(warm hum resounds)
- [Jujubee] Ladies, stealth check time!
(energetic electronic music)
- [Alaska] Don't I have like, some, like, perception shit?
♪ Boss-ass bitch ♪
- [Bob And Monét] Check your perception
before you come for me. (cast laughing)
- [Bob] Everyone think 20.
- [Players] 20!
♪ Boss-ass bitch ♪
- [Bob] I have anxiety!
- [Jujubee] See, I knew it was that bitch.
Can I go invisible right now?
- [Bob] Twyla, you are a loose cannon.
♪ Boss-ass bitch ♪
- [Monét] Kill her. Kill her now!
- I knew it! - Oh, fuck!
- [Monét] You wanna assault this man
with a no-knock warrant.
- [Bob] Troyánn is saucy.
♪ Boss-ass bitch ♪
- [Brennan] Ladies...
I wish I was alive!
(squeaky) I think we should get naked and see what happens!
(guttural) Servants of the Fey Realm.
(posh) There is legend of a witch.
- [Jujubee] Hey, that was really emotional and beautiful.
♪ Boss-ass ♪ - [Jujubee] Bitch.
(Monét laughing)
- Hello, one and all,
and welcome to another thrilling season of "Dimension 20!"
I'm your humble dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me for the very first time are our Questing Queens.
Say hi, Questing Queens.
- [Players] Hi, Questing Queens.
- That's right, welcome to "Dungeons and Drag Queens."
Oh, my goodness, how excited we are.
Let me introduce for the very first time our amazing guests,
Monét X Change. - Hi!
- [Brennan] Alaska Thunderfuck.
- Hey.
- [Brennan] Bob the Drag Queen.
- Hello there.
- [Brennan] And Jujubee!
(Jujubee barks) (Brennan yelps)
(Monét laughs) - [Brennan] Uh...
- So kinky.
- We're getting this started off in exactly the right tone.
We couldn't be more excited to have you all here
in Dimension 20 for this tale of adventurers,
heroes, and the Underworld.
Four such heroes now journey along the Gallows Road.
These travelers, having met just a few nights before
at a tavern called The Fish Tank
where after a massive brawl broke out,
the four of them realized that each of them
had their own reasons for journeying
to the Temple of Wraiths
and a fabled legendary entrance to the Underworld itself.
- [Bob] Hmm.
- Their reasons for their journey are their own,
but together they stand a greater chance
of braving the perils of the realms beyond.
Without further ado, I invite all of you to envision
the realm of Kelvorda. (players gasp)
Tall mountains framed in shadow
with thick mist of lavender and indigo hue.
As night falls, distant howls of wolves
or perhaps creatures stranger still can be heard.
The Mountains of Shadow rise, ancient and glooming
like faceless gods of old that gaze imperiously down
on the Gallows Road.
- Love the gays. (Brennan laughs)
- You see before you the Gallows Road
a long and ancient highway bounded on either side
by tall grass and sinister trees in a forest primeval.
- Sinister trees.
- The woods have stood here long
as the age of empire fell into disrepair some time ago.
These lands have become wilder
with monsters and bandits afoot.
The long road from Darktide
approaches the Village of Greeley, a humble hamlet
at the foot of Mount Basira
a mountain depicted here in front of the board
with the Temple of Wraiths atop it.
The temple to a long-forgotten goddess of death
is said to contain an entrance to the Underworld
(Alaska gasps)
where demons lurk and the souls of the dead can be found.
And somewhere in legends long lost
the Goddess of Death sits atop an ancient throne
willing to grant boons to those travelers
and heroes brave enough to find her lost kingdom.
- What's boons? What's boons? - A boon is a wish.
- Okay. - Grants wishes.
I'm like, I'm laying on thick here up at the top.
- Hold on, let me take these notes down real quick, baby.
(Brennan laughing)
- Like my foundation, it's on thick.
(cast laughing)
- Our heroes have banded together,
journeying on the road to the Village of Greeley,
the last village before you enter the mountains themselves
and the fabled Temple of Wraiths.
The Village of Greeley is perhaps another hour
or some away as you journey on this road,
but we need to know who's traveling on this road.
We need to first see and meet them,
so I'd like to go around and have each of you
tell me your character's name and describe them.
Monét, we'll start with your character.
- My name is Twyla, oh I'm so sorry- (record scratch)
- I'm Twyla!
- You're Twyla. - You're Twyla.
- You see someone who works in identity theft.
(cast laughing)
- My name is Troyánn. I am assassin from the merfolk.
I am half merfolk, half human, and I am elvish.
I have come from a long night's work.
I have a fresh kill in my satchel,
and I've been alive for 242 years,
and I have long seeked death and have not found it,
but I continue to work.
- This noble assassin of the sea
journeys alongside her three companions,
and you think of the kill the night before.
A red mist encircles a special amulet within your satchel,
and we are going to journey back in time
to when you first received your Soul Keeper Amulet.
I invite you all to envision the place of Troyánn's youth
where she first grew and learned the art of archery
and fighting, of combat and of magic.
We behold Everdeep, the city of merfolk.
- Kinda looks like Brooklyn. (Brennan laughs)
- Very similar in some ways to Brooklyn.
Everdeep is a city shrouded in eternal darkness
so deep beneath the waves
that sun never finds its place here.
Instead, eerie lights like the glowing
of bioluminescent moss, strange twinkling lights from kelp
and seaweed as shadows move in the coldness of Everdeep.
And we see the throne room of Queen Inira, your mother.
- My mother. - Oh!
- Sitting on a throne of spiked coral,
her hair tied with glowing seaweed
stretches for 30 feet behind her,
emanating in the currents of the water,
fanning out across the entire wall of the throne.
- Clock the extensions. She better werk.
- Bundles, honey. - 30 feet.
- Whoa. - Not 40 inches.
- 30 feet. - 30 feet.
- It's actually Brazilian yaki.
(cast laughing)
- Brazilian yaki sea-weave. - Yes.
- Your mother sits on the throne,
which is hard for a couple reasons.
Number one, you're underwater
so just sitting down on anything is sort of challenging.
- She has no legs, probably. - She's dense.
- And she's got no legs
so it's just sort of a fish merfolk tail.
But she claws her bejeweled hands
into the armrests of the throne.
- Encrusted in pearls and diamonds.
- Of course, naturally.
And she unclasps and removes an amulet from her neck,
gems tied in a deep, dark ocean grass
containing polyhedral gems scratched with time.
This artifact is ancient beyond words. - (silent) Polyhedral?
And you see that these gems for now are empty. - (silent) What the fuck is 'polyhedral'?
She looks at you, her daughter.
Troyánn, my daughter, you have completed your training
in the art of our court's assassins.
You have fared better than I thought you could.
We have not spoken in some time of your father.
A warrior of the land, very few of which
have ever made their way to Everdeep.
The heroism that brought him here I see living within you.
I am proud of you, Daughter. - Thank you, Mother.
- You have many gifts.
Gifts to walk on land and to swim in the wide sea.
But with these gifts comes a terrible burden.
- Oh, what is that?
- Everdeep is dying, Troyánn.
(Monét inhales sharply and exhales deeply)
Our way of life at the beck and call of ancient things
that live even deeper still beneath the waves.
I know long you have wondered
what this amulet of mine is for.
- I always wondered what that was about.
- Yeah, I know, it's sort of a, sometimes it's partially red
and sometimes it's not red. - And purple.
I'm like, what does it do, though?
- Yeah, I know. I kind of, I'm canny about it.
I should probably be more open.
Do we not talk like this enough?
- We don't, we don't. - I'm so sorry. That's on me.
- Because Cousin Jacynthia said it was from the pawn shop
on the land so I don't know- - Jacynthia said that?
- Yeah, that's what she said.
- Well, she doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
- Okay, well- - Because I got this
from a witch so it's not a pawn shop.
I mean, there might be a witch at a pawn shop,
but I got this from a real sea witch.
- Witches can work anywhere.
They can work at pawn shops, let's be real
(cast laughing)
Which is, you know, a lot of people kinda-
- Equal opportunity for witches.
- People trying to get them out of the pawn shop business,
but they actually do have that skillset.
- Mm, mm.
- If I told you that I had made a terrible bargain
for our people and that to preserve our way of life,
our city and our realm owed a terrible debt
to some dark beings, would you look down on me
for having made that deal?
- I would. (Jujubee gasps)
But Father warned me of how you would behave, and I'm ready
to take on the task that you are needing of me.
- If I live in your contempt, so be it, Daughter,
but the task is still yours.
And she releases the amulet that floats to you and she says,
seven souls, seven souls with each season.
You must journey to the Underworld to pay the debt we owe
so that Everdeep may remain safe.
You will come to the Village of Hollowgrave
on the other side of the portal.
There you will make your bargain.
- Who shall accompany me on this journey? By myself?
- I can't go on land. I'm half fish.
- Well, you made your choices.
- I didn't make a choice to be half fish, all right.
That's just, that's the cards I was dealt.
- What about fish tanks? There's fish tanks.
- That might be hard.
You might have to go and find some friends.
- Oh. It's probably gonna be hard for her to do that too.
- Go find some friends, Troyánn. You're very charming.
I'm sure you'll make them right away.
- I'll do what I must.
- And we return to the journey on the Gallows Road.
- Troyánn is saucy. The way she just talked to her mother.
- Right, how are you gonna talk to your mama like that?
- You don't know what I've been through.
- These half human bitches be really in these streets.
Must be nice to go on land and walk. Must be nice.
- Up where they walk, up where they run.
- [Bob] Like Ariel- - And stay all day in the sun.
- You know what Ariel would give to walk one day?
- Her voice.
- And indeed, who would Troyánn find to accompany her?
And who else would be brave enough
to face the perils of a journey to the Underworld?
Well, I have in mind some
heroes who in fact may be brave enough.
Alaska, would you go ahead and describe your character
and give us your character's name.
- Sure, also, I love that song, 'Everdeep Mountain High.'
(cast laughing) So good.
- Huge hit in Everdeep. - It's so good.
- The way it was written by Tuna Turner.
- I, (laughs) yeah, yeah, totally.
- Tuna Turner. (laughs) - (snort laughs) Oh!
- My character's not elvish,
but she is an Elvis-h impersonator sometimes.
(cast laughing) - Okay.
- No, just kidding. Okay, no.
My character's name is Princess, and she is like really tall.
She's like eight feet tall, and she's an orc barbarian
and so she's like, really big and kinda scary-looking,
but she thinks she's like, really cute and tiny
and little and petite.
- Is she petite for an orc or is she even big for an orc?
- No, she's gigantic. - [Bob] Got it.
- Even for orcs. - For orcs, okay, love that.
- [Alaska] Yeah. - Supermodel.
- Now, were both of her parents big or does she just,
she's like a genetic anomaly? - Yeah, it runs in the family.
- Oh, okay. - Yeah, yeah.
- And speaking of running in the family,
Princess, as you walk, broad, powerful shoulders
an armored brassiere, a scrunchie,
and I believe according to your character art,
a nice, pink tutu as well.
You carry a mighty double-bladed greataxe in your hand.
Your family have all been tall and great and mighty,
which makes the horror of the last night you remember
where you saw them alive.
I invite you all to envision a scene
in Princess' past as well where we see Castle Ravenspear,
the ancestral home of the Foehammers.
The family of Princess, your father Ronarian,
your sister and brother, Duchess and Earl.
Your family, flames roaring high. (mimics flames roaring)
Princess, you remember the night that your family,
all except for you, were slain.
In your memory as you walk along the road
there were many moments that night
and many miraculous turns of fortune by which you survived.
What's the moment that you think Princess goes back to
the most in her head when she remembers that night.
- So what, they were like, burned down?
- Your ancestral castle was burnt, was burned down.
- That's really sad. (Brennan laughs)
I think the moment that she remembers is like,
when she came home and she like,
saw the, (mimics flames roaring) the blaze.
- You remember that one of your servants,
Karnst, grabbing your arm.
Princess, you must not go in there!
The fire, it is out of control!
There has been some betrayal!
Please, you cannot punch the flame away!
- Not betrayal.
- You did it for the insurance money, didn't you?
- No, not me.
- [Brennan] You see- - Oh girl, you're betrayed.
- In your memory Karnst going, please, Princess.
I know you wish to save them. It is too late.
Please do not burn you or your gorgeous scrunchie.
(Alaska growls)
- (laughs) Princess, no!
Your servants pull you back and you remember that fire
and remember the confusion
around how something this horrifying could have happened.
As we return to the Gallows Road, Princess,
I'm gonna ask us for our first roll of the game here.
- (gasps) Oh my god. (Brennan laughs)
- This is so exciting. - Yeah.
- Princess, if you would take your d20,
which is the one on the farthest to your left.
- Okay.
- And I'd love you to roll that.
And you're gonna roll a perception check for me.
- Okay.
- Perception is one of your skills on your list of skills,
and there's a number that you're gonna add
to whatever you roll on the die.
- Okay, perception. - [Brennan] Mm-hmm.
- Will you blow on it?
- [Bob] Where do I see perception?
- This is good luck, Okay, it's the first roll.
Okay, I don't know where perception is, but okay.
Oh my God. Oh, wow, it rolls a lot.
Okay, 'cause there's 20 sides. Okay.
- It rolled at least 20 times. - I rolled a 12.
- You rolled a 12, and if you look on your character sheet
you'll be able to see on that list of skills
to the far left there's all those little words.
Perception is towards the middle and-
- Plus five. - So 12 plus five is 17.
That's a pretty high roll. (Alaska mimics whip cracking)
Princess, as you gather on the road, you- (sniffs)
Your barbarian senses activate.
You smell fire. (Alaska gasps)
But almost a familiar fire. (sniffs)
Something triggers that memory in your head,
and you smell something like a type of smoke.
When buildings burn,
it smells terrible most of the time, right?
There's a lot of things in there that are non-organic
that are burning, but there's a smell that you remember
from the night that that burns,
Something almost pleasant
that made the memory even a little more horrifying.
A smell of cedar burning, and you smell that now.
- Oh no. That's like, the same...
So the same people who burned my family up are around
and doing it to somebody else.
I think that would, yeah,
that occurs to Princess in this moment.
- [Bob and Jujubee] Cedar. - Perception.
(Brennan chuckles) (Alaska snaps fingers)
- T-T-L-D, honey.
- And it smells like it's coming
from the direction that you are traveling
so you have a sudden sense of,
ooh, there's maybe some mystery there
in the Village of Greeley. - Okay.
- As you continue down the road,
Bob, could you please give us your character name
and describe your character.
- Yes, her name is Gertrude.
Gertrude is a bit of a loner.
She has, ever since her family cast her aside
for being far too powerful,
they were afraid of what kinda power she might wield
so they asked her to go live alone in the woods
and she did as she was told.
