- [Brennan] A list of the topics, themes,
and subject matter
featured in this episode
has been included in
the video description.
♪ Here we go ♪
♪ T-T-T-Taking over, teenage rebellion ♪
♪ It's our time, it's our year ♪
♪ No more fantasizing about it ♪
♪ Everything's about to change ♪
♪ We're all gonna be okay ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, let's go ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, let's go ♪
Hello, one and all!
Welcome back to another thrilling episode
of "Dimension 20: Fantasy
High Junior Year."
I'm your humble dungeon
master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me, as always, are
our Intrepid Heroes.
Say hi, Intrepid Heroes!
- Hi, Intrepid Heroes!
- What happened that I missed?
- I just decided to open up a bag of,
we won't say what kinda chips,
and I thought it was gonna be like,
"Wanna play some D&D?" and
there would be enough time
for us to say yeah and
I would... [pops tongue]
But launched right in and it was like,
"Hello, one and all!"
- Hello one and all. Yeah,
and it just sorta started.
Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes
were in the midst of the
Frosty Fair Folk Festival
facing down none other
than Interim Emergency
Backup Principal Grix,
who had sprung out over the tree
to attack Ruben, the
member of the Rat Grinders
and front man of My Clerical Gnomance.
- You wanted to attack us.
- Me? Brennan?
- [Emily] I think so.
- Yeah.
- [Emily] Yeah.
- You're mad that we're not doing drugs.
You want us to be cooler.
- You clumped us all together
and tried to get us to do drugs.
- You tried to get us to do drugs.
- If everyone's mad at me
because I somehow made
Adaine cast Counterspell,
you didn't even have to
be involved in this fight!
You could've been hanging
out and watching a fun fight
between a robot and a gnome that I thought
you guys didn't even like
that much to begin with!
- The song is great.
- We don't!
- [Siobhan] The song slaps.
- Completely right.
- [Brennan] There were some
intense confrontations last time
between Gorgug and his parents,
and sort of how they were
running the lead-up to the
Frosty Fair Folk Festival.
- I think this might be
Gorgug's worst day of his life.
- And Gorgug's died
before. Let's be clear.
- Yeah. Yeah, I know.
- This is also where you had
a conversation with Ruben
where he came out of his
disguise as an old sort of druid
and seemed to say that
he's never taken a sh*t
and also was getting
mobbed for autographs.
So not a very honest gnomish
bard, all things being equal.
This was also the day that
you found, in Mordred Manor,
you pored through all of the
notes from Cormyr and Rana,
Lydia Barkrock's old adventuring party,
that were all about Bakur the fiend,
the ritual that he tried to
pull off in the Red Waste,
and all this stuff about Oblivati Mori,
the gods remembering their
dead but not being able
to break that sort of silence to mortals.
If mortals have forgotten a god
and thereby banished
it to the Astral Realm,
the gods are not allowed
to circle back and be like,
"Hey, wait, a couple of you.
Come back. Worship my old pal."
All of that unfolding, the battle raged,
lawnmowers and various other devices
that had been retrofitted
for some, you know,
totally healthy adult activity
in the privacy of their own tree.
Noticing a vulture perched
on a piece of scaffolding,
the spell-less Kristen Applebees,
still separated from her deity,
wandered forward to address the bird.
And rather than simply sort of squawking
and flying away, the bird was happy
to bring you screaming
into the Vulture Dimension!
Which, once again, you
are now all entering.
You are entering
[adventurous music]
the Vulture Dimension.
- This is so sick.
This gives me "Simpsons"
vibes in a really good way.
- Give us "Treehouse of Horror."
- Yes.
- Incredibly f*cking cool.
These projections are great.
And honestly, as it fades into
the actual Vulture Dimension,
beautiful? It actually
is kind of beautiful.
- Calming, calming.
- [Brennan] Calming, yeah. Very calming.
- Honestly, yeah.
- Maybe we just stay here?
- I'm assuming that means
the Vulture Dimension's
a great place to hang out.
- Yeah, can we just chill in the
Vulture Dimension?
- Kinda a bit of respite.
- I'm assuming we have this
here 'cause you just need
to know the range for all
the heals the vultures-
- [Siobhan] Right, the vultures are all
gonna give us a long rest, right?
- [Lou] These guys are also at the spa
in the Vulture Dimension.
- As you appear here,
Riz, you immediately feel
the concentration on the
Dominate Monster on you
drop as you exit the dimension.
Adaine, you are standing here.
Your elemental has come with you.
And Kristen, as you appear,
this massive, hulking vulture
stands over you and goes, [caws]
"You have entered the Vulture Dimension!"
- I look around to make sure
I'm not high accidentally.
- [Murph] What happened?
- So, you are?
- The Vulture King! Will you
answer my riddle now or later?
- Is that the riddle?
- [Murph] [hesitantly] We can do it now.
- What's the riddle?
- Now!
- [Zac] Are we still stunned?
- They're all still stunned.
- [Ally] Oh, now. Could
you un-stun my friends?
Is that something you could do?
- [Brennan] All of you make
a saving throw real quick,
all of the stunned people.
- Come on, let's see those dice work.
[dice rolling]
- Yes!
- Ooh! 20!
- Hell yeah!
- [Emily] Not nat.
- That's c*ck.
- 19 plus 1.
- Fig, you come back to.
Fabian? You are just coming to.
[Emily gasps]
[Brennan squawks]
- Where are we?
- As I've said-
- This is the Vulture King.
- I cannot un-stun your friends,
but you may choose later.
- What's the riddle?
Can we hear the riddle before we say?
- What's on the table?
- What? No, you have to-
- Can we think about the riddle?
- No! Listen, I am the King of Vultures!
Vultures flying all
throughout this tornado.
- I'll do a riddle.
- Yeah, it's us.
We just don't have Gorgug
or Fabian. That feels...
- [Brennan] Fabian and
Gorgug, give me another
Intelligence saving throw.
- Come on, come on!
- I'm giving Gorgug the Help action.
- [Brennan] Okay.
- Can I give Fabian the Help action?
- Oh, 19?
- Yes, you got it!
- 19 does it.
- Nat 20! Okay, okay!
- You both pop up.
- [Ally] Now! Now, now, now!
- [Brennan] The Vulture King goes, "Now?"
- Where the f*ck are we?
- [Siobhan] Yeah, let's do now!
- It's the Vulture King!
It's the Vulture King!
- The Vulture King has a
riddle we can do now or later!
- You have to kiss him!
- We thought we didn't do drugs but we-
- [shrieking] I am the Vulture King!
You will answer my riddle!
- [Emily] Okay.
- Will you elect one answerer,
or will you all answer simultaneously?
- [Ally] I'll be the answerer.
- Simultaneously!
- No!
- One answerer!
One answerer, and it's Riz.
- [Fabian] No, simultaneously!
- One answerer!
- One answerer, it's Riz.
One answerer, it's Riz.
- [Fabian] Simultaneously!
- You see he says, "All
right, put it to a vote.
Who wants simultaneous?"
- Can we debate before we answer?
Or does it have to be quiet?
- You have to choose simultaneously.
- We have the votes! We have the votes!
- You've all chosen simultaneously.
- No we haven't! I haven't
chosen simultaneous!
- We voted. We have the votes.
- You guys are gonna say
something weird on purpose,
and the vulture's gonna k*ll us!
- He'll k*ll you, The Ball!
- Gorgug can do it!
- I'm so glad I died on that b*ttlefield.
- Yeah, we definitely died.
- The is Hell.
- I'm in Hell, right?
Thank god.
- You see the Vulture King looks and says,
"You have chosen to
answer simultaneously."
- Fine.
- By choosing simultaneously,
you have committed to
answering exactly the same.
- Dammit!
- If there is any
difference in your answers,
which you must deliver simultaneously,
you will be destroyed!
- Yeah, I assumed all this.
- One quick Q before you get into it.
What're we playin' for?
- Oh, good question. I take out a crisp
$500 bill.
- And I love the delivery, Gorgug.
- I'm just happy to be dead
and not at that party anymore.
- If you answer correctly,
you will be given
all of the aid that the
Vulture Dimension has to offer.
- My goodness.
- Sick.
- And if you answer incorrectly,
me and my vultures will destroy you!
- Can we change our
answer from simultaneous
to not simultaneous?
- No! We have the vote!
- You've already voted.
- There's like six little
vultures and the biggie.
- I'm sweating.
- Can we take a deep breath
and all make eye contact
before we launch into-
- [Siobhan] Can we cast Message?
- No.
- [Murph & Emily] What?
- No.
- We are allowed to take a breath!
- You voted simultaneously.
- Yeah, and we can
simultaneously take a breath.
- Message me. Somebody Message me.
- Oh, thank god.
- Here are the stipulations of the riddle.
The riddle is multiple choice.
- I love that.
- There are only two options.
- Okay.
- The instant I am done
communicating the riddle-
- Does anyone have Time Stop?
- [Murph] I'm actually
kinda bad at riddles.
- I've never heard of a riddle
that has two multiple choice-
- That you had to spit out instantly.
- The riddle has two answers.
I will say the question of the riddle
and provide the two answers.
It will be very clear when
I am done with the riddle.
- Can we do a three, two, one, answer?
- No.
- What if someone Messages
the three, two, one?
- We are allowed to do three, two, one.
- Here's the thing, you
keep offering other ways
it's gonna work, and it's
not gonna work any other way
than the way I want it to.
- I start Messaging everyone.
Everyone stop asking! Just
send the Messages, okay?
- Now, the instant I am done
communicating the riddle,
you will all answer not only
simultaneously but unanimously.
- After a deep breath.
- No.
- I'm gonna go like this.
- If you take a deep breath,
you will be destroyed.
- If we don't have the breath,
we won't be able to produce the sound.
- Let me be clear, you
are free to breathe,
and that will be failing the
riddle, and I will destroy you.
- Okay, and you said it
happens to all of us?
So if some of us get it right,
we don't get the blessing?
We all-
- Unless you all unanimously,
simultaneously get it right-
- Hold hands. Hold hands.
- Real quick, we're all gonna say it.
We're all for sure gonna say it.
[sharp whistle on 'sure']
Whoa, I kinda whistled real loud.
But it's gonna sound like
only one of us is saying it.
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- No, you will say it
unanimously, simultaneously.
If there is even a second's
hesitation as the riddle ends,
you will all be destroyed.
- You don't understand how humans work.
We need to take a breath before we speak.
- All right, it's about to
happen exactly as I said.
- I'm sending a Message!
I'm sending a Message!
Adaine is going to give the
answer, and at the exact time,
I'm gonna cast Prestidigitation
to make it all sound like
we say whatever Adaine says.
- I will be able to observe spellcasting.
I am watching the verbal and somatic
components of Message in this moment.
- Let's just go for it.
- Just go for it!
- Hey, I'll k*ll you, you f*ck!
- [Ally] Kiss him.
- No! I know that's a trick!
- I kiss him.
- All right, he bends his
beak to get a little smooch
and he goes, "All right."
- [Lou] Okay, so he's into it!
- I'm gonna count down from three,
and then it will be riddles
and multiple choice.
- Okay.
- Great.
- Three, two, one.
Vultures, yea or nay?
- [Everyone] Yea!
- You've passed!
- I almost said nay.
- I also almost said nay!
- [Emily] Yeah, right? Because...
- I have to ask, did
anyone actually say nay?
- No.
- No, great.
- I think we got that out of our system
by voting unanimous, or all at once.
- Yes, we got all the contrarian-
- Giving our dumbass answer.
- He goes,
"You have answered the riddle
of the Vulture Dimension!"
- Can we just stay here and
hang out for a little while?
- Yeah, could you bring
his parents up here
and some of their toys?
- No.
Kristen?
Absolutely not. - [Emily] He
needs a little break from them.
- I'm so sorry.
- I absolutely don't need that.
- [Emily] A lot has
been asked of him today.
- Do you have a name or do we
just call you Vulture King?
