Thank Goodness it's Thursday! CRF's 90s Charity One-Shot Benefitting NCWIT | Sponsored by Ebay Live Part 2

Vengeance starts the fire, but in Ghost of Yotte, what follows burns brighter.

This PlayStation 5 experience tells the story of Atsu, a lone warrior in a harsh yet beautiful land, chasing justice and discovering something more human.

With sweeping visuals, multi-weapon combat, and powerful storytelling, it delivers a fresh experience for new players and fans of Ghost of Tsushima alike.

A friend of the show, Erika Ishii, voices Atsu, a new, unforgettable PlayStation hero.

Ghost of Yotte is available now on PlayStation 5, rated M for mature.

At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder Makes You.

Start your journey at wonder.arizona.edu.

A new era of power has arrived with the Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops, intentionally engineered to push more power to the CPU and GPU for maximum performance.

Combined with Intel Core Ultra9 processors, merging CPU, NPU, and integrated GPU into one AI-optimized chip, it delivers fast, smart, and seamless performance across everything you do.

So no matter what you're playing, Alienware ensures every game runs precisely as its developers intended.

A new era of power is here.

All you have to do is take it.

Discover Area 51 today at www.alienware.com/slash area-51 laptops.

Hi again, critters.

It's Sam Regal, and you're listening to part two of this episode from the Critical Role Podcast Network.

If you haven't checked out part one yet, pause this now and head over there first.

Otherwise, enjoy part two.

And welcome back.

So before we jump into the immediate cancer that I thought on a couple of things.

Right now we are, or the main thing is this, some of you have asked, there's been a lot of questions about it.

We're actually going to put up for auction this slate kind of gem screen front here along with the fear pogs that I'm using for this event as part of this charity as well.

So that should be up now.

Check it out and help us, one lucky winner, get that as a keepsake and memory part of this.

And you get some great pogs that I will lick each and every one of them for you.

Do they take the pogs immediately so you lose all your fear tokens?

Is that what happens?

No, it's after the game.

Yeah, we can lick all the pogs and also sit on them.

Yeah, yeah.

Someone's into that, I'm sure.

Yeah.

All right.

I haven't heard lick all the pogs since mid-90s.

But with that, the faces now cracked open and the tendril, weird, extraterrestrial faces of these executive details now exposed.

They rush in with impossible speed.

I'm gonna immediately use this fear to get them both gonna, as part of their hive mind, when one is spotlighted, they both are spotlighted in the same time.

So both of them rush in.

The first one is gonna go ahead and use its acidic tentacles.

Its face is going to come towards you, Karin.

That's gonna be a 21 to hit you.

I think that hits.

Yeah, that hits.

All righty.

you take

uh

13 points of energy damage i'm gonna use a um i'm gonna use an armor all right it also take that down to a wait what how many take it down to 13 points 13 so i'm gonna take that down to a minor all right and you also the tendrils as the tentacles wrap around you it burns your skin and yourself uh you also mark an additional armor slot without getting its benefits so it burns through your armor quicker oh

So you only get the benefit of one, but you burn two slots.

Oh, that sucks.

The other one, I'm going to spend a fear, and it's going to rush in the middle of the chamber amongst all of you.

And it's going to hold its hands forward.

The tentacles are going to shake for a second.

And you all feel in the center of your mind, like a piercing headache from nowhere, a

psychic scream blasts out at all of you.

I need you all to make instinct reaction rolls for me, please.

So just roll and make an instinct roll.

You don't gain hope or I don't gain any fear.

Just tell me what you...

Oh, what?

It's on top of the other one.

Reveal the other one.

There we go.

Oh my gosh, that was a critical race.

Okay.

13 with hope.

13.

You are fine.

You managed to lock it out of your mind.

9 with fear.

9 with fear.

It courses in your brain.

You lose a hope and mark of stress.

Oh my god, I'm getting so stressed out, guys.

12?

12?

You also lose a hope and mark of stress as it rings into your mind in a painful way.

22.

22.

You shrug it off.

You've seen worse.

Guys, guys.

Casey, what do you think?

Uh, 13.

13.

You also kind of you wince, but you pull away.

I have 22.

22.

And I'd like it to be because in my head, I'm just singing the meow mix theme song.

So it's like, I don't even hear it.

I'm just like, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

Perfect.

Yes.

It is a barrier unstoppable.

Great.

So after the screen recedes, they both kind of square up against the rest of you.

Their fist airs, their faces are

around it.

It is now a spotlight to you.

Who would like to...

Wait!

You guys, I have that caustic glue.

Oh, yes!

Oh, yes, yeah.

And it burns.

Oh!

So

I bet if we like glue the tentacles to something.

Glue it to itself.

Just swim in the face.

I think we should also tag team for the first time.

I think we should probably tag team a fight, don't you?

Yes.

Yeah, I've got okay.

The three hope to spend?

Yeah, the the person who initiates is the only one that has to spend the three hope.

Okay.

So only one of you needs to.

Well, if you do you want to initiate, do you want me to initiate?

You called it.

You started.

Sure, I'll initiate.

So what do I do?

Erase three of you.

Well,

if you don't want to use your hope, then you don't have to do that.

I'm just saying, if we want to at some point in the future, it seems like maybe we should work together.

No, I think we should, maybe we should work together on this one.

So yeah, yeah.

So I'm going to spend three hope.

You got it?

Okay, wait, I have this thing.

It says spotlight hog.

Any tag team role you are a part of can be initiated for only two hope.

Ooh!

Whenever you help an ally, you add a 1d8 to the result as opposed to a 1d6, 1d6.

However, you always attempt to take the credit, causing the involved ally to take a stress.

Should we do this?

That's great.

You only spend two hope.

So the two of you can do a tag team right now for only two hope costs on you.

Okay, perfect.

I'm going to do that.

All right, so how are you both tag team?

Are you using your glue and what are you doing to impede or harm these alien executive detail?

Stab this trunk.

I well, okay, I am going to use my scalpel.

It is a prop scalpel.

However, these tentacles, they're slimy, they're slippery.

I don't think they're that strong.

And how about I could try to chop some of them?

Chop them, weaken them.

That's great.

Yeah.

All right.

Stab them, cut them, straighten, harm them.

Yeah.

That's perfect.

So now both of you make your respective rolls.

So you roll your finesse for your attack with your scalpel, and then you go ahead and roll for the glue usage.

Would that be finesse?

It would say on the card, I believe.

Oh, oh, oh.

Skillcraft roll?

Correct.

So if you look at your

foundation card there, which would be this?

It's one of your other cards.

Oh.

Oh, this one.

Skillcraft trait.

Okay, got it.

Presence.

So yeah, so you rolled your presence bone.

Seven,

eight, nine,

plus two, eleven with hope.

So 11 with hope versus.