She's a very, very powerful sorceress.
She spends her time studying, reading,
learning how to be magical,
and she has an inherent magical capability.
She's also an incredibly dapper dresser.
She's always dressed like she's going somewhere nice.
She doesn't have a lot of clothes,
but the ones she has, they are very, very nice.
She's also been around for a very, very long time.
She's a bit sardonic because of it.
I think I'm using the right word.
She's a little bit jaded if anything.
She's kinda over it all by now.
Her hair has now completely whitened because of her age.
It went from black to gray
and now it is just completely white.
Her skin has darkened to literally black
so there's a stark contrast between the two,
but she still maintains keeping up her appearances
because when she does venture into the world,
she still wants to be respected.
- Now tell us about your D&D character.
(Brennan and Bob laughing)
- What a monster. (laughs) You're a vulture. And I hate you.
- Incredible.
Gertrude, you travel with your new companions as well
for the same reason.
And again, though all of you have different reasons
for seeking what you seek,
you know that you share the same quest.
A cottage far from any town by a lake
where a young magical woman fled
from those that did not understand her terrible gifts.
Your witch's hut, where you were able
to practice your magic in peace far from the eyes
of those who do not understand
and do not wish to understand, looks over a serene lake,
but unlike most mornings in this memory of yours,
you heard a knock at the door.
(wood tapping)
(gasps) So we gotta credit Bob with SFX. (laughs)
In stereo.
You hear a voice outside saying, I'm so sorry,
uh, Madam Gertrude, if thou livest in the hut.
My name is Johan Trembly.
I come from the Village of Harper
some two days travel hence.
There is legend of a witch who lives here
and practices her sorcery.
Um, have I come in vain?
- One moment, please.
She goes and grabs her jacket, puts in on, leans in,
pulls her hair to a nice, tight ponytail around her antlers,
make sure they're presented, and then she stands back
about 20 feet and, (mimics wind whooshing)
the door flings open.
Make sure there's wind flowing through
so she looks quite intimidating.
- Incredible, a quick use of the Thaumaturgy cantrip
and boom, the door flies open. (mimics wind whipping)
The light shifts in your hut, and you see there's a young,
he's just wearing like a wool vest,
like a just raw fleece vest.
Got a little sort of peasant's hat,
little thatched blond hair, skinny-looking guy.
Just goes. (screams in horror)
- And then she waves her hand and goes, oh, hi.
How can I help you? - Uh, uh, uh... (pants)
I have not seen such unnatural spells or the like.
My name is Johan Trembly of the Village of Harper,
and I've come to seek a spell.
And I am but a humble peasant.
(stammers)
I, I can...
- You can get it out. Don't be afraid.
- I've come seeking a spell.
And though I am poor and can give no gold or treasure,
I have thought as much
that I can give a warning as my payment.
- Right, well, I don't practice magic for money.
I practice it because I'm good at it
and it has helped me survive, so I'll take your warning
depending on, what do you need?
- You see that he takes a fragment of a skull out of his bag
and you see that the skull is sort of just the top part,
one eye socket, and a bit of jaw.
And he looks at it and says,
this is my great-great-grandad Norbert.
- Oh God.
- We found a clue in our old farmhouse
that there might be a treasure buried somewhere,
but Norbert couldn't find the map of where it was.
There was an adventurer a long time ago who made a treasure
and we thought it's possible that you could ask him,
look at the skull, find his thoughts or memories
if there are any attached to this skull here.
Um, not sure if it's possible,
and absolutely no worries if it's not.
It's just a quick two-day trip by foot.
- (laughs) Well, it's absolutely something I can handle.
Gertrude storms over to the cabinet, throws them open
and grabs a jar of salt. (Brennan gasps)
This salt is a light-blue color.
She sprinkles it into the floor on a circle
and she says, place the skull in the middle.
You stand there with it and think of your grandfather.
- You see he looks at it and gives the little skull like,
(smooches daintily) sorry, Grandad.
And puts it in the middle of the circle of salt.
Should I go? Turn my back?
- Oh no, you stand there. - [Brennan] Should I-
- You close your eyes. - [Brennan] Okay.
- You think of your grandfather and I'll do all the rest.
- All right. Sorry, Grandad. - Ew.
- So Gertrude waves her hands in a way
that feels absolutely magical.
She's going up, her hair is flying everywhere.
The windows have blasted open.
There's thunder, but it's just specific to this area.
If you're like, 10 feet away you wouldn't even see it.
It's just in this area. (mimics thunder crackling)
The room's swirling, her stuff's falling over,
her hair is flying, the coat is just flying in the air,
and then she goes... (gasps excitedly)
I have the answers you seek.
- (gasps) I didn't see anything, but I felt the wind.
It seemed like something incredible was happening.
- It was a lot. It was mad.
You should, I mean, I wish you coulda,
but it was really fierce.
- No, I don't want a situation where I like...
- 'Cause it'll get in your eye, the salt.
- Understood.
The magic divines to you, Gertrude.
Indeed, you see that this farmer, you know-
- That Carl? Hey, I think that's Carl.
(Brennan laughing) - I think I recognize him.
- You see that this farmer's basically,
you know, probably the great-grandfather
did bury a small chest of gold somewhere on their farm.
- So Gertrude sits down at her desk.
She pulls out an old tea-stained piece of paper,
a feather, dips it in ink.
Her eyes roll to the back of her head,
and she quickly scribbles up a map,
draws the whole thing, rolls it up.
She hands it to him and says,
and by the way, your grandfather was gay.
- Mm. - Wow! That's...
Honestly, that's great to know.
Did he ever find somebody or was it-
- Nope, kinda kept it a secret.
And he told me maybe
you don't have to keep it a secret either.
(bell rings) Just throwing that in the air.
- You see Johan just sort of quivers his lips and he's like,
I could not have imagined this visit going any better.
This is absolutely huge for me. Wow!
And it was honestly, even as a kid I remember Great-Grandpa.
- The big, yeah, he- - It was like,
he would say some stuff sometimes I'd be like,
I think does he, is there?
Does he know some? Oh, Gertrude!
- I will give you this scroll and this map.
It'll tell you exactly where to find it,
and I don't need any other payment besides the warning,
but just remember me if I ever ask you
for anything in return.
- Wisps of magic shadow wrap around the room.
Gertrude's generosity is a powerful magical effect
in and of itself, and this farmer and his family
will know of this favor that they owe
for a long time to come.
He takes the map and says,
your generosity is the stuff of legends.
In our village, there came a woman
with a garrison of soldiers, some 10 men at arms.
She did not give her name but called herself
an inquisitor of the Glaring Sun.
She asked if there were witches nearby
and seemed to some to have the bearing of a witch hunter.
And knowing that you had lived here for many years
and though we are two days away in Harper,
no harm has ever come to us.
Our crops grow well so we know
that you are not yourself a wicked witch
and do not mean us harm so none gave her any information,
but she did come looking and she spoke specifically
of a witch that she asked
if she had been here for many generations.
And we asked how that could be
and she said some witches cannot die.
- Hm, and how long ago did you see this woman?
- Some fortnight past, maybe 11 or 12 days ago.
- Hm, thank you for this warning.
I see that I am no longer safe in this place.
This is not unusual to me.
Every few decades I do have to pick up shop
and move somewhere else.
Gertrude begins frantically running around the room
packing up as many things as she can.
Potions, pills, books, salts, packing them all
into what looks like it wouldn't fit,
but it just kinda all magically fits into this like,
kinda like a backpack, kinda like a-
- [Jujubee] A satchel? - [Bob] Yeah.
- [Jujubee] Two straps? - Yeah, two, yeah.
Yeah, one over each shoulder, fits perfect,
but it matches the outfit.
That's very important to remember.
- Magically. - [Bob] Yeah.
- All of this goes into your Satchel of Holdings,
magically larger on the inside than it is on the outside.
And you journey forth from that place
and we return to the Gallows Road
as Gertrude remembers that last warning just in time
to finally begin her quest where she needs to go.
(Jujubee coughs) - Jujubee!
- Oh, shit. (cast laughing)
- I wonder who's next.
- You were like. (clears throat)
- Well, I realized what was happening.
- Me! - We started over here
so that I could know exactly what I'm doing
by the time I- (cast laughing)
And I still have no idea what I'm doing.
(Brennan laughing) But hi, I'm Twyla.
- Perfect, yes, please describe your character for us.
- Okay, so Twyla is a ranger, a soldier, and a fey.
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - A fey.
Like we all know what feys are, right?
- You said fey, I don't know- - She's a fey.
- A little bit that way. - A fey.
- Yeah, is she a fey? You know.
- You're friends with the farmer grandpa,
is what you're basically saying.
- Yes. - You ran in the same circles.
- Yeah, oh yeah. - [Bob] Same crop circles.
- Grandpa Carl. - Yeah, we're huge Cher fans.
We went to her first last concert is what we did.
- Incredible, and yes, Twyla is a member of the Fey Realm.
She is a fairy with wings. And what does she look like?
And what sort of weapons does she carry?
- She carries a...
Well, let's look. Let's see, where are my...
Where is it? Where do I go?
- Under your attacks but also on your character sheet
you will see. - Oh shit.
Why don't you tell me and then I'll tell you.
- You carry a longbow.
- Okay, so what's special about Twyla
is she carries a long bow.
She can fly. - [Alaska] You don't say.
- She can fly!
- She can fly, she has a longbow.
I think that her height is going to come in
and be really helpful because she's a petite 4'11''.
- [Bob] Ooh! - [Alaska] Wow.
- And if anybody in this room knows,
people who are 4'11'' are very angry.
- Why? (Brennan laughing)
- 'Cause they're one inch away from being five feet,
and Twyla can fly so her height can change, darling.
(tongue pop)
- If she hovers an inch off the ground, she'll be five feet.
- Well, that's why she's 4'11''
'cause she can only hover that high.
That's the issue.
- That makes sense, that makes sense.
- And she's trying to avenge-
So her family is all gone and she's been...
She basically is trying to fix the things
that she maybe wasn't there for to help.
Does that make sense? - Yes, absolutely.
And as you travel over long distances,
do you tend to fly or do you tend to walk
alongside your companions?
- You know, it really depends on the day.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- Like, sometimes she's a little tired.
- [Brennan] Yeah.
- So I've got my walking shoes on today.
I've got really cute shoes on so I believe
that to go into the underworld now,
she's probably gonna dance and prance
'cause she is a dancer.
Lot's of rhythm, right? - [Brennan] Beautiful.
- So she'll dance, but then when there's moments
where she needs to fly to maybe help protect us
and the team, she's gonna fly
'cause she can camouflage and shit like that.
- Exactly, traveling here on the Gallows Road especially
as the sun sets ever lower in the sky,
it is a good idea to keep a low profile.
So walking beside your companions,
your beautiful butterfly's wings are folded at your back
and you seem for all the world from a distance
not like a creature of the Fey Realms at all.
- I mean, walking with an eight-foot orc
with a pink tutu might-
- [Jujubee] Yeah, and a scrunchie. (Alaska growls)
- [Bob] Might make us easy to spot.
- Let's be clear, Princess tanks a lot of heat.
In terms of conspicuousness,
Princess is getting a lot of the... (laughs)
- Dragging the ax on the ground behind her.
- I'm like, oh, this one's over here like,
watch out for that 4'11'' fey.
- And speaking of fey, I invite you all to envision-
- I have an aunt named Fay, by the way.
- Really? - Yeah.
Her name is actually Frajle, but we call her Fay.
- Frajle? - Frajle?
- But we call her Aunt Fay. - That's so-
- Country, yeah. It's so country, exactly.
- I said "beautiful." I didn't say country.
It's so beautiful.
- You remember the last glorious stand
in the armies of Queen Titania at the base of a great hill
at the top of which bloomed the Allblossom, a magical flower
shining light as though it was the noonday sun itself
over a fairy landscape filled with briars and roses,
hedge mazes and all manner of wonderful things.
You remember the look of your general, Isadora,
the right hand of Queen Titania.
Isadora astride a massive, iridescent silver dragonfly
saying, soldiers of the Fairy Queen,
we face a threat unlike any we have ever known.
- Oh, she's butch. - Yeah, she's got a...
She really can, she has that theater kid. She can hit from-
- She's from Malden, Massachusetts.
(Brennan laughing)
Dryads, satyrs, pixies, grigs, nymphs,
all manner of fey creatures,
the Sorceress Blood Queen Zaria Hex
brings her armies of the dead to bear on the Allblossom.
We have never known a threat like this,
but if we are to survive, we will only do so together.
We must protect the Allblossom.
(mystical music halts) - Protect what?
- The Allblossom. - The flower.
- The Allblossom, the big flower on the hill behind you.
- The Powerpuff Girls, the lead Powerpuff girl.
- Protect the Allblossom. I'm just taking notes.
- It's a lot, yes, for sure.
You look to your left and right. Your friends are there.
Captain Martha, who's a dryad. - Martha!
- Captain Martha. - [Bob] There's always a Martha.
My mom's name was Martha.
Your whole family's full of my family.
You got a Justin in there somewhere? (laughs)
- To your other side is Lieutenant Alvin who is a-
- A chipmunk. (laughs) - A chipmunk.
He's a little chipmunk. We're gonna fuck 'em up!
(cast laughing)
You see that- - We have to be clear.
So once we say it, it becomes canon. It's in there now.
- Anything you say becomes canon so-
- So he's now a chipmunk. - [Brennan] Now Alvin's a chipmunk.
- Oh no! - Once we say it, it's canon.
- I love it. No, it's great.
Why wouldn't a chipmunk be fighting in a fairy...
You see there's a chipmunk. He's got a button for a shield.
- Yeah. - [Brennan] He's got like a-
- No, no, no. I want Alvin to tell me.
- Who Alvin is? - In Alvin's voice.
- [Brennan] Okay. - That's who I am.
- So okay, so Alvin goes, listen-
(players laughing)
I'm gonna say what I think we're all thinking.
- Yes.
- This could be our last night together
and our last night alive.
I think we should get naked and see what happens!
- (laughs) I love Alvin. - Alvin's great.
- [Bob] It's the last night? - We're all gonna fucking die!
We're all gonna fucking die here,
and I wanna get my nuts off, if you know what I'm saying.
- Twyla, talk to Alvin. - Well, Twyla runs furiously
into her apartment, looks for a bottle of poppers.
(cast laughing)
- That's what I'm talking about!
I was feeling like there was something here.
- Alvin has the bottle. - Alvin with this bottle.
- [Jujubee] It is like a huge bottle.
Well, so Twyla's like, I have no idea how to do that.
Let me go get my friend, the Princess. She knows.
- Isn't this in the past? - This is all in the past so-
- Oh no!
- We don't know each other yet.
