Domestic Respite/Transcript

MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.

TRAVIS: We play Dungeon & Dragons!

TALIESIN: Ahooga!

MATT: Don't-- never. Never ready.

TALIESIN: I didn't know if it was going to work. I didn't know if it was going to work.

MATT: Congratulations, you guys are punking yourselves now. I love this. So welcome! Before we get into tonight's game, we have some quick announcements to get through, starting, first and foremost-- we have two fantastic sponsors tonight. Our first sponsor, our friends for the entirety of Campaign Two, D&D Beyond.

TRAVIS: D&D Beyond!

SAM: D&D Beyond. Hey, guys, D&D--there's-- all new bundles have been added to D&D Beyond. The Source Book Bundle gives you all published source books. That's the Player's Handbook, the DMG, Xanathar's Guide, and more, plus 10% off future source books, perfect for the adventurer who wants every customization option at their fingertips. The Adventure Bundle gives you all published adventures. That's Curse of Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, we all know Waterdeep, we all know Dragon Heist, there are others, and 10% off all future adventures, ideal for the intrepid DM who wants access to the many worlds of D&D. Check them out now at bit.ly/BeyondBundles, I'm sure that URL will show up. But guys, what I wanted to talk to you about tonight-- turn off your phones. (laughter)

SAM: I don't know about you, but I have been real bad about keeping up my voiceover career, because we've been so, we've been so busy, right? Doing Kickstarter stuff. Yeah.

TALIESIN: Are we acknowledging that right now?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: So my agent called, and was like, "You haven't done an audition in weeks," and I was like, when do I have time? And then it hit me, I have between two and four minutes... (laughter)

SAM: ...right here, every Thursday night, that I could do anything with, so I'm going to do some voiceover auditions. If you guys don't mind--it's really good sound quality in here. We have a good sound guy.

TALIESIN: I'm sure this doesn't break any--

SAM: I'm just going to knock them off. I'm going to substitute D&D Beyond into the ads, so that, you know, I'll edit it out later, but at least it feels like it's still an ad for the sponsor. Travis, you're in one of these, too.

TRAVIS: I am?

SAM: Get it in your email, but for now, I've got three spots to read, and I'll just read them real quick. Quiet, please, because I'm going to use this audio later. Okay.

Hi, this is Sam Riegel. New in the Super Value Menu, it's D&D Beyond! Two mouth-watering pure beef patties, homemade buns, crispy lettuce, juicy tomato, and enough special sauce to make you say, Dang! One more D&D Beyond for the road. Flame-grilled (stutters) D&D Beyond, fuck, pickup. Flame-grilled D&D Beyond, now on the Super Value Menu for a limited time. Okay, that's one spot. I'll edit out the hiccup later. Travis?

TRAVIS: Uh-huh?

SAM: Okay, yeah, so sometimes when you do auditions, you do a partner read, yeah, and sometimes--

LAURA: But he's not even next to the mic.

SAM: I'll edit him out later. It's just for me. I don't care about him, but anyway-- so this'll be a read that you do with a partner to audition for the role. Anyway.

TRAVIS: You ready?

SAM: You start.

TRAVIS: Whoa, how'd you get to the campsite so fast?

SAM: Easy, I drove here in my 2019 D&D Beyond XLS.

TRAVIS: Sweet ride.

SAM: With true four-wheel drive, stable tech steering, and a fuel-injected V8, D&D Beyond gets me anywhere I want to go.

TRAVIS: My truck won't even start in these conditions. It's so weak and puny, just like me, (resigned) Travis Willingham.

SAM: Well, do something about it, lease a 2019 D&D Beyond and you'll feel as strong and masculine as me, Sam Riegel. Plus it's got bass lift 7.1 digital stereo system. On-road or off, the D&D Beyond gets you there in style.

TRAVIS: (through his teeth) Mind if I take it for a spin?

SAM: No way, baby bro! Get your own D&D Beyond.

TRAVIS: Oh, motherfucker. (laughs)

SAM: Okay, okay, some edits there, but I'll work on it later.

ASHLEY: That was such a cool voice.

SAM: Thank you. You know, as a voice artist, you want to change your voice to suit the material, so I think you'll hear that on this next spot. Okay, this next spot's a little more serious, so.

Hi, this is Sam Riegel, when I found out I had genital herpes, I didn't know what to do. I was ashamed, embarrassed, and I couldn't stop itching my groin. But my doctor told me about D&D Beyond.

MATT: Oh no.

SAM: D&D Beyond suppresses any mild to moderate case of genital herpes, and is proven to reduce the sores, watery blisters, and burning sensation associated with the virus. Talk to your doctor about D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond is an over-the-counter, subscription-based app. If you experience numbness in your buttocks, or painful urination, stop using D&D Beyond and consult your doctor. Say goodbye to genital herpes at D&D Beyond.com.

LAURA: Wow.

SAM: Okay, thanks guys. I did some good auditions tonight.

TRAVIS: I don't know if that's legally... okay. SAM: I did some good VO work tonight, guys, and I think the sponsor's going to love it. (laughter)

MATT: Thank you, Sam.

SAM: Sure!

MATT: We're so sorry. We're so sorry.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

MATT: Our second sponsor-- (laughter) -- that Sam is not announcing, our fantastic friends at Eldritch Foundry. If you guys haven't seen yet, the Kickstarter is up. They are massive Critters in their own right, and they are now revealing-- they are now makers of a fully-customizable, 3D-printed miniature program system, the whole thing. I don't know what the official title would be, but it's awesome. So they have a really cool character creator app that you can check out that allows you to create your actual characters and customize the minis before ordering them. All the different pieces have actual lore embedded to help inspire as you're designing a character, which is pretty rad. They're working hand-in-hand with actual local game stores to ensure that every part of the community benefits from this awesome program they're developing. But the Kickstarter is live, as of today, so if you get a chance, check it out. There's an early bird special you can jump in for, with a discount, as well as exclusive marker bases available for them, as well. To support them, go check out Critrole.com/EldritchFoundry. That's E-L-D-R-I-T-C-H Foundry.

TRAVIS: (southern accent) Eldritch Foundry. (laughter)

MATT: Why didn't you read this? Dammit!

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: Thank you so much. All right, quick reminder, we-- many of our shows, including Talks Machina and Critical Role you're watching here, are available in podcast form on iTunes, Google, and Spotify, as well as other places where fine podcasts can be found. Look for the black Critical Role logo after searching for them in your favorite app, and check out Critrole.com/FAQ for links and details about them. We've had some questions about the podcasts and where they go, so just making sure some folks know about that. Remind your friends if they're confused.

We have a merch update from you, Laura, I believe.

SAM: Laura Bailey. This is an exciting one, guys.

LAURA: This is an exciting one. So you may have noticed in the store this morning! We released some, you know, shirts that people have been asking for for quite a while, and it's our Vox Machina original first season. We've got our Grog Strongjaw!

MATT: Yeah!

LAURA: Strongjaw Ale and our Dagger, Dagger, Dagger (cheering)

SAM: It was stealthing!

LAURA: Those are designed by OG Critter, Kennef Riggles, so thank you.

MATT: Hell yeah, Kennef.

LAURA: Thank you so much. And in addition to that, we also have-- oh!

TRAVIS: (gasps)

LAURA: This beautiful pin. You may have noticed Marisha wearing it on Talks Machina. Sneaky sneak. Yeah, so these are in the store now, too. Designed by Lauryn Ipsum. So cool, I know. We have them in the store, and we have, I think, some here at the studios, so we're all going to be taking some home with us.

ASHLEY: I'll put the pin on my jean jacket.

LAURA: Heck yes!

TALIESIN: Metal AF, metal AF.

LAURA: So yeah, the shirts are in the US. The pins are in US and UK store, and then the shirts are just in the US store for now, but they will be coming to the UK store, so.

MATT: Awesome. Thank you, Laura.

ASHLEY: I love it. I love this pin.

MATT: Yeah, it's a great pin, and final announcement for the evening. As of midnight tonight, we'll be turning over to May 10th, which is the birthday of our fabulous Marisha Ray. (cheering)

MARISHA: You know I hate this shit.

MATT: I know you do!

LIAM: It could happen in game, if we putter around long enough.

MATT: Please don't.

TRAVIS: What's wrong with your face?

MARISHA: Bad guy.

MATT: As we get to invite her into her majestic 30s, so. Happy to have you, happy birthday. I love you. All right, guys. She's so embarrassed! Look at her getting all warm and red.

TALIESIN: It's time to settle down, and start thinking about what you want to do, and really, you know, get a proper job or something.

MARISHA: You're not wrong. My parents will be stoked, take my life seriously.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Nobody plays imagination their whole life. You've got to be a real person.

LAURA: A real person.

MARISHA: Twitch dot what?

MATT: So happy birthday. All right. I believe that's the end of our announcements, so let's go ahead and bring ourselves into tonight's episode of (shushing) Critical Role. (cheering)

(water bubbling)

(thunder)

(explosion)

♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Role, Critical, Critical ♪ ♪ Roll the dice, roll the dice ♪ ♪ The adventure begins, they were always beside you ♪ ♪ Your nerdy best friends, and the DM to guide you ♪ ♪ And they rise from the flames for the battles ahead ♪ ♪ Villains beware 'cause you're 'bout to be dead ♪ (dramatic music) ♪ They got magic and flare ♪ ♪ They got falchions and cunning ♪ ♪ They don't see over there ♪ ♪ There's a monster incoming ♪ ♪ Inspiration is waiting, rise up, don't think twice ♪ ♪ Put your fate in your hands, take a chance ♪ ♪ Roll the dice ♪ ♪ Roll the dice, Role, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Critical ♪ ♪ Role, Critical ♪ ♪ Can you answer the call? ♪ ♪ Dig in deep in your soul ♪ ♪ As the legend unfolds, now it's your turn ♪ ♪ Your turn, your turn ♪ ♪ To roll ♪ (flames burning) (dragon roaring)

MATT: And welcome back, everyone. So last we left off.

LIAM: Turducken!

MATT: (laughs) See if we can get some music going here. So.

TRAVIS: ♪ I've had ♪

MATT: Thank you! Keep going. (laughter)

MATT: Last we left off, the Mighty Nein, upon returning from your journey towards the Penumbra Range, helping to free a group of surviving stone giants from a demonic incursion in their cavern, and in doing so, also helping free one of the local mines and steelworks on the Kryn Dynasty from the scourge of these giants, you return to the city of Rosohna. You retrieved your reward for this venture, and towards the end of taking some time to scout out some of the locations within the city, were greeted by Essek and presented, as the other half of your gift of helping the Dynasty with the retrieval and return of one of the Beacons, a home. So with this abode loosely furnished, but open to whatever customization features you're able to look into, interested in, and can afford, it is your house to make of it as you wish.

So, Mighty Nein, as you step into the cold interior of your new home, dark, dusty, but yours. What would you like to do?

TALIESIN: Spending all the money on booze, and we're going to have just a rager party for a week, trash the place, top to bottom.

TRAVIS: Trainspotting style.

MARISHA: Yeah. If you leave out a tip jar, you can make your money back, and then, sometimes.

LAURA: I look at Beau and go, let's claim our room, and I go running up the stairs to find the room that we want.

MARISHA: And I chase after her.

TALIESIN: I go walking up the stairs.

MARISHA: I throw open all the doors, and I'm looking at all of them, and I'm comparing each one, because there is definitely a better one.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Or a best one.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Roll for investigation.

MATT: Yeah, you guys have your own aesthetics here, and you get to decide amongst yourselves who stays where. This is for you to decide, not me. (laughs)

LAURA: This is-- can I write on this?

MATT: You may, it is yours. (laughter) I can always print more.

TALIESIN: Matt, Laura's in my room, Laura's in my room, that's my-- Matt, Laura's in my room.

MATT: Both of you roll wisdom saving throws.

TALIESIN: Eye contact, eye--

LAURA: I rolled so good.

TALIESIN: Fuck, I rolled terrible. (laughter) You get whatever room you want.

MATT: Yeah, sorry.

TALIESIN: (sullenly) I don't care. (laughter)

LIAM: They're gone, but before we take apart this entire house, who is sleeping-- I guess they're bunking up.

SAM: Jester and?

LAURA: And Beau.

TRAVIS: Well, I need a roommate.

TALIESIN: Are we bunk-- wait, what?

LAURA: I guess everybody doesn't need--there are enough rooms here that people don't have to bunk up.

TRAVIS: Oh, really?

ASHLEY: How many bedrooms are there?

LAURA: One, two, three, four, five, technically six, if you want to take that.

TALIESIN: I may take that.

LAURA: And then there's one downstairs, that's seven.

TALIESIN: I mean, you can do a lot with--

SAM: Do we want a spare room for guests?

LAURA: Yeah, they can take the downstairs one.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: Wait, we're going to have guests over?

LAURA: We could.

LIAM: You're taking this one, the two of you?

LAURA: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

TALIESIN: I have a quick point of contention. Are we planning to put down a little bit of roots here, is this the plan? Because I'm not saying we're necessarily going to stay here, but is this--are we deciding that this is just going to be--are we going to be leaving things here?

TRAVIS: Well, no, right?

TALIESIN: Well, I mean, this is a good question to put forward, and I'm fine either way, but--

SAM: It's a base of operations, where you could come and go as we please, obviously, but we're not going to stay here forever.

TALIESIN: Go ahead.

LIAM: We have this together, even if we leave, I think we still have it, so property is property.

TALIESIN: It might be useful just to have a place to come back to, to circle round if things go awry.

LAURA: I've never had a house before that wasn't, you know, also like a club.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I've lived in some odd places, well, one odd place, one place in my life.

TRAVIS: We can mm-chicka-mm-chicka through the night 'till you feel comfortable.

LIAM: Have you ever lived under a roof?

ASHLEY: Not like this, no, just things that we've sort of built out of, I don't know, stuff of the earth, but I've never lived in a home like this before.

SAM: Do you want to sleep on the balcony?

ASHLEY: Well, if there is a room that's close to the balcony, I wouldn't mind if sometimes I--I feel a little weird, or a little squirrely, that I could go outside, and sleep.

LAURA: You can be next to us, Yasha, if you want to.

SAM: That little room right there.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll--

LAURA: Or this one.

ASHLEY: I'll take that one in the middle, if that's not already taken.