I've got 15 over here with hope, but what did you say what type of roll it was?

For you, it would be finesse.

What do you want?

So 17 with hope.

So you both get to take the higher of the two.

So you both take 17 with hope.

You both gain a hope.

Yes.

And that is a success for both of you.

So go ahead and go.

So roll your damage and combine

against the target.

You have two of these details.

So do you want the one on the right or the one on the left?

Left.

Left.

Left, let's go.

Roll your damage.

What is it?

2, 8, plus 3.

Did I roll the same ones?

8-sided?

Mine is 8.

Okay, okay, which is the 8?

Wait, no, the 8-sided dice, not 2-4, 2-6.

That's all good.

Which one's the 8?

This is the 8, right?

So I guess that would be.

I guess it doesn't matter.

Well, these are.

It doesn't matter for the other.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Great, roll 12.

12 plus what?

I got a roll.

2D 8 plus

2.

Great.

So, 15.

Great.

15.

6.

6.

That's going to be 21 points of damage, which crosses its severe thresholds.

That's three hit points in that combined attack on the 1.

A heavy hit.

Yes.

On the left,

the glue scatters around it, and you watch as the glue kind of adheres to its body and sticks it to the ground, and it's like burning.

The material of its suit begins to burn away, and you can see that same like dark green alien texture beneath.

It looks like it has like fleshy gloves and a mask that tore open and the rest of it beneath the suit is just some weird chitiness alien body.

As the glue's burning and holding it in place, you come up with your scalpel and

just stab and carve away.

The chemicals like splinter away causing a spray of kind of a dark liquid across the ground as it kind of pulls back

into itself.

But it looks pretty hurt.

Pretty hurt in one opening go on that one.

I'm going to spend a fear to go ahead and take the spotlight from you at this point.

Now, because once again, they are hive mind, they can both be spotlighted together.

The other one is going to, the one that you just struck was the one that did not scream earlier.

I'm gonna go ahead and spend a fear to have that one give its own psychic scream.

The other one that's been injured goes

and you feel that same shriek in your brain.

I need you all to make another instinct roll.

Also,

Will's dispel power cloves.

Power club seven-piece die set is about to go up.

These are sick.

They are sick.

These are like my favorite dice ever.

These are awesome.

One and one.

That's a great.

So yeah, so you're

unfazed.

Unfazed by this.

14.

14 is a success.

You keep it at bay.

14.

14 as well.

You guys, the first scream, a little shake in this one.

Old hat.

15.

15?

Same, yeah.

14.

Great.

Nine.

There we go.

We got one.

Oh, yeah.

Fear doesn't matter with the reaction rule, so you're good.

But you guys, you lose a hope and you mark a stress on this one.

As

you see Joey Squawk over here, like being repeatedly shaken by the presence of

this alien psychic storm.

I stopped listening to my commercial in my head.

Oh, interesting.

So as a reaction, I forgot to note, as you both stabbed...

this creature, as a reaction, it has shifting form.

Because of its body moving in an alien and unfamiliar way beneath the suit, it causes you both to get spooked.

You both mark a stress

from both striking it and doing three or more hit points from an attack.

Back on us now?

No, the other one gets to attack.

It's going to rush up to you, Sam.

And its tentacles are going to reach out to try and grasp at you.

That's going to be...

Ooh, that's not a good roll.

That's a five.

That's pretty sure that's not higher than your evasion.

So as it reaches out for you, you just dart back out of the way and keep at bay from its assault.

The spotlight's back to you who would like to go.

I want to pick a giant rock, the biggest rock in my pocket, and as close range, just as hard as I can, right?

Your block, your girlfriend, block.

Wow, that seemed personal.

You're okay.

Jeez.

Wow.

You know, we're fighting aliens here.

Maybe we talk about it later.

We went out once.

You stated, huh?

Yeah, one time.

I can tell.

Back in the day.

After she asked me out and asked me out and asked me out, one time I said, yeah.

You took me to see Air Force One.

Yeah, three times.

You're such a good movie.

That's such a great movie.

Get off my plane.

Get off my plane.

Audience gave me three more fierce.

I'm just adding that there.

Thank you so much, audience.

They don't like it.

They don't like Cam Force One.

All right, so again, your uncle, you do have 15 more plus ones to add if you'd like to.

The audience is given.

You can decide to use any if you like.

We should save them probably for something bigger than this, right?

I'm still what?

Why not?

All right, give me one.

Give me two.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so plus two on that.

All right, so that leaves us then at 13 left.

So it's 11 with hope.

11 with hope.

Are you cool with that one?

No.

How many re-rolls do we have?

You currently have

six more re-rolls.

We should save those, don't you think?

Those are pretty big.

I mean, audience can donate more.

Unless they don't do it.

Do it.

Do it.

All right, I'll do a reroll.

We don't do that anymore.

I'll do a re-roll.

All right.

There we go.

That's better.

All right.

So it's.

So it's just, yeah, it's 13 with hope.

13 with hope, yeah.

That's better.

And I don't add anything yet.

It's not, I wouldn't add agility or strength or anything.

Well, for the rocket, it would say I think it's finesse or agility there.

Is it?

For the trait on the rock.

Oh, yeah, no, it is agility.

So, yes, I would add two.

So 15.

15 succeeds.

Yeah, take that.

All right, let's go ahead and roll damage.

And then, so it's 2d6.

Another one?

I'll just roll two.

Oh, yes, I do.

In the awesome.

The power glove.

The power glove from Nintendo.

I mean, come on.

Come on.

I didn't know those were called power gloves.

Eight.

Eight points of damage?

Yeah.

All right, this is to the one who's already been wounded or to the one that's been untouched.

I'm going to do the already wounded.

All right, that will be past its major threshold.

That's two more hit points on that one.

Crack!

The rock like slams into the tentacles and like embeds itself.

This jagged piece of like broken concrete that was left in the parking lot is now stuck out of its mass of writhing body parts.

And here,

it's trying to eject it from its what you imagine a face would be, and it's lodged in it at that moment.

At this point, you notice the ceiling is now growing thick and somewhat viscous, as whatever expansion you noticed before has hit this floor and begins to rain down a strange acidic fume.

The audience has given you all to one hit point to mark as the atmosphere here now grows more caustic.

Oh, no, no, no.

Another hit point.

I'm going to use an armor.

Can I use an armor?

No, this one you can't use armor.

This just burns through to you.

Got it.

But that's all.

That's good there.

Two more of you, by the way, can add plus two to an experience if you'd like from audience donations.

Do it, do it, do it, grab it, grab it.

Do it last time.

What?

Yeah.

We didn't get the experience.

Two of you didn't.

I didn't get it.

Two people didn't get the experience.

You do it.

I don't, okay.

Yeah, you did it.

I went to you too.

I thought I did it.

She did it.

I did it.

