(epic, dramatic music)
(dramatic music continues)
(water rushing)
(metal slicing)
(dramatic music continues)
(dramatic music continues)
- Hello, everyone.
Welcome to episode three
of "The Ravening w*r"
here on Dimension 20.
So happy to be here for
a planned ambush scenario
here with our Scrumptious Scoundrels.
Let's say hi to them. Say
hi, Scrumptious Scoundrels.
- [Players] Hi, Scrumptious Scoundrels!
- For everyone who's been here before,
you know the operation.
Anyway, we have Anjali Bhimani,
we have Zac Oyama, we have Aabria Iyengar,
Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Lou Wilson.
Our wonderful players
doing turns, doing spins,
giving the Blue Steel where it's needed.
And as we come back into
the land of Calorum,
you've been sent by the Architects
to deal with what appears to be
a problematic political
figure who is carrying
information that could
undo the plans they've set.
Heading down from the Ceresian direction
along the Glucian Road,
you know that they are to travel here,
and an ambush is to be set.
You've been given an additional kind of a-
A warrior, protector slash guide slash...
What's the word I'm looking for?
- [Anjali And Brennan] Chaperone?
- Chaperone, there, that's the one.
And guided you to this
particular place on the road
just north of the
nearest crossroads where,
as you look upon this space
after setting aside your rides,
you see large blueberry trees that emerge
from the strawberry grasses that spread
across the various fruit
hills surrounding you,
large, rotund oranges looking juicy
as the peels ripen and pull back.
All manner of beautiful
Fructeran landscape before you
as a grape juice river
carves through the center
of the field, a singular root-stone bridge
reaching over the top
and to the other side.
A fantastic pincer ambush point
as Quichéi reminds you,
we've got about a day to make this work
so let's figure out what we wanna do.
Show me, show me what you've got.
- I'm sorta used to just
thinking about what I would do
in terms of stabbing or attacking people.
- Well, Colin, what would you do?
- [Zac] Well, they're coming through here.
Are they coming from that end?
- [Lou] Yes, this way?
- Yes.
This is the direction you came.
Quichéi- The direction
they've been traveling
seems to send them this direction.
- [Zac] Okay.
- [Lou] So they'll be
coming from this way?
- [Matt] Correct.
- [Lou] Got it.
- I feel like someone who
can fight from a distance
probably could be up here and pop out
and attack them from here
and then pop back under.
Or maybe like, wait till
they get on the bridge
or close to the bridge.
- Are they traveling on mounted
or will they have a guarded
or armored carriage?
- For what I've been told,
and it could entirely be incorrect,
but I think there's some sort
of a carriage arrangement
making its way so look for something,
let's see, they're
masquerading as Fructeran
so I guess look for a fruity
carriage, eh? (chuckles)
- If we initiate the
as*ault with the target
still within the carriage, it's possible
that they might be able
to fire from cover.
Perhaps something, a
diversion or some other way
to lure them out of the carriage
before the attack has begun.
- Could we stage something as if it were,
we were having some
kind of emergency like,
perhaps my elderly father has fallen
and we're alone on the road.
Please, help us.
- Are you pretending we don't
know who you are at sight?
- Well, there's that.
- [Brennan] Well...
- Well, not everybody knows
what I look like, do they?
- Well, if we knew more
about who these people were,
we might be able to ascertain
that, but the truth is,
if they are commoners or even of,
you know, the merchant
classes then it's possible
that they will have never seen the face
of Her Majesty, the Queen.
- Well, I mean, what if we did a thing
where we blocked the road?
I mean, there are trees around here.
We could fell a few and
block the road but, you know,
you and you are trying to get by them
and they can get out to help you,
and then we can jump out and, you know...
(distant screaming of ambushees)
- Well yes, that's certainly a plan.
Many ambushes in the past have used ways
of cutting off things
at the road, force them
to be unable to continue
to go forward, you know?
- That's a classic ambush move.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
- But then they could go backwards.
- It'll be hard to turn
the carriage around.
- I think that's right, though.
Cutting off their escape is
a necessary part of the plan.
- What can we use to try and
cut off their escape, though?
- Can I make a perception
check on whatever these are?
- Yeah, make a perception
check to just survey the land,
I guess, to see what's at your disposal.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- Natural 20.
- Yeah!
- Shut up!
- Finally everybody gets one, okay.
- Or seven, apparently.
- Here's my hot episode.
- Yeah!
- Get ready, everyone.
Get ready.
- Get it!
- All right, so what's
the total perception
on that with the 20?
- Total perception is 20.
(cast laughing)
I quite literally needed that.
- To be honest, this is your
forte. This is your bailiwick.
You are a man of combat and
strategy by life, by trade,
by family and bloodline,
and as you scan the horizon,
you see all manner of
these blueberry trees
that are quite thick, easy to cut,
and probably with the size of your troop,
not terribly difficult to drag as need be
in the space around you.
You also see that the river itself
would be a challenging
thing for anybody to cross.
The flow of it is quite strong.
You also see that a number of these hills,
the Fructeran land here
is different degrees
of strong and loose so there are elements
that just might be adjustable as well.
This has a lot of opportunity
based on how you want to come
at this particular ambush.
- Colin, you're on the hill.
When we give the signal,
you slide one of these
trees down the hill,
and it blocks the path.
- [Zac] All right.
- We have it kind of, you know,
we can create some kind of
pulley system that you cut a rope
and the thing slides down
and they're trapped on either side.
- I like it, but do we want to...
Is there anything to blocking
this side of the bridge
so they don't see it
until they're right here?
- [Anjali] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's-
- The line of sight on the
curve of the bridge, absolutely.
- Or at least when they're on it.
- That's quite clever.
So we start by blocking
that, and then at your signal
he pulls a lever or rope
and slides that down?
- [Lou] Slides down.
- [Zac] Blocks that side.
- [Lou] And then this side is gone.
- That seems to make sense,
but if we block them,
don't we block ourselves as well?
- I think the idea, Your Majesty,
is that we will be the only
ones walking out of here
and as such will have ample time
to make it far away from
the scene of this endeavor.
- See, now that's the
confidence I like to hear.
- Their mistake is being
trapped here with us.
- (chuckles) I see why they chose you all.
You've got some keen eyes
on you and some ba*ls.
- I mean, yeah, we got ba*ls, yeah.
- [Lou] (laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- I think, Your Majesty, if
we can protect your personage,
that is all to the good.
And if that tree in front of the bridge
is enough to stop the
carriage from moving,
then in all likelihood,
we would be able to attack
from a distance, which I
think for you and myself,
is probably advisable.
- All right.
- Something I just thought of
about blocking this side of the bridge.
If they have a longer,
you know, procession,
maybe they spot it too
early and we give up the...
- A scout of some kind?
- [Zac] Yeah.
- Well, I think it's
incumbent upon us if a scout
is to advance ahead of the line
to quietly and quickly
remove that obstacle.
- (laughs) I tell you, you
are not what I thought.
- What do you mean?
- Well-
- Oh, pure fiddlesticks. Ha-ha-ha.
I'm just, I mean, I'm just
spitballing, aren't I?
- Hey, I like the thickness of this spit.
- (laughs) Let our saliva be thickened
by the light of the Bulb!
- I'm gonna pass on that one there, chief,
but yeah, I like the gusto.
- Do Ceresians have like,
a special fighting art
that they specialize in?
- As far as you know, the
Ceresian armies, as they fight,
tend to prefer more phalanx movements.
You know, heavy shields, spears,
moving in large frontal assaults
and in having some
skirmishing melee elements
that then either break forth from it
or end up trying to
surround from the sides.
But those are like,
large-scale tactical battle-
What you do know as a Meatlander
and what has allowed the
Meat Lands and the Ceresians
to kind of hold that line for a long time
is in large-scale, like, you
know, army upon army combat,
the Ceresians kind of have
a little bit of an edge.
But the guerrilla tactics
and the one-on-one kind
of skirmish fray technique
that many of the different Meat Land clans
have independently developed
can easily topple a Ceresian one-to-one.
- I communicate all of
that with a lot of swagger,
especially at the part
where I start talking
about guerrilla warfare.
(cast laughing)
I mean, if we get them in
a one-on-one situation,
they don't touch us, they don't touch us.
They don't get hands on us.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, great!
(players laughing)
- You all right?
- I'm great, I'm great.
- You, Provolone.
- [Zac] Hm?
- I see your eyes looking.
I see your brain churning.
What are you feeling about all this?
- Well, it just sort of depends on
on how many we think there
will be, but I don't know.
This feels like it could work.
Do we still feel like we
need a distraction up front
with like, a person who may or may not...
- Well, interesting point.
Who here says they can ride pretty quick?
- I'm pretty fast, but I'm
bad at talking to people.
- You don't gotta talk.
If we're worried about
them having a scout,
why don't we have one further up the road?
When they see what we're dealing with,
they rush back under cover
of darkness, let us know,
and we have a few moments
to adjust if need be.
That way it's not a full
surprise on what we got,
and we can, you know,
feel a bit more confident
with what we're trying to do.
- I'm gonna telepathically hit up Karna.
Do you have any tricks up your sleeve
that might allow you to go
ahead and not be detected?
- A fair point, but they got
really mad the last time-
- Well, I was going to say,
just do it a little more-
- I don't want Deli to be mad at me.
- No, no, no. Of course you don't.
What I would suggest is perhaps
saying that you'll do it,
run slightly out of sight of us,
and then work your doodily-doo and...
- If you bring me a
body, I'll be the scout
and get numbers on
whatever their retinue is.
- Bring you a body?
- Well, yeah.
If someone else...
I guess I could k*ll a scout.
I'm just trying to let Colin
have a thing 'cause he's like,
this is like his moment.
- This is my moment.
(cast laughing)
Come on, Colin. Come on, Provolone.
- [Anjali] Come on.
- Come on, Provolone.
(Matt laughing)
So my vote would be, a
scout relays the numbers
we are about to face and
we rely on obstacles,
both one hidden behind
the curve of the bridge
as Sir Provolone has
so astutely pointed out
and maybe some obstacles,
as we've said, behind.
- And I'm willing to scout ahead
for their scout or their party.
- That would be a very
brave thing for you to do.
- Do you want some backup?
- Thank you.
- Or like, go by yourself?
- You could come with me if you want.
I'm very fast, though, if you...
- I think me and Quichéi
could handle the chopping
and the tree falling.
- Yeah, yeah.
Depends on what you're
gonna carve out here.
There's all sorts.
We got trees that we can
drag take down and drag out.
We can go ahead and lean
it up and push it down
when it's time off the other
tree, catch 'em off guard.
- [Lou] Oh, that one, yeah.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- [Matt] There's some of
those oranges in that-
- Yeah, how loose is this?
- You look at it.
The hills here are pretty packed,
but you can see there's been just like,
from the occasional rainfall
that comes through here
there's been a little bit of erosion.
Underneath some of the oranges in the side
there is bits of rock that
if it were carved out a bit
could probably loosen some
of the larger oranges.
- [Players] Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
- The blueberries themselves
on the trees also are like,
in kind of a larger
hardened state right now.
They're not quite ripe.
- I was also thinking about a thing
where we gathered up some blueberries
and rolled 'em down the hill.
I really wanna do something with the hill.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- We should totally take
advantage of the hill.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- Are they big,
heavy blueberries in the trees?
- They're fairly heavy, yeah.
They probably sit around that large.
- So they're not something, they're-
Okay, so they're not something
that you could like...
- [Matt] Like bowling ba*ls.
- (grunts weakly) No.
- I mean, you could
if you were like, you know...
- [Anjali] If I was not me.
- Aabria in high school shot putting it,
you could probably pull that off.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Yes!
- If I was a quiche or a Thane, perhaps.
- I just wanna take, like
while we're kind of talking
about stuff, I'm gonna walk
over with the water-steel dagger
to Colin and kind of just...
- Oh, I don't, uh...
I think you can hang onto
that. I appreciate it.
- You're gonna be like,
out doing, gonna...
- Well, if you want me to take it, I-
He points to his sword.
He has like a big longsword
on his hip and is like,
I kinda prefer to use this usually, but...
- Okay.
- I appreciate it.
I don't mean to sound ungrateful.
- No, it's fine, it's fine.
- I feel like we got off on
the wrong foot the other day.
- No, no! It's fine, I...
- Okay, just, I don't mind magic.
I just don't love it pointed
at me so that's what my-
- Hm, okay.
- To clarify, okay.
- So is it weird if
maybe during the fight,
more of it happens but
I'm not gonna hurt you?
- That's totally fine.
- Okay, cool.
- It's honestly sick.
- Ah, yeah! (laughs)
- Do we have a big window?
Like, what is our window
for when we know these
people are gonna arrive?
Is it like, on the scale of hours or-?
- On the scale of a few hours.
- [Anjali] Oh, okay, good.
- It's a period of time
like, from what you heard,
and Quichéi has kind of come
up behind to corroborate it,
the pace of their travel has been like,
carefully marked by...
some allies to the Architects,
and he's kind of sh**ting
for this like, three,
four-hour window so it's kind
of like, prep early as we can
in this time and then
once it's ready, be ready.
- That's just a little bit too long
for me to reliably give you
magic that would help you.
- Sorta.
- Mm.
- 'Cause everything I have
is like a duration of
an hour, essentially.
But I will look and say, well,
if you are going to scout ahead, Colin,
then may the light of the Bulb guide you.
I'll give you a Bardic Inspiration.
(Bulbian power rings)
- Wow.
Do I believe in the Bulb?
- It's pretty fun. We're
having a fun time over here.
- That's like, every youth pastor ever.
(cast laughing)
- Pulls out a guitar.
(acoustic guitar music)
- I wanna talk to everyone
about a little source of light.
(Aabria and Matt laughing)
- Maybe we should also
just, to throw it out,
if we can target the
like, carriage driver,
that might give us a little more time.
- Okay.
- [Lou] Great thoughts.
- Okay, well...
- Where's our carriage?
- You didn't bring a carriage here.
You brought starfruit that
you rode on this journey.
- [Anjali] We rode them over?
- And you tied them up
a little bit off the road up
that way to keep them safe
just in case you have to run.
- [Anjali] Wonderful.
- But I guess for this case,
I should give out your minis
so you can at least start
prepping where you're going to be.
- (gasps) Oh!
- [Lou] Oh, wow!
- What?
- Minis, minis, minis!
- [Brennan] Yeah, oh yes!
- Oh, there he is.
- Oh, cute!
(epic adventure music)
(Brennan screams excitedly)
- [Lou] My beautiful boy.
- [Brennan] Look how big my head is.
- [Lou] Look at your giant radish head.
- Ooh!
- Look at your cheesy guy.
- Oh! (hollering) Oh!
- Oh, you're very cool.
How hot are you?
- [Lou] Way bigger than I thought.
- [Aabria] Yeah!
- [Brennan] Oh, the spear is
a f*cking toothpick. (laughs)
- Yes, yeah.
- This place is dumb.
(cast laughing)
I love it.
- (laughs) I love it.
- [Aabria] Yay!
- I love it.
- Right, well, um...
- [Zac] This is awesome.
- I did bring along some of the things
that I had in our carriage,
and I hope it's all right.
I know I don't seem like it,
but I'm a fair shot with a crossbow.
And I did learn a bit of
swordplay when I was at court.
Well, a woman has to bide her time.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- So...
- Well, I'm sure it'll come in handy.
(juice rushing)
I'd like to set about felling this tree
and dragging it over.
- Easy enough with good
Darren Quichéi's help.
(cheers of delight and disgust)
- Wow, this man's a f*cking mess.
- [Anjali] Yeah!
- [Aabria] I don't like it.
- [Lou] This boy is nasty.
- [Matt] Pulling out his-
- [Brennan] It's not
Calorum without someone
who looks truly f*cking disturbing.
- Yeah.
(Aabria gags)
He's a quiche you left in
the Tupperware too long
with two eggplant-steel
blades at his side and a grin.
But sure enough, between the two of you...
- [Lou] Oh yeah!
- [Anjali] Oh!
- [Brennan] Oh, sick! Look at that.
- Quichéi is like-
- You guys knew.
- For the element of surprise,
perhaps maybe it's best
we go ahead and lean this
up on this other tree,
and we can try and... (grunts)
- [Lou] Oh, and time it out.
- [Matt] Time it to catch 'em off guard.
- [Aabria] Oh my God.
- [Lou] Quichéi, you brilliant man.
- I've done this a few times,
you know. We'll figure it out.
- Yeah, incredible.
- [Lou] Yeah, I like that.