- I am the Vulture King.
- You're just the Vulture King?
- Hey, were you at the mithral factory?
- One of my-
- Five years ago
when we were in a battle?
- Two years ago.
- It feels like five.
- It felt like five, I'll tell you that.
- Right?
- Feels like five.
- I'm a completely different person!
- Every vulture is a descendant of mine.
All vultures, I can see through.
So yes, in a way, I was there.
- Wow. Good to see you again.
- How would you have destroyed us?
What would have happened
to us if you destroyed us?
- I would have shot poison from my body,
and I would have screamed
and ripped you apart
with my claws and beak.
- That's so cool. Hey, you wanna-
- Go out sometime?
- You wanna be in our crew?
We're fighting a really nasty
robot principal right now.
- A robot. That's right, vulture.
- He flies through the air
and he just sucks birds
into his fan and ruins them.
- [Siobhan] It's messed up.
- I should mention something, by the way,
from the attitude and
the vibe you all have.
- Yes?
- Time doesn't pass differently
in the Vulture Dimension.
- [Several Players] Oh!
- [Murph] They're gonna k*ll everyone.
- Yeah, yeah. Got it, got it.
- He's just gonna k*ll Ruben.
- That's kinda the vibe we had.
- Please forgive this question,
but are you a god of some kind?
- I don't know, man.
[players cackling]
I've never broken you like this.
I have never broken Zac like this
in five years of making this show.
- I don't know! All
right, I'll see you later.
Back dive.
- We jump out of the nest.
- We all swan dive backwards.
- I assume we're cool to
just jump out of the nest?
I start leaning over.
- You see he says, "You
have all solved my riddle.
You deserve more
[adventurous music]
than merely information
about how time is the same here."
- Here comes the gold.
- You see he says,
"Vultures, birds of carrion,
gift to them my royal artifacts!"
The vultures descend,
begin to rip him apart
and pull his body apart. [shrieking]
And all of you can have these magic items.
- What?
- Whoa!
- Go for it. Here you
go, pass them around.
Grab any you want.
- Are they different? Oh my god, whoa!
- Consuming rotting organs
takes a bonus action,
grants you immunity to fear.
- Yes!
- Consuming rotting organs.
- Oh.
- The Skull of the Vulture
King grants you advantage
to all Deception, Persuasion,
and Intimidations,
and you don't have to eat any weird sh*t.
- I want to immediately use this.
- [Ally] Truesight!
- The Feather of the Vulture King.
Breaking this oily feather
summons 1d4 vultures.
They are not under your command.
[players laughing]
- Can I see this item?
- So with that, we are going to depart
from the Vulture Dimension.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye!
Reappearing in a burst of feathers
from the Vulture Dimension,
carrying viscera,
entrails, rotting organs,
beaks, bones, talons,
all of the remains of the Vulture King
that bear potent magic along with them.
All of you reappear,
having had this moment of
divine vision, and Kristen,
the shards of Cassandra
glow bright in your pocket.
You appear back. The
situation has changed.
Many of the bots are down.
Lots of other people have fled.
The members of My Clerical
Gnomance have been struck
by powerful magic from Principal Grix.
Not only is Principal Grix now flashing
in sort of fractals of
light and reflection
as a Mirror Image spell
has gone up around him,
he is holding concentration
on a Hold Person spell on Ruben Hopclap.
You see Ruben has a pick
and is poised to come down
in some incredible piece of bardic magic,
but is being held by Principal Grix.
You also see that the washer and dryer
are fighting each other
after Riz's Remote Access,
and that is going to
be Fig starting first.
- Okay, can I do a Fireball up here?
- [Brennan] Hell yes.
- So that only hits him
and not these innocent bystanders?
- Hell yes.
- Okay.
- The moment you come back
and you announce the spell,
you see Grix is gonna whip
around and Counterspell.
- [Emily] And I'll
Counterspell him right back.
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. He's
dropping a higher level spell.
- [Emily] I'll do a 4th level.
- All right, you're gonna
have to roll for it.
He's gonna use a 5th level
spell slot to counter.
- I think, do I still
have a Bardic from Ruben?
- Yes you do, you still have...
- Okay.
- Ruben looks as Wanda
appears back on the field.
Okay, so Grix is Counterspelling.
It will automatically cancel the Fireball,
but there is a chance
that you will hit his.
DC is 15. You gotta get 10 or higher.
- You got this.
- You got this.
It's not yesterday.
- [Ally] It's not yesterday.
- [Brennan] 15!
- It's not yesterday!
- It's not yesterday!
- I mean, it's still today.
- It's not yesterday!
- [Lou] It's still today,
but it's not yesterday.
- And it's only been two years.
- Hell yes, he's gonna
make his Dexterity save.
Go ahead and roll damage.
- Oh my god, I rolled so bad.
- Oh no!
- Three points of damage
from the Fireball?
- Oh my god.
- [Ally] 'Cause it was too bright.
- It's only ones and twos.
- Can I actually Counterspell myself?
I've never cast a worse 5th
level spell than I've just cast.
- Oof.
- 18 points of damage.
- Whoa.
- [Brennan] 18 points of damage.
- Not nothing!
- From 10d6.
- Okay, okay.
Is that possible?
- You see that this huge Fireball goes up.
The sign alights in fire. Whoosh!
- With my bonus action,
I just wanna lie down
and play dead 'cause
I'm so ashamed of that.
- Poor Wanda.
- Wait, but I do extra four damage,
'cause he has my Hexblade Curse.
- Yes. Okay, cool cool cool.
- There it is.
- Hell yes.
- Getting over 20.
- I'm gonna think about that for days.
- Oh no. He whips around,
fires a cantrip at you.
He is gonna hit you for 20
points of lightning damage.
- You can't embarrass me
as much as I just did.
- [Brennan] That is
now going to be Gorgug.
- I have Returning Weapon.
- [Brennan] Oh, awesome.
- [Zac] So I'm just going to
f*cking throw my axe at him.
- Yes!
- [Brennan] Sick as hell.
- For two attacks, so it's
just shot put spinning
and hurling his axe.
- Sick as hell.
Go ahead and roll-
- And recklessly.
- Recklessly. Sick.
- All right.
[dice rolling]
- [Siobhan] Ow!
- 24 on the first one.
- He's used his reaction.
He cannot cast Shield. 24 hits.
- Okay, and the second one, 23.
- Both of those would have
been prevented by a Shield.
Both of those go through.
- Okay!
- We're gonna roll Mirror
Image for both of these.
Six or higher, and your first
attack goes for a duplicate.
That's a four!
- Nice!
- You hit the real him on the first one.
- Yay!
- Second attack.
Six, so the second attack
gets rid of a duplicate,
but the first attack strikes true.
- Maybe you can get
him on this one attack.
- Get out of my yard!
Okay, that is 12 damage.
- Boom, Fireball, the axe
moves through the air,
strikes him again.
He is looking incredibly messed up
as the axe circles back
around, bam, into your hands.
One of his duplicates is gone.
He only has two duplicates left.
- I'm just gonna...
Been trying to do the
whole artificer thing,
but I guess I'll go into a rage now.
- [Brennan] Cool, hell yeah.
- Looking around at
everything pissing me off.
- I'm taking a video of it for Porter.
Porter, you gotta see our boy!
- I said no photos!
- [Lou] I feel like Fig is texting
way too many adults about Gorgug.
- Fig has always been texting adults.
Fig loves texting adults.
- Okay, I'm going to need Gorgug to make
a Dexterity saving throw.
- Bro, you got this.
- I can see this, right?
- You can see it, yes.
- You got this, dude.
- All right. Okay.
[dice rolling]
[Brennan rolling too many dice]
Dex saving throw is a 12.
- Okay, he deals 27 points
of lightning damage.
Okay, that is Adaine's turn.
- Great, my elemental is gonna go fly
over to him and do two attacks.
- Hell yeah.
- Come on, little elemental!
- [Brennan] Go ahead
and roll the first one.
[dice rolling]
- The first one is 25 to hit.
- That hits!
- And the second one is a 21 to hit.
- 21 hits.
Getting him to use his reaction has made
every single attack that hit him, hit him.
- The little Fireball that could.
- Thank you so much for
trying to celebrate-
- The little Fireball that could!
- Yes, little Fireball!
- That Roman candle that
you shot at the big bad.
- First one- Okay, roll
damage, but we're gonna say
on a seven or lower, it hits the real him.
Three, hits the real him on the first one.
Next one.
- Okay, so that's 8 plus, oh god, 11.
- 11 damage.
- How's he looking?
- Your air elemental swirls into him
and fully rips the casing
off the front of his body,
exposing raw wires, circuits
shorting everywhere.
[electricity crackling]
[choppy speech] Per-er-erfect or-r-rder-r!
He is hanging on by the barest of threads.
- Great, so I'm gonna bonus
action cast True Strike
and then cast a 4th level Chromatic Orb.
- Ooh-hoi!
- So I roll with advantage.
- So two Mirror Images have been-
- There's one Mirror Image left.
[dice rolling]
- That is a 23 to hit.
- Definitely hits.
Now, on an 11 or higher,
you will hit a duplicate.
On a 10 or lower, you
will hit the real him.
- It's gonna be a six.
- [Brennan] 11.
- Do you have a Silvery Barbs left?
- Yes. Silvery Barbs.
- Here we go. Gonna reroll.
- I keep forgetting to do
this with Silvery Barbs,
but I can give advantage to somebody,
so I'll give it to Fabian.
- Okay, copy that.
- The Ball!
- You annihilate the last of
the Mirror Image duplicates
in front of Principal Grix.
You have the benefit of the Dodge action.
- Yeah, I'm gonna try and
move away from these guys
in front of me, 'cause I have Dodge on,
so their opportunity attacks
will be with disadvantage.
- [Brennan] Cool. You
rush in the way over here.
- Does he still have
concentration up on Hold Person?
- He had three different things.
From the elemental, from Gorgug,
and from the little
Fireball that couldn't.
- Oh, he's got to roll a ton.
I'm gonna roll these real quick for him.
Okay, that first one, he's gonna roll.
Let's see how he does
here. He's got to get-
- 24.
- Okay, he makes versus the
Fireball. The next one was-
- I did 12 damage.
- Did 12 damage.
That one he makes as well. And
then the elemental hit him.
I'll roll this in front of the board.
He needs a seven or higher
or he loses concentration.
That's a five!
- Yes!
- So your air elemental
breaks the concentration,
and you see Ruben come out
[mimics guitar shredding]
and this massive spell energy
radiates out from Frosty Fair.
Every single one of you gets
a d8 Bardic Inspiration,
and Grix,
who was just about to Steel
Wind Strike everybody,
seeing that Ruben has
come out of Hold Person...
I'm gonna make a Luck check here.
You guys want high.
- Please be high!
[tense music]
- Nat 20!
- Nat 20! What the f*ck?
- You see Grix looks at all of you,
is preparing a Steel Wind Strike,
and sees that the concentration
breaks on Ruben and goes,
"Perfect order," and summons
a Forcecage around Ruben,
the walls of which begin to close.
- Counterspell, 5th level.
- Ooh-hui, here we go!
- 5th level Counterspell.
- 5th level Counterspell.
Okay, go ahead and roll, DC 17.
[die rolling]
- No.
- What was that?
What'd you get?
- I got a seven.
- You have that Bardic from Ruben.
- It's an 11. You have a d8.
I'll tell you right now, you need to roll
a six or higher on the d8
if you're gonna use it.
- Great, so it's seven plus four,
is my spellcasting modifier.
[die rolling]
- Yeah!
- Seven!
Adaine, you raise your sword,
and as the Forcecage begins to assemble,
destiny and the white, shimmering magic
of the Sword of Sight
echoes across the stage,
dispels the Forcecage, and
that is Principal Grix's turn.
He's going to lair action.
I'm gonna need Dexterity saving throws
from anyone within 60 feet.