I added.

You took it for Handy Man?

Yeah, okay.

I didn't take it, but okay.

Well, I could just put it on anything.

On any one of your experiences.

Plus two?

Yeah, plus two for that.

Who would like to take the spotlight now?

Well, it seems, can I just say?

It seems like there are two tentacles still coming at us, correct?

Yeah, they are the two alien details in the channel.

One of them looks pretty hurt, and the other has been untouched.

Well, I do have a hooligan trait.

Boom?

It's a strength trait.

It's a skill craft trait.

It's boomerang toss.

When you have an equipped weapon with a range of melee or very close, it can fly from your hand to attack an adversary within close range and then return to you.

You can mark a stress to target an additional adversary within range with the same attack roll.

Yes, you can.

So I would like to use this to attack both of them

with my baseball bat.

It's just

a mechanism.

Batter up, motherfucker.

Let's go.

Okay, 19 plus 5, 24 with hope.

24.

Plus agility?

Or no, wait, no, I'm using that.

Strength.

This is, yeah, strength.

That very much hits.

27.

Oh, yeah, that hits.

All right, so take that hope and roll damage for that.

You said it's mark of stress to hit the moth, is what it was?

That's a great movie.

Yes, and mark of stress.

Yes, mark of stress for doing the effect, but you go ahead and take your bat.

It spins around, cracks up against one, bounces off, and cracks into the other.

Go and roll damage for your baseball bat.

Okay.

That's this one?

That would be this 2D 10.

Oh.

Two 10-sided dice.

Where are they?

It's all good.

I know.

Sorry.

It's all good.

It's all good.

It's the one that looks like...

Okay, sorry.

Okay.

Looks like a diamond almost, like that.

Oh, that.

Yeah, yeah.

Here we go.

Here's one.

It's all good.

We got you.

For the record, a lot of people at this table, first time playing a tabletop RPG, and they're kicking it.

They're doing so good.

Never failing.

Filling it.

You guys are taking to it like a bad one.

That's a D8.

That's right there.

This one.

Fish to water.

Yeah, that one right there.

There you go.

It's all good.

Okay, it's a six and a four.

10.

10, 10 points of damage.

That's going to be a major wound.

How do you want to do this?

You describe one of these.

Describe how your bat takes one of these aliens out.

Okay.

So, I swing the bat from my hand.

Almost in slow motion.

It comes up to the aliens, to the one who's wounded, and it just hits it and it splatters everywhere.

It's gone.

And some of it just splatters on all of our faces.

Oh, it's in my nose.

Oh, no.

And then it gets into the next one, wraps around it.

Crack!

Snaps it in half.

It's not completely done, but it causes damage and then comes in and and swirls right back around into my hands

like this

Crazy.

Whoa.

It's an incredible display as Sam stands there, Ripley style with the bat in the hand.

The camera kind of comes in real fast.

Chiseled jaw, ready to dominate.

Yes!

Yes!

She's a beast!

You're killing them all, Smalls.

Ready?

I'm going to burn a fear.

The one that's still standing and took the hit from the bat kind of looks back towards you.

Gets down on the ground and begins lunging towards you on all fours in a very animalistic lurch before leaping towards you as tentacles reaching for your face.

That's going to be an 11 to hit you.

Oh, yeah.

All right, so for that.

Question.

I have this thing here.

Confidence boost.

Spend three hope to talk up an ally's ability and granting them either plus two to a trait of your choice or plus two to their evasion lasting to the end of the scene.

Can I do that?

If you'd like to, would plus two to your evasion make

sure that you're not going to be able to do it.

It would not help.

How about adding plus two to any traits?

I guess that's not what I'm doing.

No, this may not help, but that's a good thing to know for future battles.

Also, if you do it at the start of a battle, it lasts for the entire game.

That's a good thing to hold on to.

That's a really useful thing.

Wait, so if she did that right when we walked into the room when the two guys came in, that'd be the whole battle.

The whole battle, you would get that plus two to your evasion for whoever she targeted, or plus two to a trait that you choose.

Cool.

Who has the lowest devasion?

I think that she does.

Yeah.

Wait, whose trapper keeper do we have up?

Is it a rider trapper keeper?

It's a Christmas!

Give it a hug.

Give it a hug.

It's roll current.

It's got lots of notes in here.

And to celebrate, you take 11 points of energy damage.

And you mark an additional armor slot as your armor is dissolved from the contact of the tentacles upon your body.

Okay, wait, 11 points

of damage.

Okay.

But, okay.

I can also take an armor without

instead of a.

Well,

you can burn an armor to reduce it by one threshold, but regardless.

You're already in the minor.

I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

So there you go.

So, but you also burn an additional armor because of its aesthetic tentacles, like tearing away the armor.

Alright, that ends their activation, the singular one, who wants to take the spotlight now.

Does that mean you'd have to embrace an armor?

I didn't have one yet.

Oh.

That was my first armor.

Yeah.

Oh, got it.

All right.

I'm going to go.

How many are left now?

We got one.

Okay, so

I'm going to go up to it.

And out of my, I'm going to reach in real far into one of my cargo pockets and I'm going to pull out a jar.

Okay.

And in this jar.

Another baby baby.

Because I am also, one of my abilities, I'm a bug collector.

Yes.

Because I am an indoor kid.

So

I don't play with children.

I play in my backyard.

Right, fair.

Ashley's playing a character.

Basically me.

All right, um, so it is a jar of fireflies.

Alrighty.

So, if I make a skill craft roll

in close range, spend a hope.

Okay, I'll spend a hope.

Um,

and then deal 2d8 plus three.

Let's do it.

Energy dude, yes.

So, so I just go up to an

okay, okay.

So,

um, um, um, um, where'd where'd it go?

Alright, so what am I rolling with?

Okay

Okay, that's fine.

We have re-rolls, don't forget we have re-rolls.

Which I'll allow the re-rolls for damage dice if you prefer.

Okay.

That's big.

What is my

13?

It's 15.

15 damage?

No, that's 15 to hit.

Oh, to hit.

Are you happy with that?

Did that hit?

I think I hit it 15, didn't I?

With fire flies?

I don't know with fireflies, but I hit it.

I think you hit it at 15.

Yeah.

I think it's hit.

Are you good with that?

Okay, I'm going to stay with that.

Okay, that hits.

All right, all right, all right.

So it's 2d8 plus 3.

Like a good firefly attack.

Alright, that's pretty good.

8 or 10 around 12.

15.

15 is past its severe threshold.

That's three hit points on it.

It is, the fireflies swim around it, and they're normal fireflies, but as they like land on its face, you watch them suddenly like,

they start popping around it as they do, it's like burning its flesh.

Like they're

the fireflies like,

but they're, there's some sort of a chemical reaction in their presence that is scarring this alien creature deeply.

