's right!
LAURA: Yeah. 15?
MATT: 15 does not hit, unfortunately. You actually
fire down and it hits the stonework and the arrow
splinters against it. Stay where you are?
LAURA: I don't know what else to do. I'm stuck up
at the top.
MATT: Jump? What could possibly go wrong! Okay,
that's the end of your turn. Keyleth, you're up.
SAM: Keyleth!
MARISHA: I think my best use-- I agree we need to
get out of here, but I'm going to--
MATT: You have shadows moving in from the two open
doorways on each side right now.
MARISHA: What, so the Elder Brain-- is this a
wooden well, or a stone well? What is this?
MATT: Essentially it's a giant stone platform that
houses the Elder Brain at the center.
MARISHA: Here's what I can do. I can start
breaking the well, or I can start blocking
entrances. I can start pulling down--
TRAVIS: That one, the second one.
TALIESIN: The second one.
MARISHA: The second one?
TRAVIS: The second one, close the doorway.
MARISHA: All right. Who's coming in from where?
MATT: This is one doorway. That's the other.
TRAVIS: I thought he said it was big.
MARISHA: All right, I am going to-- I can make it
there, right? That's 35 feet?
MATT: That-- ooh, that's maybe not enough. Yeah
no, that's longer than 35 feet.
LAURA: Just bull rush and tear down the well.
TRAVIS: Yeah, do it. Fuck it, do what you want to
do.
MATT: What do you want to do?
MARISHA: All right, all right!
MATT: Just letting you know, just putting this
into perspective, here: you're fighting four
illithid in the room. You have a city swarming on
you right now.
LAURA: We need to get out! Or take down the Elder
Brain.
MARISHA: All right. I am taking down the doors.
MATT: Okay, what are you doing? Are you casting a
spell?
MARISHA: No, I'm going to start-- can I bull rush,
not necessarily right next to the door but like
right here, and I'm going to elemental-slam into
the wall and siege monster this.
MATT: What's the movement speed of the earth
elemental?
MARISHA: 35 feet.
MATT: 35 feet? As it's still able to move through
stone as well?
MARISHA: Yeah! Well, actually, no. When I move
through stone I think I can move 60 feet!
MATT: Okay, it is a thick floor. You actually
shift into the stonework of the flooring itself
and coast through, popping up right out there.
That'll get you right at the doorway. You can see
there is a slow spiraling incline, like a small--
like an inclined pathway that you can see four
illithid making their way up right now, with some
large looming stomping sounds
coming up behind them.
MARISHA: Perfect! So I materialize, using my girth
to take up the door, and then I just go
(deep voice) boom! And start bringing it down.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make your slam attack or
attacks, depending on how many--
MARISHA: Slam, I guess.
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Get it, Keyleth.
(cheering)
MARISHA: 26!
MATT: 26, okay go ahead and roll damage on that.
Since you are an earth elemental, you do extra
siege damage against structures, don't you?
MARISHA: Correct. Double damage.
So (laughs) okay. So does full damage,
plus five, so that's 21-- 42 points of damage.
ASHLEY: Yes!
MATT: 42 points of damage. So the stone structure,
which is pretty rigid and this is an old, old
structure; the strange, weird, non-Euclidean
design of it has a slight warbling feel to it. You
take both of your earth elemental fists and slam
them into the side. As you do, the structure gives
way and a good 30 feet or so crumbles down around
you. You can feel the stones raining onto you.
Because of your proximity, you take four points of
impact damage.
MARISHA: I like it! It feels good! This is what I
bathe in!
MATT: This entire doorway is ruined, and there's a
good 15-foot pile of stonework now
blocking that entranceway.
MARISHA: 15-foot pile?
MATT: Yeah. But there's a hole above it, where the
stone fell through. So there is about 50 feet up a
section of the wall that is collapsed down.
MARISHA: Whatever, it'll make it harder. Right,
that's my turn.
MATT: Okay, do recall that mind flayers do
levitate.
TRAVIS: Aw. (groans) God! Maybe not now, they
don't?
MATT: All right, Tiberius, you're up.
ORION: Yeah, okay--
MATT: You can also see forms swarming through the
other doorway over there.
LAURA: Teleport us!
ORION: This isn't good.
LAURA: Fly us! Get us out.
ORION: How far? Scanlan's only like a foot away
from me, right?
MATT: Yeah.
ORION: I'm right next to him!
MATT: Yep.
ORION: Oh!
TRAVIS: Beam us out, Scotty.
ORION: Shit. Okay. I cast Fly on myself.
SAM: (laughs) Bye, Tiberius!
(laughter)
ORION: I redact that, actually. Is it possible--
I'm at least standing next to him, right?
MATT: You are.
ORION: I don't have to use a move action right
now. I can, like, look at him.
SAM: I leap!
ORION: Okay, can I give him-- can I take off my
Ioun Stone as an action, and swap his crown?
MATT: No, I'm pretty sure-- if the item says
"attunement" on it, you have to spend a short rest
attuning yourself with the weapon. If either of
them does.
ORION: But he didn't. He hasn't attuned himself to
the thing yet.
SAM: To what?
MATT: Right, but your Ioun stone-- you mean take
it from him?
ORION: Yeah!
MATT: You would have to attune it to yourself in
order to use it.
ORION: How long does it take?
MATT: It takes a short rest.
ORION: Shit! Okay, that changes everything in a
very bad way.
MATT: What are you doing? The other doorway isn't
blocked, you have mind flayers running in, you
have probably more and more swarming from
underneath the temple, probably over at some
point, from what you've seen of the temple
structure.
ORION: Okay, so I'm going to attempt to crush the
Horn. With a thousand pounds of pressure.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: Because my Telekinesis is still going.
MATT: That's true.
ORION: I can't do anything else without dropping
this thing because as soon as I do anything else,
I drop the horn. So I have to do that first.
MATT: Okay, so you use your action, go ahead and
roll for that, for the crushing of Telekinesis.
TRAVIS: Oh god.
ORION: What am I adding?
MATT: You're adding your modifier, which I think
is five.
ORION: Oh, 23.
MATT: As you focus intensely, you feel that the
Horn itself-- the sheer force of the artifact is
far too powerful for your meager magic to have any
sort of effect on its physical structure.
ORION: I thought so.
MATT: As you focus your arcane intent on crushing
it, you feel almost like the back of your brain
begins to crawl with cold energy, and if you could
hear-- if you could hear laughter come from
something that is inanimate, you're hearing it
coming from the Horn right now.
TRAVIS: Fuck that horn.
MATT: That's your action.
ORION: I'm going to--
LAURA: Float it into the Bag of Holding!
ORION: I'm going to maneuver around the chaos
because I'm not within range of anybody to hurt
me, right?
MATT: Not currently, no.
ORION: So I'm going to hop on the carpet.
LIAM: This is all taking six seconds, by the way.
MATT: 30, that's as far as you can get.
ORION: Well, I can run.
MATT: You already used your action to
Telekinesis.
ORION: Oh. That's stupid.
MATT: That's how it works.
ORION: "Hey, Percy!" (laughs) That's my turn,
that's all I can do. And I
still maintain the thing.
MATT: Okay. That brings us-- end of Tiberius's
turn, to Percy.
TALIESIN: I'm going to start flying straight up,
and while I'm flying straight up, I'm going to
take... two shots with the Pepperbox at the big
brain.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll twice.
TALIESIN: I'm going to use Sharpshooter. That's a
21? That's 21.
MATT: 21 does hit.
TALIESIN: And should I do both hits?
MATT: Yeah, roll both.
TALIESIN: Oh, and-- no, that's right, I don't
critical at 19?
MATT: No.
TALIESIN: No, I need a specialty. Damn it! And
that hits, so both hit, and they're both with
Sharpshooter, so that's nice. (sings) I haven't
pulled my dice out yet. There we go.
LIAM: Come on, gunslinger!
TALIESIN: Oh, that's nice! 25 points of damage.
MATT: All righty.
TALIESIN: And 17 points of damage.
MATT: All right, gotcha.
TALIESIN: Oh, sorry. I forgot, sorry, four points
of fire damage.
MATT: Okay, good. All right, so as you (gunshot)
turn over the barrel of your weapon, fire again,
the second one bursting into flame as it hits the
top of the Elder Brain, you can see both bullets
sink into the flesh. There's no impact; they just
seem to be absorbed in by it. The flame one, you
see a jet of flame go from the inside and the
flesh of the actual large Elder Brain quivers for
a moment. You hear another shrieking, angry pain
growl in your minds just by the proximity of this
entity. You don't see it doing too much to it, but
it's definitely hurting it. That ends your turn?
MARISHA: Things can hurt really bad and not do
that much damage.
MATT: Clarota spins and comes up behind you--
LAURA: Don't be a dick.
TRAVIS: Remember our days watching Saved by the
Bell together?
MATT: You are stunned currently, so it gets
advantage on that. So that's 24. All right, so
Clarota's tentacles wrap around your head--
(gasping)
TRAVIS: Whose?
MATT: You immediately take 15 points of psychic
damage and you are currently grappled.
SAM: And stunned.
MATT: Yes.
SAM: (sings) Grappled and stunned, so grappled and
stunned!
MATT: All right, that comes to Pike! Pike, you're
stunned currently, mind still reeling from the
pain; go ahead and make an intelligence saving
throw.
ASHLEY: Ugh, okay.
TRAVIS: We're just trying to stay alive.
ASHLEY: I just rolled a one.
MATT: Your physical form is still unable to pull
yourself out of that continuous psychic pain,
you're like (groans) trying to just tear your mind
out of it, unable to do so. Vax, you're up.
LIAM: Okay, I click my Boots of Haste and I'm
going to-- where's the thingie, do we have a
thingie here?
ASHLEY: What do you need?
LIAM: The light.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: All right, great. How's this work? Like
that. If I can run right between Pike and this
little brain jerk right here, does that get me
within five feet of Elder Brain if I'm there? I
can't tell from the structure.
MATT: You can rush there, you would have to get up
onto here.
LIAM: Yeah, that's what I want to do, and then, I
don't know. That's not my full double-movement, I
don't know how that affects the number of attacks
I have Hasted, but I just want to stab it as many
times as I can, standing on top of this thing.
MATT: All right, got it.
LIAM: Where's the meteorite die?
ORION: Fuck you, couch!
LIAM: Using my poison dagger.
TRAVIS: Prison shank that thing.
LIAM: Yeah, yeah, I'm going to shiv him in his
shank or shank him in his shiv, whichever is the
more accurate phrase.
MATT: All right, go ahead and roll for attack
twice.
TRAVIS: Can you scream out "lobotomy" while you do
it?
MATT: As a note, as you rush by, for an attack of
opportunity, the intellect devourer does reach out
and strike at you with its claws.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: Rolls a one. You just kick it off to the
side, it rolls on its side, its brain matter
(clunks) on the ground.
LIAM: Do I get two or three attacks?
MATT: You get three if you use your bonus to
attack.
LIAM: First one misses. Second one is-- oh wait,
the first was a 17, is that--
LAURA: That doesn't miss.
LIAM: Hit or miss, it's a brain, right, I'm
standing--
MATT: Total 17? That would still-- it doesn't
miss, but as you strike down for it, there's a
psychic field that's defending it, and your blade
is held at bay by the protective sphere.
LIAM: Okay, then I'm using now dagger of venom is
26.
MATT: Okay, that does hit.
LIAM: Okay, so that's four plus six is ten,
because this isn't Sneak Attack or anything.
MATT: No.
LIAM: That's ten plus a poison for a DC of 15?
MATT: Okay. It makes its saving throw. Rolled a
17.
LIAM: So that was that, and then the third attack
I'll go back to the keen dagger. 14.
MATT: 14. The second one strikes through, the
poison tries to pulse through but once again it
resists the impact; the third dagger comes down
and before it even gets halfway towards, there's a
blast of psychic energy from the inside of the
containment unit that holds the Elder Brain that
(boof) forces your hand back, the attack deflected
entirely. That ends your turn. The other three
illithids now go.
ASHLEY: I wish we had inspiration.
ORION: Isn't there a rope still hanging from
there? Throw the damn rope!
LAURA: You can climb it.
LIAM: Yeah, I can probably get up 15 feet and hang
there.
TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm getting a massage right now.
MATT: This one's also going to turn around, reach
forward, and its tentacles are going to attempt to
wrap around Pike's head--
TRAVIS: Don't you touch my friend.
MATT: That's going to be a 20?
TRAVIS: A natural 20?
MATT: No, it's just 20. So Pike, you go ahead and
take-- this'll be 15 points of psychic damage.
LIAM: It was a good run, folks.
MARISHA: What happened?
LAURA: He rolled a 20.
ASHLEY: So he rolled a 20.
MATT: I rolled a total of 20. And you're stunned
currently, so you take 15 points of psychic damage
as you feel-- as you're trying to resist yourself,
these cold tentacles wrap across the front of
your field of vision, and you can feel this weird,
toothy, pointy, biting sensation beginning to
push towards the back of your skull. This one--
ASHLEY: That's it, that's all she wrote.
MATT: This one here is going to--
LAURA: He's going to try to eat her brain!
MATT: Tiberius, that is a 15 versus AC.
ORION: Nope!
MATT: What's your AC?
ORION: 17, man!
MATT: 17, as you're rushing toward the magic
carpet that just took off, yeah, you look over and
the tentacles swing toward you, you duck just
underneath and manage to avoid the
attack. Now the two intellect devourers. One's
going to go ahead and look up towards the magic
carpet that's taking off and-- here we go. Oh,
within ten feet? No, you're too far away. So
instead it's going to go for you on top of the
Elder Brain. I want you to go ahead and make an
intelligence saving throw, Vax.
LIAM: 20, natural 20.
MATT: Natural 20!
SAM: Needed that.
LAURA: That's not to Matt, that's to the 
little brains.
LIAM: The brains, the brains.
MARISHA: Fuck you, little brains.
MATT: So you feel a similar blast of screaming
energy, like you feel from the illithids, but it's
more primal and more guttural. You manage to shrug
it off in your mind and angrily look down at this
weird, fleshy creature. The other one moves up and
attempts to blast you again from the opposite
side. Make another intelligence saving throw.
LIAM: 19.
MATT: 19! Once again you feel from the back of
your brain this like stunning impact and you shrug
it off looking over this way.
LIAM: (jeering) I'm smart!
(laughter)
MATT: All right, that brings us to Scanlan.
SAM: I'm grappled and stunned.
MATT: Yeah, so go ahead and make your saving
throw.
TRAVIS: Come on, buddy.
(cheering)
ORION: Boom!
MATT: You shrug off the stunned effect, you're
currently grappled by the entity.
LAURA, ASHLEY, and MARISHA: You're so smart!
TRAVIS: Cardiac kid, come on now, here we go.
Table's getting hot.
LIAM: Aren't you inspired?
MATT: And then also make an intelligence saving
throw.
SAM: Oh, Jesus. Because he's also got the things
on me.
LIAM: Just say 20.
SAM: Seven. (laughs) Plus two.
LIAM: Big nine.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: I said big nine.
ASHLEY: He rolled a 20, so that's gotta mean
something.
TALIESIN: I think a nine is a big six.
MARISHA: The 20 carries over one, right?
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Residual?
MARISHA: You take the one and you carry it over.
TRAVIS: Natural 20 residual.
LIAM: I personally can't wait until we roll new
characters next show.
LAURA: No.
MARISHA: Shut up!
MATT: Unfortunately, you're still stunned.
SAM: Still stunned? Oh, so I got off--
MATT: You resisted the mind effect, but the
tentacles on your head are now locking your brain
in place, and your eyes are kind of rolling back
in your head as you feel the illithid's mouth
begin to push against the outside of your head.
Grog?
TRAVIS: I've got to break my grapple, right?
MATT: Yeah. Just go ahead and roll an athletics
check.
TRAVIS: One.
MATT: A natural one?
SAM: This guy.
MATT: A natural one; it rolled a four!
ORION: Plus your strength! Oh, it doesn't matter.
TALIESIN: It doesn't matter.
MATT: Okay. So it's still holding you in place;
you have your axe you picked up off the ground
with your chain of returning; you can't physically
move from your position
as it's holding you there.
TRAVIS: The axe is across the room, remember?
MATT: Well, no, you threw it over here and
retrieved it at the end of the battle.
TRAVIS: Well that's a good, that's a good plus.
ASHLEY: (frustrated noise)
MARISHA: The fuck!
MATT: So what do you want to do?
LAURA: You could attack with your chain.
TRAVIS: I can attack with the chain?
MATT: You have your axe with your chain of
returning, you just can't move, but you can still
throw if you want to.
ORION: Oh, awesome.
MARISHA: Can you chop the dude's arms off?
TRAVIS: I have no-- it's holding me, I don't think
I can be like--
ASHLEY: Maybe the guy that has him, his tentacles
or whatever?
TRAVIS: I was going to try and save you.
ASHLEY: Well. That's far.
TRAVIS: Can I reach the illithid-- it's far?
MATT: Well, you can throw to either of them right
now. They're both bent over gnome heads,
they're bigger--
TRAVIS: Where's Scanlan?
ASHLEY: Why the gnomes?
MATT: He's here, and that's Pike.
ASHLEY: Why the gnome hate?
MARISHA: It's rare. It's a rare delicacy.
MATT: You guys were right there.
TRAVIS: All right, I can't-- I'm going to try and
throw it at the illithid that's on Scanlan.
MATT: Okay, go ahead and roll for an attack.
ASHLEY: Tasty gnome.
LIAM: All the fans who implied that Matt went
light on us the last game--
TRAVIS: 22?
MATT: 22, definitely hits, 
go ahead and roll damage.
TRAVIS: Okay, it's just one, two, three. Shit
balls. 14.
MATT: 14 points of damage, all right. That one,
you throw the axe, it slams into the shoulder of the
illithid that's grabbing on to him. You see it
look up at you angrily and a large portion of its
chest is now gashed open and blood is pouring from
the wound, but it's still holding tight right now.
I think that's going to end your turn.
TRAVIS: No, I'm done.
MATT: Do you want to pull your axe back?
TRAVIS: Yes, I would like to.
MATT: Go ahead and you (grunts). Go ahead and make
your check.
TRAVIS: What do I, what the fuck do I roll, to the
thing. What do I roll? A 12?
MATT: Yeah. A 20, you have to roll a d20, that was
a d12.
TRAVIS: Okay, good.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: 18.
MATT: So you pull on the chain of returning and it
yanks the axes out of the wound and you catch it
in midair, preparing for the next round.
TRAVIS: (laughs) The 12 was a one.
(laughter)
MATT: All right, first round of combat over. Let's
roll better, guys. This is looking really dire.
Vex, you're up.
ASHLEY: Get it.
SAM: Save everyone.
MATT: You're up at the top, you have a clear view
of everyone.
MARISHA: That's true, you're the only one with a
bird's-eye view.
SAM: Just run. Save yourself.
MATT: As it is, these two illithids look kind of
hurt, these two look really rough, this one looks
really rough, both of these guys haven't been
damaged yet but they have low hit points.
SAM: Save yourself, start a new race of people.
LAURA: I am going to attack--
SAM: Hunter's Mark!
LAURA: I'm going to put Hunter's Mark on-- oh, my
brother just died.
LIAM: I fainted.
LAURA: On the one attacking Scanlan.
TALIESIN: Not on Scanlan, on the one attacking
Scanlan.
MATT: Oh right, sorry.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: What did he do?
MATT: In the confusion--
SAM: (shrieking) Help!
ORION: Friendly fire!
ASHLEY: That was amazing.
LAURA: 14?
MATT: 14 unfortunately does--
ASHLEY: Plus! Plus War God's Blessing?
MATT: You're stunned.
ASHLEY: But can't I just do it just because?
MATT: No, unfortunately.
MARISHA: Once, just this once, please?
MATT: Unfortunately, no.
LAURA: But he's bent over and I've got a
bird's-eye view of him.
MATT: You know what? He is grappling and he is
right in the way, I'll go ahead and give you
advantage on that attack. Roll again.
LAURA: Yes! So I just roll again?
MATT: Roll again. Take whatever it is.
LAURA: 22!
MATT: 22 will hit, okay. Because it is a
stationary position, completely engulfing, and you
have such a great view from above.
LAURA: Right? 11 points of damage?
MATT: Okay. Did you roll your Hunter's Mark
damage?
LAURA: No, I did not.
MATT: Don't forget Hunter's Mark.
LAURA: I won't, though. Three extra. That's for
Hunter's Mark.
ASHLEY: 14 total?
MATT: Okay, gotcha. That's your first strike.