- [Emily] I did say that I
bonus action Dash away. - Cool.
- And then play dead.
- Cool.
- [Brennan] You are outside,
but that's gonna be-
- [Lou] Am I safe?
- Fabian, I think, is
actually just outside of it.
But it's gonna be Adaine, Gorgug.
Kristen, you're in there as well.
Riz, you're in there as well.
- Okay.
- [Brennan] So it's Riz,
Kristen, Gorgug, and Adaine,
are all gonna make
Dexterity saving throws.
Let me know what you get.
[dice rolling]
[dice rolling]
- Goddammit.
- So bad for all that. 15.
- 11.
- Wait, actually, you know
what? I'll do my Bardic as well.
- [Brennan] Okay.
- Oh, 23.
Got an eight on the Bardic.
- 10.
- Okay, 23, 10.
What'd we get here?
- Zero.
- [Brennan] Zero?
[Emily cackling]
- 11.
- 11, okay. Hold on.
- So I'm gonna save that
Bardic for something else.
If I don't die.
- You can save it for Revivify for me.
I'm dead from shame.
- Adaine, Gorgug, Kristen, 39
points of lightning damage.
- Oh, interesting!
- I'm down.
- [Lou] Interesting.
- Adaine, down. Kristen down?
- No.
- Okay.
- I have Dodge on, so I have
advantage on Dexterity checks.
- If you can see the attack,
you make Dexterity saving
throws with advantage.
f*ck yeah, go for it.
- [Ally] What did everybody get
from my Mass Healing Word?
- I rolled a one.
- [Lou] It took me from 51 to 82.
- I'm at 23 now.
- It was 31.
- Okay, great.
- So Riz, you take zero, having succeeded.
Having renewed all of his legendaries,
Principal Grix turns
to look at all of you.
Fabian, it is your turn.
- How far am I from Grix?
- You're just within 60 feet.
- Just within 60 feet, okay.
I'm gonna Dash and Action Surge,
and then I wanna know
if I could climb the
stage and jump to hit him.
- You have the movement. Let me see.
- You could probably just jump up.
He looks like he's not that high.
- [Brennan] And you're
not using any jump stuff
that helps with jump, right?
- I could cast Kinetic Jaunt
on myself again, but I'd prefer not to.
- Could you just Acrobatics off this pole?
- [Lou] Yeah, can I jump off of somebody?
- Look at this robot.
- With a running start,
you can reach up and grab
something 14 feet off the ground,
which means that your
reach is actually 19 feet
and he's only 15 feet above the stage.
He is just within range for you to make
an incredible leap off the stage.
- So yeah, I'd like to charge,
battle sheet flowing behind me,
toward the stage, jump
off of it, and attack him.
- Before you even roll, he
Shields. He sees it coming.
- Great.
- You're Action Surging.
You have not used a bonus action, correct?
- I have not used a bonus action.
- Okay, here we go.
- Okay, so first one,
I'm gonna use the advantage from Riz.
- Hell yeah.
- Come on, baby!
- That's gonna be an
- Bypasses the Shield.
- Yeah, it does!
- And then for the
second one, none of that.
[die rolling]
That'll be a 16.
- You have that Bardic.
- I have that Bardic. I'll use it.
- [Emily] C'mon, eight.
- 20 does not get past the Shield.
You have one attack that lands.
- We'll burn everything, so
it'll be a 3rd level spell
for 3d6, it'll be a
Goading attack for 1d8,
and it'll be another
d8 for bardic Flourish.
- Come on!
- Let's call it slashing.
And then a d8 just for the blade itself.
- [Emily] Come on!
- Okay, here we go.
[dice rolling]
All right, 12.
- [Siobhan] Those are those
numbers we were missing earlier.
- Don't worry, I got the ones out, guys.
- 23,
for 34?
- Six.
- 36. 36 points of damage.
- Lou, please describe, as Fabian leaps
through the air with
Fandrangor, what happens.
- Sprinting toward the
stage, I put one foot up.
Just as I'm going to push
off, I look at Ruben.
I say, I'm actually a huge fan,
spin back, and I'm just going to spear him
through his little ball
and bring it to earth.
- Bang! Light, lightning.
Grix is destroyed.
- Yeah, Fabian!
- [voice crackles and fades]
Perfect order...
And just becomes parts on the ground.
Ruben looks as people begin to rush
and fix whatever's going on.
We come out of Initiative
order as Ruben goes,
"Sorry for the interruption, everybody.
Got a little rowdy in the mosh pit, huh?"
- I take the stage.
Okay, everybody, go home!
Everybody go home. Time to go home.
- Can I look back at him?
'Cause I'm still Wanda Childa.
And I wanna Minor Illusion a bus,
and I wanna look over my shoulder.
- [Lou] Forced perspective.
- As I get on the bus,
and then use the motion of my skateboard
to make it look like
the bus is driving away.
- Like a school play, like a car.
- What is Wanda Childa's actual deal?
- And then in the Minor Illusion,
I blow on the mirror and
say, "See you soon, Ruben."
- Ruben, people are flocking to the stage,
and he's running as the crowd...
He's like, "Wanda! Wanda!
[growing frantic] Wanda!
Wanda!"
As you begin to pull away
in this illusory, skateboard-speed bus,
give me a Performance
check, if you'd be so kind.
- Okay. I'm in disguise.
Come on, please, good!
Okay, that is a 30.
- Perfect. The illusory bus
driver you've created is like,
"Sorry the bus is a little slow,
but then again, we're not
supposed to drive on the grass.
What's your name? Where are you headed?"
- Wanda Childa. Honestly, anywhere.
- Good news for you,
this bus is headed, bing!
And it goes, "Anywhere,"
up on the thing of the bus.
- I put my hand against
the window and streak down.
- You see that as you begin
going away, the bus driver says,
"Do you know what my name is?"
- Yeah, it's Tucker.
- Tucker, okay. I'm real, right?
- Yeah, you're totally
real, and my name is Wanda,
and I'm mysterious, aloof,
and I have a septum piercing,
and I'm thinking about
dyeing only half my hair.
- You see Tucker looks and
says, "Well, I should know.
My kids are all into
that hair dye and stuff.
They got piercings."
- Really?
How old are your kids?
- I don't remember.
- I steer the Minor Illusion away
and then drop the disguise.
- Drop the disguise.
- And then walk back and say,
"What happened? I was taking a sh*t."
- You see Ruben goes, "I f*ck'
knew it! Get outta my way!
Wanda!"
You hear a voice right
behind you as you come back.
"Yeah, I'm actually interested
if anyone else saw what that kid saw."
You see there's an aarakocra
in a suit looking around
being like, "Did anyone here
just see a bus pull off?
Incredibly slow, small bus?"
- Why would a bus drive on the grass?
That seems strange.
- That's crazy.
- Do you have a warrant?
- Hm?
- Do you have a f*cking warrant?
- [Ally] Gorgug needs
everyone gone yesterday.
- I'm done. I'm done. I'm done.
- Do you have a f*cking warrant?
- [Zac] Wrap it up, people!
- You see Wilma and Digby
are throwing blankets
over the destroyed machinery,
sort of courtesy blankets.
Sorry, g*ng! Sorry, everybody!
Honestly, roll Intimidation
with advantage.
- Yeah! So good, so good.
- Okay, not actually that bad. 15.
- You see-
- I'm gonna use my Bardic.
- Oh yeah.
- 20.
- Dirty 20.
You see Agent Clark goes,
"Just enjoying the festival, man. Sorry."
And you see he walks out.
[Zac snorts like a pig]
As he leaves, you see over in the corner,
a little halfling pops
up and goes, "Hell yeah!"
You see Wilma and Digby run up and go,
"Oh gosh, kiddo, I'm so sorry.
You all saved the day!
What the hell was that?"
- Just our new principal.
- You're so good at tinkerers now.
Can we ask your parents
and you to look and see
if this robot's been hijacked
or if it's being controlled by something?
- Yeah, I think we both
kind of thought that maybe
it was possible that piece
from the Cloud Driver-
- Could've been involved with this.
- [Murph] All of a sudden, Grix is flying.
- Can we look through the
parts of this fallen principal?
- Give me a tinker's tool check.
Anyone can give me tinker's
tool or Investigation.
- Also, if anybody could
give me a light heal,
because I am dying.
- Gorgug, you have a Bardic.
- I am dead on the ground.
- It's a d8?
- It's a d8.
- Do you want a Bardic?
- I got this one.
- Okay.
Do you want a Bardic?
- I'm okay.
- Anybody interested in helping me?
- Fig just went to the joke shop.
- Definitely.
- Okay.
- Yeah, can I get some help investigating?
- Who heals Adaine?
- Me, for 14.
- Great, thank you.
- 21 on my tinkerer's check.
- And 24 Investigate.
- Hell yeah.
So you're looking specifically
for the Cloud Rider Engine.
You don't see any proprietary stuff
concerning the Cloud Rider Engine in here,
and you're looking for
any sign of tinkering
that there might have been
with him or anything sort of-
- Can we just straight-up pull
his hard drive or whatever?
- So that's the check
you're making, right?
And on a 21, you can pull it.
As you pull it up, it's like,
encrypted, logged away files.
- We can bring it to AV Club.
- Yeah, we'll take it.
- Is there anybody from the AV Club here,
or would you have to take
it to school the next day?
- You might have to take it to school.
Even with that, on your
Investigation check,
you see Arthur Aguefort's Arcane Mark.
There's an open book in
front of a burning egg.
It looks like Arthur made this.
- Can I cast Identify on Grix's body?
- This is another use
of the Identify spell.
What you now behold
is Interim Emergency
Backup Principal Grix,
an automaton created
by one Arthur Aguefort
to maintain perfect order
in his absence at the school grounds.
Grix is a powerful arcane spellcaster
possessed of many of
the wizardly abilities
of his creator, Arthur Aguefort.
This model was made in the event
that the normal vice
principal would not be able
to assume his duties, and was
kept in a storage cupboard
in the principal's office.
This model has recently been destroyed,
and you can see here
that these parts contain
the information and programming
put in place by Arthur Aguefort,
which contain, amongst other things,
directives to enforce school bylaws,
keep things kosher while, essentially,
the superintendent's office
might be looking into the school,
and to engage in extracurricular,
extra-campus activities
should there be a direct threat
to the existence of the school itself.
- To the existence of the school?
I'm also thinking, to enforce the bylaws,
could someone have gone
in and changed the bylaws,
which would then change his directive?
- The Identify spell, also,
you learn whether any spells
are affecting the item
and what they are, so is there anything-
- There's a ton of magic here,
because Grix himself was a spellcaster.
- Is there anything, reading that,
knowing Arthur Aguefort,
that seems out of place?
- Give me an Arcana with advantage.
- Great.
[dice rolling]
- That's a 25.
- With certainty,
looking at Principal Grix's
body, he is untampered with.
- Huh. Okay.
- Okay.
- It does seem like,
as much as this dude is
the opposite of Aguefort,
it also seems like a very Aguefort thing
to just be like, I don't
know, I'll make a robot.
Just follow all the rules!
Make sure everything's good!
- And have it poorly worded.
- [Murph] And then leaving.
- But the bylaws!
- I do like the bylaws angle.
Check and see if there've
been any recent edits.
- Would the president know?
- We should ask Ruben if
they broke any bylaws.
- Oh yeah.
- Because he went right for Ruben, right?
- Right. I mean, the drugs.
- He was doing drugs.
- I could as Mazey about it,
if the president is allowed to-
- Mazey might know if anything's changed.
- Well, and also, it's
extracurricular activities
that would affect-
- The direct existence of the school.
They also said something about,
if there was superintendent investigation.
- Right, so maybe it's
this fricking aarakocra.
- Is there anything going on with...
Was Grix stopping
a ceremony or something with this band?
Is Ruben up to something beyond this?
- Interesting.
- Yes, maybe.
Oh, was Ruben's performance
in some way a threat to the school?