- So you get the princess.
So suddenly you hear outside. (mimics horn bellowing)
And Alvin, in the middle of whatever Alvin's doing goes,
oh shit, the war!
And gets his weapons. - Right.
- Rushes outside. Chaos, carnage.
The forces of Zaria Hex, an undead queen in blood-red robes
with an army of skeletal soldiers, sneering.
You servants of the Fey Realm shall know pain and cruelty.
The Allblossom shall be mine!
(Bob gasps) - No.
- This is bad. - I know.
- [Brennan] It's straight-up bad. - I hate her.
- Zaria in this memory, as we know,
for this has happened in the past,
defeated the armies of Titania that day.
- Mm-mm, mm-mm. (Alaska gasps)
- But not before Alvin, dying on the ground before you
(Brennan gurgles) (Jujubee sobs softly)
takes a single magical seed from the center
of a pool of nectar at the middle of the Allblossom.
Twyla, you can fly the swiftest of us all.
Take this seed of the Allblossom.
Keep hope for our people. - Oh my God.
- Twyla holds out her hands and says, Alvin, seed me.
- For the second time today. (players laughing)
(dramatic music intensifies)
(Jujubee gasps) - What? You ate it?
(dramatic music stops suddenly)
Did you eat the seed? - My wings are here, right?
- Yes, your wings are here! - Oh, I... (stammers)
What is this? - Were you eating the seed?
- I did. - Oh my God.
- Was I supposed to eat the seed or just hold on to it?
- You were supposed to hold on to it!
Why did you eat it? - Oh!
- [Brennan] Why did you- - Actually, actually-
- Oh my God! - Actually she didn't swallow
'cause she's not a swallower. - [Monét] Oh, yeah.
- So she spits out the seed and here it is again.
- Okay, okay. - Oh, whew. I am dying.
And Alvin passes away and we cut back to the Gallows Road
where you journey with this...
And you can write this down in your equipment
on your character sheet as well, Seed of the All Blossom.
- Not eating the seed. Jesus Christ.
- (laughs) And Twyla, as you remember that last night
fighting against Zaria Hex, all of you turn a corner
in the Gallows Road and you see nestled in the light.
So now the sun has fully faded behind the mountains.
And you see light glowing from the Village of Greeley.
Troyánn, you have been to the Village of Greeley before,
and some of you may well have been here as well,
but some of you, I believe,
are also here for the very first time.
You see a village. There's some light.
And you see a tavern with a swinging sign out in front,
and you hear some noise of merrymaking.
There's music, there's sounds like drinking
and libations happening in the tavern there.
But you can't shake the feeling
that the sort of raucous debauchery inside the tavern
is such a small noise against the vastness
of these Mountains of Shadow.
Something about the Village of Greeley living so close
to the Temple of Wraiths, there's some piece of this village
where a fear permeates the nighttime air.
But you do see that tavern
and the sign swinging in the torchlight, the Hero's Hall.
(Jujubee gasps)
So we have introduced your characters.
We know some but not all of why you have come here
to this gateway to the Underworld.
Here in the Village of Greeley, now I will go ahead
and we're going to turn a lot of this over to you
in terms of you all are playing your characters.
You can do anything at all that you want to do.
You are together. You obviously have your mission.
But it is late at night
and you see a long and dangerous road
winding up the craggy cliffs of Mount Basira,
which would be dangerous to travel at night.
- You say late. Late for who?
We're to like, 9:00, midnight, 3:00 AM?
- I'd say it's like 9:30. - 9:30, okay.
- [Brennan] It's like 9:30. - It's late for you, Grandma.
(cast laughing) - She's tired.
This says a lot about you,
that you said 9:30 was late at night.
You're like, "It is late."
- It is late. 9:30 is late. - It is late. 9:30 is late.
- 9:30's late, but you see the tavern is raucous.
There are a few other small buildings in the hamlet
sort of here and there.
You see there is a short watchtower,
maybe only like three stories tall
which is set at the road that goes up into the mountains to,
you know, and there's a little torch up there.
There might be some guards, just like local village guards
who are keeping watch to make sure nothing sinister
slinks out of the mountains into the town.
And you also see, if you are not interested in like,
interacting with the people of the town
that there are some places farther out
at the edges of the town where you might be able to like,
make camp if you wanted to like, avoid the town.
There's like some barns and some sort of like small fields
and meadows as well, but I turn it over to you.
As you approach Greeley, what do you wanna do?
- (low, growling) I would like to get a drink! (Brennan and Bob laughing)
- Now, Gertrude- - That's the tavern, right?
- [Brennan] Yeah, that's the tavern.
- [Bob] Oh, it's a tavern.
- [Jujubee] Oh, is it an actual, like,
tavern where you can get drinks and stuff?
I thought it was just like, home base.
- [Brennan] Oh yeah, yeah, the tavern is real.
- [Alaska] There's like, different places we can go.
So we can go to the tavern, the watchtower...
- We don't wanna go up the windy road yet
'cause it's nighttime. - Not by yourself.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - [Monét] Yeah.
- Okay. - [Brennan] And I'll-
- We haven't met each other yet.
- [Brennan] Oh no, all you have met.
- We have? Okay. - Okay.
- So all of you have met.
You had that encounter in the City of Darktide
where you first met and realized that it was safer,
given this incredibly perilous mission,
much safer to travel together,
even if you all had your own reasons for going,
than it was to travel alone.
- The buddy system is very important.
- [Brennan] Buddy system! - Yeah.
- Number one rule of Kelvorda, have a buddy.
- [Bob] Have a buddy, hold hands.
- Sure. - [Brennan] Hold hands.
- So wait, so we have places to go.
We can't go to your house though, right?
- [Monét] No. - I live too far away.
I can't go back home. They're trying to kill witches.
There's a witch hunter on the way.
- Here's the question I have.
If I can make myself invisible, can I make us invisible?
- Your Pass Without Trace is a really great tool.
It doesn't make you fully invisible, but it basically
gives you an incredible advantage on stealth.
- Fully invisible? What do you mean?
Like 90% invisible?
- The way Pass Without Trace works
is it envelops you in shadows so the spell requires you
to still make an effort to stay hidden,
unlike invisibility which would make you be able
to just (snaps fingers) disappear
in the middle of a crowded room.
- So I don't have invisibility?
- You have Disguise Self and you have Pass Without Trace,
but you do not have true invisibility.
- Yeah. - Oh, well we gotta talk
about this 'cause Twyla, Twyla this entire time
thought she had invisibility. - [Monét] Thought she was invisible.
- Which explains a lot of her odd behavior.
- Yes! - Like, bitch, I can see you!
- You can see me doing all the things that I've done!
- Bitch, we can see you! - [Brennan] We cut back to a-
- The whole time, Mary.
- Yeah, we cut back to a roommate meeting
in a giant mushroom in fairyland. - Yeah!
- So when you're in the common areas of the apartment,
all of us can see... - I'm so sorry.
That skirt just moved by itself.
- We've been choosing not to say anything,
but it's gone too far.
- So Twyla walks around with her hand in her skirt
and you guys don't say anything?
- [Bob] Oh, we've been seeing you. - We've been seeing you, girl.
- Oh my God. - Creature comforts.
Creature comforts. - Oh my gosh.
- Well, you know what, I think that we should go
to the tavern because I need one more kill
to meet my quota for the month.
- [Jujubee] And Princess needs a drink.
- You want to kill someone at the tavern?
- There is a mark at the tavern that I need to kill.
- Mark what?
- [Bob] Someone to kill. - One of my marks who I need to kill.
- Mark Davidson? Mark...
- Mark Ronson. - Okay.
(Brennan laughing) - I just wanna say,
we're trying to keep a little bit of a low profile,
Troyánn, and I feel like if you were to kill someone
in the middle of the tavern,
we might need to leave town tonight.
Are you ready to leave?
I was hoping we'd leave in the morning,
but if you must, you must.
- Well, we can cause, like, a commotion somewhere.
- Yeah, and also he's a bad person.
He's committed a lot of crimes in this town.
- What kinda crimes? - Grand larceny.
- Mark Ronson? - Yes.
- [Jujubee] Wow. - Yeah.
- Who he steal from?
- Paula Abdul. - Jesus Christ!
- Paula lives here? - Right over here.
- Up there?
- It's canon. It is now canon.
- So every time she goes up she's like,
"Two steps forward, one step back."
- It takes her a very long time to make it to the tavern.
- A very long time.
- So I think if we go to get him at the tavern,
I'm just gonna get Mark,
then we have to leave town tonight.
- All right, well, I guess... - Okay, well...
- Well, let's go for it, I think, right?
- If you have to, you have to. All right.
Troyánn's a bit of a loose cannon.
- Mm-hmm. - Now, I wanna say
that Gertrude's a little bit more calculated,
and she's afraid that we're gonna walk in
and just start fighting off the bat
so Gertrude stands in the doorway.
She always hangs by the door to make sure
if anything's gonna go down, she'll be far enough
that she can like, you know, make things happen.
So Gertrude is hanging by the...
She doesn't drink, she never drinks,
but she always pretends to. - Mm-hmm.
- If she needs to act drunk she'll be like,
I'm outta control, but she's always in control.
- Hm, smart girl. - Of herself, anyway.
- Yes.
- So approaching the door of the Hero's Hall.
Gertrude, you are first to enter.
Walking into the Hero's Hall, go ahead,
and I'm going to ask you if you are paying attention
to anything in particular as you walk in.
- So Gertrude walks in.
She looks around and at first it seems
like just a bunch of people drinking.
Most are human. There's a few elvish people in here.
So Gertrude's looking around and then she, of course,
beckons for her friends to walk through the door and join.
- I'm gonna actually ask an insight check from Gertrude.
So insight is one of your skills.
And take your die on the very far left, that d20.
- Oh, d20! - Mm-hm, and you're gonna roll
and we're gonna do an insight check here.
- Big money, big money. - I got a 14.
- And go ahead and add the number next to your insight.
- That is two. - So a 16.
Looking around the Hero's Hall,
you see that there's a woman behind the bar.
She's got thick forearms, thick hands.
She looks like an old human, like, family of farmers
who's just been running this tavern
like a family business for a long time.
Got a square jaw on her, just pouring drinks for people.
Sort of russet-red hair. - Kandy Muse works here?
(Brennan laughs) - Oh God, okay, Jesus!
Shot's fired. Sorry, go ahead. - As you walk in the door
right to your left as you step in,
you also see that there is a muscle-bound dwarf.
He's only about, you know, 4'6''.
- Oh, thank God. (Brennan and Monét laughing)
- Only about 4'6'' but you see he's got a shaved head
and he's got a huge braided beard.
Lots of braids and gold rings in his beard.
He looks over at you and says, hey there.
Welcome to the Hero's Hall.
My name is Dag Strongshield, the bouncer here.
- Oh, hi, Dag, how are you? - I'm doing very well.
Always nice to have guests come in.
Forgive me for saying, but you're here for the...
And you see he points up the mountain towards the temple.
- Who told you that?
- (laughs heartily) You gotta wake up pretty early
in the morning to pull the wool
over Dag Strongshield's eyes.
- All right, Dag, well listen,
if you keep your information secret
and don't go blabbing your mouth to everyone,
then we'll be cool.
- Hey, consider us (snaps fingers) cool.
- All right. - Can we call him Daggy?
Like, hey, Daggy? - If you want.
Yeah, Twyla, you can walk in and call him that. Absolutely.
As he says, ooh, a pet name already.
And what's your name, m'lady? - (whisper) Twyla.
- [Brennan] Twyla, Dag Strongshield.
- Twyla says. - Ooh. (chuckles)
Well, welcome to the Hero's Hall.
We have Mr. Elwin Thrump, our bard who's playing.
You see there's a sort of scrawny guy
with a very poofy kind of feathered Renaissance cap
who's playing a mandolin up on the stage.
(Bob mimics mandolin music) - What was his name?
- [Brennan] Elwin. - Elwin.
- And the rest of you walk in as well.
Princess, you see that bar.
Huge aged barrels of mead and ale.
You see there's some bottles
of some stronger stuff back there as well.
The barmaid looks over at you, this older woman, Kashra.
And she says, traveler, welcome to the Hero's Hall.
Pleasure to have you. What can I get you to drink?
(gravelly) Let's do shots! (cast laughing)
Do you wanna do shots? - [Jujubee] Yeah.
- Yeah. - Do you want to?
- Mine has to be nonalcoholic, though.
- I know she's gonna, you'll pretend.
- Let's do shots. - Okay, okay, okay.
- All right, some shots. Wonderful, all right, well...
You see that she goes and you see this place
is a little bit rinky-dink enough
that the shot glasses are like, a tin coffee cup,
two sort of rocks glasses and then like-
- Fierce. - [Brennan] So you're like,
that's a bowl, that's like a small bowl.
- Yeah. - Puts it all in front of you
and she says, we have some elven mead,
but if you're looking for something a little bit stronger
we have some orcish grog that we'd be able-
- Ooh, orcish grog. - Ooh, orcish grog.
- [Both] Orcish grog. - [Brennan] All right.
- I'll have a water. - You're just, just a water?
- Yeah, maybe with some flowers in it, you know?
- [Brennan] All right. - Something nice.
- Who the fuck do you think you are?
- [Brennan] Wallace! - Twyla.
- Wallace, run out to the well and get some water.
(cast laughing)
And you see a kid head out the door.
And you see that she takes out a thing
and says, orcish grog it is.
She takes a sort of steel, like knight's helmet,
puts it on her head, walks over to a bottle
and opens the cork and you see (mimics air puffing)
a fume of alcoholic vapor escapes the bottle.
And she says, (breathes heavily) oh, look at that.
It makes you cry a little bit if you stand right over it.
And she pours three pretty heavy pours
of orcish grog in front of you.
And you see there is this like, (inhales sharply)
it's completely clear.
It smells sort of salty and sour,
and there's a, it's like a little bit viscous.
You can see the surface tension on it
is like a little bit thicker than water.
She puts it in front of all of you and says,
bottoms up, sláinte, and good health to all of you.
- All right.
- I wanna use some Prestidigitation.
- [Brennan] Yes.
- To make it look like I'm drinking.
- (laughs) Perfect.
- I want everyone to think that I'm drinking.
Do I gotta roll something?
- No, that's a use of the spell that you can absolutely do.
- So everyone thinks, it looks like I'm drinking,
but as I pour it to my mouth, it looks like somehow
it's fading away or something
- And the real grog, are you just like,
tossing that over your shoulder?
- Yeah, I'm just doing... - You wanna do one of these.
- Yeah, just kinda like a...
- And Troyánn, our sort of, like, warriors here,
like Troyánn and Princess.
Are you knocking it back full?
- We're knocking it back. - Yeah, totally!
