(dramatic music)
(light music)
(stoats squeaking)
(tense music)
(tense music ends)
- Hello and welcome to Dimension 20, "Burrow's End."
I am your...
Oo, yeah, we'll all do it.
I am your dungeon master and warren warden, Aabria Iyengar
and with me today are my wondrous weasels.
Say hi, wondrous weasels!
- [Cast] Hi, wondrous weasels!
- It's so important for you to know
that I am running out of things to call you.
- And episode five is where we're gonna see a dip.
But that's okay.
- Okay, it's fucked up you've now put that gauntlet on me.
Someone hey, Schaubach, get me a thesaurus.
- She's gonna do a bad one for the next episode.
So get ready. - It's gonna be a cuss.
- Already a huge stroke of luck
that stoats have two names.
Already a huge-- - Yeah.
- We've got Kingdom...
- Phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.
Let's go, baby!
- I think next episode you should just say,
"Hey, bitches."
- Yeah! Hey, mother fuckers, let's go!
You're a bunch of rats.
Well, previously on "Burrow's End"
you all woke up again in the shadow
of the great bear that you killed or put to rest.
However you want to put it.
Some of you moved through visions of the past
and visions of the future of what could be
and what might be.
And all of it suffused in and around the idea of the Blue.
You climbed a tree to get a vantage point
on where you are and where you're headed.
And you came across some writing.
And figured out what writing is.
And spontaneously manifested the ability to read!
- [Jasper] Woo!
- Shout out to the Blue.
You know that there are other stoats in these woods
and they told you to trust your instincts
and move towards the light.
And you did, having a time to briefly come together
forge your bonds, double down on the idea
that you are your best understanding of "us"
and that everyone else is "them."
You moved for days through these woods
and finally find yourselves at the foot
of a massive, rocky outcropping at the top of which is...
The word is a "building,"
though that doesn't quite mean anything to you.
This is the most tremendous and imposing burrow
you've ever seen.
And you know that this is where you are being led.
So, my lovely little stoat family,
what do you wanna do?
- They built it above ground.
That's a weird move.
Ha, like a warren above ground?
That's strange, right?
- I've only ever lived underground.
Momma can we even live--
- It's simply not done, not possible.
- Uh, well...
It's uh...
- But Grandma, the smoke went down,
so maybe we should go up.
- All right, let's...
- That's as good as you're gonna get.
- Yep, okay.
- Well, it's a big rock.
And we've seen rocks before.
So what do we do to rocks?
We jump off 'em?
- Hey, hey. - Mmm?
(chuckling)
Metaphor!
- Just grabbed by the back of the neck.
- [Aabria] Just scruff hold.
Can I get a batch of investigation checks from everyone?
- Yes.
- How about I go ahead and give Lila the help action.
- A nat 20? - I hit a natural 20.
- Yeah! - Woo!
- Feels right. - I hit a natural 20 for 19.
- No!
- It is a nat 20, but you know.
- Some of us don't respect crits in this house.
That's not me.
- 17.
- [Aabria] 17.
- Seven.
- [Aabria] Perfect.
- I was gonna give Lila the help action if possible.
I'm just hello, what about that?
What about that?
- What's eight plus nine, 15?
- [Aabria] 17. - 17.
- [Aabria] How'd you do, Ava?
- Seven.
- Aw!
Little family moment.
All right, so we'll start with our natural 20
for a total of 19.
As you sort of look at this rocky outcropping
with something built above it,
but also sort of in the base rock of it,
a massive set of double doors sealed shut.
What do you think Tula cares most about
in sort of her first scan of this?
- Tula has an eight intelligence,
which I don't interpret as her not being bright.
I interpret it as a negative relationship
with curiosity writ large.
- Yeah.
- So I think that the reflection of this
is that she has a plus 10 to insight,
so I think that she's actually regarding everything
with soft eyes and just like, not focusing.
I think she is, as ever, probably staying
as non focused and broadly aware
and always on the lookout for danger.
Like, I am aware for danger.
There's nothing I want to search for,
because I want to trade that for being aware.
- I love that.
And the thing I will sort of give you in this
as you sort of relax and try to take
a holistic, unspecific understanding of this is,
though you don't see any stoats right now,
you are aware of like, the sort of gentle grade
of paths in and around this place.
So there are signs of life,
though you do not see any stoats
or any other animals right now.
- This place is an enormous warren.
You can see, and I just start pointing out,
look at all these pathways.
They're hunting successfully around here.
There's paths that, all the grass
is pulled down in the same direction.
Meaning things get carried in
and nothing gets carried back out.
You can see all of it.
There's just a lot.
There's a lot of stoats here.
- Hm.
- [Aabria] 17, what does Lila care about in this moment
as you're sort of first looking at everything?
- Um...
I think...
the Blue...
is made here?
- Okay, well, you saw a blue sun here.
- Mm.
There's lots of stoat paths all around here,
which is better...
I'll be honest, I think you all know
that I was not the most excited to come here,
but coming here and finding stoat paths is
the most encouraging of what we could have found.
There's not big bear tracks.
So at least we know that there
are many stoats who seem to be able
to live in this place with Blue around it
and I don't see signs of struggle or danger here.
- You're welcome.
(chuckling)
- Yes, Mama, you did this.
- Thanks, Grandma.
- Thank you.
- Viola, where does your tension move
as you sort of take this in and investigate it?
- Knowing that this is a warren,
an above ground warren that's gotta be ways to get in.
And so I'm ear to the earth of like listening
for what could be rumbling underground
or are there any like stoat holes,
or are there holes that are bigger than us?
Because that could mean something nasty.
- Nice!
So leaning into just, okay, here's what we see,
what am I hearing?
- Yeah, it could be a different animal.
- Yeah, getting very low to the ground.
You push your hearing, you push your smell
and you hear it.
You hear the scurrying that makes you think "warren."
But there is something...
It's like the difference between
like hearing clapping and hearing applause.
Where the sound, in just the sheer magnitude of it,
sounds different.
And you're like, oh.
Oh, it's just so many.
- So many and so far away?
Or so many up close?
- It's so many and it's deep.
So you had that strong thing of like,
the warren's up there.
Where is everything else?
And you realize as you're leaning in,
oh, part of it's above ground.
There is more below.
Looking at the front there doesn't seem
to be an obvious way in,
that you'll have to look for a hole.
Because if this is a bunch of stoats,
they will have the same ideas that you do
about like, hiding the entrance.
- I feel there are a lot.
A lot of them in there.
And either they could be our friends, or they could be bad.
But there's a lot.
A lot more of them then there are of us.
- Honestly, I think we should climb it.
- We have been in a lot of danger.
And this is really encouraging that there are stoats here,
but that doesn't mean we are out of danger.
- Okay, but I'm hungry.
- I know, sweetie.
- You're hungry?
- I'm hungry.
- Eat the building.
- Are you telling me to bite a rock?
That's not gonna work again.
- Your first instinct
to bite something when you were hungry was really good.
- Okay, but like, it's a rock.
And like, you've tricked--
- Bite the rock, Jaysohn.
- I don't think we should eat anything here. - I'm not stupid, Lila,
I'm not gonna bite the rock.
- Again, you've done it before.
- Okay, okay, that's great. - Okay, I'll bite the rock!
- No, that's not the conclusion.
(crunch) - Do you bite a rock?
- I do bite a rock.
Ow!
It's a rock! - [Aabria] Give me a con save.
- [Erika] You've gotta not...
- [Brennan] You get a nat one and lose your fangs.
- Con save? - [Aabria] Yeah.
- A 13.
- Oh, add a plus two to that.
- Okay, 15.
- [Aabria] You feel like--
- My auntie arm goes, no!
- Auntie arm!
- Paladin auras are just hands swatting.
- The Mom arm is the strongest thing in existence.
And I think the rock gets shoved just enough
that you hear the beginning of like a little crack,
but you don't feel any pain
and all your teeth stay in your face.
- It tastes bad. It tastes bad.
It tastes like a rock.
- I know that I should hold your brother responsible
for not biting rocks, but in actuality,
- Yeah, that one was me, I know.
- You need to stop asking your brother to bite rocks.
- I know, but the last time he was hungry it was really--
- He's gonna do anything that you tell him to do.
- To accommodate for how scared you are,
I think that our first move should be something
that you want to do, since you didn't want
to come here at all.
- Thank you, Viola.
- I just want you to be comfortable.
You can drive.
- To reflect that back to you, my instinct is
you should lead the way into this next place.
This is a dangerous situation we're in.
Even if these stoats are very nice,
a bunch of stoats showing up with no food
that we've hunted, nothing to give
is just six hungry mouths showing up at a warren.
- Should we get some presents?
- Jaysohn, your mom is going on and droning
and you're hungry and you bit a rock.
You smell on the wind,
there is meat, there is animal.
You smell like fur and blood and things alive.
- I start floating off the ground following the scent.
- [Aabria] Yes! - [Erika] Ha, ha, ha!
- A full fuckin' Looney Tune, Jaysohn takes off.
- I just don't tell anyone and I just start wandering
towards the smell.
- [Aabria] Sure. - Jaysohn is flying again.
- I also agree that perhaps we should...
Oh my! No, Jaysohn!
- Jaysohn!
- They have food in there, come on, let's just go.
I'm so hungry.
- I'm gonna full on, like Sophia in "The Color Purple",
I'm like marching across in front of Jaysohn like, no.
Don't you hurt my family! (chuckling)
(marching grunts)
- So, with my seven that means I'm not as focused
on what's going on there.
I'm, you know, and my daughter makes a good point
in that we should not go in empty handed.
I'm not thinking about bringing presents.
So I'm gonna look around here
and I'm gonna see what else there is around here
that could either be a show of good faith,
or force.
- You have a lot of candy.
- I know.
This is not, this is only grandchildren candy.
- Grand candy.
- Grandy. - [Jasper] Grandy. There it is.
- I think it's very obvious, even with a seven,
like this area and the sort of last 10 minutes of your walk
was not deforested.
But you weren't walking past like bugs
and animals and birds and nests.
The immediate area around this is well trodden
and well hunted already.
- But what is there that's not natural?
- As I see you start to look around,
I'm just going to go like, Mama,
we probably don't want to get them a gift
from their own front yard.
- Maybe they just don't know how to use
the gifts like we do.
- But I will also say, that I like that idea
of the symmetry of twin sevens.
As you're looking around...
As you're looking around for what's around here,
you also smell it.
Like an aggressive amount of living things.
Of prey somewhere very close.
But not within visual range right now.
- Are there windows?
- No.
- Okay.
Is there any way to see what's inside,
not even a little bit?
- You can get in there and try to,
do you rock all the way up to the building right now?
You're sort of down at the bottom of the rocky outcropping.
It looks like it would probably be 100 meters
to get up to the top building.
Quarter of a football field straight
just to get to the big double doors.
- And all of this is just fanciful interpretation of things.
We don't necessarily see the things in there? - [Aabria] Correct, yeah.
- I'm also, just to say, Jaysohn's still going.
Viola's also still going.
- [Aabria] Sure, sure, sure.
- [Jasper] I think maybe we just need to be on the, you know.
- [Rashawn] As charming as you can be.
- If we get closer we can maybe figure out
what the danger is.
- Yeah, I'm gonna run off after Jaysohn
and I'm gonna say, Lila, stay with Grandma.
And I will look over at Viola and say like,
Thorn has seen a lot of the world.
I think that you two speaking on our behalf,
a mother with hungry children and a grandma
do not seem like great additions to a new warren
if we are trying to make ourselves seem helpful.
- Big stoat smiles, everyone.
- Are Olliver and Teedles with us?
- Olliver and Teedles are with you.
They've learned quite obviously to hang back.
Your family, for all of its beautiful love and friendship,
is not good at getting outside input.
- Fair.
(chuckling)
- Well, I forgot they were here. - [Aabria] Yup.