- Can we see if this looks
like it was any kinda ritual
or something outside of just
being a band performance?
- Anyone who wants to can
give me an Investigation,
Perception, Arcana, whatever you wanna do.
- I'll cast a Detect Magic.
- [Murph] Can somebody Help me?
- The Ball, I've got
your back on this one!
- Appreciate ya.
- I got a 17 Investigation.
[dice rolling]
- Ooh baby, 29.
- You know what, I never
used Ruben's Bardic.
- The Ball, look over
there. How about that?
- Ah, perfect.
- 19 Investigation.
- 19 Investigation.
- 29.
- 29?
- I got a 14 Arcana, but
I'd also like to cast
Detect Magic as a ritual, just to see
if there's any schools
of magic floating around.
I mean, so much. [coughing]
- Tons of magical residue
from all of this stuff going on.
And then you got a 29
Investigation, right?
What are you looking for,
I think, in particular?
- I think I'm looking
for spell components,
trying to see if this concert
was more than just a concert,
trying to summon something?
- I'm gonna use my Investigation check,
which, I have a 19,
to see if there are any other
Rat Grinders around here.
- Yeah, and I'll look underneath the-
- [Siobhan] The stage?
- The stage.
- So you look underneath the stage.
As you start looking around
for any other Rat Grinders,
you don't see any others here.
You see a lot of them
are sort of peeling away,
and honestly, maybe even
conspicuous in their absence.
- Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
If I had a show, you guys
would show up, right?
- We did.
- Kristen, you look under the stage.
Riz and Adaine, as Kristen
lifts the thing up,
you look under and see that there are
several glowing little stingers.
These little sort of
electrical cable connectors.
As you look at them,
all of them are glowing
with a little subtle red light to them.
- Is this some kind of
Copperlilly Caterpillar-
- Or is that the shards things
that made everyone enraged?
- Do you have Divine Sense still?
Or Detect Good and Evil type
non-spell things?
- I have one, yeah.
- But you also have your
non-spell cleric things.
- Are the cords making
a circle, like a rune?
- As you begin to go through it,
you see that the electrical
connections don't make sense.
You know that this is not
the most efficient way
to run cable to the stage.
And Riz, on that 29
Investigation, you count them,
and at first you're like,
what is the shape they're in?
There's so many of them.
You realize that they are in concentric,
you can't see the circles 'cause
they're points on a circle.
There's 24 of them.
- [Emily] A 24-sided star.
At this point, we saved Ruben.
What if we just kind of be
like, hey, spill everything?
- It's possible that
Ruben doesn't even know.
- But we should talk to him.
- [Murph] But we should find out.
- Hey Ruben, did you know about this?
- [Brennan] As you turn around,
you actually see that Ruben is gone.
Ruben has run off in
search of Wanda Childa.
- So there are 24 points,
glowing red power, underneath this stage.
Is there something in the center of those?
- It looks like the center is
sort of centered on the stage.
- Where Ruben would've been standing?
- Kind of by definition.
He's the front man, right?
So he's standing center
stage. Yeah, for sure.
- [indistinct] try to unplug it?
'Cause I don't know that this is good.
- [Lou] You don't want this on your lawn.
- So I'm gonna see if there's
a safe way to unplug these.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- I can give you the Help action.
- Do I need to make a roll?
- Make a tinker's tool check, yeah.
[dice rolling]
- 23.
- You look and see that as
you unplug the first one,
the red light from all
of them fades and becomes
the sort of normal crystal
blue of arcano-tech
just more generally. And
you don't actually see
a big release of energy when that happens.
It feels like walking into
a room with a pentagram
where the candles aren't
lit anymore, right?
It's like there's something-
- Something already happened.
- Something already happened.
- Is it similar to the arcade fight?
- I'll say, 29's pretty incredible.
You wanna ask one other
question on that roll
about what you're seeing here?
- Yeah, I like Gorgug's question.
- Asking if there's something sealed here?
- Was it aware, and did it go somewhere?
- You're trying to find some connections.
Now, most of these points don't correlate
to something that was onstage,
because there's 24 of them.
There's just a lot of them in general.
But you notice that every single speaker
had one directly under it.
You don't think anything
was sealed or bound here.
You actually think, on a 29, the reverse.
That something was released here.
- By playing this music,
everyone sings along to it,
they're singing a prayer.
- What were the lyrics?
- What were the lyrics, yeah!
- The song he was singing,
there's a moment where it
breaks into the chorus.
The part where it breaks
into the chorus is like...
♪ You hate when I get mad ♪
♪ You hate when I get mad, get mad ♪
- Ah.
- I think it's rage, right?
- Yeah.
- Rage.
- 'Cause the other guys went into a rage.
There was stuff about doubt and rage
being too powerful together,
and rage being the outcome of doubt.
- If Ruben knows what's happening,
which let's assume he does,
if he's saying get mad
and they're channeling this stuff out,
is it possible that the other
members of the Rat Grinders
were trying to pressure
Lucy to change to this god?
- This rage god?
- This rage god.
- Yeah, I definitely think
that that was Lucy's-
- I think they're all
using this chaos magic.
- And if they want whatever god it was
to do whatever they were trying to do,
and they have a new one
who is now following Helio,
does that feel like it's Helio?
- What if we go to the
woods and talk to the rats?
- Yeah, I feel like-
- 'Cause I bet-
- Yes, if I eat a bunch of organs,
we can speak to animals.
- Yeah, you eat a bunch of organs.
The vulture gave us the
power to speak to animals.
- Yes, I have the Tongue
of the Vulture King.
- You know what, I'm
gonna summon 1d4 vultures
that I can't...
- Roll 1d4.
- Two.
- Two vultures appear.
- Can I sh**t one with my-
[Brennan squawks]
Okay, great.
All right, if I eat this-
- Whoa!
- ...I can talk to the rats!
- Whoa!
- We have to get there
first. Hang onto it.
- Just tell me when.
- Hey, it's gotta rot.
Just leave it out.
- I don't have a bunch of ideas!
- I think you should eat it.
I think you should eat it.
- Now?
- No, no!
- This is my yard.
- Ew, it's nasty!
- Did you think it was gonna be good?
- I don't know!
- Maybe it's an acquired taste.
- Can we get some hot
sauce before we leave?
- No. Eat it now.
- Fabian, you want some hot sauce?
- Don't give him hot sauce, Mom.
- Can I have some hot sauce?
We're gonna go to the woods
and I'm gonna eat this.
- [Brennan] Okay!
- Great.
- You guys head to the woods.
Go ahead and give me a Survival check.
- [Lou] Okay.
[dice rolling]
- Just Fabian, or all of us?
- Anyone who wants to. We'll
make it a group Survival check.
- I got a four.
- 18.
- 19!
- 15.
- 17.
- Great, you guys wander off
to the part of the Far Haven Woods
that are most- sort of
behind Aguefort, essentially.
- [Lou] Is this it?
- This is it. It's all you, dude.
I get my phone out to
video him eating this.
Okay, everybody,
it's the eating the
vulture tongue challenge.
- Well, I think I have to eat the organs,
and then I eat the tongue.
- Are you livestreaming this?
- No, no, no.
- [Brennan] No, you're
taking a video. Okay.
- This is just for us.
- Just for you guys.
[flesh squelching]
[Lou gulping]
- Oh god, it's disgusting!
- You have to keep it
down or it won't work!
- Why did you start by licking it?
- You have to keep it
down or it won't work!
- [Ally] Don't lick it!
- Licking it's nothing but taste.
- Okay, okay.
- Like a pill. Like a pill.
- All right.
- Just rip it off!
Why do you have to hold the whole thing?
- Here's a glass of water.
- Thank you.
- Where'd you get that?
- I found it on the ground.
[organs squelching]
- [groans] Oh god.
- You're doing so good, buddy.
- How much do I have to eat?
- You're doing so good.
- Is it enough? It is enough?
- You're about 1/6 in.
I don't know, somebody find a rat.
- Yeah! Yeah, you guys, somebody-
- I try to grab a rat.
- I try to grab a rat, too.
- You guys are walking out in the woods.
You come into a little clearing,
and as you walk into it,
waiting to see a rat scurry,
you just literally see,
almost perfectly positioned
at the other side of a meadow,
just a quite large rat
who just appears and goes... [chittering]
- I give Kristen the Help
action to grab the rat.
- I try to grab the rat.
- Why are we getting our
least Dexterous person-
- Make an Athletics check.
- Animal Handling is plus five for me.
- This is gonna be,
if you're trying to
grab it, it's Athletics.
If you're trying to handle it
and coo to it, it's Animal Handling.
- All right, yeah, I do
that one. I do that one.
I hold out some of the nasty meat.
- Yeah, you want a piece?
- [Brennan] Give me an
Animal Handling check.
- With Help from me.
- [Ally] With advantage?
- Yeah, yeah.
[dice rolling]
- [Zac] Kristen, I don't
know if they can vote.
- Oh, two 16s! So that's a 21.
- You hold out your hand, and
as you hold your hand out,
[Lou chewing]
[Brennan chittering]
rat comes up and comes into your hand.
- How heavy is it?
- A couple ounces.
- I think you just need
to eat one organ, right?
- I don't know. Can I stop?
- Say something to him.
- Wait, did you eat all of them?
- Did you eat the whole tongue or not?
- Well, I was just eating
the rotting organs.
I haven't eaten the tongue yet.
Do I have to eat the tongue too?
- Fabian, you discover that
those were normal vultures
that do not help or add magic.
- So we have to eat the
item to use it once.
- [Brennan] Fabian, I'm gonna need
a Constitution saving throw.
- I was so confused.
- Reading it, it's clear
as day, but we all-
- [Brennan] DC 15 Constitution check.
- We all just thought wrong.
- [Zac] I didn't think he had to do that.
- 17.
- Cool, so whatever...
You're eating raw vulture meat.
Your stomach curdles,
but you're gonna be okay.
- Okay, now you have to
eat the rotten tongue.
- Now just eat the tongue.
- Okay!
- Now you have to finish that up with-
- Honestly-
- Do you want to have a
piece of bread or something?
- I found another glass of water.
- It's like a carpaccio.
- Exactly.
It's tasting me, and I'm tasting it!
- Yeah, you're French kissing it.
- Don't tell anyone I French
kissed the Vulture King.
- You're finally getting your kisses in.
- [Ally] Is it hot?
- Yeah, finally.
I mean, it's more like
a Crystal Hot Sauce,
so it's more for flavor.
Hi.
[Brennan squeaking]
- Hi there.
- How are you?
- I'm okay. You gonna
come here and step on me?
- No, actually, we wanted to
know more about the steppers.
- Well, all right.
- What can you tell us?
- There's a bunch of people
who come here and step on us,
and they attack us with
swords, and they sh**t spells.
- Okay, great. Hey, okay-
- Can I Minor Illusion Lucy Frostblade?
Ask it the last time it saw this girl.
- Okay, do you see this person?
When's the last time you saw them?
- I do a nice photo
sh**t, like a prom queen
photo sh**t.
- I just hit a nat 20
on this rat's History check.
- [Lou] Okay!
- This rat was best friends
with Lucy before she died!
- You see the rat looks and says,
"Aw jeepers, she was always really nice."
- Did she have tension
with the other ones?
- Well, you know, we
didn't like her at first
because she used to come here
and k*ll us all the time,
but some time last year
or something like that,
she started to bring us back from the dead
after her friends left.
- [Siobhan] Oh, that's nice.
- That's so sweet.
- That is nice.
- Oh my goodness.
- Wait, is there a
place that they hung out
in the woods, or particularly liked?
Did you guys ever, did they have a-
- Where's their zone?
- A lair, or their nest?
- They sorta hung out all
over, but there's a place
where I go sometimes because
it was the last place I...
I'm not supposed to say nothin'.
- No, no.
- Hey, that's okay.
- You can talk to us.
- What's it saying, Fabian?