- I'm gonna start trying to
loosen up some mountain dirt.
I don't know. I don't know
how to fight in the open.
I'm kind of a slit your throat
in a whorehouse kinda gal.
- [Lou] Yeah.
- I'll help you with
the loosening the rocks.
- Yeah!
- [Matt] Okay.
- Like I said, I'm obsessed with this hill
so I was looking at the
different soil types.
- I wondering if we can
cut open these blueberries
and cover ourselves to look we're,
like, blend in with the tree. (laughs)
- All right...
- Full on like, Predator this?
- [Anjali] Full-on camouflage.
- (flawless Schwarzenegger
impression) I'm here, k*ll me!
Do it! (laughs)
- I mean, Colin, no one is
stopping you from doing this.
- Colin is covered in blue.
(cast laughing)
- So you want a nature check
to know if it will work.
- Yeah, I think it'll-
- Do you think this will do anything?
- I'll actually, once
the tree is cut down,
I'll make a little investigation
check on the blueberries,
if I can, just to be like,
they're sort of hardened, right?
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Like if there's something...
Do a little...
- [Anjali] Hmm...
- That's a 18.
- 18.
What are you trying to
ascertain about them?
- I'm trying to ascertain
if there's anything,
'cause we're out of Vegetania
so I'm trying to see
if there are any properties of these.
Less so using them for obstacles
but more like, do these
things maybe blow up?
Or do they turn into like,
little guys that run around?
Just truly like, is there anything...
(Matt laughing)
(Lou mimics squealing blueberry)
- [Zac] Whoa, they're little guys!
- You know, wild sh*t
happens from time to time.
- [Matt] Investigating them-
- You can never tell.
- You realize that these are
the same types of blueberries
that were used to build the pillars
beneath the Great Pyramid of Food.
- (gasps) They're blooming oddberries.
- They are used in a lot
of masonry and as the basis
of many load-bearing
constructions in the land,
which means that they,
even in their ripest form,
are still pretty solid and so, you know,
often can be used as projectiles
with expl*sive cannon warfare or the like.
- I think our little blueberries here
might be wasted on our roadside obstacle,
but perhaps gathered up or used
as some sort of avalanche
at the top of the...
- On that- The hill, the hill!
- Yes, the hill! Use the hill!
(sinister music kicks in)
Drop the blueberries down on them!
Crush their legs! Break their shins!
You know, for the mission.
- Spitballing. Just spitballing.
- Just gonna send a little
telepathic like, bro, you good?
- I'm more than good.
(players laughing)
- [Lou] Yeah, I think I will-
- Friend, you're shaking with rage, is it?
- It's joy, but yeah, so-
- In between giving Karna
thoughts about the hill
and the soil types,
I think I will start moving
blueberries up to the hill.
- [Matt] Okay, well, here,
let's start pulling a few things up.
- And I will start attempting
to help in any way that I can.
I feel like the Queen is used
to feeling somewhat useless
when it comes to people allowing
her to do physical labor
so she wants to help.
- She can supervise.
- She really wants to-
- Yeah-
- She does not want to supervise.
I want to play the game.
- Oh.
- I don't want to watch the game.
I want to play it for once.
- I'm gonna be doing
my best to try to like,
pretend to be shoveling
dirt while also just like,
Eldritch Blasting the
ground to loosen it up.
- Ah, clever trousers.
- Okay.
You do manage to loosen
quite a bit of the ground.
- [Aabria] Oh sh*t!
- [Anjali] Oh, wow!
- [Aabria] There is extra orange!
- [Matt] To the point where
there is now currently-
- Is that an edible orange? I'll eat it.
- [Matt] One extremely loose-
- It does look so real.
- It's so real like-
- Rick Perry, you dog.
- I don't know what's
crazier, using a real orange
or not using a real orange.
- That!
- [Brennan] What's the wilder choice?
- [Matt] There it is.
- [Aabria] All day.
- [Matt] That's what we're talking about.
- [Anjali] Oh wow, that's dangerous.
- Now, do we think that the orange alone
will block the road and they
won't be able to get out?
'Cause I'm down to chop
down another tree, but...
- You manage to acquire a
few blueberries as well.
Where would you like these to be placed?
- I think those will also be on the hill.
- [Aabria] They have little bluebs!
- [Matt] Over on this side?
- [Lou] Yeah.
- [Matt] Or closer in?
- You know,
we are sitting here with
a balanced-a*s breakfast.
- [Lou] 'Cause it's sounding
like maybe two-ish people
will be on the hills.
- I have a strength of seven,
so I can't meaningfully even
like, kick a blueberry over.
- [Lou] Mm-hmm.
- I think I should be up
on this like, covering
this exit over here.
- Great, I think, yeah, it's
feeling like me, Quichéi,
and Colin will be in the scrum.
- Yeah, yeah, is there any
other part of the landscape
that looks like, unstable in
this moment or otherwise like,
other trees that can be dislodged
or other of the oranges there?
- [Matt] Other trees can be cut down.
You have a little bit of time.
- [Lou] This lemon.
Does this lemon feel, like, viable?
- You could give it a
shot if you wanna go ahead
and roll nature or survival.
- [Lou] All right, I'll give you a-
- I'll subtly give you a
little Bardic Inspiration.
- Oh, what number? A d6?
- [Aabria] It's a d6, yeah.
(dice taps table)
I guess I could have
helped, that's more useful.
- 14 survival.
- 14 survival, okay.
It looks like that lemon
could probably be excavated quite a bit.
It's very heavy and
would be a two-person job
to try and lift it since
it's not directly...
Like, that orange has been ready to go
until it was kind of pulled out.
The lemon would have to be more
of like, a lift, carry and-
- The lemon's not gonna
work! Focus on the hill!
- To answer your question,
too, additional trees
can be cut down if you'd like
to go ahead and utilize them.
- What feels more advantageous?
Do we want to try to use
more trees to block the exit?
Or do we feel that we
need to double up here
on actually blocking the
road in front of them?
- I mean, I think when we push this over,
I think it will satisfy the road
so I think the question is just-
- This side.
- Will the orange be enough
or do we wanna make sure
that once they enter
whatever field we're in, it's
a hard- You're trapped here.
- I feel like between the
orange and the blueberries,
if we push them down, it'll
at least block the carriage
from leaving, but I'm sure
people can run around it.
- Well, they can only run so far.
- Well, this is true.
- (chuckles depravedly) I like you.
- We like you, too.
- [Lou] We like you too, yeah.
- You're lovely.
- You didn't have to respond to it.
I'm just saying, you know, this is...
- All right, right, well...
- [Anjali] It only seemed fair.
- In the future, those sort
of statements do elicit
sort of a compulsory social response.
- I'm not very good at
social anything really.
Let's be honest, I mean,
(chuckles) look at me.
And he like, chews on
the egg in his lower lip
and like, kinda swallows it.
- Now, is that your body?
- Yeah.
- All right.
- It's recycling.
- I wish I could own it like you.
(players laughing)
- And you do pick up, you
have a pretty high insight.
For a lot of this planning, like,
Quichéi is just kinda sitting back
and watching and listening.
And you get the sense
that he's not judging,
he's paying attention to the quality
of tactical prowess you're mustering.
Assessing.
- Uh, Karna, do you think
we'll end being on the hill
as well with the Queen
or will you be where
you're currently standing?
- I'm open to suggestions.
- I mean, personally, I
think it would be nice
to have someone with the
Queen because I think we
will be within range of the Bishop
so making sure that people are supported
or have help if need be is important.
- [Aabria] That's good.
- Perhaps this is fool-
I was thinking of not being very helpful
with pushing over objects
up there, but truth be told,
I think I should be by the
Queen's side just in case.
And also, to be quite
frank, me on level ground
means that if one scout breaks away,
I will certainly be m*rder*d
so being on top of the hill
at least provides me a
little bit of defense.
I think I might join Her Majesty up there.
- They'd f*cking eat you up, yeah.
- I'd be, I'm, there's
no bones to pick here.
- And I would like to keep you safe,
and that means keeping an eye on you.
- [Lou] All right.
- You've always done it for me.
- I'm good at picking off
stragglers as they try to leave.
- Great.
- Yeah, I'm gonna join you up on the hill.
- Come join me.
- I'm gonna go over to the lemon.
- [Anjali] I don't know
why I'm tipping over.
- [Matt] Yeah, you can do that.
- I'm gonna throw Bardic
Inspirations as well to the Queen
and to Karna and to Deli as well.
- Oh, thank you.
- Maybe if I run back and
let everyone know what I see,
I can come up here and
help people push that over.
- That seems fair. That seems fair.
I mean, I could help you
with this and perhaps you
could handle kicking a
strawberry down the hill?
- Um...
- [Anjali] Perhaps not.
- You know, I don't want to overpromise.
- Yes, yes, better to
under-promise and over-deliver,
I understand.
- The Bulb slowly sets
over the Fructeran sky
as the stars begin to peek out from above.
- Ooh!
- Aye, aye, aye, aye,
aye, aye, aye, look, it's so lovely.
- You know the time is soon to come
so it would be best to set
your final preparations
before the scout makes his trek northward.
- I think if you can handle the orange,
I can definitely handle the blueberries.
- Okay.
- I know you have to leave soon, Colin,
but I do think whenever this begins,
there should be some
sort of, as best we can,
communication between the orange roller
and what will likely be me and Quichéi.
I think those things happening
as soon as they possibly can
at the same time is advantageous to us.
- Do you wanna yell a signal to me?
- [Lou] Yeah.
- Uh...
I'm gonna say in her head.
- Yeah.
- Do you think it's time to let them know?
(Aabria sighs)
- I'll yell really loud to you.
- Say, it's time to k*ll everyone.
- (laughs) I like that. (claps)
- I'm gonna reach into your
mind and just go, uh, actually-
(Lou screams)
- What's wrong? You okay?
- [Zac] Deli, deli!
- [Matt] What's all that?
- Sorry, I think they're here!
(sword scrapes scabbard)
- Battle stations!
- No, no, no, no!
- Quichéi pulls both blades
out. What's going on?
- [Lou] It's time to k*ll!
- (screams) They're invisible!
- It's fine. Everything's
fine. It's fine, it's fine!
- Bulb above, please!
- It's fine, it's fine.
Everything's fine.
- Oh my God!
- Gentlemen, gentlemen, a moment of peace.
It's...
- We can do quiet talking.
And I continue to speak just in your head,
and I'm swapping back and
forth between the two of you.
So we can be discreet.
- So loud and quiet at the same time.
- Sorry, didn't mean to freak you out.
- More miracles from the Bulb, I assume.
- I think you just hear like,
a low stomach grumble. Mm-hmm.
(Matt mimics stomach gurgling)
Thanks for doing it. (laughs)
- That's impressive.
- [Lou] It's really good.
- Disturbing and impressive.
- That was really good.
- It is so, so gross.
- It's my actual stomach. No.
(Brennan and Aabria laughing)
- All right, we'll use
that to time our release.
But I feel confident.
- Oh boy.
- Right, so I retrieve
my crossbow and my rapier
and keep them handy and we'll see
how my archery skills at court have done.
- Provolone, you ready?
- Yeah, I think so.
- I'd say probably give us
about a half a mile up the road.
Just keep eyes out.
If you see something,
take what info you can
when you feel it's enough and comfortable
for what we could use,
head on back, let us know.
- [Zac] Okay.
- And then it's go time.
- Whew. Okay, yeah.
- Yeah?
- [Zac] Yeah.
- Yeah, you ready?
- It's go time.
- Yeah.
- [Lou] It's go time.
- [Zac] Yeah.
- Yeah.
- There it is.
- I put my scowl on.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- That's my skald.
- Scowlin' Skald.
- [Lou] Scowlin' Skald.
- Grr...?
- [Lou] Game faces. All right.
(Aabria laughs)
- Provolone's gonna go
down the road a little.
- All right, you jump onto the starfruit.
- [Anjali] Come on, Provolone.
- Smack it and,
(mimics starfruit galloping) takes off
up the northward road.
- [Anjali] Oh, you're on starfruit.
- Nice, okay, good.
- Oh, all right.
- You ride ahead for what you think
to be about a half mile or so,
find kind of a small ditch
off to the side where both you
and your ride can kind of
stay relatively out of sight
for any of the approaching.
You do there is like, a
rising hill about that,
say a quarter mile distance from here
where you have first view
of anything coming down that side
which would allow you
to adjust if need be.
You end up waiting for about
an hour and 15 minutes or so,
and there's a brief time
where you're starting
to get that anxious concern about,
maybe all this is a setup.
Maybe this is just to make a fool of me.
Maybe they're not coming.
Maybe they heard something
and they went back
and we'll be here all night
waiting and nothing happens,
just as you begin to see the shadow
of something rise over
the top of the hill.
Make a perception check for me.
I'll say it's pretty low light here
so make it with disadvantage.
(Anjali groans)
(tense music)
(dice tap table)
- Oh! Okay...
- Okay, perception.
That's gonna be a 12.
- A 12, given the
circumstances, is not that bad.
You don't pick out the eagle-eye
details in the distance,
but you do see a singular carriage,
the shape itself kind of round and oblong.
As you watch it begin to
approach further and further
or closer and closer to you, I would say,
you see some of the striations
on the side, their color.
This is a Watermelon Carriage.
- Oh.
- You see it being tugged
forward by pairs of cherries
that are currently fixed to a central pole
that drags it forward,
and you see two figures
kind of sitting at the
front of the carriage,
just kind of sitting and resting.
The side door appears
to be probably facing the
opposite direction of you.
You don't see an exit on the right side.
It's not lit.
It looks like it's trying to
just cruise by with as little
of a visual connotation of
its presence as possible.
- Do I see, does it seem like
there's any foot soldiers
or anything in the front
or is that literally like,
by those like, berries or whatever?
There's no people walking around them?
- There's nobody walking around it.
It looks like it was designed
to move with expediency
and with as minimal a
notable impact on the road
to draw attention.
- Okay.
- So from what you can see right now,
it's just like the sets of
cherries pulling the carriage,
the carriage itself, and
the two riders in the front
that are just kind of holding the reins.
- Okay.
- [Matt] You can wait until it gets closer
if you'd like to make more details out.
(tense music)
- Uh...
- But the closer it gets,
the less stealthy your exit
will be so the choice is yours.
Do you stay for more information
or do you head back with
what you've noticed?
- I think I don't wanna
lose the element of surprise
and so I'll head back now.
- [Matt] Okay.
(Zac groans nervously)
You leap back onto your starfruit and...
- This is very fun.
Being on this side of the table
with this is very, very fun.
- (mimics starfruit galloping)
Rising across the field,
heading up over the
next hill down the grade
and there you can see the valley once more
where you assume your
friends are still waiting.
You all watch as the
singular ridden starfruit
and Colin Provolone on
top begins to approach
at this point now in rapid speed
that you know you're
out of eye and earshot
of the approaching caravan,
so, what do you do?
- I saw a big ol' watermelon
that had little cherries pulling it
with two riders on the front.
I could have maybe stayed a little longer,
just get a little bit,
a better picture of it,
but that's what I saw for
now 'cause I didn't wanna-
- How many knights or
foot soldiers accompany?
- I didn't see any, but
there may be some behind it,
as far as I can tell.
- Or inside it.
- Or inside, yes.
- But a carriage-full is doable.
- [Zac] Mm.
- There's six of us.
- Clearly they don't want to be found
so perhaps we're lucky.
- It seems like they've put all their eggs
in the basket of keeping a low profile.
- [Anjali] Let's...
- It was a mistake on their part.
- Shall we get in positions?
- Yes.
Colin, you'll be pushing the orange?
And you'll talk to me?
- Yes.
- When we're ready? All right.
- [Matt] That'll put you up
here, right about that space.
- God, I hope it's them.
(Matt laughing)
- Oh my... (laughs)
(Aabria laughing)
Oh my God! Oh!
- I would die! It's so funny.
- Just a school bus.
- [Aabria] School bus!
- School bus, yeah.
- Tallberry children, the
vacation will be a delight.
Just hang tight, sorry we're delayed.
(Zac mimics groaning pushing orange)
(cast laughing)
(fruit smacking)
- Just shoving it in the
carriage windows. (screams)
- By the Bulb! (choking)
- I do have my skill to
check what's inside, too,
a little bit easier.
- Oh, perhaps you'll be able
to get eyes on it before.
- I think I will. I have a
rather keen eye for things.
- [Lou] Good.
- How much time do we have?
- Just from a half mile up the road.
I rode the starfruit back.
- [Anjali] How many feet
away is this from the road?