- Cool, I guess I rock up.
And to...
- So Jaysohn is not headed toward the front door.
I want to be very clear.
Jaysohn, if you are following your (laughing) nose.
- Eyes closed.
- Eyes closed, following your nose.
You're actually being led up and around
the rocky outcropping and you guys realize
that you're following a path.
I mean, he's not.
He's floating three inches above the ground.
But you are following a path,
sort of circumnavigating this outcropping.
- I'm gonna cast Sanctuary on Jaysohn.
This is auntie senses just putting that on you.
Like, you're gonna go your own way
but anybody who tries to funk with you
has to make a wisdom saving throw first.
- Did you say funk? - Yes.
- [Siobhan] Very auntie. - [Rashawn] Yes.
♪ No, no, no ♪
♪ Don't funk my Jaysohn ♪
- Not gonna funk that up.
- So my question in this is,
is this just you being extra protective?
- [Rashawn] Yes. - Or are you doing magic?
- No, this is being extra protective.
As I'm with child and thinking,
I'm a mother now.
I'm just feeling a little bit more,
not teetering on paranoid, of like,
blinders are on, we have to look out
for other people around me.
Any action that I do will affect
a lot more people than just, oh, Viola's just being nutty.
So just to have a little bit of protection,
because my sister sent me with her child.
And then I guess I'll rock up to a stoat hole.
- You don't see any yet.
- Okay.
- If we're just on our way,
I'll really quickly pivot to Teedles and say,
Do you remember that time we got to the warren by the lake?
- Yeah.
- And I had to go in and do a lot of talking.
And because I was talking,
I couldn't really keep my head on a swivel?
- Yeah.
- Could you do the head on a swivel bit for me?
- Yeah, (stammers) yeah.
- Just.
- I was gonna say something sarcastic,
but this is weird, yeah.
- This is weird.
- Okay, cool.
- But if you can, I think the main thing is we need
to endear ourselves to these other stoats
as quickly as possible.
But obviously if you see anyone making
any particular moves like, let us know,
and quietly, I think, probably is best.
- Understood.
- If Jaysohn is splitting off,
if we're headed towards the front door...
- I'm trying to, yeah, I was just about to ask,
like, who's going where?
- Jaysohn has peeled off,
But we want to head to the front door.
- You two?
- I think.
Or, I'm gonna try to wrangle Jaysohn to bring.
I'm gonna let, I think,
I'll look at Viola and say,
I think knocking on the front door is gonna
be the most polite thing to do.
I'll go grab Jaysohn and circle up
if you wanna talk to them.
- Absolutely. We need to be a united front.
Humility is the name of the game.
- Mm-hm.
- I'm gonna run off to grab Jaysohn
to join the rest of the family at the front door.
- We also don't know what a door is.
- Also, good luck. My speed is 40.
- I'm gonna be real honest with you.
Are you moving at your full speed?
- Yeah. - [Jasper] Yeah.
- You're gonna struggle to catch your son.
- I think we should just go with Jaysohn on this.
Jaysohn has good instincts for this kind of thing
and honestly, perhaps we show more stoat-like instincts
if we go in through a stoat entrance,
as opposed to whatever this is.
- Do you want to try to stop Jaysohn?
Because you're not gonna be able to catch him.
- I will call out to my son.
Jaysohn!
Please come back.
Whatever you're smelling is not yours.
- But the food is this way.
- Okay, if we're gonna go get food,
we should all go together.
We don't know who lives here.
- Jaysohn there's a huge rock over here
you could jump off of.
- But I'm too hungry to even jump off a rock.
- Ava, what are you doing in this moment?
- It always pays to follow the neurodivergent child.
(laughing)
- You do not know what a door is,
but you get, you're like, I understand ADHD.
- Yes, yes, yes.
So I go on with my grandson.
You know, I think there is a family moment.
I see that Jaysohn also has the idea
of not going right up to the front door
because you know, I've been at war before
with other stoats and you just gotta keep track
of all the different holes in the warren, you know?
- You have to- Okay.
- So, should we even tell them that we have our full numbers
if y'all two are off?
- I think, ugh, okay.
- It's okay, Grandma's with me!
I'm safe!
- No, no, we're not splitting up.
Let's just all follow Jaysohn to the food hole.
Thorn do you feel, you've seen a lot of the world.
- This is fine.
Jaysohn, let's just make sure we ask before we eat.
Ask before we eat, Jaysohn.
Otherwise, all good.
- And the one last thing I'm gonna offer,
because you did crit on your initial soft eyes,
is that as you're moving and as you all
started getting louder and louder,
whatever sort of low rumble
of just the world being full of sounds,
is just getting a little bit quieter around you.
- Okay, so as we go to follow Jaysohn to this food hole
on Thorn's say so, and grandma's say so.
I'm gonna just sidle up next to Viola
and just look and be like,
it's so good that we've got everybody else
in the family making the calls.
We almost walked up and introduced ourselves.
(laughing)
And I'm going to--
- Jaysohn, show me that little karate routine
you do for grandma, as we go.
(Demonstrative combat grunts)
- Just floating in the air, just ah, ah!
- Yes, following the instincts of a child
and Grandma has mentioned war already.
So, that's great.
- Just kicking off of rocks as I go.
- Jaysohn you go to do a sick leap off of a rock
and you catch the first sign of it.
Because again, you are a little,
like, you moving at your full speed versus everyone else.
You're just getting a little more distance.
So you can, as you normally do,
start jumping off of stuff
just so they can keep apace with you.
- [Siobhan] Great. - You get a little extra vision.
You catch the top of something you've never seen before.
- Ah!
- And it's flat with an edge,
but seems to have something like vines,
though they're gray, kind of moving down it.
And as you round the corner, now focused
on trying to see what it is,
you come across a massive,
and you don't have the words for this,
but a chain link fence.
It is over a bunch of flat, gray ground
that's no longer mossy and grass covered.
And it is full of hundreds, upon hundreds of rabbits.
- They're alive?
- Alive.
You're the first to see it, so go ahead,
and give me an investigation check.
Or perception.
Let's make it perception.
- Oh, thank god.
- Yeah.
- Uh, that's a 17.
- So you see it and you're like,
I could fit through any one of those little holes
in whatever this is.
And then you see, like at the very bottom
where this fence meets this concrete slab.
There's a little bit of a hole pushed in
where the chain link fence is pushed into the grate.
And I think you're even able to figure it out.
Because you've gotten into so many like,
stupid scrapes that you're like,
easy to go in, very hard to get out.
- Oh, okay, good.
Grandma, there's so much food,
but I don't know how we get it.
- Oh, ho, ho, ho!
- I've never seen so many rabbits.
- You should eat.
You're too skinny, Jaysohn. - I'm so hungry.
You should eat as much as you can.
- Okay.
- Coming around the corner you all see this too
and you realize that was sort of the end of the sound.
- Oh.
- That this massive pen of hundreds of rabbits
got quiet as they heard predators approaching.
- I'm looking at this.
- Mom, please.
Please, can I eat a rabbit, please?
- We should leave.
- But there's so many rabbits here.
Why would we leave?
- What's wrong, Mom? - [Siobhan] Why would we leave?
- This is...
There's too much food.
- Too much food?
Too much food.
- It's not right.
Something's...
Don't you...
- Mom, not everything is bad.
You're just always like, everything's bad all the time
and sometimes there's just lots of rabbits.
- Shut up, Jaysohn.
- You shut up.
- Don't say that to Mom.
- Don't say shut up.
Don't say shut up.
- How about this?
If there's other stoats here,
that perhaps have gathered this food.
- Yeah, let's just go in and ask them
if we could have some rabbits.
- Exactly, if we go in and ask them.
How about this?
We could say, have one of these rabbits now,
but let's say we annoy the stoats that are here.
Then we don't get any of the other rabbits.
Whereas if we go and ask them,
then we get like as many of these rabbits as we want.
And you get to have rabbit every single day.
- I annoy people all the time
and I still get what I want - [Izzy] - What if every single one
a lot of the time. - [Izzy] of these rabbits
is a ribbon tongue rabbit like the chipmunks
inside of the bear?
- I don't know what to do with that, I'll be honest.
That's a "you" conversation, honestly.
- Lila, investigation check.
- 17.
- You clock, as you sort of perceive this whole fence,
that there's a little square cut panel.
And you see more writing on the outside of the fence.
- What does it say?
Can I read still?
- [Aabria] You have to get pretty close to it. - Okay.
- Because again, it's not like a big, human sized sign.
You don't know what a human is, but,
something small at a stoat's eye level.
- Okay.
- You rock up and you see, remember,
only catch the rabbits that see you coming.
- [Jasper] Oo!
- It...it...
- Phew.
Brennan just.
Tula didn't. Okay, god.
That's fucked up, okay.
Pow.
- Ha, ha, ha!
- Only catch the rabbits that see you coming,
my take on that is they are breeding
the most alert rabbits out of the population
and leaving the ones that are the most docile
and don't see threats coming.
- Little bit of that.
Little bit of maybe something else.
- All right, well, I need my grandkids bellies to be full.
So we can do this one of two ways.
Is either we do it the way you two are good at,
and we talk to these stoats.
Or I just go in there and I catch 'em.
- The former.
- What?
- The former. - All right.
- And I vote with my daughter.
So that's four, and that's majority.
Olliver, Teedles, would you like to vote?
- Wait, you're actually...
- Yeah.
- Okay, Olliver kind of comes up.
Doesn't even stand at Tula's full height.
Just, um, I, well...
- With your chest Olliver. With your chest.
- This looks like a sign for people putting rabbits
into the pen.
Someone's always gotta be hunting.
If there is as many stoats here as we think there might be,
this is maybe food for a couple days.
So, there's gotta be people that live in here out here.
And I'm worried if we crawl in and eat a rabbit,
they will treat us as poachers and deal with us accordingly.
- In the same way that we would
if a random animal came and attacked any of our stock.
- There's only one way to do this,
and it's the way where Thorn and Viola talk
to these people.
And we're gonna be very humble,
and we're gonna be very quiet,
and hopefully we'll be given some food.
- Okay, Mom.
- Thank you, sweetie.
We're gonna get you some rabbit soon.
- Teedles and I can go see if,
because they have to have a patrol, right?
- I don't feel particularly comfortable
with you branching off.
I feel like we should all be together.
- The last time we got split up, you got eaten by a bear.
- Yes, completely correct.
But had you been there, we'd all be together,
and I'd know.
- Nobody was eaten by the bear.
It was actually, we sort of went into the bear.
- I ate some of the bear. - Yeah.
- I understand that we were part
of two different communities a few days ago.
Here in this new place,
with how many stoats live here,
we will be seen as one unit.
So we might as well think of ourselves that way.
- Fair point.
- The best thing for us to do
is to just go announce our presence, be humble.
Whatever way these stoats here live,
they don't live in danger of starvation.
So they will only see us as a threat
if we do something to attack their home.
- All right, let's go do it the diplomatic way, I suppose.
I start trudging.
- So my question is, are you looking for a way in,
or are you looking for any stoats on the outside?
- Hm...
Stoats on the outside.
Because I think if we're breaking and entering.
- Yeah, yeah. (chuckles) - As fun as it is,
probably not the safest thing to do.
- Yeah.
- So if they see us coming,
they can assess us before telling everybody back inside.
- I think I look at you and I'm like,
they have to have seen us coming.
They're waiting to see what we do.
- And we haven't done anything terrible.
- No, which is why I don't think
they're announcing themselves, but they've seen us.
- I pull Thorn aside for a moment.
Thorn, I know that you used to collaborate
with other kinds of animals and other groups frequently.
Did you ever make use of
the other kinds of animals that you had?
- Yes, all the time.
Other animals had excellent tracking abilities,
potentially even better than ours.
And, ha, well, we had this one badger.
He was particularly grumpy.
Made an excellent patrol because nothing
would go near that guy.