And it looks like it's barely holding on.

It's starting to like turn around and it looks like it may try and bolt or try and search for help.

That was with hope or fear?

That was

with hope.

That was with hope.

Take it hope.

You guys rolling hope pretty often.

Yeah, we are.

I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear.

To have it.

Oh, and as if it's part of shifting form, you do mark a stress for doing three or more hit points to it.

Because his body quivers at the impact of the fire flies.

It's going to go ahead and hit you with its hammer fist.

It's going to rush forward and it's what, like kind of the fleshy glove kind of slides off of it.

And you see now this weird, like curled reptilian-like hand that just curls into a massive fast-moving green hammer towards your face this is going to be

that's a natural toning that's a critical hit oh no

so you take

so that would be

22 points of damage

as this creature at the edge of its of its its need to survive or to take something down with it, it just goes right into the core of your bridge of your nose and your forehead with a

heavy impact.

Okay, I'm gonna use an armor to take that down because that was over my severe.

Right, so it takes down two hit points.

So, two hit points.

Oh shit.

I'm full up

in hit points.

You're done?

Yeah, wait, so what does that mean?

So we get to make a death move.

Oh no!

You're about to be recast.

Yeah, oh no.

Oh my god!

Oh, No!

Okay,

what card do you have?

It says, it's a spell.

It says a touching moment.

You can take a moment to express your appreciation to someone and help them recover.

When you can take a few minutes to focus on the target you're helping, you can spend two hopes to clear a hit point or a stress on them.

So yeah, so you can do that after this fight.

So we'll see how it goes here.

But you can do that to bring her back.

So for now, you have the choice to go unconscious.

Okay.

It means you are out of the rest of this fight, this scene.

Okay.

You're fine.

Or you could, Blaze of Glory, take one action that's an automatic success, and then you're gone.

You pass.

Or you can risk it all, roll your duality dice, and if your hope die is higher, you regain hit points or stress equal to what you roll in the hope die.

If your fear die is higher, you're gone.

Dude, go unconscious.

I gotta go unconscious.

I gotta go unconscious.

Yes, just unavailable.

Right, right.

With a heavy smack,

you watch as Karin just crumples to the ground.

Karen!

Just completely.

It's Karin!

And then she turns around and is going to bolt for the door.

The spotlight's back to you.

What would you like to do?

Well, can I now can I do that?

When can I use the two?

You can do that when you're not in the middle of a scuffle of battle because for a touching moment, you need kind of a moment to talk.

You don't understand.

In every Friday Night sitcom, there was a touching moment anytime we ever wanted it to be, and the music would come in.

You know what?

You know what?

I'm a doctor.

I accept that.

I accept that entire life.

Violins are in the middle of this chaos.

Sparkling music.

Sad music begins to kick in.

I'm just laying there.

As you lean into the unconscious car, and please describe to me this touching moment.

Karin,

as you lay here unconscious in your enormous cargo shorts, stuffed with all kinds of stuff, bugs, stuff from craft service.

I don't want your Youth and Film Award to be the high point of your young life.

As a doctor, I can't let this happen, Karin.

Doctor.

And you're excuse me, I'm a tiny psychiatrist.

So Karin, I will spend as much hope I will as the sparkly music infuses me with special powers I will pour hope directly from my heart into your life force.

Oh she's back.

She's hope.

She's back.

Yay!

Wrapped up in 22 minutes.

I spent two hope.

A hit point or a stress.

Correct.

So you can move.

So you put one.

So I remove

a hit point or a stress.

You are back to conscious.

Now

it is still your spotlight.

Hey, there's another signed picture that you can go grab.

Yeah.

It's rocky.

Get in there.

Get in there.

I'd like to go.

You haven't gone in a minute.

Would you like to go?

Okay.

Yeah.

What are you going to do?

Okay.

Do it.

Do it.

I don't know.

Are we in a fight still?

Yeah.

I close.

I'm going to use my golf club.

Heck yeah.

Yes.

You got batter up.

Let's go.

How did we not notice that you were carrying a golf club?

Was I supposed to say something?

It checks out.

Yeah, it's not.

It's telescopic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it was in my large cargo pants.

Okay.

It checks out.

Yeah, yeah.

It was a golf club.

Cartoon rules.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cartoon rules.

So I'm going to take my golf club and I am going to hit the other one that didn't get hit the first time.

So I'm going to try and just like hit it right in the neck and see if I can't just kind of like

have it actually decapitate decapitate.

It's pretty wounded as it's trying to rush out the chamber.

So go ahead and roll your attack.

Is that a strength for the golf club?

What?

Instinct.

Okay.

Oh, it's instinct.

Oh, it's instinct.

Yeah, okay.

Let's go instinct.

So this is more about finding the angle, finding the right bit of weight to get behind it than just brute force.

So go ahead and make your instinct roll.

Do you want to add anything to it?

You currently have

13 plus ones you can add to any roll.

Ooh, I had to have a little bit of a turn.

Yeah, two or three.

I'd say take three.

Yeah, take three.

Take three.

All right, so that's three plus one spent.

Three plus one what?

So just

add on top of the roll.

Let's go for the attack.

Adding a plus four.

Huh?

Adding four?

Yeah, we're using four.

Okay.

I don't know.

She already has a plus three.

He has a plus three.

I don't know what Eddie is.

Plus six.

Let's go.

Oh.

10 and 7.

Great.

With ranks.

17 with hope.

Plus 6.

23.

23 with hope.

Great.

23 with hope.

Take a hope on that.

That is a success.

Go Go and roll your damage.

Not run out.

Not for that.

Damage is 2d10.

Let's go.

But I need the little

2d10 plus.

No, I think that's the 12 ones, isn't it?

Oh, sorry.

These three.

There it is.

Yeah.

That's a 10 and a.

That's a 10?

The 0?

I think it's a 10 in that value.

Okay, so a 10 and a 5.

So 15.

15.

But plus 6.

21.

What?

That's a heavy hit.

That is beyond its severe threshold.

That's going to finish him off.

How do you want to do this?

Yay!

As this executive detail is rushing out to get allies to come help and swarm this space, you square yourself up to that final hit.

You're ready to me.

I'm ready.

I pull my catcher's mask down.

Just say yes.

Anything, you know, goes flying.

Oh, shit.

And I am so ready for this.

And I just, I crack one.

It hits him right in the right spot.

His head goes flying across the room, hits the wall, completely just turns into liquid, oozes down the wall, and then just disappears.

Yeah, yellow.

What?

Yell four.

Yellow four.

Yeah.

I was like, what am I adding four to now?

Incredible.

What do I add it to?

Incredible.

Did I get another hope?

Oh, yay.

Incredible.

This is what happens, by the way, when you've got six people who are raised in a set school trying to add.

Yeah.

Oh, exactly.

Correct.

Yes.