- It's having kind of an emotional moment.
- I know how to handle this.
- Okay.
- I'll Minor Illusion a sexy rat.
- No, come on! Come on, dude! Dude!
- I step on the sexy rat.
[Brennan shrieks in horror]
- Sorry, no! We're not those guys!
- No, sorry, that was fake! That was fake!
She was so sexy.
[Brennan shrieking]
- You know that's triggering for me.
- Can you get a little rat
stuffed animal out of your coat?
- You know that's triggering for me.
- [Siobhan] Oh yes, a little rat. Here.
- [Ally] We get a little rat
stuffed animal out of the coat.
- This is for you.
- It's extra tiny and it
can hold it while it's-
- It's like a mannequin,
like they have in rat stores.
- I'm sorry?
I'm sorry? Wait, hold
on, what'd you just say?
- You have rat stores?
- What?
- What'd you say? Rat store?
- There's not a rat
world under the school.
- What?
- What?
- I don't know what he's saying.
- He's talking about rat stores
under the school.
- Got it.
- [Lou] Where you can get rat mannequins.
- Steer it back! Steer it back, Fabian!
All we hear is squeaking, steer him back!
- Okay, sorry. It's just
interesting, you know?
Did you guys know about
Rat World? Now we do!
- Just keep going!
- Where was Lucy Frostblade?
- All right, nobody else wanted to eat
the f*cking tongue or the organs.
- You volunteered!
- You volunteered so hard!
- It made it better!
- I'm petting the rat. I'm
trying to keep it kinda calm.
- Rat's sort of crying a little bit.
- Aw, it looks sad.
- I know it would be hard for you,
but it would mean a great
deal to us and that person
if you could show us that place.
- All right, I could take you.
It takes about two days to get there.
- We can carry you.
- Oh, that's two days for you.
- Two days rat time.
- Tell him we could carry him.
- We can carry you.
- Okay.
- We move faster than the wind.
- Ask him if he wants
to ride the skateboard.
- Do you wanna ride on a skateboard?
Do they have those in your Rat World?
- A skateboard?
- Make the battle sheet into
a BabyBjörn for the rat.
- Okay.
Here, I'm gonna wrap you up
and we're gonna put
you on this skateboard.
- Lucy used to call me Spot.
- Spot?
- Mm-hmm.
- Tell him that we are
trying to help Lucy,
and so if he can help us,
we are gonna help Lucy.
- We're trying to help
Lucy, so if you can help us-
- Go ahead and give me
Persuasion with advantage.
- Do you want a Bardic?
- Yeah, can I get one?
- Yeah.
- d8?
- Yeah.
- Be so careful.
- Okay, I got a 19 plus 8.
- Nice, nice.
- So that's 27.
- Maybe you don't need it.
- You don't need it,
then. You don't need it.
- You can save it, right?
- It could k*ll the rat, honestly.
Imagine the rat getting bonked in the head
by a f*cking skateboard wheel.
- It's my Bardic, so I
think I would be the one.
- It's up to you.
- I mean, what do you guys...? Eh.
Three. 30.
- Hey, 30.
You see Spot goes, "Yeah, absolutely!
You can come with me right now.
I'll show you where it is."
- Fantastic.
- You guys are gonna take
a hike through the woods.
- Yeah.
- Great.
- Keeping our eyes out, though.
- Eyes out.
- I'm keeping my eyes peeled.
- Oh yes, for traps or those
sorts of things, perhaps.
- Yeah, I'm in full
security detail right now.
- Yeah, I'd love to keep my eyes open.
- Everyone give me a Perception check.
- Can we do a little short rest, too?
Just in case we get nabbed by a trap.
[dice rolling]
My Perception is disadvantage
these days. I also got a two.
- It's a Perception?
- Perception. I got an 18.
- I got a 24.
- Nice.
- You all move through the
woods. Spot directs you.
There's some noises out in the forest.
There are some things out here
that are kept by the adventuring academy.
Not anything that would
give you guys real pause.
A couple giant spiders,
some things that would be
sort of short work for
all of you at this point.
Moving through the Far Haven Woods,
you eventually see through the darkness
the first little bit of light,
which is sort of crescent moon
reflecting off of Lake Shimmerstone.
- I tap Fig and go, this
is the whole mystery vibe.
This is Cassandra's whole religion vibe.
Are you scared, a little bit?
- Am I scared?
- Yeah.
- Of Cassandra?
- No, no. Like...
Doesn't it feel kinda eerie and empty?
- I like to be a little scared.
- Cool, yeah, me too.
- Yeah.
- Cool.
- As you say that,
the shards glow a little
bit in your pocket.
- Sick. We're gonna find your husband.
- Or wife! You're assuming.
- Or wife. Or partner!
[Emily guffaws]
I put it back in my pocket.
- Riz jumps into the water.
- As you approach Lake Shimmerstone,
Spot looks around and says,
"All right, let me go make sure
there's no other little
rats paying their respects."
- Of course.
- What are they paying their respects to?
- Lucy.
- Well, you be respectful.
Go ahead, make sure
we're not interrupting.
- That vulture tongue is sitting
really bad in your stomach.
Fabian, as your stomach goes [gurgling]
Spot runs forward and you see
[caws] owl picks him up and eats him.
- No!
- What? No!
I Hex the owl!
- Hand crossbow.
- [Brennan] Great,
everyone roll Initiative.
- [Siobhan] Disadvantage.
[dice rolling]
- Did anyone beat a 22?
- No.
- Fabian, your stomach gurgles.
There's a scent of creamy lemon
that sort of pours out of
your nostrils a little bit,
something that smells like old sandals
hidden wet in the gym bag
in the back of an old car,
and you see an owl swoops
down, grabs Spot, and eats him.
- No!
- Okay.
- Okay.
- f*ck!
- You are cursed. You're,
like, 100% cursed.
And it's not even just to the person,
it's to the world just
kinda generally around them.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Are there any other rats
around here that maybe
we could try to talk to really
quick before Fabian barfs?
- Could we do an Investigation
check to see if there's-
- Well, the rat, Spot, did
bring you to the location.
So you can now, anyone who wants to,
give me Investigation checks.
- Could somebody help me out?
- Yeah, I'll help you.
- I already rolled, sorry.
- I also have one Bardic left.
- Nat 20.
- Nice.
- [Murph] 31.
- Yes, yes, yes!
- All of you are out here exploring.
You notice that there are a lot of old,
sort of rotting trees around here.
It looks like a lot of trees
have sort of been felled in this area.
Riz, you are looking for some evidence
in the case of Lucy Frostblade's death.
Which means on a nat 20,
it is very shocking to you
when you discover
the body
of Yolanda Badgood.
- What?
- Yolanda!
- Okay.
- You told her about the thing!
- [Brennan] Riz, you are looking around.
It's expertly hidden. It is
deep under vines and foliage.
- What the f*ck?
- How did she die?
- How long has she been there?
- Cause of death.
- On a nat 20,
I'm gonna give you everything.
It's, first of all, challenging
to identify her. It's wire.
The body is almost taken apart by,
and this is a mystery in and
of itself, but on a nat 20,
I'll let you know without
even casting any spells.
- Okay.
- Force damage.
- Okay, force damage is Steel Wind Strike.
- Oh.
- And there is no magic residue.
You take a temperature check on the body.
Body's been dead for about three hours.
- Three hours?
- Three hours?
- Will you cast Identify on the token?
- Yeah, can I cast
Identify on this bracelet?
- On the bracelet that was given to you.
- The token from Yolanda?
- From Yolanda.
- Ah yes, another use
of the Identify spell.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- What's that?
I don't get to do my thing all the time.
- You're great. You're
doing a really good job.
- You want my help or not?
- Yes, I absolutely...
Please, yes. Thank you.
- Very well!
- I actually really like you.
- Who said that?
- Figueroth Faeth.
- Oh, I like you, too.
Have you ever considered learning me?
You could multiclass wizard.
- Yeah, add it to the f*ck' pile.
- Wizard classes are expensive,
let me just tell you.
- You see it says,
"This bracelet provides
the channel to divine power
for clerics devoted to a
non-deity-specific cause.
- Okay, I was trying to
see if she was giving you-
- Can I try to Raise Dead on her?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- I mean, it takes an hour to do it,
but I do have the spell
slot, so I can start doing...
- Give me a Religion
check as you begin here.
[dice rolling]
- Really good. Okay, this is...
Yeah, 24.
- There's cracked ribs,
and you can see on the
center of the sternum,
you're looking at something,
and you can see something
which you cannot see.
- The name of something.
- The name of something
that you cannot read.
Someone has performed
an unholy last rites.
Meaning that they have
compelled her soul to the beyond
past raising with the name of a dead god.
- Can I flip over
my Diviner Third Eye
from seeing invisibility, which
is my base, just regular one
to see if I can see anything
on the Ethereal Plane?
- Yeah, give me Perception
with advantage.
[dice rolling]
- Are the trees that are down,
do they look cleanly broken
or did something rip them?
- As you look at them, pretty violently.
- 22.
- 22. Adaine, you start
looking at the Ethereal.
You look and see what
Kristen is pointing out,
and you can see it's like
someone erasing a letter
and you being like, "A
letter goes there," right?
There's something that goes there.
Ethereally, as you begin to peer through
these material things,
you see that there's
one of the trees that has
fallen. And looking at it,
there's something
underneath the fallen tree.
- Guys, there's something
under the tree. Can we-
- You see it's the same
glyph. It's the unholy glyph.
- What?
- [Brennan] There's
something under the tree.
- I'll dig.
- This glyph is the name?
- Yeah, whatever the unnameable
name is is underneath-
- [Emily] Can I just
start copying the glyph?
- You can't even actually
perceive the shape of it.
But as you start digging under,
all of you discover the
body of Lucy Frostblade.
- Holy sh*t.
- Wait, how long has this body been here?
- This has been here for months.
- It's been here for months.
Months and months and months.
- This is really bad.
- This is really bad.
- I'll still honor that
nat 20 Investigation.
The means of death was different here.
You don't see that force damage.
- Okay, so it seems like Yolanda
was k*lled like three hours ago.
When was Ruben playing?
- Three hours ago.
- Yeah, just about.
- Could that spell
have been used to-
- I'll ask for Medicine
or Investigation here.
- Okay, I'll do Investigate.
- All I need to do is-
- [Lou] I'll do Medicine.
- I got a three.
- I'm gonna use this
Medal of Wit so I can use-
- 25.
- Unnatural 20 medical.
- 21 Investigation.
- 21 Investigation, and
we got 25 over here? Okay.
I think on a 25 Investigation,
there's a lot of rot here.
It's very hard to see,
but what you can see is,
you think Lucy had multiple assailants.
There's lacerations, there's breaks,
there's clear spell damage.
I think you see that there
is something in the soil.
The quality of the soil is weird here.
As you're looking through
it, the roots of the plants
almost did not grow down into here,
so you see there's some
weird quality to the soil.
- [Emily] Okay, now I'm starting to think,
if the Rat Grinders are
working with just this rage god
without being tempered by doubt,
then that could actually
be a really bad presence.
- Fabian, you get that Medicine check.
Lucy's body looks like it was
k*lled by multiple assailants.
I think on the Medicine check, also,
if you look at Yolanda as well,
there are capillaries and blood vessels
within Yolanda's body that were crushed
with such force that the blood carbonized
and turned into diamonds in her body.
The force and pressure of whatever-
- Can I use those in my class?
- Adaine!
- Adaine!
- I'm kidding, I'm kidding!
It's dark, it's dark! I'm scary!
- Wait, so there are no good
roots underneath these trees?
It's toxic?
- There's something in the soil
that you see here, and I think-
- I got a 21 Investigation.
I'm looking for, like,
these trees have been f*cked up,
this person has been
destroyed by force damage.
Are there giant footsteps anywhere?
- You look at Lucy's body,
who was a frost genasi.