He was huge.
- Interesting and you were able to also,
like when you saw the pigeon
and you fucked it up in the head
and you managed to get eyes on this.
- Mm-hm.
- And others in your group could do this?
- Um...
It seems to be a particular skill that I have,
but I'm hopeful that one day I could show other people.
- You could teach it to your children.
- Yes.
- And perhaps my other grandchildren and...
Everyone else.
- That would make me very happy, yes.
- That would also make me happy.
- All right, I need two tags.
I want two people leading different ways
to look for a stoat.
So who are sort of big seekers in the squad?
- Seeking would fall under what...
- I want you to tell me what stat you're gonna use.
So pick two people that are sort of
the ring leaders of this.
- I have an eight to survival.
- Okay, Jaysohn's looking.
Who else is gonna be like-
- I have a nine to investigation.
- Sure, all right.
Let the children lead.
Being supported by the adults,
both of you are going to make your rolls with advantage.
- I just have my hands on your shoulder.
These are my nieces and nephews.
They're so smart.
- Just talking into the woods.
- Like he's wearing church shoes for the very first time.
He's just so uncomfortable being like.
Trying to put his best face forward.
- Please don't get dirty.
Please, please, please. - [Izzy] Hi, we're not hungry.
- Right before the roll happens I'm like, come here.
- When we get in there,
don't act like I don't feed you.
- Let me be very clear.
- Don't ask for anything when we get in the store.
- Jaysohn is somehow dirty
but because he was in an egg relatively recently,
he's so fucking glossy.
- Egg?
- Remember the egg that fell and crashed everywhere.
- I was like, we're reptiles?
(laughing)
- Could be- - [Izzy] I would like to be.
(gasping)
- I crit. - Would it be possible to add unto this?
Like, do a performance check to basically be like,
whatever unthreatening behavior...
- Oh yes.
- [Jasper] Do you know what I mean? - Yeah.
- Whether It be, because you can always tell like
if something's hunting, if it's like low to the ground
and sort of sniffing or whatever.
But like, just kind of be like, up, upright,
very kind of like, as close to this as a stoat can do.
Do you know what I mean? - [Aabria] Yeah.
- Just like, we're moving through this space.
We're not trying to, you know, yeah.
- I like that because it's a survival check,
so you're looking and because you're giving chill vibes
it's looking around and not hunting.
- Yeah, that's what I want to, yeah.
- And I think I'll grab my kids too and say,
we're not gonna talk about the Blue.
We're not gonna talk about the smoke.
We're not gonna talk about the bear.
All that happened is there was a disease in the warren
and we are looking for a new place to move
and we want to help hunt here, that's it.
- Disease in the warren?
Then they're not gonna want us, because we're sick.
We're not sick.
- Well. That's a great point.
- Really good point. Jaysohn, that's fantastic.
- Actually, we can talk about the toxic smoke.
We can't talk about anything else.
- Ha, ha!
Jaysohn, you feel a little ding of like,
is this what respect feels like?
- I don't like it.
I've gotta break something.
(laughing)
- You just poop a little bit to reassert your dominance.
- Sweep it away, sweep it away.
- Good point, fair point, toxic smoke.
We're going with smoke.
- So you groomed, Jaysohn, yes?
All right, well I take aside Lila
and I'm like, hold still.
And my sand paper tongue.
My mouth is just so powdery.
- You're making me look worse! No!
- As I'm licking, you know, and you're squirming, I say,
listen, you may not always agree
with how Grandma acts and the way that I speak
to your mother, but it got us through quite
a few winters, all right?
So you're gonna show me some respect
and you're gonna show her some respect.
And if you tell your brother to shut up,
then you're cut out of the will.
(gasping)
- Give me an intimidation check with advantage.
(chuckling)
- I don't know when I haven't shown my mom respect. - [Rashawn] And I look at this like,
Wow, I could do that.
- All right, yeah, that's a 19 plus seven, 26.
- Yo, it's not an opposed roll.
I think there's something in this moment
where like, your grandma is kind of always on one.
And there's something to this energy.
While it's still staying sort of pleasantly menacing,
there's something in the fervor of her grooming you
that's at the very edge of painful,
that's like, get your shit together.
You have a sense of like--
- What did I do wrong?
- You have a sense that your grandmother is tense.
And this is a person that's such a badass,
you never see her worried.
So the intimidation is not her being incredibly mean to you.
- Yeah. - You just realize that she's keyed the fuck up right now.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So that's just a little extra insight for you.
How did you do on your investigation?
- 18. - Nice.
I think you see that there are so many
of these like, I'm coming back to you,
because you crit.
There's so many of these paths everywhere
that you're like, got it.
I could walk back around to the front.
I see this up and over.
You know that if you were given 10 minutes
to scurry around, you will find one of these secret holes.
And they are well hidden,
but now that you're sort of told about the way
these paths are getting worn into the world,
you're like, oh, I could find a way in.
There was no way in in the front.
But you could get there and you could find it
if you just had a little extra time.
And while you're kind of coming
to that discovery, with a natural 20,
you get to the sort of edge of the wood
where everything around this outcropping
and this pen and this massive structure is deforested.
So you get close to the beginning treeline
of sort of the weaker, smaller, sadder trees
and you can kind of see off in the distance
a massive elk.
And then you look down and around it
and it's almost as if like a wave
of water is chasing it, but it is furry
and brown and this thing is being harried
by you wanna say 50 stoats.
- Oh my god.
- I...
I think I found my people.
- You see them and you see how fast this moose is running.
And there's something in the back of your mind
that like, I could keep up.
- (under breath) I can keep up.
I...
- Show them what you got, Jaysohn!
- That's not a bad idea.
- Jaysohn takes off into the woods. - (weakly) Jaysohn, no.
(laughing)
- Yes! Jaysohn, yes!
- Bye, Jaysohn. - [Brennan] Jaysohn, no, don't do it.
- [Jasper] What is Jaysohn's speed? - 40.
- Okay, cool.
I'm only five feet slower,
so I'll keep up as much as I can with Jaysohn.
I'm obviously still dropping behind a little bit,
but I'll try and keep up a little bit with Jaysohn.
And I'm just gonna be kind of like,
okay, Jaysohn, remember we're with them, not against them.
Let's go, we've got this.
- Come back.
Just, come back.
- Like fuckin', the Independence Day saucer coming in
and then your son is like peddling
a little or hang gliding up into it.
- [Jasper] A little tricycle.
- You're like, no, it's not fun. It's crazy.
Please stop.
- Lila touches her mom and is like,
he was fun sometimes.
(laughing)
- Everybody pour a little out for Jaysohn right now.
- Just to be very clear.
I'm trying to keep as close to Jaysohn as I can,
but I'm very much being like,
this is Jaysohn's moment.
I'm gonna be here in case something
really bad happens.
- Yeah, I'm also following along.
I'm also following along.
- I'm gonna have Thorn Whip ready to just yank him outta there.
- Amazing. So our boys and Grandma--
- Actually, as Jaysohn runs off I think I do look
to Lila and I'm going to be like, uh...
Keep up with your brother, don't let him die!
- You want me to go? - Take care of him.
- Bye.
- And then me and my- (stammers)
Me and my sister are like the slowest. ♪ Sisters, Sisters ♪
- So, should I be doing stretches and stuff?
To really kind of prepare the body.
(laughing)
I just feel like I,
from the roota to the toota is what I think would happen.
And that's what I'm thinking about constantly.
Like, I just feel like we're at the amusement park
and we've got the coolers and we're just drinking
and watching everybody run around.
They'll come back when they need sunscreen.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's just very, I feel...
It's like, Geoffrey was always the one
who would run after them and I would always have the stuff.
I don't have the...
I can't tell if my legs are going,
or it's just my heart's not in it.
I don't know.
- All right, so my stoats running towards this.
The closer you get the more you see,
have a better sense of what's happening.
This elk has its massive antlers
and then you look down from its great neck
and you see smaller, protrusions of more antlers
coming out of its neck.
- Oo!
- And down its shoulders.
And even into the hooves that are kicking up
this dirt that you see,
the stoats are trying to jump around.
It's got like cloven hooves.
It's just, it's spiny is the best way to describe it.
This thing is terrifying.
And as you look down at its feet,
as it's running its full speed,
and there are stoats falling back and surging forward.
And occasionally one or two of them gets kicked
and knocked away.
Every now and then you see one get hit
and doesn't get up again.
But the ones are still surging around it.
You see that there's something.
Maybe one in every five of them
has this massive metal canister on its back.
- Yo. - And when they get close enough,
you see them grabbing, turning it around,
pulling something out, and pushing it
into the ankle of the elk.
And you see a little spark of bluish-purple light.
Like a bit of lightning as they move it
and they are directing it in a direction.
- That's my thing.
- I feel like we skid and stop.
And just like, watch.
- Just like, eyes so wide, full dish plate eyes.
Just staring at this, the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen.
- Are you doing anything to try and avoid being seen?
- No.
- [Aabria] Or are you just running up and going, wha! - I think we're all just like.
- I would like to see, you know,
about the formations and about the way
that they're moving as a tactical fighter.
I'd like to see how they're managing the group.
- I want to make yours an insight check
if that feels good for you.
- Yes, that seems good.
Um..
Yeah, all right.
It's a nine. I'm going to add a Tactical Assessment to it.
- Oh, what is that?
- So that is a battle master maneuver
where I can add my superiority die to it.
- A maneuver!
- I invented a maneuver.
- [Aabria] I've had a thought.
- [Jasper] I've found a maneuver.
- Ah, well...
11.
- It's okay.
The thing that they're doing is not like trying
to outflank another army.
Like, you understand this.
You have hunted bigger game
and you understand it immediately.
There is a mixture.
They are trying to whittle this thing down
knowing full well that wherever it drops
they'll have to...
Like, they're not trying to kill it,
but they're trying to weaken it and push it in a direction.
And you see that despite the 2% loss,
they're getting knocked, they're getting hit,
some of them aren't getting back up.
They look like, we're doing it.
- Right. - This is working,
We've done this before.
And I think even with an 11, I know it's not that high,
but I think you have a strong sense of like,
the one that is directing,
that is very fast and getting up towards the front,
and you see it kind of making a choice
and everything is moving in a lead stoat's direction.
- And they seem to be directing others,
or just, at all verbally?
Do I hear any?
- You can hear him yelling.
And there's a strong sense of like,
everyone knows where we're headed
and it's just sort of being reminded as you're running,
like, yup, to the left.
We're almost there.
It's encouragement.
It's, don't hit it that much in the right leg.
Like, it is, okay, we're getting there.
We're almost there, keep going.
And it's directing.
You can kind of see this like path
being led back past and around where the pen is.
There's something else on the very back side
of this building that they're aiming for.
- I'd like to get in there
and follow the directions of the leader. - Okay.
- And see how I can contribute.
- Your grandmother leaves and surges into this like,
ocean of stoats.
- Brighter than the sun, swifter than the wind.
Guidance.
- (weakly) Stop, no.
- Yeah, can I...
- I'll stay with the kids, good luck!
- I think I'm gonna run back to my mom and aunt
and say, there's some stoats that fell down,
and like, you're so good at making them better.
Can you come?
- Yeah. - You're so good at that.
- I just pull out band-aids.
(laughing)
- [Erika] The Mom Bag!
- Spit in my hands and pull out some stuff.
- That zinc oxide and some little band-aids.
- [Brennan] A Capri Sun.
- [Aabria] Full of aloe vera.
- Yeah, yeah, orange slices.
- [Rashawn] Yeah, full soccer mom.
- Lila, in this moment what are you doing?
Are you running back with Jaysohn?
You've watched your grandmother leave.
Thorn is still here with you.
Before we get back to this knot,
where are you at right now?
- Uh, I'm gonna go back.
- [Aabria] Ha, ha, okay.
- Yeah, and just like, Grandma's gone.