LAURA: I'm going to write Yasha on here.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: While we were walking up, how secure is this thing? Is it made of wood, stone, are there windows that you can get to off the ground floor? MATT: Both, actually. The foundation itself is stone, and it looks like some of the load bearing portions of the building are stone, and then there is a painted Vermaloc wood around those for decoration and additional support, so it's both. TRAVIS: Okay, and windows galore? MATT: There are a number of windows, yes. TALIESIN: That hardly matters. It's dark out all day, anyway. SAM: And Caleb, will you be upstairs or downstairs? LIAM: I don't-- I don't know-- you're with Yeza. SAM: Yes, of course, I'll be with Yeza, but we could take the room next to Yasha. TALIESIN: I think there's a library, too. Oh. LAURA: Well, this one has access to a whole other bedroom. Whoever's staying in this far one, they have to cross through someone else's room to get here. LIAM: Oh, this could be a common room, or used for some other purpose, beside the bedroom. LAURA: It's true. And then make a bedroom off of that? LIAM: Yes, correct. LAURA: Okay, so let's-- I took this bed, anyway, so let's take this bed, and move it in here. MARISHA: I help drag beds. LAURA: This is a happy room. SAM: A happy room? LAURA: Yeah, where you go, and you hang out, and you be happy. LIAM: This is a bedroom. SAM: I've never had a happy room. LAURA: Now you do. TALIESIN: Are you happy before you go in, you have to be happy, or is it the room that you get happy in? SAM: Who's in the bedroom at the end, the corner suite? TALIESIN: Somebody's really happy. LAURA: One person gets a corner room that's next to the happy room, one person gets-- this is you and Yeza. SAM: Yeza, yes, for-- LAURA: I'm going to go in and push your beds together, so you can have a nice, comfy room together. (laughter) SAM: I don't like that mattress in the middle, the split. TRAVIS: Yeah, it never works out. SAM: No, it doesn't. LAURA: Should I write "Veth" or "Nott" on the map? Probably "Yeza and Veth," huh? LIAM: Jester, could you maybe paint the beds together? LAURA: I don't need to, because-- I mean, I could. SAM: I don't like the little seam. Could you just paint out the seam? LAURA: Well, remember when we tried to do that before, and I made a plank of wood, but it was just a loose plank of wood? I'm afraid if I do that, it'll just be a stripe. SAM: A waste of paint. LAURA: Yeah, of fabric or something. So you're over here, then. Or do you want to be downstairs? What about Fjord? Who's downstairs, and who's in the corner? Fjord? MARISHA: Who's next to us? LAURA: Whoever is next to us, I definitely won't spy on them ever. LIAM: There is a-- this is a common room, or this could be a study, or a laboratory. SAM: And then you could be next to it. LAURA: So you want this corner one downstairs, under Nott, okay. LIAM: Ja. TRAVIS: If y'all need a strapping protector of courage and bravery of untold proportions, I don't mind sleeping next to y'all. MARISHA: You know, if you sleep, and we share a wall, we can learn morse code, and we can just tap to each other throughout the wall. LAURA: (gasps) Or, you know what else we could do? I could paint a hole in the wall, and then we can talk to each other through the hole. SAM: Just a big hole in the wall? LAURA: Like, a little one, we could-- TRAVIS: Is there already a hole in the wall? LAURA: No, but I could make one. TRAVIS: I don't think we want to deface the house that's a gift, right? SAM: But if we wanted to add to it, we could. LAURA: Yeah, I could add a hole in the wall. LIAM: Caduceus, what are you going to do? TALIESIN: I think I'm going to put down roots. SAM: And so you're going to be in the tower, outside, right? TALIESIN: Yeah, I got an idea. ASHLEY: Okay, is there a place for training or anything like that? LAURA: Yeah, let's turn this room that was a bedroom into a training room. SAM: This is so visually compelling for our audience. (laughter) TALIESIN: And now interpretive dance. LIAM: It's our game, we're playing for us. MATT: Welcome to D&D. LAURA: Can you see? LIAM: Yeah, we'll post a picture. MARISHA: Yeah, it's, you, Jester, Yasha, Fjord, yeah, Beau, you get it. SAM: You get it. MATT: It's fine. SAM: And the rest. LIAM: Jester, this is where you're building a training room? LAURA: Training room. LIAM: Okay, so I'm going to mark this as a library and laboratory. LAURA: Libra-- it's already a library, so-- LIAM: Yeah, but we are going to add a lab for Veth. LAURA: Okay, plus lab. LIAM: Yeah. LAURA: You got it. SAM: Same room? LIAM: Yeah. SAM: Library and lab? LIAM: Well, different ends-- I don't-- we don't have a vast library, I just mean a study. SAM: I know, but if there's a fire or something, I'm just saying. LIAM: I can handle that. LAURA: Hey, I think there's a bloodstain in the basement, you guys. TRAVIS: Really? TALIESIN: I think someone was just eating something with ketchup when they were holding the map. LAURA: Oh, okay. TALIESIN: Oh, wow, no-- LAURA: No, I think there's blood, can we investigate the basement for blood? MATT: Sure, you go and investigate the basement. It is empty, make an investigation check. TALIESIN: Hey! LAURA: I am into these dice, 20. MATT: 20, nice. Inspecting the corners of it, you find rat droppings. You find leftover bits of chewed wood. There is a stain. The stain appears to have been left by some sort of a ruptured wine cask long ago. Other than that, the room is empty. LAURA: It was wine. SAM: That's harmless. LAURA: Hey, Beau, you're okay with Nugget being in our room, right? MARISHA: Do I have a choice? LAURA: Yes? Of course, you know, we have patio access, maybe I can just, you know, I can-- MARISHA: Yeah, as long as it doesn't get in my bed. He drools a lot, you know? LAURA: He won't, he-- TRAVIS: You got a patio? ASHLEY: He could be in our little outdoor area. LAURA: Yeah, you don't have one, though. SAM: He could. LAURA: He could be our guard Nugget. LIAM: I have a question. MATT: Yes? LIAM: What is this circle here? MATT: The circle is just a design in the floor. LIAM: Okay, thank you. MARISHA: I do want to do a big once over on the house, and start checking it, and see if I can find any signs of it being bugged. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: I want to check for vibes. MATT: For vibes? TALIESIN: Vibes. SAM: Is that a Detect Vibes? TALIESIN: Detect vibes, I want to Lebowski this place. TRAVIS: Can you walk into a room and know where people have had sex? MARISHA: I rolled a natural one, so. LAURA: But I was looking, too. MARISHA: But Jester was looking, too. SAM: Question mark? LAURA: I'm just not as good at it. I thought I said I was, did I not say I was? MATT: Sure, I'll allow it. Roll an investigation check. TRAVIS: Do it. Roll. When the DM changes his mind. TALIESIN: Hey. SAM: Not great, not great. LAURA: 11. MATT: You guys spend the better part of a couple of hours casing the place, checking the walls, checking areas, not quite sure what you're looking for, but for any signs of tampering. LIAM: I would trail along with Detect Magic as well. MATT: Okay, and what were you doing, Caduceus? TALIESIN: I'm just checking the place out, just doing a walkthrough, getting a sense of it. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: Just trying to see if I feel like this place has good vibes or bad vibes. MATT: Okay, roll a general wisdom check. TALIESIN: I'm into it. 18. MATT: 18? I mean, the place is fairly neutral vibes. It's a house. You don't sense any evil presence. You don't sense a case somewhere that's exuding-- TALIESIN: Although you did-- MATT: Terrible energy. TALIESIN: You did just inspire something in me. I might also to walk around with the Detect Magic up, just to see if it pings anything. MATT: All right, so the two of you are doing a Detect Magic pass, each of you. TALIESIN: Just looking around. MATT: Okay, as you both scan through the house, feeling pretty confident in your ability to locate or sense anything that gives off any sort of magical aura, but come up short. TALIESIN: All right. It's cool. SAM: And is the kitchen all stocked with anything, or do we need to stock it? MATT: No, you need to stock everything. The house has been cleaned out, other than the base furniture there. There's some bookshelves, but there's no books. There are some tables, some chairs, some beds, very basic. And that's about it, so you're going to have to furnish it. I'm sorry. TRAVIS: What about secret entrances, like, if we pull up the rugs and look for trapdoors-- TALIESIN: I don't think there are rugs. TRAVIS: Did you push the clocks out of the way? TALIESIN: There's no clocks. TRAVIS: Are you sure? TALIESIN: They've been pre-pushed all the way out of the way, out of the house. SAM: Then there's some sort of storage shed. LAURA: That's the basement. SAM: Oh, that's the basement, okay. LAURA: You access it from the kitchen. SAM: Okay. TALIESIN: I guess it's a root cellar. LIAM: We have dining room area, this is training. This is the study and the laboratory. There is another room up here, which is yet to be chosen what it is, and the same floor, this one, and this one. SAM: No, that's my room. LIAM: No, this is your room. SAM: Oh. LAURA: This is the happy room. SAM: Oh, you're right. That's the happy room. LIAM: What is the happy room for? SAM: That's the happy room; it's for being happy. TRAVIS: It's beanbags and stuffed animals and stuff. LIAM: Like a living space. LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: Lots of lava lamps. TRAVIS: Pinball machines. MARISHA: Yeah, hookah. LIAM: MAME cabinet. LAURA: But that will be right next to you, and you'll be far away from me. MARISHA: It's got a pit built into the floor. ASHLEY: Maybe entering into the library, we can, we can put a bookcase, and that's the entrance, because I've heard of these types of things before. LAURA: Like a secret entrance? ASHLEY: Yeah, like a secret entrance LAURA: So nobody would even know. Caleb's room would be hidden, then, if we made that the case. TRAVIS: Is there a hidden staircase in the house that we could--? TALIESIN: Well, I mean, do you want to hide a-- ASHLEY: You have to pull on one of the books to get in. SAM: Wait, you had a book that you got that you got. That porn book, Caleb, maybe that could be the book that you have to pull to open the latch. LIAM: The seafaring, yeah, you have it still. LAURA: Yeah, yeah. SAM: Okay, we could make that the trigger for. MATT: The copy of The Hidden Staircase. (oohing) TALIESIN: That's-- SAM: Never. TALIESIN: I feel bad now. Yeah, I may-- I've got some ideas. I may ask your assistance with a couple of things. I need to do a little stone shaping, maybe in the-- move some earth, if you can help me with that. SAM: For your room? TALIESIN: I've got an idea. LIAM: It would be rough, but yeah, I could-- LAURA: I could do some stone shaping. TALIESIN: You know some stone shaping? All right. LAURA: Maybe I do. TALIESIN: Okay, maybe. TRAVIS: Wooden roof, right? Beams, thatches, stuff like that? MATT: Correct, with dark tiles on it, like clay tiles. TRAVIS: Cool. Yeah, I want to watch whatever Caduceus is doing. MATT: Oh, yeah, Caduceus, what are you doing? TALIESIN: So-- TRAVIS: Not that I don't have great ambition for my room. TALIESIN: I'm going to want to move a bunch of dirt. I'm going to try and make a rooftop garden at the top of the tower. MATT: There is dirt to be found. You have to relocate it probably from the immediate vicinity of the home. So you will dig up a small hole in one of the nearby-- it's like a ten-foot radial yard around the house, before you start piercing into nearby neighboring territory. TALIESIN: Sure. MATT: But yeah, you can amass, how much dirt are you planning to put up there? TALIESIN: Enough to support some plant growth. I'm going to do something dumb. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: And I'm going to use a little Stone Shape to just shape the tower a little bit to be supportive of what I'm going to put up there, if that works out okay. MATT: What spell is this in particular? TALIESIN: Stone Shape. LAURA: Stone Shape. LIAM: You have that? LAURA: I have that. LAURA: You're magic. TALIESIN: It'll take a few days. This is not a one day project. This is just a-- MATT: Yes, yeah. You can totally do that, okay. So between the two of you, definitely easy. TALIESIN: It's going to be just rounding it out a little bit to support what I'm building, and then also creating a little faux cabin-esque little chunk of it so that there's a place to sleep up there that's covered. I'll draw it out for you. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: And getting the dirt up there is good? LIAM: I can do that. I use Maximilian's Earthen Grasp to make the cat's claw come up out of the soil, and then just travel as soil to the top of the tower, because it can move. MATT: That's true. TALIESIN: That'll do it. MATT: Even easier. TALIESIN: So-- MATT: You have a comfortable amount of loose soil now on the top of your tower. TALIESIN: I'm going to seed it with my-- anything that's dead in there, I'm just going to start things going. MATT: Okay. SAM: Spread your seed all over? TALIESIN: Yeah. I'm going to take a look around. Thank you for that, I'm going to take a look around. LIAM: Look out, Xhorhas! TRAVIS: Going to grow an eggplant. TALIESIN: Well, if we're going to be here for a while, might as well get comfortable. And I'm going to drop right in the center, the feather, token of the tree. MATT: Oh! SAM: Feather? TRAVIS: Shit! SAM: Wait. MATT: Hold on. SAM: Wait, your tree growing thing? LIAM: It's a massive tree. LAURA: On the top of the tower. ASHLEY: Awesome. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: I've tried to create a little section that'll hold the roots, and hold the-- MATT: Must be outdoors, yeah, so. So. As you take the token, and drop it into the center of the little gap you've left in the dirt-- TALIESIN: Hang on. MATT: The token just rests in there. TALIESIN: Wait for it. MATT: (rumbling) You hear this heavy rumbling, and you watch as roots just split out from the center of the token, and dig into the dirt, and down into the stone, and you feel the stone shift slightly beneath your feet. The actual tower seems to be adjusting in some way to the rooting of this. Suddenly, a series of branches begin to extend like rapid spider legs, and as they reach out, leaves flower on the edges of these branches until eventually a large trunk (wood splintering) fires up into the sky, the canopy expanding above, to a 60-foot tall tree, a five-foot diameter trunk, which in itself is beautiful. Since all the trees in the region are red and brown in color, this is the only green-leafed tree in all of Rosohna. LAURA: Wow. TALIESIN: All roots put down. TRAVIS: Well, now we're going to die. SAM: It's the tree house. We have a tree house now. LAURA: It goes so high on top of the tower. TALIESIN: Yeah. LAURA: Wow. MATT: Make a perception check. LAURA: Ooh. MARISHA: We just-- LAURA: Announced-- MARISHA: Made a statement. TALIESIN: 15. MATT: 15. You hear out of the corner of your eye. Your firbolg ear tweaks a bit. Ear even, (clicks) corner of your ear. It's been a long-- TALIESIN: It's been a day. MATT: It's been a day. TALIESIN: Sorry, my fault. LIAM: Hundreds and hundreds of hours of narration. MATT: It's fine. It's cool. You hear a few voices, and you glance up and down in the street. You can see various civilians of Rosohna gathering in the street, and all looking up at this massive tree that has sprung out of nowhere. They're gathering and pointing, and grabbing other folks, and there's a crowd gathering now on the outskirts of your house, as those of you who have gathered up on top of the rooftop and the tower to see what has happened glance over, and see the neighbors, very curious, and some of them concerned about this massive green tree now, a spire beacon in the center of this neighborhood in the Firmaments. TRAVIS: We haven't even been here half a day. MARISHA: Did we check the lease? Are we able to make modifications to the house? TRAVIS: There goes our security deposit. (laughter) LIAM: After a scurrying sound, Frumpkin just starts climbing up the length of the tree, and disappears into the heights. LAURA: Nugget goes and pees on it. MATT: Immediately. TALIESIN: Oh, yeah, I know. TRAVIS: In the time that we've been here, is it particularly windy in this area of Xhorhas? MATT: Make a nature check. LAURA: Can I see the map? ASHLEY: Oh, yes, yes. TRAVIS: 11. MATT: 11. You didn't need to make the check. I just wanted to make you. TRAVIS: Oh. MATT: You'd know if it was windy or not. It can vary. (laughter) MATT: It can vary. It's not particularly windy, in the experience of the time that you've been here so far, except during the storm. The storm, it got a little windy. You do notice, at the height of the tree is at, 60 feet up from this point, though, there is more wind above than there is ground level. It seems like the buildings and the structures seem to guide most-- TALIESIN: If I have to top the tree, I'll top the tree. You're not supposed to do it, but I'll do it if I have to. MATT: It's not terribly windy, but you can see the 20 foot canopy, it's (wind blowing). You can hear the rustling of the leaves. It's actually really pretty and soothing. TALIESIN: The trick is now are going to be figuring out if there's a way that I can... LAURA: Keep it alive? TALIESIN: Well, that's the thing, is I'm going to have to figure out a way of maybe imbuing a couple objects with some very basic Daylight spells that I can trigger off once a day. MATT: There is that, yeah. TALIESIN: So I may have to go looking for that, or talk to the clever, clever kids about that. MARISHA: I mean, it's a magic tree that came out of a token. Does it need sunlight? TALIESIN: I honestly planned on growing a lot more than just a tree. MARISHA: Oh. LAURA: The tree will be the sun for other things. (laughter) TALIESIN: I don't think I can cast a Sunlight spell that-- that's a lot of-- that's a very expensive Sunlight spell. If we're going to be building a-- that's for the basement, okay. MATT: The campaign ends with the Mighty Nein opening a dispensary. in Rosohna. LIAM: Hydroponics. LAURA: You know what? It would make perfect sense. MATT: There you go. TALIESIN: It's a fitting end. No, but I thought it would be nice to have a proper garden that reminds us of home, and a place where we can have a little sliver of something that isn't this place and I'm going to-- I have a few needs and growing things in some sunlight is one of them-- SAM: Sure, having a giant 60 foot tree in your bedroom is a totally basic need that I think we can all-- TALIESIN: Something I've had my entire life. SAM: Sure. TALIESIN: Don't have a lot of needs. This is one of them. MATT: The crowd isn't dispersing, but they definitely are aware that you're aware of them, so they're being quieter. TALIESIN: I may go down and say hello to everyone, to people at the gate. MATT: All right, yeah. You meet some of the passersby. They seem... ...curious, and definitely a bit off-put by both the presence of the tree and the general lack of firbolgs in Rosohna. Some of them are curious, some of them are dubious. TALIESIN: That's fair. MATT: But nothing, nothing beyond that. A few hands are shaken, a few conversations are had. Then slowly, people begin to disperse a bit, though their attention is still over their shoulder in this strange, new visual wooden monolith that sits in the center of the district. TALIESIN: Just going to get weirder. So excited. I have so many plans. MATT: Perfect. Anything else anyone wants to do with it? LIAM: Why don't we make this room a meeting room, a planning room? LAURA: Sounds like a good idea. SAM: The war room. LIAM: The war room. SAM: Okay. TALIESIN: We need a, just a-- SAM: We need to go shopping and stuff. LAURA: Yeah. TALIESIN: Hopefully this is just a thing. We can just hang out in these places. It's nice. LAURA: These are just open-- LIAM: This last one could be maybe a guest room? LAURA: Yeah, sure, why not? MARISHA: Slash prison. SAM: But, Beauregard, didn't you want some sort of a training pit or something? ASHLEY: But that's what we're doing downstairs, yeah. LIAM: Yeah, we have training, we have study, we have the happy room, the war room, right next to each other. SAM: Oh, happy and war room. (laughter) LIAM: The kitchen and dining room, the kitchen and dining room, so really the only-- and Caduceus is up top here, so the only thing-- MARISHA: I love that book, War and Happy. SAM: Well, let's leave that for when we have a need. LIAM: That's a good idea. LAURA: It's guest-room-to-be, but storage right now. TALIESIN: Room of Requirement. LAURA: Yes, Room of Requirement, for sure. ASHLEY: After we talk about things in the war room, then we can go into the happy room. MARISHA: To cool off. ASHLEY: To cool off. LAURA: And just dance around, and, like. TALIESIN: Safety dance. SAM: I feel good about this. MATT: Great. (laughter) MATT: Well done, guys. TALIESIN: I feel like the neighbor in Mary Poppins, who just fires off the cannon every hour. MATT: Yes, there you go. All righty, so in choosing your rooms, I imagine you wish to furnish them. Are there any specific requests? MARISHA: Well, we're going to need sheets, towels-- MATT: They come with sheets. They don't come with towels, we'll say, we'll say-- TRAVIS: There's a bed and a mattress? MATT: We'll say for, yeah, there's a bed and mattresses. For basic functional needs here, it'll be ten gold to furnish for all of you guys in the house for your basic towels, linens, things like that. LIAM: Chamber pots. LAURA: Oh, yeah, we don't have a bathroom. LIAM: Chamber pots. TALIESIN: There's probably an outhouse or-- TRAVIS: There we go. SAM: We could make that to-be-determined room just a shit room. TALIESIN: No, god. MATT: That explains the stain in the basement. (groaning) LIAM: DM, what would I need to pay extra for there to be bookshelves and alchemical laboratory equipment? MATT: There are bookshelves there. There just aren't any books on them, and that would be in the one that you've turned into the library slash laboratory, as well as the room you're considering a prison room. MARISHA: I've got the basic furnishings. MATT: If you're looking to acquire an alchemical-- LIAM: Yes. MATT: For laboratory. LIAM: For Nott. MATT: That would be. TALIESIN: I'm going to be doing a lot of-- MATT: They're 50 gold pieces for a set of alchemical supplies. LIAM: I cover it. MATT: You cover it, all right. LAURA: Can I buy a lot of paints? MATT: A lot of paints, yeah. For a set of painter supplies, it's ten gold. You can buy multiple sets, if you want. TALIESIN: I've been thinking about this all week. LAURA: Yeah, I need a lot. MATT: Define a lot. SAM: She's going to paint the house. MATT: You're going to paint the house? LAURA: I'm going to paint a lot of things on the walls-- MATT: I would recommend, then, dropping somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 80 gold of painter supplies to paint the entire house. LAURA: Well, not every, all the house. I'm going to paint some of the rooms. MATT: Oh, some of the rooms, okay. LAURA: Not the outside of the house. MATT: How many rooms? LAURA: Probably like three rooms or something. MATT: I'll put that three painter supply kits. LAURA: Okay. MATT: 30 gold. LAURA: 30 gold, you got it. MATT: All righty. TALIESIN: I just want to sort of recreate what I had at home, so very simple stuff, but then I'm going to want some gardening supplies, and some stuff for that, and then-- MATT: Yeah. There aren't any supplies you can easily put together with five gold. TALIESIN: Some things like that, and then also up there-- well, the complicated things we'll figure out a little bit later with the light, but I also want to sculpt it a bit. I'm thinking about the garden at Lake Shrine, if you remember. MATT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: I want to have little alcoves either in the tree or in the stone, as we go together, probably a bit of both, that give everybody who has a... who has a god a little shrine, like a micro shrine for everybody. So there's a-- MATT: That can totally be done. It's a tight space, because it is a five foot tree in the middle of what is essentially a 20-foot-- TALIESIN: Oh, yeah, it's going to go up the tree, too, so. LAURA: Oh, up the trunk, and in the branches? MATT: Easy enough for you to do. It'll take you a little bit of time to carve the alcoves in the actual tree. TALIESIN: Take time. MATT: The stone is a little easier to shape, based on the spell. But yeah, you can totally do that without issue. TRAVIS: The windows on the bedrooms, glass pane? MATT: Glass paned, yeah. TRAVIS: Yeah, do they open, solid, latched? MATT: The ones that are in more open chambers, we'll say what is now the training room, the dining room, those all can open. There are, not every room has it, just places for possible cross breeze, and-- TRAVIS: Would they have wooden shutters, like storm shutters? MATT: I would say no, it doesn't seem like there are storms that bad that come through here to require that, those aren't-- TRAVIS: Could I pay to have some wooden shutters put on the inside of the windows? MATT: That can be done. TRAVIS: Okay. TALIESIN: Interesting. MATT: I'd say, on all the windows? TRAVIS: Just on mine. MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: Unless the ladies also want some ability to, I don't know, get some daytime Zs, you know, outside of curtains. LAURA: It's all dark, anyway. TRAVIS: Well, yeah. I'm just offering, you can just say no. (laughter) LAURA: No, I'm okay, are you okay? MARISHA: Yeah, I'm good. LAURA: Okay. TRAVIS: Yeah, shutters for one. MATT: All right, supplies and insulation, a gold piece. TRAVIS: You've got it, deal. ASHLEY: What were the gardening supplies, what did they cost? MATT: Oh, those are five gold. TALIESIN: Oh, yeah, so I'm just ten gold in. ASHLEY: I would like to get a set of those, as well, because I want to help out-- TALIESIN: Oh, yeah, we can-- oh, man, I'm, yeah, it's going to be nonstop. MATT: Okay. LAURA: When Yasha and Caduceus are distracted gardening, I'm going to go into Yasha's room, and I'm going to-- SAM: Paint a mural. LAURA: I am, though. SAM: Okay, good. LAURA: I'm going to go in her room, and I'm going to paint a field of wildflowers on her wall. ALL: Aww. TRAVIS: So into that shit. ASHLEY: Oh no, I'm going to cry. MATT: I will say make a performance check with advantage. LAURA: The big one? LIAM: Yes! MATT: This isn't about accuracy, this is about the beauty of the show. LAURA: -- advantage. 