She's tall, and I think you can see
that she is descended from giants,
and I think that you can also see,
looking at the origin of these trees,
I think you peg giant.
And I think the reason you
do is because the trees
don't fall in the same direction.
You can tell the trees were knocked over
by either magical force
or violence of some means,
or an enormous opponent
f*cking pushing it down.
I think on that 21 Investigation,
this tree was knocked down
after the fact to hide the body.
- Got it.
- I know I don't have a divinity,
or I just don't really
know where Cassandra is,
but can I try for a Divine Intervention?
- Give me a Divine Intervention roll.
- Okay.
It's a d100,
and it has to be 11 or less.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
[dice rolling]
No.
- As you reach out,
you also had that Sending spell
you wanted to cast, right?
- Yeah.
- Moving to a connection
to mystery and the night,
and I will say too,
it's almost three o'clock
in the morning now.
You guys are out here at this
f*cking double crime scene.
I think that you reach for Cassandra,
can't find her,
but in not finding your goddess
of mystery and the night,
realize that that's okay too.
And I think you remember-
- Interesting.
- ...Yolanda's voice saying,
"With your goddess gone, you need to work
the miracles of doubt and
mystery that she cannot work,"
and sense that that is your
path back to spellcasting.
Even if you can't get Cassandra back,
if you can be doing her
miracles in this world for her,
there will be some path back
to that divine source of magic.
You've already done parts of it.
Even just tonight, the
small miracle you've worked
have given you some of that magic back
as you hold onto these shards.
- The vulture.
- Yeah, the vulture.
She is not fully gone.
You hear Cassandra's voice, almost.
Spies, tongue, curse...
And she says the words,
"Spies, tongue, curse."
- Okay, you're the tongue. I'm the curse.
- Who's the spy? Which
one of you is the mole?
- Who's a f*cking turncoat?
- I wonder if, with fraud and stuff,
maybe this is literally a
religious cult that is running-
- Getting money, yeah.
- Maybe getting money.
- I think Adaine maybe already pointed out
it's not a coincidence that
these are in the same place.
It seems obvious that Yolanda
had just learned something about Lucy
and might have been here
looking for Lucy.
- Yeah.
- As to why Lucy is here,
you know, she was in an adventuring party
that came to the Far Haven Woods a lot.
- Yeah.
- It's possible that this is
just a very beautiful place in the woods
that some event happened
at several months ago.
- And the rat said that she would wait
while the others left
and then revive them,
so she could've been completely separated
from the party, and then that's when-
- Yeah, first things first, I mean,
Lucy seems like she was a good person.
I feel like we should maybe-
- Yeah, tell her parents?
- Call an adult.
- Well, last time we told somebody,
we told Yolanda, and Yolanda was m*rder*d.
So I'm wondering, if we move...
I know moving bodies is f*cking
weird, but I'm kinda like-
- We can't do that.
We'll get framed.
- Can we get them out of cursed soil?
- Let's call the...
Let's take a picture of Wanda
Childa here, and then...
Well, then they'll think
Wanda Childa k*lled-
- Can we take a little
sample of the cursed soil?
- Oh, should we just
anonymously report it?
Yeah, that's a good idea.
We don't need Wanda
Childa to take the fall.
- I feel like I realized in that moment-
- If anything, Wanda Childa would be
a really good dead girl in a movie.
- Let's not put Wanda Childa in there.
- Minor Illusion Wanda Childa's body
right next to these other two bodies.
- Do you have Spare
the Dying or something?
Something to un-curse
Yolanda and Lucy here?
- I think I tried. Yeah,
I do have Spare the Dying.
- Both of these people have passed
quite close to each other.
Is there anything that you would say,
that Kristen would want to
say to Yolanda specifically?
- Oh yeah, I mean, I think I would
[emotional, pensive music]
absolutely start crying and be like,
you were such a good teacher.
I'm sorry I just got a C.
Thank you. Like, I love you. [laughing]
- Yeah, I think you see
this very tender moment.
And I think Kristen, as
you kneel into that space
and weep and mourn-
- Can I try to put
one of the shards over
the name on her chest?
- Yeah, go ahead and
give me a Religion check.
- See if it interacts at all.
- Yeah.
- That's an 18.
- You put a shard over this rune
that has cast this soul out
past the point of reaching,
and you feel the presence of
a miracle that you cannot see.
This spell cannot bring Yolanda back.
It cannot stop this magic
that has been worked here.
But you get the sensation of
wherever Yolanda's soul is
and whatever might be going
on there, in realms beyond,
a door opens in front of Yolanda's soul
to a cool, dark, welcoming forest
that she moves into and away from the grip
of whatever was holding
her in realms beyond.
- f*ck, I do the same
thing for Lucy, then.
I see if I can do the same thing.
- [Brennan] I need everyone
here to make a Perception check.
[dice rolling]
[music continues]
- 12.
- 19.
- 23.
- 22.
- Gorgug and Fabian, as you're
watching your friend Kristen
perform a working of clerical magic
that is completely improvised,
without the aid of any deity
and are reminded that,
whatever her trials with academics,
Kristen is one of the most gifted clerics
this world has ever seen.
Gorgug and Fabian specifically,
you look out onto the lake
and see the water ripple
as that crescent moon paints a line,
and for the briefest moment,
you see two silhouettes
in that rail of moonlight
across the ripples of the lake.
A tall and awkward
teenage girl's silhouette
and a strong and confident
woman briefly hold hands
and disappear up the ray of
moonlight towards the sky.
[music slowly fades]
This moment of sacredness
dissipates until once again,
the crickets and the sound of little dew
forming in the wet forest falls away.
The miracle that Kristen has
worked here in this moment
re-grants you your spellcasting.
- Nice.
- It does not have to stop here.
You become aware that the
relationship of clerics and gods
within the world of Spyre is that clerics
are these sort of agents that
work on behalf of deities,
but I think you realize in
that moment, well and truly,
the relationship does not have to start
on the part of the deity.
Your goddess is gone,
in some clutches that you
can't begin to understand.
But in her moment of need,
it is not just right,
but the most right, that
she could rely on you.
Those shards glow.
Though you do not know how
or why it works like this,
your realm is doubt.
It works.
- Cool.
I take the shards and I put
them in my Wrangler pocket.
- Do you want a fanny pack?
- No, absolutely not.
- I can get you one right now.
- They're really big pockets, actually.
- They're huge, yeah.
- Yeah, they're huge.
- There's a pay phone at
Basrar's we can use to place a-
- Maybe not the place where I work.
- Well, like, an anonymous
phone call. Not in the...
It's outside, in the parking lot.
- All right, let's go.
- Can I look at this?
We have to cover our tracks somehow.
There's so many ways for
this to get pinned on us,
and if we don't-
- What, five footprints
and a skateboard track?
- Go through with a broom.
- The copy of our party
that did this crime?
- Yeah.
- Could it look like us?
- They are absolutely freaking copying us.
- Yeah.
- Oh, what's that- Soil Club?
[Siobhan gasps]
- Take a sample!
- Can I use my knowledge
from Soil Club to cover the crime scene?
- Or to get a soil sample,
'cause it's really cursed soil.
- I would love to do that,
yeah. Take out one of my-
- [Brennan] Adaine's already got a sample
of the cursed soil.
- Soil tube. Thank you.
- Riz, go ahead and give me
a Persuasion with advantage.
- Okay.
- You've been k*lling it in Soil Club.
[die rolling]
- Okay.
[die rolling]
Okay!
- Do you want a Bardic?
- No.
- You got a 28 Persuasion?
- I got plus nine Persuasion.
- Cool. This is Molman Holden.
Hi, it's three o'clock in the morning,
but I got this on my
urgent Soil Club phone.
- Hey, I found some weird dirt.
- Oh, I'll be right there. Where are you?
- No, I'll come to you.
- Okay.
- Where do you live?
- I'll drop a pin. Boop!
- Is it close to Basrar's?
- Is it close to Basrar's?
- Uh...?
[die rolling]
- Yes, it is close to Basrar's.
- Okay, perfect.
- I'm gonna propose,
'cause I really, really don't
want us to get f*cked by this,
by having been here,
the only thing I can
think of is Bud Cubby.
He's an adult that probably knows how to-
- Should we just call Bud Cubby?
- That's what I'm
saying, and be like, hey-
- He was at the party.
- We're gonna get Bud Cubby k*lled.
The last adult we told was Yolanda.
- Oh yeah, that's true.
- Yeah, you're right.
- I would be so upset.
- Let's just keep it a secret.
- Yolanda was going to look into it.
Bud Cubby wouldn't go
investigating about this.
- He might do.
- Can we Prestidigitation?
Does someone have something like that?
- Can I make a Survival
check to cover our tracks?
- Yeah, give me a Survival check.
- I'd love to, also.
- I'll do the same.
- Group Survival check.
- Sure, why not?
- I crit!
- Hey, nat 20!
- [Ally] Hell yeah.
- With that crit, I will
let you do a perfect job,
but you have to call your shot.
You don't have enough time before dawn,
in other words, to get all your tracks.
Do you wanna pick the tracks
starting closer to Aguefort
or do you wanna do the ones
that actually lead to the
crime scene at the lake?
- Lead to the crime scene.
- Cool.
- It's not a big deal to be in the woods.
- I'm okay with people
knowing we were in the forest.
- The hub for my campaign
is in the forest, remember?
- Yeah.
- My Tiny Hut.
- This is also a magical world.
We can cast Zone of Truth
on each other and stuff
and just be like, I didn't do it.
- I wanna dust, or get
rid of our fingerprints,
anything like that.
- Cool.
Are you just doing it
by hand as best you can?
Just scuffing up the earth and stuff?
- Yeah, I'm security detail mode.
- [Brennan] Cool.
You're security detail mode.
- I put my earpiece in.
- You guys go back through.
- And then I think I coordinate
a bunch of rats to help me,
to just scramble around in our tracks.
- The biggest job is to
reseal that rotten tree.
After that, you're able
to clear your tracks.
You have to spend a couple
hours, but basically,
the last third of your journey,
as the sun is coming up,
you clear so that your tracks
just, you end in a meadow,
and it looks like you just came
out to the Far Haven Woods,
were in a meadow doing something,
maybe investigating the Rat Grinders,
and then turned around and headed back.
Everyone give me a
Constitution saving throw.
[dice rolling]
Did anyone get below a 10? Right here.
So you guys both start this
day with a level of exhaustion.
[Murph groans]
- f*ck.
- [Brennan] Just getting back.
- What if I stop at a diner or something
and get huevos rancheros a la mode?
- Yeah. Also, it's the weekend.
It's a Saturday, so
you guys can just head-
- Oh!
- Oh, that's fine.
- [Brennan] You're all
good. You can head back.
- Great!
- You're all good.
But once again, you guys,
it's the middle of your fall semester.
You guys have unraveled huge,
significant portions of the mystery.
Given that there's a lot
left to do, but also,
it's the weekend, you're exhausted,
you've been out all night, you
found some really wild stuff.
You go to Molman and get him
to anonymously call in something?
- I think we wanted him
to look at the dirt.
- I was gonna go just, yeah,
I'm gonna go to a pay phone.
- Do we want them to know
that we're onto them, though?
- I don't think so.
- Lucy's family needs to know.
- I think people need
to know, out of respect.
- Yeah, okay.
- That's fair.
- I do Prestidigitation on
your voice like a voice filter.
- Hi, I'm calling-
- [Ally] [pitched high] Hi!
- I'm a widdle boy.
- Hey, this is the
Elmville Police Department.
- I'd like to make you aware of something.
- Get the extinguisher!
Get the extinguisher!
- No, it is not a fire.
- What?
- There is-
- No, there's a fire here.
- Oh, there's a fire there.
- Yeah.
- Oh. Do you want me to
call back in a second?
- No, if we stopped taking calls
every time this place
was on fire, I tell ya...
- Okay, we just want to make you aware
of a space in the woods
worth investigating
due to high crime activity.