- [Matt] From the road?
- [Anjali] Like where I am.
- Where you are?
- [Anjali] Where this, yeah.
- It's about 25 feet down
before it reaches the edge of the road,
like, in its full curvature.
- [Anjali] I want to get within 30 feet.
- [Matt] You can do that there, yeah.
- [Anjali] Of the carriage.
- I'm gonna begin ritually,
like, prepping a ritual cast of silence.
- Okay, whereabouts are you?
- If I have to ballpark it, I'm gonna aim
for like center of the bridge
where we plan on like, pinning them.
- Sick.
- [Lou] Wow.
- So yeah, it's 120-foot
range. I say it is-
It's one action, which is
quicker. It's only about a-
As opposed to one action it
takes a minute to cast it
as a ritual cast.
- [Aabria] Okay.
- But it is a 20-foot sphere
and it lasts for 10 minutes
on concentration so...
- Sweet.
- [Matt] Whereabouts would you be-
- Like, the dream is if I can cast it
on the carriage itself to catch it there.
- Okay, okay.
- But if I have to pick,
like, a static spot then-
- I think it's less of
like a casting a spell
and then picking because
it is ritual cast.
You're kind of focusing
on the spot as you go
and then set it off.
- Yeah, it's a 20-foot radius
so I've got 40 feet like,
yonder where the fruit do be lyin'.
- Yonder where the fruit do be lyin'.
- [Matt] So this here would
be the radius on the sides.
- That's the episode name right there.
- (laughs) Yeah.
- Yonder where the fruit do be lyin'.
(Anjali laughing)
- That feels like a chapter heading
from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (laughs)
(Anjali and Aabria laughing)
- I'm watching a play and
then there's just suddenly
a spotlight of someone who begins with...
- Whereabouts?
- Whereabouts the fruit do be lyin'.
- [Aabria] Yeah, since
our plan was generally
to kind of like, pinch
'em in with two things-
- [Anjali] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I'll guess I'll center it on the bridge.
- [Matt] You got it. It is
centered on that bridge.
- I'm holding until I can literally, like,
hear the sounds of the
approaching carriage.
- It doesn't take long.
- [Anjali] Oh, God.
- I will look over at the Queen and say,
Your Majesty,
we have found ourselves
here in strange times.
The Bulb is with you. Have no fear.
And I'm gonna cast Heroism on you and me.
- What does that mean?
- Heroism means you get
four temporary hit points
at the start of every one of your turns.
- Oh, sh*t!
- Is that concentration?
- [Brennan] Concentration.
- All right.
- [Anjali] At the start of every turn-
- So we have concentration on you.
- Do they stack or are there just four?
- [Brennan] What's that?
- Do they stack?
- So they don't stack.
It can never, as long-
Any time you get new temporary hit points
it gets rid of any temporary
hit points from before.
- Got it, okay, okay.
- [Matt] It doesn't stack up.
- It doesn't stack so it's like
a little sort of weak shield
but it replenishes every round.
- That's delightful. Oh, thank you.
You are such an inspiration to me.
(juice rushing)
(dramatic music)
- Behind the one cut tree that's leaned
against the secondary tree,
its branches kind of bowing
with the weight of it being pulled there,
you and Quichéi sit there,
his blades sheathed,
kind of gives you this look from his like,
creepy crumbled egg face, goes,
you're ready for this, huh?
- (chuckles confidently)
It's been too long
since my spear tasted flesh.
- (chuckles malevolently) Soon enough.
And as he looks past the
falling blueberry tree bushes
and such, you begin to see,
descending from the hill, the carriage.
(players shouting excitedly)
- And all the children inside of it.
Aw.
- [Players] Aw!
- [Anjali] Look at it!
- [Aabria] It's beautiful!
- [Anjali] Oh, it's so
pretty. That's a big carriage.
- [Lou] That's gorgeous.
- [Anjali] That is gorgeous.
- Slowly moving forward down the-
- So as soon as it gets
within 30 feet of me...
- [Matt] Which would be about there.
- I'm gonna hold my ring to my
mouth and I say, let me see.
And I'm gonna peer into the watermelon
and see what's inside.
- Okay, that's pretty cool.
(Brennan laughs joyfully)
- Let's f*cking go!
- As your vision, as it's kind
of (mimics carriage rattling)
moving forward, you peer
inside and immediately
see five figures within
the watermelon's interior.
You do see that there is a
door on the opposite end.
There are windows to the sides,
but there are five
figures, indeed, within.
Four of them appear to be heavily armored,
all of them with shields, one
of them with a large spear,
looks to be larger than the others,
and another cloaked figure that's sitting
in the center chair in the back.
They're all kind of sitting
in a somewhat guarding,
flanked position to protect the one-
- Can I tell from what they look like
whether they are Ceresian,
whether they are-
- Make a perception check.
(die taps table)
- 10.
- 10? I'll say with no light
on the inside of the carriage
and no light in the vicinity,
only the starlight to go off of,
you can't quite make out
any details, unfortunately.
- I'm gonna telepathically call to her
and I'm gonna tell her
everything that's inside there.
- Yeah, then I'm relaying it to the group.
- Quichéi, seven. Seven
of 'em, heavily armored.
- [Matt] Oh, we can do
this. We can do this.
- [Lou] And I'm gonna drop the-
My goal is to drop it right
after the first set of horses.
- [Matt] Got it, I'll move
this so we all understand
the bridge itself is silent.
- [Aabria] Yeah, cool.
Yeah, yeah, silent.
- So essentially, I'm looking
to maim a few cherries.
- [Matt] You got it. So shifts forward.
- (laughs) I'm looking
to maim a few cherries.
- Cruising in this
direction, begins to go.
And right about there Quichéi-
(Lou grunts)
(grunts) You both push.
(mimics wood cracking)
(epic adventure music)
The blueberry tree slams
down (mimics tree crashing)
onto the cherries and
you hear the screeching
(cherry squeals and neighs)
of the cherries that are
crushed beneath the tree.
- [Anjali] Poor babies.
- Two of them are trying to pull away,
they're still strapped to
the side of the carriage
while the other ones that
are pinned beneath the tree
are kind of just quivering,
crushed under its weight.
But you only hear some of
them because the back half
that are trying to run are
just squealing in silence.
- [Anjali] Oh my goodness.
- Immediately the two that
are riding in the front go...
(piercing ringing resounds)
(epic adventure music)
They pull their weapons out.
I need everyone to roll initiative.
(players cheering)
- Oh, baby!
- [Anjali] Go, go Provolone!
- Bulb, take me away.
- 17, nice.
- Why is the dice bad?
- Wow, what a setup, the Silence.
- So in Silence, they
can't hear each other.
- They can't hear each other.
- They can't hear anything.
- But once we're enter it, we're also-?
- Yeah, once you're in
there, you are silent.
I just wanted to make
sure, if there was like,
a tail on them, they wouldn't
hear the ambush ahead.
- Okay, so going here,
initiatives 25 to 20.
- 21.
- Darren rolled a natural
20 on his initiative
so he's getting up there quick.
- [Aabria] Damn, let's go!
- Yes, let's go, Quichéi.
- 20 to 15.
- 17.
- 15 to 10.
- 10.
- 12.
- And then... 10 to five?
- Seven.
- Seven over here, all right.
- I'm last?
- [Matt] Yeah.
- I'm embarrassed.
(Brennan laughs)
I was the most hyped. (laughs)
Come on, come on, okay!
- So, bringing this where it is,
top of the initiative round,
the first to go is Darren.
Darren immediately rushes
from behind this tree,
draws his blades, you
little suckers come here!
And he's gonna rush up to the
side there and immediately,
both blades out, just go
(mimics blades swishing)
in an attempt to sneak
it to the guy to the side
who has not noticed him.
Stealth in advance, shortsword
and shortsword dual-wield
on that first one there.
Oof, that's gonna be a 23, and...
a natural 20.
- Yay!
(players cheering)
Go ahead and eat your face.
- There it is!
- You can eat a little bite of your face.
- You nasty m*therf*cker!
- You nasty m*therf*cker.
(Matt laughing)
- That's a high-protein
diet. That's why, that's why.
- Oh yeah, it keeps you fuller for longer.
- Yeah.
- It's very keto.
- Over ground as he rushes up,
the first figure goes like,
(groans) goes and pulls out this-
That one is an ax or a blade
on the one in the far right?
- The one on the right has the ax.
- The blade.
- Okay, so a massive, like,
pink-colored metallic ax
that (mimics metal slicing)
pulls forward to strike
and (blows landing)
takes two hits to the middle of the torso.
That finishes Darren's turn.
Now that brings us to Amangeaux,
with Raphaniel on deck.
- Okay, she's very excited
now that things have been happening,
and she's part of the party.
So I don't think the blueberries
are really that important
right now, right?
The orange is probably important.
- It might be. Yeah, if you can push it.
- Actually, no, she's gonna be dumb.
All right, so I'm gonna
run as close as I can
but staying on the hill.
- [Matt] Okay.
- To the watermelon.
- [Matt] No worries,
but go ahead and give me an
athletics or acrobatics check
to try and just get across
the land right here-
- I'll use the acrobatics check
'cause she's a dancer, you see.
- [Matt] You got it.
- Oh, thank God.
It's a 12.
- A 12, okay.
I'll say you get up,
and you get most of the
distance to about there.
You do lose a little bit of footing
just due to the nature of the climb,
but you don't tumble off the hill.
- So how close am I now to the watermelon?
- From the watermelon,
you are approximately...
(tense music)
40 feet from it.
- Excellent, okay.
Now, here's what I would like to do.
- [Matt] Yes.
- I would like to f*ck
with the hooded figure
because I can see them
because of my X-ray vision.
And I have a little f*ck
with your mind cantrip
that I would like to try.
- Okay, it's an interesting point of time.
Line of sight, having a
visual beat on something
but an actual physical thing in between.
- There are windows!
- On the sides there are.
- [Anjali] Yeah!
- [Matt] Hmm...
- I don't know. Is he sitting right there?
- No, let's give it a
shot, let's give it a shot.
I'll allow it.
- [Anjali] Thank you.
- I'll allow it because that magical item
specifically was designed for
this use so yeah, go ahead.
- All right, right.
- What would you like to do?
- So immediately I just imagine a lance
like a jousting lance in my hands,
and I imagine riding
up to the hooded figure
and shoving it through his brain,
and I cast Mind Sliver.
- Okay, all right.
- [Aabria] Ooh, yeah!
- So is that a saving throw on their end?
- It is an intelligence save.
- Intelligence save.
That is gonna be an 18.
- Yeah, no, it's a 14.
- [Matt] 14, okay, so
they make the save, but-
- Okay, okay, that's fine. I
don't think it does anything.
- It might not do it if it's a cantrip.
- Yeah, it's a cantrip.
- Okay, great.
And then as a bonus action,
I am going to cast Expeditious Retreat
which allows me to dash now.
- [Matt] Mm-hmm, yeah.
- And then on every turn
until the spell ends.
- Indeed. Is it concentration?
- Yes, it is, it is.
- [Matt] It is? Okay.
- Up to 10 minutes.
- [Matt] All right, there you go.
You are now concentrating on that spell.
- So I'm gonna run back up to here...
to help if Provolone needs help
knocking over the orange.
- [Matt] There you go.
You can go ahead and set
yourself up right in that space.
All right, that finishes your go.
Now that brings us to Raphaniel.
- I look at Her Majesty.
I don't think I've ever seen
you cast a spell before.
- You didn't see me cast a spell.
What are you talking about?
I did something with my mind.
- Hmm, very tricky.
- You did not see me cast a spell.
You didn't. There's no visual-
- Yeah, gaslighting-
- It does have verbal components
so there is a speaking point.
- Mind Sliver!
(players laughing)
- Hya!
- Her Majesty ran forward,
yelled "Mind Sliver"
at the top of her lungs
and then zagged away.
- No!
I yelled, "A-la-la-la-la!"
And then I came back.
That's the verbal component.
- [Aabria] Interesting.
Interesting.
- [Matt] There you go, okay.
- I've gone from having a
sinister like, a magic user,
to being like, Queen's losing it.
(cast laughing)
Absolutely losing it.
- Left the throne and
is having a hard time.
- I mean, it's really hard
to see a woman really spiral like this.
I am going to, seeing the Silence
around the Watermelon Carriage,
looking at the plan with the
blueberries and the orange,
I think what I'd like to do,
and also knowing that Colin
is gonna be better jumping into the fray,
I'd like to cast Shatter
centered on the sloping side-
- Sure, yeah.
- Of the hill.
- [Matt] Okay.
- Down towards the road.
- Okay, so you go ahead
and focus, Shatter.
The rest of you that
are sitting and waiting,
there has been just this quiet fray.
There is the fall of a
tree, a couple of lines
of panicking cherries, and
then a bunch of silent combat
as Quichéi rushes in
and just whips around,
stabbing and striking as
they protect themselves
in absolute, still silence.
You hear a- (screams)
- Mm-hmm.
(Aabria laughs)
- [Matt] The charge.
- And I'll hit that with
a Subtle Spell, too,
and I'll roll the deception
to react surprisedly
as the Shatter goes off.
- Go for it. Roll a deception.
(Aabria laughing)
- That's a 27.
- [Matt] 27.
(Anjali laughing)
- [Aabria] Cool.
- Suddenly... (mimics earth cracking)
- Oh dear!
- This rocking, reverberating detonation
comes from the bottom of this hill.
- Get back, Raphaniel!
(cast laughing)
- This is happening to me!
- Much of the hill suddenly
(mimics rocks tumbling)
begins to tumble down, and as it does,
the orange that both of
you had set up to push
begins to tumble at its own pace.
(rumbling resounds)
(intense dramatic music)
It falls, slams into this
side here. (mimics crashing)
This side kind of cracks,
and one of the other kind
of open slice orange wedges
in the middle of the hill
kind of folds for a second
and then it comes and
folds and sits right there
in the center.
- [Aabria] Yeah!
(Brennan cheers exuberantly)
- It worked!
- [Aabria] Let's go, yay!
- Got 'em, baby. Got 'em.
- [Anjali] Yay, well done!
- Great job, we did it.
Mission accomplished.
- This is the first time
a plan has ever worked.
- That was the Bulb! We gotta
give it all up to the Bulb!
Thank you!
- Boo, boo!
- What a convenient earthquake!
- Do you wanna stay put?
- [Aabria] I'm saying boo-
- And I'm gonna jump and
hide behind the orange.
Full cover, not visible.
- [Matt] You got it. Okay.
- That guy's worthless.
(Brennan and Aabria laughing)
- He's not worthless, he's taking a nap.
- Hey, he's an old man.
- [Anjali] Stand up.
- So with that expl*si*n
happening, the orange roll in way.
Quichéi is kind of slashing about.
These two carriage members at the front,
this one is gonna go
ahead and jump off down
to engage Quichéi on this end.
And this one's gonna go
ahead and jump off as well
on this end and rush back.
- Yeah.
- To look through the
window and begins like,
making heavy hand motions.
- God, that Silence.
- [Aabria] Heavy hand motions?
- That Silence is so f*cking scary.
- Yeah.
- [Anjali] Yeah.
- They can't communicate what's happening.
- Mm-hmm, the one that's
gonna be attacking Quichéi
goes ahead and gets two strikes there.
- Quichéi!
- Quichéi takes a heavy
hit from this like,
bright-pink metal flash
as its ax swings wide
(mimics wind swishing)
and strikes the front
of his breastplate, carving
in and he kind of pulls away,
but you can see it kind of
winded him for a second.
And he kind of stands there
a minute looking around
for the backup support
that he's waiting for.
The other one finishes his
silent shouting and waving
into the middle of the carriage.
That's gonna finish his go.
Provolone, you're up with Karna on deck.
- Let's go!
- All right.
Provolone was like, getting
ready to push this orange
and now that it's gone like, okay...
Sees the guy with the pink ax and
is gonna make just a full
bonus action dash this way
to strike this guy.
- Make an athletics or acrobatics check
to try and not accidentally
do what we've all done
as you've run down a steep hill
and then have your feet crumble
and then smash your face
and grind into the dirt.
- Cool, and I'm also, I have Mobile
so I can ignore difficult terrain.
- Oh, then you're fine.
You don't even have to roll for this.
- [Aabria] Let's go!
- You just full on,
(mimics steps pounding) off the way
and Naruto run over here behind this dude.
- [Brennan] Come on, Provolone!
- [Aabria] Come on, Provolone!
- And I guess as Provolone runs this way,
he pulls out his sword for the first time,
which is just this like,
rusty, disgusting blade
that looks really just, wicked.