- So I think you see that sense,
and you're putting together the trajectory in your head.
And like, yeah, what is math to a stoat?
But you have that sense of like,
well, as long as I don't suddenly juke
in a direction for no reason I can probably
lead everyone back to where it's headed.
- Okay.
- I think when you come back and say that to me,
and Thorn, are you with Lila?
- [Aabria] Yeah, what are you gonna do?
- No, I think I'm gonna stay up here,
because I want to support this as much as I can
and I'm trying to make sure that Ava doesn't
get kicked in the head by this moose.
So like, I think what I'm probably doing
is trying to scan around seeing if I see
any potential hazards coming up,
so that I can warn them.
Because obviously, they're in the moment.
Their main focus is on this thing.
I wanna make sure that there's nothing
that could spook it in a wrong direction,
or being a hazard for them that they're not aware of.
- Awesome.
Give me a perception check.
(sighing)
You sort of fall into the line with this group
at the back, at the fringes.
And then you fan out a little wider
to get a view of the direction they're running in.
- Are we still technically in the woods or no?
- [Aabria] Yes, this is all woods.
- Okay, hoo-hoo!
Oo!
- Yay, there he goes!
- 25. Woo!
- It's like you're finally a Ranger.
- Finally.
Wait, I know what I'm doing.
- Ah, stupid.
- And you understand.
You're watching people who are comfortable
with the woods and comfortable with a process
doing what they do best.
And then you spot something.
You see a little shelf of shale
that they're running over and you go like,
that doesn't...
Something about that doesn't look quite right.
And as you peel away from the back of this group
it looks like there was rain
that moved through here a couple days ago
and something has shifted.
And if that animal runs directly over it,
it might buckle and snap its leg and be immobile.
And you've got about 10 seconds.
- How far away is it from me?
- I would say it's probably,
I said 10 seconds, so let's say 120 feet.
- Okay, and they're not there yet, right?
- They're not there yet.
- Okay, I run forwards and as I'm running forward
I'm gonna use my action to dash.
And then Thorn sees Ava there in this moment.
These vines start growing down the sides of his arms
and as you see on the vines there's
these little blue sprouts starting to appear.
And he sort of looks down and clenches his fists.
There's a little bit of crackle of energy
and Thorn gets hit by lightning.
And then reappears, like another fork of lightning
hits the ground 30 feet away from the shale.
And I'm gonna sort of be in front
and do like the full airplane thing of just like,
this way, this way.
- Amazing!
You've gotta give me a perception check with advantage.
- Oh my god!
- Let's do it.
See, I told you he was great.
- What check was this, sorry?
- [Izzy] Perception. - Perception?
- No, this was persuasion.
- Persuasion, okay. - [Aabria] Yeah.
- Nat 20!
(cheering)
- [Jasper] Yes! - That was so satisfying!
- [Brennan] You just need a crowd, baby.
- Oh my god, it's literally a cult leader
that's like, I need 30 people or I am lost.
- The second I wasn't in front of people,
everything has been bad.
- [Aabria] That's fucking hilarious.
- You Tinkerbell'd, yay!
- [Aabria] So, I'm gonna describe
what happens to you. - I honestly feel like I could cry.
- I'm honestly there.
I'm exactly with you.
I genuinely felt emotional seeing that nat 20.
Oh my god.
- I'm gonna describe what happens here
from the perspective of what Ava sees.
You are now in the middle of the flock,
like this pack, this herd.
You see up close the sort of dancing flow
of surging close to an ankle, whipping this around,
pulling out a prod, and that prod shooting off
a spark of lightning and you can see
the muscle and tissue in the ankle of this beast tense up.
Like, you see that there's damage being done,
but it's just, it's death by 1,000 cuts
and it's being herded.
And you have perfect eyes on the leader.
You see how he flows back in and makes himself
seen to everyone before coming back out
and leading them in the direction
that they all sort of instinctively know,
but could easily get lost in while trying
to avoid getting hit and getting shots in.
And then you look up and you see a bolt of lightning
in front of you and off to the side
as suddenly Thorn appears from nowhere
and starts flagging everyone in a direction.
And you see eyes look up and chirping
and shouts of confusion.
You're not recognizable and the important thing
you see here is everyone, every stoat
has a band of yellow ochre colored fabric,
a sash around their waist.
And you see eyes looking up at Thorn's face
and looking down at his waist and like,
registering this is a stranger.
And then there's a moment.
There's a heartbeat where that leader comes forward
and you watch almost in bullet time
as he takes in Thorn,
looks at what Thorn's directing away from
and his ears flick back in fear and surprise and alarm
and a recognition of what almost happened,
and he immediately follows the sign
and directs them out and away.
And you all surge away from this potential pitfall.
- You got a new cult, baby.
(laughing)
- Let's go Lukura II, baby, let's go.
- Electric boogaloo.
(chuckling)
- So we move from this moment of Thorn Vale
making himself known to this group,
while simultaneously Ava blends in seamlessly.
And we're gonna drift back to the rest of our family
as the kids rejoin the sisters.
- I see Jaysohn returning, (stammers), eat that shock of just,
you're coming back, on your own?
And I just go, is everything all right?
What's going on?
- Yeah, no, the... (stammers)
There's some stoats that fell down
and I'm like, Mom's so good at making people feel better.
And, and Auntie V.
- Yeah, yeah. - So let's like, go.
- I guess we'll go to wherever the nearest tree
that one of these stoats bounced off of.
- We didn't see that, right?
- [Aabria] No, not at all.
- Can I make an insight check on...
- [Aabria] On whomst?
- On the stoats that are on the ground.
- Oh.
Do you want it to be insight or medicine?
- I want to make a medicine check on them.
- I... - [Aabria] What are you trying to discover?
- Well...
- I also trust that you picked the right stat,
but I wanna be a little creepy.
- Oh to be clear, as we're running over
I am very reticent.
And I don't think Tula acts quickly
and thoughtlessly most of the time.
And my son has a big heart
and saw some stoats get kicked by a monster
and fall down, and I'm about to go maybe save their lives.
And as we run up, I wanna make sure
that these don't look like people
who will take my healing,
get up, and hurt my children.
- Vibes, okay.
Go ahead and give me an insight check then.
- Jaysohn's like, I've been kicked in the head a bunch
and it sucks.
- Yeah, and that animal is big.
- A dirty 20.
- Dirty 20.
You see sort of three stoats still
in the area that they were moving through.
One posted up under a tree.
One that's on the ground not really moving
and then one that's like groaning and pushing
themselves back up to standing
that makes eye contact with you.
And you see like a snarl on their face
and they keep looking back in the direction
that that elk moved.
But then when they make eye contact with you,
it's very obvious with a dirty 20
that snarl is not for you.
It is for pain.
- Mm-hm.
- And you can see the difference in between it.
Like, they just kind of see you.
And there's a little bit of like,
what is thi- what is?
And someone slowly putting together what's happening
in this moment.
- These are stoats that possibly we could communicate with?
So I'd like to chitter at them or something
to be like, are you good?
- Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Can I approach you? Like, try to...
Let's problem solve. - [Aabria] Yeah, what do you say?
- I say, hello.
I can see that you are hurt. - Hi.
- I am Viola. (coughing)
- [Aabria] Spits like a big old gob of blood.
- Oh, gosh.
- And then I do it, I was like, don't do it.
- What can I call you?
- What? Ugh.
Fenneck.
- Fenneck? - Yes.
Hi. What is...
Why are you speaking so slowly?
What's wrong?
Are you okay?
Do you need something? - I am fine.
- Are you hurt?
- No, I'm not hurt.
Are you hurt? Can you deal with this pain?
Or I could...
- I got kicked by a moose.
- I've never seen a moose before.
So, okay, great.
So I inch closer.
I'm gonna touch you.
I'm gonna put my hands on you.
And give you a little relief,
if that's all right with you.
I'm a married woman!
(laughing)
- I don't know you and you've come to me.
- She's a nurse.
- You're like, I'm gonna touch you.
A what? - She's a nurse.
- What is a nurse?
- She helps...
You should let her do it.
- I also don't know who you are.
Why is there a child here?
- This is my niece. This is Miss Lila.
- [Siobhan] I'm Jaysohn.
- Lila. Jaysohn.
- I saw you got kicked, it was really cool.
- Um...
- You can really take a hit, as we've seen.
- If you have the ability to help, please help them.
And you see that they sort of point
at the two stoats, neither of which are moving right now.
- Mm, okay. Then I would like to cast Aid on them.
There are two, how many creatures?
Two or three?
- So yeah, there's three stoats.
One that's talking to you.
Fenneck is talking to you.
One is under a tree and the other is on the ground.
Neither are moving.
Probably go ahead and make a medicine check real quick
as you are assessing the other two.
- Because they could be rugs.
- I'll give the help action.
- Perfect. Do that with advantage, please.
- All right, 16.
- 16.
There are only two stoats here you can help.
The one that is under the tree
that Jaysohn specifically saw, well, and Lila
saw hit the tree, is dead.
- Mm.
I guess I pass over the one that is dead
and give it a moment of, you fought a good fight, I guess.
And then go over to the one that still
has potential and okay.
- (under breath) Potential.
- [Aabria] I know what you meant.
- Hey, you know, of the many things that are true
of someone who is dead, a loss of potential is way up there.
- And then I will cast Aid on them
which their hit point maximum and current hit points
are increased by five.
- Oh.
Okay.
- So, they got a bit of sauce.
- That's great, yeah.
This other one that was resting on the ground
you see is younger, looks to be maybe
a month or two older than Jaysohn and Lila.
Just sort of freshly fully adult.
And this sort of very soft, labored breathing.
You see something in that labored breathing
and then you see something snap
and the body gets a little bit fuller.
As a couple ribs that were broken
and a lung that as collapsed come back up.
- I'll take some of the moss off of my non-gloves.
- They're not gloves.
What could a glove even be?
Could you imagine?
- I kind of, I spit on it and mash it together
so it's a little bit of like a salve or
like a stopper just to kind of press that into the wound
and let it heal around itself.
(coughing)
- Hi, uh, hello.
- Hi, welcome back.
I'm Viola. - (whisper) Morbid.
- This is my niece, Lila.
Karate Jaysohn.
My older sister.
Hi.
- Hi, Sybil.
- [Rashawn] Sybil, Sybil. - [Aabria] Thank you.
- Sybil, I know this might be a lot right now,
but your friend over there, what was their name?
I speak in the past tense--
- What?
- [Rashawn] Yes. - Oh.
Oh.
And Sybil sort of pushes herself up to standing
and signals over to Fenneck.
Like, scurries over to them
and they very quickly undo the sash
and fold it up.
And Sybil tucks it into her sash.
And just says, don't worry about it.
Thank you.
It's nice to meet, you must be new.
- Yes, um...
It's taken us awhile, but um...
We were in our own warren as a family
and there was a terrible, thick dusty air.
We lost a lot and we got out with just
a few of us and we were hoping
that maybe we could get some food for the children
and somewhere warm?
- Oh, yes, yes.
Sure.
Fenneck, are you okay?
And Fenneck kind of turns and, yeah,
I'm gonna go make sure that.
I'm gonna jump back in there and let them know about...
And you see them both sort of glance
in the direction of the fallen stoat.
But they very specifically never say a name.
Okay, I'll show them in.
Thank you, thank you.
- Oh, and my mom's over there.
- Your mom?
- My mother.
Do you not have mothers?
- No, I understand. No, sorry.
Conceptually I understand what a mother...
Okay, I'm sorry.
I got kicked incredibly hard, I think I was dying.
- I'm asking so many questions right now, I'm so sorry.
I'm just trying to be as accommodating as possible.
- No, you're fine.
And you helped, so you're doing great.
Fenneck at this point has sort of taken off
a little bit slowly, kind of limping.
And then is picking up speed
and heading back in the direction
that the spiny elk and that herd were in.