- You give the coordinates and you hear,
"All right, thank you
so much for this tip.
Thank you for calling our anonymous..."
[phone beeping rapidly]
The phone goes over and you hear,
"Being transferred to
the Council of Chosen."
Hi, who am I speaking to?
- David.
- David, that's a nice
illusory mask on your voice.
This is Agent Clark.
Where are you right now?
Get a lock, get a lock on the location!
- I yell from the back,
they're onto you, Hilda!
- Slam.
- Slam! Great.
I think here at this point,
you guys have a lot of
things you wanna do,
but also, you're now getting
back into needing to eat
and needing to be human again.
So I think we're gonna head into another
period of downtime here.
- Okay!
- There's a lot of mystery
stuff to take care of.
- f*ck! I have to prioritize mystery.
Do we take a long rest
before we're going into this downtime?
- Oh yes, everyone long rests.
You're all badly injured after the fight.
Unless there's anything you can think of
that is immediately pressing that weekend,
but it seems like there's a lot
of leads that you guys want-
- No, I'm gonna sleep all weekend.
- Yeah, let me know
what tracks people are,
if anyone knows how they're starting off.
If anyone wants to start
with academic stuff or
mystery or whatever.
Yeah, Riz.
- I think I'll do academics.
I feel like Riz has been
kind of doing as much work
as needs to be done
just to get good grades,
but maybe not paying as
hard of attention to it.
But I think I'm really,
really gonna try to
find the rogue teacher,
really try to apply what we just saw.
- Oh, nice.
- And consider that
the rogue teacher may
have witnessed something
or may have tried to reprimand-
- So I'll let you know right now,
finding the rogue teacher is
a DC 30 Investigation check.
So you need a 19 on the die to do it.
- Okay.
- Right? Cool.
[die rolling]
- Ah, 14. 25.
- Still get an A. That's your first track.
What's your second track?
- Second track,
I'll do the extracurriculars
with disadvantage.
- Cool, give me extracurriculars
with disadvantage.
- Persuasion is good?
- Persuasion's great.
- 22.
- Incredible!
- Great, I'll do that.
- As you do, Molman talks to
you at Soil Club and says,
"Hey, got that call.
Seems like some interesting
soil stuff is going on?"
- It's like a weird,
it seemed to be k*lling the
tree that it was attached to.
- I'd love to get my
little claws in there.
If I can get my little snooter snootin'.
- Okay.
- I'll get it.
- Here's the dirt. I just have the vial.
- Oh yeah, oh yeah. Vial?
You see he takes it and puts
it into a little trough.
- Okay.
- Takes a little stone marble pestle
and kind of grinds it up and
gets his long, mole-like nose
and just goes... [snuffling]
- Might be so bad for you, but-
- Oh yeah. Careful, dude.
[Brennan sniffing]
- Oh yeah.
- Okay.
- There's iron, okay?
- Okay.
- Can I have a couple days to study this?
- Yes, certainly.
- All right. I'm gonna get
into this, 'cause this is-
- Okay. Be super careful with it.
I'd maybe have a study buddy
while you're looking at the dirt.
- Hey man, don't f*cking
tell me what to do!
- Okay!
Okay!
- You are the f*cking treasurer!
- Okay, okay! I'm sorry, god!
[Brennan shrieks]
- You see he screams and
just burrows into the earth.
That's your extracurriculars.
What's up for Riz after that?
- I gotta get Kristen doing
good on the popularity.
So I don't know, do I help
Kristen with her roll-
- You can always take more
stress tokens for Kristen.
- Cool.
- No.
- [Brennan] But you can just
roll Persuasion yourself.
- Okay.
- It's a DC 15 at the moment.
- Okay, I think I can't miss that.
One becomes a 10 becomes a 19.
- Cool, so you actually
have for yourself, Riz,
the mechanical benefit that
when meeting a new character
from that community or institution,
you roll your first Charisma
check with advantage.
So as campaign manager,
your strategy works.
You are not cool, but
you're still a junior,
and half the school are
underclassmen to you,
and you can run around,
having saved the world
a couple times, and all these classes got
lots of nerds and dorks and
geeks running around in 'em.
So you have become like the consigliere
of geeks and other people.
Doesn't matter how cool you are.
- Right. Check out all the friends I have.
I have a briefcase.
- And then nothing on the
little relationships track?
- No.
- Nothing for your relationship with Fig?
- Well, you guys are all-
- You don't wanna strengthen our bond?
- I check in with Fig.
- I think Riz, partway through it,
there's a little moment where
you're doing stuff at school.
You're taking care of all
the treasury accounting stuff
for the different clubs at school.
Your mom comes in and goes, "Hey."
- How's it going?
- Good. We were out and about.
I stopped over by Cravencroft
and just spent a little time visiting Dad.
- I'm sorry I wasn't there.
- No!
- It's been crazy. It's
been really, really crazy.
- I know.
- Did you hear about the
stuff at the festival?
- Frosty Fair, yeah.
- Yeah, Principal Grix came
down and tried to k*ll students,
and also everyone was naked before it.
There was a nudity tent.
- Well, I knew about the
nudity tent. Yeah, Frosty Fair.
But yeah, absolutely strange.
I was planning on going,
but my case folded up.
- Why did your case fold up?
- The people I was defending
are no longer with us.
- Does that strike you as suspicious?
- Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
But, you know, I would
only interact with it
in a legal way if the person who-
- Mom, I'm sorry, I'm
trying to not to get, like,
'cause I feel like I'm just
like, work, work, work.
- No!
- And we should really, like,
go for a picnic or something,
but I just wanna ask you
about your case so bad.
Is it okay if I ask you
about your case, Mom?
- She says, "How about
I'll be a little bit late.
I'll drive you to school."
- Please!
- You can talk to me about the case.
- Okay, thank you.
- You know, it's your junior year.
I'll take all the time I can get.
- Thanks, Mom. Yeah.
- Love you, kiddo.
- Love you, Mom. Let's talk
about the case, please.
- Let's talk about the case.
You get in with your mom and go.
- I was sitting there being like,
why isn't he asking about the case?
- Yeah, I was like, sick!
- Okay, cool.
- Very sweet.
- So we'll hold off on mystery for Riz.
Who else wants to jump in on downtime?
- So I'm unbelievably wealthy.
- Incredible.
- And me and my friends
just discovered the site
of a double homicide.
[everyone laughing]
So...
- Well, is it a double homicide
if they were different times?
- It was a homicide and
then another homicide.
- Maybe the dumping
ground of a serial k*ller.
- It was two homicides,
but not a homicide duet.
- So we found the dumping
ground of a serial k*ller.
I'm wondering-
- Maybe.
- Fabian is willing to
invest a lot of money
in some version of a
relaxation track activity-
- Cool.
- ...for anyone
who wants to participate.
Whatever that might look like,
be it buying out a spa for a
day, getting a bunch of nurses
to come over to my house
and administer B12 shots.
- We all get IVs.
- Finding a dwarf-
- Naughty nurses.
- ...who can do a sound
bath in the living room.
You know, shock therapy,
but in a fun kind of-
[Emily guffaws]
- Like a TENS machine.
- Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean!
Whatever version of that,
and however much it costs.
- What's a TENS machine?
- Those little pads that go... [buzzes]
You go to the chiropractor and it's like-
- Ooh!
- Yes, where they put a
towel under your back.
- Ooh!
- And then they shock you.
- I will say this.
You can use money to help
with relaxation up to a point.
- Okay.
- If you are slammed and crazy and busy,
then getting a massage just becomes
one other thing you have to do
if there's no other
support for that around it.
So if you wanna use money to solve this,
you're gonna roll 1d4, and
whatever that number is,
the relaxation track has
to happen by that number
for you to get advantage, right?
- Okay, great.
- Come on, three or four.
- By that?
- So in other words,
if you roll a three, you
can't put the relaxation track
after three, and if you remember,
relaxation tracks have to
be the last thing you roll.
There's a little bit of
limitation to how much you can do.
If you're doing six things, it
doesn't matter how much money
you spend on massages, you're
still doing six things.
- Three!
- Three.
- Three. Okay, so I won't
make you spend the money,
but if you want to spend
the money to get advantage,
that track has to go no
later than third for people.
- So we each get to do two things.
- [Brennan] So Riz
already wouldn't be able
to get advantage on it.
- No one's gonna use it.
- I don't know that I'll be able to.
- I got a bunch of nurses to come over.
- You're just hanging out with them.
- The nurses are hanging out
with the birthday pirates.
- [Brennan] Any other-
- Just hanging out with nurses.
- Got a bunch of nurses,
getting shocked left and right.
- They might come over.
Everyone's kinda having a busy time.
- Stop trying to make friends
with the nurses, my guy.
- Hey, well, I mean, sh*t, they're here!
- They're really nice.
- Zac, you were talking about Gorgug
wanting to put barbarian first.
- Yeah, I think if I get this figured out,
then everything else becomes easier,
and then I can maybe invest
energy somewhere else.
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- As a reminder,
I sent everything of Gorgug
being angry to Porter.
- Hell, yeah. Okay, so an A
plus is just a DC 17 here.
You're rolling Athletics. You
made the call to record that.
I will allow you to make
this roll with advantage.
- Okay.
- All right.
- I add an eight to that,
so I think I only got-
- You got a 10. You rolled a 10.
- So 18.
- Nice!
- What does that look like as Adaine
actually helps Gorgug
with his barbarian stuff?
[Zac clears throat]
- You can be angry at me. Just yell at me.
- Get out of my face! Sorry.
- Yell more!
- Get out of my face!
- Yell louder!
- I got it now. I got it.
- Incredible.
- Let's go!
- So 10 plus 8 is 18.
- Yes.
- Adaine, during trance,
you start to get visions
of Gorgug
focusing on artificer
spell effects while raging.
You see it happening.
There's a big, triumphant
leap he's making.
There's a big pre-victory
party at Seacaster Manor.
You see there's beautiful
stars in the sky.
There's a big, glowing moon.
- I think there's a way
for you to do spells
when you're raging.
- I know, there's gotta be.
- There's gotta be a way.
- I think I'm very close
to figuring it out.
- I think you can do it.
- I just gotta get through the
bullshit hurdles this school
has set up for me.
- Yeah!
- Gorgug, you walk into class-
- I kick the door down.
- Bam, the door flies off.
It hits Porter and he goes, "sh*t!"
You see he looks up. The hell?
- Picturing my parents' lawnmower sex toy.
We need a word.
- Porter looks over at Fig and
looks back at you and says,
"Speak your mind."
- I...
...don't like you.
I think I hate you.
You're a weird guy,
and you're just f*ck' in my way.
- What do you do to something in your way?
- You knock it down.
And I push him.
- Give me Athletics.
- Oops!
- Give me Athletics. He's gonna roll.
He adds a plus 14.
- I go into a rage and push him.
- Okay, 27. You go into a rage.
- Can I-
- All right.
- Oh wait, he already has...
- 21.
- As you shove him, he steps
back, stays on his feet.
- I was finishing your sentence.
I didn't really wanna do that.
- All right, we'll work on
the follow-through. Look.
You see he goes,
"Is this you oinking at
an officer of the law?"
- Yeah.
- f*cking metal, Thistlespring.
Where has this been?
- I don't know, I just
felt weird about being mad.
I didn't wanna do it unless it felt
really necessary or justified.
- Well, look.
If you feel that there is
some good in the world to do
by running around and
stomping through dungeons
and attacking airships and
running into castles, you know,
as our real principal said,
a hero is a violent wanderer.
You're gonna give yourself permission
to burn and pillage and m*rder,
you're not gonna give yourself permission
to get a little angry?
- Yeah, I gotta be honest,
it's kinda fun.
- That's what I'm talking about!
You see he just starts weeping.
He gives you this big f*cking
hug, and really, it hurts.
- Ow! Ow!
- Resist, resist!
That's what I'm talking about!
