"Honey Heist 3: Tova’s Honeys" (Sx39) is the thirty-ninth special episode of Critical Role. It is the sequel to "Trinket's Honey Heist" (Sx27) and "Honey Heist 2: Electric Beargaloo" (Sx35).
Synopsis[]
Pre-show[]
- Together the Critters have raised over $100,00 for the Pablove Foundation, Sam's chosen favorite charity of choice, which is dedicated to fighting childhood cancer through funding grants and through the arts.
- Because of this generosity, Sam will be hosting his first ever fireside chat
- Coming up as well, a very special EverythingIsContent, where the amazing Babs Tarr will teach Marisha how to draw Beau.
Introduction []
Tova, it has been three months since you sent the Sweet Brothers on their mission to clear Fort Lox from the control of the Bear Acuda and Hattori Bongo. Of course you've been living the adventuring life part-time, but now you are back at the High Bear Nation headquarters. You deliver the news back to Sir Paddington on the discovery of the balootonium from Fort Lox, the highly explosive honey-based compound that the clan was possessing. Since then it's been business as usual at the High Bear Nation. At least it has been when you've been there, which hasn't been that much. Which leads us to today, a day in which you've been requested to have a briefing with your boss, Sir Paddington.
Part I []
We return once more to the High Bear Nation, where Tova is at HQ and heads up to the meeting room on the third floor to be briefed by her boss, Sir Paddington. He addresses her through a speaker, saying he has a mission of the utmost importance. Balootonium is continuing to find its way into the criminal underworld, probably by ocean transport. Since even a single gram is enough to destroy a small town, he has granted Tova access to a full team and inserted their coordinates into her globear positioning identification system, since she is the Brains of the operation. Using her system five times, she finds the Muscle, Drew Bearymoore, the Face, The Midnight Maven, the Hacker, Bearah Pawcett, the Driver, Grizz Leigh Bayer, and the Thief, Clair McFuzz, of her team.
They all gather themselves and head down to the R&D Center to meet with Bearsley, Sir Paddington's right-hand man. He explains that the triangulation algorithm has pinpointed Stilben as a place of interest, as five or six shipments of balootonium have come through the port town already, and it is connected to just about every other port on the eastern seaboard. The Clasp has been there for years, so this doesn't surprise him. Bearsley instructs them to meet with an informant, Penny, who is currently hunkering down in Stilben, in a tavern called the Sunset Stride.
No mission is complete without special equipment. Divided among them are three rifles, an enchanted bullet, X-ray sunglasses, and for each of them a highly concentrated dose of honey as well.To cut down on the travel time needed to get to Stilben, Bearsley rolls out a prototype of the Ripley Model Double-O Salmon, a rounded, soft-bodied coupe spy car. Before they leave, he remembers he hasn't given them their Humanoid Attention Translocation Supplies yet, a.k.a. their hats. The six ladies pile into the car, which fits all of them, and they leave.
Bearah hacks into the system of the car and makes it even more sweet, accessing an internal reserve of honey to give each of them a second dose. An hour of travel on the OO Salmon's Turbo Mode brings them to the woods just outside of Stilben. They park the car in a stable and attempt to hide it with hay first, then with a big burlap canvas sheet. Drew hangs back to do a perimeter sweep and sees most humans are distracted and tired after a long Monday of work, although a guard notices them as they "humanly" walk out, raising the alarm. Clair tries to run up and catch him in the butt, but misses completely and flies past him. This does work as a distraction, so the others sneak past. The guard punts her into the bushes and runs off, and Clair is free to join the rest of her group, at the cost of some frustration.
The informant Penny is working the bar and notices them entering with an awareness as to what they really are, given her history with Tova. She tells them about Crispin Glover, who seems to be behind a lot of the balootonium problem, and who said he'd been harassed by a pack of bears recently. He's been spending a lot of times at the docks, where he has a strange-looking, high tech boat. Penny gives them burlap sacks in case they need to be incognito (or put someone in a sack), and lets them leave out the back alley, where they follow a gutter all the way to the docks.
Several boats are present, including Crispin's. Clair uses the X-ray sunglasses to check out what's on his boat: a complex steam engine contraption, one shoebox-sized crate, and a few other satchels. Tova's globear positioning system beeps, alerting them to Crispin's presence. He is moving through the docks towards the boat with another satchel, looking harried. Midnight Maven goes out to meet him, trying to seduce him, but he also recognizes her as a bear. He jumps away into a speedboat and flees, though not before Tova can jump in with him and grab him by the collar. She throws her system to Midnight Maven before they get too far away.
Bearah reminds Grizz that the car will come over on auto-drive mode, and so Grizz calls it over with the key fob. It arrives in full salmon mode. They leave rapidly to start making up the, by now 500 feet, distance. On Turbo Mode, they manage to catch up to about 20 feet easily. Grizz brings up the Salmon next to the speedboat and Midnight Maven jumps to try and get on, but misses and lands in the water behind it, though she manages to hold onto rope and climb back aboard. Bearah successfull hacks into the Salmon to drive up the speed even more. Grizz corrals the speedboat into a turn, and Drew picks up Clair and throws her at Crispin's face. Clair gouges out one of his eyes.