- Hell yeah, incredible. So both...
So Princess drank, clink. It goes back.
All of you hear (hisses) as the wooden floor
behind Gertrude starts to steam.
- [Jujubee] Oh! - What was that?
(cast laughing) - It's really strong.
- I need both of you to make a new roll for the first time.
A constitution saving throw. - Ooh.
- So unlike skill checks, saving throws are rolls
to avoid something bad happening to you.
- Oh God. - No!
- [Bob] You're drinking. - Don't drink.
Don't drink, kids.
- Oh, looks like you shoulda had the water. (laughs)
- What do you think is in the flowers, girl? Watch out.
- Do your roll, Mary. - Why do you have-
- Dysentery. - [Jujubee] Why do you have to lie?
- Dysentery. (laughs) - Incredible.
So both of you are gonna roll that same d20
and above your skills you'll see your saving throws.
So you're gonna look at constitution and you're gonna add
whatever's next to constitution to your roll.
- Oh God, come on. (tense music)
(gasps) 13.
- [Brennan] And have you added the number
next to your constitution?
- 19. - [Brennan] Ooh, that's right.
Troyánn is made of stern stuff.
- Can we double check on Monét's math?
New York public schools. I need someone to-
- [Jujubee] Oh! - Get outta here.
- [Bob] Make sure the numbers are right.
- Princess, what did you roll?
- A 15 plus seven is 22. - Ooh!
So our undersea assassin and our Orcish barbarian noble,
you throw it back.
Each of you feel this scalding, searing
of the grog go down your throats
and you're immediately feeling like,
just the right amount of buzz, it's great.
- Ooh - Yeah.
- Everyone in this tavern looks kinda cool.
You feel very charming.
It's like, ooh, this is a great place to be.
- I get to take my mark out tonight.
- And as you say that, actually, go ahead
and give me an investigation roll,
and I'm gonna add a new mechanic here
which is you're actually gonna do this with advantage.
When I say you make a roll with advantage,
it means you actually get to roll twice
and take the better of the two rolls.
- Okay.
- So because you're such a practiced assassin,
you're gonna roll investigation,
which is another one of your skills,
and I want you to roll...
Actually, we're gonna call this perception
so go ahead and roll perception for me.
Roll twice and take the better of the two rolls.
- Okay, with d20? - With d20, that's correct.
(die taps table) (Monét gasps)
(gasps) A one! Oh no.
Thank goodness you're rolling with advantage
so as long as you don't roll another one.
- It's gonna be a two. - It's gonna be a one.
- No! (Brennan laughing)
- We're on the same team,
Twyla and Gertrude. - Yeah!
- We're just watching. - Yeah, we're not drunk.
- You pretended to watch. (Bob and Jujubee laughing)
- I'm just invisible over here.
- [Brennan] (gasps) You rolled a second one!
- Didn't I say? - [Alaska] Snake eyes.
- I got an eight.
Wait, wait, my perception? Yeah, eight.
- So unfortunately, in this game we have a thing
called critical success and failures.
- This is a failure.
- [Brennan] This is a... (laughs)
- I'm assuming. - Naturally.
- On a natural 20, incredible things are possible.
If you hit a 20 on the die, it's an overwhelming success.
- Yeah. - And the reverse,
if you manage to roll a natural one, which-
- Can I use some Prestidigitation
and pretend like it was a 20? - Well, I will say this.
A perception check is a good check to roll very low on.
It's not life or death, right? - [Monét] Okay.
- So, if you- - This is just you like,
thinking your outfit looks good when it... (laughs)
- Let me put it this way,
if that had been your constitution saving throw-
- That would not be- - [Brennan] We'd be having
a very bad time right now. - Okay, okay, okay.
- Okay, oh my gosh! - So an eight.
Right, we shouldn'ta drank those drinks.
- This game is dangerous. - If your perception is a one
that means you're delusional is what it means.
- [Alaska] It's true. - So Troyánn, you look around.
As you look, on a nat one perception check
you're stalking your quarry.
You have very specific people
that you were supposed to hunt.
- Does this look like she could like,
confuse someone with someone else?
Is that what this kinda thing is
if your perception is that low?
- If your perception's that low
it means terrible things can happen.
Troyánn, you look and there is a door off,
there's a back entrance where the kid ran out
to go get that well water.
So there's another door sort of skinny and rickety,
almost like a, pretty sure it's a closet door.
- Yeah.
- And you see a deep red liquid
pooling out from underneath the door
into the hallway of the tavern.
Something on the other side of that door spells bad news.
- Go check it out. (intense dramatic music)
- I'm an assassin. Let's do it.
Now, I have my spear in my hand as well
and also my net slinged over my shoulder,
but I'm gonna tuck the net.
I don't think I need the net,
but I have my spear ready to go.
- Hell yeah, spear in hand you walk to the door.
There's not even a keyhole.
It's a door that doesn't need a lock.
It's just a sort of service supply closet for the tavern.
You open the door, (wood creaking)
look inside.
On the floor of the closet, bones crushed and mangled,
throat slit is the dead body
of famed music producer Mark Ronson.
(Bob laughing) (Jujubee gasps)
- The guy you were supposed to kill.
- Yes. - Someone's already done it.
- Somebody's already done it!
- I'm using my spear to move his body around
so that I wanna incriminate myself and touch the body.
(Brennan gasps) So I'm gonna move him
around with my spear, yep, he's dead.
- He's dead. - Not Mark Ronson!
- [Brennan] Not Mark Ronson.
- Well, at least Paula Abdul's safe.
(Brennan laughs)
- I don't even know who Mark Ronson is.
- Bridgerton. - Uptown Funk.
- Yeah.
♪ Sometimes I go out by myself ♪
- He did a lot of Amy Winehouse, though.
- Yeah. - Great.
- And he's in Kelvorda, and he's dead.
- He's dead and mangled. - Wow!
- Mangled in a closet. - In a closet.
As you behold that, Troyánn, you immediately know,
that soul, you need that soul.
And the danger sort of posed by that is,
there's two possibilities here.
Either you have to find another soul to replace it,
which is very challenging.
There's like, only very specific souls you can get,
and you're working on a clock right now.
Or you would have to go to the Underworld
and try to find the soul there walking around
with the other dead souls and collect it there.
- (wishper) What?
- But that is a way harder way to do things.
So Troyánn, so you see that.
So I think you're having that moment.
And again, you also see your spear nicks the forearm
so anyone who investigates this
might make the mistake of assuming you did it.
- [Jujubee] Mm. - [Brennan] For everyone else,
though, you're out in the tavern.
- We're having a great time. I didn't roll a one. (laughs)
- We move from this moment of terror and discovery
that Troyánn is having sort of down the hallway
and we cut back to the main common room of the tavern.
The rich, musty smell of pipe smoke
along with the big wood fire by the stage
where the bard is playing, this feels a place,
it is a earthy, musky, depending on who you ask,
pleasant or unpleasant scent in the tavern
as people laugh and make merry.
Twyla, you have your water finally,
and Gertrude, you've done your shot of orcish grog.
- I have a question. - [Brennan] Yes.
- Could I use Friends to go talk to Dag
and get a full account of everyone who's been here
'cause we need to find out who did this dastardly
'cause Dag's got an eye on everyone in the room.
- [Brennan] Dag spotted you the moment you walked in. - Who's Dag again?
- Dag's the guy at the front door.
- [Alaska] He's the guy at the door.
- The muscular dwarf with the beard.
- Yeah, the muscle- - The gold rings.
- Mm-hmm. - Absolutely.
You can absolutely talk to Dag.
So as you sort of corner Dag,
both of you are across from Kashra, and both of you,
Twyla and Princess, hear a squeak of a bar stool,
turn, don't see anything and look down
and you see a small goblin man.
He's sort of got a shock of like,
spiky black hair, long pointed green ears.
He has sort of these like, yellowish teeth
that he has a gold filling in one.
They've sort of been filed down to sharp points,
and these sort of high arched eyebrows
and a long cloak jingles and jangles.
You have to look down. He's only about three feet tall.
- Oh, okay. - [Brennan] And you see-
- You're the third tallest person in the bar.
- So that's why I'm looking down 'cause I was like,
are you sure? - Are you sure?
And you see he looks at you both and says,
ladies, ladies, hello and welcome to the Hero's Hall.
I haven't seen you here before.
Allow me to introduce myself.
I'm Bump Williams. (Jujubee chuckles)
I am a- - Bump. (laughs)
- Yes, you may call me Bump.
My friends call me Bump or Bumpy.
Welcome to the Hero's Hall.
Have you journeyed long to find yourself here
at the foot of Mount Basira?
- Uh, Twyla said- - He's totally hitting on you.
(cast laughing)
- And then Twyla says, (giggles) yes.
- Uh-huh, well, barkeep, if you would see
these two young ladies, feel free to drink on my tab, I-
- Ladies. (Jujubee giggles)
- I know the owner of this establishment.
- Oh yeah? - [Brennan] Yes.
- What's his name?
- Oh, well, her name is Kashra.
- Ooh. - Wow, what an assumption Twy.
- And I knew that and I was testing you.
- Wow, okay. Turnaround's fair play, I see some-
- Baby, Kashra is my friend.
- I see some witty repartee is in store for me
if I stay long at this bar. - Mm-hmm.
- You see that Kashra turns around,
gets a bottle of some fine elven mead,
puts it in front of you
with some a little bit cleaner glasses.
- The nice stuff. - [Brennan] The nice stuff.
- Yeah, well, why did we get the little nasty mismatched-
- 'Cause we didn't know a friend
of the owner at the time, okay?
- We asked for shots.
- She brought out the fine china, honey.
- You see Bump looks at both of you and says,
you journeyed long, journeyed long together, I assume.
- Yes. - Hmm, you must forgive me.
I feel as though I recognize your face.
- (gasps) Oh my gosh!
Maybe I look really pretty and familiar.
- (chuckles gregariously) Well, you are a stunning beauty
so I'm sure perhaps I've seen you in my dreams.
- (gasps) I agree. (cast laughing)
- Well, if there's any service I can be, just let me know.
I am something of a impresario here, a raconteur,
a little bit of a- - What an impresario?
- I uh...
- You be using these big words, baby.
- I'm sorry, as I said, raconteur.
- What the hell is that?
- It's when you contour with a rat.
You take a rat, you put it up to your cheek. Rat-contour.
- A New York rat. - Yeah.
- A New York rat. - Ew.
- (laughs) A rat.
- You see he looks over at you and says,
I'll state it simply, I'm a man of means,
and I make things happen in the Village of Greeley.
- Oh, so he's a pimp. (Brennan laughing)
- You see he looks and says, many magical wares do I have.
- Okay. - Oh.
- And I'm always happy to part with them for a price.
However, I'm interested, you've been traveling long.
Have you been traveling here together?
And you see he takes his mead and raises it
in a toast to both of you
and waits for you to raise your glasses as well.
- Do you raise your glass of water with the flower in it?
- My flower water has been up this whole time, actually.
- Twyla, I'm suspicious of this guy
because I think that he like, murdered my family
'cause he said I looked familiar so-
- And you did smell that smell that was...
- Oh. - Don't I have like,
some like, perception shit or something?
- [Brennan] Hell yeah. - Can I like,
see if he's being shady? - [Brennan] Yeah.
You have a couple different options.
You have all your skills in front of you
so what I would recommend is this.
If you want- - Danger sense.
- If you want to find out something
about this guy you're talking to subtly,
I would recommend an insight check.
Insight is a skill associated with reading people,
situations, moods, vibes, things like that.
- Reading. (cast laughing)
- Hold on, what if you don't wanna do it quietly?
What if we wanna put you in a chair
and scream at you to find out?
- As a barbarian, you have a special ability
called 'Commanding Presence' which means-
- Oh. - Which means that you can,
if you want to confront this guy,
you can roll an intimidation check and add extra-
- Ooh, do it.
- So you're like, not just scary for your size and ferocity.
You also are like, extra imposing on top of that
from your commanding presence from your noble line.
- Yeah, that one.
- [Brennan] We're gonna do that one.
- Yeah. - So let's go ahead
and roll an intimidation check.
And unlike a normal roll,
because you're gonna use your commanding presence,
you're also going to add the six-sided die.
Your six-sided die is the normal square one.
- Okay.
- [Brennan] And you're gonna roll the d20 too.
- Oh, shoot. - Okay, here we go.
- You're gonna roll them both,
and you're gonna add your intimidation skill
from your character sheet.
- Intimidation...
Okay, okay, werk. Okay, werk.
- [Bob] How much is your intimidation whatever?
- It's a plus five.
(dice tap table) (dramatic music intensifies)
So, oh my God, okay. Oh my God, this is really bad.
Okay, oh God. (Brennan laughing)
I rolled a three and a one.
- (gasps) This table and that side of the table.
- So four plus five is a nine.
Knowing that it is not a very successful attempt,
how does Princess attempt to intimidate this goblin
facing you down at the bar?
- She would like, stand up and she would like, show
'cause he's like three feet tall
and she's like eight feet tall
so she would be like, stand up and be like, what?
What the fuck is up, motherfucker?
- (laughs) You see Bump looks at you and goes,
oh-ho-ho, large and powerful woman.
What are you gonna do to me?
- Ooh, Bump is kinky! (cast laughing)
- And then Twyla says, don't worry about it, Princess.
This is just a little Bump in the road.
- So then, okay, I feel like maybe we should go help them.
- Yes. - Because they're struggling.
And you don't roll the dice.
I'll do it this time. - And that's the thing, too,
is we're actually gonna pause at this moment.
You see that as you sort of tower over Bump
to intimidate him, you see
that there's some weird part of him
that appears to be like, all for it
as you're attempting to...
He's not scared but rather he is like, into it.
- Maybe he climbed on the bar to get on her level.
He's like, trying to, (Brennan laughing)
like, look her in the eye. - So he sees her belly button.
- We're gonna cut back to resolve what Gertrude's been doing
while this is happening, which is talking to Dag.
- Oh, right.
- So you're talking to Dag at the front who seems,
again, very charmed by you and you're gonna cast-
- I used Friends on him, I think, yeah.
- So you use a little bit of sorcery (mimics magic puffing)
which means you're going to roll a persuasion with advantage
so you're gonna roll twice
and take the better of the two rolls.
- So just the d20? - [Brennan] D20, that's right.
- That's an eight. - [Brennan] Okay, roll again.
- And this one is...
- Five. - A 10.
- [Brennan] Okay, and then 10 plus what your persuasion is.
- Persuasion is eight, 18. - 18, so amazing.
- Yeah, Monét. - Oh my god.
- So you see that little...
What does it look like?
What does Gertrude's Friends spell
'cause it's a subtle spell, what does it look like
as Gertrude casts this little charm?