Rage is not a bad thing.
Ayda, you know, the principal's daughter,
she said you're the
greatest wizard of this age,
and I feel lucky to have you in my class.
You're someone that can
actually use that rage
in a smart way, but it's not wrong
to wanna f*ck sh*t up sometimes.
- I do.
I'm sorry I knocked the door off your...
I'm not sorry. It was fun.
- Let's f*cking k*ll this door.
[both screaming]
[wood splintering]
Bam. You get an A plus in barbarian class!
[players cheering]
- What about the MCAT?
- I try to, this is actually-
- Actually, can you re-sign mine?
- Re-sign Fig's?
- You see Porter...
Give me a Persuasion with advantage.
- Me? Okay.
[dice rolling]
Persuasion becomes 23.
- 23. Porter looks at it and
says, "I'm a man of my word."
He takes out a quill and signs your MCAT.
- Thank you!
- He goes, "And look,
I appreciate the focus
you're putting back into
your barbarian classes here.
If it gets a little bit rocky,
with Grix out of the way,
there are some bureaucratic loopholes
that Principal Aguefort put in place
for students that have been
unfairly maligned by the rules.
So there's a couple little...
If you or any of your
party need help with grades
later in the year, just, you know,
there's things that can be worked out."
- And that works with
trying to go to college,
and it's not like the
pass-fail thing, right?
- The one thing I'm thinking of
is an elective exam at
the end of the year.
It's called the Last Stand.
And if you get into any
kind of academic probation
or anything's looking a little bit rocky,
you can just take the Last Stand exam,
and it will bypass a lot of other things
that might happen as, you know...
Like, we got some news this morning
that one of the entire
classes at this school
is gonna be moved to pass-fail.
- The entire class?
- Me! My teacher died!
- Whoa.
- Oh.
- Thanks for letting me know.
I'm gonna go off to artificer class.
- Yeah, head off to artificer class.
Unclear how that might
affect the rest of your party
or if it would f*ck any of them up.
'Cause how many parties have
a cleric in them, right?
A ton of them.
- Yeah.
- But yeah, let's go ahead and
roll those artificer classes.
- Okay, so next one is a DC 10?
- This is now a DC 10, yes.
Tinker's tools check, DC 10.
- Okay.
[die rolling]
That is a 23.
- Nice.
- 23 from 10. That is an A plus, yes.
Okay, incredible. Barbarian, A plus.
Artificer first year is A plus.
- Okay, next artificer class.
[die rolling]
Two, so I got a nine.
- Nine is gonna be a failure.
You'll fail that chunk of artificer class.
- I will take a stress token.
- Here we go.
- How many is that?
- That's four.
- Yeah, the DC is 15,
and then it's 27 for an A plus.
- Okay.
- 18 is a C. You hit the wall.
The first couple weeks you were like,
"Oh my god, I'm doing it,
I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"
And now, focusing on
barbarian stuff a little bit,
the course load is just piling on.
You hit the hard part of
sophomore year for artificers.
That's gonna be your junior
year artificer class.
DC is a 20.
- Okay.
- 32, or 30, for A plus.
- Well, that's impossible, but...
[die rolling]
- Oh.
- It was almost a 19, but it's a one.
- Can I help Gorgug study
and take a stress token?
- Yes, you can.
- I'll take one.
I'll do the flash cards again!
- Switching dice.
Cog, gear, cog!
[die rolling]
- Holy sh*t!
Okay, so a 25 from 20
is actually, yeah, that's another C.
So you're talking with Henry in class
and he's essentially like,
"Listen, you were doing really great.
Focus is sort of, you know,
it's like you gotta stay
on this track, right?"
- I've got my thing
signed, though, for next...
It's gonna be better.
- Great.
- I'm in a lot of school.
I think I'm just in a
lot of school right now.
- I totally understand.
There's only so many hours in the day,
unless you were to build a time
machine, which is an option.
- Is it?
- You tell me, Gorgug.
- Do you have any books?
- He sends you off with that.
But you start to put things together.
I think certain pieces of gear
start to come into effect.
You start picturing, some of that battle,
the elemental damage of that battle,
you cast Absorb Elements,
and you're sort of sketching
out ideas for a harness
or different ways of dealing with energy.
There's certain things
that start to occur to you
that you could maybe do.
So Riz is taking a stress,
you've taken a stress.
That's all the academics.
Are we rolling Owlbears?
- f*ck.
- If I fail that roll,
can I just fail?
- Yeah, it's a DC 25
Athletics. If you fail-
- Add an eight to this.
[die rolling]
Okay, 18 on the die plus 8 is 26.
- Unbelievably, you
come back up in the mix.
- [Ally] Hell yeah.
[Zac roaring]
- That's what I'm talking
about, Thistlespring!
- I clothesline Durden.
- Max Durden, bam, in a scrimmage.
- Sorry.
- Incredible. Owlbears is a success.
You are not cut from the team.
You can roll mystery later,
but you're at a DC 30 for
anything that comes next.
- Okay, I think I have to lie down.
- Yeah. Also, once again,
not rolling on relationships.
You come back from a long day of studying
to just a lovely note
and a little piece of cake or baked thing.
Roz and Gorbag waited for a long time,
but eventually had to
head back out of town.
Digby and Wilma are like,
"They understand, bud. They
know you're busy as can be."
- I just eat the cake in one
bite. I'll call them later.
- Yeah. They understand, pal.
Poor Gorgug and Riz, each
taking on another stress token,
feel the absence of all
this other stuff going on.
Anyone else?
- So with my job,
to get to well off, I need to get a 25.
The only way for me to do that is to crit.
- Because of what you add
to your profession roll.
- Because of what I add to
any of these skill checks.
So I might as well not do it first.
In fact, I might as
well f*cking do it last,
because a crit is a crit is a crit.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So I'm gonna start with academics.
Rolling with disadvantage, but...
[dice rolling]
What is a 15?
- A 15 would be an A but not an A plus.
- Oh, I'll take that.
- Nice!
- There's a certain exam
at the end of that time,
and you see that Tiberia just goes like,
"Ms. Abernant, exceptional
spellwork as always.
A little bit shoddy on the execution here.
I think a little bit of, perhaps,
nickel in your silver filings?
Let's try to get pure silver, if we can."
- Yes.
Yes, we'll try to do
that next time, sorry.
- You could try, or
you could simply do it.
- Yes, the thing is...
Yes, no, yes.
- Is everything all right,
Ms. Abernant? You're sort of-
- No, everything's fine.
Everything's absolutely fine.
What could be more fine?
Everything's peachy.
I love my life. Everything's perfect.
- Very well, Ms. Abernant. I'm
glad that you love your life.
And you see, I think you
get a text from Aelwyn
that just says, "Can't
believe I'm about to say this.
Miss my little sister.
Everything all right?"
- Yes.
[Siobhan groans]
Come to Basrar's?
- You see she says, a little
question mark thing pops up-
- I'm working there.
- Long ellipses, with just,
"You're working?" All caps-lock.
- I have to get 10 barrels of diamonds.
I haven't even gotten one
barrel of diamonds yet.
- You see over at Basrar's-
you're over there in the
middle of a Saturday,
Aelwyn comes by.
You see she comes in.
She's got a white button-up
shirt, some trousers.
She's got a much shorter haircut now.
She has sort of a bleach blonde pixie cut.
- Your hair looks great.
- Thank you. Needed a change.
- Yeah, no, yeah, I get it.
- Adaine.
- Yeah?
- You can't possibly
earn barrels of diamonds
working as a part time
waitress at an ice cream shop.
You know that, don't you?
- Well, I can't earn
not working as a part time
waitress at an ice cream...
What are you saying?
Are you gonna get me in trouble?
- No, I don't wanna get you in trouble.
- You've got your "I'm gonna
get you in trouble" eyes.
I'm not against it, necessarily.
- I just haven't seen you in some time.
I know this is hopelessly saccharine,
but I don't know, I've been
in an apartment by myself
with some number of cats for a while.
- Oh, that's nice. I
didn't know you had cats.
That's so sweet.
- I have 10 cats.
- 10 cats? That's a lot of cats.
- They're all little b*stards.
- That's great.
- I love them very much.
- Yeah, that sounds like really your vibe.
- Do you wanna get out of here?
- I would love to. I can't.
I mean, after work. Is that okay?
- [groans] You can't-
- You have a job also!
Don't you have to go to work?
- It's the weekend. And
I don't always show up.
- Okay, and they're okay with that?
- Oh, they're middle schoolers.
What are they gonna do?
- Your boss? The middle
schoolers aren't your boss.
- What I have on my boss-
- Can I ask Basrar to take my break?
- Basrar says, "Yes of course,
please take your lunch break.
Hello, Ms. Abernant. It's
a pleasure to see you."
You see Aelwyn waves over at Basrar.
- How many elves are
waiting in line to see me?
- You walk out and you see a
sort of elven matriarch says,
"Oracle, long have been the hours
of my teleporting to arrive here."
- Why didn't you just walk?
- It's cheaper to use the slow ones.
- Oh, okay.
What do you want? I'm here with my sister.
I can't really talk to you right now.
- She says, "I have come
to ask for a vision-"
You see Aelwyn just holds a hand up
and seals her inside of a fractal
that disappears.
- Thank god.
- The other elves go running and scatter.
She says, "Do you want
to go get some sandwiches
and go look at our old burned down house?"
- Okay, yeah, we can get there...
We can Dimension Door there and back.
- She opens up a Dimension Door.
As she's about to walk through
it, she looks and says,
"Adaine,
I think it's time I told you
that there are other ways in Elmville
to make money than jobs.
I've been working for
someone that's been able
to provide me with a
fair amount of capital."
- What are you doing?
- You see that her crystal lights up,
and you see the background for it
says OK with a green check mark.
- Oh no, you're not working for her!
- I've been working for
Kipperlilly Copperkettle.
- Clamface Cunthead?
Why are you working for
her? What are you doing?
Tell me all of her secrets.
Actually, no, this is great.
If you're working for
her, tell me everything.
- Let's go get a sandwich.
- Great.
- I'll tell you all
about Clamhead Cuntface.
And that's where we're gonna stop
this episode of "Dimension 20."
Tune in next week as we
go get some sandwiches
and look at the burnt
remains of the Abernant home.
We'll see you then!
- That's the whole episode.
- Everything is going,
you know what I mean?
- Headed into early winter.
- Do you think that there's anything wrong
with the soil at my house now?
- Police are investigating loam,
the farm, and the m*rder scene.
- What?
- But Cottoncandy Bitchfuck,
how are you making
so much money working for
her when she's a child?
- Well.
- Oh.
- Normally it's like, we're
just off on an adventure
and we got the one thing
that we're trying to stop.
- Is there a way to talk to Bakur?
- Gorgug's almost getting too mean.
- I just feel like we should
all be a little bit closer.
- Wanda?
- Oh hey, Ruben.
- Whoa.
[Lou stammering]
- We have to hunker down.
Actually, everyone's gotta do
really well in school and everything.
Fig has like three majors now.
- I've been waiting
patiently for my downtime.
- Mazey, what's going on?
- You also could take
stress here, if you want.
- And we're all struggling
to keep our grades up
and do all our crazy extracurriculars.
- What the f*ck is everyone doing?
- You know what, I'll take a stress token.
- Here we go.
- I'm still maximum legend.
- These middle schoolers are vicious!
- Why?
- You got me this gig!
- I definitely didn't!
Then there's this red star thing
that's making everybody go crazy.
- What are you doing?
- Oh sh*t, sorry.
- Riz!
[all shouting]
- Whoa, what is happening!
- Fig! Hey, Fig!
- Oh no!
- [Murph] What is everyone's deal today?
- Trying to keep up.
- Yeah.
- It's just a lot.
♪ T-T-T-Taking over, teenage rebellion ♪
♪ No more fantasizing about it ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, let's go ♪
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21x09 - Vulture Clash
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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.