And she says, okay, so your mom is a member
of Last Bast, but you were somewhere else
and you're trying to find her?
What's happening?
- Last Bast?
- Yes, this place.
And you see she just points back.
You're looking at essentially the backside
of this massive building.
You're on the far side of the rocky outcrop.
This is Last Bast.
Welcome.
- She bows.
- Oh, sure.
- Just to give you a little bit of respect.
- I don't know what to do.
I'm sorry, that was weird.
- Thank you.
- Oh, great.
That went well. That went well.
- Yeah, so we have about six with us.
- Okay.
- Six or eight or so.
And all signs told us to come towards you
and we'd never seen so many...
- That's the Light.
- Stoats.
- Yeah.
- There's so many of you.
- [Aabria] Thousands.
- Thousands?
- What's that?
- What do you mean?
What do you mean? - [Rashawn] A lot is
Like forty. - Okay, I'm so glad you asked.
- What's thousand?
- Do you know what a hundred is?
- No.
- Do you know what 50 is?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Okay, 50.
Do that twice.
That's a hundred.
- That's so many. - And now do 100 of those.
- No.
- Okay, lost ya, totally fine.
(laughing)
Interesting.
- Jaysohn disappears.
- Yes, Miss Lila.
And she's beginning to limp and trying
to lead you all somewhere.
Uh, yes?
- Um, did you guys, um,
did one of the thousands, um...
Make the thing that said, about the rabbits?
- Oh, the sign?
- Hm?
- The sign about the rabbits?
- She can understand the shadows on the scratches.
- She can read?
You can read?
(Brennan and Rashawn sounding out the word 'Read') - [Izzy] What's that?
(laughing)
Yes.
- My daughter can do anything she puts her mind to.
- Thank you, Mommy. - And there's something really important here.
Where she was sort of regarding you all,
probably Tula the least so,
since she didn't really speak up very much,
but all of the attention sort of snaps unto, like,
oh good, someone to talk to.
Like, not in a disrespectful way, but like, got it.
Okay, yeah.
Yes, the sign.
Right, because there's a lot of rabbits in these woods.
It's just sort of, you know,
who's ever on their hunting shift,
just a reminder to not bring back the infected rabbits.
We don't know.
We just don't want.
It's a lot of stoats and--
- Did you guys get sick?
- Yeah, like a little.
It's just not good meat, you know?
- Yeah.
- But you saw the sign.
Oh, incredible.
- Yeah.
Some people at our old warren, not us,
got sick and died.
- Oh, I'm so sorry. - Did that happen to you guys?
- Um, well no.
I was actually born here.
But there's other stoats
that have come from other places
and a lot of times people just sort of come here
because they feel the call of the Light and they just--
- The Light!
- Yeah.
- You guys know about the Light?
- Yeah! Do you...
Yeah, everyone knows.
Everyone here knows about the Light.
- Do you guys make the Blue?
- Make the Blue?
- Do you make the Blue?
- Oh no, no, no.
Um... Hm.
It's an interesting question.
We don't make it, but it is from here and it--
- It's from here?
- Yeah, you feel it, right?
- Yeah.
- So like, yeah.
I was born here, again, so this is kind of just
what I've heard, but lots of--
- So the Blue is safe?
- Yeah, it brought us all together.
And we live here and we're safe and...
- Does anything really, really bad happen here?
- Sweetie.
- What do you mean?
- Sybil's just had a big accident.
- Sorry.
- No, you're good. You don't have to apologize.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Please continue your very good moment.
I'm not here. - My grandma has candy.
If you want candy.
- [Siobhan] And it's really good. - And she's there?
- But you have to be really nice to her
otherwise she won't give it to you.
- She ran into your crowd and I sort of thought,
maybe I'd never see her again.
- Oh, well, she didn't get the shit kicked out of her.
We can go catch, do you wanna go catch up?
- She probably didn't.
- Oh my god, our grandma is so strong.
- Yeah, can we go in with you guys?
That's okay? You don't kill me and my family?
- You? No, you're...
No, why would we hurt you?
- Yeah, what do you do with the elk?
Once you're done with your shift, your herding?
- I'm so hungry.
- We need to get the children some food.
- [Aabria] Oh, yes.
- Thank you so much for offering us a place to stay.
- Of course, come with me.
- We'll do our best to be useful
to the rest of the warren.
- You're really nice and really pretty.
- You're really cool.
- Thank you. You guys are really cool too.
- Yeah, my mom is really, really cool and nice.
So is my auntie.
- It's my two children, my sister, and her husband,
our mother, the children's grandmother,
and two friends and long time companions of Viola's husband.
So there's eight of us in total.
We'd be happy to make our own space
and not intrude on anyone else.
- And like, some really bad things
have been happening to us.
- What do you mean?
- I dropped an egg.
- And we are walking and talking, yeah.
- Okay, so basically all of this poison
came to our warren and like killed everybody
and it was really, really bad
and we had to run away. - It was scary.
I ran so fast.
- Yeah, Jaysohn ran really fast.
- Nobody can run as fast as me,
but I was helping, I was helping.
- And this old lady who took care of us sometimes died.
And this guy who was trying to hook up with our mom died.
- [Siobhan] Yes.
- Like, everybody we know died.
And then we were in the woods--
- And we saw the badger but then it ran away.
- Yeah, and then we were trying to sort of like,
save ourselves or whatever and find something
and get away from the poison,
but also try and figure out,
I wanted to build a big thing
so we could maybe like, kill the poison
and kill all the crazy creatures
that my uncle has seen.
- But we're not supposed to tell 'em about the bear.
- Okay. - About the?
- But the bear was cool. - The bear?
- That's what I think.
- Okay, we saw this crazy--
- Okay, but you can't tell anyone.
- We saw this crazy wolf.
- I won't tell anyone.
I'm sorry could you say that one more time?
- You gotta put food in their mouth,
or they'll just keep talking.
(laughing)
- Yeah.
- Just put like a rabbit leg or something in there.
- I will put food--
Yeah?
- It was a really big, scary animal.
It had a bunch of holes in it.
And it was like alive, but not really.
And it was sort of being controlled
by all these chipmunks who were eating the heart--
- And they had these tongues that were like.
(Siobhan gurgling)
- They had these ribbon things that came out
and ripped a bunch of them out!
I ripped one of their faces off,
because they tried to kill my brother and my mom!
- Wait, wait, wait!
- And then my mom ate the heart.
- You have to show her.
No, you have to show her the mask.
You have to show her the mask!
- Oh, Auntie, Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!
Give me my mask back!
- Yeah.
- Okay, let me be very clear
that the thing that just happened here,
you're not wearing clothes.
You just opened up a fold of your fur
and pulled an animal's face out?
- Well, I don't have a bag.
- Yeah.
And that was the most hard shit Sybil's ever seen.
And just went.
And think there's some--
That's what that is, yes.
- But we lived!
And then um, um, my brother and my mom
and uh, uh, and...
I think, I don't know.
Like, some people ate some of it,
and then it was like, what?
And it had the Blue in it!
And it was made out of Blue.
So made out of the Light.
And I always thought the Blue was really bad,
because like, everything, you know...
- Because they were like 'The Blue is bad.'
all of our childhood.
- Yeah, and like, because our dad's dead
and like Grandma is--
- Our dad is dead, we don't have a dad.
- Grandma's seen really scary stuff.
And so it's like, yeah.
And so it's like, I wanna just build a big thing.
But it looks like you guys built
this really big thing, this big house, this big rock.
That's like hard and soft.
- Are there other stoats our age?
Are we gonna have friends?
- Yeah, oh, plenty.
And I think the important thing
for my adults specifically to note,
other than the fact that Sybil is only
a little bit older than them.
So, sort of has the enthusiasm.
- We met a teenager who--
who worked in the army, - It's like a cool older cousin is here.
- And her ears are pierced! - And she's got the bands you're not supposed to be listening to.
And we're just like, okay, so ah!
- 100%.
So she's got the stamina for this,
which is probably a big relief.
But also, there is nothing that they said.
Yeah!
(laughing)
- [Rashawn] Oh my gosh.
- There is nothing that those children said
that looks surprising to Sybil.
And all you see from her is an increasingly bigger smile
that looks a little feral, especially when talking
about how you guys both destroyed those chipmunks.
And she's just like, yeah, good.
- I'll make a little insight check just to,
- [Rashawn] She's a bad influence.
- It's a 24. - (wheezes) God damn.
You said it so casual, bud.
- [Rashawn] Is it perception?
- No, insight.
- Insight.
Cool, 11.
A fat 11.
- Yeah, your fat 11--
- I think my deep, deep silence in this moment
is being like, you know, it's just,
(stammers) I'm a woman who's been fighting the tide
to keep a sandcastle together.
And I'm just like, it's out of the bag.
I don't even know what a bag is.
It's like, there's no stopping it.
What am I gonna do, make 'em not tell the stuff they know?
Is that gonna last for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30?
Don't fight this fight.
So I'm using their enthusiasm
and the fact that I know she's not noticing me
to really focus on her.
- You drill into this immediately.
That like, this is someone who was born here
whose heard a lot about other stoats
and the stories of how other stoats have gotten here
is probably part of the reason
why she is so nonplussed with these stories
of these other animals.
The true, full comfort with how violent all of this is,
is deeply apparent.
Like, yup, life is violent.
You guys did the right thing.
But there is that sense of like,
there is nothing predatory in the look
she's giving them other than like,
yes, correct, you've done the right thing.
- And we're pretty violent.
I mean the Red Warren was not an unviolent place, either.
Do I sense something different in the relationship
to the violence than I would be used to seeing
from us in the Red Warren?
- Yeah. - [Brennan] In terms of scale?
- Yes, with a 24 I think there is that,
there is a difference between hunting rabbits
to eat and being that close to having to kill
and consume to survive, versus,
they took care of threats.
And the sort of complexity of the thing
that you dealt with.
Like, that wasn't for food, that was for safety and security
and defense and protection and all of those bigger
and more complex and social and civil ways
in which violence is enacted that she took
without a second thought.
And is very like, yes, of course, good.
- I think that I have just a little thought to myself
that I don't even know that I would
be able to articulate it.
But it's basically just a thought
of kindness from abundance.
- Yes. - Of looking around and being like,
look at how kind the people who have everything
they need are.
And there's just some, but it's not a pleasant thought.
It's a thought of like, hm, okay.
Yeah, no one here is hungry so they're acting
like people who aren't hungry.
- She is utterly unworried about you.
- Yeah. - Doesn't know anything about you.
Has not asked for anything
and is outnumbered and deeply injured
and doesn't look even a little bit concerned.
- But that worries me because people who have
never been poor before, they're not scared.
Like, we've been in a situation where we
haven't had a lot.
And we've made due by people who have too much.
People who live in excess.
- Right.
- I'm a little wary of that.
And now I'm thinking of culture here.
- Yes.
- How are they operating differently than we would
in how we grew up?
- I'm just gonna give a look to my sister,
just to, with zero face on it.
- Yeah. - Just the fact that like,
the eye contact speaks for itself.
- You see the Sybil after kind of walking-- - Girl...
(laughing)
- Must be nice.
- After walking this off is going to come back.
As she goes up and you guys kind of round the corner
and we'll jump back to the main group in a second.
But you see as she's sort of getting closer to everything,
she's going to work quite hard
to push herself up to standing
and will walk bipedal in order to--
- [Jasper] Oo! Whoa. - [Izzy] Oh, on two feet?
- On two feet.
- [Rashawn] Oh yeah, culture shock. - I immediately do that too.
- Yeah, I try and do it.
- She's so cool that me and Lila are--
- [Aabria] I mean, sure do it.
- All the cool kids are standing upright?
Okay, I could do that.
- [Aabria] Give me an athletics or acrobatics check.
- Great.
- [Rashawn] Gives me like, when you walk into a place...
(laughing) - Oh my god.