Yes.

And I also like that I'm the one that has no idea what I'm doing, and I just took one out.

So you are too hanging.

You all

gather your breath for a minute here.

Look at the chaos.

I think something might be going on.

Oh, my God.

You guys, he had an elevator in his private office.

What?

I see it goes right down to the bunker that I saw.

To hell?

Yeah, wherever.

Wherever the alien, but there's people down there.

they're under glass.

Was it under glass?

Yes, there were people.

Like, I figured

out what the hell was that.

Was it that other child actors?

Is that where Matthew and Tori are?

Probably.

We have to go save them.

We have to get to his office and get to that elevator.

But you were up there.

Was all this stuff growing all over that place there, too?

Yeah.

And how are we going to get up there?

There's heavy breathing coming from the doorway.

Oh, no.

As you turn your hand.

You got James Gandalfini's here.

Get out of here.

And see a shape holding a long metal pipe that looks covered in some sort of dark splatter.

As it steps into the light, you see the scrawny form of Myers himself now kind of bruised, scraped, and battered as a heroic ally comes to your aid from the donations here.

As Myers goes,

Hey kids,

it's getting real weird around here.

Myers!

Wait a second.

How do we know you're really Maya?

I don't know how I am.

What am I supposed to tell you?

I'm me.

That is so Maya's right there.

Myers.

What's going on?

What do you know?

Look,

I've been kind of kept out of the loop in a lot of these conversations, a lot of these meetings.

There's been a lot a lot of

the shareholders have been showing up in short bursts.

There's been a lot of

meetings in the executive office and somewhere else that I'm unaware of.

He keeps telling me to stay out of there and not to go

snooping around his office specifically.

I also know that a lot of kids have been kind of showing up around here and haven't been seen anymore.

There's a bigger thing going on here that I don't fully understand, but

if I can help at all, do you need me to go call call the police?

Uh, what I, if I could be of service, give me a task.

I'm really good at tasks, that's pretty much all I'm good at.

Police, police, police,

tell us how to get to the office, FBI, you need to get to the office, yeah.

How do we get to the executive office?

Because the hallway's prone, yeah.

Is there a backway?

Wait, is there a back way to the executive office?

Oh, let me see.

And you all step out into the hallway, and you can see now it's the corruption is continued at the presence of seeing that.

You all lose a hope.

If you don't have any hope to lose, let me know.

He goes, oh, geez, golly.

There is

a fire escape stairwell that I think should get us up to the third floor.

And if it's not fully corroded like this,

it should help us.

Come with me.

And he kind of runs out of the hallway, like dragging the pipe behind.

And you can see now like the acres dripping and the walls are almost like kind of bending in a weird non-Euclidean way, almost like the corners are starting to shift.

And this is no longer becoming the executive office.

This is like it is being turned into into something else.

He begins rushing.

Come on.

Hurry.

Gets over to the outside of a fire escape, which is the door.

Oh, no, it's locked.

Does he want to open a locked door?

I'm not.

Where's the key card?

Oh, I have the key card.

Wait, but also, Jody's die set.

The 1985 G is up right now.

Yes.

Look at look at these.

Nope, here we go.

Where's my other one?

Here we go.

These are beautiful.

They are so sick.

Yeah.

Okay.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, the key card.

Can I try the key card?

You go to get the key card?

There's no beeper for it.

This is just like an actual old-school metal key turn.

Wait, wait.

Who knows how to pick a lock?

I do.

I do.

I have a little criminal.

I have a little criminal ability.

I have an advantage on action rolls to pick locks, disarm traps, or steal items from a target.

Yes, great.

All right.

I'm going to try and pick the lock.

Fantastic.

Let's go.

Go ahead and roll a finesse roll for me with that additional advantage on it.

So that's 15 plus 2.

17.

So 17.

Are you happy with that?

Wait, do I get an additional advantage?

Yeah.

I didn't take an advantage.

Do I get another eight-sided dice?

Six-sided dice to add to it.

Yeah, go for it.

Yes.

Six.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yes.

So that's 23.

I am happy with that.

That is a success.

You go ahead and

definitely.

Definitely.

Oh, yeah.

You've spent a lot of time alone working on this.

I'm learning a lot about you tonight.

I'm learning a lot about you tonight.

Little crap.

You know, you've read this book a few times.

You have the other little practice locks, and then it opens up

into a cold,

lightless stairway that goes upward.

You take a quick smell, and that kind of odd,

acrid smell that's now beginning to fill the building is not as dense here, which means you feel it might be a safe ascent.

Yeah, let's go.

What's with that with Hope of here?

Uh, hope.

All right, take a hope.

Uh, you continue up the stairscase

to the third floor.

Uh, Myers goes ahead and from this side is able to unlock the door and opens it up.

And in this floor, you can see it's now been corrupting, but there is a path to the office itself.

He goes, quick, over there.

You rush over to the executive door and he goes,

this one's locked too.

I don't have the key.

Jay, keep it down.

Sorry.

Right, come on.

Wait, do you have to pick another one?

I guess I'll try.

I don't know what it is.

I'll just break your lockers and try the key card.

I'll try the keycard.

Any key card situation?

Nope.

Shit.

And there is a keycard swap there, but your keycard goes beep and just blinks red.

It's not, it's just that I don't don't have the mastered thing.

It's the it's that was just the executive detail.

Yes.

All right.

And you look, there's not a key slot either.

It is a key card thing.

It's just a door handle there.

Wait.

All right.

I can try and hack it maybe if I can use my

computer skills.

Well, can I do a knowledge roll to try and see if I could hack into the keycard?

Give it a shot.

Come on, come on.

All right, I'm going to.

This is like beginning a Terminator 2, like hacking into

the ATM.

Yeah, so what can I do here?

I can...

Before we make an action roll, the gun.

Alright, so I can spend a hope to use my...

I've read about this skill to gain advantage on my roll.

So that gives me an extra six out of die on top of this, right?

Do you want to add any bonuses to this?

This is a difficult roll.

Yeah, I think we should.

Yeah, some bonuses.

Yes.

Yes, for sure.

Okay, you have 17 bonuses to add.

Oh, let's add five.

Five?

Yeah, five.

All right, five.

Now there's 12.

Delta.

let's go lucas come on

because this one might be a higher

all right so this is a finessero right

so that's seven plus well this would be knowledge oh sorry sorry knowledge right so that's plus three sorry it says ten fifteen uh

plus four uh is 19 plus the five

so 24.

are you happy with that that's pretty good

yeah that's pretty good yeah and that's with hope yeah happy with that yeah

you

pull out some of your small hacking devices.

You order it online, and then like a couple friends, the kind of kids that were briefly your friend, but then bullied you and kind of walked away.

They kind of gave you some insight to these early hacker days.

You know, hack the planet shit.

It's amazing.