And he just takes a f*cking
stab at this guy and
tries to just k*ll this strawberry man.
- m*rder this strawberry guy.
- Come on! All right, yay!
- That would be a 20, a dirty 20.
- Dirty 20 definitely hits.
Go ahead and roll damage.
- He's gonna have to
make a DC 15 wisdom save.
- Ooh, dang. Oh, that's
a failure on an eight.
- Oh, baby, okay, so now he's gonna take
an additional four
necrotic damage from that.
- Hell yeah.
- [Aabria] Let's go.
- Getting nasty, Colin.
- So this is 1d8 plus one.
He takes 10 regular
damage, slashing damage
and then three damage
from the necrotic damage
from this Longsword of Wounding.
- Ooh.
- [Aabria] Nice!
- And so takes 1d4 damage for
each time you've wounded it,
and it can make a DC 15
constitution saving throw.
Also...
Nothing can heal this
person from this blade.
- Ah.
- [Aabria] Oof.
- [Zac] Except for a short or a long rest.
- Gotcha, so as you rush
through and strike the figure
(groans) arches and you
can see where the back
of the armor is that you carved through,
and there is just an open
wound against the like,
dark crystalline-colored skin
as you leave this large
gash mark across its back.
- Do I have any movement left from here?
- So you have 20 more feet of movement.
- [Zac] I'm gonna try to
like, grind the rail (laughs)
(Aabria and Anjali laughing)
and end up over here so I'm-
- Okay, you leap, scrape back.
(metal scraping)
As you do, the figure you
just stabbed kind of like,
(groans) sees you out
of the corner of its eye
and then as a reaction gets
an opportunity attack on you
as you leave its combat range,
the giant ax swinging in your direction.
- But for Mobile, if I attack somebody,
they don't get an
opportunity attack on me.
- So as they go to, the
pain kicks in and (groans)
the ax almost falls from their grasp.
- [Aabria] Yeah, yes!
- And they fall to one knee,
and you just dart past
and wrap back around
to meet your friend and that's
about 20 feet right there.
- That's my bodyguard!
- [Matt] So that's where you end up.
- [Aabria] Amazing.
- Hell yeah.
All right, that finishes
your go. Now it's Karna.
- Okay, I'm going to,
like, I'm gonna point
at the one over here that
I see waving and signaling
and start pinging everyone.
They're waving for backup. That one.
And the one I point at,
I wanna cast two beams
of Eldritch Blast at.
- Go for it. Roll an attack.
- [Lou] Mm.
- My girl, my girl.
- Oh my God, a natural
one for a total of 10,
and a 28, or a 27 to hit.
- Okay, 27 definitely hits.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- The first one you fire
just fires a little wide
as you see the figure turns
and kind of like, ducks out of the way.
It completely misses, but the
second one ends up striking it
right in the top of its
kind of bulging apple head.
- Sweet, for 11 points of force damage.
- [Matt] 11 points of
force damage to it. Great.
- And I wanna redescribe
it as like, a shadow
that looks like a very fleshy
part of like a GI tract
reaches out, and it's not
force damage like a blast
but like crushing peristalsis.
- Oh!
- [Aabria] As he's
beginning to be digested.
- [Matt] And you're
staying put where you are?
- I'm gonna stay there, and
then can I just peek and see
if I can see anything in the distance
that he would be trying to wave to.
- Sure, he's waving into
the carriage, by the way.
- Oh, into the carriage. Okay, sorry.
I thought he was waving backwards.
- That's okay. No, he's like,
waving into the windows there.
- [Aabria] Cool, perfect. Nevermind.
- To let whoever's
inside know, sh*t's bad.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- sh*t's bad.
- Perfect, okay, then no.
I'm gonna hunker down.
I'm great here.
- Okay, you got it.
Interesting point, actually, now that you
have kind of rushed over to
that side after that good wound.
You look over, look down
at your good friend, Deli.
You also see a boat coming down the river.
- [Aabria] Oh my God!
- [Brennan] Oh no!
- Just there's a boat
just kind of rowing down.
- You can't add a wrinkle
to the encounter. That's...
- It's just a guy?
- [Matt] It's just a little banana dude
who's just out on a little river run.
- [Anjali] Oh no. Oh no,
no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [Aabria] God damn it!
- I look over at Colin.
- [Brennan] Man!
- Witnesses?
- Oh...
- Oh no.
- What do you wanna do?
- As the one sentry that was present here
just kind of moves to the
side, the door kicks open.
And out stepping from
within this carriage,
you see this tall, armored figure.
Meaty arms and legs with
a breastplate and a shield
and a large spear of what looks
like a transitioning crystalline
almost like a semi-translucent metal
that comes to a sheer point.
The head, you see this
also semi-translucent
bear-like presentation.
- What?
- [Matt] With a large
lemon shield, emerges.
- [Aabria] Oh my God.
- They're Candians.
- [Aabria] Yeah, dude!
- [Anjali] Oh my God,
It's a gummy bear!
- [Aabria] Cowards!
- That one's gonna glance over,
and it sees you on the top of that hill
and kind of tries to say something back
into the center of the carriage,
but no one's there to listen in.
- I'm just gonna do a little shh.
- It steps forward a couple feet,
and then from underneath
its like, side cloak
pulls a hand crossbow
and just fires at you.
- Oh sh*t. (laughs)
- That's gonna be a 20 to hit.
- Yeah, it hits.
- (mimics arrow landing) You
take a hit in the shoulder for,
ooh, that's gonna be seven
points of piercing damage.
- f*ck!
(Matt groans)
(energy powers down)
I maintain concentration.
- You got it. Okay, that
finishes that figure's go.
And it's just gonna go ahead
and kind of put the shield there
and kind of hold the
line there on the bridge
for anybody else who would
want to emerge in that space.
This fellow's gonna go ahead and move back
and begin to try and start pushing
with the rest of his
movement he had on his turn,
start pushing the carriage
back across the bridge
where it came from, unaware
of noticing the orange
that's currently in its way.
Deli, you're up.
- [Lou] We'll deal with
the banana man later.
- Okay.
- The banana man hasn't
really heard anything.
- [Lou] Great.
- 'Cause of the Silence.
He's just like... (whistles cheerfully)
- [Anjali] And he's facing this way.
- Yeah, he's facing away.
- Maybe he'll just never
see it. It's all...
Just keep everyone in the Silence.
- Yeah, maybe he'll never see it.
- He just doesn't look up.
- I don't know, rowboats take...
There's m*rder to be done.
I'm gonna charge, and I'd like to jump,
if I can, over the cherries.
- Okay, give me an athletics
check if you don't mind.
- [Lou] That'll be a 15.
- 15, more than enough.
You kind of jump over
the edge of the bridge.
Five, 10, 15, you jump over there.
That'll land you about a full 30 feet
to the other side of the bridge
right behind the guy who's
trying to push the carriage.
- Great, can I make an attack on him?
- [Matt] Yes, you may.
- Can it be a shove attack?
- It can, yeah.
- I'll make a shove attack on him.
(intense adventure music)
(die taps table)
Does a 23 hit?
- A 23 definitely hits.
- Great.
I'm gonna smack him with Cured,
and I'd like to expend one of its charges
to push a creature 15
feet and knock it prone,
and I'd like to throw him into the river.
- So go ahead and roll an athletics.
It's contested athletics rolls.
- [Lou] Great.
- For you and the sentry.
(energetic adventure music)
(die taps table)
- That's going to be another 23.
- He got a 13.
(Brennan laughs)
Right as he's pushing the carriage,
you jump over the cherries
and your battle cry
as you enter the radius of
the spell just goes. (grunts)
(players laughing)
Land, he turns around.
(piercing humming resounds)
(impact resounds)
Goes plummeting off the
side of the bridge, sploosh.
We now hear the sound as he emerges
off the opposite side of
the radius of the spell
(mimics water splashing) into the river.
And with that, the rowboat guy goes, huh?
Looks over his shoulder.
- Yes.
- [Matt] Does that finish your
turn? That was one attack.
- That's one attack, but
I'm out of movement, right?
- You're out of movement
unfortunately, yeah.
- Hmm. Yeah, that'll be it.
- Some of the interior figures inside,
the armored ones that you had seen
begin leaning out of the windows,
themselves holding what looks
to be their own hand crossbows
and four shots are taken outward.
Two of them are at you,
but they're at disadvantage
because of the full distance.
They haven't quite noticed you.
They just saw their
friend go off the side,
and you're just out of line of sight.
And then you're up at the top on there.
- That was, yeah.
- [Matt] You have half cover.
- Mm-hmm.
- From the shots, but you are visible
since the orange has moved over from that.
- The orange has moved since then.
I was hiding behind an orange.
- You were.
So that's two shots at you with
disadvantage. The first one.
Oh, that's gonna be a 12.
- Nope, whew, thank goodness.
- The second one, that
one is gonna be a 16.
- Just hits.
- [Matt] Just hits? Okay.
- Yep.
- You take eight points
of piercing damage on that
one. (mimics arrow slicing air)
The second bolt hits you and you look down
and you can see kind of
the spiral striations,
what looks to be like peppermint metal
that is now sticking out of
both of your shoulders. (grunts)
- That's very frustrating.
- [Matt] Go and make a
concentration check for me.
- Yeah, sh*t.
Natural 20.
- Hell yeah.
You're holding that sh*t down.
You got it, you got it.
♪ Suck it ♪
- Come on now!
- I think she pulls it out
and a little bit of rot's
beginning to spread out
from the spot.
- Okay.
And that's gonna be two shots at you
since you're the one who's
immediately visible there.
You have half cover which is
plus two to your AC on that one
so keep that in mind.
The first one is gonna be a 11?
- Nope.
- The other is a 14.
- Nope.
- Nope? Both just go.
(mimics arrows slicing air)
One, (mimics arrow impacting)
sticks into the orange
right next to your side as you duck down
and just use it as a shield.
All right, that'll bring us
back to the top of the round
which begins with our fun banana friend.
- [Anjali] No!
- Oh!
- Cruising a little
further down the river.
- Oh, he's a banana boat.
- Yes.
- I just got it.
(cast laughing)
- Oh no!
- [Brennan] Oh no.
- Thank you for saying it.
- Oh no!
- Thank you for saying
it. I didn't get it.
- That dude's dead.
- As he rows he's like,
excuse me, what's going on?
(piercing humming resounds)
And just is like, lost in the sounds
beneath the bridge there
as that brings us to Darren Quichéi.
- [Aabria] Let's go, Darren.
- Who comes rushing around
to join this fellow here
and is gonna go ahead
and attempt to double strike him again.
- Come on, Quichéi.
- Quichéi!
- That is gonna be a 16 which hits,
and a 21 that hits.
Those are two good hits.
Oh, that's a shitty dice roll.
So that's three points damage to him.
- For a guy called Dishless,
he can sure dish it out.
(players laughing)
- So as he parries to
the side, kind of like,
using the distraction of you,
Deli, leaping through the air
as the other guard kind
of sees this happen,
knocking his friend off the
bridge and hearing like,
the splash and the screams
(gasping) in the river below.
He kind of glances by
and Quichéi just (mimics metal slicing)
like, both blades into the
side of the guy's chest.
(Matt gasps and mimics metal slicing)
And right now as he withdraws the blades
to try and come for a third attack,
you watch as the figure takes the ax
and kind of like, puts
some distance between them.
And as he's holding the ax in the front,
begins backing up, clutching his chest,
like beginning to bleed
profusely from the exposed parts
of the breastplate.
- Let's go!
- Oh my God.
- Looking very hurt
from that one sentry.
- [Aabria] Mm!
- With that, that brings us to Amangeaux.
- All right, I'm gonna
pull out my crossbow.
Mm, does it- Why not?
I'm gonna aim for this
still standing strawberry.
- You got it. Go ahead and make an attack.
- [Lou] Hell yes.
- Is it a hand crossbow?
A light crossbow?
- A hand crossbow.
- All right, so that puts us...
So that's a 60-foot range
before it goes to disadvantage.
It is within the 60-foot range
so you just give it a straight roll.
- Ooh. (claps)
- Yay.
Thank you, thank you, golf claps.
- [Lou] Now hit.
- Thank you, thank you.
- Get 'em!
- 15 plus...
Seven plus 15, 22.
- That definitely hits.
Go ahead and roll. It's
1d6 plus your dex modifier.
- [Aabria] Yes, let's go!
- Four plus four is eight.
- [Matt] Eight points of damage.
- Amazing.
- As the figure itself,
like holding its chest,
ax in front of its face,
like beginning to try and
back away from Quichéi,
not even aware of some of the
other dangers around suddenly,
(air swishing)
(Matt gasping)
begins to cough silently as
it stumbles off the bridge.
- [Anjali] Oh no, oh no!
- And falls, sploosh,
into the water right next to the boat.
You watch as the guy rowing
is looking around yelling.
Just goes.
(piercing humming resounds)
- [Anjali] Oh no!
- The side and the body
just kind of like...
(mimics body surfacing)
- [Aabria] He's living
his worst nightmare now.
- Then begins floating
alongside the boat in the river,
and the banana rower is like, (panting)
trying to pick up speed
now and seeing a quick
and unexpected display of
death right to his left.
- [Aabria] Amazing.
- So that's your action.
- That's my action. Can I run
closer but hide somewhere?
- So you can move 30 feet if
you want to try and be cool
like Mr. Colin Provolone over here
and attempt to make it down the side.
It would be an acrobatics check to do so.
- She's dumb. She doesn't know better.
- All right, make an acrobatics check.
- 17 plus eight, I believe.
- [Matt] Oh yeah, without issue.
- [Aabria] And she hasn't
learned better. (laughs)
- [Anjali] 17 plus seven, sorry.
- And you dart off at
an angle and then land,
three-point landing (mimics impact)
on the backside of that bridge.
- That's right, with my
crossbow in my back hand.
- And as a bonus you wanna hide.
Go and make a stealth check.
- Hide!
13.
- Okay.
You feel pretty hidden,
and confident-
- Oh no, oh no, no.
- [Matt] In your unseen appearance.
- No, I don't.
- [Matt] All right,
that finishes your turn.
- Oh, oh, can I, just
from that vantage point,
can I see anything better in the...
- At a quick glance,
there's no light inside,
and you don't see anything through there.
Whatever sort of small
light might have been inside
has been stopped, darkened,
and they're using that darkness
as a cloak.
- Okay.
- All right, that finishes
your turn, Amangeaux.
That brings us to Raphaniel.
- I see the Queen go over
to the side and go, sh*t!
(players laughing)
I go, come on, Raphaniel!
- Oh!
- Buddy!
- Don't follow me. Don't fall.
- [Brennan] I have to. I have to.
- No, you don't.
- You gotta!
- You're a sweet old man that is scary.
(Brennan laughs)
Sweet old scary man.
- I have to follow the Queen.
Seeing that the Silence
is still active there,
I'm going to, let's go,
we're gonna go five,
10...
And I think I just saw
her go over to the side.
I'm like, all right,
Raphaniel. Three-point landing.
- Oh no, oh no!
- Buddy!
- Please full die.
- Oh my God!
(players laughing)
Oh my God!
We'll never know your secret.
- You're going to be leaping
over the side to land?
- I will be leaping over the side.
- Please make an acrobatics check for me.
- What do you add?
(Brennan smooches die)
- Acrobatics?
- Yeah.
- I add four.
- That's not bad. Oh, wow.
- [Matt] Okay, okay.
- Oh, oh, okay.
- Spry old man.
- He does his calisthenics
and stretches in the morning.
- [Anjali] Yeah, he does yoga.
- The Bulb, I always knew you were real.
- [Aabria] You're like
the Six Flags old man.
- That's a three.
(players laughing)
So that's gonna be-
- Where's your Bulb now?
- The Bulb that says f*ck it.
- Where's your Bulb?
- Quite literally made up the Bulb.
(Brennan laughing)
- [Anjali] Legit.
- Like a delusional Mary
Poppins, you leap as your robe-
(Matt mimics robe fluttering)
and drop like a stone (mimics
rough impact) onto the ground
face down, dragged for one
point of bludgeoning damage.
- Okay!
- [Anjali] All right.
- [Matt] But you are prone.
- Okay, and I'm prone.
And I don't have enough movement
to get up, I don't think.
I have 30 feet of movement.
- No, you could use an action
to dash and get up with half
your movement and still move.
- Okay, okay, uh...
- I do need you to make
a concentration check
to maintain your concentration.
- Now, if I lose concentration
on a single point of damage,
I'm gonna flip out.