- So what happens is,
Gertrude takes like a deep breath and then as she exhales,
like a little, like, black dust comes out of her nose.
(Brennan gasps) And then it swirls down
and it kinda wraps around their head
and it goes into their ears and then they just go...
- Oh yeah? - Oh, hi.
They suddenly trust her. - Mm-hmm.
- It's like they've known her for...
It's all of a sudden she's like an old friend.
- So you see, as the bar stool squeaks
for you to stand up, that's your moment of distraction.
(mimics wind whooshing) And you see Dag just goes,
(sniffs sharply and exhales) Hi.
- Hey, Dag, you see pretty much everyone
who walks in this place, right?
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I try.
But not everyone is as noticeable as everyone else.
- And I noticed that Mark Ronson was in here before.
- Yeah, famed music producer.
- Yeah, I love his stuff. He's so good.
- Uptown Funk you up.
- Did he come in with anyone? Was he alone?
Did he have a friend with him?
Has he been talking to anyone?
- He came in here a couple days ago screaming.
He said he drove his car through a portal.
He didn't know how he got here.
- Mm-hmm. - He was trying desperately
to get back to Earth, he didn't know anybody.
He said he feels like he was losing his mind.
People were like, "It's a portal, buddy."
- Yeah, it's a portal. They're pretty standard.
- Pretty standard. - Well, in Kelvorda.
- In Kelvorda. (laughs) Exactly, you get it.
- I mean, show me a town without a portal
and I'll show you, you know.
- But he was around earlier today,
but I ended up seeing him talk with...
There were two folks that came in earlier today
back when the sun was still up, and they headed up
towards the mountain with only, you know,
a couple, like an hour or two to spare to get up there.
They were cutting it pretty close.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, now that you mention it,
it's sort of interesting 'cause one of them,
uh, of course we get all sorts in here,
but I will say, this far from the sea
it's unusual to see merfolk traveling this far.
But I did see there was a merperson
who had one of those sea charms
to grant them legs for a time. - Ah.
- Ooh! Who could that be, her mama?
- I don't know.
So that's when Gertrude leans down
and just whispers in his ear, thank you so much, Dag.
And then she blinks and then he snaps out of the trance.
- (inhales sharply) Oh! (grunts)
- So Gertrude walks over to Troyánn and pulls her aside
and goes, listen- - Wait, girl.
Mark Ronson's dead already. (Brennan laughing)
- Yeah, I know. I already know.
I talked to Dag, the guy at the front door.
He sees everything here,
and there was another merperson here.
But they had the amulet that grants them legs.
- What color was the amulet? - It was...
- [Brennan] It was a... - 'Cause I've said it already-
- Dag did not say, but I think you-
- Oh, I remember. I remember now, I remember.
It was red but it was kinda like a pulsing red color
and it had like some kind of stuff, is that...
- It's an amulet of my mother.
- Is this from Deepwater? - From Edgewater?
- Deepwater. - [Brennan] Oh, uh-
- Edgewater. - Deeptown.
- From Everdeep. - Everdeep!
- It's water. - Love it. Hell yes.
So I think here, Troyánn,
you would remember this right away.
Those amulets are worth more than a king's ransom.
- Yeah.
- If you were able to get more of a description
you might be able to pinpoint it,
but it would have to be one of your like,
cousins or someone close to the royal family.
- Is there anyone in your family
who would be trying to undercut you, take your kills,
put you in bad standing with the Queen of the Underworld?
- These amulets are only held by royal prestige
so it has to be someone of royal lineage to have this amulet.
And I do have a cousin.
- Who? - [Monét] But I'm not sure if it's hers.
- How long can you keep legs?
Like how long does the effect last?
- Well, you know, I'm half merperson and half...
- Yeah, and you will not let your mom forget.
- Per-person. (laughs)
- [Monét] Merperson. - Merperson and per-person.
- Uh-huh, and so I have my legs full time,
but there is a charm that we have down in Riverdeep-ish.
- Everdeep. - [Bob And Monét] Everdeep.
- That can give you legs for 12 hours.
- 12 hours? - [Monét] 12 hours only.
- Well, they can't be gone too long.
- But the water's that far
so it takes a half a day's journey to get here.
- So by the time you get here...
- Isn't that 12 hours? - Let me be clear.
So by the time you get here, your legs are, you're back to-
- Well, the lake by your house, could they stop there?
- Oh, 'cause they can stop in the water.
- [Monét] Next to water, yep.
- Got it, okay, that makes sense.
- Wait, so you get in the water to get the legs back?
- [Monét] I think what- - To rest.
- Yeah, it lasts for 12 hours. - To rest.
- Then once you rest for a little bit you put it back on,
you can go back out and start walking,
is that correct? - Yes.
- So why wouldn't you just bring a bag of water?
- Well, you have to be submerged in it.
- [Monét] Submerged.
- You just, a trash bag of water.
- Well, you're four feet tall. - [Monét] We don't have trash bags.
- You could sit in a bag of water.
- We don't have trash bags in Riverdeep.
- Also, you don't put plastic in the ocean. It's the water.
- Well, that's why it's outside of the ocean with the water.
- They're very sensitive to plastic in the ocean.
Please don't bring it up around-
- Twyla- - I'm just saying.
It's just simple. - Troyánn is very sensitive
to plastic in the ocean. - All right.
- It's a really sore subject.
- Can I go invisible right now?
(cast laughing)
- You can't go invisible at all.
- And I will remind you, we see you! We can see you!
Let me remind you of that. - The whole bar you hear a,
(gasps) gasp from the whole bar
as Twyla believes she has gone invisible.
- And just fully naked in the bar.
- Fully naked on her phone
thinking nobody can hear her. - Hand in the pants.
- Yeah, we cut back to the bar.
Bump Williams goes, I gotta be honest,
I like what's going on here. (players laughing)
This whole situation works for me.
- So if someone came on land and they got legs
and they're merfolk, they had to have had to stop
by a body of water on the way back so we can trace them.
- Amazing, you two have that interaction.
We're gonna cut back to Twyla and Princess over at the bar.
So Bump looks and says,
I hope I've not given the wrong impression.
And if you want to punish me for my rudeness,
I absolutely would be more than fine with that.
- He wants it. - Punch him in the face.
- I do, I do wanna punch him so bad. I hate this guy.
- I'm actually kinda keen on him. He's kinda cute.
- I don't like him.
- Punch him, punch him, punch him!
- Let's get our first attack roll of the campaign!
- Oh my God, We're gonna hit someone.
- Come on, come on! - [Brennan] Hit somebody!
- Okay, great, okay.
- So we're gonna go ahead and attack.
To remind you of some of your abilities
like if it's a full battle,
you're gonna often want to go into a rage.
I'm not sure if you're at that point yet.
- I don't need to go into a rage.
- Great, you also have an ability called 'Reckless Attack.'
That lets you take a big swing.
It lets you roll an attack roll with advantage,
but it means that anyone who wants to attack you
has an easier time doing that.
- I just wanna punch him clean and simple.
- Clean and simple. Give me that d20 and roll it in the box.
- Hit him hard. - 20, 20 sister.
- [Brennan] And you're gonna add eight to this roll.
- Oh, plus eight.
- [Bob] Hit him hard, hit him hard.
- Plus eight, ooh!
A 16 plus eight.
- You're gonna kill him! - 24.
- [Brennan] Oh my God, a 24! - You're gonna pulverize him, girl.
- So Bump looks up and says,
(chuckles) if there's any way I can...
And a massive fist.
Go ahead, just describe what it looks like
as Princess hits this goblin.
- It's just, she's very casual.
He's trying to talk to her to come on up to her.
He's like over here and she just goes. (mimics blow landing)
(Bob laughing)
- This goblin, like skipping a stone across a lake
just hits four different tabletops across the bar.
- Dragon Ball Z. - Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!
(Monét mimics lightning crackling)
Yeah, full Dragon Ball Z. - World shatter.
- (laughs) Shatters a window and is gone.
As he scatters, as you hit him, his jingling coat
drops a couple different things.
- Yes! - Cling, cling, cling,
cling, cling, full like Sonic the Hedgehog style
like gold rings, like pow.
And you see that there are a couple
of these beautiful opal clasps.
There are about, we'll say there's
like five opal clasps on the ground.
The gem is set into silver, and as you look at the gem,
it swims with a little bit of translucency.
At first you wonder if there are cracks
or something within the gemstone, but as you look deeper
you see that the gem is flawless.
It's just that it contains a kind of mist or fog within it.
Do you pick them up off the ground
or do you leave them there?
- If you're gonna pick them up, put on gloves first.
- Oh, do I- - [Jujubee] Just in case.
- [Alaska] Okay, yeah, yeah. - Here.
- But we should definitely pick them up.
We definitely pick them up. - You pick them up.
Either of you can give me an arcana check if you like.
That's one of your skills on your character sheet.
- You're more magic. - What's an arcana spell?
- What does arcana mean?
- So arcana is the knowledge of magic like arcane things.
- That should be you, Twy. - Thanks, I'll give it to you.
- [Brennan] Okay. - What do I do?
- Roll your d20 and you're gonna add your arcana check,
and we'll set a low DC.
It's just a DC 10. You just need to beat a 10.
- So I'm gonna roll a d20 and then I'm gonna add a number.
- [Brennan] Yeah, absolutely. - And what number is that?
- Whatever, on your character sheet right over here.
- [Bob] It's right here. - It is the number
next to the arcana skill. - Look, it's right there.
Look, you are at plus two. - Plus two, okay.
- Great, so you just need an eight or higher.
- Bitch, is your vision invisible too? - What's mine?
- Yes, yes.
- [Brennan] I forget, yeah, you're full buck naked.
(cast laughing)
- Look, 'cause I turned 38, and it's awful.
Okay, bitch. 38. - [Bob] How old are you?
- I'm 35. - You know, when you turn 36
your knees can tell when it's gonna rain.
(Brennan gasps) Just so you know.
- I'll be prepared.
- And I bet you it rains in Kavalda, Kavalda.
- Kelvorda. - Kelvorda.
- Well, that's how Twyla- - Who's also on season 13.
- Twyla has a Bostonian accent. Kavolda.
All right, let me roll this. - (whisper) Avada Kelvorda.
- All right, arcana, arcana.
- And it needs to be more than eight
because we need to add two
'cause it needs to be at least a 10.
But I bet you it's gonna be a 17
so it's gonna end up being a 19, honey!
Oh, it's 11 so 13, which is my lucky number.
- Amazing! - [Jujubee] Wow!
- Yes! - Twyla, you've seen this.
- Good!
- Twyla, you've seen these before.
Spies of the forces of Queen Titania used to wear these.
They are called Wraith Clasps. - Ooh.
- Titania's a fairy queen, right?
- Titania's a fairy queen, that's right.
But in this war between the undead and the fairy realms,
some fairies needed to disguise themselves
to go behind enemy lines,
but that's a very dangerous thing to do
'cause fairies are so visibly alive.
They're filled with the power of nature
so these Wraith Clasps
are not actually the magic of the dead.
They're illusions, and by wearing a Wraith Clasp,
you may disguise yourself as a member of the dead.
So attaching them to your body-
- We getting into drag. (Brennan laughing)
We are getting in drag, honey! - Honey, ooh.
- As an undead, baby.
- [Monét] There's five, there are five.
- There's five of them?
We're gonna need these when we go to the Underworld.
- Perfect.
- But you found them so you can have two.
You can make earrings and we'll get like-
- Oh, just little, hoops. - Yeah, two little buttons.
- Oh, you're gonna be double dead.
- [Jujubee] Double dead. - She's big. She needs two.
- Why are they not called 'the alive?'
- Oh the undead? Why are they not called 'the alive?'
- [Jujubee] Yeah.
- Because they exist as neither living nor dead.
They do not breathe. Blood does not flow in their bodies.
- Oh. - They are cold to the touch,
but they move in a sinister mockery of life.
- I didn't ask for me.
I'm pretty sure people are watching at home thinking-
- They probably don't know,
but Jujubee knew. - Yeah, 'cause I, yeah,
I know everything. - Yeah.
- The undead, yeah, for those at home,
the undead are vampires, ghosts, skeletons, zombies,
all these things that are sort of the animated living dead.
- Michelle Visage. (Brennan sputter laughs)
- What'd you say? - Michelle Visage.
(Brennan laughing)
- Oh, whoo! Um, uh...
- Brennan! - That's very funny.
That's very, very funny. (Alaska laughing)
So, you pick these up and now looking at them,
sometimes it can be dangerous to touch magical objects,
but as soon as Twyla recognized them,
you know that they're safe to touch.
- Yeah, they're fine, baby. Touch 'em, girl.
- You take 'em. - [Jujubee] Baby.
- They're Titania.
- Am I the only one that could use them?
- [Brennan] They can-
- Who has more holding power in their bag.
- They can be used by any who wear them.
- [Alaska] Okay.
- [Jujubee] Well I mean, ladies.
- 'Cause these'll be useful.
- I have a backpack. I can hold 'em, right?
- But ladies, ladies, hold on, hold on.
Let me just take a little- - Well, are we still separate?
Are we still...
- I'm gonna say at this point enough time has passed
that you guys can rejoin at the bar.
Also, you're no longer being bothered by Bump
so you have a little bit of... - [Bob] Yeah.
- Like in the noise of a busy tavern you have a little bit
of that kind of like, privacy in a crowd.
- We've already done the meet and greet.
- Gotcha. - Now we're gonna be here
and talk about these little amulets?
- Yeah, Wraith Clasps. - These Wraith Clasps.
- I realize now how hard that word is to say out loud.
- Yeah, Wraith Clasps that I know of.
And it's gonna help us. I can keep it if you want.
You trust me, right? Or we can all just have one.
- Yeah, but the way you're saying it
makes it seem like I shouldn't trust you.
Like, I did until you said it like that.
Like I was like, yeah I trust...
Just, you know, pretty much I trust Twyla, but you-
- Well, I'm telling you
- But then you said it all weird.
- Well, I'm telling you to trust me.
- And you're saying that these Wraith Clasps
can make us undead?
- Can make us look undead. - Yeah, what it's gonna do
is it's gonna disguise us so that the people
who are chasing after us don't see,
especially me 'cause I'm a fey.
- Okay. - And you know, I'm so lively
because I'm of the earth.
You know, I'm vibrant. - Okay.
- So with these little Wraith Clasps,
it helps me appear as though I am also the undead.
- With your consent, can I Detect Thoughts
with you real quick 'cause I wanna make sure
you're not doing a thing.
The way you said it, it made me uneasy. I'm not gonna lie.
I wanna be open. I wanna be honest. - With my consent?
- I would like to do a Detect Thoughts. - You do not have my consent.