LAURA: Okay. On my second one, should I just try
to attack him again, kill him? All right, I'm
going to kill him, try to hit him again. 18?
MATT: 18. Okay! So both strikes (whoosh). Go ahead
and roll for damage.
LAURA: 16 plus-- 19.
MATT: 19, okay. Both arrows (zoomf, zoomf), one
embeds itself in the wound that Grog had left with
the axe and you see the body tenses. Clarota
stares up at you with this beaming angry look on
his face; you realize, oh shit, Clarota's the one
that's going after Scanlan. Your second arrow you
bring down and release and it pierces the side of
its face, gashing through and embedding itself in
the chest. You can see now Clarota's looking
really rough, but he's still holding taut. This
horrible thought goes into your mind suddenly, a
familiar voice saying, "You've all done your work.
"Now it's time to feast!"
SAM: (gasps) He turned on us!
LAURA: I knew he was going to do that!
SAM: What? None of us knew that!
LAURA: I totally knew he was going to do that.
MATT: All right, that ends your turn; Keyleth,
you're up.
TRAVIS: I don't trust Clarota.
I don't trust Clarota.
I don't trust Clarota.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Every week.
TRAVIS: Every week!
SAM: You know who would help us right now?
LAURA: Kima would help us, but she's stone.
SAM: Can we make her not stone?
ASHLEY: We can make her not stone, except we
didn't get a chance to.
LIAM: If we live, we're in store for so much
I-told-you-so.
(laughter)
LIAM: It's a big if.
SAM: Maybe we should leave her. I don't want to
deal with that.
TRAVIS: Who's up?
MARISHA: I can make, I'm going to-- aw, crap. I'm
going to phase down, and I'm going to pop up, and
I'm going to break the well that's holding the
Elder Brain.
ASHLEY: Get it!
MATT: Okay, so you're going to pop up here? Over
here?
LIAM: No, not there!
MATT: Right there?
MARISHA: Not where I might hurt Vax.
SAM: Well, that's anywhere.
LAURA: Just do the other side!
MARISHA: You might have to do, like, a flippy-poo
off it.
MATT: So what are you doing on the well, you're
just grabbing it?
MARISHA: Can I? Can I flip?
MATT: No, it's embedded in the ground. What are
you doing?
MARISHA: Oh, okay, so I want to take and I want to
just punch to crack a big side of it to help spill
out the brains.
MATT: Okay, go ahead and make a slam attack on the
side
MARISHA: Bust the side of it open.
ASHLEY: And then we'll stomp on him and make brain
juice.
MARISHA: I mean, it's an item, it's a stationary
rock, so what do I add? Oh wait, I add-- so plus--
sorry, I'm not used to this. Plus eight, 16?
MATT: 16? You slam into the side of this; you're
not attacking the brain, you're attacking the
stonework. You can feel there is some psychic
resistance, but because you're not attacking the
brain directly, your fist slams into it, making
purchase in the stone. Go ahead and roll damage
against the stone.
TRAVIS: Come on!
MATT: Double damage on this.
ASHLEY: Big damage!
MARISHA: 20 damage.
TRAVIS: Yes!
MATT: 20 damage. The side of the stonework
crumples inward. Pieces of the stonework itself
seem to be jutting in toward the Elder Brain, but
it's stopped by some sort of psychic resistance,
but the whole side here to here is now just open
entirely, and you can see now the hole, the mass
of-- there's probably hundreds of various illithid
brains that have slowly congealed into one large
brain structure as now you can see the underneath
area. The liquid it kind of sits in is now pouring
out, down the side of the structure.
MARISHA: Hope they have flood insurance.
(groans and laughter)
TRAVIS: That was the worst Schwarzenegger action
line ever. (Terminator voice) Hope they have flood
insurance, ja.
MARISHA: The Geico slayer!
TRAVIS: Holy shit. That was amazing.
MARISHA: Flo just got real, all right? Flo just
got real.
TALIESIN: That's no better, actually.
MARISHA: From Progressive Flo? All the flow of
the-- you know what, never mind.
MATT: So you only have the one slam attack? Earth
elemental doesn't multi-attack?
MARISHA: Yes, just the one. My slam attack is--
MATT: Right. Cool.
MARISHA: Oh no, wait! I have multi-- earth
elemental makes two slam attacks!
MATT: That's good to know. Go ahead and make
another one.
MARISHA: I could have done that last time?
MATT: Are you attacking the stonework still?
MARISHA: Yeah, I'm just going to take the other
chunk and punch it.
MATT: Okay. So we'll say you used some of your
movement to move this way. By the way, guys, you
can break up your movement. You can move, attack,
then move if you want to.
MARISHA: You can?
MATT: Yeah!
TRAVIS: Unless Tickle-me-Elmo is holding you by
the cage.
MARISHA: It's cocked. 16 plus eight, so 22.
MATT: That'll definitely do it; go ahead. Is that
total damage? Oh, that's the attack. Okay, go
ahead and roll damage.
MARISHA: Ugh, four plus-- 18 damage.
MATT: 18's fine. So you break out the second half
and now the entire side of it is open. All the
fluid just spilled out the side and you get the
sensation this is very frowned upon.
(laughter)
MATT: That ends your turn. Tiberius, you're up!
TRAVIS: A tentacle frown.
ORION: So I rush up, and Percy takes off?
MATT: As a note too, just so you guys are aware--
TALIESIN: I didn't know you were coming to the
carpet, sorry.
LAURA: Oh no, we never closed the other door!
MATT: You start seeing a series of other entities
slowly making their way up from the downstairs
tunnel area.
SAM: I think we can beat them all.
ORION: Seeing what's going on-- there's an
illithid right behind me, right?
MATT: There is. Right behind you, yeah.
TRAVIS: I thought she closed the door.
LAURA: No, we didn't.
MATT: Yeah, the other door is open.
MARISHA: I closed the one, but then he said that
they could levitate so I decided it
wasn't worth it.
SAM: Hey, man. Grog's being held prisoner by an
80-pound dude.
ORION: So I'm running off and then Percy takes
off? So I can't get to him?
MATT: Yeah, he's (whoosh), you can't get to him.
ORION: Awesome.
TRAVIS: I'm so ashamed right now.
ORION: I need a technical question. Can I move the
Horn and let go of the spell so I can then do my
turn? Or does that take a thing to do that? Like,
I want to let it go--
MATT: No.
ORION: Good. So as I'm running up to the carpet, I
see Percy go and I'm like, "(growls) Damn
"Tiamat-lover!" So I bring over the Horn and right
at the tip, on the carpet, I let it go. "You deal
"with it then!"
MATT: Percy?
(loud clatter)
LAURA: Oh no, K'Varn!
MATT: That's what you get!
ORION: I don't give it to Percy, I let it land on
the carpet.
MATT: I know. I'm saying it's on his carpet right
now, staring at him from the side.
ASHLEY: Put it on, Percy!
ORION: I see the-- oh god. Okay, I can only do
this once. I see the-- they're
not inside yet, right?
MATT: No. They're just starting to get to the
doorway. You can see them right there.
ORION: Awesome. Okay, that is a-- and this is a--
Okay.
MATT: What you got, Tiberius?
(laughter)
TRAVIS: (Tiberius voice) Poppycock, poppycock.
ORION: Right. I have-- I blow everything. I'm
going to blow everything.
TRAVIS: Yes! Blow everybody.
(laughter)
MATT: How diplomatic of you!
SAM: I'm stunned!
ORION: You cannot resist!
MATT: So, Tiberius.
ORION: As I leave the Horn there, I turn to where
the door is. Obelisk of Stone. I seal up the
entryway.
MATT: How many with that, what level are you using
it?
ORION: Well, how wide is it? Like 15 feet?
MATT: It's a little over five feet wide.
ORION: Great. I only need one, right?
MATT: Technically, yeah.
ORION: Okay. So I seal that one-- I'm going to use
all three right now.
MARISHA: Seal the other one, too. I only partially
sealed it.
ORION: I'll seal the other one.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: And I'll use the other one on myself.
MATT: Okay!
ORION: And I'm going to use-- I only have three
left. Yeah, okay. And I'm going to use my last
three sorcerer points that I have, and I have zero
points after this, and I'm going to cast Blur on
myself. And that's my turn.
MATT: All righty. You now start hearing (boof,
boof) slamming sounds from the other side of the
stone walls. Both sides of the walls are now
sealed off with pillars, and a large pile of
rubble on that side. All right, Percy, you're up.
TALIESIN: All right, before I go anywhere, I'm
taking a shot at Clarota.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Betraying bastard.
TALIESIN: With Sharpshooter, that's 13, 14, 15,
16, 17. 19 points?
MATT: That hits.
TALIESIN: That hits, and let's do my damage.
That's 22 points of damage.
MATT: Okay. So, Scanlan, as you're stunned, you
feel the tentacles swirling around the back of
your head. Teeth are grinding into the back of
your skull, and you feel this horrible pain as all
of a sudden, Clarota's mouth is beginning to find
a way towards your skull.
(laughter)
MATT: And then the tentacles suddenly go limp as
the back of Clarota's head (gunshot)
becomes a mess.
TALIESIN and MARISHA: Traitor!
LAURA: I can't believe we killed Clarota!
TALIESIN: Some people have no sense of fucking
honor!
(laughter)
MARISHA: Traitor!
TRAVIS: Oh, Percy!
MATT: In a split second, your longtime ally, now
turncoat, is scattered across the stone floor.
You're released, you're no longer stunned.
SAM: (gasps) Hi, guys!
TALIESIN: I still have another shot.
MATT: You do.
MARISHA: There's someone on Pike, right?
MATT: There's still one on Pike right now, yeah,
right here.
TALIESIN: I'm taking a shot there.
TRAVIS: Come on, Perce!
ASHLEY: Perce!
MARISHA: Pew pew!
TALIESIN: Oh yeah! So that's 17-- 17, 18, 19--
MATT: That hits.
TALIESIN: Okay, that just hits, all right. I'm
trying to use Sharpshooter, so it changes
everything. And that's 18 points of damage.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: And did we get a short rest before this
fight happened?
SAM and LAURA: No.
TALIESIN: Fuck, never mind.
MATT: No you did not.
MARISHA: That's why we're all burnt out on
spells.
TALIESIN: That's why we're all burnt out on shit,
okay.
ORION: Except me.
MATT: Yeah, the other one--
TALIESIN: I'm going to go up further.
MATT: Even further? Okay.
LAURA: "Because I didn't help you guys!" Thanks,
Tiberius!
ASHLEY: "I abandoned my troop!"
ORION: It's going to come in handy now!
TALIESIN: Am I high enough yet for her to jump
down onto the--
MATT: Yeah, you could probably pull it off.
TALIESIN: So, if you and your bear want to jump
on?
MATT: It'd be an acrobatics roll, but yeah.
SAM: Wait, why would you-- you've got to come save
us!
LAURA: Yeah, no, go down and save them, honestly,
because I'm staying up top for right now, unless
we can teleport out.
TALIESIN: Oh, in that case, instead of going up
I'm going to go fly to the right, then.
ORION: Pick up Vax!
LAURA: Why?
ORION: I said Vax.
LAURA: Vax?
MARISHA: Vax? Pick up Vax?
ORION: Yes.
TALIESIN: Yeah, so I'm going to fly down towards
Vax, as well.
MATT: Okay. So you're going down to here instead?
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Okay, you can get about-- we'll say, if
you're just going--
TALIESIN: Yeah, go there.
MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: Hi.
ASHLEY, TALIESIN, and MARISHA: Hey you guys!
MATT: Okay. That ends your turn. That brings it--
ASHLEY: Did anything happen to the guy that had
me--
MATT: He just took damage, but he's not done yet.
ASHLEY: He just took damage, he's still (slurps).
MATT: So, Pike, it's your turn.
ASHLEY: It's my turn.
MATT: Go ahead and roll to get rid of the Mind
Blast stun.
ASHLEY: Come on.
SAM: Come on, Pikey.
ASHLEY: Fuck. It's seven.
MATT: Seven? Nope. You're still locked in place.
TALIESIN: Can you heal yourself?
MATT: She cannot move. Her entire brain is locked
in with a searing clenching pain, psychic energy
is just clutching her brain and holding it
hostage.
SAM: Still beautiful, though.
(laughter)
MATT: You feel, once again, the teeth beginning to
pierce the back of the flesh. You feel the teeth
of the mind flayer beginning to scrape against the
skull, the actual bone it's found in the back.
Vax, you're up.
LIAM: What did Clarota do with his hat?
MATT: Oh, it's somewhere on the ground over here.
LIAM: Over behind--
MATT: Over behind this.
LIAM: Okay, I'm still Hasted, I'm going to run
down the center over Clar-- I'm going to step on
Clarota's-- I don't know if he has nuts, but
whatever's there, I'm going to step there, run
around Scanlan, and place his fucking hat on my
head.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: And then run up behind that third mind
flayer, who I don't think has taken a hit yet, and
just start stabbing him in the back.
MATT: Right here?
LAURA: No, on Pike!
LIAM: I can't get back there.
LAURA: You can't?
LIAM: I don't think so.
LAURA: Would he be able to make it?
LIAM: Well it's up to-- oh dear.
MATT: You can't, with the speed you're running
there, because your Hasted speed is doubled, so
it's 60 feet.
LIAM: I'm Hasted, I can run 12 spaces, so if you
think that I could have run around the mind
flayer, put on the party hat--
MATT: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten, 11, 12. You can
move right there.
LIAM: Okay, great. So I'm going to start stabbing
him in the back, angrily.
MATT: All right.
LIAM: Okay, yeah, so, first one is a 15?
MATT: Unfortunately-- no, that does just hit.
LIAM: That's a Sneak Attack, because she's next to
him. There's nothing in the rule book about
stunned, or unconscious, or anything.
MATT: How Sneak Attack works is if they're next to
someone that's aggressive toward them; they feel
like they have people on two fronts, which is why
you get the benefit.
TALIESIN: He is, to be fair, very occupied.
MATT: I will say, circumstantially though, because
he is currently grappled on to Pike, and is in the
process of trying to grind into her brain with his
mouth, he is a little preoccupied at the moment.
TRAVIS: He's sucking head.
MATT: So I'm going to go ahead and make a
perception roll versus your fast movement. Go
ahead and make a stealth-- roll stealth to see
whether or not he takes notice and changes his
position in defense.
LIAM: I rolled a 24.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead. The first attack you rolled
was a 15, that hits!
LIAM: Okay, thank you.
MATT: And that is a Sneak Attack, he did not see
you coming that quickly.
LIAM: All right, so that is four, plus seven is
11, plus-- okay, that's 17, 21, thank you. 26,
30, 33. 33 with keen dagger.
MATT: 33 with the keen dagger?
LIAM: And I'm sticking that in the back of his
neck.
MATT: Okay. That was your first attack?
LIAM: That's the first attack.
MATT: Okay, so the first dagger (shnk) sinks into
the back of the neck. You just manage to miss all
the seriously vital stuff, but you carve a giant
section out of the side of its head. The rest of
its leathery black outfit's now slick with its own
blood. You see it angrily growls, almost this
weird guttural, this (gurgling growl) sound as it
still remains taut and clenched on Pike, its eyes
glaring at you, basically telling you, "Look what
I'm about to do to your friend."
LIAM: Okay, so good thing I have more knives. So I
take the other one, flip it in my hand and then
stick it into the neck afterwards. That's a 24.
MATT: That hits.
LIAM: Yeah, it does. That's eight. Fire damage, I
don't know if he takes any fire damage, and I'm
going to then stick him with my poison dagger,
which isn't going to poison him. But that is a 26
which hits as well.
MATT: That does hit.
LIAM: And that is eight.
MATT: Eight points of damage. So the first one you
stab in the side of the head, you pull back and
toss it in the air, catch the second one. As it
bursts into flames you place the searing dagger
down into the center of its back between its
shoulder blades. Its back tenses, and as it does
it reaches back and tries to grab for the dagger
as you pull back the third one. As it looks back
at you it brings up one arm to stop you as it goes
in to directly go after Pike's head. The third
dagger you then stab it right in the front of the
skull. Its eyes roll back in its head and its
tentacles limply drag off.
(cheering)
LIAM: As a bonus action, I would like to
Goodfellas-kick him about eight
times in the ribs.
(laughter)
MARISHA: Yes!
MATT: I'll allow it. Oh my god. Because that guy
was next! If we didn't kill him this turn, she
would've taken 55 points of damage.
TRAVIS: 50-- Let's not even say the number.
ASHLEY: You saved my life.
MATT: Yeah. And if it takes you to zero hit
points, they extract the brain and eat it.
LAURA: Now we've got to squish those little
brains.
LIAM: There's still a mind flayer.
TRAVIS: We're coming real close.
MATT: Let's see if they get their Mind Blast back.
Nope. Nope.
LIAM: This show is not good for my blood
pressure.
MARISHA: I know! It's like constant fight or
flight.
TRAVIS: I think I'm going blind in my left eye.
MARISHA: This should fix your sleep schedule
though, right?
TRAVIS: Yeah, totally.
MATT: Seeing both of them get immediately
slaughtered, both of these illithids just Plane
Shift. A defensive standpoint, self-preservation is kicking
in. However, intellect devourers do not have
self-preservation. They're there for a specific
reason. So this one here is going to move over to
this side and is going to attempt to make a Devour
Intellect attack against Keyleth. Keyleth, go
ahead and make an intelligence saving throw.
MARISHA: I'm an elemental, so.
MATT: You keep your intelligence score as you.
MARISHA: Oh, I do?
MATT: The physical attributes you get from the
elemental form. You keep your intellect, wisdom,
and charisma.
MARISHA: Okay, then 18.
MATT: 18, Okay. You resist the blast of mental
impact from the intellect devourer, now on the
ground with its four feral legs, its brain form
rippling. The second one is going to turn over
here and saw the two shots, the one that took out
Clarota. It turns up towards Percy, as you've
lowered on the magic carpet, Percy. Go ahead and
make an intellect saving throw.
TALIESIN: Eight.
MATT: Eight? All righty.
SAM: Oh boy. That ain't no good.
MATT: You take 11 points of psychic damage.
TALIESIN: There's an "and" there, isn't there?
SAM: And it's undone immediately.
(laughter)
MATT: And you take eight points of intellect
damage.
LAURA: Oh, this is what happened to Grog!
TRAVIS: You're better off than six, right?
TALIESIN: Eight points of intellect damage. What
does that mean, precisely?
LIAM: Minus from your intelligence.
SAM: You would know if you had more intellect.
LAURA: Forever?
MATT: No, no, no, no. For this, it basically--
what's your intelligence?
TALIESIN: 16.
MATT: 16? Yeah, the blast hits you and you just
shrug off the impact. It has to exceed your
intelligence.
TALIESIN: So do I still take eight more points of
damage, though?
MATT: No, no no. You just the additional--
TALIESIN: I just, I'm just going to go duh-duh.
(laughter)
MATT: Yeah, the intellect damage is not
permanent.
TALIESIN: I like purple.
MATT: Not quite that bad.
TRAVIS: I can't not do it.
MATT: All right. That ends their turn. That brings
us to Scanlan. You're no longer stunned. You now
have full capacity of yourself and you're looking
around, oh shit.
SAM: Do we get out of here or do we try to kill
these things?
TRAVIS: Can you get us out of here?
SAM: I can get some of us out of here.
MARISHA: Start getting us out.
SAM: Are we getting out or are we fighting?
TRAVIS: Getting us out.
MARISHA: Because we still have these fuckers we
have to--
ASHLEY: Because Tiberius can get some of us out,
right?
LIAM: It's just the brains. Just the little
brains.
SAM: It's just the little brains. For now.
MATT: Make a perception check, by the way.
MARISHA: For now, but people can beat through
those doors. That's not a permanent thing.
TALIESIN: We need 60 seconds to get out of here is
what we need. We need 60 uninterrupted seconds.
MARISHA: Well, we can start gathering our shit and
packing up.
TALIESIN: Oh, yeah.
MARISHA: We can start packing up.
SAM: Am I leaving or am I staying?
TRAVIS: You do what you want.
LIAM: Do what you want. It's chaos.
SAM: (sighs) All right. Then I'll attack.
MATT: Swarming thing that drift up the sides of
the temple from the floor. Coming from inside the
temple and out toward the top.
LAURA: We should probably get out of here! They're
coming up the sides!
ASHLEY: We can't get you out of here if you don't
come--
SAM: I run up to Pike. I grab her hand. I say, "I
want to have babies with you."
(laughter)
SAM: Let's get out of here. (sings) So now I come
to you with Dimension Door.