13? MATT: 13, yeah, that's more than enough. LAURA: Okay! MATT: You do it quickly. They get back before you finish, but as you arrive, Yasha, and go to throw supplies into your room, you come in as you see a frantic Jester trying to finish. LAURA: Close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes! ASHLEY: I close my eyes, but halfway open one of them. LAURA: It's almost done. ASHLEY: Jester. LAURA: Well, I just remembered how much you loved seeing them and everything, and it's very dark here, and-- ASHLEY: This is so beautiful. Thank you so much! This is such a nice thing that you did. LAURA: Well, you know. ASHLEY: Is it dry? LAURA: No. ASHLEY: Okay. LAURA: Don't touch it yet. But then when it's dry, you can go over and touch it all you want. ASHLEY: I love it so much, thank you, Jester. LAURA: You're welcome. ASHLEY: Oh, this is beautiful. LAURA: If you want anything else painted in there, you just let me know. ASHLEY: Okay, I will let you know, thank you so much. LAURA: You're welcome. There's a dick hidden somewhere in there. MATT: A hidden dicky? ASHLEY: Okay, I'll see if I can find it. LAURA: Okay. ASHLEY: Okay. I'm going to move my bed close, not touching yet, because I know it's not dry, but I'm going to make sure, I want to sleep next to it. MATT: And there is a way, the way it's painted, if you put the bed and you lay it back, you feel like you're laying in a field, which is really nice. ASHLEY: That's the best. MATT: All righty. LIAM: A couple things for the house? MATT: Yes? LIAM: So once the laboratory is installed with the library, I would take time to check out if there are any books of worth or notice left behind. MATT: There are no books in the library. LIAM: Oh, I thought you said there were a few books-- MATT: No, I said there were bookshelves, but no books. LIAM: I thought you said both, forget that. So instead, I would spend a couple of hours taking my limitless spool of silver thread, and permanently affix silver thread along the windows in my room, permanently there, and also on the doorway to my bedroom. Also on the door to the laboratory that leads to my bedroom, and I would set them so that there is a different toned chime in my head for each one of those three. And that will be my bedtime ritual, any time I go to sleep in this house, will be to set those three things. MATT: You got it. Cool. MARISHA: Hey, what about my room? What about mine and Jester's? LIAM: That's a lot of-- MARISHA: What about the whole house? LIAM: That's a lot of chimes. LAURA: Can you, would be-- MARISHA: Could you do the house? LAURA: Would we hear the chimes, or would you just hear the chimes? LIAM: It could be either or. But it would be like a, an hour to do that every night. ASHLEY: It's a chime whenever you set out-- LIAM: I can work this spell so that an audible chime is heard by anyone within earshot, or I can have it so just I hear it, but it takes some time, each one, but-- LAURA: Every night? LIAM: Ja. LAURA: Oh. TALIESIN: I got an idea. MATT: What's your idea? ASHLEY: Oh, you have to do it every night. TALIESIN: Watch this. I'm going to purchase some-- go to the blacksmith, I suppose, and purchase some copper tubing. MATT: Okay, which is a little pricey right now, since the mine had been shut down for a while, and it was the largest source of copper. TALIESIN: It's fine, not a ton. Just a couple different pieces. MATT: Okay, how big and how long? TALIESIN: About, about this, this big, like, three or four-- LAURA: About. (laughs) MATT: I knew to look right at Laura after I said that. Continue. (laughter) TALIESIN: I'm going to string them up. I'm just going to-- I'm going to hang, basically, a wind chime behind the main door, so that now there's a sound that happens any time someone, that we can all hear. MATT: I'll say five silver. TALIESIN: Done. MATT: Five silver for the piece. MARISHA: Classic. TALIESIN: We have a sound that will make any time someone enters the house now. MATT: Okay. LIAM: If they come to kill us through the front door. SAM: We're spending some time for a few days getting our house up and running? MATT: Well, if you guys are-- you were talking about going to the Overcrow. SAM: Oh, yeah. MATT: Or at least there is that meeting happening. LAURA: Two weeks before that happens. MATT: Yeah, I'll say, I'll say with all this setup here, we're just taking probably a couple days worth of, preparing, you have about 11 days left before that's supposed to be happening, or it'd actually be ten days. TALIESIN: I had an irritating thing I wanted to do, I had an irritating cleric thing I wanted to do at the end of the night before we ended the last game. Which is I have this spell called Legend Lore. I wanted to cast it on the sword, the two sword pieces that I have. LAURA: On the what, on the what? SAM: Oh, the sword? TRAVIS: Oh, yeah! SAM: The sword, we got to fucking figure out the sword. MARISHA: Yeah, I gave you the sword. By the way. LIAM and MARISHA: In the days since we've been here. TALIESIN: I'm pretty sure it happened. SAM: (like Beau) Gave you the sword. TALIESIN: I want to cast Legend Lore on that. TRAVIS: Can you do that once a day? TALIESIN: I can do that once a day, as long as I'm pretty convinced that nothing terrible is going to happen. LAURA: Right, I could do that, too. TALIESIN: Yeah. LAURA: To help out if, you know. MATT: You do have to buy 250 gold worth of incense. TALIESIN: Oh, it is, that's right, it is, that's right. SAM: A spendy spell? TALIESIN: It is a spendy spell, that's fair. MATT: And four ivory strips, and they're worth 50 gold each. TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: It consumes 250 gold worth of incense every time you cast it. And you have to have the, it doesn't consume the ivory, but you need about 250 gold worth of ivory. TALIESIN: Okay. LAURA: It doesn't consume it, though? MATT: It doesn't consume the ivory, but it consumes the incense, so it essentially costs you-- 450 first time, and then 250 every additional time you want to cast it. SAM: I feel like it's worth it. LIAM: Boy, that would have been super sweet with the dodecahedron. LAURA: I can put in 50 gold. TALIESIN: I've got some money, let's see what I got. Except first, though, I mean, like, that's the thing, is the sun spell is by far my biggest thing I'm trying to get, so this may have to wait if we-- MATT: Up to you. TALIESIN: How difficult would it be to figure out how to enchant some object to just give me a few hours of sunlight up there to keep the plants alive, and everything copacetic? MATT: What level's the spell? TALIESIN: Sunlight? LAURA: I think it's a level five. Daylight is five. TALIESIN: but that's damaging daylight. I mean, technically speaking, if I have, a whole bunch of tiny light spells, would that be enough to keep a garden? LAURA: Like, the cantrip? TALIESIN: Yeah. MATT: It is not considered sunlight. There is Daylight, which is a 3rd-level spell. LAURA and TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: Lasts for an hour, in order to enchant it permanently, I would say, let me double check here. TALIESIN: Yeah, you get what I'm trying. Yeah, nothing damaging. I'm just trying to make a happy place. But I'm aware this is weird. LIAM: Even the drift globe that I have only casts the spell, so it's one hour, so that idea. MATT: I would say it would take about-- MARISHA: ♪ Sun shine in! ♪ MATT: -- depending on the roll, one to two weeks to complete it, and costs about 200 gold worth of supplies. TALIESIN: Okay. LAURA: What should we put in our room? MATT: So if you wanted to do that, it'll take up probably the majority of the time you have left, but it can be done. TALIESIN: Yeah, I think, I mean, like-- MATT: At least eight hours a day of focusing on the enchantment and crafting. SAM: It's going to die otherwise TALIESIN: Hmm? SAM: That tree's going to die-- TALIESIN: Yeah, no, I got to do it, so I'm going to do it. Yeah. MATT: Okay, so mark off 200 gold. TALIESIN: All right. MATT: Of supplies for that. LAURA: We can help? TALIESIN: I'll take a little help. ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll plug in some, too. LAURA: I'll put in, I'll put in 30 gold. TALIESIN: 30 gold, so that's-- now I'm at 170. ASHLEY: Okay, I'll put in-- MATT: If somebody else has the capability to cast Daylight, as well, and they want to take the time to help you, you can reduce the time in half. TALIESIN: That would be amazing, okay, awesome. So I'll spend 100 gold, if you guys can put 30 in-- Well, here, I'll spend 100 and, she spent 30-- ASHLEY: What's the price on it again? TALIESIN: 200 gold. So I'll put in, if you've got 30 in already, I'll put in-- LAURA: This sounds like we're-- TALIESIN: 120. LAURA: Okay. Figuring out a tab, yes. TALIESIN: If you've got 50, all right. MATT: So what are you enchanting it into? What is the means of you developing this item, since you are creating it? And I think it's the first created magical item in this campaign. TALIESIN: It is technically the first created magical item. I basically want to make Christmas lights. LAURA: Can we put them in, like, yeah, like little flasks, like gold-- TALIESIN: Maybe making a liquid that I can then, like a liquid that I can then pour off to fill the tree with. LAURA: Like market lights, beautiful. TALIESIN: So yeah, a lot of liquid. MATT: Okay, I will say, I will say technically, for that amount of lights-- LAURA: Technically? MATT: Technically, for both the tree and the garden, and for the length of what you're doing, both working together. I would say it would take twice as much time to create that amount, but since you're helping with it, it reduces the time. It does cost twice as much, so it'd be 400 gold total, but that would be for the tree and the garden. SAM: Super worth it. LAURA: Who else can put some gold-- LIAM: I can put in-- TALIESIN: All right, I'm doing 100 and I can do 150, so. LAURA: Okay. TALIESIN: I'll burn 150 worth. LAURA: I'll put in another 20 gold. TRAVIS: I'm can put in 20, if you need, or if you're there, no worries. MARISHA: I'll toss 20, as well. TALIESIN: Thanks. I feel like this is a good investment. SAM: So we're the house on the block with a 60 foot tree on our roof, and-- LAURA: Market lights. SAM: And lights. MATT: Yeah. LAURA: Our place is going to look so fucking cool. MARISHA: With a bistro. MATT: So. MARISHA: We could get piano music. MATT: Since Jester's helping you, I'll have you guys both roll a d20, and then I'll say add your wisdom modifier. TALIESIN: Okay. ASHLEY: Can the lights change colors? SAM: Hi, we just moved in! MARISHA: -- customs! LIAM: We're the Griswolds. SAM: We are the Griswolds. TALIESIN: 19. MATT: 19? LAURA: 12. MATT: That's fine. Yeah, so there wasn't, there was no catastrophic failure. In the process, you didn't waste your materials in the time spent. So over this period of time, you begin to take thick cording, and a series of glass jars, and you instill each one of these jars upon where it connects with it, with an element of the Daylight spell. So opposed to the one singular globe of energy, you produce a string of lights with, I would say, between the two, a total of close to 100 feet of tiny Daylight orbs. LIAM: ♪ Deck Xhorhas with balls of Daylight ♪ (electricity sparking) MATT: Dividing it in half, you can go all about the canopy of the tree, and that should be sufficient daylight to maintain the tree, and the other half of it you can take through the garden you're beginning to build within the stone top of the tower. TALIESIN: Around all the stones, and put them in so-- LAURA: I think we should do a canopy of lights, you know what I mean, so it goes around the branches, down to, like-- TALIESIN: Yeah, the hope is so we're not putting light out, we're bringing light in. This is all about keeping it in. We don't want to be-- ASHLEY: Oh, it's on the underside? MATT: This process takes about a week for them to put all that together, and as you're doing it, the neighbors do come by and look, and are confused, and then once they go up, the confusion and mistrust turns into awe and jealousy. (laughter) TALIESIN: I'm going to be making it very clear that I'm going to be making things that are edible, and that we are going to be sharing with the neighbors, is another-- TRAVIS: It won't help. TALIESIN: I know. LIAM: On day two of this marathon, Caleb transcribes Teleportation Circle into his spell book. MARISHA: Oh my god, oh my god! (laughter) SAM: Where can you send something? LIAM: I have to know where a sigil is. SAM: And the only one we know is in-- LIAM: Is in Nicodranas. SAM: Okay, okay. LIAM: Well, and there's one here as well, but we'll-- MATT: You've seen three, technically. So by memory, you can remember all three. You've sketched one down, which is the one that you saw in Yussa's place, but there were two that you passed by in Asarius and, when you arrived-- LIAM: Jumped to, right. LAURA: So we could jump to any of those. LIAM: Asarius to the Empire. MATT:So those the three that you know are-- Yeah, you have none for the Empire. LIAM: I just misspoke-- MATT: Yeah, no worries, yeah, you have Nicodranas, Asarius, and Rosohna. Those are the three that you know. LIAM: Just as long as I have them in here, I have them. MATT: Correct, you can write them down in, for when the 30 days are up, so you don't forget. But I'd recommend that. LIAM: Okay, it's done. MATT: Okay. LIAM: 72 days of putting up Christmas lights, it's done. MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: I drop my shit in my room. I get the wooden shutters up. With the time that's left, can I check out our neighbors? Are there any shops or fortune tellers, or anything strange in our immediate vicinity-- what? TALIESIN: No, it's good. It's good to know if you live in a walkable neighborhood. TRAVIS: That's what I'm saying, it's important. Is there sushi on my corner or not? Pizza, what do we have? TALIESIN: If you don't use them, it's how you lose them. MATT: All right. So looking around the area, there are no shopping districts in the Firmaments. It tends to be mostly residential and religious. There are structures for places of worship for the Luxon. You do see a few shrines that look-- sitting out for other gods outside of Luxon, but they look largely in disuse, and just there as part of the decor. It's the equivalent of seeing a giant crystal cathedral, and then a couple of small, little installations at a nearby park. The places you do come across: there is the fine clothing establishment, which is where you guys got your outfits designed when you first made those custom orders, and some of the places that did the repairs and changes to the house that you requested, such as your shutters, but most of the mainstream commerce, depending on what you're looking for, would be further in near the Gallimaufry, or out to the Coronas. TRAVIS: Coming in out of the house, just the front door, anybody watching us? Following, keeping an eye on the house? MATT: Make a perception check. TRAVIS: Seven. MATT: Best you can tell, I mean, people are definitely paying attention. You're the new neighbors. The glimpses they get are of a non-drow, half-human crew of people that just wandered into one of the richer districts of the city without introduction, and have raised a 60-foot tree covered with Christmas lights. So yeah, there's a lot of eyes on your house. People walk by constantly, and when they don't think anyone's watching, look through the windows. So, you know, like-- LIAM: Frat house at Christmas. MATT: Yeah, you guys, you guys are definitely a curiosity in this neighborhood. TRAVIS: Tune to 96.3 AM to-- (laughter) (laughter) LIAM: We're just going to get some new clothes and blend in. MATT: Yeah, not so much. Yeah, the two neighboring buildings. There's one very nice house. A similar design, if a little bit larger than the one that you guys are in, to the right that nobody's home. It looks like it's closed up and locked up. The folks are not there, at least not there for now. And definitely no tree. The house to the left, which is equal in size, if not a little bit smaller, but very finely detailed. There is carved scrolling and lattice in all the corners of the building's construction. A lot of work and time has gone into the antique-like tiny details in the edges of every joined piece of wood for the structure. There is a family there. There is a drow diplomat and a historian. Him and his family, known as the Bilan family. TRAVIS: Bilan. MATT: You meet Lord Bilan. He is, well, a little more prominent in the overall dynamic of the city. He's interested to hear about you, and what all you're doing here. Upon first meeting, he gives you a look over, and goes, "So "if you could possibly tell me how, why are you, "why are you here?" TRAVIS: We are honored guests of the Bright Queen. We have traveled far to return an item of great importance, and it is important to her and the Dynasty that we keep an eye on things. It's always good to have a third party, and make sure that your interests are looked after. MATT: "Very interesting, okay. "And you are?" TRAVIS: My name is Fjord. I feel like I should ask, do you belong to a particular regarded den? MATT: "I do belong to one of the dens, yes." TRAVIS: Oh, I didn't mean to impose, I just figured that might be a good thing to know about our neighbors. MATT: "And now you do." TRAVIS: Yep. MATT: "If you require anything as "friends of the Bright Queen, "ask and we'll see what we can do." TRAVIS: I appreciate that. Likewise, if we make too much ruckus, or if you see shit growing out of the top of our house, you just come over and knock, okay? MATT: (slow knocking) TRAVIS: Yeah, that, mm. Yeah, I walked into that. Anything else, you just let us know. MATT: "Will it be that all the time?" TRAVIS: I think that's how trees work. (laughter) MATT: "It's a pleasure to meet you, Fjord." TRAVIS: It is nice to meet you, too, Lord Bi-- MATT: The doors close. LIAM, MARISHA, and TALIESIN: (Drawn-out) Bye! TRAVIS: ♪ All my friends-- ♪ LIAM: We have diplomatic immunity. (laughter) MATT: Making a splash already, all right. (laughs) SAM: Matthew, if we have some time. MATT: Yes? SAM: I would probably bother Jester a few times to use Sending, or send a message. LAURA: Of course, of course. SAM: To Luc and/or Edith, who is watching Luc. LAURA: What do you want to me to say? SAM: How are you, are you alive, how's, they're in Alfield, right? MATT: They're in Alfield, that's where he sent them, yeah. SAM: How's Alfield? LAURA: I do that. How are you? Are you alive? Are you in Alfield still? How is Alfield? SAM: Yeah. LAURA: Yeah? SAM: Your dad and mom are together. LAURA: Your dad and mom are together again, they love you so much, they're so happy! MATT: Luc responses to the message, it's like, "Yeah, it's okay. It's been fine. It's a little boring. "There's a lot of people coming in and out of town. "There's a lot of, a lot of coast folk." LAURA: Coast folk? MATT: Edith responses to your... TALIESIN: 93 FM, The Coast. MATT: Yes, exactly. "Well, everything's been fine. We've been looking "over your boy, and "all this, this war business is just getting-- "folks are just tense." LAURA: Folks are tense. SAM: Coast folk? LAURA: Yeah, oh, that reminds me. Matthew. MATT: Yes? LAURA: Would I know what the gold mercenary-- SAM: Oh, yeah. MATT: Make a history check. TRAVIS: The what? SAM: Yeah, he mentioned, he mentioned this last game, right? LAURA: Oh, come on! MATT: As the epitome of super indoor kid, with that natural one, unfortunately, you do not have a lot of knowledge regarding some of the other smaller factions that might be wandering the coast. LAURA: I'm going to go ask Fjord about it. MATT: Okay. LAURA: Fjord, do you know anything about the gold--? TRAVIS: Why do you have paint all over your forearm? LAURA: I'm a painter, Fjord. This is what happens when you paint. TRAVIS: Okay. LAURA: Do you know anything about the gold mercenary guys? (laughter) TRAVIS: Gold mercenary guys? LAURA: What was it? Did you write it down? SAM: I did not. It was something like the gold shield, or something. ASHLEY: The Gold Chain Mercenary-- LAURA: The Gold Chain Mercenaries! Do you not know anything about them? They're from the coast. My mom mentioned that a lot of them are coming into Nicodranas because of the war and stuff. MATT: Make a history check. TRAVIS: (elephant noise) ASHLEY: Is that what they're called? LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it. Gold Chain. TRAVIS: (clicks) Natural 20. (cheering) MATT: So-- MARISHA: That was so good! MATT: What first was a-- okay, yeah. (laughter) TALIESIN: You dated one in high school. MATT: Yeah. So what at first was a group of disgruntled Zhelezo that were hired by, or worked under the Clovis Concord, eventually managed to buy out their contracts, and began to be a, essentially a bodyguard service for more wealthy nobles, and folks that needed to travel through pirate-infested waters. You've not had any personal encounters with them directly, but you've seen them. They usually have a signal notch, the single thick gold chain, whether it's actual gold, or if it's just plated to look like it, you're not sure. But it usually involves a gold chain around the neck, and a gold chain that dangles from the sword. They wrap it around the hilt that links to the pommel and dangles, and that's their calling sign, to be seen in public spaces. Usually when you see one, and if it's alone, they're for hire, if they're with somebody, stay the hell away. It's the general sign for it, because they're on somebody's watch. There's not, at least last you heard, not an insane amount, maybe a couple hundred across the entire coast, but that, you know, is years ago. And who knows, in the ways of war, there could be more that have joined their band. However, they're expensive, and they're ruthless, and they-- that's why when you see them, you stay away. Those that can afford them usually have reasons for needing to pay for top-line mercenary work, to keep watch on them, and as the tales say, for every Gold Chain Mercenary that's felled in combat, or by an assassin, there's 100 that he left in his wake before his days came to an end. They're pretty intense. TRAVIS: Is it like a guild, or is there a top Gold Chain, like an elder chain? MATT: Well, Mr. Natural 20, which brings you to a total of what, with your history? TRAVIS: With history, it is a 22. MATT: 22, okay. You're not sure who's in charge of it currently. There was somebody in charge, but they were-- they disappeared into Darktow about ten years before. And since then, they haven't, they haven't formally announced a particular organizer, whether that be because they don't have one, or because it's too much of a target on one person's head, based on what may have happened to their previous leader, but they seem to activate as an autonomous group, and no one really knows how they communicate. They tend to be pretty secretive about their internal business, and those that are sworn to become-- to join the team are very much under a kind of secrecy of business type ordeal. TRAVIS: Jester, I'm glad you asked. "Blech", and I give her all that. MATT: All right, there you go. LAURA: Okay. TRAVIS: Yeah. So secretive, deadly, expensive. LAURA: Wow, a lot of them are around my mama right now. TRAVIS: Well, that's good, that means she'll be safe, right? Did she ever hire anyone? LAURA: No. She's never hired one or anything. TRAVIS: I'm sure she's performed for them, though, right? I mean, she's got to be beloved. LAURA: Well, I don't know. I mean, I think I remember seeing Gold Chains and stuff when I was growing up, but I don't know for sure. Anyway, how are you doing here, Fjord? TRAVIS: Hey, no, I'm great. Do me a favor. I do not require any color in this room. Just leave her be. LAURA: I figured. I thought about making an ocean mural in here for you, but-- TRAVIS: No, it's all right. LAURA: You seem to be a little uncomfortable with the water right now. TRAVIS: Uncomfortable with the water? Haven't really been around much water. LAURA: Yeah, that's what I mean. We ran away from it. TRAVIS: Who ran away? We ran away from it. LAURA: That's what I said. We ran away. TRAVIS: Oh, oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm fine. I've never been this far away from our neck of the woods. LAURA: Yeah? TRAVIS: Yeah. LAURA: This is, you know. I mean, I'm just guessing here, but have you ever had a house before? TRAVIS: No. LAURA: How do you feel in the house? TRAVIS: Well, my own room's pretty strange. LAURA: Yeah. TRAVIS: Yep. Take it a little bit at a time. I moved in, like, (snaps fingers) tout suite. Yeah. It's cool, I guess. LAURA: You're right next door, so if you're lonely or anything, you can just knock, or I can draw a little hole in the wall. TRAVIS: Jester, there doesn't need to be any damn hole in the wall, all right. I don't know if you've heard, but Beau snores like a son of a bitch. It's canon. (laughter) MARISHA: I'll allow it. TALIESIN: It sounds like a what? It sounds like a cannon? TRAVIS: (snoring) Like the jaw's open and to the right. It's never opened. It's like-- LAURA: I know, I room with her all the time. TRAVIS: Yeah. LAURA: I don't mind. TRAVIS: Yeah, I can't stand it. (clears throat) MARISHA: Glad I'm not rooming with you, then. You're missing out on my sick fucking abs. LAURA: I just wanted to make sure and stuff. TRAVIS: Yeah, thanks. LAURA: Yeah. Okay. LIAM: All done? I have a few people I need to corner. MATT: All right. LIAM: Specifically. MATT: Okay. LIAM: Yeah. The first one is this one. MATT: All right. LIAM: So on one of our free days here, while they're still hanging Xhorhas lights, I catch you, bring you into the laboratory. SAM: Yes. LIAM: Okay? This is for you. I got these for you. SAM: Amazing! LIAM: So they're at your disposal. SAM: I'm going to use it right now. LIAM: What are you going to make? SAM: I've got a bonafide chemist with me right now. MATT: He's over in the corner, like, "I don't know if you noticed, "but I've been here the whole time." LIAM: That's fine. You're-- I don't mind-- MATT: "It's a nice setup. I get it at lot. It's fine." SAM: We're going to make a bunch of shit. LIAM: What's first? MATT: "What do you want?" SAM: I've got-- well, I'm going to have to get some more supplies. But I need-- if you could somehow make these crossbow bolts, like a flare. MATT: "Interesting." SAM: Like some sort of substance that would burn up slowly and make a bright light as I fired it into the air. MATT: "Yeah, we could totally do that. "We just need some sulfur, "probably some bat guano." SAM: He's very good. MATT: "Some-- fashion a saltpeter-type substance." SAM: Wouldn't mind, wouldn't mind making a-- I heard about these little bags of things you throw down and it makes the ground all icky and sticky. It slows people down. MATT: "We could try and work something "like that out, maybe. Okay." LIAM: You two are dangerous together. SAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and anything you want, too, Caleb. LIAM: I will get back to you on that, if that's all right. MATT: "I'm not going anywhere." LIAM: Okay. SAM: Maybe even a smoke bomb or two. I don't know what we have time for. MATT: "Let's give it a shot." SAM: Yeah. TALIESIN: What would