Seeing that he's outnumbered and at a loss, he brings the speedboat to a stop. Now no longer in an active chase, Bearah jumps into the boat proper, hacking into the system. She recognizes it as code familiar to the OO Salmon, and also that it has a distress beacon on it. Four little signals on the globear positioning system are already heading over. They take the box and satchels into the Salmon, the bees from the trunk are released, all the bears pile back in, and they speed away with four speedboats on their tail. Grizz activates rocket launchers, warheads hitting two of the speedboats, exploding them. Bearah and Midnight Maven train their guns on the remaining two.
Meanwhile Clair uses her sunglasses again to look into the stolen containers. One thing she finds is a note written by Crispin, full of coordinates and algorithms and equations, but also a diary entry talking about him being an interdimensional being, an actor getting stuck in weird realms; about how he's being stalked by bears, and about how the High Bear Nation has promised him some balootonium he can use to get back to his home realm. Have they been double-crossed by Bearsley?!
Bearah and Grizz activate the submarine function of the Salmon, plunging them down deeper into the ocean with about five minutes of oxygen remaining. They spot some scaffolding poles to hide behind, but are forced to come up for air eventually. When they do, they see the offshore building, a giant industrial complex, military base and weapons laboratory, has a big sign saying Ripley.
Break []
- Liam and Taliesin show off The Chronicles of Exandria - The Legend of Vox Machina Volume II, available for pre-order in a standard and deluxe version.
- Critical Role has a fulfillment center/shop in the UK now, which means more reasonable shipping fees and delivery times in that area of the world.
- Travis talks about the work of OSD, his chosen favorite charity.
- Twitch Subscription Zone ad.
Part II []
Their pursuers and Bearsley are right above them on the stilted flooring of the offshore structure. While the group discusses whether to go in punching or play dumb, Clair picks the lock on a hatch so they can scutter in. Midnight Maven saunters out to seduce a nearby guard into putting a burlap sack over his head, then Drew comes in to punch him out cold. Tova catches him before hitting the floor, and together with Grizz, she puts him into an empty crate. Bearah uses sound technology to hack the paw print scanner. Ahead, there's a locked vault, and a lab. Before continuing on, they make a pact to each other to get out of this alive and then figure out where to go.
Clair picks the lock on the vault, then Drew with great effort pushes open the door. Inside it they find a bomb defusal manual, three fireball grenades, and a vial of black lotus honey. Tova also reads the documents they found: blueprints, inventory, receipts, correspondence back and forth, the blueprints for the Double-O Salmon and Crispin Glover's boat, guns, and a few other things. All signed documents were under Bearsley. They have been building a bomb, a few versions of it, and testing it. Midnight Maven has a thought: what if Paddington is Ripley? After a small existential crisis, they leave the vault to go towards the laboratory.
They enter in slow motion. In the vast open room are a few open consoles on the side walls, flashing lights, LEDs, and a platform suspended from the ceiling that holds "a metric fuck ton of balootonium", rigged to blow. Bearsley appears out of the shadows in a giant mech suit, the Ripley P5000. When he says he has done this because no one realize how much he does around here and how underappreciated he has been for years, the honeys roast him within an inch of his life, disarming him verbally. Instead of reasonably talking to the Honeys as they request, he activates the bomb and jetpacks out through the roof.
The team works together to defuse the bomb according to their manual, with Tova the one pulling wires. Maven climbs up and flips open a latch, allowing all of them to ascend to the roof. The bears aim their guns but miss, however Bearsley's jetpack runs out of fuel and he falls back onto the roof. Grizz meanwhile releases the bees and sets them to attack him. Bearah hard resets the suit, then Grizz pulls him out of it, after which they talk to Bearsley about everything some more.
They return to the High Bear Nation, debriefing with Paddington, who says Bearsley will be taking a leave of absence and if Tova will become his new number two. The others also get raises and higher status.
Featured Characters[]
Player Characters[]
Non-player characters[]
- Sir Paddington
- Barney
- Bearsley
- Hattori Bongo (mentioned)
- Honey Penny
- Crispin Glover
- Bear Grylls
Quotations[]
- Bearah: "We shall bear down on them in the best possible way."
- Tova: "So I think this is the best team possible. Paw-sible."
- Tova: "Which one of our bears has the right to bear arms?"
- Bearah: "Well, you know, it's just like Bear-dapest all over again."
- Marisha: "We bears will bear all when we... return."
- Bearah: "Maven, I hope that one day you'll teach me your wonderful arts of burlesque. Bear-lesque, if you will."
- Tova: "You know what they say? Bears before bros."
- Clair: "I am not about to be bear-splained right now."
- Grizz: "I like it, too. It's becoming."
Maven: "Bear-coming."
Trivia[]
Marisha and Matt played KerPlunk (the bomb defusing mini game) ten times in preparation for the one-shot.
References[]
- ↑ Credited as Noelle Stevenson; Stevenson changed their name in 2021.
Art:
- ↑ The thumbnail for "Honey Heist 3: Tova’s Honeys" (Sx39), featuring Tova and the shadows of the Midnight Maven, Bearah Pawcett, Grizz Leigh Bayer, Drew Bearymoore and Clair McFuzz, by Joana Carvalho (source). Used with permission.