ASHLEY: Wait! Can I do a Mass Cure Wounds before
we leave?
(laughter)
SAM: And we get out.
MATT: You're still stunned from the Mind Blast.
You haven't made your save.
SAM: We're going up to the top of the-- to the
thing. Just to the roof there.
LAURA: They're coming up the sides!
ASHLEY: We've got to go somewhere else.
SAM: Well, I didn't know that. (laughs) It's
done.
ORION: It's fine. It's good that they're up
there.
SAM: And, as a bonus, I'm going to send some
inspiration to Grog.
MATT: Okay, as you Dimension Door you just go
ahead and look back. Using the song of love you
gave to Pike, you give back, give a wink to Grog.
Grog, you take a 1d10 inspiration. 1d10
inspiration dice to you.
TRAVIS: Okay.
LIAM: Grog, we would like you to rage.
TRAVIS: I'm already there. I'm just being fucking
grappled. Is it my turn?
MATT: It is now.
TRAVIS: Oh, can I try it for the third time to
break free?
MATT: You can. Go ahead and go ahead and make your
athletics.
LIAM: Use that inspiration die, man.
TRAVIS: I'll use the inspiration die just in case I
rolled balls again.
MATT: Well, you can use it after you do it. See
what you roll and then add it.
TRAVIS: It's athletics, right?
MATT: Athletics, yeah.
TRAVIS: 18.
MATT: 18?
LIAM: Come on.
MATT: Yeah, you (boosh) break out of the
creature's grasp. Suddenly it's reaching at you
from behind the bars. You can see there's this
slick, brackish oil on your body from where it was
holding you. Fleshless arms clutching you to the
bars.
TRAVIS: So is everybody leaving? Should I climb up
the rope?
MATT: There is Lady Kima who is turned to stone.
MARISHA: We've got to get Kima out.
TRAVIS: Fuck Lady Kima!
ORION: Pick her up!
LAURA: I thought you had a crush on her?
ASHLEY: Can he grab her and climb?
MATT: You can. She's not a big stone structure.
TRAVIS: Okay, cool. I pick her up and start trying
to climb up the rope.
MATT: Okay, so you rush, you grab the stone form.
SAM: Put her in the Bag of Holding!
OTHERS: No!
TRAVIS: She's stone! It doesn't matter!
ORION: Don't do that!
TRAVIS: I take her and-- oh, fine. I'll hold on to
her.
SAM: No, put her in the bag!
MARISHA: Can you make one of those baby slings?
Stuff her in your belt?
TALIESIN: It's not time for arts and crafts.
MATT: You run up. You grab Lady Kima. You grab her
in your arms and you rush. The rope is currently
dangling from this side where you guys first came
in.
LAURA: Stomp all over the brain to get to it.
MATT: 50 speed. You can get up to here. You can
just get up to the rope and we'll say as your dash
action you can begin to climb, if you'd like.
TRAVIS: I would like to climb.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: I would like to raise.
TRAVIS: I would like to rage. Rage climb.
MATT: It gets you about there. Rage climbing like
(grunts).
ORION: Yes!
MATT: One-handed up the rope. That's pretty
intense. Go ahead and make an athletics check.
MARISHA: Yes. That Crossfit training come in
handy.
TRAVIS: 17.
MATT: 17. Yeah, it's sore. You know that arm is
going to be dead tomorrow, but right now it
doesn't even matter. You're just clutching Lady
Kima, still locked in her attack pose, in one arm
as you're overhand grabbing the rope and getting
yourself up as fast as you can.
TRAVIS: You better remember this when you wake
up.
(laughter)
MATT: Rage-climbing up the rope.
LIAM: He's climbing the Cliffs of Insanity!
(laughter)
MATT: That brings us to Vex.
LAURA: I should just stay where I am, right guys?
TALIESIN: And you should shoot things.
LAURA: I'm going to do that, yes. Is there any
other--
there's just a little brain in there right now?
MATT: Right now there's two brains, and you can
see just in the outskirts of the temple's side
here, two more illithid that are making their way
up the side of the temple.
LAURA: Oh, fuck me.
MATT: With about a hundred or so just now
gathering towards the bottom of the temple base.
LAURA: Jesus. We're going to get out of here real
fast! You guys are listening to me, right? Because
things are coming up the side and we need to get
out of here.
SAM: But what if there's gold down there to find?
LAURA: I don't give a fuck! I'm going to Hunter's
Mark a little brain. Or should I keep attacking
the Elder Brain? What do you guys think?
TALIESIN: Elder Brain is spilling out the side
now, isn't it?
MATT: The Elder Brain is still inside, just the
stonework on the outside of it is currently
knocked out.
TALIESIN: Yeah, I have a carpet anyway, so let's
just jump on it.
LIAM: I mean, it might get sent reeling, that
brain.
LAURA: I know, that's why I'm kind of like, hm.
LIAM: Maybe if-- we should try to get out of here,
but maybe if we can frigging hurt that brain it'll
stun them or send them reeling or something, or
make them mad.
LAURA: All right. I can do Hail of Thorns on it
again, so I'll Hunter's Mark it and then I'll do
Hail of Thorns on it.
MATT: All right.
LAURA: 27.
MATT: That'll hit. Releasing again, in midair you
can see all the thorns appear out the sides of the
arrow shaft. It explodes into a giant conical--
just a ray, almost like a blizzard of thorns.
LIAM: Get it.
LAURA: I don't add-- do I add Hunter's Mark to
that damage, or just my regular and then that?
MATT: At the end of all the damage you dealt with
the attack, you then add Hunter's Mark to that.
LAURA: Okay.
LIAM: Big money.
LAURA: 22. 24.
MATT: 24, all righty. Keyleth, go ahead and make a
reflex saving throw.
MARISHA: What's happening?
LAURA: Oh, right, because you're right next to it,
sorry Keyleth.
MARISHA: Oh, it's okay. My reflex-- I use my dex
modifier for my elemental, correct?
MATT: Or deflect, yeah, sorry, old carryover, it's
dexterity.
MARISHA: Ten.
MATT: Ten? Versus your spell save of--
LAURA: 14.
MATT: Yeah, so you take the same damage. You take
24 points of damage.
LAURA: Sorry. Oh right, you're really, really
strong.
MARISHA: Yeah, I've got 100 hit points still.
LAURA: Okay.
MARISHA: So how many points? 21?
MATT: 24. So, all the thorns explode against your
rocky physical form; you just shrug it off, like
it's nothing. (laughs) It tickles a little.
MARISHA: Yeah, I'm good.
LAURA: So I'll try to-- I guess I'll just attack
it again, because I've got nowhere else to go.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: Yeah.
LAURA: 17?
MATT: All right, 17-- actually no, 17 will miss.
LAURA: Oh really, with it oozing out and
everything?
MATT: The second, there's some sort of psychic
protective field in the brain. As you fire down,
the arrow looks like it should strike and then it
just arcs off to the side nonsensically, and then
just splinters against the stonework next to
the--
LAURA: Fudge!
TRAVIS: Fudge.
MATT: You going to stay where you are? You going
to move?
ORION: Get on Trinket!
LAURA: I'm going to climb onto Trinket for some
reason, because that makes sense.
MATT: Okay, you climb onto Trinket's back. That
brings us to Keyleth. You're up.
MARISHA: Okay, what's the situation with the brain
soup?
MATT: The liquid is poured out.
MARISHA: And how are the brains? Are just brains
just floating downstream?
MATT: No, it's actually all-- at a long distance,
it looks like one giant brain, close up it looks
like all of these smaller brains have all
congealed into one giant mind.
LAURA: It's like a jello mold of brains.
MARISHA: Like a jello mold of a brain. And there's
fluid coming out from underneath of it?
MATT: Yeah. Literally the fluid it was sitting in,
it was mostly submerged in, is all now poured out
onto the ground near you, beginning to get slick.
MARISHA: Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm
going to be like, phase under, phase down, and I'm
going to get under where the brain would be, and
I'm going to Superman punch it!
LAURA: Yes!
ORION: Yeah!
MARISHA: From underneath.
MATT: Okay, go ahead and make an attack roll.
TRAVIS: Come on, punch it in its big brain anus.
MARISHA: 23!
MATT: 23, that hits, go ahead and roll damage.
MARISHA: (laughs) 11? Wait, is that my--
TALIESIN: No, 22.
MARISHA: Oh, 22! You're right, 22.
MATT: It's not double damage, because you're not
hitting the structure. So 11 points of damage? All
right, now I want you to go ahead and make a
strength check.
MARISHA: Okay, that sounds fun.
MATT: So just roll and add your strength modifier
of the earth elemental.
MARISHA: 14?
MATT: Okay, as you punch upward, you're still
partially absorbed into the earth, but your fist
comes through and it slams in, and you feel this
sickening thud sound as your fist hits the
interior of the brain. It still moves a little bit
but it stays in its place held aloft by its own
psychic defense mechanism. Make your second
attack.
MARISHA: Okay, yeah, same, 21.
MATT: 21 hits. Go ahead and roll damage on that
one.
LAURA: Big damage!
MARISHA: Come on.
TALIESIN: Big money.
MARISHA: Oh, that's better. 16.
MATT: 16 damage. Go ahead and roll another
strength check.
MARISHA: Eight.
MATT: Eight? Okay. Once again, you slam your fist
into it and you feel like the impact is absorbed
partially by the psychic field around the brain.
It holds itself in place. It's still not moving
from within that small--
MARISHA: Do I stay or do I get out?
LAURA: Get out.
ORION: Get out.
MATT: You still have about-- I'd say it only took
you about 15 feet of movement
to get underneath it.
MARISHA: In my burrowing speed, right?
MATT: Yeah.
MARISHA: So, I'm going to start burrowing up the
side of the mountain-- up the side of the temple,
so I can pop out next to them.
MATT: Okay, so we'll say 25, 30, 35, 40, 45.
What's your total burrow speed?
MARISHA: 60.
MATT: So you'll be about there.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: So you're about as high as Tiberius is,
partially up the wall.
MARISHA: I'm in the wall.
LAURA: They won't see you.
TRAVIS: Vax, you're still on the floor, right?
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: Up on there. As you glance in, you kinda
have a brief look at the outside of the wall and
on the opposite side there are two other mind
flayers. One more coming up on the side and
another troll behind it. And the troll's slamming
onto the bricks you left up. And these two
illithids are starting to look up and see you
moving up, and their eyes go up and they can see
the opening in the top of the-- where the wall
collapsed earlier. And they both look up and kinda
start drifting up towards it. So that ends your
turn. Tiberius, you're up.
ORION: What's the order after me?
MATT: Well, it's Percy, Pike, Vax, and then they
go. Then Scanlan, Grog.
TALIESIN: I was going to hold my turn to get
everybody on the carpet.
LIAM: I'm coming.
ORION: Okay, okay, good. I cast Fly at 5th level.
I cast it on myself. I cast it on Grog. And I cast
it on-- you're not there.
LAURA: Trinket!
ORION: Trinket. (groans)
TRAVIS: She's on Trinket.
LAURA: So I can fly if I'm on Trinket, right?
ORION: Yeah.
LAURA: Sweet!
MATT: All right, so Grog, Trinket, and--
ORION: Me.
MATT: Yourself. Okay.
ORION: And I (flying noise).
MATT: What's the fly speed on that?
ORION: Um, outside?
LIAM: A skillion.
ORION: I dunno, it's right here. It's right here.
MATT: It's on the card, the cards I gave you.
ORION: The cards! Look at the cards. It's 60
feet.
MATT: 60 feet. You make your way up top and you're
now hovering. Trinket's now having another Peter
Pan moment with you on his back awkwardly. It's
just gotten used to flying on its own, that one
time it had. Now it has an extra weight on its
back. (bear noises)
LAURA: You can do it, buddy. You can do it.
ASHLEY: You got it, Trink.
MATT: All right.
ORION: Oh wait, hold on-- I want to turn to to
everybody and go, "Fly, you fools."
MATT: It's a free action, I'll let you do that.
(laughs) Percy, you're up.
TALIESIN: I'm holding my turn.
MATT: You're holding back?
TALIESIN: I'm holding my turn.
MATT: Okay. Percy, holding back. Pike, go ahead
and make an intellect saving throw.
LAURA: Yes!
ASHLEY: 19.
MATT: 19. You finally shrug off the effect of the
Mind Blast. Your eyes clarify.
SAM: Does she fall in love with the first thing
she sees?
(laughter)
MATT: (laughs) The first thing you do see is
Scanlan holding you. You're now outside of the
temple. There's the dark, kind of dull glowing
green atmosphere outside the entire Yug'Voril city
around you, with bits of blue crystal, you know,
against the cavern walls. It's scary. You look
around you, you can see illithid charging up the
side of the temple, just gliding toward you
angrily. You look forward and on your shoulders,
clutching you, is Scanlan, blood streaking down
the front of his face with a big smile.
ASHLEY: (gasps) Scanlan, are you hurt?
SAM: I'm fine, baby. How are you?
ASHLEY: I'm great. Well, not really, but I'm just
going to pretend I'm happy so
that everybody can be okay.
(laughter)
ORION: That's right, Pike. Bury it deep inside.
ASHLEY: Well, can I do a spell? Okay, Mass Cure
Wounds.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: For the, well, hold on a minute. How low
is everybody? Not really that low?
LAURA: Nobody's really low.
TRAVIS: I'm at 32.
ASHLEY: He's pretty low.
TALIESIN: You two are the only ones.
LAURA: Yeah. Can you cast something on Kima? Oh,
no. We should just keep her stone for now.
SAM: You're low. You're super low.
LAURA: Yeah, cast it on yourself, man.
TRAVIS: Heal yourself.
TALIESIN: She can hold this part of her turn until
everybody's up there.
MATT: Mass Cure Wounds on yourself? Because Mass
Cure Wounds is for multiple people.
ASHLEY: No, can I just do--
MATT: You can cast Cure Wounds on yourself.
ASHLEY: I can?
MATT: Yeah.
ASHLEY: But he needs it, too.
MATT: It's your choice. It's also touch. You have
to be next to him to do that.
ASHLEY: Shit.
TRAVIS: Just do your thing. You need it.
ASHLEY: All right, I need it? Oh no.
MATT: At six hit points, I'd recommend it to you.
TRAVIS: The DM recommends it.
(laughter)
MATT: You were so close to dying again. I was so
scared.
TRAVIS: I stringently urge you.
LIAM: Four out of five DMs recommend.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: All right, 17.
MATT: Okay, so you heal yourself 17 hit points.
You clutch your holy symbol. You feel the warmth
fill your body and your wounds seal up slowly. You
feel a little better, because you were on death's
door there. All right. You want to move at all?
Anything else you want to do this turn
or are you good?
ASHLEY: Now I'm at 23. Wait, so bonus action?
ORION: Get on the bear!
LAURA: No, he can't--
MATT: You don't have to.
ASHLEY: He can "bear-ly" hold one.
(groans and laughter)
LAURA: Ba dum tss.
ASHLEY: I can't do that, right?
MATT: What?
ASHLEY: I can't get on Trinket?
MATT: Right now, Trinket can barely hold Vex.
ASHLEY: So as a bonus action, I'll give Scanlan
a kiss on his cheek.
SAM: Oh! Do I get an inspiration for that?
MATT: You do.
(laughter)
MATT: A d6 inspiration dice.
SAM: I'm never going to wash it again.
ORION: You never wash it to begin with.
MATT: It's this strangely romantic moment as she
reaches forward, grabs him and kisses him on the
cheek and pulls away and he looks at her with this
beautiful smile, and then the sound effects kick
in again, of the bats screeching ahead and the
(inhales) of all the illithid swarming up the side
of the temple.
MARISHA: Oh god, we're still in a war zone!
ASHLEY: Oh no, we got to get it together.
MATT: All right, Vax.
LIAM: Okay, I run up the dais, land on the brain.
I'm on my way, but before I go, I'm going to kiss
you goodbye. Dagger, dagger, dagger. Stabbing into
the brain before I leap onto the carpet. So here I
go. First one-- misses. Second one is a 25.
MATT: 25, okay.
LIAM: Which gets nine damage.
MATT: All right.
LIAM: And last dagger is a 13.
MATT: No.
LIAM: Okay, so I'll give him a little cut, a
little nick, and then jump on the flying carpet.
MATT: Jump on the flying carpet. All righty.
LIAM: And I grab Percy around the neck and kiss
him on the cheek, and say, "Let's get out of here,
"you bastard."
TALIESIN: Do I get an inspiration point for that?
(laughter)
MATT: No.
LAURA: That's a double standard.
TALIESIN: You know how I feel about you.
LIAM: Fight the patriarchy.
MATT: Down the road, maybe. This is the start of
something beautiful.
TALIESIN: I'm feeling something new.
MATT: Let the seeds germinate for a while. Then the
dice may come naturally. So you're holding your
turn? Percy, you want to go now?
TALIESIN: I want to go now.
MATT: All right. So, that brings you here. Percy,
go ahead.
TALIESIN: I'm just going to reel straight up. And
on my way up, I'm going to take two more shots at
the brain.
MATT: Okay, okay. We'll say here for the purposes
of this. Taking two more shots?
TALIESIN: 16.
LIAM: Oh, I'm suffocating in the brain!
MATT: Oh no, it's fallen over. What's the first
roll?
TALIESIN: 16.
MATT: 16 does hit. Oh, it's not even flat, okay.
We're just going to put it down there.
TALIESIN: And 19.
MATT: 16 doesn't hit. The 19 just barely hits it.
It pierces through the psychic barrier. (zoomf)
The bullet sinking again into the fleshy
membrane.
TALIESIN: The second one has a bonus die, yay.
MATT: Ice shot.
TALIESIN: Ice shot.
MARISHA: Maybe you'll freeze it.
LIAM: Percy and Vax, ship it!
TALIESIN: That's 13 points plus two points of ice
damage.
MATT: Okay, so 16 total. All right. As it blasts
inside, you can see the ice, these strange
crystals of frozen liquid, they burst out, almost
like it actually freezes the blue explosion in
place for a moment, and then the ice just slowly
melts away. Yeah, there's some damage dealt to
it, but this is a hardy sack of hit points. And
it's coming online. So with the end of your turn,
the brain, now taken a bunch of hits, begins to
pulse with energy, now that it's been freed from
its control and it's slowly brought itself out of
this trance-like slumber that it was placed in by
K'Varn. The Elder Brain is now becoming conscious
once again.
LIAM: Oh dear.
TALIESIN: Can we go up there? Can you put us at
our height now?
(laughter)
MARISHA: Can you represent us accurately?
MATT: So at a 30-foot radius, which you guys are,
it gives off a pulse of energy, (boomf) this giant
psychic burst of purple-ish, psychic blast just
cascades out of the center and just fills the room
for a second with this large dull thud-like
"thoom" sound. All of you instinctively look down
and see this explosion that just dissipates as it
crests the bottom of the magic carpet, which is
just out of range.
TALIESIN: You're wearing the helmet, at least.
MATT: At which point, you guys who are at the top,
looking off to the side, all the illithid that are
rushing up the tunnel, there's a sudden flash of
purple energy in their eyes simultaneously. Like
now the Elder Brain has come back online and has
reconnected with its people.
LAURA: Out, out, out!
MATT: All right, that brings us to Grog. Grog.
TRAVIS: I can keep flying up?
MATT: All of the sudden, the rope is really easy
to go up. It's nothing, you're just going hand
over hand.
ORION: You can fly, Grog!
TRAVIS: I have one more level three, whatever it's
called, level three healing potion. They're called
called superior or something? What's the word for
it?
MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: I'd like to take that.
MARISHA: I have so much adrenaline during these
kind of fights.
TALIESIN: I know.
MATT: They're moving around, they're angry, they
can't quite get to their targets.
TRAVIS: I heal 24 points of hit damage.
MATT: Fantastic. Rolling for the bottom of the
attack round. Okay. The troll bursts through the
door, filling in with the two mind flayers behind
it. They both look up, frustrated. And both begin
to drift up.
LAURA: No!
MATT: As far as they can get.
TRAVIS: Fuck this house of horrors.
ASHLEY: How do we get out of here?
LAURA: How are we going to get out of here?
MATT: They are going to attempt two Mind Blasts.
All right. That's as high as they get with
levitation. With the full height that takes the
top, because technically you guys are up here, I
just couldn't put the structure that high up. The
only people-- The only person that's in the radius
would be Scanlan and Pike. Again.
ASHLEY: All right.
MATT: Both of you guys make intellect saving
throws again.
SAM: I'm just looking into her eyes the whole
time.