- So the moment, the moment Twyla turns around
Gertrude does it anyway. (cast laughing)
- Now, the cool thing about Detect Thoughts, too,
is Detect Thoughts is actually a pretty powerful spell.
It lasts for a while, and while you have it
you can move your Detect Thoughts over groups of people.
You can scan a room with it. You can sort of like...
But I'll say it captures surface thoughts.
And the way Detect Thoughts works as a spell
is it only captures sort of what is most on the mind
of a person at a given moment.
But if you want to probe deeper,
you have to roll dice to see if you're successful.
What are Twyla's surface thoughts in this moment
as she speaks about these, the magic of the Wraith Clasps
and sort of like, what they're for?
- Well, honestly, Twyla hasn't seen these Wraith Clasps
in a really long time so she's just trying to recall,
which is probably why she sounds
like she's not being trustworthy.
- Mm-hmm, okay. - Bob!
- She's just trying to- - Gertrude.
- Gertrude. (laughs)
- Gertrude. - Bob trusts Jujubee,
but Gertrude does not trust Twyla in this moment.
- Well, Twyla's fine. It's- - Yeah, okay.
- Okay.
- Gertrude, you sense the depth of sort of the honesty here.
I mean, probably you pick up some extra information
about the association with like,
I think you're getting some of the emotional heat.
- Yeah.
- Of like, what the clasps mean to Twyla.
- Mm-hmm. - But you sense an honesty
in talking about how useful these objects are.
- Got it, got it. - Do you sense an honesty?
- I do sense an honesty, yeah. - Good, I do too.
- Well, Gertrude does. (cast laughing)
- I'll remember that on this journey.
- The important thing is that when we go to the Underworld,
this'll be really useful. - [Jujubee] We're protected.
Yeah, we're protected. - Put these on and we can like
be like, bleh, we're zombies. - Yeah.
- And hopefully we won't need them until we get there.
- Yeah. - But I will say,
there is the case with the amulet.
- Yeah, your merfolk amulet. - [Monét] The merfolk amulet.
- So I'll say that we can just say
that you share the information
that you've collected separately.
- So we didn't tell you all
that we need to go get to a body of water real quick.
We think there is an assassin here
who is trying to take Troyánn's kills
and put her in a bad standing
with the Queen of the Underworld.
- Yes.
- Gertrude, give me a perception check with advantage.
- So the d20 and the six? No, the...
- Oh no, just the d20.
Roll it twice and take the better of the two rolls.
- Oh, that's right. That's what it is, all right.
So this is a... - 20.
- An 11. - [Brennan] Okay.
- Two ones. - (tongue pop) Thank you.
(Jujubee and Brennan laughing)
And a 16. - [Jujubee] Oh!
- [Brennan] Okay, and add your perception to it.
- And my perception is very much giving...
Perception is plus two.
- [Brennan] Okay. - So 18.
- 18, as you say that, so you still have this sort of,
this like, Detect Thoughts spell in your mind
as you're speaking to your friends.
You know that a merperson,
that Dag saw a merperson here earlier.
You know legendary American music producer
Mark Ronson is dead. - [Monét] Yes.
- You know that, you know,
some people have clocked your presence here, right?
Princess smelled cedar. There's other things going on.
She's still very angry.
I didn't know you were that mad at the goblin.
(Alaska growls)
I thought she was, she has anger problems.
- Her family died. - Well, I mean-
- As your consciousness moves over the crowd,
are you with those clasps?
Are you passing them out so that everyone has one?
- That's what I was trying to suggest,
but if you were to, you know,
I could carry them in my purse.
I mean, I'll take, I'll hold mine.
- I'll hold mine too. - Yeah, we can hold onto them.
- [Brennan] Yeah, so- - All right, cool.
Here you go, here you go, here you go. Do I have-
- Who has the extra one? - Twyla.
- I actually think Princess should carry the extra one
because you were the one that found them.
And she's big. - She's also eight feet tall.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - And she needs more-
- She needs the earrings to balance out her shoulders.
- It only covers her to the ankles.
- Princess's decisive swatting of that goblin
is what got you the Wraith Clasps in the first place.
- Yeah. - Right, right.
- So everyone put a Wraith Clasp on your character sheet.
You can do it in your equipment
like middle bottom of the sheet,
and Princess can put two.
- Where is the equipment, honey? Oh, there it is.
- Bottom in the middle.
- Well, I got the Seed of All Blossom.
- Do I put two next to it? Or in that little box-
- You have one. - Oh, right, sorry.
- Wow, did you just try to steal Princess's Wraith Clasp?
(Brennan laughs) - I would not, never.
- Your Detect Thoughts, so you still...
It's powerful magic to summon the ability
to hear the hidden thoughts of others.
And even as the spell is fading
as you talk to your companions,
you're talking about these Wraith Clasps,
and you hear a voice somewhere in the room go,
they got the goblin's Wraith Clasps.
Someone thinking it to themselves.
- Do I know who's thinking it or I just hear the thought?
- I think on an 18 perception you dart
out of the corner of your eye, that young kid,
the like, helper- - Wallace?
- [Brennan] Wallace. - Wallace!
- [Brennan] Who got your water.
- What you talking about, Wallace?
(Brennan and Jujubee laughing)
- You look at Wallace who's, you know, sort of like a young,
handsome stable hand. - [Jujubee] Twink, a twink.
- [Bob] Is he like a child or a young adult?
- [Brennan] Early twenties.
- [Bob] Early twenties, got it.
- [Jujubee] A twink. - [Bob] Relatable to me.
- But you notice, you know, I wouldn't say he's...
He's not as like, sort of peasant as like,
Johan that we met in your memory.
He's wearing a nice green jerkin. It's simple.
He's wearing, you know, the clothes of someone
who lives in town and works in a tavern.
But you notice a strange thing.
For a kid who's like a stablehand,
the kid they send to run and get water,
you see a little glimmer of a silver chain around his neck
and you see that he's got a Wraith Clasp
hidden under his shirt, and his is not silvery.
It's a deep blood red. - Whoa!
- [Brennan] And you see the kid-
- Wait!
- And what I'm gonna need from you now
is a stealth check to disguise your glance
otherwise Wallace is gonna notice
that you've clocked him. - Shit.
- I wanna roll. What am I gonna roll?
- You're gonna roll a d20.
You're gonna add your stealth skill.
- So my stealth skill is very much giving plus three.
- All right, stealth. - You need to beat a 12.
- I'm at 11 plus three is 14.
- So you are able to, your glance is shielded enough.
You are subtle enough and practiced in these ways
to not give yourself away.
You see that rather than like, noticing
and bolting from the room,
Wallace continues to take trays of drinks,
and you see he sort of tightens the strings
around the top of his shirt a little more,
continues to put drinks around the tavern.
But you notice this, yeah, this young stablehand
who's like, you know, working here at the tavern
serving drinks has a pretty powerful magical item around.
- Am I allowed to use...
I have something in here
that lets me talk to people in my head.
- Yeah, Message. - Message.
Can I Message Twyla? - [Brennan] Yeah.
- Okay, so I'm gonna Message Twyla.
- [Brennan] Cool. - And tell her about this kid,
the water kid. - How do I hear it?
- [Brennan] You just hear-
- You know the most about the magic. I don't know-
- Then I'll literally be looking around like,
what the fuck, where is this coming from?
- [Brennan] And I'll say in this-
- Well, I'm gonna start by saying, don't look around.
I'm gonna start by saying, Twyla, don't freak out.
- Okay. - [Bob] Stay calm.
Oh, I know you can hear my thoughts.
No one else can hear them right now.
- Okay, well, let me act natural.
- Yeah, act natural. Yeah, yeah.
Now just so you know, that kid over there,
the one that got your water, he has a Wraith Clasp.
His is not the same color, though.
His is like a deep, deep red, and he's hiding it.
He's hiding it so just be, I say be...
You need to roll a fucking stealth.
- Yeah, actually what I'm gonna need from everyone here
is I'm gonna need a performance check to be nor...
Like, being in a group of friends where half of them
start talking telepathically is like, I'm gonna need a-
- Everybody looking like, what's going on?
Why are you all acting like that? What's wrong with her?
- Yeah, the conversation
has stopped completely dead in the middle.
- 'Cause my stealth check is killer.
It's just you just walking around going.
Bitch thinks she's invisible again. What's wrong?
- I'm gonna say I need a performance or deception roll.
You can choose which one you want.
- [Bob] Everyone? - What does deception do?
- Deception is the same thing as like being...
Deception is like lying and being kind of manipulative.
- Everyone has to do it?
- No, you've already made your stealth. You're okay.
- How dare you ask what that means. You're crazy.
- And let me know the number.
So you roll your d20 and you add either performance
or deception, whichever one you want.
- The higher one. - Can I choose after?
- [Brennan] You can choose it after, yeah.
- Do the one that's higher.
- [Monét] Performance or? - [Brennan] Deception.
- Or deception. - [Jujubee] So 12.
- They both two for me. - [Brennan] Okay.
- Yeah, mine is 12 plus two. - [Brennan] 14.
- Ooh! - (gasps) What's that?
- 20 plus 2.
- (gasps) Incredible! I'm gonna-
- Where was that when you were fucking trying to...
- I'm gonna say on a natural 20, Troyánn,
you have enough training as an assassin,
and you know when covert things are happening.
And I think on a 20 deception just can clock,
already feeling kind of a synergy, a moment of knowing
how your fellow heroes and travelers work that I think
you can just start talking 'cause you know
that a secret hidden conversation is happening,
and your nat 20 covers the entire group.
So you are not suspicious as you two confer telepathically.
- So we're all up to speed? - All up to speed.
And I'll say that your Message cantrip
can actually occur between all four of you
so you can all have a telepathic conversation
while maintaining the appearance of like,
being lively and talking.
- So I think I wanna say that I feel like,
and Princess, please don't get-
- Fly into a rage? - [Bob] Yeah.
- Yeah, no, I'll try. - I think that we
should follow this kid after work
and find out what's up with him.
Like, when he's alone, corner him and be like,
what's up with this thing?
- Well, I think that since it's a different color,
he's probably undead pretending to be not undead.
(Bob gasps) - That sounds like it is.
- And you know about the undead. Does he look familiar?
- He does look like someone I have seen down there.
- [Jujubee] Really? - Should I get thirsty again
and ask for flower water so Wallace can go to the well
to get us some water and then we can go over there
and stop that motherfucker and ask?
- Ask for a water. Yeah, ask for a water.
- Oh, I'm so thirsty!
- We can go around the back and meet him at the well
and be like, what's up? - [Monét] Yeah.
- I'm thirsty!
- You see Kashra goes, um, very well.
If you'll put some clothes on,
I'd be happy to get you a drink.
- (laughs) Twyla! (players laughing)
- I hand her her clothes. - [Monét] Twyla, Jesus Christ!
- On the ground naked.
- Twyla! - Twyla.
- Sorry, it got really hot in the tavern.
(cast laughing)
I'm not from here.
- She looks at you and says, all right,
well, would you like something stiff
or are you still sticking with the water?
- Same, water, I just want five gallons of it
so it's gonna take a while, right?
- Wallace, go get the big bucket.
We want five gallons of water for one of our guests.
- You're so tiny. Is that-
- I wonder what kinda plants there are on this island place.
We should go look at stuff. - Let's go see.
Let's go to the back as well. - [Bob] Let's go look at the-
- Okay, so it's up to you.
You can just walk straight out to the well.
If you want to go stealthily, you can.
- Well, let's hang out a little bit. Let him go.
Give him like a minute or two to walk there,
and then we'll go after him one by one
otherwise it'll just look, we're all leaving.
Remember, Dag keeps an eye on everything.
Dag knows everything going on here.
- And also, so that's a smart move
to do five gallons of water
'cause he's gonna be there for a minute so you can all...
I'm gonna say without even needing to roll,
each of you one by one peels out from the tavern
covering your exit so it's not conspicuous.
And as you move, are you trying
to surround the well stealthily
or are you just like, walking straight up?
- I think we walk straight up.
We're not pussyfooting around anymore.
- We walk straight up. - I think he just, he's just-
- So piece by piece you all peel around and you see Wallace
kind of hoisting water up out of the well
and pouring it into a big sort of barrel to bring back.
- Princess, drop the ax really heavy
to like, establish dominance and make him turn around.
(Alaska mimics ax pounding) (Brennan laughing)
- You drop the ax. (mimics impact thudding)
Go ahead and roll intimidation for me, the d20.
- Intimidation.
(tense music) (die taps table)
That's a three plus five.
- Three plus five, that's an eight.
So you drop the ax. - Princess.
- Wallace turns to look at the ax that drops there,
turns to look at you, sees all of the rest of you
sort of gathered around here.
Um, my lady, I'm so sorry.
I'm getting the water as fast as I can.
- Hm.
- Is there anything I can help you all...
- I wanna use Mage Hand. - [Brennan] Yeah.
- To pop his shirt open and reveal this chalice.
- Hell yes. You're gonna do that.
And I'm gonna need everybody to roll initiative.
- Okay. - It's one of the numbers
at the very top of your character sheet.
It's next to your armor class. - Oh, yes.
- Initiative, plus three. You have have plus 14, my word.
- Okay, 17 plus three. - [Monét] Plus 14?
- [Brennan] Mm-hmm. - Oh, God.
- Incredible, so roll and let me know what you get.
- Okay, I have 15 plus three. - I'm a six plus five, 11.
- Eight, eight plus 14. That is 22.
- 22, yeah. Twyla, her fairy reflexes are like, incredible.
- Yeah, that's a lot. - Quick on the jump.
So, the sort of surprise round kicks off.
So Gertrude acts first even though you rolled a lower number
because you sort of act in your own round.
You (mimics magical energy whooshing) telekinetically
your Mage Hand, (puffs) it's a bust of magic
and you see the strings pop off of Wallace's jerkin
revealing this glowing red Wraith Clasp.
- Mm-mm.
- You all immediately see Wallace drops the act and books.
He dips down and is gonna try
to sprint towards the woodline.
However, Twyla and Princess are going to be able
to act in that order before him.
So Twyla, you are first to act
as you see this guy's gonna make a break for it.
- Hold on, let me look at one...
Let me see, let me see. What do I do, what do I do?
Oh, Jesus. Oh my goodness.
- You're fast, right? No, you're fast.
- I think I am. - [Monét] I'm fast.
- We're all the same speed. She can get the-
- We can see really good in the dark too.
Or wait, we can see really good in the dark.
- Hold on, hold on, he's running towards the forest?
- [Brennan] He's running towards the forest, yeah.
- Oh! - Do we follow him?
- Yes, baby, yes we do 'cause we gotta find out.
And you know what I'm gonna do right now,
I'm gonna use a spell and I'm gonna summon a beast.
(Brennan gasps) (Alaska yelps)
- Oh my God, that seems aggressive, Twyla.