- Nat one? I got a dirty 20.
- Lila, taking your time and just sort of watching.
You're picking up things very quickly
and you see how she pushes herself up to standing
and starts walking.
Especially a little injured, is a little forward
so that if she has to drop back down she can.
But is a little hunched.
- I'm sort of walking with a limp.
- It's careful.
Smooth is slow, and slow is fast.
The idea of working hard and doing it right
makes consistent results and you figure it out.
- You're like, a little flip wizard.
- I can do that, whoa. - [Aabria] Yeah!
You over correct and land on your back.
- I'm like two kids in a trench coat.
(laughing)
- This is fully the 'I played Tony Hawk
and now I can skateboard' person.
- Exactly, exactly.
- 100%.
And then we'll use that to cut back to Ava
and Thorn with this group.
Ava you're inside of like,
they all charge past you.
You get a nod from one person in particular
that sounded the alarm, you're able to see.
You've spotted the leader in this group.
And they move past you and you are suddenly regarded
by more stoats at one time than you've ever seen before.
- Whew. - And they all are nodding,
and then surging and flowing out.
It's very much like the Roman legion of get in,
get your shot, fall back, build up your strength,
get in get your shot.
So you're seeing this rushing wave,
and this efficient system.
And then everyone on the periphery acknowledges you
and gives a little nod as you go forward.
And Ava, you're surging in the middle.
I have a question.
Do you do anything while you're in the middle of this?
- Yes, I follow any orders that are being given
or directed at me.
Is the leader or companions around me,
are they taking any notice of me,
or I give them like the nod.
- Yeah, you're in there and you see
a couple people in this crush
clocked that you're not wearing a sash.
But you're sort of still moving
in the flow of what's happening.
And you're hearing not specific orders
other than the one from this leader,
but barks, and you're seeing like a ripple.
Like a bark means push in.
A bark means flow out.
So you can move through this,
and if you're keeping with them,
at like the third or fourth bark
you will be right next to the spiny elk.
So what do you want to do?
- Right.
So I'm gonna lash out and I would like
to pick a point.
There are still soft spots that are unarmored, yes?
- There's lots of unarmored spots.
And there's lots of like, there's a zap
and a zap and plenty of stoats that don't have those.
And you see them targeting flesh
that's becoming more and more exposed.
- Oh.
I've seen that they use these things,
so I too pick up and I take a strike
at an open wound.
- Give me an attack roll with advantage
as one of the stoats next to you gives you the help action.
They see you beginning to swing,
and you see them like, push you into the right spot
so that you're not losing any of your momentum
as you go forward.
Like, they surge you up to get a hit in.
- That's a 23!
- Absolutely hits, give me damage.
- Wah, ha, ha.
- I have a question, are you doing this as a normal hit?
Or are you using any of your barbarian
or fighter abilities?
- We'll see, hang on.
- Ha, okay.
- Wow.
- All right, that's 11 points of damage,
plus as I do it, I'm gonna...
Use...
The bone to sort of dig in and sort like
start ice picking my way up to grapple.
- So you want to stay on it?
- Yes.
Grappling strike. - Interesting.
- [Siobhan] That's cool.
That's my grandma.
- Okay, I need you to make a strength check.
- Okay, um...
- If I have you make it with disadvantage,
because this is not like what the other stoats are doing.
So you surge forward, get a hit in,
and the moment you start to cling,
you feel people like trying to get you out of the way
for them to go next.
- Okay, I can still add,
this is just a strength check or athletics?
- Athletics.
- Do I still have...
- Guidance? - Guidance.
- I haven't used anything.
It was right before the 10 seconds.
So I don't know how long,
if it's been a minute since then.
- All right, we'll say that you're
at the very end of your ability to use Guidance.
- All right. - So you're rolling with disadvantage,
but with added d4.
- D4, okay.
Whew, all right.
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
17.
- Oof.
- Okay.
Again, there's that sense of,
no one is phased by you suddenly bringing out
and using a tool.
They're like great, big swing, good.
They make space for you.
You connect.
And this flesh that was already sort of pink and raw,
less like a cut and more like a rash
of just like when you hit and skid.
You land and dig in.
You feel yourself connecting with some of the tendon
at the bottom of this elk's hoof.
And then you grab on and you stay there.
And you can feel the surging press
of other stoats trying to move you
and get you out of the way. - Right.
- But you're able to hold on.
What do you do while you're there?
- I'm holding on.
I'm gonna action surge and I'm gonna attack again.
This one with claw.
- Okay.
- So I just, yeah.
I'm into it, um...
Ah, rats, that's an eight.
- You could attack recklessly if you...
- Yeah, that's true.
- Sorry, that was the wrong show. I apologize.
- Welcome to the...
(laughing)
- Iyengar, Mulligan, Thompson, and Cartwright, there ya go.
- Damn, that's good.
- Okay, so are you recklessly attacking?
- [Erika] Recklessly attacking. - Sure.
- Yeah! There it is!
Okay, 16 plus...
So that's a 22.
- 22 hits.
- 22 hits and that's gonna be 2d10.
- (under breath) Okay so,
18.
(dice rattling) - [Aabria] (whisper) Fuck.
- Is she gonna take down this elk all by herself?
- Is an elk and a moose the same thing?
- That's an 11.
- Okay, for 11 more points of damage? - 11 more points of damage.
- Okay, you get onto this elk
and even though you feel people sort of pushing past you,
and eventually people trying to grab you
and pull you down to keep the flow moving, you stay on
and swipe again with your claws.
And you are just buried in.
Truly feeling like, yeah, I'm good at this.
Like this is what we do and I am good at it.
And look at this group collaboration
on what's happening.
- I do this.
I'm hanging on. I'm slashing.
I do look to the leader though.
- He looks back at you and you see him
giving you a very strange look.
- I don't know what that means!
I don't think.
- Yeah, I mean, look, there's no insight check here.
You've now broken formation.
- Ah.
- And then because reckless attack works
that I get advantage back.
I did crit on hitting you.
- [Jasper] Oof. - All right.
- As the stoats surge forward.
- Okay.
- I need you to make a strength saving throw.
- It's a...
17, wait, yeah, 17?
- With a 17, you don't know if it's ripped or knocked.
If this was an accident or on purpose,
or just the way a well oiled machine works
when you are suddenly the gear that doesn't know the timing.
And you get hit and knocked down.
You're going to take 17 points of bludgeoning damage.
- Okay.
- As you are now de-synced from the group,
but with a 17 you are not trampled by 50 stoats.
- Oof!
- Let's go. Let's go.
- Ho, ho, that was, yeah.
- You fall back in and you see now,
this elk has slowed down significantly
because of your wound specifically.
So now you see that there's a bit
of a weird pulse happening with the group
as they're trying to accommodate for
an uneven gait.
And as you're sort of trying to adjust.
Like what are you trying to do in this moment?
Do you stay apart of it, or are you trying to?
- I realize that I messed up.
You don't go against formation.
I was trying to get in, make my presence known,
do some damage, get out.
I'm gonna try and sync back up again
and I'm going to use.
Oh, here we go.
I'm gonna use Rally to the ones around me
to be like, follow, follow him.
And that's the... - This bitch is crazy.
- That's the man,
That's the man that's married to my daughter.
- Ha, ha, ha!
- Let's be clear here.
A group of cowboys are moving cows.
Ya, ya! Chasing them.
And from behind a rock a viking runs out
and chops a cow's head off.
And goes, we're doing it!
And they go, no!
No!
- They shoot him.
- And then the Viking falls down and says,
way to go, team!
- Yup. Yeah!
- Like a true psycho.
- I love it. I love it.
So you do that.
You bolster the group.
Give me a performance check. - Okay.
- Not only to like pass yourself off as,
we're all doing it. - [Erika] Yup.
- But also just to hit the formation again.
- Got it, got it, got it.
- The DC's gonna be pretty low
because you are still very good at this.
- I am.
- You didn't really like fuck up.
It was just a little like, what are you doing?
This isn't how we practiced.
- I got lost in the sauce.
We were chasing these cows.
I shot one, I'm sorry.
- Sometimes you're like, fuck that cow.
- I was too locked in.
- So here's the thing, I have minus four
to all of my charisma checks.
- [Rashawn] No! Ugh!
- Oh, but it is a nat 20.
(cheering) - Whoo. Brrrow. Pew, pew! Pew, pew!
- And I think you feel a tense moment pass.
Now, your family says it all the time,
but you have the thought for the first time,
maybe I was a little much.
- All right, yeah.
- But your Rally pulses through the group
and you find yourself back in the rhythm again.
And then you look over and you see
the leader has pulled up beside you.
And like, is sort of clearing people around you
to make sure that you weren't getting trampled
as you came down.
Gives you a little nod,
and then is going to move to the elk's ankle
and everyone's still doing this weird pulse.
Like, oh, this thing's running funky now
and we have to get it there.
You see him run over and he's going
to press his hand against the wound.
And you watch as a little bit of glow, a light
generates from his hands as he's going to heal the elk.
To restore it so it no longer limps.
And then he sprints out and away.
And if you follow you can follow in his wake
back up to the front.
- Excuse me, young man.
- Yeah?
- I'm sorry that I may have over stepped my bounds.
I'm sorry you feel that I have somehow--
- This is--
- Fallen out of step with the group.
- Nope you're great, you're doing it.
- And a 70-year-old.
- You're so good.
Who the fuck are you?
- Oh hello, I'm Ava.
I've come from the Red Warren.
- Watch out, watch out.
- Okay, oh, whoa.
- Yup, okay, follow me. - Okay.
- And he's going to try to lead you up to the front.
You don't have to apologize.
Not now, not now.
- To be very clear, I wasn't apologizing!
- You said, "Sorry." That came out of your mouth.
I heard that.
- I said I'm sorry you feel that I was out of step.
- Yep, I heard sorry, you've apologized.
You are submissive and I get that.
Thank you so much.
And he moves over to the side.
And you see where this elk is being led.
There's a massive pit.
Just concrete on four sides that drops down at a slope.
And you actually see that there's a big
cement rectangle high in the air.
And at the bottom of this pit you see
a female moose, not spiny,
but there's a female moose there.
And there is like large piles of,
what looks like rotting fruit and grasses and leaves.
And like, as the rest surges forward
he's going to mom arm you, to hold you back,
and you see how they all kind of scatter and peel away
and let the elk run down this pit.
And this leader points up and you see
a couple little stoats on the top of something
standing in front of a little metal rectangle.
And he points, you see a stoat nod.
It ducks down and the cement door slides down
trapping the elk there.
- Whoa, uh-huh.
- Is everyone okay?
How many people?
Sorry, can you hold for two seconds.
You good?
You said your son is here?
- No, no, my...
- Did someone lose an old woman?
(laughing)
- To extend the metaphor.
The Viking then gets up, sprints after the cowboys
and goes, so what do you guys do here?
(laughing)
- And is 70.
- So small, so wiry. - 'Scuse me.
If I could just inquire.
- After being like, "Go team!"
Was like, "Wait, what are we doing?"
- Where's the good spots for brunch?
I'm a little peckish.
- And because of this wide turn that they made
to get the elk in at the right angle,
all of you sort of moving in this direction
could take like the straightest line there
and as everyone's sort of winding down,
and these stoats are taking numbers,
and half of 'em are just on their backs
releasing their packs of cattle prods
and just catching their breath.
- I follow along.
I'm doing a walk and talk with this guy
and I'm like, well, you see my children
and my grandchildren and then the two,
you know, cult lead- uh...
Cultured people that hangout with my son-in-law
we all came here from very far away.
Our warren is not really a viable place
to live right now and so we're looking
for another place to live,
but I'm sure that, my children are very, very capable.
And are you, you don't happen
to have a family of your own, do you?
- Me personally?
- No, yes, yes, yes.
- Oh, uh...
I have...
Yeah, my family lives...
Are you asking?