Batman do? LIAM: I did have a specific question for you. Something that I've been putting off for a while, because we had bigger things on our plate, but a while back, you mentioned a specific letter. SAM: Oh. LIAM: That you wrote on my behalf, or...? Tell me again, because I remember what you said, but I'm not sure I understand what you said. SAM: I felt extremely guilty. At the time I thought that I was being helpful, trying to get you some sort of connection with your past. But I didn't know that your past was-- LIAM: Did you get the sense from my story that I had fond connections of that past? SAM: Of her, yes. LIAM: But what did you say? SAM: I didn't-- I wrote a letter, not even to the girl, Astrid, but I think it was to her school, if I remember correctly. LIAM: From whom? SAM: From an interested party that was unnamed. LIAM: Did you, did you name anything, list anything that we have any connection to? SAM: I think I said something, and I could be wrong about this, if only I had your keen memory. Jester, get in here! LAURA: Hmm? SAM: Oi, oi, Jester, why is there paint all over you? LAURA: I'm making some modifications. What is it? SAM: You helped me with this. You helped me write this letter to Astrid. LAURA: What are you talking about? SAM: There was an Astrid. We wrote a letter to Astrid. LAURA: What are you talking about? SAM: Remember? This was a while back. We were in Zadash, I want to say? LIAM: One moment. You have explained Astrid to Jester? LAURA: You talked to me about Astrid. LIAM: (weakly) Some. LAURA: Yeah. SAM: I just-- LIAM: You didn't-- she didn't say-- SAM: Was it a secret? LAURA: -- who Astrid was. She just said Astrid, and I just wrote it. If you-- if there's something I'm not supposed to know or something-- SAM: I didn't know it was such a secret-- LAURA: But you said the name. SAM: I thought she was an old friend of yours from when you were a student. LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: Yeah, yeah. LAURA: You seemed like you liked her a lot, Caleb. LIAM: Yeah. LAURA: That's all. LIAM: Yeah, okay. SAM: I just inquired about her whereabouts as an interested party. I think we said something about being relatives, needing to contact her for some sort of-- LAURA: Yes, yes, we said that we were going to offer her a lot of money or something, right? SAM: I think it was an inheritance that we had to find for her. LAURA: That's right. So we didn't say anything about-- LIAM: What about a return address, or? SAM: I believe this was at the Pillow Trove? LAURA: Yes, it was at the Pillow-- you know, we should really go back to Zadash. SAM: I think we said if you have any information, send it to the Pillow Trove. LAURA: (gasps) Oh my gosh! You know what I'm going to do? SAM: What? LAURA: I'm going to Send a message to the owner of the Pillow Trove. MATT: Okay. LAURA: Hi, it's me, Jester Lavore. I used to stay there. Have there been any letters or packages for me? SAM: I was blue. LAURA: I was blue. (laughter) MATT: There's a, there's a mild pause. "Oh, I-- Yes, I recall. "There is a package here, yes." (laughter) SAM: Fuck. (laughter) LAURA: I cast it again. MATT: (laughs) LAURA: Who's the fucking package from, then? SAM: Open it. What's in it? LAURA: Open it up. What is in it? Tell me about it. MATT: "We are not allowed to open packages, "just to deliver them, as is required by senders. "From a Calianna." SAM: What is that? What is that? LAURA: Oh, it's our-- my pen pal. Our pen pal. SAM: Oh, that's right. LAURA: Calianna sent us a package? Oh, we have to go back to Zadash. What if it was baked goods or something? I bet they're really gross now. MATT: "There is also a letter, it seems." LAURA: There's a letter. There's a letter. SAM: Ask if there's-- use your fucking spell again. LAURA: Okay, I send-- TALIESIN: Don't you need that stone-- nevermind. LAURA: I Send another message. Who's the letter from? Is it for, is-- SAM: Open it. LAURA: Open it up. SAM: You have my permission. LAURA: You have my permission. MATT: "I would require the permission in person "to open the letter. It is from the Soltryce Academy." (gasping) MATT: "It seems official." TRAVIS: Fucking shit. LAURA: It's from the Soltryce Academy. It seems official. TRAVIS: (sings the Terminator 2 theme) SAM: We'll never go back to Zadash-- TALIESIN: Have you seen this wizard? SAM: We'll never go back to Zadash, and if we do-- LAURA: No, we have to go back, because that's where my dad is. SAM: We'll kill the owner. Burn down her establishment, and no one will ever know that we were ever there, or that it exists. LIAM: Did you make any, any mention of any of us, of anyone you know-- LAURA: I think we said our name was Nott-- we said our, that Nott and Lavore, lawyer-- SAM: Oh, we did. LAURA: We put our name on it. LIAM: You used-- you used the name Lavore? LAURA: Maybe not, maybe I didn't. Maybe it was just Nott. LIAM: But did you maybe? SAM: I think maybe we did. LAURA: I think maybe we did. It might have been Nott the Brave, or-- no, that's probably not what we said. SAM: It was like Lavore and Company, Attorneys at Law, or something. LIAM: Let me elaborate a little bit, Jester, Nott knows some of this, but Astrid and other people that I used to know wouldn't-- would not take kindly to finding me, and I worry about any openings that we have made for them. Now, that is mitigated somewhat by the concept that we have revealed ourselves to hidden eyes in front of the Empress, but I-- I worry slightly about your mother, maybe. If you used that name, maybe. TRAVIS: Ms. Lavore of Nott and Brave firm. LAURA: Oh, no. LIAM: Your mother is famous. LAURA: She is. LIAM: Yeah. I don't know. LAURA: Do you think they're going to hurt her? LIAM: Have you spoken to her recently? LAURA: Yeah, yeah, I speak to her almost every night. Every other night-- I go a little long sometimes, and I should call my mama more, honestly. But I did talk to her very recently. LIAM: I want to help you see her, but we should be very careful. LAURA: Okay, but you can take us to Nicodranas whenever we need to go. LIAM: Now, yes. But it's just one layer of complication. Maybe. LAURA: Okay. SAM: I'm sorry. I just wanted to you to have a friend. LIAM: I have friends. SAM: Well, you didn't then. LAURA: Yeah, at the time, it was really touch and go. SAM: You're really standoffish, and-- (laughter) This was a while back. LAURA: I think this was right after you did the mud on your face thing, and it was-- I felt really guilty. LIAM: Yeah, it's as much my fault as anyone's. SAM: No, no, no, no, don't blame yourself, it's our fault-- LAURA: It's definitely Nott's fault. SAM: Well, I mean, you were there, too, you could have stopped me, you could have stopped me at any moment. LAURA: I didn't know what I was doing, so. SAM: Well, neither did I, you think I know what I'm doing? LAURA: I'm super-- LIAM: It's really all right. I think the time when someone comes to find me is inevitable at this point, but that is possibly one point of entry, so. LAURA: So, but do you like Astrid? LIAM: I did, yeah. Yeah. SAM: Maybe she'll just want to hang out and be friends again. LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: I don't know, for a while, she was the one, but that was a long time ago. Okay. Stumbling away from that one. TRAVIS: That's the only corner you had to-- LIAM: No way, so much as I've been waiting on-- (knocking) MARISHA: Gah. Just hang on. LIAM: Stop snoring and open the door. TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughs) MARISHA: I was napping, you bitch. Yeah. LIAM: When are you intending to get in touch with Dairon? SAM: Oh, yeah. LIAM: Because I don't think we should free ball this any longer, I think we need to bring her in, and I was-- MARISHA: I just slowly close the door on Caleb. LIAM: I'm going to talk to you through the door, and everyone will hear me, or you can let me in, because this is important-- MARISHA: I open the fucking door. LIAM: May I come in? MARISHA: Yeah. LIAM: We-- we need to have some sort of plan, Beauregard. MARISHA: Why, with her? Why? LIAM: With her, who? MARISHA: Dairon. LIAM: Yeah. MARISHA: Why? LIAM: Because we have just made an allegiance with the leaders of a foreign power. MARISHA: Yeah. She does not want you cavorting with them, but we are, for a purpose. I want the Cerberus Assembly to burn, but the Dynasty is not going to stop if they do, and we need something to fill that vacuum, if we have even a chance of doing that. Are Dairon and your Cobalt Soul willing to fill that vacuum to keep the Empire going if we rip the cancer out, as we have spoken of? What are we doing? I mean, I have ideas, but-- MARISHA: I have been going to sleep every night trying to figure that out. I don't know what we're doing. I'm an initiate, I'm-- more or less in training to be an Expositor. LIAM: I think you may have graduated ahead of time, Beauregard. MARISHA: Yeah, I think so, too. I don't know if Dairon would hug me or kill me if she knew what was happening, and I can continue to spin it. I can do that, I can continue to spin it, and let her think that we're continuing to walk the line here, and continue to report. But everything that I report is going to have to be cherry picked and strategic, and the more information I give up, the more I can jeopardize everything we're doing. LIAM: But neither of us are traitors to the Empire. MARISHA: Not yet. LIAM: You and I know what we are doing. And Dairon can give us legitimacy. MARISHA: We just-- We did hand over their super awesome relic that can change time, or make babies, or whatever, that the Empire definitely stole. And now we have a house that was just kind of gifted to us in the capital enemy city. But you're right, we're not traitors yet. LIAM: We have also moved one inch closer to healing a wound, and there are many, many, many steps left. You're here to root out corruption. In our home, you want to root out corruption, Dairon wants to root out corruption. My whole childhood is mired in it, and maybe we work one side, and get what we want on the other. But I don't think we can just run roughshod over the Empire, and do whatever we want, we are going to get killed. MARISHA: We also might get killed here, we are humans in a very unwanted territory. LIAM: Yeah, yeah, we are gambling, to be sure. MARISHA: I think every day is going to be a gamble. LIAM: Well, so what do you want to do? Do you want to keep Dairon on the outside of this, or bring her in? Think about it, you don't have to answer me now, but think about it. MARISHA: I would like to talk to her before we run into each other, because you know how awkward that is when you left it with things hanging, and then you run into each other, and you're like, oh, I meant to call, I swear. Sorry I didn't message you back. So I don't want that that to happen. LIAM: That's all my conversations. MARISHA: Hey. LIAM: Think about it. Think about it. MARISHA: I have a question. It's totally unrelated, I just want to know. Are you in love with Nott? (Laura laughs) LIAM: No. MARISHA: Are you sure? LIAM: Very sure. MARISHA: All right. Because, man, that tension. LAURA: (quietly) Insight check. TALIESIN: (pigeon coos) Sorry. MARISHA: I don't need an insight check, I know. LIAM: Okay, well-- MARISHA: I'm just saying, it got, there was (clicks) some vibes kicking, or some pheromones going on when we were on that moorbounder. LIAM: You are tuned into a specific frequency that is not my frequency. So this is not a good conversation. Thank you, think about that, please. MARISHA: As I close the door, I just whisper to myself, I knew that would get him out of my fucking room. MATT: (laughs) TALIESIN: (snorts and laughs) LIAM: Last thing, and I'll just shut up for an hour. When this guy is out to shop or look around, I'm going to go sit and wait in his room, and wait up for him to come back. TRAVIS: Oh, motherfucker. MATT: Okay. LAURA: When he's doing that, me and Caduceus are turning this area-- SAM: No, no. (laughter) LAURA: Into a spa. TALIESIN: Into a hot tub. We figured out how to set it up. LAURA: We learned how to do it, we're going to do it. LIAM: Did you say spa pub? TALIESIN: We're making a hot tub. MATT: With stone shape? TALIESIN: Oh, yeah. LAURA: With stone shape and create water. TALIESIN: And very easy to just make a little heater-- MATT: That's very easy to do, actually. Well, heater-- LAURA: For underneath it, we're going to make, like, a pizza oven sort of-- TALIESIN: Yeah. So you just have a thing so that the water-- LIAM: Just have a thing so that I can throw a fire bolt in the bottom. MATT: I will say the-- Okay, all right. Okay. (laughter) TRAVIS: "Okay." MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: Create and Destroy Water would be very helpful here. MATT: No, it would be. Okay. One thing to note, too, the central portion of that tower, the roots are growing through the stone. LAURA: Oh, even better. TALIESIN: It's gorgeous. MATT: The spa's on the bottom floor, but I'm just letting you know, on the halfway up-- the actual roof above, where the tree connects with them underneath, there is about a foot and a half of just dozens and dozens of thick roots that are all dangling, through, that are pushed through the stone. TALIESIN: Perfect. MATT: And you build the spa, yeah, you have a spa. Yay 5th level spells. (laughter) First level spells, proper use of magic, all right. TALIESIN: This is where I, this is how I'm getting rid of my frustration, that I can't easily figure out what the hell that sword is, so I need a soak. I just need a soak to relieve the tension. MATT: There you go. SAM: Have you just tried putting the pieces back together? TALIESIN: Not yet, no. TRAVIS: Like that would do it. SAM: It may be magic. LAURA: No, he needs to go north to the elves. SAM: All right. TRAVIS: Elves and the dwarves. MATT: Okay, so you guys take the-- it takes most of the time waiting for you to even-- to create the lights. It doesn't take you too long to make the spa. Between that and the painting, you guys are done with the events until it comes to the time that you're expecting. All right, you had something, Nott? TALIESIN: Worth it. SAM: No, I was just going to chemistry that stuff. MATT: Okay, because you have Yeza helping you, I will say it is intelligence-based, so an intelligence modifier, with your proficiency modifier, with advantage, and an additional, I'll say plus two on top of that, just for having Yeza's help. SAM: Okay. MATT: So your proficiency modifier is plus-- SAM: Four. MATT: Four? SAM: Intelligence, three. MATT: Seven plus two, it's plus nine that these rolls with advantage, so what do you want to create? SAM: Some sort of flare or tracer bolt. MATT: How many do you want to make? SAM: Three. MATT: Three. I would say it would be ten gold worth of materials per bolt, so 30 gold to create the three. SAM: Okay. MATT: Go ahead and make some rolls for me, first one with advantage. SAM: That's cocked. 15 plus all those numbers. MATT: 24, that's with advantage? SAM: Yep. MATT: Yep, so not a problem with creating that. SAM: 13, plus all those numbers. MATT: All right, and the last one? SAM: 10, plus all those numbers. MATT: 19. Okay, yeah, so you make three flare bolts. SAM: Oh, cool. MATT: Essentially what you do is, they have a fuse to the back of it, you ignite the fuse, and then fire upward, and it burns it off as it arcs upward, and it burns off by the time it hits the end of your range on the bolt. SAM: Okay. MATT: So the long range point. SAM: Like 120? MATT: Yes. SAM: Cool. MATT: But it burns along the path. SAM: One tangle foot bag, and one smoke bomb of some sort. MATT: Tangle foot bag-- the materials there, technically they don't have them in here, so we'll be mixing it up as we go. That will act as, loosely an entangle spell. SAM: Okay. MATT: With a smaller ten foot radius, as opposed to a-- SAM: Okay. MATT: Or-- I'm sorry, yeah, I'll say ten foot radius, why not, sure. With a DC of 12, so write that down, a DC of 12, ten foot radius. SAM: Great. MATT: So to create one of those, I'll say 50 gold, with the materials. SAM: Oof, okay. TALIESIN: Welcome to my world. SAM: With advantage, still? MATT: Yep. SAM: 14 plus a bunch. MATT: Plus nine, okay, yeah, DC was 20 on that, so you have one of those. SAM: Okay, great. MATT: And a smoke bomb? I'll say five gold of materials, it's not too much. SAM: Okay, yeah. MATT: So go ahead and try. SAM: 16. MATT: 16? Yeah, totally. SAM: Great. MATT: That's 25. SAM: All right. MATT: So the smoke bomb is an action to use, and until the end of your next round, in a five foot radius around you, you have-- it is heavily obscured. SAM: Okay, just five foot radius, okay, like, five foot on each, both sides? MATT: On each, on each side, yeah, so as you throw it down, and then that area right there becomes heavily obscured. TALIESIN: Where did Batman go? MATT: Yeah, essentially. SAM: I'm just going to enjoy making all of these things over the hours with Yeza, helping him, watching his deft, nimble hands dance across the chemicals. MATT: Though you have a few things, as well, to surprise him with, and the two of you together, it's less-- you notice in the time that you've spent working on your own chemicals, and your adventuring, the dynamic becomes less of chemist and assistant, and more partners. LAURA: Aww. SAM: And can I try one more thing? MATT: Sure. SAM: Like a more controlled, contained fluffernutter? Still not-- no fuse or anything, just something I can throw, and someone else will blow it up, maybe. Or you can throw it, and I can blow it up. MATT: Okay, I will consider it the same as blasting powder or a stick of dynamite. I'll say that'll be 50 gold to try and create. LAURA: That's so much. SAM: Jeez louise, it's worth it. MATT: Well, I--. SAM: Yeah, no, it's fine, I'll take it, I'll take it. MATT: I'm going to go ahead and check one thing. SAM: I don't need this gold to, you know, save my child or anything. It's fine. MATT: That might actually-- MARISHA: Just buy his way into college. TRAVIS: Oh. LIAM: Oh. TRAVIS: Oh. SAM: Hey, I was a superstar on the lacrosse team, according to my pictures. (laughter) And resume. TRAVIS: That's believable. MATT: You go to-- ASHLEY: I just thought that you played soccer. SAM: Yeah, I was really good. LIAM: So yoked. TRAVIS: What position did you play? LIAM: Foot guy. ASHLEY: Quarterback. LAURA: Kicker, the kicker. SAM: The catcher. TRAVIS: Kicker? TALIESIN: The kickoff return. TRAVIS: I hate all of you. SAM: Does anyone else need any chemistry shit? TALIESIN: Just a little help setting up the spa. LAURA: Oh, I need you to look at my hair foil. LIAM: Hair what? TRAVIS: Foil? TALIESIN: Oh, that. LIAM: Do you have a goiter? TALIESIN: She bought some stuff. LIAM: Okay. SAM: We can look at the hair oil. LIAM: Oh, hair oil. LAURA: Yeah, let me know, and make sure it's not gross or something. MATT: (inaudible) SAM: Matt is taking this fluffernutter very seriously. MATT: I would way, sorry, it's-- It would be, it would be 50 gold to purchase. I'm going to say, for materials, though, because you're making it, 25. SAM: Okay. Just saved some money. TALIESIN: Discount. SAM: Fluffernutter. SAM: 13 plus nine. MATT: Yeah, I think-- okay. So you also have a fluffernutter pouch. Which acts as-- the same as dynamite, or blasting powder. SAM: I am so happy. MATT: Okay. SAM: That's it. MATT: All right, so you finished the construction there. Anybody else have anything else they want to accomplish-- SAM: Yash-er? ASHLEY: Yeah, I would love to pick up my bracers, and-- MATT: Yeah, forged, comfortable, they're made to the specifications, and the shapes that Wursh went ahead and-- Wursh crafted for you. ASHLEY: Yes. Is there an enchanter in town, or anything like that? MATT: Make an investigation check. ASHLEY: Okay. LIAM: Yo, girl, pick up my clothes. ASHLEY: Oh, that's right, we all got to pick up our clothes. LIAM: You did, but mine's-- ASHLEY: It's cocked. Where is my investigation? 10. MATT: Okay. Magical enchanting is not a common thing to be found in most areas of the city. I mean, even just the encounter you had with the Invulnerable Vagrant in Zadash was one of the few in the Empire, and only because Zadash is one of the larger cities of the establishment. Asking around, the best information you get is that you probably have to commission somebody at the Marble Tomes Conservatory. ASHLEY: Okay. All right. MATT: Which you could do. ASHLEY: Yeah, which I could-- LIAM: Just head on over. ASHLEY: Yeah. TALIESIN: Head on over to the Marble Tome. ASHLEY: Would anyone like to go to the Marble Tomes? I'm going to head over there for-- I just have to ask some things. LAURA: Yasha I want to so bad, we're just making this spa, and, like-- TALIESIN: This thing is really taking up everything right now. MARISHA: I'll go with you. ASHLEY: Yeah? MATT: So Beau and Yasha are going? TRAVIS: Wait, what are the t-- like a library? LAURA: That's where Waccoh is. LIAM: Yeah, I know. I would go. TRAVIS: I'll go, too, because I'm bored. ASHLEY: All right. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: It's like a reverse shopping episode for you. TRAVIS: I just wanted shutters. (laughter) TALIESIN: I was wondering about that, to be honest. Expecting an explanation. SAM: (as Fjord) Enchanted shutters. MATT: We'll get to that in just a second. LIAM: Yeah, yeah, I'm hiding in his room up there. MATT: You guys arrive-- you recognize from the time that you've been here with Caleb to eventually talk your way through, and find at least one of the guards who was here previously when you had met with Waccoh. MARISHA: Yes, it's the same humans, yes, those humans, yes. LIAM: Yes. MATT: Perfect. (laughter) TALIESIN: Charmed your way in again. MATT: You did. TRAVIS: Is that how you talk to them every time? MARISHA: I'm trying. TRAVIS: Okay. MARISHA: We haven't had a manners lesson in a while. Getting rusty. MATT: All right, so the three of you step into the Marble Tomes Conservatory, you ask for enchanting services. Normally, they are relegated specifically with these times as part of the war effort. They have their approvals you have to go through, because most of the enchanters are currently in the process of developing things for use on the front lines, or any of their various scouting missions, or independent strike crews. However, because you do have the Beacon of the Bright Queen, and depending on the time commitment involved, they say, well, at least have a conversation with one of the enchanters. And they call out for somebody who arrives. You see a very young, fresh-faced dark-elf woman, the equivalent of what you'd expect a late teens human, as far as just bright eyed, and excited. Smooth, young skin. LIAM: (whispers) She's a hundred. MATT: Maybe, you don't know. You're not even there. LIAM: Yes, I am, I thought I went with them. Or did they leave Fjord and Caleb behind? The four of us went walking together. MATT: Oh, you're going-- okay, I thought you said you were still waiting for him. LIAM: That happens at some point in this week-- MATT: Okay, gotcha, all right, so you are joining in, all right. But they step out and, "Hello, I am Enchanter Yun, "and I have been-- this is a curious group." ASHLEY: Hello. LIAM: The most curious, yes, but. ASHLEY: Yes. LIAM: Blessed by-- MATT: "Right?" LIAM: She herself. MATT: "I've heard rumors, people have been talking "of the visitors, yes. "Are you them?" MARISHA: Mm-hmm. LIAM: Some of them, yeah. ASHLEY: Yeah, just a handful. MATT: "I didn't think I would actually get a chance "to see who that is. Oh, you've become quite a-- "quite a conversation piece in the Conservatory." MARISHA: Only good things, I hope. MATT: "Primarily." LIAM: Has Waccoh spoken well of us? MATT: "Waccoh, nobody really speaks to Waccoh, "but there has been rumors spreading of "the human folk, the ex-pats, "helping the Queen." LIAM: Ouch. ASHLEY: Yeah. LIAM: We come with a bit of business, though, our friend here is-- ASHLEY: I have these bracers, and I wanted to see if you could, by chance, enchant them. MATT: "Let me see." ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: "Oh, these are finely made, they are definitely ready "for an-- what sort of enchantment are you looking for, "if I might ask?" ASHLEY: I'm looking for something that would give me a little bit more protection. MATT: "Protective magic, right. More of an abjuration-based." ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: "That could be done, yes. "Something similar to what she is holding right there, maybe?" ASHLEY: Yes, that was the inspiration, so. MATT: "Okay, yes." LIAM: Could you do the same with this precious gold ring? MATT: "Maybe, let me see, yes, something like "that could also be done. I will say it is an expensive "and timely process, a time consuming process, depending "on how much you want to pay, time can be quicker, "because we get more enchanters to help out, "to cut the time in half. "For one such an enchantment here, it would run about-- "3,000 gold pieces." ASHLEY: What if-- MATT: "And would take roughly, "I would say, "about ten weeks." ASHLEY: Ten weeks. MATT: "But, but if-- "if you were to pay an additional, say, "60 percent onto that price, we can have a second enchanter, "and have it done in five weeks." LIAM: That is a little rich for my blood, I will take the ring. Thank you for the information, though. MATT: "No problem. Well, our services are available, "at least as long as you carry those emblems." ASHLEY: What if we did a payment plan situation? LIAM: Layaway. ASHLEY: A layaway. MATT: "Meaning?" ASHLEY: Not to brag, but right now, I could offer you 455 gold pieces. That's all I have, so. It could be to start, and then whenever they're ready, I can come back and give you more money every time I get some. MATT: "Here, I will tell you this. If you could "provide "at least 1,000 gold, "we could begin, and expect the remainder of payment upon completion." TRAVIS: We could do that. MATT: "If you wanted quicker still, for the half time period, "1,500 gold, and a five week creation process. "This is under the expectation that should you not turn up "for the remainder amount, the project is forfeited "to the Dynasty, and it is to be outfitted "to one of our elite soldiers." TRAVIS: What would you say if we were to offer our services for a slight discount on that item? Surely there's some dirty work you need done. MATT: "Me? No, not-- I-- "I spend most of my time and, well, to be honest, "most of my life within these halls since coming of age, but "I'm sure there are means of making coin throughout, "in these times." TRAVIS: Oh, there's no shortage of that, just curious if you needed any particular itches scratched. MATT: "Me, no. I-- "I'm just--" And you see her eyes get a little, a little embarrassed, "I'm, "I'm more of a-- a researcher." TRAVIS: Fair enough. Yasha, I have the other half of that thousand, if you want. ASHLEY: That's a lot of money, Fjord. TRAVIS: Yeah, but. You got to get some fucking protection. You get hit all the time. ASHLEY: Yeah, I do. TRAVIS: Yep. It's almost like I've seen it myself. ASHLEY: I'll pay you back, how about that? TRAVIS: Deal. ASHLEY: Okay. All right, if we leave you 1,000, I'll leave these, and we'll come back for-- I'll bring the rest. MATT: "All right, ten weeks?" ASHLEY: Ten weeks. MARISHA: Maybe we can speed the process a little-- ASHLEY: Maybe we can spreed the process up. LIAM: Throw in a little more later. Catch it up. ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: "All right, yes. "You come back, if there is more money to be put down, "we can definitely hire then an additional enchanter "with the rest of the amount to be given upon receipt. "But like I said, we have to agree "that this payment is forfeit if you do not return "to pick up the item." LIAM: Within the ten weeks. ASHLEY: Within the ten weeks? MATT: "For the full payment, yes." LIAM: Yeah, full payment. ASHLEY: Okay, good to know. LIAM: That is easy for us. ASHLEY: That's fine. We'll make that. MATT: "Very well." All right, so you guys pay the 1,000 gold. ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: Distributed however you see fit. SAM: 1,000 gold? TRAVIS: I got it. SAM: Is Yasha really that important? LIAM: 3k total. TRAVIS: AC? Uh-huh. MARISHA: Is there a public book area? Because I know there's a special book area. Is there a public book area where we can get to in this place, or no? MATT: No. This is-- asking around, you get the sense that this library contains a lot of very sensitive, arcane information that is considered both important, historically. Powerful, as a lot of arcane depositories are. But also-- not suppository. Arcane suppository is another, whole different thing. (laughter) I can see forever. (laughter) But also, if they have any dunamantic elements, those are probably very much considered of interest to anyone directly within the state, or of approved interest. ASHLEY: Do you want Fjord and I to create a distraction? MARISHA and LIAM: No. ASHLEY: Okay. LIAM: No, we are going to earn this the proper way. I, before we leave, write out a handwritten invitation to Professor Waccoh to visit the first Kryn tree house here in Rosohna. MATT: All righty. LIAM: And leave it with this woman. MATT: All right. Okay. As you guys are returning, as you approach the exterior of the house, you see a familiar mantled figure, arms emerge in the front of the cloak. The mantle of Essek is looking up at the tree, and the lights that are currently being strung across the canopy by both Caduceus and Jester in a very precarious and dangerous way, as it is a very tall tree. (laughs) You don't really have a ladder. "This is--" LAURA: I'm definitely up on your shoulders. "You've certainly made it comfortable quickly." MARISHA: Yeah. LIAM: We're making ourselves at home. MATT: "I can see that. "Made a-- made a splash." MARISHA: Do you want to stay for dinner? Caduceus is probably whipping up something delicious and vegan. MATT: "No, I'm quite all right, I have some research to do, "but I appreciate the offer." MARISHA: You want a rain check? TRAVIS: Boy, your face just does not look as inviting as you think it does. MARISHA: Oh, sorry, see I hadn't-- sorry. TRAVIS: Yeah, just get a little pinch on the-- LIAM: What is the nature of your research? MATT: Make a persuasion check. TRAVIS: (sternly) Do you want to come in for dinner? LAURA and MATT: Aww. MATT: "My specialities." MARISHA: Well, would you like to-- (clears throat) Sorry. Would you like to take a break from your research, and maybe just get a drink? LAURA: So scary. LIAM: I start taking notes. TALIESIN: It's like a Batman villain. MATT: "I'm all right, but thank you." MARISHA: All right. MATT: "But, interesting. "Definitely the first." TRAVIS: Do you know anything about our neighbors to the left, the family of Lord Bilan? MATT: "Stuffy sort." TRAVIS: Yeah. Not very talkative, or friendly. MATT: "Well, let's be real, you--" TRAVIS: Yeah, the-- the tree. By the way, I tried to ask, just in case he was also a member of Den Thalen, Thelyss? He didn't volunteer what den he was a part of, is that a faux pas? LIAM: Touchy subject. MATT: "Not particularly, no, but he is from Den Bilan." TRAVIS: Den Bilan. MATT: "The surnames, they're adopted from the dens." MARISHA: But there's four dens, right? There's only four dens? TRAVIS: Got his own cell service, okay. SAM: There's three primary-- MATT: "Three primary dens, and there are--" SAM: And then there's many other dens. MARISHA: There's many dens. MATT: "A dozen dens." MARISHA: Dozens and dozens. TRAVIS: Yeah, Bilan's not one of the main three, though. MATT: "No." MATT: "Thelyss is one." ASHLEY: Do you know who lives-- who our other neighbors are? LIAM: It seems empty to us, but apparently not? MATT: "I'm not too familiar with this neighborhood." TRAVIS: Do I believe him? MATT: Make an insight check. TRAVIS: He knows that there's a team of mercenaries, and they're-- 11. MATT: 11. He seems like he's looking around, not too familiar. He just goes, "I-- I don't know. "I don't live in this area, so." ASHLEY: Where do you live? MATT: "Why do you ask?" ASHLEY: I was just-- I want to know more about you. And get to know the-- the place that we are living in at the moment. What neighborhood? I'm being very forward, I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me, nevermind. SAM: What's your home address? (laughter) SAM: Tell me your address and phone number. MATT: If you don't mind, just throwing it out there. TRAVIS: You don't have to, but if you wanted to write it down-- MATT: "Most of my den live within the Lucid Bastion, "but I spend a lot of my time either researching "dunamantic pursuits within the Bastion, "or within the Conservatory." LIAM: Are those the main avenues for learning such? MATT: "They are the only avenues. "Why do you ask?" LIAM: Well, I am a big learner, I'm curious. I know that we are new here, but I am very interested in tutelage in this field, and you have been privy to our conversations with your queen, and-- MATT: "Show me. "Show me something impressive, show me something "at the height of your power. You are arcanist, yes?" MARISHA: Do you want to go inside for this? Or at least in the threshold of the walls and not be in the street? MATT: "I think if you are, "if you are trained enough to be pursuing such things, "that you would know the limits and the safety "of your capabilities, so. "Show me." LIAM: A translucent cat floats just in front of Essek's face, and (explosion) a gigantic claw flexes in front of Essek, between me and him, and is interposing between me and him. MARISHA: I immediately look around and see if anyone's watching. MATT: A lot of people are watching. TRAVIS: A whole bunch. MATT: I mean-- SAM: This is the third weirdest thing that's happened. MATT: Yeah, it's-- you guys have become the weird neighbors real fast. LIAM: And the cat claw does one of these. MATT: "Interesting. "And, if I might ask, what is it that you're seeking? "What is your ultimate goal? Anyone who pursues such magics, "to an extent, has something that they wish to do." LIAM: I am of middling experience in the traditional sense. What I'm very curious about is the arcane here, in your country. MATT: "Yes, you and many. "Many, many." LIAM: Yes. But as you know, my people are perverting your magic, and we wish to work with you to prevent that, as we have exhibited, and I wish to understand better, so that I can better help. MATT: Make one more persuasion check. LAURA: Ooh, come on-- SAM: Come on, Caleb. Come on, Cay-Cay. LIAM: Just the 12. MATT: Just the 12? LIAM: No-- yeah. SAM: I'll inspire you. MATT: Okay. He looks over and goes, "Are you busy right now?" LAURA: (gasps) MATT: "May I enter?" MARISHA: I invited you twice, but yeah, yeah, go ahead, enter, yeah. TRAVIS: Yes, it would be lovely to have you inside our home. MARISHA: I mean, yes-- MATT: "I wasn't asking you." MARISHA: The fuck? TRAVIS: Next time. LIAM: The cats claw turns sideways, and just one claw hooks into the door, and pulls it open. TALIESIN: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. (laughter) LAURA: Hi, everyone. MATT: He looks up. LAURA: We look down from the tree. SAM: I'm getting out of the hot tub with Yeza. (laughter) Oh, did we have company? TRAVIS: Put 'em away, put 'em away. SAM: Oh-- (laughter) LIAM: A slight bow. Do come in. MATT: He just glides over, and looks toward the closest thing there is to the study that you guys have set up at this time. "A bit empty, but it could work." MARISHA: Do you want that cocktail? Caduceus has been making something with turmeric that's really weird. TRAVIS: Face, face! MARISHA: It's a very refreshing cocktail, perfect for this nice fall breeze. MATT: "Sure." MARISHA: Jesus Christ. Look at that. Did you see that fucking host? I'm a fucking host! Yeah! SAM: Hosting. MARISHA: Hosting. MATT: So-- MARISHA: Take that hospitality. MATT: Essek traces something in the air with his finger, and you-- this slight glow emerges, and you watch from the glow as it pulls out and widens, a tome just apparates into his hand. TALIESIN: Baller. His other hand comes out from under the cloak, and flicks through. "Do you have means of copying? "Let me teach you a few things." (group gasps) MARISHA: Dope! LAURA: Oh, damn. MATT: So he-- he will teach you up to three spell levels of dunamantic magic. (group cheers) TRAVIS: Fucking shit. Don't smile, motherfucker, don't get excited. LIAM: Well, stop flipping out then. MATT: "So this could be three "utility, meager spells of dunamancy, "you have a few things at your disposal. "There is also a few with a slight more kick. "And-- or one, "it is a little more of a influence, if you will. "What is your interest? Are you interested "in things such as "density, gravity, things that manipulate the relationship "between objects? "Are you more interested "in the bending of fate, destiny? SAM: Ding, ding, ding, ding. MATT: "Or do you wish to find ways to "sap and scatter the potentiality of your enemy?" LIAM: Let's go back one. MATT: "All right. "We have--" Offers you these two. TRAVIS: Oh, shit crackers. LAURA: What is it, what is it? SAM: Don't worry, he'll never tell us. LAURA: He'll never tell us. SAM: ♪ I'll never tell ♪ MATT: And so take the necessary time, and the necessary cost of paper and ink to copy those spells into your spell book. LIAM: Okay. MATT: And when you complete, you can see there's plenty of other spells in the book, but he watches you like a hawk. Every time you get interested to peek, you can sense his presence looming, and it's-- you gather you would not want to challenge that trust. Upon the completion of the secondary spell-- LIAM: I can barely afford to do these two, so. MATT: The tome closes, and you watch as it almost seems to spark and scatter away into nothing. LAURA: Wow. MARISHA: (ice cubes clattering) MATT: "Thank you." TRAVIS: Moscow mule? MARISHA: Mm-hmm. MATT: "I'm interested to see what you do with these." LIAM: I need a little bit of time. MATT: "Rudimentary, but they are the beginning building blocks." LIAM: This is a great gift. MATT: "Remember it, there may be a time "where I need to call a favor back in." LIAM: Done. MATT: "Very well." MARISHA: What do you think? LIAM: Would you like a closer look at the tree? MATT: "I'm fine. "And it's not bad. "Unique, is that "turmeric?" MARISHA: Mm-hmm. Caduceus calls it a White Xhorhasian. (laughter) MATT: "Mildly racist, but--" (laughter) LIAM: Shit! (laughter) TRAVIS: Holy shit. Unintended. MATT: The room gets real just quiet, and awkward for a moment, he goes-- (laughter) TRAVIS: Pure intentions. (laughter) MATT: "Enjoy the rest of your evening," and he leaves on that note. TALIESIN: I really would have leaned with a turmeric, or not to turmeric. MATT: Might be a better choice. MARISHA: I was going for the Lebowski pull. TALIESIN: No, I'm aware, yeah. TRAVIS: My college years thank you. TALIESIN: I did a thing today, I know. MARISHA: I did a thing today, yeah. TALIESIN: I'm excited about this shirt. LIAM: Hot. MATT: So, you have that at your disposal. MATT: And we'll say, after the shopping is complete, and Fjord, you've completed a run of some of your work throughout the city, you return, open the door to your chambers, and Caleb is there, patiently waiting. TRAVIS: Goddammit. LIAM: Sorry. TRAVIS: I meant to put locks on that shit. LIAM: Sorry, I can help you out with that, if you wish. TRAVIS: What can I-- what can I do for you? LIAM: Why have you been talking to us with a fake accent for months? TRAVIS: I'm sorry? LIAM: I've heard you do it a few times, I've heard a different voice come out of you. TRAVIS: A different voice? LIAM: Ja, Fjord, a different voice. TRAVIS: I'm-- I'm afraid you've got me a little lost. LIAM: I don't think so. And I am talking to you as one accomplished liar to another. TRAVIS: What do you-- what do you want me to say here? LIAM: I held onto my garbage for a long time, and you don't know all of it, and I am willing to tell you more. I would feel better knowing who you are, because I don't trust that I do. I will tell you more if you want, I will go first, if it'll make it easier for you, or you consider it a better trade, but we have bound ourselves together, and I feel like I know this group pretty well. I know Yasha better than you, and she never fucking says anything. SAM: (whispering) I love you, Ashley. LIAM: (whispering) So do I. LIAM: What do you think, we're going to chase you out of here, run you off? I find it hard to believe that anything you tell me, maybe I'm wrong, but is worse than what is inside my head. TRAVIS: Oh, no, I don't think that's it at all. It is not in me to speak about myself, it appears that the same is true for you. Um. I found myself reinvented when I woke up on that shore, when I wake up at night, spitting up water, it's-- reminders of a time when the rest of my life no longer mattered, didn't apply. I didn't care for that life, didn't care for me. I prefer to leave it in the past. It's not that I'm hiding anything from you, I-- I don't want to bring things from my old life into this one. I can sound like many people, do many things. LIAM: Yeah. But it's just been the one that I've heard, when you think no one is listening. Is that your past? TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah, it is. LIAM: I have dealt heavily with my past. And I worry, now more than ever, that it is nipping at my heels. Do you have worries like that, do you feel like your past will come back to bite you, or is it just painful, and you wish to shun it? Because that is the main reason I ask, this is our family now. And we are looking out for each other, and I have told all of you something I am very ashamed of, because I worry about you all. And maybe I just want to know that you are not worried about something like that, as well. I want to know what's at my back. TRAVIS: You are right, you have been very forthcoming. I admire that. Especially given what you've told us. There is nothing that nips at my heels, or is at my back that is of danger to anyone else in this group. I appreciate you wanting to know more. I almost resent you for telling us as much as you have, anyone for sharing their pain. It seems like the last thing I would ever want to do, and to see it done with such conviction, resistance-- I'll try. Give me some time. I do not want to share this with the group. I feel like sometimes you hold onto things that make you who you are, and if you lose those things, you can fall free. LIAM: I have had those same thoughts for a long time. We can remake ourselves into something better. TRAVIS: Yeah, that's what I-- that's what I thought I was doing. I promise you, here and now, there is no danger from my past. I like this me. I love it. If I would have it my way, none of you would ever know anything about who I was before, and I mean that. I find myself on my heels in this room, please understand, I'm not trying to be deceptive, just let me figure out how the fuck to say it, and let me come to you, and I will feel less like I have been-- less like I've had something taken from me. Let me find a way to tell you. Please. LIAM: All right. That's fair. The only reason people in this group know anything about me is because I am crazy. TRAVIS: I actually don't think you're crazy, you're one of the more put together people I know. At least that's what I see. That's what you show. Thank you for-- I was going to say "caring." LIAM: That's accurate. Give me your hand. I'm not a good person, but we are friends. We are friends? TRAVIS: We are friends. LIAM: All right, to be continued. (laughter) SAM: Was that fire and water mixing? LIAM: That's when we start fighting. (laughter) MARISHA: It was the winds of destiny. (laughter) MATT: All right, you guys are putting the finishing touches, you're filling out the training room, you're finishing on your alchemical components. I don't know what you're doing right now. SAM: Practicing smiling. MARISHA: Yep, going on a bender. LAURA: Petting Nugget while I paint him a dog bed. MATT: There you go. TALIESIN: Figuring out that wasn't turmeric. (laughter) I ran out of turmeric a while ago, so I don't know what you used. I rolled a d20, man. (laughter) LIAM: That's Pop Rocks. TALIESIN: No, I don't know. MATT: Make a perception check for me. SAM: Oh. Oh god, oh god. Could be bad. LIAM: (whispers) Under his eye. TRAVIS: Not great, eight. MATT: Eight. Okay. We're going to go to break. (group groans) SAM: What would it have been? MARISHA: What do you not see? LIAM: Spies everywhere. MARISHA: It's always what you don't see. MATT: So we'll be back here in a few minutes, we're going to take a quick little break here. LAURA: It's the peephole that I painted in the room. MATT: We do have, a Wyrmwood giveaway for the evening. LIAM: Oh, boy. MATT: This awesome Figured Myrtle tabletop tray here, a beautiful wood inlay, leather interior from our friends at Wyrmwood, expertly crafted. Going to one of you lucky winners out there. Tonight's password is patron, P-A-T-R-O-N. So go ahead and enter it once in the chat on Twitch, more than that, you'll be disqualified. Once again, only US and Canada, excluding Quebec, because of stupid laws, but we'll come back here shortly with a winner. See you guys in a second. (upbeat music) ♪ You've got the perfect warlock ♪ ♪ Her weapons and supplies ♪ ♪ But you need a place to track your stuff ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're so disorganized ♪ ♪ You click open the webpage ♪ ♪ You heard about on Critical Role ♪ ♪ And now you're ready to kick some butt ♪ ♪ In a mineshaft full of gnolls ♪ ♪ It's D&D, D&D ♪ ♪ Yeah, D&D Beyond ♪ ♪ Yeah, D&D, D&D ♪ ♪ D&D Beyond ♪ ♪ You got your stats, you got your sword ♪ ♪ And you got your invisible wand ♪ ♪ It's D&D, D&D ♪ ♪ D&D, D&D ♪ ♪ D&D Beyond ♪ BRIAN (VO): Last time on Talks Machina. BRIAN: Look at this sleepy boy, lamb. TRAVIS: Henry! BRIAN: Hey, let him-- let him live, dog. DANI: He completely ignored you. His eyes didn't even open. TRAVIS: I know. That is a true cattle dog. Henry! DANI: Still, his eyes did not even open. TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Henry! BRIAN: Wait, wait. (shushes) Henry. (gasps and awwws) TRAVIS: He loves his daddy's voice. MARISHA: Aww. DANI: That was adorable. BRIAN: All you need to kill-- all you need to kill Caleb's family is a Molotov cocktail. MARISHA: Oh! TRAVIS: You can't hide behind that digital mug forever. BRIAN: Fuck, he's here still. Is he here? TRAVIS: In the lobby. BRIAN: Jesus Christ, someone give me the eyes when I start a joke like that. DANI: We can't stop you whenever you started, Brian. BRIAN: What do you mean? DANI: I've tried. BRAIN: My parents told me the same thing. (slow orchestral music) (slow orchestral music) (off-camera snort) (slow orchestral music) (slow orchestral music) TRAVIS: (laughs) BRIAN: You're the bad guy? MARISHA: I've said several times-- BRIAN: You just said that's what every bad guy does. TRAVIS: Freudian fucking slip. DANI: Oh! BRIAN: Wait a second. Wait a second. MARISHA: The Mighty Nein are the bad guys. I have this-- Travis-- (inarticulate yelling) BRIAN: Oh my god. TRAVIS: Oh, shit! We're going to turn on you before you turn on us! MARISHA: I mean as a team! We're the bad guys. (laughter) BRIAN: Normal socks. Right, Max? MAX: (faint yell) Yeah! (laughter) TRAVIS: ♪ I'm bringing sexy back. Yeah! ♪ (laughter) (laughter) MARISHA: Oh, my, it's just-- that's exactly what it is. (laughter) TRAVIS: ♪ Them other boys don't know how to act ♪ TRAVIS and MARISHA: ♪ Yeah! ♪ TRAVIS (VO): Previously on MAME drop. ASHLEY: I auditioned for Hook. TALIESIN: Did you? ASHLEY: For the daughter, and I got pretty close on it, to the point where I had to, I had to learn a song, because you know how she sings the little song-- TALIESIN: She does. ASHLEY: In the thing. TALIESIN: When You're Alone. ASHLEY: Yes. Wait, how does it go? TALIESIN: I don't, I just know ♪ when you're all-- ♪ That was-- I worked on the soundtrack. ASHLEY: (high-pitched) ♪ When you're all alone ♪ She does that little voice. TALIESIN: I worked on the soundtrack for Hook. ASHLEY: You did? 1994, Milano, Italy. Electronic Devices presents. TALIESIN: (trailer voice) The Federation has expanded his power across the-- (normal voice) The Federation's a guy. ASHLEY: His power? Okay. TALIESIN: (trailer voice) Trading between the worlds has-- ASHLEY: Been "pacefully" for a long time? TALIESIN: But now the pirates are breaking down the pace. ASHLEY: Oh, no. TALIESIN: Now his secret base has been discovered, and is the time to stop. ASHLEY: Oh, this is weird. TALIESIN: This is-- I'm so into it. ASHLEY: Hombit world. All right. TALIESIN: (laughs) Oh, no. ASHLEY: Level one. TALIESIN: All right, there's a big explosion. There's a second button. All right. (lasers ping) Oh, lord, this is really hard to play. ASHLEY: This is-- what a weird. Am I supposed to-- oh, we already killed those things, okay. TALIESIN: Floor is lava! Floor is lava! ASHLEY: Wait, I want to get these bullets. Get in that room, get in that room. TALIESIN: I'm Superman in this game? ASHLEY: Oh. Are they both good, or both bad? TALIESIN: They're both good. ASHLEY: Okay. TALIESIN: I mean, they're both Supermen. ASHLEY: Oh, so we're playing together. TALIESIN: So you are the, you are the one in the red suit with the white cape. ASHLEY: Okay, that's a punch. TALIESIN: And then there's a kick button. ASHLEY: Oh, there's a kick? Oh, that's a-- TALIESIN: I don't think there's anything else yet. ASHLEY: That is the kick? TALIESIN: Yeah, his kick is lame. I am the best artist is what that-- ASHLEY: What does that say? TALIESIN: It says, I am the best artist. ASHLEY: (laughs) What does that thing in the back say? TALIESIN: (sounding out letters) ASHLEY: Get out of here. Scram. TALIESIN: I'm not entirely sure. ASHLEY: Don't get crazy. TALIESIN: Oh! ASHLEY: Oh, come on! TALIESIN: That's not what I wanted! That's not what anybody wanted. ASHLEY: Okay, okay, that's fine. No! No, you had three left! TALIESIN: (laughs) ASHLEY: You need to do it again. You got so close. TALIESIN: It's a wonderful addition to the machine. ASHLEY: God, what a great sticker. TALIESIN: I know! ASHLEY: Do you want Dubble Bubble, or do you want Jolly Rancher? TALIESIN: I always go with Dubble Bubble, personally. ASHLEY: Go Dubble Bubble. I'll go Jolly Rancher. TALIESIN: Thank you guys so-- what? BRITTANY: Hey, are you, are you guys still here? Are you guys still here after last time? ASHLEY: What time is it? BRITTANY: Seriously, seriously, you guys know that being here after hours is a liability. TALIESIN: Did you deputize a llama? ASHLEY: It's a liability? BRITTANY: Yes, it's a liability, so get out. Clear out. ASHLEY: Oh my god. BRITTANY: Get out. TALIESIN: Apparently we've been invaded by puppets. This has been a wonderful MAME drop. ASHLEY: That's not a puppet, that's-- BRITTANY: You guys, you got five minutes. TALIESIN: That's a critter. ASHLEY: That's a, who is that? BRITTANY: Get! Get! ASHLEY: That was-- who was that? TALIESIN: I feel like I should know that character, like off the top of my head. (birds chirp) SAM: I'm a fan of hot air balloon rides above the Venetian countryside. I'm a fan of Momlan. She's always got my back. I'm a fan of wine older than Taliesin. I'm a fan of Twitch subscriptions. I'm a fan of emotes by ArseQueef. They're neat. I'm a fan of a wife so cool-- SAM: (distorted) People forget I exist. Exist. (more distorted) Exist. (bird caws) (explosion) (creepy ambient sounds) (creepy ambient sounds) (baby cries) (heartbeat) SAM: I'm a fan of-- ("Spring" by Vivaldi) ("Spring" by Vivaldi) ("Spring" by Vivaldi) (slow rock music) MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome back. So first, we have our winner of our giveaway, it is, congratulations to Wombandonly. TRAVIS: Womandonly? MATT: Woman-- The Womand Only, The Womand Only? The Womb and Only. The Womb Man Donly. There's a lot of ways this could get pronounced. Anyway, congratulations. We'll get this sent to you as soon as possible. (laughs) ASHLEY: Just add a little accent. MATT: I know, that was great. (overlapping quiet chattering) All rightly. (overlapping quiet chattering) So we're back from break, is there anything else you wanted to do, any other preparation? Any other deeds taken care of? TALIESIN: Just for irony's sake, I was just curious what happens if I lay the blade next to the broken long sword. Does it auto, does it just, like-- MATT: Okay, so. TALIESIN: I can tell when you're-- MATT: Take the handle and hilt-- what? TALIESIN: Go ahead, carry on. MATT: He does that thing. TALIESIN: For years now. MATT: I know. TALIESIN: I'm learning. MATT: You are. TALIESIN: Trying. MATT: You need to change it. TALIESIN: I know. MATT: Have to adapt. I have to change. LIAM: Four days later, I realize that Frumpkin never was able to climb down from the tree, so I summon him. TRAVIS: (meows) (mixed meowing) MATT: The neighbor's like (groaning). (laughter) TRAVIS: What is that noise? LIAM: That den next door hates us. TRAVIS: (meows) ASHLEY: I actually wanted to take a peek at that sword. TALIESIN: It's upstairs. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: You're up there all the time, anyway. LIAM: Did you get anything from the Legend Lore? TALIESIN: I don't have the money to, like-- that's a, that's a process. SAM: Spent it on Sunlight for his tree instead. LIAM: We'll get there. TALIESIN: This is better. MATT: So yeah, so you wanted to inspect it? ASHLEY: Just look at it, yeah. MATT: Okay. It's beautifully made. It is, looking at the size of the blade, it is a long sword. ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: The way it's snapped or broken looks less like a stress break, and more internal, like something severed it from the inside of the metal, meaning whatever shattered it, shattered it through means beyond just forceful snapping. There are a number of runes across each side of the blade. Both parts are extremely lightweight for most metals that you've dealt with, and weapons that you've dealt with. The actual elements of it that are designed, scrolling of it, it looks almost, acid marked in places, but it, where it looks like there's textures, and has shifting in the way that the light plays off the metal, that looks, at first glance, like it could be imperfect, but in looking, it's all meticulously, intentionally placed to be a pattern. So it's beautifully designed, Damascus-esque in places. ASHLEY: Okay. Okay. MATT: Anyone else? Anything else? SAM: Has it been 13 days yet? MATT: If you'd like to jump ahead, we can. MARISHA: Well. Let's have a, let's have a meeting. Let's figure out the plan. SAM: How many days has it been? MATT: It's been, I'd say it's been about eight days. You have two days out. From everything you guys were preparing and doing, the conversations, the shopping, it's been about eight, pushing on nine days. You're about a day or two away from this date. MARISHA: I'd like to scout. SAM: Scout what? MARISHA: Scout the place. SAM: Oh, like the Rusted Crow, or whatever it's called? MARISHA: The Overcrow, yeah. SAM: We went there once. TALIESIN: We did. SAM: We went there once. TALIESIN: We did. MARISHA: I wasn't with you. SAM: Oh. MARISHA: I don't think. ASHLEY: We just saw the interior, we didn't-- not all of it. I feel like we still could-- TALIESIN: Sparse. There was also-- LAURA: Mm. TRAVIS: Overcrow. LAURA: Will you look at my hair oil really fast, though? Ask Yeza, too. SAM: Yeza, what's in this hair oil? MATT: "I have to, I have to check," and he goes and uncorks it, and takes it to the alchemical station, and begins taking some of the elements of it, and testing it with-- LAURA: Don't waste it, though, because it was pretty expensive. SAM: He doesn't waste anything. He just needs to use a little bit. MATT: "Yeah, I have to use a little bit to actually test it." And he goes through the process. It takes about an hour or so for him to run a couple tests, and then-- SAM: Don't micromanage my husband. He's fine. (laughter) MATT: He turns to you. "I'm not entirely certain what it is. "It appears to be an oil derived from some sort of "an organic fat, so it probably, at one point, "was largely a base taken from a creature. "There's nothing caustic or dangerous about it, "and I guess it might work as a pomade, "or at least a scalp oil." LAURA: Nice. MATT: "So it's-- you're safe to use it, I guess." LAURA: Thank you so much, Yeza. SAM: Thank you, Yeza. (kissing) MATT: "You're welcome," and he carefully, maneuvers around the teeth. LAURA: You spent your time here figuring how to kiss. That's great. SAM: We almost got it. Some things you don't need to kiss-- LAURA: I'm going to use this every night we're here. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: You guys notice, the following morning, a very, very unique sheen to Jester's hair. ♪ Simply irresistible ♪ MATT: It's shiny, it's full. It does carry a smell. And by the second day, it's starting to just turn greasy. LIAM: My, how the tables have turned. (laughter) LAURA: It's going to grow really fast, because of the stuff, you guys. TALIESIN: You're looking very sharp. LIAM: Do you want it to grow? MARISHA: Caduceus, do you have any incense or something for our room? Would you mind? TALIESIN: I got a little bit, actually. I do. LAURA: I pull my hair up in a top knot for a while, just to keep-- Oh, like you, Beau! Look, we have Twinkie hairs now. MARISHA: Yeah, just like me. TRAVIS: Maybe stay away from open flames for a hot second-- SAM: Or animals. TRAVIS: It looks like you'll go right up. LAURA: Nugget really likes me right now, though. MATT: Nugget's off in the corner. (whining) LAURA: Aww. What about you, Sprinkle? MATT: Sprinkle's fine with it. MATT: Sprinkle's rolling in it. LAURA: I feel like Sprinkle's, like, dead. (laughter) MATT: And has been for weeks. (laughter) SAM: Drowned, burned. (laughter) LIAM: What do you think, Sprinkle? (ghoulish voice) "I'm fine." MATT: I will say-- (laughter) MATT: I will say, Sprinkle does look pretty rough. (noises of sympathy) MATT: What started as a smiley creature is now a little skittish. (laughter) LAURA: Oh, Matt. I scarred my Sprinkle? ASHLEY: What does it smell like? MATT: Right now, it smells like the pomade. Sprinkles is a, Sprinkles is a tough beast, but definitely is a little more world weary than when you first-- LAURA: I put Sprinkle in the tree, and make him a nice weasel nest. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: What's a weasel nest? Well, I mean, there's already some stuff to get around in the tree. We've got some ropes-- MATT: You construct what you assume a weasel nest would look like. Make a nature check. ASHLEY: It's like a hammock. LAURA: This is good. Nature, three. MATT: So. (laughter) TALIESIN: No! No! (laughter) MATT: You made this beautiful mud and thatch, like an egg hut that you place up in one of the branches. LAURA: Here, weasel. Sprinkle. (laughter) MARISHA: You've forgotten his name! TRAVIS: Yep, he's one step away from death. LIAM: This is like-- my ten-year-old daughter collects arts and crafts pieces and makes fairy houses out on the trees in the back, it's just construction paper, boxes. TALIESIN: One rain away from being mush. MATT: Roll an animal handling check. MARISHA: He has no identity anymore! TRAVIS: There you go, thing. (laughter) MATT: So, (laughter) so, you guys hear this-- you hear this series of squeaks from above the house. You go up and check, and Jester is trying to force this weasel into the house that she worked so hard to make. LAURA: You'll like it. MATT: (unhappy squeaking) Until eventually (thunk) gets him inside of it. LAURA: Do you like it in there? MATT: (angry chatter) (laughter) LIAM: It's definitely the dragon's first weasel hut. MATT: The big bad has been revealed. (laughter) TRAVIS: It will have its revenge. TALIESIN: Ow. Ow. LAURA: I catch some of the-- What do weasels eat? I still don't know what weasels eat. TALIESIN: Make an animal handling check! LAURA: Would I have known if I had figured it out by now? MATT: By your nature check you made earlier-- TRAVIS: Nope. MATT: It doesn't seem to be liking leaves. LAURA: No, I'm going to catch some rats down in the basement, and I'm going to try to feed him that. LIAM: Jeez, cannibalism. MATT: Okay, you throw some rats in there. TRAVIS: Rats are half the size of it. LAURA: I gave him little chunks of rat! TRAVIS: You're literally throwing some cousins in there. LAURA: I give him some rat chunks. Then I'll try some bugs next. TRAVIS: Here, human, eat this teenager. (laughter) You must be hungry, here's a leg. LIAM: Chop, chop, chop, chop. Foomph, foomph, foomph. TRAVIS: Holy fuck. MATT: ♪ Tell me, is it good, sir, it's too good, at least ♪ (laughter) TALIESIN: Ow! MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Holy shit. Dying. MATT: We'll say-- LAURA: Oh, big prey or mammals, rabbit size or smaller. Fuck you guys, he would love the rats. I wouldn't, I'm not, fuck you, fuck-- SAM: Fuck you, Ashley. LIAM: You specifically, Ash, you-- MATT: That'll teach you! TRAVIS: Fuck you, you're cool, fuck you-- LIAM: Give me that-- TRAVIS and ASHLEY: Fuck you. TALIESIN: This fell apart so quickly. MATT: Yeah. LIAM: Oh boy. This is real D&D, guys. MATT: So anyway, skittish and reserved, in a strange land after some wild adventures, Sprinkle has been forced into an uncomfortable home, and is staying there for the time being. Eventually, you do hear some eating sounds, out of necessity. TRAVIS: Sobbing. (crying) LAURA: You don't have to stay in there, I just thought you would like it, but if you don't like it, you can come on out any time. MATT: (chewing) LAURA: I think he's really mad at me. SAM: That's okay, give him some time, he just needs to blow off some steam. TALIESIN: She knows you're really mad. That's okay, you stay up there as long as you need. LAURA: Yeah, help me out, Caduceus, okay? TALIESIN: I just did. ASHLEY: Maybe he's starting to like it. SAM: Yeah! TALIESIN: Well. (laughter) SAM: It's a tree house tree house. MATT: All righty. (laughs) So well done. (laughs) SAM: All right, what's our plan? MARISHA: We need a plan. TALIESIN: There was a-- LIAM: Let's go to the war room. MARISHA and LAURA: Yeah, let's go to our war room. TRAVIS: Oh, man. MATT: You guys travel to your war room, which has a table and chairs, that's it, the walls are still plain, that is your war room. MARISHA: We need to decorate the war room. LAURA: Just tell me what you want, just tell me. SAM: Let's focus on the war and not on the room. So are we going to stake it out for another four days? At some point, I would like to reconnect my husband with our son, or possibly-- We all made this trip, how far was Alfield from Nicodranas? LAURA: A couple weeks. SAM: Oh, fuck, all right. (laughs) LAURA: Right, or is it a week? MATT: Nicodranas to Alfield, I'd say you're looking at about a week, at least, of travel, if it's constant, on horseback. LAURA: If it's an old lady and a kid? MATT: If it's a little more casual, you're looking at a week and a half, maybe. TRAVIS: Could we send some money to the Golden Chain gang to go up and escort them down or something? SAM: The mercenaries you were talking about? TRAVIS: Yeah. (burps) SAM: No. What? TRAVIS: Why? SAM: But they seem ill-suited for escorting a child. TRAVIS: I thought they were guardians and protectors-- LAURA: Yeah, they're guardians. SAM: But aren't they the elite hit men force? MARISHA: Exactly why they're the best babysitters, I don't know why you're fighting this. TRAVIS: A bear comes up. Ka-bam! MARISHA: Assassin comes up. (slashing) SAM: All right, I have 100 gold. LAURA: Oh, I think they cost more than that. I don't know for sure, but Fjord would probably know. We could pop Yeza over to Nicodranas, and then he can be there and hire people, and then the people can travel with him up to Alfield, and get Luc, and then they can go back down to Nicodranas and live with my mama. SAM: I would not feel comfortable sending Yeza on that journey alone. LIAM: What is your ultimate goal, though, would you prefer that your husband and son-- SAM: To reunite my family. LIAM: I know that, the next part of the question is, would you prefer they live here, in this home, or in Nicodranas, with Jester's mother, or where? LAURA: I would think outside of the Empire is probably better. SAM: Probably with your mother is the safest place I can think of for right now. TALIESIN: A wise course of action. LIAM: What if we reached out to Bryce for her advice, in hiring someone? MATT: For their advice? LAURA: For their advice? LIAM: Yes, thank you. TALIESIN: Do we have-- oh, of course we have the ability to do that, that's a thing-- LIAM: I mean, they have a level head on their shoulders, they're not cutthroat mercenaries. MARISHA: And we for sure know that your son has made it to Alfield? SAM: Yeah, we checked in. MARISHA: Yeah, why wouldn't Bryce want to help us? SAM: Because they have a war to fight? MARISHA: Yeah. LIAM: Well, it, it's not a sure thing, but it's a good lead. SAM: We could. LAURA: Hold on, I'll send a message. SAM: Oh, boy. LAURA: Hey-oh, Bryce, it's us. Hey, you know the kid and the old lady? Could you maybe take them down to Nicodranas, maybe? SAM: How much would it cost? LAURA: How much would it cost? MATT: "Hello, huh. "Yes, I am watching over them. "Things are "tense. "I have responsibilities. "I could send them south." LAURA: Ew, Bryce is busy. But they could send them south. LIAM: Yeah, you asked how much, and they did not, did they reply to that? LAURA: No. LIAM: No. MARISHA: Did Bryce have any recommendations, people that they might know? SAM: Very, very short message. LAURA: Yeah. TALIESIN: I assume that those sorts of things could be taken care of if we decide that that's the best course of action. SAM: I don't think-- TALIESIN: I don't think we would have to know the particulars. In fact, if anything, not knowing the particulars might be-- SAM: No, I would want to know the particulars. I mean, we made this trip ourselves, and nearly died several times. LAURA: Not on that little part, though. SAM: To get into Nicodranas out of the Empire was very hard. We had to go through the gate, and prove who we were, the-- LAURA: Yeah, we did fight those two-headed people. SAM: We got ambushed at some point. TALIESIN: We weren't caravan-ing, though, I mean, that's the whole point of caravan. MARISHA: We also brought three pets, and two of them are still with us. LAURA: Oh, poor Professor Thaddeus, I hope he's living his best life. TRAVIS: Yeah, that bird was a shithead. MARISHA: Fuck him, he broke my heart. TRAVIS: Out eating mice, living his best life, get out of here. TALIESIN: I'd like to scry on the bird, sorry. (laughter) Not yet, not yet. MARISHA: One day, we're going to do that, I want to know what that piece of shit is up to. LIAM: We have four days, so part of that, I think, Beauregard, you're correct, we want to scout out the place, and figure out how we're going to handle that. But we have a handful of days where we could conceivably bring Yeza to Nicodranas, visit your mother, hire someone, someone that we choose, jump back, set it in motion, and then Yeza-- we have to trust Yeza to, I don't know-- LAURA: He's a big halfling, he can take care of himself. SAM: He's actually below average size. LAURA: Oh. LIAM: Very skilled, though. Or we wait. SAM: That sounds crazy-- LIAM: It's maybe your call. Do you want to wait until after we figure this out in four days? TALIESIN: I feel like maybe you're looking for an option that doesn't exist. SAM: I think, yeah, I think you're right, Mr. Clay. I don't think I would feel comfortable sending, I mean, Yeza, do you, do you think you would be able to go with a bunch of sell-swords up to-- LAURA: Not a bunch, just like one, they're really expensive. SAM: With one sell-sword up to get our son? LIAM: Or maybe travel with some merchants or something. MARISHA: Or a caravan. LIAM: Yeah, a caravan. MATT: "I mean, I can definitely ride along, "I probably need a little bit of guidance "on how best to do that, I've not--" SAM: You haven't been to Alfield. MATT: "I haven't really traveled--" "much. I kind of grew up in Felderwin, so." MARISHA: Well, if he's with a group, moving to Alfield, he won't have to know where Alfield is, he just has to look for his son once he gets there. LIAM: Yeah, keep his head down-- MARISHA: Also-- SAM: I could go with him. MARISHA: If we want-- SAM: I would trust me. MARISHA: But then you'd be gone for a bit. SAM: Yeah. LAURA: Nott! SAM: But just for a bit. LAURA: What if you get to your family, and you're like, love them, and that-- SAM: That is absolutely going to happen. LAURA: No. MARISHA: Do you want to go home, Nott? LAURA: I mean. SAM: I don't, yes, of course I want to go home, but I can't go home right now. LIAM: There's maybe not a home to go to at the moment. MARISHA: We could split up the party for a little bit. You and Caleb and maybe a couple others can go to Nicodranas, find a group to send Yeza up with, and the rest of us can stake out the place here-- SAM: How about this, rather than plotting all of our, all of us splitting up, we do have a day or two. Maybe, maybe we could test your new spell, your new teleport-y spell, we could go see the wizard there, and maybe he can teleport us to Alfield. I don't know, maybe he has that power. LIAM: Maybe, that's a big maybe. TALIESIN: That's a very big maybe, especially in the middle of all this. LIAM: My relationship with him is improvised, at best. MARISHA: Alfield was a pretty podunk town. TALIESIN: Probably a little strained at this point. MARISHA: Also, once you get to Alfield, it doesn't mean that Alfield is going to have a teleportation circle back to Rosohna. TALIESIN: Doubt it will. SAM: I don't know how that works. Yeah. TALIESIN: This is a month to do this. With no guarantee it'll go well. MATT: "Whatever seems best for you, whatever you guys want." TALIESIN: I think, if it were me, I would arrange a way to get your children south, and not try and cross a border twice, and then-- LAURA: The border's ready well-guarded. TALIESIN: One crossing, and then have everyone reunite south, away from all of this. MATT: "I will say it's probably easier to leave the border, "than to get in." LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: I wonder. I wonder if Essek or someone here would be willing to send even just a couple of us, maybe all of us, but even if it was just a few of us, to Alfield. I could get us to Nicodranas. SAM: How would Essek do that? LIAM: Well, I'm not the only person in the world who knows how to jump across the continents. If someone here could send us, we could go to your boy, then I could take us to Nicodranas from anywhere. Then we'll jump back. TRAVIS: We don't even have to go straight to Alfield, just if there's a transportation circle close to there. MARISHA: But Caleb, how does that work? LIAM: I don't know, what I, what I am capable of doing is tied to very specific locked locations, but-- LAURA: And if they had the ability to do that, call me crazy. TRAVIS: Crazy. LAURA: Wouldn't they have done it when they were, you know, attacking the Empire? SAM: Yeah, rather than going in with tunnels and stuff. MARISHA: I feel like just because you can get to Nicodranas doesn't mean that you can get back here. LIAM: I can, actually. MARISHA: You can? LIAM: Yeah. MARISHA: Oh, okay. TALIESIN: But also, I don't know, this-- MARISHA: Sure. LIAM: The problem is Alfield, getting to Alfield quickly. TALIESIN: I'm still of the opinion we don't need to necessarily get to Alfield. I don't see what's wrong with just-- SAM: Sending a five-year-old boy halfway across the continent, with no one that we know, I see a big problem with that. I can't do it, I'm sorry. LIAM: Yes, Mr. Clay, we are just not sure about the speed of this-- TALIESIN: I didn't say no one that you know. MATT: "Well, I mean, it. "We know, we know that Luc is safe, right?" SAM: Yeah, right where he is. MATT: "And Edith, right?" SAM: Yeah. MATT: "And this seems to be at least one "of the areas furthest from "where all this war stuff's happening. "I can stay here a little longer. "You have a nicer place to stay than where we were at. "I don't want you guys all messing up your "plans and everything, "just to get me out there, I." TALIESIN: We do have friends that we could contact, and at some point-- MATT: "I can clean up the place a bit, "while you guys are off. I can just try and straighten up, "and make myself useful, you know?" MARISHA: I think we should be realistic about what we're about to jump into. LIAM: Well, let's flip things, then, let's focus on this place. SAM: On the task at hand. LIAM: Yes, on the task at hand. And in the meantime, perhaps I can speak with the powers that be here, and maybe get some of us, or all of us passage to Alfield. If we can get a one way ticket to Alfield, I can bring the boy back here. If the boy is here, he can live here, or we can bring all of you to Nicodranas. Are you looking at penises right now? SAM: No, I was remembering, no, I think you're absolutely right. I was just remembering, we do have one other friend in Alfield that I would trust. LIAM: Remind us? SAM: Shakäste. TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. TRAVIS: Uh! SAM: But for now, let's just focus on the, whatever, where are we going in three days? TALIESIN: Well, I should also mention that when we did see the place, and I don't know why I keep getting off track, there was a weird magical glow coming from the back. MARISHA: What was this place, you all haven't told me. LAURA: Oh. It was a shopped owned by a gobliness where I got my hair stuff. TALIESIN: "Shop" is a really, is practically a-- TRAVIS: I wouldn't touch it, Jester. TALIESIN: Oh, god. TRAVIS: It's all fucking gross. TALIESIN: It's okay. Here. LIAM: The Overcrow. LAURA: Thanks. LIAM: The Overcrow. TALIESIN: Yeah, that's okay, just keep going a little bit. LAURA: Thanks, Caduceus. LIAM: Yeah, that's it, isn't it? MATT: The Overcrow Apothecary, yes. MARISHA: It's an apothecary? TALIESIN: It felt a little thin. It didn't have a lot of stock, and was definitely a bit of a mess. LIAM: Well, it might just be a front, some kind of-- SAM: Do you want to distract the-- TALIESIN: There was a magic aura coming from the back. SAM: Do you want to distract the shopkeeper while we snoop around in the back or something? LAURA: The shopkeeper really liked Fjord. SAM: Who doesn't? TALIESIN: That's true, the shopkeeper did really like Fjord. SAM: He's 130 lean pounds of hot. TRAVIS: Okay, add 45, no, 60, then 95, yeah, I'll distract her, okay, it's not a problem. I can do that. MARISHA: Do you know if they had a back entrance? LAURA: The goblin, or the-- MARISHA: The apothecary. What? What? MATT: You didn't really check-- TALIESIN: We didn't do a full circle of the place, did we? LAURA: Mm-mm. But there is an upstairs, the goblin lives upstairs. MARISHA: We could break in at night. SAM: Yep, yep, yep. LIAM: Yeah. You can sneaky sneak, a couple of us can hide ourselves from vision. TALIESIN: Well, I'm a little iffy on that, but. LIAM: Oh, yeah? TALIESIN: I can do it for a second, I can do it for a little while, but I'm not, like. LAURA: I could do it, I could do it for ten seconds. LIAM: Ten seconds? TALIESIN: About ten seconds. LIAM: Well. Hmm. SAM: I could sneaky sneak in-- LIAM: You can sneaky sneak. SAM: That's about it. Let's go do it! What time is it? Hey, look, it's nighttime every day. (laughter) TALIESIN: We'll wait until the sun goes, never mind. MATT: All right, so what's the plan? LIAM: It is-- MATT: You're on the, I'd say 11th day. 13 days is when this is supposed to happen on Grissen. TALIESIN: You've got a cat, too. MATT: Well, I'm saying also that the time it took you guys to set all this stuff up was a week and a half, so you're looking at about ten days, 11 days of this process, so you have about two, a little over two days. TALIESIN: Did we tell the powers that be that we found another device, or was that not-- MARISHA: No. TALIESIN: Or did that not get brought up? MATT: No, you found... the device and the cloth piece, you kept to yourselves. MARISHA: There is also a recurring theme with apothecaries. TALIESIN: Do we want to-- MARISHA: Your, Yeza's husband. SAM: Yes? MARISHA: Their apothecary got targeted. SAM: Oh! LIAM: Why don't we hold onto our information, just for a couple of more days. TALIESIN: Trust your opinions-- MARISHA: No, I don't want to tell anyone this shit. LIAM: See what we learn in two days. MARISHA: I'm really curious as to who this blonde haired man is. And if, especially now that we're only 13 days out, I'm curious if he's already in the city. LAURA: I could scry on him again tonight. MARISHA: Let's do it. LIAM: Yeah. TALIESIN: Maybe send a cat in for recon, Caleb? LIAM: A cat, yeah, yeah. MATT: So what's the plan, what are we doing? TRAVIS: Are we scrying on him tonight, or are we going up there tonight? LAURA: We could do both. TRAVIS: Let's do it. LAURA: Let's scry on him, and then after we scry, we can head over. MARISHA: Yeah, because maybe, maybe we can hit both places. LAURA: Yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: Two steins with one bird. MATT: So this is two days in advance, you'll be going to the Overcrow. Scrying first? LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Okay, so now you know what the figure looks like, and you have the piece of material, correct? LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Okay. Let me bring up this spell here. All righty. So as you prepare the scry circle, you expend the spell, leaving your consciousness, a vision and senses in the hands of the divine Traveler. And unfortunately, the spell is unable to penetrate the space around this figure, they made their saving throw. ASHLEY: Damn it. TALIESIN: Does that mean they know that someone was trying-- MATT: You guys have knowledge of this scrying spell. Generally, no, it does not mean that they're aware, but it means that they just resisted it, you have to try again another day. TALIESIN: Or I could try. MATT: Or you could try. MARISHA: Oh, shit. LAURA: Ooh. Two clerics. TALIESIN: I've got the weird stuff up right now. LAURA: Here, here's a fabric, focus on it real hard. LIAM: Not one man should have all that power. LAURA: Focus on it real hard, it's called-- TALIESIN: On what? LAURA: Wavy blonde, he's got wavy blonde hair. TALIESIN: Wavy blonde hair. LAURA: He was medium tall, he had a human ear. TALIESIN: Everyone's short to me. LAURA: He had a blue cloak on. TALIESIN: Oh, that's nice. LIAM: Zemnian accent. LAURA: He had a Zemnian accent. TALIESIN: Which one's-- okay. LAURA: Here, here's my drawing of him. Just focus on my drawing. TALIESIN: Oh, that's a really nice drawing. SAM: His hair smells like rendered donkey fat-- MATT: You look at his description, you hold the piece, and you close your eyes, giving, giving your senses over to the Wildmother, and you learn a secondary aspect of this spell, which is when a target has resisted it, they're immune to it for the next 24 hours. (groaning) So you expend your spell slot, but you have to wait another day try to again, unfortunately. Sorry. TALIESIN: I'm into it. I spend 20 minutes trying to get it to work. I got nothing. MATT: Sorry. TALIESIN: I'm into it. LIAM: Well, we can still do-- MARISHA: To the Overcrow. MATT: Try it again tomorrow. MARISHA: The Overcrow. What time is it in-- TALIESIN: All our fifths are burned at the moment. MATT: I'd say, with the day you guys have been planning and discussing and mulling about the house, you're getting close to what would be dusk, though it is still nighttime. LAURA: (whistles) MARISHA: Do we want to? SAM: Let's do this. LIAM: While this shop is open, and preoccupied downstairs, or waiting until this person, the owner is asleep? LAURA: Maybe do it right as the shop is closing, and Fjord can knock on the door, and be like, "I've just been thinking about you "so much these last couple of weeks, "and I really hope I can talk to you, "maybe upstairs in your quarters." TRAVIS: Okay. LAURA: And then she can lead you upstairs. Follow her, but as you follow, you can slowly open up the shirt that you're wearing. SAM: Maruo of the goblin, yeah. Let's do this. MATT: So you guys leave your home in the Firmaments, make your way through the Gallimaufry, to the Coronas of the city of Rosohna, eventually finding your way through the night streets to the outskirts of the Overcrow Apothecary. Approaching the familiar building, for those who have already been here before, the rest of you seeing it for the first time, you can see the two-storied thin but tall structure between the nearby buildings. There's a larger makeshift inn to the left side, and another thatched structure to the right that looks rickety, and put together with sticks, and whatever sort of dried reeds could be strapped together. But there, in the center, is the structure, this painted home with the chains hanging from the outside of the roofing elements. The door appears to be closed, but you do see a little bit of glowing light from the top and bottom of it, where there's a slight gap. LIAM: Before we go in, Caduceus, will you block my view in this alleyway over here for a moment? MATT: You do also see the second floor, like, there is a bit of roofing up there. The second floor does have a window to the front, but it is closed, there are two wooden shutters that are closed on it. LIAM: Okay. In an alleyway, if that's possible. MATT: Okay, it's tight, you have to probably go across the street, or around, because this building is right up against the other two. LIAM: It's better to go a ways away for a minute. So I just need a private space to apparate Frumpkin, and then I use a bit of gum arabic, and cast Invisibility on Frumpkin. MATT: Okay. LIAM: So I have an invisible cat on my shoulder. MATT: Yes, you do, Frumpkin is invisible. Anybody else doing anything? MARISHA: I put up my hood, try and hide my face as much as I can. SAM: Are we all going in, or-- MARISHA: No, I'm going to-- is there a back entrance, is there a back alley to this building? MATT: You go around the sides, there is a way to get to the back, there's not an alleyway. A lot of the buildings in this area are kind of jammed together, there's not a lot of space between them, at least in the side of the street. So about eight or nine buildings down, there is enough of a gap where you can squeeze through, and there is a back alley there, but it isn't gridded well. MARISHA: Okay. MATT: But it's possible, yeah. MARISHA: I'm going to take the long way, I'm going to let these guys know we should split up, so we're not that suspicious, I'm going to go around back, and I'm going to loop around. And keep an eye out for anyone who might be watching. MATT: Got it, make a stealth check and perception check. MARISHA: Stealth check is a 22. Perception check is-- LIAM: Come on. MARISHA: Not as good as I wanted it to be, an 11. MATT: 11, okay. Keeping your eyes out, you feel confident that no one seems to be paying much mind to you as you travel through the streets, face hidden amongst the cloak. You make your way into the back alley, glancing about, eventually you walk along, until you are behind the building in question, and you are in position there to watch. LIAM: You're going to go in as the face, correct? TRAVIS:a Yep, yeah, I guess I'll try and keep her by the front door. LAURA: Do you want me to go in, too, because I've got the hair stuff, so I've got a good in. MARISHA: Oh, sure, yeah, that-- yeah, why not. LIAM: I telepathically command invisible Frumpkin to stay by Fjord until they're inside, and once I see that the shop keep is preoccupied, he will then start to search the building. MATT: Okay. LIAM: Yeah. MATT: Are you-- LIAM: I'm staying outside, I need someone to stay with me. TALIESIN: I'm right there. LIAM: Okay. MATT: Okay, so Caduceus is staying with Caleb. Yasha, what are you doing? ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm going to stay with you guys as well. I'm going to stay with Caleb, and-- MATT: Okay, so we have Caduceus, Yasha, and Caleb outside, you find a little pocket on one of the nearby buildings, you just sit down. TRAVIS: Do you want to keep her at the front door, or do you want to actually go in the shop? LAURA: I think we should probably go in the shop. TRAVIS: All right. LAURA: You should see if, you know-- TRAVIS: Just go in the fucking shop. SAM: I'm around back with Beau and rub a little gum arabic on my eyebrows, and turn invisible, as well. MATT: Okay, make a stealth check with advantage. SAM: 28. MATT: Okay, you're, you feel pretty good. LIAM: So damn good. MATT: All right, so you knock on the door. (knocking) "We're closing." LAURA: Can I come in for just a moment? I have a question about something I bought. MATT: "Fine, come in." LAURA: Thank you. MATT: "Oh, hey!" LAURA: Hi. MATT: "Good to see you." LAURA: You, too. MATT: "Yeah." MATT: Do you walk in with? TRAVIS: I do. MATT: "And hell-o." TRAVIS: Maruo, it is good to see you. MATT: "No, the pleasure is mine." TRAVIS: Mmm. LAURA: I have a question about the hair oil that I bought. MATT: "Oh, you're using it, I'm so happy." LAURA: Yes, I've been using it every night for a week now. MATT: "Ooh!" LAURA: And I didn't know, am I supposed to wash my hair ever, or just leave it in? Does it just keep building up and up over time, and then all the sudden, my hair grows a foot? I don't understand. MATT: "I think that's more of a cultural choice." (laughter) "I tend to leave it in." LAURA: Okay. MATT: "But, you know, whatever you want." LAURA: How-- do you always-- do you ever wash your hair? TRAVIS: The fragrance is rather-- MATT: "It just gets in the way." LAURA: Oh, okay. Cool, I was just wondering how to use it. You know, it's the funniest thing, every time I put it in, Fjord is like, you smell so good, you smell so familiar, and I'm like, I smell like Maruo, I think. And then he's like, oh-- TRAVIS: I was wondering where that smell was-- what it was reminding me of. MATT: "Well, you certainly found the source." TRAVIS: I did, I did, I tell you. LAURA: He won't shut up about how good he thinks it smells. MATT: "Really?" TRAVIS: So good, just makes my whole body flame, tingles galore. MATT: "Well." TRAVIS: Yeah. Now, listen, I was wondering, do you have anything around here that a feller good drink, or pour on himself to, I don't know, make someone fall in love with him? LIAM: Frumpkin has been on the move for a minute. MATT: So all this is happening. TALIESIN: So proud. SAM: Is there a back window or anything, a back door? MATT: There is not a back, no-- there is not a back door. SAM: Oh. MATT: There is a back window on the side. There's a small little room on the side of the main two story building that has a window that is currently closed. SAM: I'm going to go look in it. MARISHA: I'm going to give Nott a boost. SAM: Thank you. MATT: Okay, you don't know where to find Nott, but-- MARISHA: No, we're-- LIAM: Invisible. MARISHA: Oh. SAM: Pulling on your-- MARISHA: I thought we were-- yeah. MATT: Okay, yeah, it is closed, and you go ahead and push, and it is locked. MARISHA: Can you lock pick it? SAM: I'll start to unlock it. MATT: Okay. So it's latched from the inside, so you go ahead and get your tools out, go ahead and roll proficiency plus dexterity. SAM: One. MARISHA: No! Fuck. MATT: You get your hook behind there, and you're like, "I got it!" You pull, pull, and it resists, and it slips out of your fingers, and instead your tool, (clinking) on the inside of the building. MARISHA: What happened? Oh, no. MATT: You guys are talking, and-- "Huh?" TRAVIS: Maruo, I don't know how to say this, but I need you. MATT: "Hold on just a second, I'm sorry--" TRAVIS: No, listen, my passion is-- and I pull my armor open to show my-- my half-orc chest. (laughter) MATT: Make a persuasion check. TRAVIS: 22! LAURA: I use thaumaturgy to blow his hair back, just a little bit. (laughter) MATT: This-- paranoid goblin is so torn. She's like-- (strangled noise) (laughter) "Well. "What you're asking, maybe don't have much "in the way of potions, but oil applications can be helpful. And she rolls her arms up a bit. TRAVIS: ♪ Light of my life ♪ ♪ I need you ♪ ♪ To be my ♪ ♪ Sweet thang ♪ (laughter) MARISHA: Beau gave me her thieves tools. MATT: You have thieves tools, as well? MARISHA: I always keep thieves tools on me. MATT: All right. That's good you have a backup. MARISHA: I gave you one set before, and I re-bought them. TRAVIS: Singing real loud. LAURA: Oh, god, oh, god. Come on, goddamn it. SAM: 18. MATT: 18, okay. It's not opening. (groaning) LIAM: Caleb has gone full Bran Stark, and is holding onto Yasha and Caduceus' arms, and my cat has been in the for two minutes by now. MATT: Yes, and at this point, Maruo has gone beneath the counter, and is pulling out this thick salve, like a balm, and is like, "But it needs to be applied directly." (laughter) LAURA: Do you guys need some privacy? I can wait down here. MATT: "No, it's fine." LAURA: Oh. (laughter) I'll just, um-- TRAVIS: ♪ Like the sun sets ♪ ♪ In my house ♪ ♪ You ♪ MATT: Fjord is quietly, eyes closed, singing to himself, putting his mind elsewhere. Maruo goes and grabs a stool. (scraping) LIAM: Just thinking about Uk'otoa. MATT: Jumps onto it to get up, and begins to apply it on the exposed chest of Fjord. (Fjord sings loud and badly) LAURA: Can I-- is it-- how distracted is she? LIAM: So distracted. MATT: She's pretty distracted right now. LAURA: Could I just walk backwards over to the window, and unlatch it? MATT: The-- MARISHA: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. MATT: The room they're going into is not-- it's technically, it's on the side of the chamber you're in. LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: You look around, and you see there is no back door, necessarily, there's a small closet back there, and there's a door to leads to a storage chamber of some kind. So, at that point, you're not really in a place where you help with that, unfortunately. So this whole time, while this is happening. MARISHA: Fuck. LIAM: Three minutes later. MARISHA: Fucking doors! LIAM: Cat's been over every inch of the house. MATT: Make an investigation check, what are you looking for? LIAM: I want the lay of the entire building, and see if anything is weird or-- MATT: Oh, perception check, then. LIAM: Ja, okay. SAM: And I will also be casting mage hand. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: I also describe where I was seeing the glow from-- I did my best to give him a sense of where I saw a weird glow last time. MATT: Yeah, the glow is in the far back corner, so if you're facing from the front door inward, there is a countertop where-- Maruo is stationed there, there are two tables that flank the sides, and there's just shit on the walls, and boxes and empty things everywhere. And then there is the spiral staircase towards the back that leads upward to the second floor. On the side, back of the chamber, the glow, you recall, is in the far back corner. TALIESIN: Yeah. LIAM: 22. MATT: 22. All right. You, through Frumpkin, notice the entire layout of the interior of this chamber, everyone's location. There is the closed door on the far back, and then behind where they all are, and there is the spiral staircase that leads up to the secondary floor. Up through the staircase, there is a door there. It is closed. LIAM: Hmm. LIAM: That's the end of the road for me. End of the road. Can Frumpkin peer-- is there a crack, is there any kind of slit at the bottom? MATT: With the perception check you rolled, there is, but there's no light, so roll a perception with disadvantage. LIAM: Okay. Terrible, both terrible. Seven. SAM: Yasha, just go in and kill everybody. MATT: Can't really get a view of the space, it's a little too thin, Frumpkin can't quite get an eye around it. ASHLEY: It's an option. SAM: And I try Mage Hand. MATT: Okay. SAM: Sort of blindly flick to try to open. It doesn't have to be within sight, it can be any point within range. LAURA: You can probably see through it, since it's a window. MATT: Any point within range? SAM: It says, any point you choose within range, it doesn't have to have a line of sight. MATT: That's true, okay, all right. SAM: But I won't know what I'm doing. I'll be blindly trying to-- MATT: Make a sleight of hand check without thieves tools, so just, just-- SAM: Unstrap the bra. MATT: A straight dexterity check with disadvantage. SAM: Huh, a straight? MATT: A straight dexterity check with disadvantage. SAM: With disadvantage? MATT: Correct, because you can't see it. LIAM: You're doing it blind. SAM: I rolled a 17 and a 16, both plus five, both over 20. MATT: Opens up. (laughter) Lucky rolls. MARISHA: I try to give Nott a high five, but she's invisible. MATT: Yep. You hit Nott in the back of the head. MARISHA: You're visible again? MATT: That's right, you cast Mage Hand. SAM: But I cast Invisibility again. MARISHA: I give her a boost through the window, and then I go in, stealthily as fuck, goggles on. MATT: Okay, you both quietly make your way in. This is a storage chamber, the smell is extremely strong. All the scents that were inside the building when you were there last time tripled in pungency and intensity. All sorts of mildewed, composting, earthen-type smells. There are a number of small boxes and chests that are locked, and there's the door to the right. And you can hear Fjord singing through the doorway-- TRAVIS: ♪ I knew when I saw you ♪ LAURA: Okay, I'm looking for-- MATT: "And you place it along the sternum." LAURA: I'm just watching with heart eyes, as I'm watching Fjord get oiled up. ♪ That I'll ♪ ♪ Until ♪ MARISHA: Correspondence, letters, mail. MATT: Investigation. LIAM: Jester with a sweaty upper lip. (laughter) SAM: What is this room that we're in? LAURA: And oily hair just-- MATT: 15 feet by 15 feet. LIAM: Right out of Napoleon Dynamite. ASHLEY: In slow-mo. ♪ I, I just died in your arms tonight ♪ MARISHA: 11. MATT: Oh, you're helping with this, too? SAM: Yeah, I'm looking around, as well. MATT: All right, investigation check. MARISHA: Please roll better than me. SAM: 24. MATT: 24, okay. Looking around the room, you don't find any correspondence. There's no papers kept in here. You do find there are a lot of boxes that are chained and locked of different sizes, and different qualities. Half of the room appears to be materials for use in the creation of these potions, chemicals, balms and such. And there are, broken apart, a few alchemical supply kits that are probably used, not well taken care of in the creation of these. But then apart from that and those supplies, there are these-- this wide variety of different size boxes, some wooden, some metal, some iron. There's a small silver box. MARISHA: Anything written on them, any signs-- LIAM: Rhino fat, ostrich fat-- MARISHA: -- that they've been making dunamancy back here? MATT: Nothing that seems to catch your attention there. They are locked. SAM: I'm going to point towards the front of the thing, hold the wire up to my lips, and say, Mr. Clay, Mr. Clay, come back here right away, as fast as you can, to the back of the house. TALIESIN: I'm-- all right. SAM: You can reply to this message. TALIESIN: Oh, okay. ASHLEY: Do you want to stay here, Caleb? LIAM: I will stay, I pull out the wire, and say-- TALIESIN: I'm going to quietly walk to the-- to the-- nonchalantly walk to the back of the house. LIAM: Open the door for my cat please. TALIESIN: I'm also going to change my appearance. MATT: To? MATT: I'm going to go to, I'm going to go to-- SAM: Oh, to me? The closest I can think of to hippy drow. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: It's an attempt. LIAM: Hippy drow. MATT: All right, all right. SAM: Hippy drow. TALIESIN: Hippy drow. LIAM: Hippy drow. All right, all right, all right. MATT: Make a stealth check. ASHLEY: All right, all right, all right. TALIESIN: 12. MATT: 12, okay. SAM: I keep getting older, but I got many lives. TALIESIN: I'm not coming in or anything, I'm just stopping at the open window and looking in. MATT: Okay, you make your way around. In your new form, as the drow, you do not draw as much attention as you would have before, so the DC was not as high as it would have been. So no one seems to be following you. Eventually, you guys that are behind you watch as a hippy-looking drow slowly saunters up in your direction. SAM: Is it--? Is it? MARISHA: You can tell by the staff. Yes. SAM: Is he holding a staff, I-- MATT: Same material. SAM: Oh, oh. Hi, hi, do your detect magic thing, we don't know which box it is. TALIESIN: Detect magic. MATT: You detect magic. Nothing in the chamber draws a magical essence, but inside the room, where they are, in that same corner where you left it last time. SAM: In the room where Fjord and Jester are? MATT: Right. SAM: Shit. MARISHA: I pick up the thieves' tools that he dropped, by the way. MATT: You pick up and regather it. TALIESIN: It's in the other room over in the corner, over the thing. I'll see you guys later. I'm just going to close the window. I'm not going to lock it, but I am going to close the window and keep walking. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Should we try and pop open one of these grates? TALIESIN: And I keep walking. SAM: There's nothing magical in them. Sure, yeah, sure, I'll just-- yeah. You take one, I'll take one, yeah. MARISHA: I'll see if I can pop a crate. LAURA: Why? SAM: I don't know. We gotta do something. TRAVIS: I can't keep this up forever, fucking-- you're not searching that inventory list. MARISHA: It'll take 20 seconds-- SAM: Caleb told me, did you message me to open the door for the-- LIAM: I messaged you to open the door for the cat. There's a door to this room to the rest of the building. You don't have to do it, but that's what-- SAM: It's upstairs? LIAM: The room you're in, I think. MATT: There are two doors, there is the door that leads into the chamber that they're in, and there's the door that goes upstairs in the spiral staircase. LIAM: Oh, I have no idea what's in between those two rooms. It doesn't matter. LAURA: No, no, no, no. There's a main shop, there's a door to the storage facility, there's a door at the top of the stairs. So your cat is in the room with the goblin-- LIAM: We're good. LAURA: Okay. MATT: Cool. TALIESIN: Goblin, goblin oil. MATT: So you're both grabbing what? SAM: Random boxes, random locked boxes. MATT: Okay, make a, make sleight of hand checks. TRAVIS: Why? MARISHA: We're not supposed to be in here. SAM: I don't know what else to do. TRAVIS: Fucking pull out bison shit-- MARISHA: 19. SAM: 27. MATT: 27, and I'd like you both to make stealth checks as well, because you're doing this quietly. TRAVIS: Can I see them doing this? MATT: No, where-- they're in the storage room. SAM: 20 something, 29. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: 18. MATT: Thankfully, because of the loud-- (Travis wails in falsetto) Awkward singing of Fjord, it seems to not catch the sound of some of the wood splintering, as you crowbar your way into one of the crates. You open the inside, and see collections of spices. LIAM: It's suude. Different substances captured in jars, in bags, and it's very strong, but a different smell from the rest of the chamber. You open yours, and on the inside, it looks to be this kind of very, very fine diamond-like powder. SAM: (whispers) Oh, yeah. MATT: It has a faint greenish sheen to it in certain bits of light. SAM: I'm going to take a bunch of that, a bag of that. MATT: Okay, so put a-- SAM: A Ziploc bag of that. MATT: Make an arcana check. LIAM: Snort it. SAM: Four. MATT: Four, you have no idea what it is. (laughs) MARISHA: I pocket some spices, just 'cause. And then let's get the fuck out of here. MATT: Okay. SAM: I think we-- mission accomplished. MARISHA: I think so, too. MATT: All right. SAM: On the way out, I'm going to slam the window shade as loud as I can, after we're out. MATT: Okay. At this point, (laughs) Maruo has her hands in the armor, has greased up primarily all of the chest, and gotten down to the stomach a little bit, and is like-- "And you see, you need "to make sure you get all the nooks and--" (slamming) "What was that?" Turns and pulls the hands out, was about up to the elbow in your armor, and goes, "Shh, shh, shh, get out, get out, get out." TRAVIS: Get out? I'm-- MATT: "Get out!" TRAVIS: We leave. (crying) I run out of the door. SAM: Jesus. MATT: All right, you guys leave, and she-- she reaches down beneath the counter for something, right as you guys close the door behind you. Looking over towards where the sound came from. MARISHA: Your cat still in there? LIAM: Mm-hm. The door closes, you're outside. SAM: Frumpkin's still in. TALIESIN: That's not a problem, though. LIAM: Not a problem. SAM: But does Frumpkin see anything happening? MARISHA: Yeah, what is she grabbing? MATT: Perception check for Frumpkin. MARISHA: Fucking finally. LIAM: It was high before, I just got stopped by a door, 23. MATT: Yep, so you watch as the goblin reaches underneath the counter, and pulls out a regular crossbow that's just resting there, cocks it at the ready, looks to the corner, and it's empty, and goes-- LAURA: (gasps) MATT: And goes over and turns the lantern down, the oil lantern really low. Makes a head movement, and you watch as the door-- (door creaking) opens on its own. And then brings the crossbow up, and enters into the chamber out of sight. LIAM: So from my end, and Frumpkin's point of view, it looked like an invisible person opened the door? MATT: Possibly. LIAM: Or the door opened, okay. All right, we'll just continue to watch for the moment. MATT: You hear some rummaging, some more rummaging, a few minutes of moving and scuffing feet. And you hear a latching, and then Maruo walks out again, and is like, "(grumbling) "All right, we got to be careful, I don't trust it. "Well. "I'm going to get to bed. Call in the next shift. "I'm closing up shop," and she goes and sets the crossbow back underneath the counter, walks over, grabs some keys, heads over to the door, goes ahead and locks, holds the door open, and you watch as, on the far corner, the door closes on its own, a figure appears, humanoid, cloaked, hood back, is a very thin, gaunt-looking bugbear, fur trimmed fairly short. Just looks over, nods, and follows up, and the two of them leave the building. The rest of you, are you waiting outside? LAURA: No, I mean, yeah, me and Fjord are kind of standing around you know. LIAM: Did you say that Maruo and the bugbear left the building at the end of that, is that what you said, or just the gang leaves the building? MATT: The gang leaves the building, Maruo and the bugbear leave for a second, but the bugbear stays out there in front. LIAM: Stays, stays-- MATT: Holding the door, yeah. LIAM: And has dropped its invisibility? MATT: For the time being, it seems. LIAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. SAM: Was the invisible thing in the room with us? LIAM: Yeah, it was in the shop. SAM: Oh, shit. We got made. TALIESIN: Oh, no, it was-- LIAM: It was in the shop. MATT: Oh, sorry, it was in the shop, not with you. MARISHA: Because she didn't act like she knew anything. She's got invisible help in that room. LIAM: Okay, so-- MARISHA: It's great to know. SAM: Yeah. LIAM: Frumpkin poofs out, and then I fill everybody in on what I saw. MATT: Okay, you guys left the building, though? TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, we've-- TALIESIN: Took a walk around. MATT: Okay, reconvene. SAM: Back to the Xhorhouse. LAURA: Oh, shit. TALIESIN: Well, that's good to know. ASHLEY: Yeah. SAM: And I got this shiny stuff. LAURA: Woo, what is it? SAM: I don't know. LAURA: Maybe it's gem dust. MARISHA: I got spices. TALIESIN: What kind of spices? MARISHA: I don't know. ASHLEY: You're so shiny, Fjord. LAURA: Caleb, Caleb, Caleb, is it magic, is it magic? Caleb, look at it. LIAM: I will take a look at it, yeah. TALIESIN: That's 17. MATT: 17, okay. It is not natural, at least it isn't in its current form. SAM: Synthetic? MARISHA: Drugs? MATT: It's processed in some way. You're not too sure of the material. In your world experience, I'd say you're actually not sure what it is. TALIESIN: I have no idea what this is; it's weird. MARISHA: It's spice. I bet it's suude. It's got to be drugs. MATT: Go ahead and make a-- MARISHA: Yeah, and with my criminal background, would I know? MATT: Actually, no, with your criminal background, you would know exactly what it is. Yeah, it's suude. SAM: Oh, it's suude? MARISHA: It is suude? (laughter) TRAVIS: Spice is nice! TALIESIN: You demanded the crossover, it's finally happened. TRAVIS: Holy shit. (laughter) The Mighty Nein proceed to get fucked up all night! TALIESIN: So did we just find, like, basically, oh my god, we just found, like, oh my god, it's a fucking front. MARISHA: It's a front. TALIESIN: Oh my god, its a fucking front. TRAVIS: Well, what's the-- MARISHA: Nothing in the store-- LIAM: Well, first, I'm just going to make a-- see if it rings a bell with my arcane knowledge. TALIESIN: I am the bugbear that knocks. LIAM: The powder. MATT: Yeah, make an arcana check. ASHLEY: Oh my god. (laughter) LIAM: What is that, a natural 20. MATT: Oh, shit. LAURA: Oh, well. MATT: It is a pouch of residuum, powdered residuum. TALIESIN: Out of character: I knew it. SAM: Residuum? LAURA and LIAM: Whitestone. SAM: Ah! It's all coming together. MATT: This particular-- so residuum will take different forms. This is ground whitestone. It looks to be probably the equivalent, or what could be utilized up to about 1,000 gold worth of enchanting. LIAM: Does this mean I'm vaguely familiar with Whitestone? MATT: It means you've heard of it. I mean, the source of this particular residuum, it comes from one location, and is very sought after. Which is why the locale was so carefully guarded once Whitestone began to rise back to prominence. LIAM: And since I was just a guy who stabbed things before, but now I'm a wizard: what would I use 1,000 gold worth of enchanting power for? MATT: To enchant objects. LIAM: I, myself, can do that? MATT: Yes. LIAM: I used to be a rogue, I don't know what's going on. MATT: Yeah, I know, no, you can create your own magical items, if you'd like to. You don't have to find an enchanter to do it. You can, it just takes time and money to do so, and certain spells that can be adjacent to the kind of magic you want to create. ASHLEY: I know. LIAM: Hmm? ASHLEY: I should have had you, I didn't realize-- LAURA: You could go get your money back, it's only a couple days, maybe. SAM: Oh. LIAM: Or maybe we go down that path for you, and I can make sure that I don't get my head shot off. ASHLEY: Yeah. We'll think about it, it's not a bad idea. TALIESIN: It also might be able, this stuff might also work with putting the sword back together, possibly. MATT: Possibly. Residuum is multipurpose. TALIESIN: Yeah, it's just magical potential. LIAM: Yeah, I also don't own it; it is the group's. LAURA: Yes, it is. It's actually Nott's because she found it. SAM: I gave it to Caleb. Anything I have is Caleb's. MATT: You take some in your hand, if you want to. TALIESIN: Yeah. LIAM: No, it's mine. MATT: It's a very, very, very faint glow that might be psychosomatic, but nevertheless, you're excited. TALIESIN: I pull out my black light. I'm going to charge it. Does it glow now? (laughter) TRAVIS: "Charge it." MATT: All right, you guys have reconvened at the, is that a name you're choosing for it now? MARISHA: The Xhorhouse. MATT: The Xhorhouse? SAM: The Xhorhouse or the tree house. ASHLEY, then ALL: ♪ Xhorhouse in the middle of our street ♪ MATT: I mean, what else can it be now? TALIESIN: And it's locked. LIAM: What about the MT house? SAM: What's the MT-- LIAM: The MT house. The Mollymauk Tealeaf