- Zero to 60! (Brennan laughing)
- [Monét] Twyla, Twyla - Baby-
- Assault with a beast!
- You wanna assault this man with a no-knock warrant.
Okay, relax. - I don't care!
We need to know why this little shit has-
- Okay. - This is bad cop worse cop.
- I don't care.
I may be a fairy and tiny and everything,
but you don't fuck with me and my friends
so I'm gonna summon a beast
that's gonna be a helpful forest creature
to come and aid me and us. - Incredible.
- Am I playing this right? - You're playing it perfectly.
This fucking rules. (Bob chuckling)
Twyla, is there a type of beast
that Twyla tends to call on for aid from the woodland realm?
- Oh, any kind of beast. - Any kind of beast?
A Cat Tree. - A Cat Tree?
- Yes. - What's a Cat Tree?
That's a beast? - It is a tree.
- No, a beast. - That looks like a cat
and it's a beast. - That's her beast, girl.
- [Brennan] You see, all of you see-
- I thought you were gonna call owls for a second.
- All of you see, first you're like,
oh, something's like, trapped in that hedge.
And then you see that, no, the hedge is moving.
A snarl of tree limbs, briars, thorns
with blossoming jasmine all throughout its body
forms into a saber-toothed tiger.
(Alaska gasps) This massive panther.
- Yes! (Brennan growls)
- With these huge thorns for fangs and (growls)
leaps from the woodline and is going to begin
to kind of triangulate.
And Princess, you see that you now have this,
a panther made of thorns summoned by Twyla helping you.
What are you gonna do as you see Wallace
begins to book it away from the well?
- Run and grab him. - Hell yeah.
So Wallace has a speed of 30. I believe your speed is 40.
- Oh! (Brennan laughs)
- You don't say. - Hm, oops.
- Absolutely trivial so what we're gonna do now
is Wallace is making it for the woodline.
The panther is going to give you the help action
which means that you are gonna roll with advantage.
And I'm gonna say this is pretty important
so we're gonna bring out the Box of Doom.
- [Bob] All right, honey. - Ooh!
- That was my nickname in high school.
(cast laughing)
- I'm gonna roll for Wallace first.
Wallace is way stronger than he appears to be.
He's gonna add- - It's 'cause he's not even,
like, I think he's probably undead.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So he's gonna add a five to this roll in the Box of Doom.
- Shit! (die taps Box of Doom)
- [Brennan] He only rolls a five.
- Okay. - [Alaska] That's good.
- [Brennan] So Princess, you are going
to add your athletics check here.
- Come on, Princess.
- And you're gonna roll twice- - Athletics.
- 'Cause the panther's helping you.
- No Whammies, no Whammies, no Whammies.
- Plus eight. - Oh, you got this.
- What is that? I can't see. - Better not be a two.
- [Brennan] That is a 15. Incredible.
- 15 plus eight. - [Bob] Werk, you got...
You definitely- - Okay, and let's do one more.
- See if we can beat it. (dramatic music)
15 is the higher of the rolls
so that is a 23 on a grapple check.
Princess, how do you tie this guy up
in a knot as you catch him?
- Well, he's wearing a, what's it called, a jerkin?
- A jerkin, yeah. - [Brennan] A jerkin, yes.
- What is that? A strings?
- Yeah, it's kinda like this shirt here.
It's just sort of like a simple Medieval shirt.
- Really popular back then. Everyone loved a jerkin.
- Oh! - Green was the color.
- Yeah. - Yeah, no, I enjoy a jerkin.
(Jujubee laughing)
I wanna like, use his clothes to tie him
like hands behind his back. - Like you rip his shirt off?
- And I hold him like up like, boop.
- Do you rip his jerkin off his body?
- Like a to-go container. - Ooh.
- Oh? - You see, yeah,
all of you watch Princess vault in a single leap.
As the panther blocks his path, he suddenly stops running
and Princess just lands knee first into like, boom!
And just right into his lower back. He sprawls.
She wraps- - Jesus!
- She like, wraps up his sleeves.
He's got a couple strings on his sleeves.
And literally he is like, a four-corner bag
of his pant legs and sleeves, and you are holding him
like his back painfully arched.
- Oh, like that. That's hot. - That's fierce.
- And all of you watch as Princess yanks him up
and you hear a snap of his spine.
(players gasp) - Oh!
- And he fully folds in half. - Oh my! This-
- Dang! - Oops.
- Is he hurt? - Yes! His spine is-
- His spine is broken, Twyla. - So here's what happens.
For a moment you're all like, oh my God, we killed Wallace.
And you see Wallace hanging there.
And all of you watch as the figure
that has just had its spine snapped goes. (exhales deeply)
(growls monstrously) The Wraith Clasp changes color
and his face turns sallow white.
- [Monét] I knew it. - [Brennan] Rotting.
You can see some of his teeth
through a hole in the side of his cheek.
I cannot believe you guys guessed that!
That's so fucking cool! Incredible!
- You did that, you did that. - [Brennan] Yes, yes.
- That was great, Princess. - And you see Wallace,
rotting eyes, you see there's some sort of maggot
crawling in the corner of one of his eyes.
Looks up and says, well, you've broken my spine.
Is there anything I can do to help you? (snarls)
- Oh, what do we do? Do we want-
- Is, wait, wait, is spine breaking like the thing?
- Well, it's upsetting at least.
He seems clearly upset by the fact his spine is broken.
- Yeah, it's unsettling.
- It's an inconvenience to say the least.
- Okay, but is that how you reveal people who are disguised?
- It seems that what happened was, when his spine broke
and he can still like, talk and look around,
he sort of went, well, the jig is up.
- The jig is up. - The jig is up.
- Okay, so his wig came off, basically.
- Yeah. (Brennan laughing)
- So I mean, I think we should ask him,
does he know anything about who killed Mark Ronson?
- Yeah, go ask him.
- He did work in the tavern
so he might know. - He did work there.
Okay, what's his name again?
- Wallace. - Wallace.
- It's not Wallace. - Is that even his real name?
- [Monét] Right, we don't even know.
- It's not his real name. - Right.
- It's probably Carl. - Or Chuck.
- It's probably Swallace. Drop the S, no one knows.
- [Monét] So we're just gonna ask him-
(Bob laughing)
We're gonna ask him- (Bob and Jujubee laughing)
- Who, Swallace? - Can't use your real name.
- Swallace. - Oh, I'm a Wallace.
- [Monét] Swallace. - No one'll...
- I wanna ask him if, does he know who...
Wallace, do you know who killed Mark Ronson?
(Brennan exhales sharply)
- Not only do I know who killed Mark Ronson,
I think you know who killed Mark Ronson.
(Alaska gasps) - [Jujubee] Wait a minute.
- He knows who you are, girl.
- You see he looks at you and says,
your cousin Keena says hello.
- Keena? - Keena, I knew it! 'Cause it-
- You knew it was her. - Cousin KK.
- Yeah. (Brennan laughing)
- I knew it. Okay, so where did she go, Wallace?
- She came in here with some lady. I don't know.
Just white eyes, she had a symbol of the Sun God on her.
It looked she was asking about a witch.
(Alaska gasps)
- Gertie. - Wait a minute.
- Okay, I didn't tell you all this,
but I had to flee my home
because I was being hunted down by...
The inquisitor of the Glorious Sun!
- You see he says, yeah, these sun clerics, you know,
they're always after the undead.
But whatever religious scruples she had,
she certainly didn't mind doing business with me.
(Brennan chuckles gravelly)
- Okay true. - What are you gonna do
with this undead guy? - So I think I'm gonna,
as I reach over to Wallace, I snatch his amulet off
and his body just dissipates and he goes away.
- (gasps) You see he goes (screams) as he begins to go away.
You see that this corrupted Wraith Clasp,
as you've said before, this is like fairy magic
that has been turned by the undead to disguise them
in the world of the living. - That's crazy, that's crazy.
- You see that he (wheezes) and as he goes away,
I think all of you see an image.
The image you see (mimics wind howling)
as his body turns to mist is the face
that I'm afraid only one of you recognizes.
The face of Zaria Hex.
- So I know who that is. - Yes.
- You see her face and you know that she had the power
to create undead, and as he turns, however,
I'll add one last detail here.
That mist turns to smoke and that smoke smells like cedar.
(Alaska gasps dramatically)
- It's got the... - [Jujubee] Dang.
- It's all connected.
- See, I knew it was that bitch.
- And Keena. - Yeah, and Keena.
- [Jujubee] What was her name again?
- [Brennan] Zaria Hex.
- I knew that Keena was up to no good.
- And Zaria Hex is... - Also, to be fair...
- I wrote this down.
- Troyánn, I didn't know you were gonna kill him. - Defeated us.
I thought you were gonna rough 'em up a little bit.
(Alaska laughing) - I mean, well,
the saber-toothed tiger already does it.
- This giant panther comes over to Twyla and is like-
- His spine is broken.
- Yeah, the thorn panther goes, (snorts)
and walks over and just sorta flops next to Twyla's feet.
- Yeah. - Aw.
- I was thinking more it was a large tuxedo cat,
but we can go with panther.
- It's already canon, it's already canon.
- Yeah, I'm just saying. - Already canon.
- I think that I release Wallace from some misery.
- There we go.
- So now can I take his amulet, his Wraith Clasp
and add it to my satchel? - Yes.
This is going to be a little bit less useful to you
because you are all in the living, but it's possible
going to the underworld that this might be-
- We might make a friend. - Yeah, incredibly useful
to some of the people who live there.
- And I have two now. - Werk.
- Hell yes.
- We gotta find this Zaria bitch and talk to her.
- We do. - So the four of you know
that, I mean, your cousin and someone
that you have been warned about
who you are specifically trying to avoid
seem to be working in cahoots.
And not only are they working together,
but they clearly had business with this thing
that you now know is a creation of Zaria Hex.
And all the while something about that goblin
that recognized you, something foul is happening in Greeley
and I think, Troyánn, you having come through here
many times before, even for Greeley
that normally has some strange customers come through,
this is a deeper sense of danger.
Something is at work here
that is not normal for these journeys to the Underworld.
- The Music Man, we got trouble right here in Greeley City.
(cast laughing) - Trouble with a capital T.
(Bob laughing) - So all of you look up
and sort of see in the dark, far distant, you know,
it's so far away that you see the flash of lightning
and it takes a couple seconds for the thunder to hit.
But you see illuminated in that lightning...
(thunder crashing)
(mimics thunder pounding) The Temple of Wraiths,
Mount Basira. - Mm-hmm.
- [Brennan] So I put- - Right in the middle of this.
- There you go, so I put the question to all of you.
Even though it is a dangerous journey
up through the mountains, knowing what you know
about the people that have already appeared here
in the town, do you want to try to spend the night
to go in the morning or do you feel
that you must journey right away?
- Do we use...
- Oh, everyone should talk amongst ourselves for a second.
- Yeah. - [Brennan] Yeah.
- And I think that we wanna get there before Keela.
- Keena? - Keena.
- And Keena's obviously had to stop by some water
so if we start now it is more dangerous,
but we can get there before her and intercept the soul.
- [Jujubee] Is there a way to make Keena not see any water?
- Not to see?
- [Bob] Well, she might already be at the water
for all we know. - Yeah.
- But she don't walk that fast, I bet.
- Well, I don't know. I don't know.
- You don't know what Keena's like.
- Keena's really powerful.
She got some good legs. - You don't what Keena's like.
- Well, what can we do
to keep ourselves safe to travel tonight?
- Well, we can see really good in the dark.
- Yeah, we can see in the dark perfectly.
- So what do I do?
- You're fast and you get naked sometimes randomly.
- You can fly. - I think we should do it.
- I think we should leave now. - We should go.
- [Monét] We should leave now. - Okay.
- So we can make sure we cut Keena off
before she gets to water. - All right.
- Or she might already be there. We don't know.
- [Brennan] As you begin to journey, yeah, so there's a lot.
So as Gertrude has said, if Keena needs to rest
to recharge the power of the amulet
for a dangerous journey to the Underworld,
this might be your only window.
- Mm-hmm. - [Alaska] Right.
- So making your way, there is still a light lit
in that watchtower with a couple guards.
Do you want to just head up the main road
past the watchtower or would you try
to find an alternate route up to the temple?
- An alternate route.
- [Monét] An alternate route would be the best.
- I think alternate, yeah. - Okay.
- Bob the Drag Queen would pick the safe road,
but Gertrude, she 'bout it 'bout it.
- Incredible, so what I will need from all of you
is a group stealth check
if you were going to try to move unseen.
- Ladies, stealth check time! - Stealth check, ladies.
- Ladies, stealth check.
- Oh, I need to move my little thing.
I keep on rolling really bad numbers.
- My stealth is plus three. - It's not the thing, honey.
- [Monét] Mine is plus five. - And I'll say here, too,
for Twyla's purposes that this is the type of action
that Pass Without Trace would help with.
- Okay, well she...
Okay, what does that mean? - Oh!
- I'm at eight plus three. - Oh that's the-
- [Brennan] That's the spell, the shadow spell.
- I'm 11. - I can do that anytime?
- You can cast that whenever you want.
- Oh, she's gonna cast that, honey.
- So for our spellcasters, all spells that are very powerful
can only be done a limited number of times,
but right now in this circumstance
it might be wise for sure. - Got it.
- Okay, so it's 12. - I'm at 11 then.
- 12 plus five is a 17, right? Stealth?
- That is correct so everyone get your stealth.
And Pass Without Trace allows everybody
to add a plus 10 to stealth checks.
- Oh. - [Jujubee] Do I do that?
- I'm at like 28. - [Bob] I'm at 18.
- 28, incredible.
- 17 plus 10, 27. - [Brennan] 27.
- So it's my plus and the plus?
- [Brennan] And plus 10. - So I'm at 11 so I'm at 21.
- 21. - Five plus 12, 27.
- All of you beat a 20.
As you head out, rather than going past the watchtower,
like, you've already been seen enough in town.
Letting the guards get an eye on you journeying,
that goblin, you know, all this weird goings-on in town,
all of you make the choice to head straight up the cliffside
and Twyla, you whisper. (mimics wind whooshing)
What does it look like as you call on the shadows
to protect you and your friends?
- I kind of imagined it coming from under and up
where it was almost like this vacuum
where we were just protected like this
so there's this like, orb of smoke and shadow.
Maybe little bits and pieces of things come out of it,
but that's our protection.
That's what I see it as.
- Shadows of above, shadows from below.
- Mm-hmm.
- Cover you like a warm and welcoming blanket.
This is the feeling of nighttime as a benevolent mother
inviting you into her embrace to be secret and move unseen.
You even hear small whispers in Sylvan,
the language of the fairies.
The grass and the earth whispering to you,
Twyla, we will not betray your steps.