ASHLEY: Can you sing?
MARISHA: You've got that inspiration die.
SAM: Oh, I do. I don't need it though.
MATT: What did you roll?
SAM: I'm at 20.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: 14.
MATT: 14? All right.
SAM: Can I sing for her?
MATT: (laughs) Unfortunately, you have to do that
on your turn. You manage to resist the effects of
it. You take 22 points of psychic damage and once
again your brain clenches--
LAURA: Good thing you healed yourself, Pike!
MATT: Damn good thing you healed yourself.
SAM: She was at 23! That's 22. That's one point!
LAURA: Yeah. That's the second time this round.
MATT: You feel all of the sudden, the blast hits
you and you see her eyes roll back in her head as
she reaches up and grabs the side of her head
again, nearly dropping her shield and mace, which
you manage to catch before they clatter down into
the temple.
ASHLEY: Okay.
SAM: Baby, come on.
ASHLEY: Maybe we'll be okay?
MARISHA: Do you want some more dice?
MATT: All right, Grog, you're up. Oh no, you're up
there, they went. That brings it to the top of the
round. Vex, you're up.
MARISHA: Take it, take it. Give it to her,
please.
ORION: Head to the beach!
SAM: Wait, top of the round?
MATT: Yeah, we're at the very top now. At the very
end, the new guys burst in and attacked.
LAURA: I'm going to-- (sighs) Is that brain fluid
still floating around it? Like, out and stuff?
TRAVIS: Well, we woke it up.
LAURA: I know.
LIAM: But now it's awake, so--
MATT: Percy shot-- No, actually, you didn't do
your turn on that one. I'm sorry, I think we
skipped Scanlan.
SAM: Should I kill the brain, or try to kill the
brain?
LIAM: If you can also flee at the same time.
ORION: Well, he has to wait for the carpet.
SAM: The brain is down there in the puddle? In the
pool? Is that big scaffolding still
hanging over it?
MATT: It's currently dangling over to this side.
Because it's been busted from three different
corners and it's precariously hanging.
SAM: But it's not right over the thing?
LAURA: But it might fall and tip.
SAM: Or it could not.
ASHLEY: Could somebody also use Telekinesis to
pull it to fall the other way?
ORION: I do not have the necessary item to do two
concentration spells at once.
SAM: Is it super heavy?
MATT: It's pretty heavy. It probably weighs close
to 700 to 1,000 pounds.
MARISHA: What does?
MATT: The giant brass structure.
SAM: And how high above it is it? Like, would it
get a significant amount of force?
MATT: It would fall down and then topple over.
SAM: Unless I made it fall--
MATT: Unless you made it fall. In that case, we'll
see.
SAM: Do I do that or do I just Lightning Strike?
Okay.
LIAM: It's your decision.
MARISHA: Go bold!
TRAVIS: Do what you were going to do. Do it.
SAM: I'm feeling handsy.
(laughter)
SAM: (sings) Bigby's Hand! So I take Bigby's Hand
and I sort of try to wrench it off the last thing
that's holding it up, but in the direction of
the--
MATT: Okay!
SAM: Of the brain.
MATT: Go ahead and make a roll, adding your plus
five for your casting ability.
SAM: Well, that's not good.
ORION: And inspiration!
SAM: Oh, yeah! Okay, so that makes it 13 plus
what?
MATT: 13 plus five, which is your charisma.
SAM: Okay, then 18.
MATT: 18. As the spectral Bigby's Hand reaches
over and grabs the top of the structure, you can
see the weird bit of bent metal that was once part
of the mostly-destroyed structure that held it
aloft in the center of the temple (metal creaking)
wrenches forth and snaps as the entire structure
begins to be pulled at an angle.
SAM: (sings) It's Bigby's Hand.
MATT: It slams down at an angle into the side of
the brain and coming to rest on top, crushing even
further the corpse of Clarota, currently smeared
across the ground. Oh, man. Go ahead and roll 6d6
force damage on that. Crushing damage, as this
heavy thing jams itself into the brain.
LIAM: Six cubes, Sam, six cubes.
SAM: Orion's my dice bimbo.
ORION: Here you go, boss.
ASHLEY: There you go, boss!
SAM: 16.
MATT: 16, so the structure slams into the Elder
Brain, and you can see like a bit of purplish
black liquid kinda squirts out to one side and for
the first time you can see a part of the brain is
actually torn open, and the purplish glow that you
see throbbing in the middle of its folds is now
visible from the interior. You can see now, it's
taken some real damage. Immediately the two mind
flayers that were floating up look down, freaked
out, and begin moving towards the brain now,
instinctively, to defend it.
SAM: And bonus action, can I pour some superior
healing potion down Pike's beautiful throat?
MATT: You can.
(laughter)
MATT: I'm not going anywhere with that.
TALIESIN: Yeah, no.
SAM: I'm just pouring my potion down Pike's
throat.
MATT: Anyway. All right, so Vex, what're you
doing?
SAM: I don't know what superior is.
MATT: Oh, it's a superior one, superior goes to,
it's 8d4 plus eight.
SAM: Do I roll or does she?
MATT: You roll.
SAM: Oh!
MATT: It's your potion.
SAM: 8d4 plus eight.
MATT: Yeah.
SAM: Holy bajeez. One.
MATT: Five, nine, 13.
SAM and MATT: 15, 18, 21.
MATT: One more.
SAM: 22.
MATT: Plus eight, 30. You heal 30 hit points.
ASHLEY: What? Awesome.
SAM: I got some good potion.
MATT: Very, very expensive potion used. All right,
so. Vex? You're on Trinket still, do you want to
hold your action and wait for the rest of the
carpet, do you want to attack anyone, what do you
want to do?
LAURA: I want to attack the Elder Brain.
MATT: Okay. Go for it.
LAURA: I'm going to-- I think all I can do is a
Conjure Barrage.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: So it's the cone of attack.
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: So that will get hopefully all the things,
because I'm shooting down, right?
MATT: Well, how big is the cone?
LAURA: It's 60 feet.
MATT: 60-foot cone from your angle here, if you're
going for the brain it'll catch this guy, maybe,
as a cone that goes down this way.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: Unless you want to go this way and hit these
guys, or this guy.
LIAM: You could get the edge of the brain.
LAURA: Yeah, can I do the edge on the brain and
get--
MATT: Yeah. You can get, you can get probably
these guys there.
LAURA: All right, let's do that.
MATT: All right.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: So they get saving throws, right? How
does that work?
LAURA: Yes, they get saving throws.
MATT: So roll damage, and we'll see what their
saving throws are.
LAURA: Okay. But do I have to roll to see if it
hits, or it just hits?
MATT: No, for that one, it's just a barrage and
they get to roll a saving throw against it.
LAURA: Oh! Okay, cool. 17?
MATT: All right.
LAURA: Plus Hunter's Mark? On the Elder Brain.
MATT: Yeah, so the Elder Brain takes additional
damage.
LAURA: Three additional. Do I get plus two for the
bracers on that Conjure Barrage?
MATT: Technically, yes you would, because they're
ranged.
LAURA: Okay, so that would've been 19.
MATT: 19. All right. Cool. And then this guy fails
its save, so total damage on him?
LAURA: 19.
MATT: 19 on him? Okay. So it's still alive, just
looking really, really rough. The brain's just now
pierced with a bunch of arrows, some of it, it's
barely holding itself on top of its feet. And the
troll also takes the damage as well, just seems
to shrug it off, just seems to angrily-- roars up
from the bottom of the temple at you, now
seemingly helpless in the current circumstance.
LAURA: So then I want to attack the Elder Brain
again.
MATT: All right. So you release it down.
LAURA: 20.
MATT: Very nice, that hits, go ahead and roll
damage.
LAURA: All right. 11.
MATT: 11 points of damage, all right.
LAURA: Oh, wait, wait! No, lies! 13.
MATT: 13, okay, there we go.
TRAVIS: (laughs) No, lies.
MATT: (laughs) Reach down again, release this one,
aiming towards the now torn-open wound on the side
of the Elder Brain as the arrow now sinks in,
there's another pulse of purple energy, and you
hear, all of you simultaneously in your heads this
scream, this screech (screech) that echoes through
your heads. As it does, the two illithid that were
hovering towards it grab their heads momentarily
out of frustration and glare up at you angrily.
ORION: Ooh! I took notice of this.
MATT: That brings us to Keyleth.
MARISHA: I'm going to take the rest of my burrow
speed to get up to the top.
MATT: All right.
MARISHA: I'm assuming I'm there?
MATT: You just manage to make it to the top of the
temple, yeah.
MARISHA: Okay. Drop earth elemental.
MATT: All right. Keyleth is on the field.
MARISHA: Would you say--
SAM: Oh boy.
(laughter)
MATT: Nothing good ever comes out of this. What do
you got, Keyleth, what are you doing?
MARISHA: Theoretically.
MATT: Theoretically?
MARISHA: Our brains are made up of water, right?
Would you say that there is water in the like
jello brain mold, like water molecules would be in
it?
MATT: Make an arcana check.
MARISHA: Okay. I don't know much in terms of
arcana, but I can try. Ten.
MATT: You have no idea. You have never encountered
an Elder Brain before.
LAURA: Yeah, give it a try!
TALIESIN: Give it a try!
MARISHA: Okay. I'm going to cast Control Water.
I'm going to assume that there's water, it's 300
feet, I got the range and I'm going to take the
brain where it's already kind of sliced down the
middle where Vex has already made progress, I'm
going to take it and I'm
just going to rip it apart.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll a d20 and add your
wisdom modifier to it.
MARISHA: Okay.
TRAVIS: Wait, you're saying brains are made of
water?
TALIESIN: Whoa!
MARISHA: 23.
MATT: Okay. There is an element of liquid to its
structure, however it is difficult to extract it
from a form that you're unfamiliar with, let alone
one that's this stable. You manage to find a way
to pull moisture out of parts of it and actually
deal damage to it as you're beginning to shrivel
sections of the brain. Go ahead and roll 3d6. You
do 3d6 points of dehydration damage.
MARISHA: I'll take it, I'll take it.
ASHLEY: Make some brain jerky.
MARISHA: They'll have a really bad hangover
tomorrow.
MATT: Oh yeah. Oh, you don't even know the half of
it.
MARISHA: Ooh! Just 3d6 or plus anything?
MATT: Just 3d6.
MARISHA: 15.
MATT: 15, all right. 15 points of dehydration
damage to the Elder Brain. You can see now the
portion of the wound that's been opened, the
corners of it kind of shrivel in and tuck in and
the actual purple glow in the inside dulls
slightly. And you now have, currently, in the air,
a small amorphous globule of brain fluid that's
just kind of floating there in this, in the air.
ASHLEY: Awesome.
LAURA: Gross.
MARISHA: Cool.
(laughter)
MARISHA: Scanlan, smell it! Smell it!
SAM: No, thank you.
MATT: Tiberius, you're up.
ORION: Did you say there was illithid coming up on
the sides, too?
MATT: Yeah, they're swarming up the side. They're
probably about halfway up.
ORION: Okay. I turn to the group. I suggest we go
to the beach immediately. There we can shore up
defenses and I can cast a spell and get us out of
here. As I say that, I go (fwwt) and throw a
Fireball right at that fucker's head.
MATT: Okay. Are you using your movement to bring
the carpet, to take control of the carpet from
Percy and move it up higher?
ORION: No, I'm up top. I have Fly on myself.
MATT: Oh, that's right. Sorry. Yeah. All right,
so.
ORION: Yeah, I just let a Fireball down on the
brain.
MATT: Into the brain, all right. All right, so
that's enough to get both of these guys. Go ahead
and roll damage. And they both failed their save,
so full damage.
TRAVIS: Crush the nuts.
ASHLEY: Little brains.
MATT: I like that, good.
ORION: 40.
MATT: 40?
LAURA: Whoa!
ASHLEY: Yeah!
MATT: Those incinerate. And 40 points of damage to
the Elder Brain as this giant echoing explosion
blasts up from below. All of you at the top, you
are underlit momentarily from the flash of red and
yellow flame. As you look down, there's now a
sizzling sound and this like smell of horrible
burnt flesh as part of the Elder Brain now that
was originally dehydrated is now also burnt and
singed. You can see now, it's looking a little
rougher and it's very very unhappy with its
current circumstance.
LAURA: I want to kill it before we leave now.
MATT: All right. Pike, go ahead and make a saving
throw.
MARISHA: Come on, Pike!
LAURA: Why a saving throw?
MATT: Still trying to get rid of the stun.
LAURA: Oh, right.
MATT: So intellect saving throw.
ASHLEY: 16?
MATT: 16. You shrug off the effect--
ASHLEY: Yeah! Man. Thanks, Keyleth. Much better
now.
MARISHA: New dice!
SAM: What? I've been doing it wrong this whole
time.
ASHLEY: Can I do anything, or that's my turn?
MATT: That's your turn.
ORION: My movement, by the way is I head to the
beach.
SAM: You're ghosting?
ORION: Yes.
MATT: You just get the fuck out of Dodge, Tiberius
is that way.
ASHLEY: Wait, where do we go? Nobody's taking us?
LAURA: No, you've got to hop on the carpet when it
comes up.
ASHLEY: Oh, okay, got it.
MARISHA: Classic Tiberius.
TALIESIN: All right, here's a question: can
everybody still fly?
MATT: Vax?
ORION: As long as I'm thinking about it.
LIAM: Well I'm still sitting, still kneeling on
the flying carpet with Percy, so I'm just throwing
daggers at the bacon brain.
MATT: Okay. They're at disadvantage at this
distance.
LIAM: Okay. So that means, aw man, 17 on the
first.
MATT: 17? (ricochet sound) Reflected, deflected by
the arcane shield on the brain.
LIAM: All right, so then the second one does as
well, and the last one definitely does, so.
MATT: Yeah, so all three just (ping, ping, ping).
TALIESIN: Take the wheel!
MATT: As it gets more and more damaged, it's
waking up more and more and it looks like it's
actually gaining power the more it does.
LIAM: Okay, and then Percy yelled in my ear, so I
take some of the little carpet tassels.
MATT: (laughs) Okay. So as your movement, you
manage to move the carpet all the way up, it
swoops up into the center of--
LAURA: Grab the gnomes!
MATT: This right here. You guys are all looking
precariously at this carpet that is now floating
up from the center of the temple. As you get to
the top, you look over and you can see there's
probably close to 20 mind flayers that are
swarming up the side. That brings us to, Vax,
Percy, you're up.
TALIESIN: All right, I pull out Bad News. And I'm
going to lie down on my stomach, hanging off the
edge of the carpet.
SAM: Hanging brain!
TALIESIN: And I'm taking a shot straight down.
MATT: Okay. I'll say it takes you your--
TALIESIN: My movement.
MATT: Movement to get it out. So you're there,
you're unable to move the carpet, you pull the Bad
News out, you get down, you're precariously off
the side of it, and it is sagging as your weight
touches it, you get ready, go ahead and fire.
TALIESIN: Firing a deadshot.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Oh, come on.
TALIESIN: That's 18.
MATT: As you fire, the blast sends you up almost
onto your feet on the carpet again, and you hear
this impact sound, this (crash) of the blast
hitting stone as the psychic field around it
deflects the bullet, sending it into the ground.
LAURA: I thought 18 was the number that we were
aiming for-- shit.
TALIESIN: Wait, did I have an inspiration dice
from last-- fuck.
ORION: You did.
TALIESIN: I did have an inspiration dice from last
game! I did! What do you give people with it?
SAM: d10.
TALIESIN: d10? Oh fuck, that's right.
ORION: Can he add it now?
MATT: Yeah, I'll trust you on that.
TALIESIN: I did! I did, because I'm always excited
when I get them, because I never get them.
MATT: That's true, okay, yeah. All right. Go ahead
and roll for that.
TALIESIN: 21!
MATT: That'll do it.
TALIESIN: Oh my god.
MATT: As the brain continues to wake up, it
improves its defenses, improves its
capabilities--
LAURA: Oh, I understand.
TALIESIN: Okay.
MATT: But that will hit. So go ahead and roll
damage on that.
TALIESIN: Okay.
ORION: It's Hulking?
MATT: Essentially. So as you release the blast, it
hits the psychic field, the first impact you hear
is it hitting the psychic field and pushing
through into the actual brain matter.
MARISHA: Come on!
TALIESIN: Let me double-check that I'm doing this
right, hold on, deadshot's weird. Plus weapon
damage. Okay, so that's eight, nine, ten, 11, 12,
13... 25 points of damage.
MATT: 25 points of damage. Boom! You see the
section of it that's kinda charred and burned gets
blown off, and now there's a corner of the brain
that's just an open and gaping wound. The purplish
glow on the inside is pulsing more and more
angrily. It's taken a beating, but
it's hanging in there.
TALIESIN: Oh my god!
MARISHA: Will not die.
MATT: This is, you guys have left a good mark on
it. You get the sensation, with the swarming
incoming, you may start to consider
self-preservation, because the Elder Brain looks like
it's taken some hits, but it's not on death's
door yet.
TALIESIN: Oh god.
MARISHA: Let's get out.
LAURA: We need to go.
MATT: Scanlan, you're up.
SAM: Scanlan is up?
MATT: Yep.
SAM: We're out of here?
TALIESIN: We need everybody to hop on the carpet
first.
SAM: Okay.
MATT: You're hopping up?
SAM: No, I'm going to turn into a huge pterodactyl
and carry some folks.
MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: What?
LAURA: You can do that?
SAM: Sure, why not?
MARISHA: He's got Polymorph.
TRAVIS: Yeah, turn into a batwing.
MATT: Cool, so we'll say for the time being, we'll
use this as Scanlan.
SAM: Great.
MATT: You are a giant pterodactyl, a creature that
you've read in books in the past, you haven't
actually seen in person. And what are you doing?
SAM: Who can I carry?
MATT: You can carry one person with your claws.
You haven't used this form before, and this is you
figuring it out, so pick one and you can take them
with you.
SAM: I'm going to take someone heavy.
LIAM: Grog.
MATT: Grog can fly.
LAURA: I can fly on Trinket, yeah, everybody's
covered, man.
SAM: There's only one person I can take.
MATT: As the pterodactyl Scanlan swoops down and
both its claws grapple on your arms and lift you
off the top of the temple, flying after Tiberius.
TALIESIN: How do you make that weird?
MATT: All right, so they're now out of harm's way.
Very top of the round, that brings us to Grog.
Still carrying Kima under your arm.
TRAVIS: We're getting out, right?
LAURA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: So I don't have to worry, so up and out.
MATT: So you just awkwardly fly with Kima under
your arm, off with the rest of the group.
LIAM: (sings) Sweet bird of prey, fly, fly away.
SAM: (sings) Up, up, and away, I'm a beautiful
pterodactyl.
MATT: We'll get these guys off the board here
because you do have two Illithid that get up to
the edge here. They're going to attempt a Mind
Blast.
LIAM: We're gone, man, we're gone!
LAURA: Not yet.
MATT: Still holding back. So--
LIAM: I jump up to get out of range.
MATT: That can just get Trinket and Vex, if you
can go ahead and make an intelligence saving throw
for both of you.
LIAM: Don't fuck with my sister.
ORION: Trinket and Vex are still there?
LAURA: Yeah. I know, I didn't get to--
SAM: They never flew.
LAURA: I know, I didn't use the movement on the
last turn.
MATT: Nope.
LAURA: I just didn't say it because I'm an
asshole.
SAM: You are.
LIAM: What kind of saving throw?
MATT and SAM: Intelligence.
LAURA: Ten? On me.
MATT: Okay. Roll for Trinket.
LIAM: You rolled nine, plus two is 11.
LAURA: Oh. Okay. 11.
MATT: So go ahead and roll for Trinket.
LAURA: Oh! I rolled a nine, plus two, plus two.
LIAM: For what?
LAURA: For my ring that I'm wearing.
LIAM: Okay.
LAURA: So whatever that was.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA and LIAM: 13.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: For me.
MATT: And roll for Trinket.
LAURA: Which is going to be a major fail because
Trinket is the dumbest.
(laughter)
SAM: Don't talk about Trinket like that.
TRAVIS: Is he the dumbest?
LAURA: No, that's a minus four. So that would be a
nine for Trinket.
MATT: Nine for Trinket.
LAURA: Who is, by the way, my only way to get out
of here right now.
MATT: So communally, both you and Trinket freeze
in place, and Trinket, who is flying, slumps onto
the top of the temple, limply laying across the
edge, about to tip over off the temple.
SAM: (whispering) Told you we should've left
Trinket behind.
MATT: That ends your turn. Keyleth, you're up.