But this particular system has aspects to it that are deeper than what you've encountered before.

And you try and accomplish it.

before it goes beep blinks right again you just missed 25 is what you needed i want to try to kick it all

I need you to make a strength roll for me.

Okay, and I'd also like to use my Nepo Baby experience because Ralph Macchio is my aunt's cousin.

God.

So.

Oh, she's not.

Oh, wow.

She's a karate kid.

Spend the hope.

Let's do it.

And I got the plus two from that, so I got plus five.

Signed dice trays.

Signed dice trays are up.

Hell yeah.

Do you want to add any bonuses to this role?

It is also a very difficult role.

Should we do another five?

Yeah, let's do another five.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

Are you doing the crank kick?

You're doing the

crank kick.

You got to get over 25.

I know.

And I've got, so I've got a plus.

Great.

All right.

We're the denim.

Navigate me down.

Oh, yes.

We are at 17.

27.

27.

Whoa, yes.

Crack.

The door slams open.

Finish him.

Finish it.

I'll sweep the line.

My goes, wonderful.

And you all rush into the office and close the door behind.

Now you stand in the executive office, just as you remember it.

There's no

doorway.

There's no elevator present.

It's just a still untouched office with the thick window pane that overlooks the darkened exterior courtyard.

Guys, I know.

I know that there's some kind of elevator.

Yes.

You do see

two VHS tapes sitting on the edge of the desk.

Pop him in.

Better not be.

Let's see.

As he is the executive of the studio, there is a CT-R VHS combo unit off the side, from his desk on the opposite end.

So you go ahead and pop in the first VHS and press play.

Oh, hey, hey, it's Bick Foley.

Things are getting crazy around here.

Me and Tori went snooping after I trashed that psycho robot clone of me, and this shit goes deep.

We found some weird code Mr.

Pearson kept under his candy ball and tried to hack into the studio's computer systems like in the movies.

But my family only owns a Macintosh, so that got us nowhere.

Until.

Until we searched Mr.

Pearson's desk and found a hidden button.

Whoosh!

A secret elevator door opened up and only went down.

Creepy as hell, man.

Tori and I followed it down to some crazy underground bunker type place.

Massive.

We snuck around some more, but got noticed and we ran back here to hide.

I think they might still be looking for us.

If you find this, we're probably down here somewhere.

Here, see if this code helps you more than it helped us.

All right, and you see attached to the bottom of this VHS tape is this particular numbered code that he had mentioned they had found under the candy bowl.

Yeah.

All right.

That's under that was what we found under the candy bowl.

Well, that's what he said he found under the candy bowl and was kind of set underneath the VHS.

Let's let's search the desk.

Yeah.

Who would like to search the room here?

Who wants to to

do as a group role?

So who's helming this role?

This would be

this would be specifically either an it's probably an instinct role to try and search throughout.

So who would want to go?

I got a plus two and a plus two.

I got a plus three.

Plus three.

Maybe you should.

All right.

So Casey, go ahead and helm this.

All right.

So I need everybody else first to roll instinct reaction rolls.

So just roll a dice and add your instinct.

Don't worry about hope or fear.

Instinct.

I put it back.

I got a 16.

You got 17.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, 16.

Okay, 16, 17.

That's 2 plus 2.

22.

Plus 3.

24.

Plus 4?

7 total.

Plus 3.

20, 23.

23 plus 3 is 26.

That is a good one.

6.

With fear.

With fear.

Fear.

I'll take that fear there.

All right.

So,

a couple things.

One, glancing through here as you're searching, some of you are checking under the desk and elements.

You see one of the cabinets.

You open it up, and there is a massive metal safe in there with a keypad on it.

Okay.

Okay, I'm going to put this code into the keypad and see if it works, okay?

That's great.

That's the same number that girls, when they give me their phone numbers, the same number of numbers.

It's not, there's only five numbers.

This is it.

That's why I've never literally never called a girl.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

Okay.

9, 2, 4, 9, 3.

9, 2, 4, 9, 3.

That's September

24, 23.

That's when the first episode of Boy Meets World aired.

Strange.

As you put the code in, you hear

the door

unlocks and

opens up and on the inside you see what looks like a metal bracelet but it has some strange like glowing circle in the center of it and it looks like a button on the side and a strange little like almost like a pen that sticks out the front of it as you find

a time displacement device.

You opened it.

Alright time displacement device.

Spend a hope to make a skill craft roll against a target within close range.

On a success, the target gains the time-locked status for one minute or until they take any damage.

While time-locked, the target is frozen in time and unable to be spotlighted by the GM, move, or experience anything that happens around them.

On a failure with fear, the GM gains an additional fear.

Okay,

so

do I use this now?

Or should I save it?

If they can freeze somebody, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It can free somebody and stop somebody from having an attack or whatever.

Okay.

While you're going into the safe, the rest of you are searching and indeed are on the desk.

You pull through all the bits of the drawers and stuff.

And there's one bottom drawer where you feel underneath.

And with that high enough roll, you come over and you find a button amongst most of your friends, and you press it.

And one of the walls on the left-hand side between two of the shelving units

opens, and it's the sound you heard before.

And the elevator doors are awaiting.

Question: You said you there were two VHS tapes, correct?

So let's pop in the second tape, right?

Oh, yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Also, side note: my dice are up right now:

the Be Kind Rewind Dispel set, and they are

fucking

fucking.

Yeah.

Now,

because

as the doors open, there is a slight

beep beep beep, like a keycard nodule that's almost expectant anything, and it beeps four times before nothing happens.

It unleashes a torrent of electricity, some sort of security device on it that wasn't checked with any sort of existing possible keycard.

And as it does, it

unleashes this blast of energy out to all of you.

It's like electrical arts.

I need everyone to to make an agility reaction roll for me, please.

I know.

So, what are we rolling again?

I'm saying.

Agility reaction roll.

Agility?

Okay.

You gotta get you.

I know.

I gotta be 18.

18.

All right, you take

seven points of energy damage.

With an 18?

Yeah.

Damn.

We're not adding our agility.

This is just reaction.

We're adding your agility bonus too.

Oh, I am.

Okay.

I had a 17.

17, you also take seven points of energy damage.

26.

7 points of energy damage.

8.

8, you take 13 points of energy damage.

I rolled a critical success.

Alright, so you take only 7 points of damage.

11.

Let me take 13 points of energy damage.

Can I use an armor?

Yeah, you use an armor.

Okay, so if you use an armor, I'm confused.

So if I took seven and I used an armor, if I use an armor,

it reduces it by one threshold.

So if it's already under your minor, you take nothing.

Great, so then I'm going to do that.

Go for it.

So you like, like, so the elevator isn't open, but that it seems to be requiring some sort of card to get through

you go and like try the key card that you have and it still beeps red.