(Matt laughing)
That's the thing, we only
ate through a little bit
of my temporary so whatever
magic I've got going on
is protecting me a little bit, okay.
- So just 10 DC on a concentration check.
- [Anjali] Come on, baby.
- Which is constitution saving throw.
- (sighs despairingly) I
have a constitution of six
so I have a minus two.
I have gotta roll a 12
or higher on the die.
- Don't you have any Bardic Inspiration
or something from someone?
- I got nothing. (laughs)
(Matt laughing)
- This is where your nastiness
gets you k*lled, all right?
- This is like a Cody-level turn.
- [Lou] On the ground.
- (laughs) Exactly and truly.
Two sides of the same coin.
Okay, 11! 13 minus two is 11!
- [Anjali] Yay! (claps)
- I maintain concentration.
- That'll do it.
On the ground just... (grunts and strains)
(Brennan and Matt laughing)
- Okay, and I have an action
that I can use to do dash
or I could do something else.
- Cast from the ground.
- I think, I honestly think
that Raphaniel goes, leaps,
beefs the three-point
landing and he goes (yelps)
and just panic reacts and turns invisible.
So I think I'm gonna Subtle Spell.
Oh no, I have Heroism.
No, I wouldn't do that.
- Yeah, that would lose Heroism.
- I would lose Heroism.
- [Matt] Your call.
- So in that case instead
I will use half my movement
to get up.
(Matt grunts)
- Do I see this?
- No, 'cause you're
currently focused on...
You do hear the-
- Do I?
- Yes, you very much see this,
and you hear. (mimics Brennan yelping)
In fact, everyone kind of hears
this yelp back in the way.
- [Anjali] Oh no.
- [Zac] Oh...
- I'd say you don't see him
land, but you do look back
and you see Raphaniel face down
in the ground slowly get up.
- [Anjali] Oh my God! Now I'm worried.
- Just like, pulling arrows
out of my body like, oof.
- Yeah, so I'm gonna use
half my movement to stand up,
and I'm gonna go one, two, three.
I only move diagonally.
- [Matt] Right.
(Anjali and Aabria laughing)
- A little chess humor.
Bishop moving diagonally.
- Yeah that's fun, that's fun.
We have fun here.
- [Matt] All righty.
- We have fun here.
- All right, Raphaniel,
that finishes your turn.
We now come to the sentries.
The one that is in the water and swimming
is gonna attempt to go
ahead and swim to shore.
Yeah, and easy enough
with a 22 athletics check.
Swims over, half its
movement to the top there.
It only has 10 more feet of movement.
I have 10. That gets it about there.
It does not have a ranged weapon on it,
and its blade that it kind
of like, was holding onto
as it swam to shore kind of pulls off-
You see it's now dripping,
and it is not doing well.
The fast liquid on a Candian,
which you now see up front,
while there is an apple
head, it is a helmet
that is strapped around.
- Ah.
- The rest of the armor
itself is Fructeran in nature,
but underneath that you see, sure enough,
a wrought candy figure of massive torso,
well-adorned with Candian
weaponry and defenses.
It does, I will say, take
three points of damage
just from being pushed through,
the liquid itself being, you
know, a challenging experience
for a rock candy individual.
So that's its movement.
It's gonna go ahead and
kinda stand up, look around.
It kind of looks at you.
(player gasps)
Looks back at the gummy bear
standing with a spear and shield.
The gummy bear goes,
just gives him a look.
He glances over and sees
you up on top of the hill
and uses a dash movement
to five, 10, 15, 25, 30.
- [Anjali] Oh no.
- Is now climbing the hill
in your direction.
I'll put him about there just
to kind of keep him there,
but he's kind of up in that
area, but that's all he does.
He just rushes up. That finishes his go.
Now we come to Provolone
with Karna on deck.
- Provolone's gonna look at the banana.
(somber music)
I think Provolone's going
to take his movement
and jump on the boat and
f*cking k*ll the banana.
(Matt laughing)
- Oh no.
- [Matt] Okay!
- [Anjali] Oh no.
- [Lou] I see ya.
- There's a deep sigh.
(Aabria laughs)
- You have enough movement,
and it's a short enough jump
that you just kind of like,
rush through underneath the tree
that your two allies
were underneath before.
(mimics footsteps rushing)
Leap onto the back of the boat.
- This is why I didn't
wanna do any of this.
- The boat (mimic impact pounding) rocks,
and the banana figure who's
now like, feverishly rowing
just goes (gasps) and
looks back, frightened,
but no sound coming from his mouth.
You can see his thin jaw,
his kind of gaunt face,
his kind of sunken eyes
across this like, mealy banana texture
as he just kind of goes...
(piercing humming resounds)
- [Anjali] Oh no!
(Aabria laughs)
- And I hit him with my sword.
- Make an attack roll.
(die taps table)
(soft instrumental music)
- That's a 13 on the die plus six.
- Yeah, he's not wearing armor
so go ahead and roll damage on that one.
- [Aabria] Let's go.
- No survivors.
- That's the rules.
- A d8 plus five
so that was 12 and then the
wounding mechanic would kick in.
(Matt laughing)
Actually on his turn so that's the-
- You don't even need to get
to the wounding mechanic.
- Please, thank you.
- You just (mimics swishing)
and silently, quietly the
blade snaps through and the...
(piercing humming resounds)
As the head just rolls off
and plops into the bottom of the boat.
- [Aabria] Amazing.
- [Zac] Ugh...
(piercing ringing resounds)
(soft instrumental music)
- Don't feel bad, Colin.
Oh, this guy's going for a
little midnight boat ride
down the choppy river?
He's a spy!
- I don't know that he's a spy.
- He's a spy!
- For real a spy.
- [Brennan And Aabria] For real, a spy.
- You still have 10 feet of movement,
I'd say, from that rush around.
- Could I do a object interaction
and try to get the lantern
on the front of the boat?
- Yes, you can. It's kind of
hanging on a hook right there.
- Yeah.
- So you can just go ahead
and kind of reach over with a little bit
of movement you have and I'll say
since you only got one attack
on what would be multiattack,
I'll just include that
as part of the action
as you reach over and grab
the lantern and pull it.
And indeed, now you have a torchlight
that kind of lightens up
the vicinity around you.
- [Zac] Cool, and then
I'd love to make some sort
of athletics check to
get like, back up here.
- Yes, you can. Go ahead and
make an athletics check for me.
- That's gonna be...
17.
- Lantern in hand, you
look back at the bridge
as it's starting to close in
underneath the kind of space beneath.
The rushing river sound
vanishes, you know,
here within the Silent spell
and you just kind of leap off
and you catch the edge of the bridge.
For a split second you feel
your balance slightly off
and you almost tumble back in
and then catch yourself back there,
lantern in front, blade in the other hand
standing firm on the edge of the bridge.
- I guess I'll try to bonus action hide.
I know I have the lantern so...
But just try to get out
of the line of sight
of those windows.
- Yeah, you can get low and do that.
So make a stealth check for me.
- Cool.
- I'll say disadvantage because
you're holding a lantern.
(Matt and Aabria laughing)
- 17 and 13, so 13 plus six, 19.
- 19, okay, the lantern
there you kind of duck low
and kind of hold it out in front of you
so that the angle from where
the windows are looking out
aren't catching the source of the light
and it's only lighting
kinda the space around you
so you feel at least partially obscured.
- Okay.
- [Matt] All right.
- Oh, what are we doing? (laughs)
(Matt and Aabria laughing)
- Karna, it's your turn.
- Okay.
Got a little nasty boy
coming for me. Sorry.
So there's still people
inside the carriage, yeah?
- [Matt] Yeah.
- That's the interesting thing.
I don't give a f*ck about this guy.
It's about to get loud again.
I'm gonna drop Silence so I
cast Invisibility on myself.
- Ooh! Okay.
- And I'm just gonna look
this little apple b*stard
dead in the eye and speak
telepathically into his mind
and say, you will die here.
- Make an intimidation check.
- [Lou] Mm!
- (sighs) Every time I
try to do something cool,
the dice disagree!
- [Matt] Oh! (laughs)
- Seven!
- You know what?
I will say because you
vanish in front of his eyes
in a world in which, I
mean, they're Candian
so they're not like, completely absolved
from the presence of magic,
but having a figure
vanish in front of them
and then a voice speak
directly into their mind,
I'll give you advantage
on the intimidation.
- Thank you so much.
- [Matt] This isn't just a phrase
you're shouting at somebody.
- Another one.
- [Matt] This is some
supernatural bullshit.
- Okay, thank you. It got better.
19.
- 19, okay.
You watch as he is
charging up towards you,
his long peppermint-striped
blade at the ready
kind of head down, charging forward.
The water from the middle of
the river dripping off of him,
leaving this trail of grape
juice across the grass field.
And then as you vanish and speak
into his mind, eyes go wide
and immediately starts like... (pants)
The blade, stops running forward
and is now just kind of looking around
with a nervous, anxious glare.
- Yeah, I'm gonna slip down
and really start slowly moving around
to get towards the carriage
where my actual quarry is.
- [Matt] 30 feet will get you about there.
- That's very close to that man.
I don't know if I feel good about that.
Yeah, it's fine. No, he can hear-
- [Matt] You can go over here.
- He can hear things.
Yeah, just yeah. Cool, that's fine.
- [Matt] I'll put you on the lemon there.
- Sweet, and then just kind
of doing the little like,
laughing and being like,
he has a sweet tooth.
- (laughs deviously) Perfect.
All right, finishing your go, Karna.
That now brings us to over
here, the spear guardian.
The spear guardian, after
like, making this maneuver,
looks back at where you've, Raphaniel,
and kind of like, gauges the distance.
Brings the shield up and
just goes into a full charge,
not at you, but at the orange.
- [Brennan] Hm...
- [Aabria] Oh!
- (mimics impact landing)
Hitting it from this side.
It's gonna go ahead and
attempt to shield slam it.
- Oh my God!
- [Matt] As hard as it can.
That's a 24.
- Jiminy Christmas!
- (laughs) You gotta
stop laughing so much,
is what needs to happen.
(Aabria and Zac laughing)
You, I think, here's the thing.
I don't have a problem with
anything happening at this table
other than the fact that
you're having a great time.
- Look, look, he's just
also in jail with us.
(players laughing)
- Welcome to jail, m*therf*cker.
- [Zac] I'm sorry.
- Welcome to jail.
(cast laughing)
- I got grandfathered in!
I got grandfathered in! They lied!
- As you hear the heavy
impact of Candian metal
upon the stony exterior of
one of these hillside oranges
as it begins to roll for
15 feet in your direction.
- Jesus Christ!
- [Matt] I need you to make
a dexterity saving throw for me.
- But can I use a reaction?
- [Matt] What reaction do you want to use?
- Silvery Barbs.
- Silvery Barbs on his athletics check?
- Are you allowed to do that?
I don't know, is that a thing?
- [Matt] Yeah, yeah, you can do that.
- Yes, 'cause I don't want
him to roll over my Bishop.
- All right, I will say for this-
- [Anjali] I think I'm
gonna say, I wanna make it-
- Because this is fun and
I haven't used it yet,
for this roll I'm gonna
use the Box of Doom.
(players cheering)
- [Aabria] Yeah!
- 'Cause, I mean, where's the
fun of being in this table
if I don't use this?
- Let's go.
- Let's go.
- Lunchbox of Doom!
- [Matt] So there we go.
The Box of Doom.
- Lunchbox of Doom.
- Whew!
(die taps Box of Doom)
Oh, that is much lower.
- Oh, incredible!
- [Lou] Oh!
- That puts it at a 13.
I'll say that only gets it about 10 feet,
which is just at the edge of your face.
- Who do you give advantage to?
- I would like to give advantage to...
Who's the next in-?
- Choose a creature you
can see within range.
- And you can't see me.
- [Brennan] And you can't see
Karna 'cause she's invisible.
- And I can't see Karna.
- Yeah.
- So you, you, okay.
- Okay.
- [Anjali] I give it to you.
- All right, so to Raphaniel.
The stone (mimics gravel
crackling) and just stops
as you're like, pulling your
arms up to defend yourself,
holding your staff
ahead and just accepting
the eventual rapid fate-
- And my Silvery Barb is,
you're going to roll an
orange over an old man?
How dare you! It just goes into his head.
- Understood, the Silvery
Barb cuts through,
and the soldier shoots a glance over
at the non-stealthed self as you-
- That's fine.
- [Aabria] Oops.
- [Matt] Revealed yourself, cast a spell.
The rest of his movement
is going to put him here,
coming after you from this side.
- Come and get me.
- Shield at the ready,
spear at the side, you can
see this normally adorable,
somewhat wiggly, you know,
purple-pink gummy bear face
with eyes that are intent to slay.
(players laughing)
(Anjali growls)
- What flavor gummy bear is he? Grape guy?
- Yeah, little grape guy.
- You know what? Nasty.
He's nasty.
(cast laughing)
- [Matt] Deli, you're up.
- Worst flavor.
- There's a lot going on, but
I can look in the carriage
so I wanna move as close as I can to get
eyes inside, what's going on?
- Easy enough.
There's the door right there
which is currently set,
and it's dark on the inside.
- [Lou] Mm-hmm.
- Make a perception check for me.
(die taps table)
- That's only gonna be a three.
- A three, okay.
You do not make out any details,
but you do see four figures in there.
And you can see them all
reloading hand crossbows,
and they're just kind
of hunkering down here
from a defensive position
waiting strategically
for people to come to them,
but you do see four of them,
and I'll go ahead and place them within
so you can at least gauge
their current position.
- They have little blueberry seats.
Look at that. Little blueberry chairs.
- Oh?
- [Matt] One there.
- Oh, a cutie. Oh.
- They're cool.
They look too cool.
- Those are the crossbow-
- They look, a little chocolate?
(Anjali and Aabria gasp)
- [Matt] Right, so
that's the four of them.
- And one important?
- [Lou] Okay.
- All right, so what you doing, Deli?
You glance in, have your
shield and spear at the ready.
- [Anjali] Yeah, you guys.
- [Aabria] Oh no.
- I know Colin's on the other side.
I know Quichéi is around.
f*ck it, Deli is gonna charge
and just go into the carriage.
- You got it. All right,
you charge in the carriage.
So the door's in the way.
I'm just gonna ask you to go ahead
and make an athletics check to go ahead
and try to kick that
door to the carriage in.
(die taps table)
- [Aabria] You got it.
- That's gonna be a 13.
- 13.
It's not a very strong carriage door.
This was, you know, designed to be more
of a visual aesthetic-based carriage
than a defensible one, and as you kick,
the door kind of splinters inward,
and you push your way
into the center of it.
As you push into this crowd,
you are now surrounded.
- [Anjali] Oh my God.
- [Matt] Immediately.
- The best place to use a spear, for sure.
(players laughing)
- There are three of 'em
in full Candian armor,
not even disguised at this point.
You see one that has
this kind of frosty head
with a waffle cone and an
angry, intense look in its eyes.
You see one woman with a
butterscotch coloration
to her skin and hair.
You see one kind of large chocolate figure
carrying a peppermint blade
and a shield at its side, too.
And they're all kind of gathered around,
and in the corner you
see a woman in robes,
kind of purple and blue in coloration,
kind of a hood and cloak up.
And you see what looks to be
a frightened and intense-looking...
blackberry.
You see there Queen Pamela Rocks
(Aabria gasps)
within the carriage,
holding onto her crossbow,
caught off guard.
- Uh, Deli knows he's found his target,
and is going to attack Pamela Rocks twice.
- Go for it.
- First attack is gonna be a 14.
- [Aabria] Let's go.
- Second attack
(die taps table)
is gonna be a 24.
- Both hit. She's not very well armored.
- That's gonna be...
16 points of damage.
- [Matt] 16 points of damage.
- I'm gonna use my bonus
action to make a shove attack
to one of the guards next to me.
I'll take the peppermint, the
one with the peppermint blade.
The chocolate man.
- [Matt] You got it.
- I'd like to make a
shove attack against him,
bonus action shove attack with my shield.
- [Matt] You've got it. Contested-
(die taps table)
(intense adventure music)
- Holding a shield.
- [Lou] That's gonna be a 23.
- [Matt] They got a 16.
- [Aabria] Oh!
- I'd like to shove him
out of the carriage.
- After like, stabbing the
Queen, pulling the blade back
with your spear, taking the shield
and slamming it into the side,
they (mimics impact
pounding) break through.
You watch as the side
of the watermelon cracks
and splinters open.
They go flying out of
the side of the carriage,
plummeting onto the side
of the bridge, prone.