MARISHA: Okay.
LIAM: A lot of Sandmen in there.
MARISHA: Well first and foremost I'm going to get
on the carpet.
MATT: Okay. So you leap up here with these guys.
MARISHA: Secondly, I am going to-- Okay, wait,
Trinket's stunned?
MATT: Trinket is currently catatonic (moans), just
barely holding herself right there. You can see
she's struggling with the flight spell, like she's
kind of levering herself into the ground--
LAURA: Trinket's a boy.
MATT: Him, sorry. I was thinking of you.
LAURA: If he's about to die, at least get his
gender right.
MATT: I apologize, Trinket. I'm sorry.
MARISHA: Wait, shove him?
TALIESIN: Shove him onto the carpet.
MARISHA: No, I can't shove him.
SAM: Wait, he's floating.
MARISHA: Okay, can I do this? Okay, here's what
I'm going to do. I'm on the carpet. I'm going to
cast Grasping Vine from the carpet and wrap around
Trinket and have a Trinket tow vine.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: Like the Macy's Day parade!
MATT: So as you leap onto the carpet, you reach
down, and the fibrous nature that the carpet was
originally made from, you manage to pull the
essence of that out to create a vine of similarly
patterned color of the actual magic carpet
material. The various silks form into this tendril
that wraps around both you and Trinket and pulls
you guys hanging behind the carpet, so you guys
are essentially now towed to the carpet.
MARISHA: Let's go!
ORION: Can she take control of the carpet, too?
MARISHA: Can I now use the rest of my movement
to be like--
MATT: You currently do not have control of the
carpet because you used your action and everything
to use that spell and your concentration at that
point.
MARISHA: Okay, I'm just holding.
MATT: You're just holding them there. That brings
us to Tiberius, you're off, flying off. Pike is
off, Vax, you're up.
LIAM: I'm steering us the fuck outta here, man.
MATT: You tow Trinket and Vex out behind. As you
guys pull off at full speed, the rest of the
illithid swarm to the top, you can see about 15 or
so get to the front top here, look down at the
Elder Brain, look up at the rest of you with this
angry look, and as you're pulling away, your eyes
adjust to the darkness of the cavern and you look
down and you swear you can see hundreds and
hundreds of sets of purple glowing eyes just
staring up from the city as you all slowly fly
away to the far end of the cavern. As you're
moving, so are the eyes.
LAURA: (sings) We've made some enemies. They're
coming after us.
ORION: I want to make a note, because I'm way
ahead of everybody at this point, as soon as I
land on the beach, I cast Circle of
Teleportation.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: Barring that there's nobody there, but I do
that immediately.
MATT: All right, so. A few minutes go by, you guys
are moving past and over the water channel that's
between the north side of the island and the beach
where you guys previously set.
(laughter)
MATT: As Tiberius, you land on the dirt. You land,
immediately begin casting the Circle of
Teleportation, you begin scrawling this circle on
the ground, running your finger across the gravel
surface to build the runes. As your fingers drag
across, you can see the arcane light beginning to
glow and form the sigils and the runes as you're
drawing them feverishly. The rest of the group
eventually catches up to you about 30 seconds
into it. As you all eventually get back, you and
Trinket manage to shrug off the effect. And you
find yourselves halfway through being towed by
this vine awkwardly.
LAURA: What is happening right now?
MARISHA: Stupid wrench.
MATT: A few seconds pass, you finish the
incantation, you place your hand down on the
center of the sigil, this wave of arcane energy
blasts off, and suddenly, above this circle, this
tearing sound pulls out of the middle of the
ether, and this kind of purple shimmering doorway
opens above the circle sigil that he crafted on
the side of the beach.
ORION: By the blessings of Bahamut, I choose
Emon!
MATT: At which point, the doorway that he just
created takes some sort of a solid form and from
what you can see on the other side, there appears
to be some sort of low-lit room.
LIAM: Greyskull!
LAURA: (gasps) Greyskull!
ORION: I run right through.
MATT: All right. Tiberius runs through. Everyone
else?
ALL: Yes!
SAM: Are we there?
MATT: You guys have all landed on the beach as he
finished casting this, yeah.
LAURA: Run!
MARISHA: Run!
MATT: You all rush through the portal, one after
the other, towards the very end is Grog, you
bringing up the rear, holding Kima, you go rushing
towards it as it begins to slowly close, this only
lasts a round, you barrel through just in time as
it closes behind you with a sparking sound.
TALIESIN: We are time bandits.
(cheering)
TRAVIS: Oh, fuck. I just caked my pants.
TALIESIN: Squish-squish.
LAURA: I hate that phrase.
ORION: That was something, now, wasn't it?
TALIESIN: That was fantastic.
TRAVIS: Chocolate cake.
MATT: You all emerge within a small
20-foot-by-20-foot white stone chamber. You all
are kinda crammed in this space currently, but you
are all apparently safe and sound. As the doorway
closes behind you, you turn and look, and on the
ground there is a similar circle across the stone
flooring, different patterns, different, you know,
arrangement to the one that he had drawn, but with
some similarities that are kind of a reminiscent
glow, almost like a code to this circle, fade
away, based on what he had drawn previously.
LAURA: They won't be able to open that back up?
ORION: We are safe.
LAURA: Okay.
TRAVIS: Just a quick request: she is made of
stone. Holding Lady Kima.
ASHLEY: Yes! I'll go over and cast Greater
Restoration on Kima.
ORION: Hold on just one second.
TRAVIS: Hold on.
ORION: We still have the Horn to deal with.
TALIESIN: The Horn is on the carpet. It has been
specifically not touched.
MATT: So it's just kind of sitting there. The
carpet's bunched to the side now as you guys kind
of flew into the portal and kind of left it there
and the Horn's just resting there.
ORION: I think we should get it out of her view
before--
TALIESIN: I think we should put it in the Bag of
Holding.
TRAVIS: Sure, yeah. Do you want to teleport it in
the bag?
ASHLEY: If your crushing couldn't kill it, the
thousand pounds?
ORION: We can store it there.
LIAM: Where are we? You said we're in a room.
MATT: It's a small yellow room, sorry, a small
white stone room and there is a kind of yellowish
brown stone doorway that is closed. There's some
very faint white orbs that are locked into the
wall. So you're not in Greyskull Keep now.
MARISHA: Oh, we're not in Greyskull.
MATT: You guys don't have a teleportation circle
installed in your Keep yet. You don't know where
you are.
SAM: We're in a room right now?
MATT: You're in a room, you're in a
20-foot-by-20-foot room, with two small white orbs
on the sides that are kinda set into the walls to
give off a faint white arcane glow. There's a
single doorway that exits the room that is
currently closed.
ORION: The way Circle of Teleportation works is
when I learned it I get to pick two locations that
I know innately. I picked Emon as one of them.
LAURA: Oh, okay. Okay.
MARISHA: So we're somewhere in Emon.
ORION: But I just had to pick the two.
MARISHA: So we could be in someone's living room
right now?
ORION: I'll use Telekinesis to lift the Horn off
the carpet.
MATT: Okay. You still have the spells?
ORION: Yeah, I can burn one from my Ioun stone.
LAURA: Should we wrap it at all?
TALIESIN: It'll be fine in the Bag of Holding.
LIAM: Not knowing what else to do, Vax is going to
go to the door and just inspect it,
see if it's trapped.
MATT: Roll a perception check.
LIAM: 24.
MATT: 24. All right, the door does appear to be
locked. It is not trapped.
LIAM: Not trapped. Okay, I'll get to work on it,
then. 32.
MATT: Okay, 32. You, relatively easy, the door
comes unlocked, the small, it's like a very very
intricately carved brass handle that has swirls
upon it, like it's almost like a burst of wind
being blown and frozen in gold. You turn it and
the door opens slightly.
LIAM: Pull up, I'm still wearing my tin hat and I
pull up my hood from my elven cloak, and I go
stealth. And I am stealthed, because that's a 32.
And I have a look around outside the door.
MATT: Okay. As you open the doorway, it leads into
a secondary chamber. This is an 80-foot-diameter
circular chamber now, so you're entering the edge
of a giant circle. There are a series of other
doors, almost in respective rows next to each
other, and you also see, in the center of the
room, a vibrant chandelier made of white crystal
like the spheres you saw in the previous room you
were in, giving off a warm, atmospheric glow to
the entire room. In the center of the room, there
is a semi-circle desk that is also made of a
similar white stone material that the rest of the
room is made out of, with polished gold leaf
trimming on the edge, and you do see what looks to
be an elven man sitting at the desk, longish
gray-white hair, he's wearing robes that are
finely dressed, and he's half-falling asleep at a
desk with a series of books kind of piled up on
the side. As soon as the doorway opens, he looks
up, and you hear a slight little arcane tinging
sound, like a little bell being rung, as you open
the door. He looks up for a second.
LAURA: Say hello.
LIAM: Yes yes yes. I just walk forward and pull
down the cloak and say, "Hello."
MATT: "Stay right where you are! Do not move!"
LIAM: Hands up in the air.
MATT: "Do not move!"
LIAM: Nothing in them. No threat, no danger here.
A little lost, apparently.
MATT: "Apparently."
LIAM: Yes.
MATT: "Who else is in, who else goes there? Who
else, please, step outside! Reveal yourselves!"
LIAM: They're--
LAURA: Hi!
MARISHA: Hi.
ASHLEY: Hello.
SAM: (pterodactyl screech)
MATT: As soon as he sees you, he goes, (screams).
ORION: I cast Dispel Magic on Scanlan.
SAM: Do you have it anymore?
ORION: Yeah, I do.
SAM: You just did it to me earlier in this round.
ORION: No, Counterspell, and I Silenced you, this
is Dispel Magic, which ends your spell.
MATT: Okay. (laughs)
SAM: Oh. Hello.
MATT: So as you cast the spell and transform, he
stops in the middle of casting a spell reflexively
and goes, "Oh. And a bear. Interesting."
ORION: He's friendly.
SAM: He's real.
LIAM: I have a very long, very strange story,
every word of which is true, and if you will give
me five minutes, I swear I can convince you--
MATT: He opens a book and starts thumbing through
the pages.
LIAM: No ill intent. Intent? Yes.
MATT: "We have no expected arrivals at this hour.
I need to know your business, your names, and your
"affiliations immediately."
MARISHA: We will totally do that when we know--
LAURA: We are affiliated with the king.
LIAM: Yeah, emperor. Just tell the emperor that Vox
Machina has returned from Kraghammer, and we have
news for him, and--
MATT: "Well."
LAURA: We were on very secret business for the
crown, actually. And that is why you weren't
informed of our business.
ORION: Yeah, I'm Tiberius Stormwind. How are you?
MATT: Make a persuasion check.
LAURA: Okay.
TRAVIS: Did you wink?
ORION: I'm responsible for casting the spell to
get us here to begin with.
LAURA: (laughs) With advantage.
LIAM: Yes.
LAURA: That would be a 20-- no. 35.
MATT: All right. He looks to you, as you guys are
saying, he--
LAURA: That's not possible. 25.
MATT: 25.
(laughter)
MATT: He stands up from the desk and gives you all
a look-over and says, "Well, I am Gatekeeper
"Xanthas, I am the evening keeper of the Traverse
Junction here in the-- it's the Traverse
"Junction."
ORION: Gatekeeper?
MATT: "Here within the Lyceum. The hour is late.
We are two hours past midnight."
TALIESIN: Well, I am Percival Fredrickstein Von
Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, and, hello, and we
would love to report to the emperor of your great
hospitality at this unfortunately early hour, and
we would look forward to reporting of all of your
kindness and good housekeeping.
LIAM: I imagine he would be very upset if we were
delayed. We come with very grave news.
TALIESIN: I would hope not to imagine it.
MATT: "Well. I'm certain the Headmaster would like
to know your business in the morning."
LAURA: Yes.
MATT: "Headmaster Thurmond. He runs this Alabaster
Lyceum within the Erudite Quarter. If you would
"please submit a report for your reasons for using
the Lyceum Junction property by tomorrow, I'm sure
"that would suffice for the required paperwork."
LAURA: Of course we will.
TALIESIN: You are too kind.
LAURA: In the meantime, we'll just go to our Keep
that we have in town.
ORION: Greyskull Keep.
MATT: Gives you a very, a disbelieving look and
kinda goes, "Very well."
TALIESIN: Good day, good evening.
SAM: I cast Friends on him and I tell him, "You
know of our Keep, don't you?"
MATT: Okay. He goes, "I seem to recall hearing
about a Vox Machina at some point discussed, but I
"don't get out very often. Running the graveyard
shift here at the Lyceum has taken its toll on my
"social life."
LAURA: You poor thing, you should get out more.
MATT: "Well here, let me show you out." And he
walks you through the rest of the hallways. It's a
beautiful, beautiful kind of domed center chamber
into a long series of white stone hallways,
similar material to what the first room you
arrived in looked like. Eventually to a main foyer
area, which has a very high ceiling and a series
of beautifully carved pillars that show different
creatures, almost like devas and demons battling
each other as they spiral up these pillars, to the
front doorways. There are two guards that are
adorned in kinda silver and gold armor with these
very high, elven in design-shaped helmets, and
they step to the side as the doors
open on their own.
LAURA: Love the hat.
MATT: Guards do not respond to you whatsoever,
they just step to the side. Gatekeeper says, "All
"right, well, here is your way out, have a
wonderful evening and do please return for your
"report on the morrow."
LAURA: Of course.
SAM: Oh, one more question before you leave, what
district are we in right now?
MATT: "The Erudite Quarter."
SAM: Thank you.
TRAVIS: Gesundheit.
MATT: "Good night." The doors slam (boof) behind
you as you guys exit, and you're now--
LAURA: Holy shit, we survived! What was that?
MARISHA: Oh my god! Keyleth just goes down on
her knees and starts kissing the ground.
TALIESIN: Well, that could've gone worse.
MARISHA: Oh, we're home.
ASHLEY: I just want to get in my bed so bad.
MARISHA: Look! Stars!
MATT: You look up and, for the first time in close
to a week, you can see stars, you can see a
crescent moon, probably just past its single
quarter phase. It is a sight for
sore eyes right now.
ASHLEY: I'm so happy.
TRAVIS: Would you say it's a beautiful sight?
MATT: Currently? The most beautiful night sky
you've seen in all of your years.
TRAVIS: I ruin it with a fart.
(laughter)
ORION: I'm glad you held that the whole time we
were down there, Grog.
TRAVIS: I've had horrible stomach pains this whole
time, I'm sorry.
LAURA: What, are we just carrying around this
stone Kima with us, or are
we taking her back to our--
LIAM: Yes, but don't stand right in front of her
when you undo the stone.
ORION: Actually, hold on a minute, let's all rest
before we deal with this one.
TRAVIS: Yes.
ASHLEY: No, because I want to be able to have an
extra 5th-level spell.
TRAVIS: Oh, right.
LAURA: But we're in town now, so we're safe.
ASHLEY: Yeah, let's go to the Keep.
LAURA: Yeah, so it'll be fine.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
SAM: It's a long way. We've got to go across the
whole town to get there.
LAURA: Well, we've got a fucking flying carpet.
SAM: We do have a flying carpet.
TALIESIN: The metro's running at this hour.
LIAM: We can probably flag down a wagon, too.
LAURA: Yeah, we're in town!
LIAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Fuck it. Everything's possible.
TALIESIN: Let's go drinking.
MARISHA: I was going to say, what bars are open?
LIAM: We've got a lot of bling and a cursed Horn.
The sky's the limit.
ASHLEY: I know, should we go to a tavern and get
some ale?
SAM: What, who are you?
TRAVIS: Really? You mean it?
ASHLEY: Well what do you mean, do I mean it?
TRAVIS: It's all empty, can we fill it please?
ASHLEY: It's all empty?
MARISHA: We should get some ale. Wait, maybe we
should drop off the Bag of Holding so we're not
carrying it around.
TRAVIS: And the stone gnome.
MARISHA: And then go out drinking.
LIAM: We don't want to lose it in a game of
cards.
MARISHA: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
TRAVIS: And stone Kima.
SAM: We'll be fine, we've never lost it before.
There's eight of us, we'll be fine,
let's go drinking.
ASHLEY: How far is the Keep from here?
MATT: I'd say it's probably a good hour walk.
MARISHA: Oh, we've got time.
TALIESIN: We could do a pub crawl, we'll just have
a beer at every pub we hit on the way
back to the Keep.
MARISHA: Yes, let's do that! Pub crawl!
ALL: Pub crawl!
MARISHA: We're going to pub crawl back to the
Keep.
LIAM: Starting here at Geek & Sundry.
ASHLEY: But should I go just in a bush just behind
and--
SAM: Do you have to pee or something?
ASHLEY: No, and cast Greater Restoration on Kima?
ALL: No!
SAM: We want to enjoy this.
ORION: She doesn't have a sense of time, she won't
know.
SAM: Or humor.
TRAVIS: Let's put her in the bag. She's made of
stone!
LAURA: We won't tell her how much time has
passed.
TALIESIN: We'll un-stone her once we're back at
the Keep.
TRAVIS: She's stone. Stone doesn't breathe.
Right?
TALIESIN: It'll be fine.
SAM: We don't know.
LAURA: Do not put her in the Bag of Holding! Do
not.
(laughter)
LIAM: For the record, I think she'd be fine, too.
But we could bring her around and introduce her;
it could be like Weekend at Bernie's.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Ah, yes! I put a fancy robe around Kima's
stone statue.
LAURA: This is so messed up.
MATT: All right, so as you guys begin making your
celebratory pub crawl, starting with the Laughing
Lamia Tavern, you buy drinks, laugh, chatter, and
kind of take in the lively atmosphere that you
would find at 3AM. Which is a little, at this
point most of the fun folk are pretty drunk, but
at this point you don't care, you'll take your
own, and we'll take a quick five-minute break to
use the bathroom and we'll pick up from there in
just a moment, we'll see you guys here in five
minutes to continue.
TRAVIS: We lived!
MARISHA: We lived!
MATT: Holy shit, guys.
ORION: I was fine.
[dramatic music]
TRAVIS: Right, Listen up! If you have ale, then
you have a friend in Grog Strongjaw. A goliath of
towering height and size, this barbarian has an
appetite for the two great loves in his life:
combat, women, and ale! (chuckle)
(record scratch) Wait.
Easily the brains of the group, Grog is often
consulted for his vast knowledge of shapes,
colors, and (chuckle) shiny things!
Also ale.
In his early years, armed with his two-handed
great axe, Grog often enjoyed proving his might
amongst the ranks of his family's wandering herd.
But after coming upon an unsuspecting elderly
gnome in the woods, he objected to the killing of
such an innocent life. A creature of impulse, Grog
felt only pity for this-- well, this terrified
little thing. And his disobedience cost him
dearly.
Beaten bloody and banished by the herd leader, his
uncle Kevdak, Grog was abandoned and left to die,
exiled from his herd. It was then that the
relative of the very gnome he fought to save,
saved him. It was the kindness of a gnome cleric
named Pike that healed Grog, bringing him back
from death's edge. And they have remained close
friends ever since.
Most nights, Grog can be found challenging entire
taverns to wrestling matches! Ha! Or accompanying
Scanlan to the nearest house where you pay for
lady favors.
Also ale!
MARISHA: A first impression of Keyleth would leave
you with little information on the half-elven
druid. You might even think that her social
awkwardness due to her sheltered upbringing is
kind of sweet. (chuckle)
Of course, it would be unwise to underestimate her
based on first impressions. (thunder) Under that
unintimidating petite frame is a vicious beast
waiting to be unleashed, whose natural powers have
made even the fiercest of champions pee their
pants, literally! (soft chuckle)
Born to the Air Tribe of the Ashari people,
Keyleth was raised with a deep love of nature and
the elemental magics. It is her people's inherent
duty to protect the delicate areas in Tal'Dorei
where the four elemental planes begin to bleed
with this realm.
Since she was a little girl, she had quite a knack
for air manipulation and beast shaping abilities.
Well, if you consider kittens and flying squirrels
to be little beasts. Which, I do. (clears throat)
Anyways, it wasn't long before the headmaster of
the tribe, her father, Korren, realized her true
prodigious abilities and she was inveterated to
succeed him as the next headmaster.
Just like that, her jovial childhood was stripped
and replaced with endless spell memorization,
teachings from ancient traditions, and exceedingly
high expectations. Every druid leader to be must
embark on a journey to seek out the sister tribes in
order to introduce and establish respect amongst
the fellow headmasters. They call this the
Aramente, or Noble Odyssey. When her father felt
she was ready, he set her on the path to truly
discovering herself, not knowing when, or if, she
will ever return.