But you do have the other VHS.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

All right.

You have to do an active math.

There, I know.

It's fun to keep track of.

Oh, GIF math.

I just add this is where I'm at now.

I'm gonna give I'm gonna give Karen.

I'm gonna give you the the advanced force field.

It's Karen.

Karen.

It's Karen.

And then you used an armor slot?

I hadn't been sending it armor.

So you could use an armor slot to take it down to one so you wouldn't be unconscious.

Or else you're going to be unconscious.

Right.

So I would use an armor slot to take you to your van.

Yeah,

you can use hope to add an experience if you want to, if it makes sense.

Oh, yeah, no, I just keep forgetting when I roll, even when I roll.

Oh, to give yourself a hope.

I'm keep forgetting to give myself a hope.

Is she hurting too?

I gotta remember that.

I'm gonna remember that.

You can take a couple hope if you need to.

No, no, no.

You can spend hope and reduce damage.

Oh, wow.

All right.

I give it to Paloma.

Okay, so Paloma takes the Force Field.

Thank you, Luke.

You wish.

Wow.

The other VHS tape, you go and lift it off the table, and beneath it, there are two, there's a small satchel and what looks to be a blue keycard.

Which someone can hold on to if they'd like to.

By the way, you guys are doing all this stuff.

Apparently, we tried our keycard in the elevator and it just beeped red.

It won't let us in the elevator, even though it's open.

It won't let us in the elevator.

So maybe this will work.

This will work.

That might be the master one.

Should we look at the other video too?

Yeah, let's look at the other video.

All right, so you pop in the second VHS tape and press play.

Hey, it's Lisa.

They have them all here.

All the missing kids.

And some of the adults, I don't know their plan, but they have their hands in everything.

I went to go tell our producer, Tricia, and her face just became tentacles.

And I panicked, and then I threw a Capri Sun at her.

She barely got away.

I don't know who I can trust.

I might be the only one.

I'm going to try to go back, okay, and free everyone.

And if I don't make it, give my guitar to Planet.

So

Lisa's been caught up in this too.

Oh, no.

Because she stayed.

Yeah, that was a problem.

She should have left.

Well, she only used it when she wants to.

You say?

Yeah, that's true.

The other, the satchel that's left aside, that was going to sit aside is filled with three Capri Suns.

Oh, yeah.

One that she threw to escape,

but these can be used to heal if you'd like.

Consume to recover either 1d4 plus 1 hit points or clear a stress.

How are you?

With hit points.

They're hurting.

I mean, if I have one more, I'm out.

You definitely need to drink a Capri Sun.

I'm going to drink a Capri Sun.

Don't forget, you got to pop it.

Well, before we do that,

before we do that, we do have the audience's, the audience paid for two chances to do a short rest.

action immediately.

So while you guys are taking this moment, you can choose one of your short rests.

You can either recover 1d4 hit points, recover 1d4 armor, or recover 1d4 stress or gain a hope.

You get to choose one of your hits.

If you have a short rest, would we use that in lieu of

this?

Before you do that, that you can do in the middle of battle.

You just pop

a straw on

that strange, overly saccharine, fruit punch, headache-giving drink.

Love it.

I'm going to pull out my Dean Koons book and sit down and read to not stress out.

Fair.

I'm going to go out and see.

Three.

So you can recover one like 1d4 hit points, which is a four-sided dice.

The little uh

that's what you want.

You want hip points.

You could recover 1d4 spent armor.

So you take off three of your hit points.

You can recover 1d4 stress.

Yeah.

1d4.

You just roll, roll the four-sided dice and then recover that hit point.

Okay, I like two.

Okay.

And if you stress hit points or armor.

Yeah.

Right?

Because you're answering.

You're just rolling for what you're.

Yeah, but you could choose this twice because the audience allowed you to do that.

You can use one now if you want to.

Nice.

You can use that.

You're all clear, baby.

All of the things I have.

I have a question because all of my abilities are all for long rests.

Am I allowed to use any of these?

No, we got to do a long rest.

I mean, you can use them whenever, but you just can't use them again until your next long rest.

So you basically...

But we don't have a long rest.

Right.

So you can use these all once, more or less.

Right.

But we need to do a long rest first.

No, no, no.

You have the use now.

Oh, okay.

And then once you use it, you can't use it again until gotcha.

So you can use these whenever.

Okay.

Does anyone want the Capri Sun as well?

Otherwise, I will keep it in my back pocket for future.

we still got we've still got um okay for now a slim jam or what is that a slam slam jam slam slam jam that's also food um yeah to slap into it

so i have a question then for the ability if i do my storyteller right now and i tell a story it says one of the things we can do is epic tale make a target within close range temporarily vulnerable that's in the future there's a target in so what you would do is you would you would you would do that in the middle of facing off with an opponent and you tell an epic tale that more or less frightens or dejects right when I'm doing okay and that opponent becomes vulnerable which means attacks against them gotcha advantage gotcha so you can do each of those once more or less all three of these once oh wow okay great cool

all righty

I feel better

yeah got a smoke blood

you can see now the weird expanding creep of the hallway is starting to come through the top and bottom of the doorway that leads into this office.

This is expanding.

This chamber is becoming less and less safe.

We got to get out of here.

We got to go.

We got to use the new keyboard.

We got to get in the elevator and get down there.

Let's go.

Game.

Let me be honest with you.

Two more fear from the audience.

Magic the Gathering and Marvel team up for a magic set featuring your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Magic's signature art style brings over 60 years of Spider-Man history to life with premium treatments that put the Spider-Man universe seamlessly into your collection.

Add iconic superheroes and supervillains from over 60 years of Spider-Man comics to your magic game.

Every magic card is a piece of Spider-Man history.

Spider-Man action comes alive in amazing premium card art, Magic's signature art style, panels pulled straight from the comics, brand new pieces from favorite Marvel artists, and more.

This is just the beginning of Magic's origin story with Marvel.

Do whatever a spider can and be ready for what comes next.

This set gives you the power of Spider-Man, but remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

This set is friendly, amazing, and spectacular.

Visit Visit magic.wizards.com to learn more about how to suit up with Spider-Man.

That's magic.wizards.com to learn more about Magic the Gathering Marvel's Spider-Man.

Swing into the game.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Did you know that World Mental Health Day is in October?

It makes me think about fresh cut grass and how they showed us the importance of caring for each other's mental well-being.

Well, therapists are our real-world healers who help us process our experiences and grow.

They truly make the world a better place because the right therapist can change everything.

BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S.

They do the initial matching work for you through a questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences.

With their 12 plus years of experience, they typically get it right the first time.

And if you aren't happy with your match, well, you can switch to a different therapist at any time.

This World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who have helped millions of people take a step forward.

If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash critical role.

That's better H-E-L-P.com slash critical role.