house. The MT home. TALIESIN: I mean, I really like that. MATT: It could always be the Xhorhouse with the MT Spa. (oohing) I think he'd appreciate that. LAURA: What if it's just Jester's House of Sexy Time and Sweets? TALIESIN: MT House, it's got a good vibe. TRAVIS: And sweets? ASHLEY: I want to go there. TALIESIN: It's also good, because it'll make it easier to be sly about it. TRAVIS: Come to have sex, and have donuts. MATT: What do you guys want to do? LAURA: What's our what? MATT: You don't have to decide now, but you have to at some point. LAURA: Xhorhouse. LIAM: MT home. LAURA: Xhorhouse with the MT Home Spa. LIAM: MT Home, with the Xhorhouse Spa. TALIESIN: The clown room. LAURA: ♪ Xhorhouse! ♪ MATT: You deliberate it over time. MARISHA: It will present itself-- MATT: Regardless, you have two days before this time period. Anything else you guys want to do, or are you just running out the clock? TALIESIN: Other than-- MARISHA: You want to try and scry on this guy again? TALIESIN: Next day, but that, also, that burns a 5th-level. LIAM: It does, but it's the day before the stakeout. MARISHA: Are there, do, could we get a, could I walk around and figure out the inns and the motels in the area? MATT: In which area? The Coronas, the Gallimaufry? It's a big city, and there are a lot. MARISHA: There are a lot. What's the nearest-- LAURA: Is it possible, I don't know. MARISHA: Hmm? LAURA: Nothing. Like, we had the map of Emon, I wonder if it's possible to get a map of-- MARISHA: Rosohna? MATT: You're looking for a map? TALIESIN: That'd be nice. It'd be good for the-- and then we could stop calling it the war room, and call it the map room. MATT: You can make an investigation check, if you want to. TALIESIN: I'm not going to make an investigation-- SAM: Is there any point in bringing some of this residuum to the person who's trying to make Yasha's thing? LAURA: 19. MATT: There are no cartographers, necessarily, but you do find general store. You ask this one wayward lizard man in the corner who has a small clutch. He's like, "Maps, nothing of this city, I'm afraid, but "a scout dropped this off not long ago. "Not of the city, but, "at least of the vicinity." LAURA: What is it? MATT: "That's a map of Xhorhas." LAURA: That's would be wonderful, too. MATT: "15 gold pieces." TALIESIN: A steal at twice the price. LAURA: Okay, yeah, 15 gold sounds good. TALIESIN: Do you need to borrow any? SAM: Clink! Plink! TALIESIN: You all right? LAURA: What? MATT: "It's a bit used." TRAVIS: Oh, it's real! SAM: It's a real map. TRAVIS: I thought you were just gesturing. LAURA: It's slightly used, there's blood on this thing. TALIESIN: I keep telling you people-- LAURA: Where does it come from, where did it come from? MATT: "I never say." TRAVIS: Our cellar floor. LIAM: That's hot, that's hot, that's hot. SAM: That is super sexy. TRAVIS: Put that shit out here where everybody can see it. LAURA: Okay, okay, okay, but I want to look at it, okay. (exclamations) TRAVIS: Oh, fuck, arterial spray. LIAM: That is so sexy. LAURA: Where did this map come from? SAM: This map camera is brought to you by Dwarven Forge. They currently have a free 406 page PDF module tied to their Dungeons of Doom product available now on the website. Map cam, Dwarven Forge! LAURA: Oh, wow. Where are we, where are we? MARISHA: Yeah, where are we? MATT: Rosohna. LAURA: ♪ Rosohna ♪ MATT: Asarius. Yasha. That's where you're from. LAURA: Oh, wow! TRAVIS: Oh, fuck. LAURA: Ooh, look at-- SAM: I can see my house from here. LAURA: Oh my god, we, oh my god. SAM: The many hosts of-- LIAM: Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my-- SAM: -- Igrathad? MATT: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: There's a lot-- SAM: Vermaloc Wildwood. Asarius. Oh, we've been there. LIAM: Whose blood is that? SAM: Is this all of Xhorhas? MATT: At least on the map. SAM: Whoa! LAURA: And which way is the Empire? LIAM: That way. LAURA: Okay. LIAM: We're here. LAURA: Whoa, we're really far in. SAM: Yeah, we're as far in as you can get. MARISHA: Into the map. SAM: Is there a coast-- LAURA: Wait, let's go over here. MATT: It looks like there might be, based on the map. SAM: But over the mountains, there's a-- MATT: It looks like there might be, yeah. LIAM: That's Pennsylvania. MATT: You could always ask around. SAM: Wow. LAURA: Oh my gosh. MARISHA: All right, well, that's cool. LIAM: Yeah, very cool. SAM: Oh, wow. TALIESIN: I mean, we could just try and mend the sword. MATT: If you're curious about something on the map, you could always ask the locals. SAM: Hey, Caleb. LIAM: Yeah? SAM: We're giving the whitestone residuum to the person who's enchanting Yasha's things? LIAM: Quite possibly. SAM: And help? TALIESIN: Would they ask where it came from? LIAM: Quite possibly. LAURA: ♪ Islands in the stream ♪ MARISHA: I have a feeling the trade of this type of thing is consider contraband. LIAM: What I recommend is that we follow that path for Yasha, and decide what we do with the rest. SAM: Jessie. LAURA: Hmm, yeah? SAM: Can you call, can you ringy dingy Shakäste for me? Just find out if he's in Alfield, that'll be a help, and free for a mission. LAURA: Okay. SAM: Yes, Matt. MATT: I'm sorry, Khary. LAURA: Okay. Hi, it's Jester. Miss you so much! Are you still in Alfield? If you are, are you free to help us out? There's a little boy-- TRAVIS: "There a little--" LAURA: Fuck. MATT: "Hey, Jester, baby, been a while. "Not in Alfield, but still trudging around the Empire. "What's little?" (laughter) LAURA: Okay. There's a little boy in Alfield who could use help getting to my mom in Nicodranas. SAM: For money. LAURA: For money, if you want. TRAVIS: There's seven more, six more words. LAURA: Also, I really think you're wonderful. MATT: "I appreciate that. "I'll take no money for my help, "but if there's a boy in trouble, and it's for my friends, "how could I say no?" SAM: That's good, that's good. MATT: "Give me a week of travel." LIAM and LAURA: Shakäste. SAM: Okay. LAURA: Oh my gosh, Shakäste, you're so wonderful. A week of travel, you got it, his name is Luc. SAM: He's with Edith. LAURA: He's with Edith, and Bryce is looking after him. LIAM: It's like Operation. MATT: "Well, I guess I better start packing." LAURA: Ooh! All your problems are solved. SAM: Well, it's a week, but okay. MATT: Still responding, he says, "You're lucky you caught me "at this time, things have been "busy." That's the last you hear. LAURA: He said things are sounding busy there. Man, I bet things are getting crazy. SAM: His voice is even sexy secondhand, it's amazing. MATT: I'm so sorry, Khary. SAM: Amazing. LAURA: He called me baby. SAM: Oof! LAURA: Yeah, I know. SAM: Ooh! TRAVIS: Jesus. Minotaur and Shakäste. LIAM: No minotaur, but (laughter) SAM: All right. LAURA: We should scry on our-- SAM: Didn't we do that again? LAURA: No, we haven't scried on him again. SAM: Scry again. MATT: All right, who's trying it? SAM: If first you don't succeed. LAURA: I'm going to try it, I guess. MATT: Taking the pieces once more, natural one. LAURA: Yes. MARISHA: Fuck yes. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Talk to me. MATT: So you close your eyes, sitting in the circle, you feel these fingers grab the end of your hands, and you open your eyes, just a second, and you're not in your room more than you're in a white amorphous space, and there you see the green cloaked visage of the Traveler holding your hands, as he leans forward and says, "Let me show you." LAURA: Okay. MATT: You watch his body vanish into the ether, surrounded by grayish white clouds, you're not sure which way is up, down, and your eyes feel like they're unfocused, like there's something in them, like a film, like you just woke up after a long sleep. As you rub your eyes, and you open them again, you're now inside of a darkened chamber. The blonde figure is there in front of you, standing at the back of this chamber, like a long hall, you can hear voices echoing, so it's a big interior. Looking just by the wall that he's at, there's fine dark wood laid against it, there is a patterned wallpaper, and there is a wall-mounted candelabra, like, two feet to his right that is flickering flame. You see him with a book, a small one, like a little journal type thing, has it open, and is currently writing and looking forward. You get the sense that he's essentially taking notes. Make a perception check. LAURA: And he's facing outward, the wall behind-- MATT: Correct, the wall's behind him, and he's facing outward, and taking notes. LAURA: Ten. MATT: Ten, okay, you only pick up some of the conversation. You hear words being said, and it's kind of muffled, and occasionally, the voice will raise a bit, as things get a little more intense, and you pick out a few phrases, you pick up, "Mobilizing three legions "to hold the Ashguard Garrison back, while our scouts watch "the crests of the Ashkeepers for movement." The rest of it's just (mumbling), other voices going around, and other voices. Another voice calls out, "We've Righteous Brand "on guard at every major cavern network. "While we outnumber their forces, "they are wily with their use of passages beneath the world "that can strike in small numbers nearly anywhere." MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: You hear some more conversation, some muttering, and then a voice say, "Send more declarations for coin "for loyal hands to the cities of the coast. "I should like a word with the Concord "on calling in some favors. "When the armies are upon us, release the Scourgers, "this destruction will be what we need." "Yes, my liege." "Yes, my liege." As the figures that are blurred in the distance off the cusp of this vision turn and begin to walk toward it, the vision flickers, striates, and then vanishes. Something seems to intercept and prevent the spell from searching, as these figures approach the source of your scry. Forcefully, you're ejected from the vision, and find yourself back in your room. LAURA: (coughing) TRAVIS: Are you all right, Jester? LAURA: Yeah, something just pushed me out. LIAM: What do you mean? LAURA: Like, like somebody got in the way of the scry, you know? Like, they, they canceled it. LIAM: Caleb starts fingering the necklace around his neck. LAURA: I tell them everything that I heard, and I draw the picture, you know, of the wallpaper, and the candelabra of the, I don't know if it means anything, but. MATT: You don't recognize the wallpaper specifically, but each of you do realize the patterns of it some to be Dwendalian. LIAM: Yeah. MATT: But the location doesn't ring a bell. LAURA: He sounded, they said, "My liege." SAM: To the blondie? LAURA: No, no, no, he was taking notes, they said my liege to the guy that he was looking at. SAM: And they, they are Empire folks? LAURA: It was definitely Empire, apparently they're hiring the Gold Chain people to be, like, an army for them. They're really badass warriors, right? TRAVIS: Yeah. TALIESIN: Are we entirely sure we should be keeping this to ourselves? MARISHA: Mention the Scourgers as a distraction, which is exactly what I was afraid of, that they were doing by opening these rifts to the Abyss. SAM: Oh, is that what the Scourgers are, the rifts? MARISHA: That's what I'm guessing. TRAVIS: Could be. SAM: They also mention specific attacks at specific places, right? MARISHA: Ashguard. SAM: We could, we could warn the Dynasty of these specific attacks. LAURA: So we want to? SAM: We could save lives. LAURA: Well, it would save-- LIAM: On which side? MATT: Make a history check, both Caleb and Beauregard. LIAM: Balls. SAM: Come on, Beau. MARISHA: Natural 20! Ugh, I've been feeling real bad about myself with these rolls. MATT: Though the opinion of the time you trained with the Cobalt Soul seems to largely be that of one who fucks off and doesn't pay the mind that a devoted monk would, people like Dairon have seen the keen sense for gathering information and the utilitarian usage of it. Passing through, as this conversation's happening, your memory banks, Scourgers, a phrase that lingers for a second in your brain. You think about, could be the rifts, could be the rifts, Scourgers, where have I read about that, I've read about that. Scourgers is a colloquial nickname for the Royal Assassins underneath the Crown. The term itself is used like a ghost story. People talk about them, and in history, there's references, but, you know, how much can be proven? They do their job well enough that they are just a ghost story. MARISHA: Is that it? Yeah? MATT: You got that with a natural 20, not a lot of people know about that. MARISHA: Sorry, I thought you said scourges? LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: But it's Scourgers. LAURA: Oh. MARISHA: Are you sure, was it Scourgers? LAURA: It could have been, scourges sounded, yeah, it could have been Scourgers, why? LIAM: What are they? MARISHA: People who are shadows and stories. I honestly wasn't sure if they were real or not, but also, people don't think that the Expositors are real. They're royal assassins, like, people that rich people don't want you to know about, that they have killing other people, that they don't want-- LIAM: That sounds like-- MARISHA: Involved. LAURA: I scried into, like, a really secret meeting. MATT: Your conversations-- LAURA: That's really good timing. MATT: The conversation strikes you as, you've only heard the term, you've only heard the term once before, and it was a long time ago, you didn't make the connection, but-- LIAM: But it's me and my friends. MATT: Vollstrecker is the title you're more familiar with. MARISHA: You were a Scourger? LIAM: No. MARISHA: They were training you to be a Scourger? LIAM: I think so. LAURA: You were going to be a shadow, like an assassin? LIAM: Yeah, I failed, though, I broke off. I broke. LAURA: You'll always be an assassin to me. SAM: You can be anything you set your mind to, no. MARISHA: It's weird for those sentiments right now. SAM: These are bad people. MARISHA: Yeah. SAM: These are bad people, we should tell the Bright Queen. LIAM: How do we want to help? TALIESIN: My, my-- LIAM: Not the people who messed you up. LAURA: If we tell them about this, we're for sure taking a side now, we are definitely saying we're for Xhorhas. TRAVIS: Jester's right. TALIESIN: If we say nothing, we're also taking a side. LAURA: If we say nothing. LIAM: Yeah. MARISHA: What if we capture this blonde bastard? LAURA: Yeah, but he's in the Empire, like, what are we going to do? MARISHA: He's apparently going to be here in two days. LAURA: Well, I mean-- TRAVIS: You said he was taking notes? LAURA: He was taking notes, yeah. MARISHA: It sounded like a war meeting. LIAM: And talking to a liege, you said? LAURA: Everybody was saying, "My liege, my liege." TRAVIS: I mean, we should do both. We should let the Bright Queen and the throne know about the attacks, and we should set an ambush with help for the man with the blonde hair. LIAM: You were overhearing a conversation with King Dwendal. LAURA: Ooh, yeah, probably. SAM: My liege is definitely a king, not just, like, a high ranking military person? TRAVIS: No, my liege is always a king. LAURA: Ooh, damn, I was in there with the king! SAM: Oh, did you get a look at him? LAURA: No, all I could see was this blonde guy. MARISHA: Well, the problem-- LAURA: It's weird, it's like, it's like-- SAM: I have a doll. LAURA: I can see him, and everything around it's like this weird fuzziness and stuff, and then, like, sometimes I can hear things around them, and sometimes there's just muffled-y sounds. It's a really, really cool experience, I want you guys to be able to do it sometime. MARISHA: It sounds like this is a pretty highly orchestrated attack, it sounds like this is a several point invasion. TRAVIS: Coordinated. MARISHA: If they're talking about mobilizing three legions, bringing in the Ashguard to, or the Righteous Brand to guard, moving to the Ashkeep, and then sending out the Scourgers-- LIAM: Dates, did they say dates, times, when, soon? MATT: You didn't pick up any of that. LAURA: Not that I could hear. I only heard them when they raised their voices, you know, sometimes it was kind of muffled. MARISHA: What if this blonde bastard, this is his side of the plan? He's here to get deep, get beyond the borders, unleash these rifts, I don't know. LIAM: Maybe if we find him, we can pull the timing out of him, and then go to these places-- TALIESIN: And then what? LIAM: And then take hold of some of these Scourgers, and use them to reach deeper. LAURA: Very intricate plan. TALIESIN: This seems complicated TRAVIS: The only timing we have is in two days, right? LIAM: Correct. TALIESIN: And what happens in two days? TRAVIS: Well, we know something happens at the-- LAURA: Somebody goes-- ASHLEY: Overcrow. TRAVIS: Yeah, so we should set an ambush with help, we should let the Bright Queen know about the Ashkeeper. That's all we have, I mean, we can make a small movement against this, but anything larger than that, I don't think we have time for. We can tip the scales slightly, we might not even find balance, but it's a something. MARISHA: What if this guy, this blonde asshole is there to meet with Maruo, what if he's, what if those crates were meant for him? What if she is a mole? TRAVIS: Yeah, entirely possible, I mean, look. We're not, it's not about choosing a side, we said in front of the Bright Queen, you said yourself that we want to learn more about these people. The only way that's going to happen is if we can start some kind of a dialogue, and as long as there are ambushes and secret plans being carried out, there is going to be no peace. LIAM: Yes, we have similar goals to the queen, but not the same, but perhaps if we work together to execute a sting, you know, and get these people, perhaps the queen will want one thing, and our intentions are another. But she does not have to know that. TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: We also have no proof of this conversation, we just heard it. LIAM: No, but this moment happening, and us getting this bastard would supply that proof. LAURA: Maybe somebody was scrying on us right when I was scrying on him, and they already know. TRAVIS: They might. LIAM: Maybe. TRAVIS: And they wouldn't have to wait long to find out, it's two days. I mean, shit, if we're wrong, they can lock us up, but something's going to happen one way or the other. SAM: Well, let's go tell, let's go tell. LIAM: Yes, and from the queen's perspective, we are just turncoats, yeah? We are helping them against the Empire, but what we are really doing, we really need to find your contact. LAURA: Hey, you guys, just so you know, there are spells that can make you tell the truth, so. You know, if it seems at all like there are things you don't want her to know, just be careful, okay? TRAVIS: Sure. TALIESIN: I think what Miss Jester's trying to say, Mr. Caleb, is I understand your impulses to get on top of this, but some things are too big to get on top of. Some, some things are just bigger than us. And any attempt to wrangle or get them to submit to our will is just, what was the old saying, whipping the tide for daring to turn without one's leave, maybe-- MARISHA: Do people say that? LAURA: I didn't know that-- Honestly, that's way more in depth than what I was going for. SAM: I think she was just saying, like-- LAURA: Just so you know, there's a spell called Zone of Truth, and she could use it. TALIESIN: The point I'm making is maybe instead of trying to control the situation, which is beyond me, maybe we just try and do whatever good is right in front of us. LIAM: We are talking about the same thing, and I do not need to tell any lies. I will say the same things I have said in her chambers. We are going to rip the Cerberus Assembly down. MARISHA: We don't need to control the situation, we just need to shine light on it. LIAM: That's what she wants, and that's what we want. TRAVIS: He's right, we're talking about the same thing. SAM: How do we get in touch with her? LAURA: How do we get what? SAM: Essek, are you listening to this conversation? No. LAURA: We should probably just go. SAM: Sometimes, I-- LAURA: We should probably go? SAM: Just go knock? LAURA: To the, to the, yeah. TRAVIS: In the morning, maybe, so it's not in the dead of night? SAM: Okay, yep, sure. MARISHA: I don't know. LAURA: It seems pretty important. TALIESIN: I feel like I would want to know. MARISHA: I don't know if these people sleep, right? It's just kind of-- LAURA: They go to sleep, everyone sleeps. TALIESIN: I think we should just go. ASHLEY: I think we should just go, too, because that's an extra day that would give them to plan. TALIESIN: Time to think. ASHLEY: Time to think. LIAM: And the angle here is that we are suggesting that they use us as the traitors we are. TALIESIN: I don't understand that, but. LAURA: The angle here is. LIAM: We tell them what we know, we suggest they use as insiders to the Empire, and we stay connected to it the whole way through. LAURA: I understand now. I'm not from the Empire. TALIESIN: Neither am I. LIAM: You're friends to the Empire. LAURA: Friends to everyone, really. TALIESIN: I'd agree with that. TRAVIS: Maybe they'll give us something to help amplify our efforts. SAM: That'd be nice. Let's go. TALIESIN: I see your reasoning, though. SAM: To the moorbounders! TRAVIS: Or we could just walk. SAM: Or we could just walk. We'll just walk. TALIESIN: Is there a bus, maybe? ASHLEY: Trolley. MATT: All right, so what is now early evening, roughly, I mean, a day, tomorrow is the day that was chosen for this meeting, whatever it is. You are currently gathering your things, and heading towards the center of the city. Okay, so as you walk towards Lucid Bastion, your hearts in your throat, preparing for whatever choice you're about to make, discussing that as you're making your way. MARISHA: Yeah, discuss as-- Can I pull Fjord back a little bit, and just trail behind the others for a minute? MATT: Sure. MARISHA: Can I talk to you? TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: I am a bit in a conflict in my brain. Having, I don't know what to do. TRAVIS: About? MARISHA: You remember Dairon, my trainer, my master? TRAVIS: Sure. MARISHA: I should probably reach out to her, right? TRAVIS: Oh, about this? Could you do that if you wanted to? MARISHA: I could have Jester send a message. TRAVIS: Well, in these situations, there are pros and cons. MARISHA: Yeah. TRAVIS: What are the pros? MARISHA: The pros are that I reunite with someone who cares about my wellbeing, and might be a potential ally. TRAVIS: Cons? MARISHA: She's more connected to the Empire than I even knew, and any information or exchange or meeting could result in the demise of either one of us? TRAVIS: I admit, I had not thought about that at all. MARISHA: I don't know who I'm trying to protect more, myself or her. Or maybe I just have this crazy thought, that if we go off and we do something heroic, and I save the Empire, and become a war hero, then no one has to be assassinated. MARISHA: Real question: Do you care about the Empire? No judgment. MARISHA: I didn't think I did. It's not the Empire that I care about. I just think the more and more that I'm on the ground, and I'm walking, and I'm seeing the faces of people from city to city, and everyone's the fucking same. I mean, sure, people look different, have different customs and beliefs, but everyone's miserable, everyone's just trying to survive, everyone's just trying to fucking make a living, and raise a family. TRAVIS: Dairon always give you a fair shake? MARISHA: Yeah. But at this point in time, I've spent more time with you all than her. TRAVIS: Yeah, but some of these things come around. You got to send them back the other way. She's been fair to you, you deserve, she deserves to get a fair shake from you. It doesn't mean you need to send these things in opposition, but I think if you don't give her a head's up, you'll be fucked up about it. She's a big girl, she can take care of herself. MARISHA: All right. I should probably tell her before tomorrow night, do you think? TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: Maybe she could help us. Or she'll slit my throat for being a traitor, but I guess we'll find out! A lot can happen in 24 hours. TRAVIS: Guarantee you she will if you don't tell her. MARISHA: Yeah, you're not wrong. All right, let's see how this works, I guess. MATT: As you rejoin the group, heading towards the climbing stone spires of Lucid Bastion in the center of the Kryn Dynasty capital of Rosohna, we'll end tonight's episode there. We'll pick up next week. TALIESIN: Time to figure your shit out. MATT: I've got plenty to figure out, Jesus. (laughter) LAURA: Jeez louise. TRAVIS: I'm tracking one, no, make that three, five bogies, I got nine bogies. (laughter) MATT: Ah, information's useful. Information can also be dangerous. SAM: Man. MATT: Oh, man. SAM: Intrigue everywhere. MARISHA: Espionage. SAM: There's stuff happening all across the continent. TALIESIN: Gardening. MARISHA: Fabulous wallpaper. (laughter) MATT: Shit, all right, well, we'll pick up there next week, as you guys step into the Lucid Bastion for whatever plan you have hatched. Thank you, Deven Rue, for the amazing map as you continue to make for the campaign. It's so good. LAURA: Phenomenal. MATT: She's so good. TRAVIS: Fuck, it's so dope, I don't-- TALIESIN: It's so-- ASHLEY: So cool. TRAVIS: What blood that creature that came from, but damn. TALIESIN: Eventually, we're going to have to have a conversation about this, this thing is a-- TRAVIS: What's that? ASHLEY: It's something. MARISHA: Is that your staff? TALIESIN: No, this is my little metal albatross that I've been carrying, that we have to recombine, this fucking sword. ASHLEY: That sword? SAM: You know what it is? TALIESIN: No, I have no idea, it could be-- LAURA: We got to figure it out. TALIESIN: It could be cursed, it could be great, I have no idea. TRAVIS: Either way, it's a win. TALIESIN: Either way, it's interesting. MATT: All righty, well-- TALIESIN: Here, thank you. MARISHA: Vollstrecker? TRAVIS: What did you give him? What was that? MATT: It's the feather token that he used to make the tree, it's gone now. LIAM: One and done? MATT: One and done. TRAVIS: Well used. MATT: Well used. TALIESIN: I feel, and the garden, when we get up there, and there's a proper description, there's some dope shit up there, it's going to be great. MATT: I'm excited. TALIESIN: I did some good shit up there. Stone Shape's a great, great spell. MATT: Well, folks, we're going to get to our shit. We have an hour till it's Marisha's birthday, so swarm her on Twitter when it gets there. LAURA: Yeah! MARISHA: You're such a husband. (laughter) MATT: Legally, metaphorically, and spiritually, I am. LIAM: Check and mate. MATT: I know, guilty as charged. Well, guys, have a wonderful night, we'll see you next week, we love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.