As she hiked down the mountain towards Stillben,
she meditated on the task ahead. Part of the
Aramente is proving yourself a strong warrior, a
valiant protector, and a wise and compassionate
leader. With this knowledge, one thought plays on
repeat in her mind: Is she even worthy?
TALIESIN: Percy was the third of seven children,
born to a noble family who lived far to the north
in the ancient castle of Whitestone. With so many
siblings to share the burdens of lordship, Percy
turned his attentions to the sciences,
engineering, and naturalism.
One day, a mysterious couple named Lord and Lady
Briarwood came to court. During a feast held in
their honor, the Briarwoods violently took control
of the castle, killing or imprisoning everyone who
would stand in their way.
Percy awoke chained in the dungeon, only to be
freed by his younger sister. Together they fled,
chased by the Briarwoods' men. As they ran,
Percy's sister took several arrows to the chest
and fell. Percy kept running, eventually jumping
into a freezing river and floating unconscious to
freedom. He did not remember waking up on a
fishing boat. He barely remembered the next two
years, as he slowly made his way as far south as
possible.
Then one night, Percy had a dream. A roaring cloud
of smoke offered him vengeance against those who
destroyed his family. When he awoke, Percy began
to design his first gun. (gunshot)
ASHLEY: Pike grew up on the outskirts of town,
near the Bramblewood. Her ancestors were a family
of deep gnomes with quite an unfavorable
reputation. Thievery, destruction, and trickery
left them with the curse of the last name
Trickfoot. Sarenrae, the goddess of healing and
redemption, had other plans for Pike's
great-great-grandfather Wilhand, who left his
family at a young age after a dream: a dream that
changed the course of the Trickfoot family.
Wilhand devoted his life to Sarenrae and pledged
from then on that him and his family would live a
life of service and devotion.
As a child, Pike seemed to have an affinity to
heal. Whether it was animals, people, or even
flowers, she felt she had a purpose in making
things whole that had once been broken. She
studied and learned the ways to heal though divine
magic.
She lived a peaceful life, quiet and simple, until
one day, Wilhand was captured and almost killed by
a group of goliath barbarians. One of the goliaths
took a stand against the murder of the innocent
gnome and he himself was beaten, bloodied, and
left for dead, abandoned by his herd. Wilhand went
to Pike for help. She prayed and healed this
barbarian as best she could, bringing him
back to life.
When he awoke, she discovered his name was Grog
Strongjaw. After that, they were the best of friends,
a rather unlikely pair. Little did she know that
in a few years' time, Grog would soon return the
favor and bring her back from the clutches of
death. (roar, crunch)
After being killed in battle, Pike felt angry. She
wanted to be stronger so that it would never
happen again. She spent four months at sea
training with the men and women aboard a ship
called the Broken Howl.
Gripping her holy symbol in one hand, and her
morningstar in the other, this time,
Pike is ready.
SAM: Oh, you haven't heard of Scanlan Shorthalt?
Well, gird your loins, ladies, because he has his
eye on you.
A talented musician, master of disguise, and
dashingly handsome in his own mind, Scanlan sings
songs almost as much as he sings his own praises.
Born a poor gnome, Scanlan used his endless charm
and soaring tenor voice to croon for coin and
support his single mother. One day he was
discovered by a half-orc promoter and joined Dr.
Dranzel's Spectacular Traveling Troupe, where he
learned the ways of the world and honed his skills
as a bard extraordinaire.
A loner much of his life, Scanlan has never quite
come to terms with the violent death of his mother
at the hands of a goblin invasion. While his years
on the road provided many, shall we say,
educational experiences with the opposite sex,
deep down, Scanlan yearns for the one thing he's
never known: the true love of a fellow gnome.
Still, Scanlan considers himself a lover first,
performer second, and fighter distant third. On
the battlefield, he'll support his allies, but
rarely draws blood, unless it's to protect fellow
gnome, Pike.
Count on Scanlan for a hearty laugh, a rollicking
song, and a twinkle in his eye that melts hearts
and makes the females swoon.
ORION: Greetings and salutations. I am Tiberius
Stormwind. I hail from a town called Ty'rex,
located in the heart of Draconia.
From a politically respected family, at the age of
15, I succeeded in passing the Sorcerer's Rite,
showing prodigy-like control of my magic. The
judges and the Draconian high council were amazed
at how powerful my spells were for how long I had
been training. At 20 years old, I was the youngest
appointed member of the magic guild in Draconian
history. For the next few years, I almost went mad
from the malaise of being a guild member, as it's
rather boring.
However, one day I happened upon a chamber, unused
for quite some time.
MATT: Welcome back. We got a little refresher here
and apparently our Overlord has an announcement.
ZAC: You guys, we're only four away from another
giveaway, which is--
LUCAS: Two away!
ZAC: Two away, you know what, I'm guessing this
is, we're going to get that before I even get back
to my seat, so we're going to go do the giveaway.
It's the shirt, the dice, the handbook, and the
starter set. The handbook and the shirt will be
signed by the cast.
MATT: Yep.
ZAC: And we still have, if we get to 400, correct,
next? Lucas?
LUCAS: Yeah. 3,400.
MATT: 3,400.
ZAC: If we get to 3,400 by the end of the night,
we'll give away a whole other kit like this, with
the signed stuff, so you get to subscribe and it
supports the channel, keeps us running. I'm not
going to interrupt these guys, so when we hit the
number I'm just going to give it away through the
chat room.
MATT: Awesome, guys. Well done and congrats to
whoever ends up getting that, real fast I hope.
So, thank you Overlord.
TALIESIN: Oh wait, this is in here. Can I throw
this? Oh no.
MATT: Pass it off, it's fine.
TALIESIN: You get the horn.
LAURA: Can I hold it for a second?
TRAVIS: No.
ORION: No. Oh, I mean in real life. Yeah.
MARISHA: No.
ORION: I was like, don't touch it.
MATT: So. Eventually you all manage to make your
way towards the outer wall of Emon to the southern
portion of the city. The guards let you through.
Two of them recognize you from the Winter's Crest
celebration that occurred about seven months
beforehand. Don't do that, that's going to end
poorly. You make your way around the bend to the
large grass hill that is surrounded by the river
that skirts the outer southern portion of
Greyskull Keep. Looking up, you can see against
the moonlight the very welcome sight of your home
there, beckoning to you to rest. You make your way
to the front gates that surround the outskirts of
it, and an iron bell kind of goes off for a
second, and as you look up, you hear a voice go,
"Who goes there? Speak your mind, or a bolt to the
"throat you'll find."
MARISHA: Shayne, is that Shayne?
ORION: Is it dark right now?
MATT: It's dark, yes.
ORION: I cast Light. "It's us!"
MATT: Okay, a light pierces off, and you guys look
up and you can see, sitting on kind of the
watchtower perch--
MARISHA: Or wait, is that Jarett?
MATT: No, you see up there, short, rough red hair,
Shayne Tranter, one of the
mercenaries you hired--
MARISHA: Oh, it is Shayne, I was right the first
time!
MATT: She's got her crossbow ready to go, and
she's just kind of sitting back and pointing it at
the group, and she goes,
LIAM: Hello! Hi!
LAURA: Hope you remember us!
MARISHA: Shayne!
TALIESIN: We're drunk!
SAM: We pay you!
MATT: She laughs. Takes her crossbow, sets it to
her side.
ASHLEY: We forgot our key!
MATT: "Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?
It's been nearly a week since you left."
LAURA: That's it?
SAM: Feels like a month.
ASHLEY: Feels like three months.
TALIESIN: Feels like eleven weeks. It feels like a
very long time.
MATT: "Well, it's probably closer to two weeks.
Fair enough. Either way. Open the gates! Cordell,
"open the gates!"
SAM: Cordell? I don't remember the names of any of
our guards.
MATT: Cordell, he's one of the other half-orc
guards that you hired when you left.
MARISHA: We have Shayne, Cordell, Jarett,
Kendrick, and Nitebe.
LAURA: Jarett was the one we appointed as the head
guard, right? Captain?
MARISHA: Jarett? I think so. I didn't write that
part down.
LAURA: I don't remember about the little fellow.
SAM: Our staff is so unappreciated, guys.
MATT: So as the gate slowly opens, Cordell walking
out, this is the hearty half-orc merc dressed in
scale armor, and he has a large sword slung on his
back, just shoves it open to about a two-foot
distance. "Come on. Welcome home." As each of you
guys walk through, he kinda claps you on the back
as you walk in. You make your way into the small
courtyard leading to-- making your way into
Greyskull Keep.
Towards the front door, as you get there, the
front door opens on its own as you're about ten
feet away and peering from the inside of the
low-lit interior you see a woman's face, a plump
blond woman's face, peek through. This is Laina.
Laina goes, "Oh, you're back, fantastic! It's
"early." And she rubs her face and you see as she
pushes the door open a little more, she's wearing
her nightgown, and she's excited but still very
tired. "Come in, come in, come in, please, please!
"Who's that?" And points to the large stone statue
you're dragging behind you.
LAURA: Oh, we decided to get a statue for the
garden.
TALIESIN: Garden gnome.
MATT: "Very well, very well, come in."
ASHLEY: Hey!
(laughter)
TRAVIS: He's drunk.
TALIESIN: I'm drunk!
MATT: So the human woman leads you all back in.
LAURA: Put the gun down, Percy.
ASHLEY: Bad News.
LIAM: It's not Cinco de Mayo.
MATT: She steps back with her knitted boots; she's
definitely in comfortable mode. She eagerly hugs
each of you as you enter, happy that you've all
arrived, she's like, "I swear it's-- I've not had
"an employer leave so quickly after my hiring. But
glad to see you're all safe. Shall I make everyone
"a meal, are you hungry?"
MARISHA: Starving.
TRAVIS: Yes.
MATT: "I'll get right to it." And she turns
around, and you see further down the hallway Erwen
Dastell, your older halfling servant who shuffles
up with his nightcap on, it's long and dangling
off his shoulders, he's got this long night robe
on, he's kinda carrying a small candle. "My
"goodness. The hour is late of your arrival, but I
can't say I am not excited to see you. Come in,
"your beds are ready, everything's been cleaned and
made to your specifications. Laina! To food!"
"I'm already on it, Erwen." She kinda smacks him
on the back.
He says, "Very well, then."
SAM: I love their banter.
LAURA: Yeah, they're so cute.
MATT: "I will go back to bed, if that's fine with
you."
SAM: Is there any urgent, oppressing news, any
visitors that we should know about who came while
we were gone, anything before you retire for the
evening?
MATT: "No, I believe your friend, the mage woman
with the blue robes came by once."
SAM: Allara?
MATT: "Allura. She came by a couple days ago, just
to see if you had returned. But I didn't know
"where you were, and she said she'd try again
later."
SAM: Any packages, mail, post?
MATT: "None that I know of, no. In fact it's been
very quiet."
SAM: All right, thank you.
LAURA: All right.
TALIESIN: Quiet is good.
MATT: "Back to my quarters." And he shuffles off,
goes towards his bed. You guys make your way into
the main dining chamber of your Keep, four large
round tables set out with the chairs around it.
You can see, for the most part, it's been
untouched other than a couple of chairs that are
set ajar, probably by your mercenary soldiers
who've been eating and/or have been keeping up.
There's a couple of empty tables set on the side
that immediately Laina goes, "I'm so sorry, I
"guess I should've taken care of this." And she
stumbles off towards the kitchen and you guys all
eventually find yourselves sitting, sore,
exhausted, mildly intoxicated, around these chairs
and take a very deep-breathing sigh of relief at
being back home here in Emon in Greyskull Keep.
SAM: Should we un-stone Kima, or should we sleep
on it?
ORION: I stand up and I head towards the sleeping
quarters and I just say, "Leave her to stone
"tonight, we'll deal with it tomorrow." And I go to
bed.
SAM: I turn him into a rat.
LIAM: Dispel Magic.
MATT: Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw,
Tiberius.
ORION: Hold on a sec. I can still cast as an
animal, right?
SAM: Nope.
MATT: Nope, you cannot talk.
ORION: Oh. I still go to bed.
(laughter)
ORION: So yeah.
TRAVIS: Hoo baby.
LAURA: That's adorable.
MATT: You go under your covers, go to sleep,
nuzzle in.
ORION: In between my pillow.
MARISHA: It's quite comfy sleeping like an
animal.
ASHLEY: He's a little rat and he still went in his
big bed.
LIAM: I pick up the sleeping rat and just kinda
scritch him.
LAURA: He's in bed.
LIAM: It's all right, he's fine. Look, see, his
leg's going, he's dreaming about something nice.
TRAVIS: We ate already, right?
MATT: You snacked a bit as you made it through the
town, but for the most part like, a meal's being
prepared. You begin to smell now the cooking of
meat, Laina's setting it up for you guys.
LIAM: You're dreaming of magical artifacts, aren't
you?
LAURA: Quick question, friends: So we kind of
started a war, am I right?
LIAM: Yeah. Pretty sure we did.
LAURA: Kraghammer is potentially in grave danger,
am I right?
MARISHA: We might want to let them know.
LAURA: We should probably let them know as soon as
possible.
LIAM: First of all, Clarota was lying through his
noodles, and second, even if he wasn't, which he
was, he's now fucking pissed off--
LAURA: He's dead.
LIAM: Well, they're all one hive-mind, right?
Listen. This is number five tonight.
TALIESIN: They weren't particularly connected
until the very end, he was dead before they were
actually connected.
LIAM: They're angry. They were following us.
TALIESIN: They may not know who we are.
MARISHA: That's interesting.
LIAM: You don't think they're going to scurry up
the bottom of Kraghammer and tear
that place apart?
TALIESIN: We'll let them know, but we may have
time, we hurt them very badly.
LIAM: It took us about a week to get from
Kraghammer in, so we've got about a week.
MARISHA: Well, why don't we do some research, I
mean, this was the first time.
SAM: Yeah, we'd have to stop them on the way out
the hole, right? There's only one way in and out.
ASHLEY: Don't the dwarves already know that they
were there, and they were
already prepping for battle?
SAM: They don't really know what's coming for
them.
LIAM: They don't know anything about mind flayers,
they know about weird things coming out, but not
the mind flayers.
TRAVIS: So let's send a pigeon or something.
TALIESIN: The mind flayers have been down there
for ages. There's nothing new.
LAURA: You don't think they'll come up and
attack?
MARISHA: To be fair, we also did sort of release
the mind flayers from their evil dictator.
LIAM: Yeah, they seemed very grateful.
SAM: We could stop them on their way out.
TALIESIN: I think this will also be a conversation
that Lady Kima will have some--
MARISHA: Okay, well, the thing we then need to
immediately decide, before we un-stone Lady Kima,
is what're we going to do with the Horn?
TALIESIN: I think if we have Allura here, and
begin that conversation, then we
can have Allura's insight.
MARISHA: Before we un-stone Lady Kima?
TALIESIN: Yes. I think we tell Allura before we
un-stone Lady Kima. Everything that's happened--
LIAM: The only person, the only person that would
remotely know is you, Tiberius,
and I don't think--
SAM: He's a rat.
LIAM: Oh, that's a good boy.
TRAVIS: And he's asleep.
LIAM: He didn't seem to know anything, I think
Allura is the person to go to right now.
LAURA: Well, you need to share it with us.
ASHLEY: Wake up from bed!
TRAVIS: He's sleeping.
TALIESIN: No, let's wait until Allura's here, I
think, and we can--
TRAVIS: Do we tell her, do we tell her we have the
Horn? Or do we not?
LIAM: Yes, yes, we do.
MARISHA: Why don't we just wake up Tiberius?
LAURA: Tiberius. Little darling!
SAM: I'm still punishing him.
LIAM: I'm still cuddling him.
ORION: Did they wake me up?
LIAM: No! I'm holding you.
ORION: Okay.
LIAM: I don't want to wake you up.
MATT: You start to wake up, and then he scritches
the side of your cheek and
you go right back to sleep.
LAURA: Damn it, he's so cute. I don't know what to
do.
MATT: Laina comes out with plates for you guys and
sets up these--
TRAVIS: Thank. God.
MATT: They're not pretty, but functional meals of
cooked pork, some fine mashed potatoes.
TRAVIS: I would like to eat.
MATT: And you do ravenously, and this is the first
warm meal you've really truly
had in five, six days.
TRAVIS: I take Lady Kima's portions and I--
MATT: There were no portions made for your garden
structure.
TRAVIS: Never know.
MATT: That's okay, there's plenty more.
SAM: So talk to Allura first, then unfreeze Lady
Kima?
LIAM: She sent us after Kima. Kima thinks that
she's in the middle of a fight, the moment she
comes out she'll be all hot and bothered--
MARISHA: Okay, hang on, hang on. That's true, she
did send us after Kima, so what if they're both on
the side that we don't--
TRAVIS: Yeah, Allura's going to unfreeze Kima.
TALIESIN: We're going to have to trust somebody.
TRAVIS: Why don't we just hold onto the Horn for a
second and see what they do without it.
LAURA: Why don't we tell them we didn't find it?
Why don't we just hide the Horn?
TRAVIS: We just hold onto it in the bag.
MARISHA: Don't we have a safe? Didn't we build a
safe in our Keep?
MATT: You did not have a safe built, but you could
possibly have that done.
ASHLEY: Wait, so why are you guys so against
giving the Horn to Kima?
MARISHA: I just feel like if it's so terrible, why
does she want it for herself?
LAURA: She doesn't, she wants to hide it.
ASHLEY: Does she want to destroy it?
LAURA: Maybe she wants to destroy it, maybe she
wanted to get it up above ground so she could
destroy it.
SAM: There's a second Horn, maybe she has the
other one and wants the matching set.
TALIESIN: Do we know that there's a second horn?
LAURA: She's a paladin, she's good, paladins are
good by--
SAM: I'm fine trusting her. I was fine trusting
Clarota.
TRAVIS: Do you want to wake up, do you have
something important to say?
MARISHA: Right, because no one of the church has
ever been bad before.
LIAM: We didn't trust Clarota. We were using him
as much as he was using us.
LAURA: Some of us truly trusted Clarota.
LIAM: It went south. Well, most of us.
TRAVIS: All right, fuck it, I walk over and I take
the rat out of Vax's hands and I shake it awake.
SAM: He's still a rat!
TRAVIS: I shake it a lot.
MARISHA: I undo his Polymorph, I undo his
Polymorph.
SAM and MATT: With what?
MARISHA: By Polymorph.
MATT: You re-Polymorph him?
MARISHA: Can I release Polymorph by using
Polymorph?
MATT: No. It's his incantation.
TRAVIS: I spit on Tiberius's head and rub it in
vigorously.
MARISHA: Scanlan, come on. We need to talk to
him.
ORION: I'm trying to bite Grog. I am not happy.
MATT: It's like this viscous Grog spit mixed with
chunks of pork and mashed potato
rubbed in your fur.
MARISHA: Scanlan, he's nipping! Scanlan. Tiberius
is nipping. Please.
SAM: All right, fine. He's a human thing again.
LIAM: He's not human at all.
SAM: A dragonborn.
ORION: Why did you wake me up? I was so comfy
being furry!
(laughter)
ORION: I always have scales. It was nice having
fur!
MARISHA: I told you. It's nice being cuddly.
ORION: I was so soft.
LAURA: Tiberius, we're sorry to wake you.
TALIESIN: Tiberius, we're having a lovely
breakfast. Tell us a story.
ORION: Have I rested? What's going on?
MATT: No, it's been ten minutes.
ORION: What the fuck?
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Vex has a question for you.
MARISHA: We're all still drunk and awake. We don't
want to go to bed yet! Just, just talk with us.
LAURA: I just want to hear your lovely little
explanation, darling, about what the Horn is and
why you don't trust Kima.
ORION: Oh!
TALIESIN: Tell us a story.
MARISHA: Tell us a story!
LAURA: Please. You haven't told any of us
anything.
MARISHA: We haven't talked to you in a week.
ORION: The Horn of Orcus.
MATT: Horn of Orcus.
ORION: This thing comes from a devil, a demon.
Nothing good could ever come from anything it made
in existence. It needs to be destroyed. And I'm
sorry. Let me articulate these words a little bit
more. There is nothing that you can use this
particular artifact for any reason of good. The
fact that it is even here is a very bad sign because
it was taken from one of these beasts.
ASHLEY: So why don't we destroy it?
ORION: That's exactly what we need to do.
TRAVIS: Isn't that what Kima wanted?
LAURA: What if they want to destroy it?
ORION: I don't think they wanted to bring it back.