- Great. I'm gonna Action Surge.
I'll take two more
attacks against the Queen.
- [Aabria] Yes!
- Oh!
- [Anjali] Oh my God!
- All the rest of the
soldiers go, my Queen!
- That's gonna be 22 on the first attack.
- [Matt] That hits.
(die taps table)
(energetic adventure music)
- And only a 10 on the second attack.
- [Matt] The 10 misses.
- You have-
- And I do have Bardic
so I'm gonna use it.
- Yes!
- 10 plus three for 13.
- That will hit.
(Aabria laughs joyfully)
Her AC is 12.
- [Aabria] My God!
- [Lou] Two more attacks.
(Zac groans uncomfortably)
That's gonna be another 16
points of damage on the Queen.
- Oh my God!
Queen Pamela Rocks (grunts
and mimics spear slicing)
pulls back and leans against
the side of the carriage.
You can see now the purple
and blue robes are now soaked
with the deep, deep dark
coloration of her blood.
She is clutching her side
and looking you in the face.
The crossbow drops from her
hand and you see it shaking
as the blood runs down the forearm
to coat the rest of the fingers.
Looking you in the eye as
the guard on the outside
slams into the side of the bridge, goes...
D-Delissandro? Why?
- Destiny has been designed.
And I'm gonna use movement
to step back outside of the carriage.
I'll take opportunity attacks.
- And you will, indeed.
(Brennan chuckles)
So you step back out of the carriage,
kind of crunching right into the space
next to the one that you
had left on the ground.
She doesn't have a melee weapon out.
She just dropped the crossbow,
but the two other knights
are gonna go ahead and
take strikes at you.
- [Lou] Great.
- That's gonna be a 21 to hit.
- Hits.
- [Matt] And a 20 to hit.
- Hits.
- Now, they do have an
ability called For the Queen,
which is in the same round, if
their Queen has taken damage,
they get an additional d6
to the damage they deal.
- Ooh, ooh, ooh, that's very cool.
- [Brennan] Love that.
- Hate that for you,
but very cool.
- But very cool, yeah.
- (laughs) Okay, all right.
- 15 points of slashing
damage from one blade
that (mimics metal slashing) strikes you
on the side of the face in
the chin. As you back out,
the second one comes in for...
Ooh, 14 points of slashing
damage. (mimics metal slicing)
And you kind of feel
the heat of the anger,
the absolute fury and panic of
these protective bodyguards-
- [Lou] Mm.
- For the Queen of Candia.
Does that finish your turn, Delissandro?
- That does finish my turn.
- It is now the Queen's turn.
(players gasp)
- Oh no.
- Oh, sh*t.
- The Queen is going to
look out where you stand.
(labored breaths) Destiny
does not remember those
who k*ll the righteous well.
She's gonna use Pompous Mockery.
I need you to go ahead and
make a wisdom saving throw.
(Aabria laughs)
- I love that ability.
- That's very cool.
- Wow.
- Pompous Mockery.
- Pompous Mockery?
- 15.
- 15 does not...
Oh no, 15 does succeed, just barely.
- [Aabria] Oof.
- So you manage to shrug off,
focused in your endeavor,
seeing the immediate shift
in the tides of this combat,
her words don't sink in.
You're focused on the goal at hand.
And as she pulls back, she
reaches over to one of the guards
and says, please, we must be gone.
Stop them. I have (panting) my family...
And is gonna go ahead and
use Royal Inspiration,
and that guard over
there is gonna go ahead
and take a d6 on his next turn.
That's go ahead and end the Queen's turn.
Now the two bodyguards take theirs.
- [Aabria] Oh God.
- [Lou] Mm.
- [Matt] This one is gonna go
ahead and step to the front
where you are and gonna take
two strikes with the sword
as you stand there with your shield.
- Great.
- That is gonna be...
Ooh, it's a 24 to hit.
- Hits.
- [Matt] And a (chuckles) 12.
- Miss.
- All right.
So they get the extra
d6 still for the damage.
That'll be 11 points of
slashing damage to you.
- Great.
- Carving through again
and is now standing there,
shield at the ready,
and then is gonna back away from you
to make room for the other one to move in,
which does give you an
attack of opportunity.
- Okay. (giggles)
(die taps table)
(tense music)
Only a 12.
- Only a 12.
As that pulls away,
your spear goes forward
and they just deflect it with the shield
and press it against the side of the door
that you had slammed through before.
As you're holding your spear there,
you're unable to withdraw it
as the second one comes through
with the blade to try and
strike you into the stomach.
- [Lou] Mm.
(Anjali groans)
- [Matt] Which it strikes with a 17.
- Miss.
- It goes to try and
get you in the stomach
right as you pull your
bacon shield in front
(mimics metal clashing) and prevent it
from piercing your belly.
You push them back, and
as this one now has moved
kind of in front of the Queen,
this one pushes there at the front,
and they're just kind of defending
the point of where she is
and she is crouching down,
herself, her face going pale
for a blackberry just...
(breathes heavily)
That finishes their turn.
The top of the round-
The boat is going to continue to move,
just floating down the
river under the bridge.
- [Aabria] Oh God.
- [Matt] With a dead, headless
banana dude in it. (laughs)
- (laughs) It's okay, it's okay.
- You made a banana split, kinda.
- Yeah! (laughs)
- It's Quichéi's turn.
Quichéi looks to you, Colin, and goes,
sees you kind of ducking down a little bit
and says, in there?
- Yeah.
- Oh, let's see this one.
And goes and runs up and
climbs through the window,
emerging on the inside and goes,
looks like it's time to join the party!
And is gonna go ahead and is going to try,
I'm gonna say because the Queen's down,
he doesn't even look at her at the moment.
He just kinda goes in
for the most aggressive-looking
figure there.
And both of them are faced
away on you and go, sh*t!
As he just goes and takes
both blades in the back
of the one that gives him
advantage because he has you,
pincer attack between them,
so both of the strikes
are gonna have advantage
on that one there.
That's gonna be, oh, that's
a 22 to hit that one,
which does hit.
(Lou laughing)
And that's a 23 on the
other one. Quichéi comes in.
(mimics impacts slamming)
Two blades into the back
of that one Candian
guard and draws them out.
He's gonna go ahead and Action Surge.
- [Anjali] Mm!
- Oh!
- Welcome to the family.
- Ooh!
- Yep, multiclass rogue
fighter so one more strike
on the one in front
with advantage as well.
Dang, he's rolling high.
17 and an 18 on advantage.
- Let's go, let's go!
- All right, and that'll be
another seven points of damage.
Oh man, the frosty cone
royal guard is now like,
turning around after withdrawing
from the immediate fray
and focus on you, shield at the ready,
and you see they're starting
to fall to one knee.
They're looking extremely hurt,
and the bottom of their armor
is starting to darken as well.
The chocolate warrior that
you had pushed outside
of the window stands back
up, shield at the ready,
looks at you, for Candia!
And takes the blade to try
and run it into your side.
That's gonna be a... 19?
(Anjali groans)
- Just a miss. (chuckles)
- [Matt] Oh! (laugh)
- Wow, just a miss?
- Just a miss?
- [Lou] Just a miss.
- [Brennan] Wow!
- Oh!
- Yes!
- And the second strike is a 12.
- Oh!
- [Aabria] Oh!
(Lou mimics shield clanging)
- You're just like, defending.
- [Brennan] What a warrior. Jesus.
- Meat Lands, man.
- [Aabria] That's so hot.
- Meat Lands. Yeah, no kidding.
- Meat Lands.
- [Matt] All right, sorry.
- This is the hottest thing
that's ever happened to me.
- All right, so I'm gonna disengage.
Where can I go that's better? Try to-
Yeah, I'm just gonna
disengage and... (squeaks)
(Aabria laughs)
- If you, I mean,
I don't know if there's any
way for us to coordinate,
like just in the middle of battle.
- Well, I wasn't sure if
I wanted to go protect you
as if I can do that, but I
think that's what I'm gonna do.
Yes, I'm disengaging,
and I'm gonna go run towards the Bishop.
- Over the edge of the bridge
is gonna be five feet of
movement, 15, 20, 25, 30.
That's about as far as you can
get on 30 feet of movement.
There, trying to get around this large guy
with a shield and a spear.
With a disengage you have to like,
maneuver off the side of the bridge,
kind of tumble a bit, and then dart past
as he just can't even get a beat on you.
- And then can I hold
my actual action action?
- [Matt] Yeah, for a certain trigger.
- Yeah, to defend myself and or him
should someone come attack us.
- So are you holding an attack
for somebody who comes into range?
- Yes.
- Okay, you got it.
So you're like, you have
your blade at the ready.
- [Anjali] Yes.
- And just preparing.
Okay, that finishes
Amangeaux's turn. Raphaniel.
- I'm gonna go join Her Majesty,
also so that you can
get sneak attack on that
so I'll be within five feet of her.
- [Matt] You can get up on
the side of the hill here.
- Yeah, I'll get up on the
side of the hill next to her.
So just being as close to
her, so that whoever comes
to engage with her, she'll get
to take a swing on them and-
- [Matt] Okay, then you'll
probably want to move
a little bit further
ahead just to make sure
that if anybody comes up
to the front of her face,
you'd still be within range.
- Yeah, I'll try to get
like side by side with her.
- [Matt] You got it.
- I will rush up.
Not- Having been behind
the orange the entire time
but hearing commotion within there,
I'm going to Subtle Spell
Shatter inside of the carriage.
- Oh my goodness.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- Yeah, well, you can target the window
which will hit a radius on the inside.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- Definitely
'cause from where you're
standing right there,
you have just enough to kind
of bank it into the side.
- Hey, you know, we softened 'em up.
- Yeah, set 'em up, knock 'em down.
- Exactly.
- Here we go.
- [Matt] Okay.
- Crumble 'em.
- Yeah, 60-foot range,
10-foot radius sphere.
That'll hit everything inside the carriage
as well as Colin Provolone.
(Anjali groans)
- Colin!
- Aw.
- Oh, am I gonna?
I'm gonna get Colin, too?
- [Zac] I'm right here.
- But you're uninjured right now.
- I'm uninjured. Just, you can go for it.
- So it's a constitution saving throw
so go ahead and roll damage.
- Okay-
- [Matt] It will not get you.
You're just outside of the carriage.
- Thank God.
(Aabria laughs)
- That is going to be 14 damage.
- [Matt] 14.
- And then halved
on a successful constitution save.
My DC is 15.
- 15, okay.
The one that Quichéi had
already kind of gone into a bit
succeeds, but even at half damage,
as the Shatter detonation goes off,
we see this slo-mo shot as the expl*si*n
of thunder energy hits the inside.
The cone, like, frosty
warrior kind of turns around,
his look of shock on his face,
the blood kind of pouring from
the side of his open mouth
as the head flattens and
the frosty top of the head
(mimics expl*si*n) scatters across the top
of the inside of the carriage.
- Yes!
- Now, when he does Subtle
Spell, does that mean we can't-?
What does-?
- No components,
it doesn't look like I'm
casting a spell at all.
It just happens.
- So we have no idea where this came from.
- Yeah.
- No idea.
- [Matt] The other
butterscotch-looking guard-
- There's just earthquakes.
- [Matt] Fails his save.
- I wound up in the jail.
- [Matt] Rolled a 14.
- Yeah, welcome to jail.
(Brennan laughing)
- 14 points of thunder damage that,
(mimics expl*si*n) blown back.
And the Queen Pamela Rocks succeeds,
but does not quite have the hit points.
How do you wanna do this?
- (gasps) Yes!
- Oh my God!
(Aabria squeals excitedly)
- Oh no.
(Aabria and Matt laughing)
What a f*cking tangled web of-
- Hey, what if we got
Mercer to come in and do a-
(cast laughing)
(Matt cackles joyfully)
- I literally am on the
other side of what feels
like the Cathedral, Lapin-
Of literally like, oh no.
Like, let me be clear.
Brennan k*lled Pamela Rocks the first time
when I wrote that she
died in the Ravening w*r.
And now it's, "How do
you wanna do this?" Oh!
- Oh!
- [Brennan] Oh no. Okay.
- A lime is a flat circle.
- Oy-oy-oy, okay, um...
(haunting, mystical music)
Many in our group have arcane magic.
Different styles.
Some get it from sources
that we are familiar with.
Raphaniel's been having visions
of bloodshed and carnage
and viscera his entire life.
The gifts that he has
are deep within himself.
These gifts are bloody and strange...
And wicked...
And he has never once spent a moment
interested in where these gifts come from.
He's not interested in why
things are the way they are.
He's interested in the
way he can make them.
Complete mastery over the fact
that I look like a scared
little old man, reach out.
Butcher them! Do what you will!
Come to my aid again!
Going into that (growls
monstrously) horrifying,
bloody screaming place within himself.
And I think for that moment
with his innate telepathy
he looks into the carriage
to see what he is doing,
feels the waffle knight,
and I think in this moment,
this is the moment that he
realizes these are Candians
and not Ceresians.
- Yeah.
- And I think he sees Pamela Rocks,
a woman who humiliated and mocked him
at the Pyramid of Food,
a woman whose political
resistance to him he loathed,
a woman that he wanted to defeat,
and in this moment his response,
seeing that he is about
to destroy her is, no!
Because I think he
realizes he's been played
and that if the Queen
of Candia is m*rder*d
on the Glucian Road that
all of what is to come
will come spilling out of his hands,
and this is a moment of horror and loss
as he realizes that his
greatest fear is coming to pass
which is that he is a fool and a pawn,
and that this is all spilling
away from him too fast.
(energy shattering)
(expl*si*n resounds)
- The Queen detonates within
the center of this carriage.
(somber haunting music)
(liquid flowing)
The interior is run dark with her viscera.
And once more in that
moment of deep despair
as the pit of your
stomach sinks within you,
you feel the pressure of
darkness and void around you.
Again you hear the whirring,
the high-pitched scream of screeching,
some horrid sound getting
louder and louder.
You see metallic flashes of
blades not of food-steel,
something alien. (mimics blades clashing)
Blood, flash, shadow, pull, blood,
eat, destroy, pull, tear, nothing, void.
And you're on your hands
and knees, breathing deep,
looking down at the
strawberry grass-covered road.
(Brennan exhales sharply)
I'm gonna say that ends your turn.
(Brennan laughs unbelievingly)
- Okay...
(Anjali stammers desperately)
- Are you all right?
- (hyperventilates) Not like this!
- [Anjali] What?
- Not like this!
- Bishop!
- It's all- What have we done?
- And do we see on the outside?
Do we see that it shaked?
- You heard a massive
expl*si*n like an arcane whine
and then a- (mimics expl*si*n pounding)
The second time you've
heard one during this fight.
You heard screams and yells
now with inside, the Queen!
Oh God! (screams desperately)
- What the f*ck?
- How much did I get hurt?
(cast laughing)
- Go and give me a constitution-
- [Matt] Constitution
saving throw. (laughs)
- [Anjali] Oh my God, Provolone.
- You got this, buddy.
- Oh no!
- It's fine. You're fine.
- [Lou] 15.
- That's a...
I'm gonna use my Bardic.
- Mm!
(die taps table)
- [Matt] Mm.
- That's a 14.
- You're one short. I'm so sorry.
- [Zac] Oh, good.
- 14 points of thunder damage, right?
- Okay. (gasps)
- So you get impacted and
also (mimics spray spurting)
you are just sprayed with
remnants of Queen Pamela Rocks.
- Ooh, he was already
covered in blueberry.
- That's right, he's...
- Blueberry and blackberry.
- Yeah, that's definitely a wild...
I mean, what can I say?
I jumped in this carriage and
stabbed the sh*t out of her.
I'm not gonna pretend like I'm not down.
(cast laughing)
- Yes!
- [Matt] From here, the
final of these guards
is gonna go ahead and sword
out, nervously glancing around
but not knowing where you are,
goes to try and join the rest of the fray.
And so they go five, 10-
- (gasps) Does he go past me?
- [Matt] 15, 20, 25, 30, yes.
- I would love an opportunity attack.
- Okay, you'll lose your invisibility,
but you can certainly do so.
- I don't give a f*ck.
- [Matt] Make it.
- Sounds like the Queen's dead.
- [Matt] Yeah, go for it.
Go ahead and make your strike.
- Let's go.
19? I've got a Bardic if I need it.
- No, 18 is their AC. You definitely hit.
- Perfect, then I appear
as I reach into my cloak
but into myself and pull out
one of my seeds and crush it
and summon Reaper, my dagger.