No one shall find your tracks this night.
- Oh, I love that. I love that.
- I don't speak Sylvan, but it sounds nice.
(cast laughing)
- Hey, that was really emotional and beautiful.
- Oh! (laughs) I'm glad!
- Tell me more. I wanna know some more, that was...
- What else is it saying?
What other nice things is it saying?
- You're amazing, man.
- Oh, thank you! - [Jujubee] I was like, oh my God.
Okay, what else, what else? - [Bob] Brennan does it again.
- This is how it starts, honey. - Brennan again-ing.
- We're gonna get married soon. - Again with Brennan.
(Brennan laughing)
And what else do they say in Sylvan?
- Every step you're like, well,
this stealth spell has a lot of grass talking to Twyla
saying nice compliments.
- She's just like, talking to me in your head.
And I'm like, girl, I'm busy. - Yeah.
You are completely unseen, and not only that,
the magic of the Wraith Clasps that you carry also fools,
you know, if there are any strange undead things
up on the mountainsides, as often happens
in the Mountains of Shadow,
their magic will only perceive you
as fellow spirits of death moving with those Wraith Clasps.
So you are protected from sight and from magic
as you move up the mountainside.
Now, normally scaling these cliffs
would be tremendously challenging,
but even as the rain begins,
Twyla's 'Natural Explorer' ability prevents you
from being slowed even in difficult terrain.
- And I'm flying, so.
- As you journey up the mountainside, Twyla,
I think you alight with your wings and are able
to scout ahead and find the best hidden paths
up through the rocks so all of you going up the cliffs
actually manage to get there even faster
than those who are traveling on the road.
You might have even beaten people
who are taking the long road up.
- We're definitely gonna get there before Keena.
- Oh, Kiki.
- As you travel up protected by magic,
guided by your woodland ranger up through the hills,
the hills become mountains.
And covered by the magic of the Wraith Clasps, you
(mimics lightning crackling) the rain begins to fall.
As it hits Princess's broad shoulders,
it (mimics steam hissing) just cuts into steam
from how naturally (snarls) filled
with that sort of burning rage.
And Troyánn, you actually feel the sheen of water
cover you once more and feel that like,
restoring and regenerating power here.
- Yes, yes.
- Gertrude, as you approach the temple, you hear-
- The rain makes your knees hurt.
(cast laughing) - Mine are hurting too.
Yeah, we're the old ones. - A monster.
- You behold the temple of death.
Here, a goddess whose name is lost
to the people who live below, the Goddess of the Underworld
had this temple built in her honor.
And yet in the long years, her name forgotten,
this place now nothing more than a myth,
a haunted dwelling of spirits
but with a fabled entrance to the Underworld.
You see deep shadows awaiting in the entry to the temple.
- Oh shit. - You can feel that coldness
of the stone inside, a place not meant for dwelling
but for reverent worship of the spirits of the afterlife.
Colder even still than the stones that surround it
for its nearness to realms beyond.
As you approach, Gertrude, you and you alone
hear a whisper on the wind.
(inhales raspily) Gertrude, do you come seeking
that which all mortals seek never to find?
- And I think this makes Gertrude very sad.
She's at this place, even though she's here
and she's made it this close,
she somehow feels like it just won't happen for her.
She's always tried to seek her final resting place
and she is tired, she is weary, she is worn out.
She's been fighting her whole life,
longer than anyone should be alive.
But she just kinda like, takes a deep breath and she goes-
- Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.
- (laughs) It feels good and she is, I will, it will,
and then she goes inside.
She's like, well, she's not in there yet,
but she's like, she's feeling like, I can do this.
This is my chance, finally.
- Do all of you enter the Temple of Wraiths?
- Abso-fucking-lutely. - [Monét] Yes.
- Hell yes. - Sisters.
- [Jujubee] Yeah.
- Sisters together facing Death itself.
You enter the temple. (mimics wind howling)
Yawning darkness surrounds you.
Troyánn, you've been here many times before
and you know the way.
At the far end of the temple,
there is a circle of stone with ancient runes
in the language of the dead written around it.
Many tall statues of robed figures
with various animal heads, vulture, jackal, crow, lion.
- Tree Cat. - Tree Cat.
- Tuxedo cat. - Tuxedo cat gaze down.
As you step to the edge of the circle,
you see one of these statues,
the one in the very center looking directly at the doorway
but faced down instead to peer
at the center of this runed circle.
Troyánn, as you approach, all of you see a light
gleaming from Troyánn's satchel.
(Jujubee gasps) - Oh, it's your amulet.
- Yeah, my amulet. - The Wraith Clasp.
- Which one is it, though?
- This is your ancestral one. This is the Soul Keeper.
- Oh, the OG one. - Oh, oh, nevermind.
- [Monét] Yeah, my amulet. - The big one, okay.
- [Bob] Got it. - Not my Wraith Clasp.
- You all see the vulture-headed figure in robes
carved in stone, the eyes glow red.
And a voice echoes from unmoving stone
filling each of you with a chill of some unnatural magic.
The voice of Gargrim speaks,
who you have spoken to many times before.
(inhales hauntingly) Troyánn, keeper of souls,
assassin of the Everdeep.
I see this time you do not walk alone.
What business do you have with these strangers?
- We come here to seek a traitor.
- A traitor you seek? - Yes.
- Do you speak on their behalf, Troyánn?
- No.
- I've come here for something.
Oh, it feels like we're with the Wizard of Oz,
like we're at the Wizard. (cast laughing)
I want a heart, I want a brain.
♪ He's the Wiz ♪
(Brennan laughing)
- I've come, but I don't intend to leave.
I've not told you all this,
but this should be my final resting place.
(Alaska gasps) - Gertie!
- Oh, she about to die. - Plot twist.
- [Jujubee] I have a question. - [Brennan] Yeah, Twyla.
- Why am I here? - [Brennan] Helping you-
- You're trying to find the people
who blew up your, like, family.
- So we're basically doing the same thing.
- [Alaska] I think so because- - Revenge.
- I think the connection is that it's the same person.
It's that lady... - Zaria, yeah.
- [Monét] Zaria. - [Alaska] Zaria.
- Of course it's Zaria. - It's giving revenge.
- Fucking Zaria. - Zaria.
- There are many answers here.
For Twyla, not only answers
as to how your people were destroyed,
but also you still carry the Seed of the Allblossom.
It's possible that the Goddess of Death might,
if you were able to gain audience with her,
give you the magic needed to restore the Allblossom
and bring light back to the fairy realm.
For Princess, the answers of how your family fell into ruin,
how they were killed and destroyed,
who would have done such a thing.
- I think that in hindsight,
I probably shouldn't tell the girls yet
that I don't intend to leave. - [Brennan] Yeah.
- I feel like that should be my little secret so...
- Let me ask this. Can you make a deception roll for me.
And can everyone else here make an insight check for me.
- Insight check. - Okay.
- A d20? - It's a d20.
- 14.
- So not great, it's an eight. - [Brennan] Eight.
- I'm 27. - Wow! 27, incredible.
- Okay, I'm three. - I'm very insightful.
- (laughs) Wait, what am I looking for?
- Plus insight. - Insight.
- Oh Jesus, three plus four is lucky number seven.
- Seven, Troyánn, wait, you got 27. Did you roll a 20?
- I got a nat 20. - Hell yeah!
- Whoo, yeah! - It's giving.
- I love this. So I think on that roll...
And what did you roll for your deception again?
- I got a three plus five is an eight.
- Eight.
- [Brennan] And what did Twyla get? You got a seven?
- Yeah. - [Brennan] Great, okay.
- It's insight, right? - It's insight, yes.
So Princess, I love, I think that's absolutely right, Bob.
I think if you want Gertie to not share that just yet,
what does Gertie say instead
when this figure, Gargrim, speaks?
- She tells Gargrim that she is here with her new friend.
She's concerned about this,
she's concerned about the merfolk too.
Like, she's like, I'm here to help you. I wanna get this...
I'm here to help my friend find this traitor.
- I'm here to find a traitor
but to also restore my, to save Everdeep.
- Yes, you see Gargrim says, of course, keeper of souls.
Your quest is known to those that guard these halls.
Your companions come now for the very first time.
As Gertrude speaks, I think, Princess,
you definitely clock, I think, on your roll
which beats that deception check.
You sense that Gertie is being guarded.
Even though you are a barbarian,
you spent a lot of time in a noble family
that you are used to these social interactions.
You can tell when people
are keeping the cards close to the chest.
On a natural 20, Troyánn-
- I just want Princess to go, she's lying.
(cast laughing)
- [Brennan] I love it.
Troyánn, on a natural 20, I'll actually ask,
and I don't think a natural 20
means you have to reveal your secret,
but I think Troyánn has a sudden deep insight in a moment
to emotionally what's going on with Gertie.
What does Troyánn see?
Reading through your masked face,
what is the emotion that she sees deeper in Gertrude?
- Ru-veal yourself! (Brennan laughing)
- I think that she see, well, she can clearly tell
that Gertrude is just fully lying.
- [Brennan] Yeah. - And she can also tell
that Gertie is a lot sadder than she's putting off.
She doesn't have like, I'm a sad girl,
but it's like, no, this thing is like,
it's giving a long time of yearning, more than anyone's
that she's just like, wow, this woman is deeply saddened
but also feels intimidated by this place.
- Is there therapy in Kelvorda?
(Brennan and Bob laughing) - No.
- [Jujubee] There's no therapy?
- No. - Oh, sorry, honey.
- BetterHelp.
- Troyánn, you witness that and see the, you know,
you have lived in the depths your whole life,
but you see something truly deep
beyond the eyes of your companion.
- What if she sees like, what if Troyánn,
'cause she's taken a lot of lives,
but maybe she's taken the life of someone who was like,
just get me, who cares?
Like, they were trying to get it done
and she sees that familiar,
that familiarity in that. - Yes, yes.
I think you see the familiarity of someone
that has a different relationship to life and death
than you are used to seeing.
For Twyla and Princess, you see Gargrim says,
and for you, companions of the keeper of souls,
you seem very alive to me.
A fairy and barbarian I would assume do much
to avoid the realms of death,
not venture into them of their own will.
Why do you seek the underworld?
- "To avenge my people!" Is what Twyla says.
- The halls echo with that,
and I think even in the corners of this room
with the raw emotion of your voice
you see jasmine petals move.
The possibility of deep magic.
And you, Princess.
- To avenge my people, too! (cast laughing)
- Just straight up the same one?
- Too! - Yeah.
- As well. - Yeah, it's timeless.
- You see Gargrim says,
great, so we've got two 'avenge my peoples.'
One something, I'm just here to help.
And Troyánn. - And Troyánn.
- And Troyánn? - [Brennan] He says-
- And I'm Dooneese. - Right.
- Gargrim says, I hope this mission lies
at the very center of your heart
for many who seek their heart's desire in the Underworld
pay every price for a chance to achieve it
and fall eternally short.
- Hm, like third place every time?
- In the Underworld it's all last place.
- True. - I got that too once.
- You see Gargrim says,
this is your final chance, travelers.
Step into the circle if you dare
or turn back to the life you knew.
- We should step into the circle.
- Yeah. - [Jujubee] Yeah.
- Do we do it hastily or are we kinda like,
looking at each other, this like a big like... (gasps)
- Twyla actually says, hey ladies,
I dare you to step into the circle.
- I have a lot of insight so I know you guys all wanna go,
but I'm gonna play along.
- So you know we all what? - [Monét] Wanna go too.
- Yeah. - We have to.
- All right, let's get in that circle.
- It's why we came.
- (exhales deeply) With a final breath
that may be your last breath of the free air
of the mortal world, you step into the circle.
As you do, the runes grow bright.
(Brennan mimics magic reverberating)
Light, purple, indigo, lavender.
(mimics energy crackling) And then a crackle of red,
a neon orange and the runes begin to shift and turn.
(Brennan mimics energy buzzing)
The light surrounds the eyes of Gargrim.
Farewell and good luck on your journeys
in the realms of Death!
And you see the stone circle drops, whoom,
and begins to drop and you are falling miles
through open mist. (mimics magic howling)
You feel your stomachs rise within your body,
a feeling of wind rushing past you.
You can barely breathe. Your lungs have a hard time filling.
(mimics energy buzzing) Lightning, you see screaming spirits
of death in a tornado around you.
In flashes of light you see endless platforms of stone
connected by writhing bands of pulsating blood streams
of magical energy the width of rivers and highways
stretching off into the distance.
It is floating broken stone hanging in space
as though suspended by these branches
of deadly magic energy. (mimics large objects landing)
The stone circle lands here in an endless alien waste.
You see instead of trees, strange arteries and veins
of some long-dead magical body erupt from the earth,
decaying as though this rocky landscape
were once the living body
of some endless vast cosmic entity.
You walk on the surface of Death itself.
Welcome to the Underworld.
And that's all for this episode of Dimension 20.
- [Jujubee and Monét] Oh!
- But I wanna know what happens next!
- Tune in next week as we join our Questing Queens
here in the lands of the dead, farewell! (laughs)
- We're in the Underworld.
♪ (deeply) You're in the Underworld ♪ (cast laughing)
- There is a lot of waste in front of you.
(sinister music)
It's a long, dangerous journey.
(sinister music continues)
- Well, I've been here before and I can tell you for sure
that the unalive. - The undead.
- Yeah.
- They can smell- - The un-not-walking.
- The un-not-walking dead. - You come here a lot?
(Brennan laughing)
- I think we have to fight. - Oh no.
- Let's fight these motherfuckers.
- I need you to look where the door is.
- Where? Tell me where the door is.
- It's the one we came in. - Where did we come in?
- We came in behind us. - Back left.
- [Jujubee] Somebody hold my hand!
- Gertie, get it together. - Wow!
- This is too much pressure!
My God! - You're doing great, Gertie.
- A soul for a memory sounds like a great exchange to me.
- Some might say a Monét X Change.
(sinister music halts) (cast laughing)
- Dinner is served! - Is she gonna fucking eat us?
(players laughing)
- My friends are my family.
- All right, it's time. It's on, ladies.
- Well aren't you so lucky to still be alive!
- We all have our own journeys here.
- [Brennan] And you see- - Uh-oh.
- They lied to you. - Oh God.
- Your best revenge is to leave this place
and live your life.
Do not fall here in the Underworld.
- I promise.
- Oh, fuck! Sorry. - [Brennan] You're good.
(Jujubee laughs)
(Bob groans)
(Jujubee tongue pops) (Bob gasps)
- Oh no! - [Monét] What?
- We need to fucking go!
- This is un-fucking-believable.
- This is crazy! - [Jujubee] What the?
(eerie rumbling resounds)
(groovy music)
(groovy music continues)
(groovy music softens)