- Are you single? Are you single? - Oh, oh!
Did someone lose this woman?
- We rock up. - Yes, sorry.
I think I might have lost.
- Oh there he is. - You!
- This is Thorn.
Thorn this is uh...
- Bennett. - [Erika] Bennett.
- [Aabria] Hi.
Thank you for that.
- Oh, I'll, if I can,
rock up with Olliver and Teedles.
On the way, by the way, I was like to Olliver and Teedles.
(whisper) Did you see that shit?
Did you see that?
- (whisper) That was so fucking cool. You did that thing,
- There's was like a bolt of lightning
and then I just appeared.
It was really cool.
- But there was like, lightning.
And you did it and then everyone,
I thought they were gonna all run you over
or just be like, fuck that guy.
And give you the little thing, and it was great.
Oh, hold on, hold on.
You're being addressed, you're being addressed.
They turn and like push you forward.
- Gah, ah!
- This is my son-in-law and the future father
of my grandchildren.
- Oh, so not the single one.
- (quietly) No.
- Okay, it's nice to meet you.
- Pleasure. - [Aabria] Hi, Bennett.
- Does he extend a paw? - He does.
- I'm like, (whisper) what is that?
(chuckling)
- Why?
- Um, was that incorrect?
(laughing)
- Interesting.
You do it. You do this.
And he's gonna grab your arm. - Ah!
- Oh, oh, we're screaming.
There we go.
Okay, you're a jumpy guy.
- Oh, I want to do this too!
- Immediately like a, oh yeah. - Ah!
- Oh, okay.
You're just impaling me on these trees.
- It's like a vice.
- You established dominance with me in that moment.
Like, ow, Erika, ow.
Go ahead and just give me an athletics check.
- Oh, yay.
- Oh shit.
You have to beat a 15.
- Oh, that's a...
21.
- Yeah, he goes to shake your paw,
and you feel a bone pop.
And he goes, ow, okay.
Oh. Oh, got it.
- Very nice to meet you, Bennett.
- Great, great, ow, ow. Okay.
You're strong, I get it.
- Mm-hm.
- You almost maimed.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Okay, okay, hello.
- Hello.
- And then he turns and looks and sees
the rest of you coming up.
Like, oh, there's more.
- Hi, um. - Hi.
- We helped Sybil.
- Yes!
- Get back on her feet.
- Yeah, thank you. You did that?
Thank you.
- Yes, this is my sister Tula.
- Hi. - Hello.
- I'm Bennett, it's so nice to meet you.
- That's the single one.
- Right here?
Okay, um.
- Thank you, Mom.
- Hi. - It's very nice to meet you.
- So nice to meet you. - Thank for accepting us into the warren.
- I'm not gonna be weird. Wait, sorry, what?
- We haven't quite got to that bit yet, ha.
- Oh, we spoke to Sybil.
- Yeah, Sybil's just next to you like.
- We spoke to Sybil who mentioned
that we might be able to feed our children here.
Obviously, when I say accepted into the warren
I mean only for so long as you...
- Oh, okay you're...
Ma'am, you are fine.
We'll be happy to have you.
We take in new stoats all the time.
Yeah, it was just.
I wasn't sure, because you don't have a...
It's fine.
Welcome.
- Thank you.
- Welcome all of you.
That's your mother.
- Yeah, what did she do?
(laughing)
- Well, we were trying to get that big elk
into a pen and she almost made it incapable of walking.
Which would have been sort of the problem of, well...
- Yes, Grandma! - Yes!
- Okay, we don't have to high five.
Watch out, she's gonna break your hand.
My hand is broke.
- I slap it. - Ah! Good one, Grandma!
- I'm gonna take the hand and say, I can fix that.
And I'll drop a point of Lay on Hands.
- What does it look like when you do that?
- I touch my little snoot and do a little lick,
which I normally do when I'm grooming my kids.
A little blue.
- You do that and he looks at you.
And just watches very intently your face
and not his hand.
And goes, oh.
Thank you very much.
- Ugh.
- [Aabria] I understand.
- Quite an impressive organization
that you have here.
- He's with you too, yes?
- Yes, this is the children's uncle, Thorn.
- Right, and you and he...
Can you all do the lightning move that he did?
- Thorn's gifts are his own.
- Sure.
- But each of us are uniquely gifted
with the Blue. - I can read!
- Good.
That's very good.
- And I can do this.
And I'm up on a rock and just do a cool jump.
(laughing)
- You know what, Sybil's right there like.
There's like two people on the ground
that were like almost falling asleep like.
We're clap?
No, a boy did a trick.
- Good, Jaysohn.
I don't know what read is.
- When you see symbols and you can understand their meaning.
- Is that what you were doing back there?
Impressive.
- The symbols are 'writing'.
The ability to understand them is 'reading'.
- Why do they have one for different bits?
Shouldn't it be like reading and...
- Grandma, these stoats have an entire culture.
We don't need to correct the mistakes
that they're making with their culture within minutes.
- But we have our culture.
- I understand, but...
- Our culture is great.
- Giving notes on a concept you just got a moment ago.
- Well, I don't know what 'read' is,
but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna cotton on to it, no.
- Huh, interesting.
- Me neither, Grandma.
(chuckling)
- So what happens now after you've
put the animal in its pen?
Now how do you spend the rest of your day?
- Oh, well, we will tend to our injured
and I think everyone here has deserved
a nice, long rest.
This squadron will be relaxing
for the next couple days until we have new orders.
- Squadron, I like that word.
Make sure Lukura, when we set out again,
just I like that name--
- What is Lukura?
It's fine, do you wanna come inside?
Are you okay? - Fantastic.
- Let's get some food for Jaysohn and Lila.
- Jaysohn will start attacking things.
- It looks like your mother had food.
- And there's the crash.
And there's the crash. - There it is.
- He shouldn't do a rock jump when he's hungry.
He's gonna need a nap. (laughing)
- And I do think, I just wanna like extra point out
for those of you who didn't see it.
Like, you see these massive packed cylinders
with straps to be put on their back
with like little prods on the side.
And they're just sort of at rest next to.
- Can I sniff around that, if it smells--
- There's people laying there.
So that's like going up to someone's backpack at Coachella
and being like, can I smell your bag?
Which you can do, but.
- Do you have water?
- I absolutely do that.
I see you interested and I'm like, oh yes.
- Yeah, I kind of use my mom as like a,
yeah, you go first and she'll be distracting them
and I can look through the bag.
Or look at the bag. - Look at this, Viola.
- Oh, you wanna inspect this? - Yeah, I do.
- Sure, you get in close.
You've gotta give me a persuasion check.
Some sort of charisma cause,
- Coitantly.
- [Aabria] Yeah, there's just a little stoat.
- You said persuasion? - [Aabria] Yes.
- Huah! Oh.
What's 17 plus four?
- 21.
- That many.
- With a 21 you see just a little plain, brown stoat
with a white bib kind of laying on their back.
Opens up one eye.
Sees the pack, sees you.
And more importantly looks up at Bennett
who you see gives them an imperceptible like,
(under breath) It's fine.
- I'm allowed to be here.
(laughing)
- Okay.
And just rolls unto their side.
And gives you a little wide berth to look at that.
- I check it out.
I wanna look at the cylinder.
Like, there was a prod part, but the thing
that's strapped to their back.
- Sure, give me an investigation check.
- Seven.
- This is big and made of a material
that I think you've only seen once or twice in your life.
There's been little scraps of metal
that you've come across.
Like, you've seen scraps of glass
that you used to dry out the jerky
and scraps of metal that you've sharpened
on rocks down by the river to turn into rudimentary tools.
You've never cared about too much
because what is a tool against
the things you were born with.
- Tools.
- Yeah, so this really feels like
an incoherent thing.
Like, you understand that there is a cool result
with no sense of how it functions.
- Okay, another thing I was thinking about. - Sure.
- Is this the place that I saw in my visions,
since I was seeing all of these stoats
jumping around happy in my vision.
Is this, have I come to the promised land?
- You had a very strong sense of being
surrounded by gray rock.
And this sort of outcropping of rock
doesn't look correct.
But the more you think about it,
that sort of smooth, uninterrupted pale gray
does look like what you saw in your vision.
- I think that just makes Viola a little bit more aware.
Like giving her sister a look of like,
there's some suspicion I have looking to my mother
and being like, I don't think we can rock in here
the way that we think we can.
We kind of have to be accommodating and adaptable
to their culture.
Honoring ours and accepting of theirs.
But I've got, my ears are kind of up.
- I'm going to make an insight check against,
not against, but into Bennett.
As I see that he appears to command
a little bit more status than any of
the stoats that we've met. - Please do.
- Can I, because I feel like I've seen Tula do this to me.
- Ha, ha, ha!
- Like, when I'm in the middle of a conversation,
I could just see Tula like burrowing.
Can I be in a conversation with Bennett
sort of asking him about the hunt and everything like that?
- Absolutely.
- Trying to give the...
Kind of get him to talk a bit more,
so I can give the help action. - 100%, for sure.
And Bennett immediately turns to you
and just, sure, engages in conversation.
- We're kind of comparing hunting notes.
- Yeah, oh yeah.
The thing you did was amazing
and I'm deeply grateful that you saw that.
I can't believe I missed it.
And yeah, is lost with you.
- 28.
- Golly. - (whisper) That's my mom.
- I'll give Thorn a little thing of like,
I see you helping me.
- Yeah, you sort of take in the leader of this hunt.
He's just a little bit larger
than any of the stoats, even young Walmer back
at your warren.
With like, tawny brown fur.
And a stripe down the center of his back
where everything's beginning to go like ermine winter white.
He's got just a little bit of like scarring
around his ear and on his face.
And right by his lip.
So it makes it look, especially while he's talking,
when he gets really excited and no longer
controls the muscles of his face,
his smile looks a little bit like a sneer
as it pulls up where the scar is.
And yeah, what are you looking for?
What do you want to know?
- Soft eyes.
I just want, everything always comes back
to danger and fear. - Yes.
- Should I be afraid of this person?
And are his intentions bad?
And if you allow on a 28, subheading,
does he wanna smash?
- Yeah! - Ho, ho, ho!
- That's my girl!
- Let's get a little comfortable.
- She's been around these woods!
- I'm not hooking up.
Knowing whether a guy wants to smash or not
has lots of other uses.
Valuable across the board.
(laughing) - Uh-huh.
- And I'm going to break my own heart
by answering in the order of importance
and not of what I find most interesting.
You should be afraid of him, he is a fearsome thing.
But as a group, don't have a reason to fear him.
I think you have a sense, very immediately
of hierarchy.
Like, he is physically imposing
and obviously good at what he does.
And you know that stoats have died
in this effort and he's walking it off.
That the thing that he is a part of
that he leads and represents is dangerous
by virtue of him being at the front of it and fine.
There is again that idea of like,
violence and order and the organization
of ferocity that he doesn't have to be scared
or scary or worry about any of you.
He didn't size you up as a threat.
Now did he size you up the other way?
You're damn right he did.
- [Jasper] Yeah! - Yes-suh!
- And the moment where you healed him,
there was that perfect blend of,
he was deeply impressed by your gift,
your willingness and efficacy in using it,
and a moment of kindness that like,
I think he, you get the sense that he's used to
people doing what he needs or says,
but an offered act of kindness beyond an order
was special to him.
Anything else?
You can ask one more question.
- Do I get any sense of, I guess,
the last thing I'd be looking for.
I don't know that cruelty is something
that I would have the history or knowledge of
given the family group that I've grown up with.
Like, that type of cruelty to strangers,
but is he aggressive?
- Hm.
No. - Okay.
- I think there's that sense of like,
big dogs seldom bark.
- [Brennan] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That he's just very much at rest,
and all of this is fine and easy.
- I think the same reason that I just sort of
abruptly was like, we should leave,
when we saw the rabbits is I'm seeing something
where I'm like, in a land with all this food,
why would you all be this frightening?