- Mm-hm. (mimics magic howling)
It appears in your hand.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do I get to stack my
psychic blades on this too?
I can burn a Bardic Inspiration.
- Is that a bonus action to do that?
- No, it's just "burn a Bardic".
- Yeah, then yeah, you can do
it as a reaction then totally.
- Cool, sweet, okay, that's a six...
- He did roll high on
the constitution save.
Put him at an 18.
- That's fine. These are garbage rolls.
Unfortunate, six, seven,
12 points.
- 12 points of damage, okay.
You strike (mimics blade swishing)
as it hits the back,
(groans) tumbles forward.
Still manages to keep moving.
Kind of looks over the shoulder
and with the other hand
that's been open this whole time
kind of almost reaches instinctually
for the pain in the back before looking
and seeing you now appearing behind
(snorts angrily) and just
looks focused and furious.
I'd say at that point, no,
that's the rest of his movement.
No, you know, he's pissed at you.
He's gonna go ahead and dash
to go ahead and jump back into
melee with you on this side.
All righty, that's gonna
finish his turn, though.
- [Aabria] All right.
- From there we come
to Provolone with Karna on deck.
- [Aabria] Let's go, Provolone.
- Provolone's gonna pull
his cheese rind dagger
out of his waist and
pop up in this window,
look at the f*cking carnage in here,
but still throw his dagger
at the one remaining soldier in there.
And I was hidden so
would I get sneak attack?
- Yes, you would.
- [Zac] Okay.
- Even if he may have
noticed you below there,
I'd say all that has
transpired in the past round
has definitively distracted them.
They have forgotten you exist.
- Okay. (laughs)
Do I roll with advantage
because I was hiding?
- [Matt] Yes.
- Okay.
(die taps table)
Okay, with a dagger, what
do I add to that for?
- Dexterity and your proficiency modifier.
- [Zac] Okay, so that's a 15.
- 15 misses.
- Okay, so that missed.
I'm gonna run around to this side,
and I'm gonna Action Surge
and take a pushing attack on the guy that
he previously knocked in the water
to try to knock him in the water.
- Okay, well, as you rush around,
you see another chocolate knight.
A different one than the
one he pushed in there,
but still primed for-
- [Zac] Okay.
- So...
- And then I'll attack that one.
Okay, that's a 19.
- 19 hits.
- Okay, so he has to make
a strength saving throw.
- Ooh, that's gonna be a 13.
- 14's the DC.
- Okay, he rolled a 13.
So as you rush by and strike, roll damage-
- [Zac] Okay.
- For the pushing attack.
(dice tap table)
- [Anjali] Yeah!
- That's a good roll.
That's gonna be 14 plus five, 19 damage.
- As you rush in and with the blade,
you kind of stab it through
the knight. (groans in pain)
And with the momentum just
kind of push him off the side,
withdrawing your blade as
they (screams) off the edge
and go splashing into
the water below, sploosh.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah.
- And I can't really see that side.
Is there any way I can get between Deli
and anyone else over there or no?
- No, Deli's pretty much like,
right up against the door
like off to the side.
You could step into,
right in front of the door
if you want to if you
really wanna interpose.
- Okay, I will do that.
- [Matt] Okay.
You move in like a proper bodyguard.
- [Anjali] Mm-hmm.
- It's good to see you, Colin.
- I wish I could say the same. (laughs)
- [Matt] All right, does
that finish your turn, Colin?
- Yes.
- All right, from there
that brings us to Karna.
- Sweet, yeah, I wanna try-
No, f*ck it. I'm just gonna k*ll him.
Sweet, I stab him again.
21- No, just 20 to hit.
- 20 hits. Go ahead and roll damage.
- Cool, cool, cool.
Oh, sorry, it's a
Green-Flame Blade attack,
by the way.
- Okay, got it.
- [Aabria] Just so I can
add a little extra d8-
- Yeah, yeah.
- To that.
All right, 10 plus nine
is 19, plus four...
23 points.
- [Matt] 23 points of damage.
- Hot dog.
- [Anjali] Snap.
- And how do you wanna do this?
- Like I get my little
glancing shot on him
and then he turns around and comes back,
and I just want to, in a mixture of like,
at the same time speaking
into his head in his voice
and out loud in my voice,
you should have run away.
She's already dead,
and I keep my promises.
And then like, duck under
and come up from behind him
and just grab him by his helmet
and kind of wrench his head to the side.
And just, it's just a stiletto dagger
so it just punches into the
soft meat under his chin.
(Matt mimics dagger slicing)
And I just hold him and like, feel.
I just wanna hold him and
feel the life leave him.
(sputters) And you see as he
grabs back with his free hand,
drops the blade and grabs for your arms,
and you feel the initial burst of strength
and it fade as the grip falls limp
and the coughing and
sputtering falls to silence.
(haunting eerie music)
(river rushing)
- Sweet.
(Lou and Brennan laugh)
- (claps) Hey!
- Hey!
- For a moment, the ever-tinged hunger
in your belly subsides.
(Aabria exhales softly)
You can still move if you'd like.
- Yeah, I'm gonna just
come around the orange,
and I'm slowly making my way
back to this gummy b*tch.
- Okay, you're now back
between your two friends,
and they're all kind of
like, facing this figure.
- I'm just gonna point the
little water-steel dagger at him.
- [Matt] You got it.
- This has your name on it.
- It now comes to his turn.
- Ah, sh*t!
- [Matt] Hearing the screaming-
- Stop talking sh*t!
- Hearing the fury of the
Queen, or the death of the Queen
and kind of acknowledging
the moment, shield up, turns.
And the fury in the face
just turns to a stoic, clenched stare.
And with that acceptance of a soldier
that walks into the horizon
towards their eventual demise,
the spear draws back.
- Oh f*ck.
- The shield comes forward,
and you hear the gummy bear knight mutter,
I follow my queen.
And goes charging in...
(Matt mimics footsteps tapping) this way.
(eerie music)
(liquid rushing)
Now, you held your action.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So as soon as he rushes
in, you get to go ahead
and make your attack.
- [Anjali] Okay, great.
- [Brennan] You have Bardic.
- Oh, I have Bardic Inspiration
so that's what, 1d6?
- 1d6, yeah.
- Oh, okay, seven, seven.
14 plus three is 17.
- 17 is not enough.
(Anjali groans)
This is a well-armored
spear guardian knight,
shield and all,
and is going to take two spear
attacks on you, Raphaniel.
- Okay.
- As you are the one
standing immediately in front.
Looks like the easiest one to take down.
Deflects your blade and is gonna go ahead
and pierce towards you with the spear.
That's gonna be a 24 to hit.
- Oh no.
- [Aabria] So-
- I, ooh.
- You got it?
- I could use the help.
- Yeah, Silvery Barbs.
- Silvery Barbs, you got it.
- And I'm gonna give myself the advantage.
- Okay, you got it. That
brings us to a 15 to hit.
- I think Raphaniel's
gonna act on pure instinct.
Even though that doesn't hit
me, I'm still gonna shield.
- (mimics energy buzzing)
The shield goes up.
The spear ricochets off the
strike, spins the spear around
and brings it down for a secondary blow
to try and pierce you from
overhead, looking for the
very easy to aim for, massive red dome
that shines before him.
- Bro, you gotta onion on you.
- They always aim for the head.
- That's gonna be a 19.
- Shield protects me.
I have my crozier out in front of me.
- What's your full AC with
the shield with the plus five?
- 22.
- 22, whew, yeah!
- [Aabria] Okay!
- So as the bow deflects,
the spear comes down once more
and (mimics metal scraping)
scrapes against this
reflective arcane shield.
As it happens, you watch like,
kinda the sparks of energy
and magic kind of fly off
before it (mimics impact)
sticks into the ground
about a good three or four inches.
Still holding the spear,
shield at the ready,
kind of looks you in the eye and says,
you'll burn in its belly for
everything you've done here.
- I make a little
whimpering sad old man face
and I telepathically retort,
we're all headed there one day.
(Aabria gasps)
- [Matt] That finishes his turn.
- That's the first time
I've ever seen you cast anything, correct?
- This is actually from my
staff so I think this is like a-
- [Anjali] But still-
- This is a known relic of the church.
- [Anjali] Oh, okay.
- That is like...
So shield and mage armor
I go around casting
from magical items.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
- [Matt] Yeah. Delissandro,
it's your turn.
- There's one more person in the carriage?
- [Matt] There is.
- Well, I'm gonna start,
I'm gonna Second Wind.
- [Aabria] Yeah.
- Oh, for a big... 14.
(energy powering up)
- 14, okay.
- And I'll look at Colin. (chuckles)
I don't laugh.
(Brennan and Aabria laughing)
- This is like, not funny.
(Lou laughing)
It's not funny, I got school.
- It was fun to plan,
but now we're doing it and it's different.
- What are we doing?
- What are we doing?
I do think I look at Colin, though, and...
We need to finish our work.
I'm gonna step back into the carriage.
- [Matt] Okay.
- I'll take two attacks
on whoever remains.
- Okay, that is the
butterscotch-looking figure.
- [Lou] Great.
- [Anjali] Num num num...
- 20?
- 20 hits.
(die taps table)
That definitely hits.
Natural 18, yeah.
(die taps table)
- 14.
- 14 points of damage.
That is exactly their hit points,
so with the final member
of the royal guard slain,
how do you wanna do this?
- Yeah! (laughs)
- I think focus is all that
is on Delissandro's face
as he steps back into the carriage,
makes eye contact with the
remaining knight and says,
for what Queen do you stand for now?
And just one, two, three.
(metal slicing)
(dramatic music)
- Shield and blade (mimics
objects clunking) hit the ground
as they look up and grab
the edge of your spear
and kind of hold it there,
looking you in the face.
Pull them just slightly closer onto it.
(gurgles) They try and muster words...
(coughs wetly) And then expire
on the edge of the spear.
- Oh, that's cool.
- Whew!
- I shake them off. There
are two more, Quichéi.
- Don't worry. I'm just getting warmed up.
All right, that finishes your go.
Queen and the bodyguards are all done.
At the top of the round
the boat just continues
to drift a little bit father.
- Oh God!
Someone deal with the boat!
I'm so upset. (laughs)
- But the other guard is
now trying to reach for it
as it's swimming in the water
and the boat kind of
catches up and is like,
reaching over the wood to
try and get out of the river.
Quichéi, after having
that conversation with you
kind of pushes past where you stand,
darts out of the front
on the edge of the bridge
and sees this fellow getting
into the boat and goes,
(laughs) not today! (grunts)
- Yes!
(players cheering)
- [Matt] Jumps down towards
the edge of the boat,
lands, pinning their arm
to the side of the boat.
- Oh!
- [Aabria] Oh!
- Here you hear a sickening
(mimics crunching) snap
as they (screams) on the side,
and blades out just kind of,
they're both kind of faced outward,
spins them around in the
hand and goes, shh, quiet.
(mimics blades stabbing) In
his attempt to stab down twice.
- Quichéi has a different vibe now.
(Brennan and Aabria laughing)
- [Anjali] Yeah.
- That's gonna be a miss on
the first one, unfortunately,
'cause we're off to the side of the boat.
- I forgot the setting kind
of makes this sh*t super real.
(cast laughing)
The bright colors can kind of rattle you.
It's f*cked up what's happening.
- The first blade kind of
strikes the edge of the wood,
and as the Candian lets go
of the boat into the river,
Quichéi follows it behind
and stabs them in the water.
And you watch as their arms just go limp
and Quichéi drags the body
to the edge of the boat,
kind of lifts it back and
(mimics thumping) into it.
Looks back up at you. It's
important to send a message.
And then (mimics wind
howling) leaps off the side
of the boat back onto land.
- This quiche has the moves.
- We'll say, given the circumstances here,
this gummy bear knight does
not have much to stand for.
And after failing to strike
you twice with the spear
leaves it stuck in the
ground and just kneels.
And the last words he utters is,
finish it, I'll see you in the flames.
- It's all where... We
were always headed there.
We were made in his image.
Tell him I'm coming.
- Who finishes off the guardian?
- Oh, I'll do it.
I wanna use this cool
water-steel dagger, baby.
- Okay.
- And then, yeah,
I guess I'll just sort of
like, gently cup his face.
And I like, move the blade under his armor
and try to get it right to his heart
and then just gently push it
and wrap my arms around him.
- You hear the (gasps
dryly) that gasp and clench.
And immediately you
see as the purple color
begins to fade and draw,
the water-steel itself
beginning to pull the life
force from this Candian knight.
What was once a broad figure
withers in your grasp,
and you drop a dried,
jellied husk of a bear man
onto the ground before you.
(water rushing)
- You died for nothing.
- Quichéi looks around for a minute.
All right, I'd say that's
a pretty sound plan.
Right?
- What, what, plan? Yeah, we did, oh...
Is everyone okay?
- [Matt] I'm impressed,
all of you. That was a-
- Did they know?
Did they know?
- That what?
- [Aabria] That what?
- Did they know that the Queen of Candia
was in that Watermelon Carriage?
- Who?
- I have no idea.
- The Queen of Candia.
- Oh.
- I drop both my weapons.
- Oh...
(Softly) That's different.
- Dishless...
- Yeah?
- Those Architects that sent us here
said that there were
Fructerans or Ceresians
or something of that kind, but...
The woman that we've just assassinated
is the sovereign Head of State for Candia,
the lone nation that has
stayed outside of the conflict.
Did they know?
- I couldn't tell you.
I'm not one of them.
I can say this isn't the
first high-ranking official
I've taken out for them.
- I don't know. I feel...
I'm starting to feel like
no secret was worth this.
- Amangeaux, as this is sinking in,
your ear perks up at the
sound, from the top of the hill
where the carriage came from.
It sounds like clomping.
- Someone's coming. We have to leave.
- Oh sh*t, yeah. Uh...
There's a crevasse off to
the left here. Follow me.
And Quichéi kind of puts his
cloak up. Quickly, come on!
- Are you all right, Your Majesty?
- Are you? Come, come, just come.
- And I'll follow Her
Majesty after Quichéi.
- All right, I would like
a group stealth check,
if you don't mind.
I'm including Quichéi in this roll.
- 14.
- [Matt] 14?
- 24.
- [Matt] Nice.
- 24.
- [Matt] Whew!
- 11.
- [Matt] 11, okay.
- 13.
- Okay, overall a fairly...
And Quichéi added a 19 on that, too,
so that was a pretty good run.
From the distance,
whoever may be approaching
you're pretty certain did not see you
or where you are headed.
But following Quichéi's
business, you march over hill,
underneath more clustered
bits of the blueberry trees,
over the side of a cliff and
what looks to be a crevasse
that breaks here in the
middle of the space,
like the heavy rolling
hills, there's an area
that just kind of cracks
and digs probably 30
or 40 feet below before
it meets the bottom.
This chasm, this small
chasm, Quichéi leads you
to the inside where there's some clusters
of strawberry bushes kind of growing
out of the side of the rock.
As you do so, you begin
to hear shouted voices.
My God, they were attacked.
They were attacked!
Call for back- Call back!
Tell- (hyperventilating)
Oh God! She, oh God!
You begin hearing a horn.
(mimics horn sounding)
(somber horn resounds)
Quichéi sits there and
kind of goes, okay, okay.
Well, we're safe at the moment.
Whatever that was, whatever
we did, we succeeded,
but I can see why this
could be a bit messy.
We don't wanna hang around
too long. You all okay?
- (laughs incredulously) A bit messy?
A bit messy. (laughs) Yes, yes.
Rather messy, yes. (inhales deeply)
- I would like to detect
thoughts and see if he knew.
- Okay, the surface
thoughts you get initially
are him just kind of
assessing the best path back.
He's just kind of thinking of this
from a strategic standpoint
of taking a breath
and then how he can get
away from this current chaos
along the road to safely get
back to your starfruit mounts
and then head back to the city.
You can delve deeper if you'd like.
- I know. I'm debating.
Yeah, why not?
- Okay.
(die taps table)
(soft mystical music)
That is going to be a nine.
- Yeah, no.
- So you push deeper.
And the immediate emotional
state he's in is...
Accomplishment.
A little frazzled, you know,
though he keeps it cool.
Trying to put together a bit
of how much trouble this
would be if it gets out,
but if they get back fine,
without anybody noticing,
it should blow over in time.
So you don't get the
sense that he was aware,
but you also don't get the
sense that he regrets it either.
- (barely audible) I know, that's okay.
Right.
- You also, here in the crevasse
as you all kind of take a
moment to just quietly listen
to the sounds over the
hill, breathing heavily,
making eye contact and just trying
to process the past five minutes,
you hear a rustle in one of
the nearby strawberry bushes.