LAURA: Question. Why?
ORION: Because there is-- the liquid hot magma
that was below where it was being held was very
sufficient for it to be thrown in.
MARISHA: That's true. See, I'm with him.
LAURA: Wait, but your crushing fist couldn't
destroy it, so maybe lava can't destroy it, so
maybe it needs something extra special that only
they know about.
TRAVIS: It needs the Sword of Gryffindor.
ORION: No. Pike could destroy it.
ASHLEY: Ex-squeeze me? I don't think that's true.
ORION: Give yourself a little bit more credit. You
killed a dragon.
LAURA and TRAVIS: You did kill a dragon.
ASHLEY: I did kill a dragon. Huzzah.
MARISHA: And you died. And come back to life. By
the way, we haven't talked about that. What was it
like on the other side?
TRAVIS: Let's stay on topic here.
MARISHA: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a little tipsy.
LIAM: Vax shoves another flagon in front of
Keyleth.
ASHLEY: I don't think I can destroy it.
TALIESIN: From what I understand-- is it possible
that it's not possible to destroy this and instead
it has to be banished somewhere, perhaps?
ORION: No. If it could be a permanent banishment,
yes. But we don't know what kind of plane and what
creatures lie there that would, perhaps, come upon
that artifact. What are the elements?
Fire burns earth.
LAURA: Wind blows.
ORION: Light destroys darkness. Pike, you're the
only one who--
SAM: Rock beats scissors.
ORION: Exactly, Scanlan. You're the only one who
could-- if your weapon had any kind of light
enchantment on them, could probably smash this
thing to bits. Then we would have to scatter the
remnants, the pieces, far from each other, if not
find different ways to destroy those pieces.
LAURA: Why don't you trust them?
ORION: Because it comes from something that
would--
LAURA: Not the Horn. Why don't you trust Kima?
ORION: Because they wanted to bring it somewhere
where they-- I don't know. Which is why I wanted
you to do the half thing, where we could question
Kima without her attacking us or trying to attempt
to take the Horn from us.
MARISHA: Well, here's my thing. Even if she has
good intentions. Say she has good intentions and
maybe they just wanted to bring the horn back to
study it. And no one should be messing with this
whatsoever.
LAURA: I think they want to destroy it.
TALIESIN: I'm of the opinion they probably want to
banish it somewhere.
TRAVIS: Yeah, I think they do.
MARISHA: Then why don't we just agree to not hand
it over.
TALIESIN: No, this is good. This means that
there's no reason, necessarily, not to trust them.
We just know that we don't trust the Horn, and
that's a perfectly reasonable way to come at it.
LIAM: In the short term, Scanlan, are you able to
send it to another dimension for a while?
LAURA: No, I don't trust it anywhere out of our
sight.
SAM: I cannot. It is not alive. I cannot.
TRAVIS: Put it in the bag.
LAURA: It's in the bag.
TALIESIN: It's perfectly safe in the bag.
TRAVIS: How about we rest, we put the Horn in the
bag, we wake up Kima, we go, "Oh, we brought you
back, sorry we don't have the Horn. If we did,
what would you do with it?" And then we decide
what we do.
TALIESIN: I like half that plan.
MARISHA: I kind of like that plan.
ORION: I like that plan, too.
LAURA: I think we should tell her we didn't get it
and see what she does.
ORION: Allura is somebody who should not be here
when this conversation happens, because if they
turn south, she's a more powerful sorcerer than
I.
MARISHA: We need to decide, do we tell her that we
destroyed it, or do we tell her that we just
didn't get it and that it's still down there.
TRAVIS: We can't say destroyed because we don't
know how we did that, right?
LAURA: No, we didn't destroy it. We say, "Oh no,
they, we got overrun and we had to leave."
TALIESIN: But then they're going to tell us to go
back for it.
TRAVIS: That's fine, but if we ask like what she
would've done if we had it, and when she leaves we
go, "Hah, we have it."
LAURA: Or we go, "Oh, well good, then actually we
do have it, you can do that."
TRAVIS: Yeah, if she wants to study it or use it
or transform it into something, we don't give it
to her, we try to destroy it ourselves. If she
wants to banish it and do something that Tiberius
is happy with, then we go like, "Hey, we have
it."
LIAM: When we meet her I don't think we should
have it, I think one or two of us should take it
away. We don't all have to be at that meeting.
TALIESIN: I think we just keep it in the Bag of
Holding, she'll never suspect.
MARISHA: Well, hang on, it's in the Bag of Holding
right now?
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Yes.
ORION: Grog, is there nothing else in that bag of
holding?
TRAVIS: Nothing it can, we took out all the stuff
it can turn into some like evil transformer or
something.
LIAM: You know, the other characters can make
insight checks too, you know that, right?
MATT: There's a pile somewhere with armor.
TRAVIS: Everything has out with parentheses next
to it.
LIAM: If we have it, then she's, she could say
you're lying--
LAURA: Or she might not be able to tell because
we're so good at lying.
(laughter)
LIAM: I don't think your winks will work on her.
SAM: Legitimately, no one can tell when I'm
lying.
MARISHA: I mean, we could Stone Shape it and I
could like Stone Shape it and bury it somewhere in
our Keep.
TRAVIS: One person should leave with it. I'll
leave with it.
LIAM: Yes, it's fucking simple.
TALIESIN: That's genius.
TRAVIS: Yeah, I'll leave. It's not like I'm going
to talk to the sorcerers.
LIAM: You and I could take a walk with it and play
tiddlywinks or something in the woods. That's
fine, what's wrong with that, it's easy.
TALIESIN: That's a very good plan.
ORION: Do you want it very far away?
TRAVIS: Yeah, you're a talker, I'm not.
TALIESIN: No, we don't.
MARISHA: Wait. You're talking about just taking a
stroll through the forest with the Horn of Orcus?
TRAVIS: No, I'll just hang out outside.
ORION: In the Keep, how about just stay in the
Keep?
LIAM: Just be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
ASHLEY: You could hang out in the temple
downstairs.
LAURA: I fall asleep on the table.
TRAVIS: Shall we sleep?
SAM: Let's sleep and meet with Kima in the
morning.
TALIESIN: This was a fabulous breakfast, good
night.
LIAM: Vax gives his sleeping sister a wet willie.
LAURA: Ugh!
TRAVIS: I put my head right in my food and fall
asleep.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Let's not forget, you've still got a
funny toe.
SAM: I check my bed to make sure no one shat in
it.
(laughter)
ORION: I did leave a little rat turd before I got
scooped out. Just so you know.
LAURA: Trinket, let's go to bed.
MARISHA: I turn, I go Minxie and I curl up by the
fire.
TRAVIS: Yeah, Minxie!
LIAM: Scanlan! Turn Tiberius back into a rat.
ORION: Oh yes, I'm going to bed.
LIAM: Back into a rat.
MARISHA: You can curl up with me.
SAM: Would you like to be a rat?
ORION: I like being furry.
SAM: Well then, no. I'm still punishing you.
(laughter)
ORION: That's fine. Have your fun tonight,
people, you will have your licking in the
morning. I go to sleep.
MATT: All right. You guys all go to rest for the
evening, the best rest you've had in a long time,
your beds are comfortable, well set, it's a warm
interior.
ASHLEY: I'm starfished on my bed.
MATT: This is the first time in a while that Pike,
you've been able to sleep without your armor on,
and it's so nice.
LAURA: That's great.
MATT: You sleep hard, you sleep for an extended
period, eventually you all begin to rouse, as you
all wake up, the smell of fresh breakfast food is
already coming to--
LAURA: That and Pike's stank from her armor.
MATT: Yeah, you're going to have to wash that
armor, girl.
TRAVIS: It's like when you take a cast off, you're
like, ugh.
MATT: It's bad.
MARISHA: Actually, is there a bath house in the
village?
MATT: You haven't inquired. You could ask around
if you want.
MARISHA: We should have a girls' day at the bath
house.
ORION: I woke up and took a dirt bath.
LIAM: You're not a rat, though.
MATT: Yeah. Oh, but he didn't transform you,
though.
ORION: Huh?
MATT: He didn't transform you.
ORION: I know, in lizard form.
SAM: Gross.
ORION: In my form.
TALIESIN: That's awesome.
ORION: Scales, you rub it off with clay?
MATT: Yeah, there you go. Out in the front of the
Keep.
LAURA: Gross!
ORION: I have a little dirt in my room.
LAURA: A little pile of grossness.
LIAM: We just don't fear for our lives for the
first time.
SAM: Let's go down and have our meeting.
MATT: So you guys head down into the dining room
again, Kima's still standing there with the maul,
left where she was. Grog is still face-down like
on the table, grabbed the plate up against his
face with mashed potatoes across his cheek. Across the way
at the far table, you see Cordell and Shayne are both
finishing their breakfast, and are sitting there
at the table with their arms kind of gathering as
you enter. "Morning!" "Morning." And they both
kind of finish their meal. Get up and stand up.
"Enjoy your breakfast. You've earned it." "I think
our shift is done." She pats Cordell and they both
get up and they exit out.
LAURA: Have a good night! I know, I know, but
they're sleeping.
TRAVIS: I start awake with food on my face and I
wipe it off and eat it. "I had a horrible dream
"about two walking testicles that were hurting my
mind."
SAM: That was no dream!
(laughter)
LIAM: I am so sad that you woke up. I was just
about to go to the hearth and get some ash and
draw a penis on your head.
TRAVIS: I had a feeling something was coming.
LIAM: Next thing out of my mouth, that's a
promise.
ASHLEY: Where's the Bag of Holding?
TRAVIS: I've got it.
ASHLEY: Can you check in your bag to see if the
Horn is still there?
LAURA: And it's okay?
TRAVIS: I look in the bag of holding and I see a
Horn?
MATT: You look in the bag and you see nothing. You
imagine something, you reach in, you pull it out.
TALIESIN: Don't do that.
LAURA: How are we going to get it out of there?
ORION: I can.
ASHLEY: Can you tell if it's in there?
SAM: Can you teleport something out of a bag?
ORION: It's Telekinesis, I can picture it and--
LAURA: Teleport it, can you pull it out and make
sure it's still there and okay?
MATT: Okay. So you use Telekinesis, you lift the
Horn out--
ORION: No, I don't do it. I'm assuming it's there.
I'm not doing that right now.
LAURA: Wait, no, check though, I want to make sure
it's okay.
ORION: I'm pretty sure it's there.
LAURA: But I want to make sure.
SAM: All right, I will check with Mage Hand or
whatever, I got something else. Mage Hand, yeah,
I'll Mage Hand it.
MATT: Mage Hand gently and slowly lifts it out,
you can see the Horn kinda holds there for a
second, it moves very slowly.
TRAVIS: Yeah, put it back in.
MATT: Put it back in the bag.
TRAVIS: Thank you, tie it up tight. I'm going to
go down to the, what is it, the temple
below the thingie?
ASHLEY: Okay, yeah, go down to the temple.
TRAVIS: All right, I'm going to go play in the
dark with myself. That sounded wrong.
MATT: Okay, so you head down into the temple to
Sarenrae, which is beautiful, it's all like a
giant two-story stained glass three-set walls with
trees and hedges set up and flowers, bunch of
wooden kind of long benches set up towards this,
the altar in the center, it's beautiful,
especially this time of day, it's close to noon
right now so the sun's streaking through the top
of it, and it's cascading through the tree boughs
of the two trees that are closest to the entrance.
It's a beautiful sight. Even you, Grog, are
moved.
TRAVIS: Just because I'm nervous, I reach into the
Bag of Holding and pull out a vial of holy oil
that I have. I have three vials of holy oil and I
just hold it in one hand while I'm down there.
MATT: All right. So while he's down there, the rest of
you guys, what're you doing?
ORION: I'm going to cast Circle of Teleportation
in my room.
MATT: Okay.
ORION: No, I'm going to go to the treasury first,
I'm going to take out 500 gold pieces, and then
I'm going to go to my room and cast Circle of
Teleportation.
MATT: Okay. Tiberius is gone.
SAM: Let's heal Kima.
LAURA: You just left us?
ORION: By the blessing of Bahamut, I choose
Draconia.
MATT: Tiberius is gone.
ASHLEY: Okay, so, I'm going to stand behind Kima
and--
TALIESIN: We're going to face her towards the
wall.
ASHLEY: Face her towards the wall.
LIAM: Good idea.
ASHLEY: Or towards something happy.
TALIESIN: We're ready to pull you away when she
starts to move.
ASHLEY: Yeah, okay. So.
MARISHA: Wait! Are we unfreezing her?
TALIESIN and TRAVIS: Yeah.
MARISHA: No, I thought we were going to talk to
Allura first.
LAURA: No, we're going to talk to her first.
MARISHA: Oh wait, that's right. And we were going
to do that thing.
LAURA: You were drunk, it's okay.
MARISHA: That's right, I was probably tipsy,
sorry. We came up with like
eight plans last night.
LAURA: You were so drunk.
SAM: Wait, shouldn't Grog be here, he's the one
who likes her.
TRAVIS: Oh, the things I sacrifice for the group.
ASHLEY: So I cast Greater Restoration on Kima.
LAURA: And then run away!
MATT: Okay, you reach out and touch the back of
Kima. Her stone armor turns to gold and rapidly
her entire form goes back to flesh. As she
finishes her swing with the maul (impact sound)
against the stone wall. And she kinda steps back
for a second, confused, and looks over her
shoulder at the rest of you.
SAM: Everything's okay, everything's okay, we're
out of danger, we're at home, it's okay.
LAURA: It's fine, it's fine, guess what, we are
alive.
SAM: We lived.
MATT: Just drops the maul for a second and kinda
leans back against the wall.
MARISHA: I just get the leftover mashed potatoes
from breakfast.
MATT: "Thank you, thank you, oh thank you. What
happened?" She's not even using utensils, she's
just like scooping it with her hand at this
point.
LAURA: So we killed K'Varn, right?
MATT: "Obviously."
SAM: Funny story, you were right about Clarota. He
was horrible, we killed him. We killed him! Hey,
you were right.
LAURA: But not before we were overrun with a bunch
of evil brothers of his.
TALIESIN: And we got a very fancy hat out of it.
LAURA: Hey, right, look at his hat.
SAM: We should've known all along, you were right,
we should've trusted you, sorry.
MATT: "It's all right. He had his uses,
certainly."
LIAM: You were right, we were wrong, you're very
attractive, we're all quite ugly.
MATT: "That isn't necessary, but the compliment is
appreciated, regardless. Thank you for bringing me
"back with you. You could have easily left me back
and I appreciate that you took the time."
SAM: So, you're alive, that's good because you
were sorta on a suicide mission.
MATT: "Not a suicide mission."
LAURA: What exactly was your mission, Kima?
MATT: "Where's the Horn?"
LAURA: Well, thing is, it's not here.
MATT: "All right. It's not with the illithid, is
it?"
SAM: It's in a safe place.
MATT: "How safe?"
LAURA: Pretty safe.
TALIESIN: Why, what can it do?
MATT: She looks visually nervous and she goes--
LAURA: Nothing can touch it.
MATT: "Well, that's what the Order that originally
sealed it believes. Even if it's somewhere safe
"temporarily, we can possibly relocate it. But
we have to-- (sighs)"
LIAM: You saw your mission as a suicide mission,
but if you had secured it, what were your plans?
What was plan B? What were you going to do?
MATT: "Well, if I were to fall in the process of
trying to get the Horn, others would come after
"me. I sent word to my Order that if I did not
return they would send more."
LAURA: Can I insight?
MATT: Go for it, yeah, go ahead and roll insight.
LAURA: 19.
SAM: Ooh!
MARISHA: Whisper time! Sweet, sweet whispers.
SAM: Keep subscribing, guys, because whispering
action doesn't come free.
MARISHA: How many subscribers away are we?
LUCAS: 38.
MARISHA: 38 subscribers.
TRAVIS, MARISHA, and SAM: That's a lot.
MARISHA: That is still a lot.
SAM: Keep subscribing to Geek and Sundry, where
you can watch Matt Mercer whisper at people.
MATT: And she goes, "So this Horn, which is one of
two, if Allura is correct, was sealed a thousand
"or so years ago by those who originally cut it
from the head of the avatar of Orcus of which it
"was bestowed. They, once he was slain, did
everything they could within their power to
"destroy it, yet this artifact, instilled with the
purity of Orcus, was indestructible to their
"knowledge. So the least they could do was to seal
both horns across the world from each other and
"forget that it even existed. Which worked well
until recently. It wasn't until these visions came
"to me and other members of my Order that we knew
that this, this was a thing, and me being the
"closest in my pilgrimage, we took that as time of
the essence I was to go in there with a team and
"retrieve it. If it couldn't be destroyed, at the
very least we could convene and decide a safer
"place to possibly reseal it and forget. There are
magical ways of forcing those of us who know how
"to forget. That would be the safest thing for it.
If there is a way to destroy it, we don't know,
"but that could also be sought after. We have
arcane and divine knowledge we didn't have back
"then, so, in the long run it needs to be
retrieved, the longer it stays down there in the
"Underdark, no matter where you placed it, it draws
like a beacon all darkness to it until something
"else like this beholder K'Varn will take up the
mantle and themselves be as dangerous or more so than
"he ever was."
LAURA: So the other Horn is still safe?
MATT: "As far as I know. The visions only gave me
access to where this one was. I can only assume
"that it's out there, but if someone else were to
find it, I would know that they probably have
"knowledge of the second one existing, as well. I
don't know if K'Varn shared this information, but
"if someone else takes the mantle of this Horn,
what's to stop them from seeking the other?"
LIAM: Bummer.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: "Regardless, I appreciate that we're all alive
and we're together, and where are we?"
LAURA: Oh, you're in our home.
SAM: Greyskull Keep. It's in Emon.
MATT: "We're in Emon?"
SAM: Yes.
MATT: "Well, that's wondrous, we can speak with
Allura. She would have the wisdom to know what to
"do with this next."
SAM: Hypothetical. What if an army of darkness was
slowly approaching Emon to kill all of us?
MATT: "What are you saying?"
SAM: Well, we killed Clarota and K'Varn, but we,
there was a lot of bad guys down there that we
could not kill--
LAURA: We hurt that Elder Brain real bad, but not
bad enough.
MATT: "I don't know much about the illithid
themselves, but they reside deep and they are not
"fans of the surface. I believe that it was
K'Varn's initial onset that was pushing them, both
"in union with the duergar and pushing them towards
the siege. They spoke of something about bringing
"twilight to the surface world. I don't know what
that was about, but I fear what knowledge they
"have if left alone. At the very least, I know that
they're probably having to return and lick their
"wounds where we left behind. It would be folly for
them, especially knowing that we're aware, to
"attack now."
LAURA: Okay, that's good.
MATT: "But we can notify those in Kraghammer to
buffer their defenses, close the tunnels that you
"took down there and my army as well, and that
should give us time to prepare if we choose to
"seize or at least seal them off."
LAURA: And your Order is what?
MATT: "The Order of the Platinum Dragon."
LAURA: Right. That's a really good Order, right?
TALIESIN: History check, can I do a history
check?
MATT: It's a religion check.
TALIESIN: That's a religion check, not history
check?
MARISHA: Pike.
MATT: You could roll a history check and probably
gain some knowledge based on that, but the--
ASHLEY: Could I do it?
MATT: If you'd like to.
ASHLEY: Are you doing a religion check, Percy?
TALIESIN: I'm doing a history check, if you want
to do a religion check.
ASHLEY: I'll do a religion check.
MATT: Go for it.
TALIESIN: 22.
ASHLEY: So fucking close.
MATT: I mean, you guys are familiar loosely with
the name Bahamut, you've heard Tiberius bring it
up before, you've seen temples to it, but your
knowledge knows that Bahamut is very well regarded
as the lawful good deity of justice and honor and
is primarily one of the great good gods of this
pantheon.
TALIESIN: If we're going to trust anyone, I think
this is a good--
TRAVIS: Yeah, I feel pretty good about this.
TALIESIN: I trust the organization, they have a
sterling reputation.
MARISHA: So, Kima. Pie-in-the-sky goal? You would
destroy the Horn?
MATT: "If we had the means of doing so, yes. We'd
have to talk to the Order, we'd have to talk to
"the Council, we'd have to bring people that we
could trust and that had the capabilities of
"knowing if this were possible how we would go
about it. It's beyond my knowledge."
LIAM: I think what worries us is anyone coming in
contact with it would be corrupted.
MATT: "Don't go into contact with it."
LAURA: No.
LIAM: No, of course.
MARISHA: Just within range.