And I think that it's just, I can't get away
from how good these people are at violence,
when the only justification for violence
I've ever seen is needing to survive.
- Yeah.
I think you are a little bit staggered by that.
But then at the back of your mind
there is that sense of like,
the only reason to be that violent
is in the face of a threat to survival.
And if there is no cruelty here,
there is no delight in this.
Then there must be something
they are trying to survive against.
It's just not apparent yet.
- Yeah.
- And he turns and goes, okay,
we're gonna get you food there, good.
Sybil, you're good?
She kind of nods.
Okay, do you guys wanna come with me?
- Yeah. - Yes.
- [Aabria] Sure. - Thank you.
- And he's going to lead.
- Was that Sybil or Bennett?
- No, that was Bennett. - Okay.
- I mean, Sybil's gonna give you like a little bye wave.
- Ha, ha!
- Bye, I love you. - Bye, love you.
- Oh.
- Not as much as my mom.
- Oh my gosh, well, that's fair.
That makes perfect sense.
- You can come...
- Hang out, yeah.
- If you want to come see them later, you're welcome to.
- Oh sure.
Well, I don't know where you're gonna be.
But if you go down a blue corridor.
Fourth tunnel, and then on the eighth level to the right.
Well, I think if you just get to the blue corridor
and then you just yell very loudly, Sybil,
I will find you or my friends will.
- What's a corridor?
I'll yell Sybil.
- We'll find you.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- They're incredibly good at tracking things down.
I'm sure they'll find you.
- Terrifying. Okay, thank you.
And thank you again for not letting me...
That would have been bad, so thank you.
- You're so welcome.
I don't want anybody to perish
at all if I can help it.
- She's gonna go and kind of curl up on herself
and just is gonna take a little rest out on this grass.
And Bennett will lead you.
I think he gets really quiet.
And is sort of assessing and just sort of doing like,
you can see mental checklists of okay,
is everything taken care of.
Like, am I forgetting anything before I go inside?
He's going to lead you to the rabbit pen.
They're not gonna bother you.
And as Bennett steps forward these rabbits
jump back and away from him.
Like if you just wanna...
And the hole.
But if you wanna...
Actually, we can just kind of grab one of them on the way?
You know what, I got it.
And he like ducks in and is going to,
he goes from like casual and trying to explain
to just lightning fast grabs a rabbit
and grabs it by the back of the neck.
And then it's not just a bite.
But you see he reaches across with his hand
and snaps the rabbit's neck.
And then is just going to start walking,
again, upright, bipedal and is dragging it aside like,
I got it.
If you just want to follow me whenever you're...
You good?
- Can you teach me? - I don't know how to do that, teach me.
- Can we get three more?
- You want, I'm sorry?
- You're not gonna be able to finish three more rabbits.
- Nah, I think we will, we will.
- No, I know you feel that way
cause you're just really, really hungry.
But you will get a little bit into this rabbit
and then be full. - I can eat more rabbits than Lila.
- Family style. - Yeah, sure.
- Like a buffet or something like that?
- Give me a persuasion check.
I'm going to give you advantage,
because I know your charisma's shit,
but like, you do have a good rapport with him at this point.
- Yeah! Okay, all right.
That's 10.
- Yeah, with a 10 he's like, weird.
Uh...
Can I have a berry?
- Oh, yes! Of course, yes, yes.
- Sweet.
And you see he's still dragging and he kind of grabs it.
I'm not gonna put it in my mouth,
cause I don't wanna talk with it in my mouth.
And just sort of throws it in his mouth,
and says, go grab one.
Get like a smaller one. - Oh.
- It's easier with a smaller one.
- All right.
And I...
- Give me an attack roll. - Yeah!
- We'll make it like a grapple check.
So attack roll with your little hands.
- My little hands.
13 plus like, that's a dirty 20.
- Dirty 20.
You're able to lunge out and grab one
of the older rabbits that was just like,
do, do, ah, shit!
- Come here! - But he doesn't say that.
The rabbits can't talk.
And he's like, okay, okay, okay.
Good, got it?
So you want right under the jaw.
You know, where it gets kind of soft?
Grab there.
Up and towards your shoulder very quickly.
- Ah!
Ah!
- Head off.
- Give me an athletics check.
Your threshold is a 17 to get it on the first try.
- Oh, 14.
- Oo, it's gonna get a little nasty,
because you hear the pop and it just starts scream.
(squealing) - Oof.
- And he's just like, okay, okay.
That's a good first effort.
- What is it doing? What is it doing?
- Notice how it's not moving below the waist anymore,
so just one more time. One more time.
- Okay, ah! - Double pull.
You don't even have to roll for it.
(squealing continues) - Can we just leave her here?
(squealing stops) Can we just go?
- No, she'll keep trying. - [Jasper] She'll keep practicing.
- I'm unblinkingly staring at it.
- Shh, shh.
- No one gets it on the first one.
- Ugh.
- So that was pretty good. That was really good.
Ava? - Yes.
- And you're not single?
- Oh! - Ha, ha, ha!
Yes, yes, I'm very single yes.
- And you see him sort of freeze with this rabbit
by the scruff as he's like backing into
a little stoat tunnel and
kind of gives you a look. - And I smile.
- Eh, I don't know.
And pushes back in.
So yeah, you get led to this small hole in a cement wall.
Do you all follow?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Sweet, you get in and you find yourself
on the inside of this just truly massive cement structure.
- Ah!
- The stairs! - Oh my god! Oh my god.
- Okay. Okay.
- Okay, okay.
- And you see just sort of a little walkway, like catwalk
looking out and over a massive internal,
the word you have for it is just a single burrow
within a bigger warren.
But it goes up higher than any of you have ever climbed.
And out farther than any of you have ever looked
from a flat surface.
It just extends in every direction.
And it's covered with ladders and pipes
of various sizes that are either painted
to match the sort of drab gray of the cement
or painted in vibrant shades of orange and red and blue
and run into the walls and out of the walls.
You see large rust drip marks as places
where water has seeped into this
have dried over time.
And out on the ground and up on the walls
in structures both clawed in and made and formed
and that have already existed there.
More stoats than you thought were ever in the world.
- Whew.
- Just in front of you now,
those of you who just learned what a 'thousand' is.
Maybe 2,000 stoats milling around.
Each one of them with a small strip
of ochre fabric at their waist,
purposefully moving towards things, away from things.
And before you get down and into it,
Bennett kind of moves to the side and drags the rabbit away
and gives you a little private moment
on this catwalk.
And looks over and says, welcome to Last Bast.
If you wanna acclimate for a minute, I understand.
And you have two rabbits.
And he kind of just drops his and nudges it towards you.
- Thorn's paternal instincts kicking in,
without even looking away I just put a hand
on Jaysohn's shoulder and just say, no jumping.
(laughing)
- I'm just looking at the rabbits in that way that like,
you know a kid on Christmas morning
and the presents are there, but you're not allowed
to open them yet.
- Yes. - I'm gonna look at Jaysohn and Lila
and look at Bennett and I'm gonna say,
go ahead and eat, sweetie.
- Ah! - Whoa.
- How big were the rabbits
that you drove out of this burrow?
- Ha, ha, ha! Sorry, I'm so sorry.
This was not a rabbit burrow.
- Badger?
- Oo.
- No. - [Rashawn] A big bear?
- Thorn fully sits back and is like.
- Skin?
- Yes.
Um... - Human.
- What's that? - What's that? Hm?
- And Bennett once again pushes himself up to standing
and rests and kind of tucks his claws inside
of this little sash belt.
And says, they walk on two feet.
They're monsters.
- And you're not afraid?
- No.
That's what all of this is for.
That's what all of this is about.
- I knew it.
- And...
Lila is looking at the sash
and she's very smart.
She's looking at it and she goes...
I think I could crumple that up in a way.
Maybe put it on Auntie's head.
(laughing)
- Give me...
- Smartest little girl in the world.
- Smartest girl that's ever existed.
Go ahead and give me an intelligence,
just a raw intelligence check.
- I'm gonna give the help action.
(laughing)
- Uh...
13.
- You're sort of staring at it.
And you're like, oh.
If you could put that there,
you could put that anywhere.
And as you're sort of putting it together,
like, Bennett catches your eye because he sees you
sort of staring at him.
He doesn't move away from being bipedal,
but just sort of crouches a little bit
unto his haunches to get a little closer.
Like, he can't get closer to your height.
He's bigger than any stoat you've ever seen.
But begins addressing you-- - This is hot.
- Begins addressing you, but also the entire group.
(rumbling) (cast gasping)
- No, no, no!
- What does that mean?
- Before the beginning, there was darkness.
- Puppets.
- We found the light ourselves.
And began the world.
So many new things were illuminated.
Opportunity, reason, technology, power.
But light also begets shadow.
And from those dark corners monsters grew.
They stalk, ever expanding towards us.
Towards what we have rightfully claimed.
Towards what we have built.
Towards the things that we seek to protect, each other,
the Light itself.
If they breach our walls, they will snuff out the Light.
Because it is in darkness that they thrive.
The shadows approach.
We see it in the crushed clover.
We feel it in the tremble of the earth itself.
We feel it in the thunder on a cloudless day.
This is the Last Bastion of the Light
and we are its defenders.
So we will work tirelessly together
to prepare ourselves so that when the time comes
we stoats will banish the darkness and its monsters.
Forever.
(clapping)
- They did it, sweetie, they did it.
- This show rules.
Incredible.
- How long?
How long have you had this stronghold?
- Are you familiar with the way humans keep time?
- Uh, the sun comes up and it goes down?
- That's correct. The sun comes up.
- And seasons come and go
and we all turn white in the winter.
20 winters ago.
This place became ours.
- [Erika] 20!
- That's so long.
- Sorry, 20 winters ago?
- Yes.
- How many winters have you seen, Mama?
- Four.
- I didn't think there was anything older than you.
- There wasn't.
- How...
How can you possibly know that?
It would have been, even if there were five...
Of our whole families. - You write it down?
- We write it down.
And if you can read it, there is so much
we can show you.
- Maybe 'read' isn't all that bad.
- Is there a place to read?
- There is.
You have food and safety.
And fellowship.
All within these walls.
Welcome home.
- Whew.
- And that's where we're going to end today's episode.
- No!
- Woo!
- [Jasper] Aabria Iyengar, wow! Wow! - [Brennan] Let's go, let's fucking go!
- When a stoat passes,
it's easier if we stop thinking of them as a person.
And I don't really want to forget his name yet,
but it'll be easier.
- Say his name.
- (quietly) I don't think I should do that.
- How many winters are they?
- The first stoats? - [Erika] Yes.
- Oh.
Well, my understanding would be that they were here
as long as we've had Last Bastion.
- Did you hear that girls?
I could live for another 15 winters.
- Ah! Ah! Ah!
I just start screaming. Ah!
No, I love you.
I want you to live for as many winters as possible.
Ah! Ah!
Eternal grandma, yes, yes, good.
- I belong to Jaysohn.
- You belong to Jaysohn? - [Aabria] Yup.
- Troubling.
- I belong to my mom and to Jaysohn.
- I'm fucked.
- He's trying to get us to like him, you see.
Which means that we have a lot of power over him right now.
- Do we like him?
Hold on, go, take like four steps back.
- I am not going to move.
- Are you guys going to kill humans?
- Yes. How do you want to kill humans?
- Oh! - [Aabria] They're bad.
- I wanna push a tree on 'em.
- Push a tree on 'em?
- Yeah, bite, kick. - Amazing.
- Dig a hole.
- Bury them.
- They're very big.
- The last thing my children need to be convinced of
is that they are invincible.
- I'm certainly not telling them they're invincible,
I understand where you're coming from,
but something is happening here
and you told me that we have to be prepared for everything.
If we're in the dark, we know nothing.
And if we know nothing, we are not safe.
(light music)