- Yeah, I say telepathically to her,
there's something in the bushes.
- Can I make a perception
check on the sound?
- Make a perception check.
- That's only a six.
- Don't see anything.
- She's so rattled at
what has just happened
and the fact that she's
started sh**ting at people
and now we've k*lled the queen
that she just turns
towards whatever that is,
holds up her crossbow, and fires at it.
- Roll an attack with disadvantage.
(die taps table)
- (laughs) It's double...
Oh no, that's bad. No, she
didn't get it, it failed.
- Okay, (mimics crossbow
slicing air) it goes free,
and you see something
dart towards the far end
of the crevasse, and its sort
of like, dark, humanoid form
just (mimics wind howling) go into a run.
- I immediately chase it
with two Eldritch Blasts.
- [Matt] Okay.
- And I'm physically
going to chase after it.
- Okay, so you begin
running. Go ahead and fire.
(eerie dramatic music)
(dice tap table)
- 27 and 21.
- Both hit,
go ahead and roll damage.
(dice tap table)
(eerie dramatic music)
12... 20 points of force damage.
- 20 points of force
damage. Oh my goodness.
(mimics energy pounding)
Both of the extensions
of your dark power slap outward
and grasp onto whatever
it is it's chasing.
You don't hear any voice, any impact,
just a heavy hit onto the ground,
and the figure kind of
rolls over onto its back
and begins crawling.
You get the first glance at it.
A four-foot uniquely withered form
like a sapling tree with limbs,
its body an odd tapestry of
textures and earthly colors
with bursts of orange and white.
It appears to be attempting to pull away
towards a couple of green
apple boulders on the side,
and it just looks at you.
It has a rough-looking
satchel over its shoulder
and wears what looks to be
a plainly-visible skull mask
on its face, though now
cracked and pulled off
to a face of something
you've never seen before
as it kind of like... (gasping)
- Going to reach forward
with my mind. What are you?
(weak gurgling)
- [Matt] You don't get back language.
- Ooh.
- You get back images.
You get back emotions. You get fear.
You get apologies. You get worry.
You get, let me go, let me
free. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't be here.
- I send out one more
telepathic message to Deli.
k*ll it.
- I stab it.
- Go ahead and roll an attack.
- Do I get advantage 'cause it's prone?
- [Matt] Yes, you do.
(Brennan sputter laughs)
- Ooh, can I use my bonus action
to give him Bardic Inspiration?
- I'll say as part of you
reaching into his head,
sure, I'll allow it.
- [Anjali] I feel so bad.
- What are you doing?
- [Anjali] We're all going-
(Brennan and Aabria laugh)
(die taps table)
- That's a natural 20.
- Oh sh*t! Let's go!
- On the first attack...
(dice tap table)
That's a natural 20 on the second.
(Anjali gasps)
- Oh my God!
- Jesus Christ!
- This is the hottest thing I've ever seen
in my entire life. (laughs)
- 24 points of damage.
- You rush forward and
stab this creature once
and then a second time, kind
of lifting it up as you do
with just the sheer force of it.
It's lightweight.
It doesn't weigh as much
as you thought it would,
and you kind of take it up with the force.
As you do, there's like a sideways opening
towards where the face would be.
There's no mouth, it's just
these kind of odd, off-kilter,
kind of deep-set amber eyes.
And as it opens, these spores
kind of (exhales) drift out.
I need you to make a constitution save.
- No!
- [Anjali] Oh no!
Oh no, no, no...
(tense music)
(Lou chuckles mirthlessly)
- At least not like this.
(die taps table)
- That's a 14.
- You have Bardic Inspiration.
- Uh...
(die clatters)
That's a 19.
- Okay.
(Aabria sighs in relief)
(chuckles) You succeed so you only take...
- Oh no!
- [Matt] Seven points of poison damage.
(Aabria and Anjali shout)
And you are not poisoned.
- [Anjali] One, okay.
- Okay.
- As the glimmer of life
in this strange creature's eyes fades,
the last thing you hear in its mind,
and now you hear,
now that the spores have
entered your form...
Why?
And it goes limp.
It can't weigh more than 30 pounds.
And you get a good look at it
and you immediately pull back
'cause you've seen
things like this before.
There is a dangerous
occurrence when Calorums
pass, and are left in the fields,
when fruits are left past
ripening as they mold,
as fungus begins to grow,
rare here on the surface,
but this is a being comprised of it.
(gentle music quiets)
- I... (coughs)
Keeping it on the end of my spear,
I move back toward the group.
And as I approach, shake it
off so that everyone can see.
- Quichéi kind of gets down.
What the f*ck is this thing?
- Are you okay?
- I'm fine.
It seems to be made of some kind of mold.
- I'll make whatever kind
of skill check I can-
I mean, I will make an investigation,
but if there's something
more specific like arcana
or nature or something,
I'll make that as well.
- I'll say the esoteric nature
of whatever this may be,
you could either make a nature check
to try and figure out some through line
to where it might exist in some
sort of ecology of Calorum,
or arcana if you want to see
some sort of arcane source for it.
Go for it.
- I'll do arcana.
I'm gonna use that
Silvery Barbs advantage.
(dice tap table)
Arcana's gonna be a 22.
- 22.
You have no idea what this is.
Never heard of something like this.
You know, mold and fungus is
a natural part of the cycle
of life, but it is also a
dangerous toxin to those
who live in these lands and
is often either cultivated
for very rare alchemical uses,
sometimes as poisons,
and often just shunned and kept away,
and buried deeper beneath the surface.
You have no idea what this is.
I will say, 'cause you still
rolled over a 20, though,
and kind of gathering the attention,
it was rushing towards part of the cliff
on the right side of the crevasse.
- I have, in my time,
seen some writings here and there
of collections of mold or rot
worth their weight in leaf gold,
and this is a creature
composed fully and truly of it.
How deep run the shadows of this world?
- Well, let's wrap it
up and take it back, eh?
- The creature was making a getaway
for that area over there.
- Oh sh*t, let's go check that out.
And Quichéi immediately starts
striding in that direction.
- We should leave.
- We should leave.
- Hold on, hold on, I'm
curious. We'll go in a second.
- I follow Quichéi.
- [Matt] Okay.
- Yeah, I'm standing
back with my crossbow.
- [Matt] Okay.
- I'll follow Colin.
- The three of you
begin to kind of beeline
in the direction of the surrounding.
In about 25, 30 or feet beyond
kind of stepping down
some of the crag side,
the kind of apple stone cliffs here,
you can see what looks to
be the entryway to a cavern.
Like a slightly triangular opening
in the side of this crevasse.
You still got that lantern, eh?
- [Zac] The what?
- The lantern.
- I guess I do.
- Unless you dropped it behind.
- I think I did drop it.
- Okay, fair enough.
He's like, ah, sh*t.
Wait a second.
And you all kind of glance in,
and there's just this darkness,
but there is like a pale...
glow
a little ways into this cavern.
Quichéi kind of looks around.
Who's got the ba*ls, huh?
- Colin, you said it before.
- I said we have the ba*ls,
but is this ba*ls? (laughs)
(Aabria laughing)
- Aren't you curious?
- I'm curious,
but I'm not curious for what
this group might do in here.
- What does that mean?
- I think you know what it means.
- Come along. I start walking.
- Okay, Quichéi kind of
follows up behind you.
You watch as Deli and
Quichéi just kind of vanish
into this small cavern,
and you continue to walk 40, 50 feet.
It kind of winds a bit. It's thin.
And especially for your massive size,
you have to squeeze through.
And you turn a bend you begin
to see that glow brighten.
And as you come around,
you feel it descending
deeper and deeper below.
At about 100 feet or so, it
begins to become fairly steep
and you become a little uncomfortable
with the just proximity
and closeness of it.
You're a Meatlander.
Open fields and ranges, that's your realm.
This is borderline claustrophobia.
But you see now the source of this glow,
these vein-like structures that run
through the very Fructeran
rock of this cavern.
Long, thin roots that splinter and
crawl deeper, sourced deeper,
reaching outward before fading to ends
like capillaries, like a
circulatory system, but
a pale glow to them. (pops softly)
Pulsing.
- Quichéi, what are we looking at?
- I've got no f*cking clue.
- Can I touch one? How do they feel?
Do they...
- You reach out and touch it,
and as you do, you feel a connection,
this warmth touch your finger
and suddenly something
presses within your mind,
something alien, something different.
Images, emotion, curiosity, wonder,
overwhelming warmth and welcomeness.
A connective, multiple minds,
many minds, thousands of minds.
It's overwhelming, your
brain begins to hurt.
You pull your hand away and
the last thing you sense
is just a warmth like
the heart of the world
welcoming you...
And it frightens you.
You turn back and look at Quichéi.
He goes, hey mate, you got a little...
There's like a little trickle
of blood down out of the nose.
- Oh... Don't touch that.
- Good to know.
What the f*ck is this place?
- Can we go deeper?
- Eh...
We should be getting back,
but we'll remember where this is.
- Yeah. We will.
- Okay.
(exhales boldly) Pats you on the shoulder.
They eventually exit.
Quichéi goes, pick him up, we're going.
- Oh good, they're back up.
- Before we go, can I look in the satchel?
- You look inside and
there's bits of rotted fruit.
Rinds.
Looks like scavenged rot
from the outer corners
of the Fructeran lands.
You see bits of bone and
just what many denizens
of Calorum considered refuse.
- I don't know what it means.
I don't know what any of this means.
- Do you think they eat it?
- What a very specific
place to stage an ambush.
(soft mystical music)
Quichéi is getting ready to head out?
- Quichéi, you see,
has taken his cloak off
and has like, put this weird
creature's body into it
and kind of creating a bundle.
Kind of takes the edge
of his tethered elements
and wraps it up and slings
it over his shoulder.
- I'm gonna speak telepathically to you.
- People gotta stop. There's
enough going on in my head.
- What did you see when
you touched the wall?
- The heart of the world welcoming me.
I did not like it.
- I'm beginning to feel that we are being
used...
And not in a manner as simple and crass
as being blackmailed.
I think I'm gonna cast detect thoughts
in front of everybody.
I don't have any more Subtle Spell left.
I'm gonna cast Detect
Thoughts and touch the wall.
- Okay.
- [Anjali] Oh!
- As your hand contacts
this strange, continuous web
of thin, wispy living tethers
that wind through the rock,
(energy howling)
(Matt gasps)
you're pulled into this endless network
that draws through all
the deep ground of Calorum.
You feel this overwhelming,
and I mean overwhelming sense
of connection and being stretched, pulled.
Your consciousness is not
designed to expand to this degree,
and vertigo begins to kick in.
You see in flashes of caves
and stone homesteads, and
beings that live below.
You see imagery of odd...
Families, and culture.
Alien, odd, beyond your understanding.
And then you see (mimics pulsing)
(rhythmic, resonant drumming)
for a moment,
this glowing, pulsing mass
at the center of this web,
and this feeling of...
Welcome.
(sonorous, ambient music continues)
You must go.
Tell no one.
- Can the blades find me here?
- It seems uncertain what you're asking.
- I feel sudden shame,
which is maybe something
that I've not felt in years
or feels somehow alien to me
and I sever and leave.
- And as soon as I see
him cast all of that, I-
Your Eminence! Like, and I just grab you.
- I'm just gonna collapse.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Help me. Someone help me!
- I take Raphaniel into my arms.
- (sighs) We have to go.
We have to get him to help.
We have to get out of here.
We have to figure what
we've just done and go.
- It's fine, put him on my
ride. We'll leave his behind.
We gotta get cruising now. Follow me.
As you all head back to
your tethered starfruit,
you can see the distant torchlight
of more coming upon the
scene of the assassination
as you ride southward, back
through the night, exhausted,
before the Bulbian light
can shine on your deeds.
As it begins to break the horizon,
you finally reach Comida.
There, Quichéi leads you all beneath
the Pyramid, to hide from the light
as the city comes to life.
There, rapidly as he steps
and goes, hello, hello?
A few figures kind of stand up and step.
You see them waiting, curious to hear,
the masks and robes still intact.
Is it done?
Yeah, they- They did it.
- Why her? Why her?
- You promised answers.
- Her death was instrumental.
A shame, indeed, but necessary.
The loss of the few
shall be the salvation
for many in its light.
You have proven more capable than others.
You should be proud
of the great things you helped accomplish.
We, the Architects, walk the
truth of the cosmic balance.
We are of the Sanctus Putris.
- The Sanctus Putris?
- We know the clarity of
the Prophidian Theodicy
and the terrible shadow that grows
outside of the Bulb's light.
The Hungry One has
stirred for generations,
growing with limitless craving.
Through prosperity and peace,
Calorum becomes ripe and pliable.
It becomes the perfect
meal to forever roil
and burn within its belly.
The hidden scripture, the Festered Tome,
it holds the truth that will save us all.
The Hungry One will not
eat that which is spoiled.
Only through turmoil can
the beast be kept at bay.
Only through death can the
lands be stained and unclean.
Only through rot can the world be saved
and endure under the Great Bulb's light.
All the rest go, under the
Great Bulb's light, in unison.
You have helped us do this.
w*r brings death. Death brings decay.
This great w*r will stave off the Beast
for many, many, many years.
You have helped us save the world.
And the singular speaking
figure steps forward
and removes their mask,
and you see underneath
a small, elderly woman smiling,
the cauliflower bumps on her head
(audible slapping)
as Archbishop Camille Colliflour smiles.
And I am so very proud.
(soft eerie music)
We are all proud.
Thank you. You have done your part.
Do not be a hero in this w*r.
Endure and you, too, shall
inherit a brighter future.
Our work is not yet
done, but you may rest.
Should we have need of you once
more, you shall be summoned.
Until then, be well.
- No!
No. We did what you asked.
We started a Bulb-damn w*r.
What more would you want of us?
What kind of a world are you
asking us to create here?
This isn't a world I want
to live in with others.
No, we don't want to create a world of-
Of death and rot and...
Why? Why us?
- Because others like you
have shown to have the heart
to do what needs to be done
and like us, the shame to keep it within,
but knowing that the alternative
is eternal burning.
Endless torment.
We don't wish to do these things
because we want destruction.
We create enough to balance the scales
and alleviate us from complete oblivion.
You need not worry.
Should you wish no longer to be involved,
then we can absolve you of our agreement.
You've already done so
much. You look tired.
Rest.
She puts her mask back on,
and all of the Architects
begin to walk past you.
They kind of nod in like a
solemn respect as they do.
With that, Quichéi kind
of walks alongside them,
satchel over his shoulder.
And as they begin to step
up the stairs you hear,
by the way, I saw something weird.
As they exit, the thing
that catches your attention
as the words almost reach
your ears is a familiar scent,
a sweet caramel and oats
that just briefly passes by.
(dramatic music)
Words of Queen Pamela Rocks's death
shakes the stillness of these lands,
pushing Candia to formally declare w*r
and join their Dairy Island allies
in the fight against Ceresia,
Fructera, and the Meat Lands.
In the years that follow,
many heroes rise and many martyrs fall.
The Ravening w*r takes
its toll on everyone,
darkening the six kingdoms
in the blood of the
innocent and the cruel.
In the years that follow,
this unlikely troop, plucked and bruised
by circumstance and destiny
will be changed as well
for the final chapters of the
w*r have yet to be written.
And that's where we'll finish
our episode for tonight.
- Whew!
- Holy sh*t!
(Anjali groans)
I feel crazy!
(epic dramatic music)
- We gotta write the chapters!
(cast laughing)
- This is no longer simple
skirmishes at a board.
This is all-out w*r on the continent.
- It was always w*r.
- Not like this.
- Does it further the cause of the Church
to see Queen Rocks k*lled?
I cannot imagine how.
- The Meat Lands will be united!
And we will stand and we will fight,
and you will be there with me!
- Did she leave without you?
- I'm so sorry. I could
have taken care of you.
I could have done something.
- But you didn't.
- There's no need to hold back anymore.
- I think that there is
value to holding back
after what we just did.
- And why are you here,
dear? I have to ask.
- Some very big problem.
I'm not gonna make eye contact with...
That's a lot. You're a lot.
- Come on, Provolone.
- Hey, come on, Raphaniel.
- Sweet boy.
(chuckling)
- Who the f*ck are you?
- My name is Warlord Katzon.
Who the f*ck are you?
(tense, dramatic music)
(dramatic music continues)
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17x03 - Yonder Where the Fruit Do Be Lyin'
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A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.
A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.