SAM: Yes, is proximity okay?
MATT: "I don't know, I saw it for as long as you
did."
LAURA: This could be bad.
SAM: Evil Grog?
LAURA: Kind of uncomfortable.
MATT: "The essence of most artifacts like this, it
goes more than just touch, one has to be imbued,
"bond with these artifacts, to attune with them
like any powerful magical item to truly gain its
"power, but that's not to say that itself does not
contain some sort of foul intelligence."
ASHLEY: Can I go downstairs and go get Grog?
MATT: Okay. So you walk your way down.
TRAVIS: (sings) I've got a lovely bunch of
coconuts.
MATT: As you're walking past, as you walk past you
are immediately met in the hallway by Erwen, your
servant, your halfling elder servant who walks up
and says, "Dear, I wanted to let you know that a
"scroll came for you, some sort of a summons." And
he hands it to you.
ASHLEY: Me?
SAM: Probably jury duty.
MATT: And he kinda walks past you in the tunnel.
TALIESIN: Always the worst time.
MATT: You open it up a little bit, it's not,
hasn't been opened, you kinda pull the paper and
open it up. It's a summon to the Council of
Tal'Dorei, it's written by the hand of the clerk,
and it says, essentially, the sovereign Uriel has
been notified of your arrival and would like to
see you at the council chambers posthaste.
ASHLEY: Okay. I'm still going to go get Grog, but
I'll pass the scroll around. Hey Grog, come
upstairs.
TRAVIS: Oh yeah?
MARISHA: That was for all of us?
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: It was addressed to Vox Machina.
TRAVIS: Is it clear?
ASHLEY: Just don't say anything yet, but just come
upstairs.
TRAVIS: Did she ask about me?
LAURA: She definitely did.
ASHLEY: She did, yeah.
TRAVIS: With my bald head.
MATT: All right. You make your way back in, Kima
finishes her meal, and you guys are chatting a
bit, she's just like, "All right, if I may ask,
how did you seal it? I feel uncomfortable knowing
"the process and that it's at least safe."
MARISHA: Oh, we have one of the best defense
mechanisms. Grog!
TRAVIS: Hello, Lady Kima.
LAURA: It's in a very secure magical item.
MATT: She glances at you and goes, "All right,
very well. Just be mindful that you don't go
"reaching in there."
MARISHA: I use my Druidcraft as he enters to make
little sparkles and lightning bugs appear around
him. "Grog!"
MATT: Lady Kima, who is currently covered in dirt
and sweat, still in the golden armor that she
wrestled from the long-dead corpse of a dwarf in
the Underdark, her chin is smattered with dried
mashed potatoes and a bit of her breakfast, kinda
gives--
LAURA: So she's covered in food as well.
MATT: (laughs) Gives you a look as you're walking in
like. "It's good to see you alive, friend."
TRAVIS: Yeah, more than alive, I think.
ASHLEY: And also, he actually pulled you out of
the cavern with one arm while you were stone. Out
of the whole place.
TRAVIS: Oh, stop, I don't like to brag.
MATT: She stands up and kinda wipes the food off
her chin, clutches her symbol, and then steps
right before you, looking up towards your face and
says, "I thank you, friend Grog."
LAURA: Friendzoned!
MATT: And then reaches out and gives you a big
hug.
LIAM: Plus he decided not to put you in the
magical bag when you were a statue.
MATT: She releases Grog slightly, and kinda gives
you a keen look and goes, "Also appreciated."
TRAVIS: Yeah, well, you know.
LAURA: Oh my god, thank god.
SAM: Why don't you go rest? We'll summon Allura
and we'll continue the conversation
from there, I guess.
MATT: "Please, I'd love to see her, it's been too
long. All right, I'm going to, is there a room I
"could rest?"
TALIESIN: Yes.
TRAVIS: You could use my room.
TALIESIN: There's a guest room.
LAURA: Yes, we have a guest room.
SAM: We should use it.
ORION: I would've had your back, by the way,
there.
TRAVIS: Thank you.
MATT: Erwen, who's by the door, leads her to the
guest room and you guys take a moment to rest.
We'll go ahead and pick up next session at that
point, where Allura's being brought in, so we'll
stop the game there as I have to rush to the
airport, but before that we have some gifts to
open from you guys.
TRAVIS: You're rushing to the airport tonight?
MATT: Huh?
TRAVIS: You're rushing to the airport tonight?
MATT: Yeah, I got a redeye, 1AM. To be in
Sandusky, Ohio. At Collisi--er no, Collosalcon.
Please come.
TRAVIS: You're going to do the waterslides, right?
You won't ride waterslides?
MATT: It'll be fun. Guys, thank you so much for
watching, that was a lot of fun.
SAM: We lived!
MATT: And everyone lived! Barely.
MARISHA: We lived!
MATT: Barely, oh my god.
MARISHA: Holy shit, we lived.
TRAVIS: One roll away from her being--
ASHLEY: That was rough.
MATT: Her and Scanlan.
LAURA: One point, twice.
MATT: Twice for you.
TRAVIS: Twice.
TALIESIN: I'm going to go get our d20s back.
MARISHA: Crazyballs. Oh yeah. We had two sparkles
and a green one.
ASHLEY: I was just rolling bad.
ZAC: Hey, guys. We got some gifts for you from the
chatroom. Some letters.
LIAM: I got an Asus computer with an "aren't we
clever" sticker on it?
MARISHA: Sweet.
ZAC: Man, I'll give you an "aren't we clever"
sticker if you want, it's worth about the same. We
also have some donations to read off.
(cheering)
ZAC: So guys, as long as we're live, that
subscriber giveaway still stands.
LAURA: How far away are we from it?
ZAC: 36 subs away from another giveaway. All
right.
MATT: All right.
ZAC: If you want to go ahead and, actually I don't
know if she wanted this to be read. Oh, okay, but
this is cool. Do you want to hand me those
disposable cameras? Where did he go?
Oh, I lost him.
MATT: Essentially it says, "Vox Machina, I have
sent you a disposable camera. Basically I had this
"idea to send this to you and have you guys go
crazy, fill up the camera with random shenanigans,
"whether it's behind-the-scenes, setup during a
stream, or elsewise of your shoes, and then once
"you guys have filled both cameras, you can send
them back with the already printed label included
"in the box I sent this in, send it back to me, I
can get the pictures printed and doubled and then
"send you guys a set back once they're developed."
MARISHA: Aw, that's a good idea!
MATT: "I thought it'd be something different for
you guys to do, hopefully you enjoy it and I can't
"wait to hear back from you. Becca."
MARISHA: That's fun!
MATT: Thank you so much, Becca.
MARISHA: Awesome.
ASHLEY: Thank you, Becca.
MATT: Yeah, we'll keep the rest to ourselves.
We've got an awesome picture of Grog and Mustang
Scanlan. Look at that.
TALIESIN: (sings) Mustang Scanlan.
TRAVIS: Horse head. Evil horse head of doom.
LAURA: Nice.
TALIESIN and MARISHA: (sing) Slow your mustang
down.
MATT: All right, here we go.
ZAC: All right, so let's get through these
messages here.
MATT: All right, let's get this going, because
I've got to get running soon.
LAURA: All right.
MATT: All right, we have Jasonofarabia, heart,
"Got up at 5am to watch you guys live, great
"show." That's awesome, donated $100.
MARISHA: We're your morning show?
MATT: That's awesome. Cole donated $100.
"#Percypower."
TRAVIS and ASHLEY: Percy power!
MATT: All right, G1BigDaddyHef donated $20, "Might
not be able to watch the stream due to closing
"shift, but was able to secure at least a
ten-minute break to toss my weekly donation."
ALL: Aww.
MATT: Thank you G1BigDaddyHef!
MARISHA: Closing shifts are the worst.
MATT: I feel ya on that. Thisisbonertown donated
$10, thank you!
ORION: Yes, bonertown!
MATT: "Thank you for entertaining us every
Thursday night". Thank you.
LIAM and LAURA: This! Is! Bonertown!
MATT: Wheeliefactoids donated $3, thank you
Wheelie! "Great night guys, Ashley, your surprise
is done on the server--"
ZAC: Oh, Minecraft server.
MATT: Minecraft server surprise for you. "Come to
these coordinates--" We have the coordinates here.
"--and you will find your temple."
ZAC: Somebody should probably write this down.
MATT: "1350 by 1350 z."
ZAC: 1350 x.
MATT: "1350 x by 1350 z and you will find your
temple of Sarenrae."
ASHLEY: Wait, 1350 z by 1350 x?
ZAC: 1350 x by--
ZAC and MATT: -- 1350 z.
MATT: "-- and you will find your temple of
Sarenrae. My temple of Orcus is next, mwahahaha."
Oh, crap.
ASHLEY: Thanks so much!
MATT: Negihama donated $250.
ALL: Whoa!
TRAVIS: $250?
MATT: Yeah. "Geek and Sundry twitch show cast and
crew are amazeballs. I'm happy to help out one of
"the show's favorite, one of my channel's favorite
show's charities. You know. For kids." That's
awesome. All of these are going, by the way, to
the charity for 826LA, guys, that's so amazing.
Arandrial donated $10. "Critters, just a little
donation towards a great cause, and by that, I
"mean Orion's silver butt-print."
ZAC: Nope, that's not happening.
MATT: Yet.
LIAM: With a hundred more subscribers.
MATT: Gyaka donated $15. "Thank you for the
inspiration to both roleplay and write fiction
"again." Thank you for watching. #Critterlove. All
right, we've got ZandorInvictus, donated $20.
"Wore my shirt today for my session. Thanks to you
guys, I rolled crit hits four times in one
"battle."
TALIESIN: You took all of our crits. Thank you.
MARISHA: That's where all of our crits were
going.
MATT: "By the way, Matt, when I get my copy of
Arkham Knight, is it possible to get it sent
"somewhere for an autograph?" Send it to this
studio with return post, we're happy to do that.
That's fine. As long as it's sent with return
postage already paid, I'll be happy to sit here
one of these days.
LAURA: That's an important thing, return postage.
MATT: Yeah, return postage, don't make me pay for
postage back.
TALIESIN: Otherwise, hey, free copy for us, which
is really cool.
MARISHA: Take the disc out, send back the case.
MATT: Norsiraya donated $5. "I love you guys so
much. I had my first D&D game last Saturday.
"Thanks, Marisha, for naming my half-elf druid
Kalina."
MARISHA: Oh, it was Kalina!
MATT: "Ended up burning the chest hairs off a
pirate. I plan to burn the chest hairs off of many
"more creatures in the future. Vox Machina!"
MARISHA: Love it.
ZAC: I'm going to have to remember that move.
MATT: Yeah, you should. All right. Rona
Konandario. "A friend showed me Critical Role a
"few weeks ago, just as our long-time group of friends
started our game. It must've been destiny. I love
"everyone's genuine feelings towards all the
aspects of the game. Expect fanart in the future.
"Much love." Donated $10. Thank you so much, Runa
Konandario. Wheelyfactoids donated $3 also, same
fellow, "Also, if you guys could come to Salt Lake
City Comic Con in Utah, look me up and we'll go to
"some Cold Stone. Critter for life." RJCanuck
donated $25. "Mercy-- Percy for MVP." No mercy for
Percy.
TALIESIN: No mercy for Percy.
ASHLEY: No Mercy Percy!
MATT: Moneylover89. "Love the show, crazy-intense
tonight, keep it up, guys. Glad to donate for a
"good cause. Love the Critical Role team and all
that you do." That's great, $20, thank you so
much. GasGT, $25. "Thank you for letting us come
along with your party. Met Matt and Marisha in
"Philly." That's awesome, good to see you! "Even
more awesome in person. Hope Trinket's dice wasn't
"bad luck."
LAURA: Oh, yay Trinket's dice, thank you!
MATT: "Hearts, Critical Role Critters." Thank you
so much.
MARISHA: Critters!
MATT: We've got CritterHaiku, great twitter page.
LAURA: I love the haikus!
MATT: They're fantastic.
MARISHA: They made a twitter, @critterhaiku, which
is super-fun.
MATT: "Nothing compares to the thrill of a great
escape, and helping kids read." Donated $20. Thank
you, CritterHaiku. Keep it up.
MARISHA: Gotta learn to read those haikus.
LAURA: I love them.
MATT: Lob82517. "Happy to support the charity
again. You guys seriously know how to stress us
"out. So nervous through that." Seriously, you
weren't the only ones. "Thanks to all of you for
"the birth of Vox Moronica, one of the funniest
things I've ever seen." They donated $10, thank
you so much.
ZAC: Where are those gifts, guys?
MATT: Let's do this. Thank you guys again so much
for all your donations.
MARISHA: We love you guys!
TALIESIN: We love you guys so much.
ZAC: There's stuff.
MARISHA: So much fun.
MATT: For Liam, this is for you, Liam.
ALL: What?
MARISHA: What is that?
ORION: Oh, the dagger, dude! It's a dagger!
LAURA: This is for me?
MATT: That is for you.
LAURA: Holy crap!
SAM: Wait, Laura, what did you get?
MATT: Oh my god, you got Jonathan Frakes signed?
SAM: Is he a fan of the show?
MATT: I'm sorry, Laura, what's this you have
signed over here?
LAURA: Oh my gosh. You'll always be my Number
One.
ZAC: This is for you to give to--
LAURA: This is from Team Wishlist. Thank you so
much!
LIAM: This is a magic carpet for the group.
MARISHA: Look at that shit, he's got a magic
carpet!
SAM: On camera, on camera.
LIAM: Thank you, Kat! Thank you Katkitten112 for
this craziness, oh my god!
MATT: That's amazing.
TALIESIN: That is so badass.
MATT: I'm going to say that's the keen dagger.
LAURA: Look at how many daggers he has now!
Ludicrous.
LIAM: Just ten more.
MARISHA: So many daggers.
MATT: All righty, guys, so. As a heads-up. "Attn:
Geek and Sundry Twitch. To the awesome people at
"Geek and Sundry, please forward this package to
the members of Critical Role on my behalf. I have
"made them each a personalized pendant with their
character names, plus a few extras. Earrings
"inspired by Keyleth, Pike, and Vex'ahlia for
Marisha, Ashley, and Laura, and four Vox Machina
"pendants which can be kept or given away. Many
thanks to all involved for making Critical Role
"possible. Those short videos of their campaign on
Vine were never enough to know what was going on.
"Sincerely yours, Ipec Psy." That's so awesome.
Thank you so much, Ipec. Okay, pass this down to
Percy?
ORION: I got this amazing Tiberius pin.
LAURA: So cute!
TALIESIN: So fantastic.
ZAC: Tiberius.
LAURA: Oh, it's got a little deck.
ORION: Pike. Ashley. A three-inch figure of Pike is
coming for you and a three-inch figure of Scanlan
is coming. They're on their way.
MATT: You guys are ridiculous!
ORION: David.
MATT: It's your holy symbol.
MARISHA: They're little flowers!
ZAC: Hey, guys, we have some boxes of very special
dice here, and they included a letter, but it
says, "Please do not read on stream," so this is
for you guys to read when we go offline, but we're
going to hand these out as well.
MARISHA: Holy crap.
LAURA: Oh, this is for me!
MARISHA: I'm pretty sure she has an Etsy store.
TALIESIN: She does.
LAURA: Oh my god, this is the best day ever.
MATT: You guys are ridiculous!
LIAM: It's Critmas!
ALL: Critmas!
LIAM: Whoa, look at that. That's a die, it's
dangerous.
TRAVIS: No it's not.
MATT: That's so cool, you guys are ridiculous.
SAM: Whoa, that's an awesome die!
TRAVIS: Are you fucking kidding me?
SAM: Whoa, the first roll was a 20!
(cheering)
LAURA: This will never go in the dice graveyard.
ZAC: Each one is unique to you guys, it's nuts.
MARISHA: Oh my god!
TRAVIS: Skulls!
ASHLEY: What? I got a Celtic knot!
LAURA: This is the coolest thing ever.
TALIESIN: Holy shit.
MARISHA: What does yours look like?
TALIESIN: Holy shit.
LAURA: Let me see!
ASHLEY: Nice, what the heck!
TRAVIS: It's made of skulls.
LAURA: Wow, I got a 20!
MARISHA: Whoa, with the whitewash on it.
ZAC: Okay, wait.
TALIESIN: I just rolled a 20! Look at it, look at
it!
MARISHA: Wait, did everyone roll 20s on their
first roll?
MATT: These are magically enchanted handcrafted
dice.
TRAVIS: I rolled an eight.
MARISHA: I rolled a four.
MATT: I got a Sputnik dice, by the way.
ASHLEY and TALIESIN: Thank you so much!
MARISHA: These are crazy! Holy balls!
SAM: Okay, a benefactor sent the holy charm of
Sarenrae for me to present to you.
MARISHA: Oh my gosh, that's so pretty!
SAM: In, I think, holy matrimony?
ASHLEY: Oh, well, let's just--
MATT: Ellie, these are all amazing. Thank you so
much.
LAURA and ASHLEY: Thank you, thank you.
ORION: A dragon-bone die for the dragonborn.
MATT: I've rolled nothing lower than a 16 on this
die, so it gets used a lot moving forward.
LIAM: Also, for my birthday I got (Gollum voice)
precious.
MARISHA: That's awesome!
ORION: Good job, guys.
MATT: You guys are ridiculous.
ZAC: You guys are all going to post pictures to
Twitter, right, because everyone's asking.
TALIESIN: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, this is happening.
LIAM: (Gollum voice) Precious!
ZAC: While these guys are still opening their
presents, I wanted to-- go ahead.
MARISHA: Ellie, whoever made the jewelry, to tweet
at us and let us know her Etsy store.
MATT: Ellie did the dice, wasn't it, I think?
MARISHA: Ellie did the dice.
MATT: Yeah, the pendants were--
ZAC: Ellie did the dice.
MARISHA: The pendants were from Ipec.
LAURA: Oh, I've got to get all my presents in the
picture.
MARISHA: From @millena, let us know about your
Etsy.
ASHLEY: Guys, thanks so much.
MATT: An awesome letter from Meghan Levann, cards
from Meghan Levann's site, we're going to go ahead
and pass these out, and I'll read this after the
stream. That's so awesome, thank you so much,
Meghan.
ALL: Thank you, Meghan!
ZAC: While these guys are still going through
their presents, I just want to remind you guys,
thank you for tuning in, and tomorrow we have So
You Don't Have To, and we're going to play Jazz
Punk on the stream, and it's a lot of fun, and
then after that we'll have Gather Your Party and
IndieKate is joining us, the all-female punk band
Blood Candy is joining us, and then we have the--
oh my gosh, I feel like a dumb-dumb now. What's
the name of that-- the Dance Free Movement people?
The group that threw the party for the guy that
was shamed on the internet, the--
MATT: Mercer shirt. Dice on the back. DM
represent.
ZAC: I'm sure a lot of you guys heard about the
man that was shamed on the internet.
MARISHA: Yeah, the punk teenagers made fun of
him?
ZAC: Right. Made fun of him on the internet, and a
large group of-- the Dance Free Movement came
Together, flew him out to Los Angeles, and threw
a big party for him, so we have the Dance Free
Together group coming tomorrow to play Just Dance
with us, to talk about their movement and
everything like that, so make sure you guys tune
in tomorrow, it's going to be a lot of a fun,
that's from 7-10PM. And we had a couple more
donations really quickly come in. Just wanted to
say thank you to--
MATT: What's that?
LUCAS: Did you read the dice on the shirt?
MATT: (laughs) Nice and hidden. Didn't notice
that. The dice say, 'How do you want to do this?'
LAURA: Awesome!
TALIESIN: That's so cool.
LAURA: Oh, that's really cool.
ZAC: For the people that donated after we started
reading the donations, I know Matt's trying to get
outta here pretty quick, so thank you, FoxyForsythe,
Zopher, Metheram and Hunter, I'll make sure these
guys get the messages that you guys sent, but
we're going to go ahead and let these guys start
packing up. I know that they have lives!
MARISHA: We're tweeting pictures of our dice and
our things so everyone can see now.
LAURA: I'm hashtagging Critmas.
ZAC: Did we make that sub goal?
ORION: Oh my god, is that your die that you got?
ZAC: We did not make the sub goal, so we'll get
you guys-- no, we're not going to get it, so we'll
get you guys with a giveaway tomorrow.
MATT: Next time, you can do it then. You guys are
ridiculous, thank you so much.
Have a wonderful night.
ASHLEY: Thank you guys so, so much.
MATT: See you next week on Thursday.
MARISHA: We love you guys, you're amazing!
[dramatic music]