Welcome back to Listen to Your Heart.

I'm Jerry.

And I'm Jerry's Heart.

Today's topic, Repatha, Evalokimab.

Heart, why'd you pick this one?

Well, Jerry, for people who have had a heart attack, like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one.

Okay.

To help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our LDLC, LDLC, our bad cholesterol, checked, and talking to our doctor.

I'm listening.

And if it's still too high, Rapatha can be added to a statin to lower our LDLC and our heart attack risk.

Hmm.

Guess it's time to ask about Repatha.

Do not take Repatha if you're allergic to it.

Serious allergic reactions can occur.

Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing or swallowing.

Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat, or arms.

Common side effects include runny nose, sore throat, common cold symptoms, flu or flu-like symptoms, back pain, high blood sugar, and redness, pain, or bruising at the injection site.

Listen to your heart.

Ask your doctor about Rapatha.

Learn more at Rapatha.com or call 1-844-RAPATHA.

Just in.

Thousands of winter arrivals at your Nordstrom rack store.

Save up to 70% on coats, slippers, and cashmere from Kate Spade, New York.

Vince, Ugg, Levi's, and more.

Check out these boots.

They've got the best gifts.

My holiday shopping hack, join the Nordy Club.

Get an extra 5% off every rack purchase with your Nordstrom credit card.

Plus, buy it online and pick it up in store the same day for free.

Big gifts, big perks.

That's why you rack.

Thank you.

Alrighty.

Uh, you go ahead and take the blue key card.

Blink screen.

Doors shh open into a red interior elevator.

Oh no.

It's tight, but you can all fit in there.

Let's go.

We have to, right?

Yes, we got to.

We go in.

You step inside and the doors close.

And it leads you deeper.

Oh, God.

And deeper.

And deeper.

You're not sure how far you're going.

It feels like 10, 50, 100 feet.

The only button that you see on there that you had pressed, you kind of get in close and can see.

There are two buttons on this.

O

and

B50.

And you just wait and wait and wait as it slowly descends before before eventually it stops

the doors open and there before you is this

massive concrete chamber with like a metal foyer with strange sculptures and large pillars that rise up undecorated beyond the harsh overhead lighting

and you can see there are three different halls that seem to extend from this area.

There's nobody present in the current room, but you have three paths to choose forward.

Anybody feel strongly about one way?

Right, left, or middle?

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo it?

We could.

Oh!

I have an RC helicopter in my one of my pockets.

Of course you do.

So I could send one of them forward

to check out each

area, each path.

I like that.

Does it have a camera on it?

Is RC for recon?

Recon.

What happened to Maya's?

Where did Mayas go?

I thought I can see through.

Did we lose Myers?

I think we lost Mayas.

Where did Mayas go?

Myers is still up in the office.

He's left him on.

That's alright.

He was deadweight anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

I'm going to take out my toy copter

and I'm going to send it down the left first.

Okay.

I think it's a good idea.

What if there's like knives and stuff?

Yeah.

Do you have a camera on the copter?

Oh, yeah.

It has a small little camera on the camera.

Oh, it has a small little camera.

It's like a really chitty little screen.

Yeah.

It's high technology.

In 1996, it's all said.

It's a Tamagotchi screen.

You look at the controllers of it.

It has a bunch of Japanese text on it.

This was imported.

Yes, of course.

First iPhone.

Yeah.

It begins to scoot off down the left hallway, you said, first?

The

yes.

Okay.

It scoots down that hallway.

You can see there are a number of doors to the right and left side.

Looks like almost like office doors, but they're not marked.

You do see one door that's open.

It's dark.

And it progresses before a heavy right turn.

And there is a heavy double metal door there that looks like it has some sort of another keycard.

marker on it, but it is closed at the moment.

There are lights that are currently dull, kind of fixed to the wall.

They could be emergency lights.

They could be notification lights.

And it still has the same kind of harsh overhead lighting all through that curved hallway as it goes.

Okay, I'll fly it back towards us to go down in the middle.

Also,

Rider's Trapper Keeper is up next, y'all.

Yes.

Um,

yeah.

Okay, as the copter pulls back,

because it does, it's not silent, um,

you do see a figure kind of lean out in from one of the halls.

It looks like a

person in just work clothes, more or less, kind of stare out and look at it.

And they go ahead and slap the side of the wall before all of a sudden,

wham!

Oh no.

Wham!

All the doors close.

You hear like doors slinging up the hallway.

And then

the ceiling opens up.

A heavy metal box drops from the top.

As the audience voted for a dangerous circumstance,

the top lid kind of like flies off king, cling, king, king against the wall of a cachets.

The walls fall back.

And there you see, like, this mass, this round, tight sphere of what looks like green and yellow, like sinew and flesh.

And it

tenses before

four arms

extend from it.

This massive behemoth, like a like a nightmare hairless gorilla in green and yellow muscular form.

Tiny little legs curls, like uncurls from this ball and where its face is you see these this like singular red eye and this massive tentacles that kind of dangle from where its mouth would be as this alien behemoth looks at you

and lunges towards you aggressively

what do you want to do oh can i shoot it yeah you like to

use your gun shoot it

okay so what all right so what does that entail here uh go ahead and make a finesse roll towards it.

Ah, okay.

Would you like to take any bonuses to it?

You have 11 bonuses you can add currently.

Uh, yeah, I think we should.

Um, how many?

Three.

Take three.

Take three.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, plus three to this.

Two.

Finesse plus two.

Okay.

Oh.

Okay, nine with hope plus three is ten.

Plus two.

I thought we did plus three.

Yeah, and and is it finesse?

And plus two.

So 14.

I thought I heard.

I don't remember

seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, so 14.

Are you happy with that, or would you like to re-roll?

I don't think it's enough.

Hold on a second.

How many re-rolls do we have left?

Five?

Currently, you have two more.

Oh,

should we save it for a major boss?

Maybe it'll still be like a major boss.

I'm like, I feel like we're gonna.

I don't feel like this is gonna advantage, though.

No, we still have to get it.

No, we still have to get it.

Because this is just the dangerous predicament that the audience.

Yeah.

I say we save him.

Okay.

You could try it.

You could try it.

He's big.

Maybe that'll hit him.

14?

Yeah, shit.

Yeah, 14.

Pistol charging.

Yeah.

Alright, you want to go.

Yeah, let's stick.

Through that?

Okay.

That fan.

Oh!

You go to fire, and

the sheer, like, veracity of its charge towards you spooks you a bit, and you fire wide.

It echoes through the chamber as it lumbers towards you.

That was with hope, you said?

Yeah.

All right, you gain a hope.

However,

spotlight does come to me.

So, I'm going to go ahead and use Ramp Up.

The alien behemoth, it must spend a fear to be spotlighted.

So I'm going to spend a fear to use this ability.

It lunges towards you and kind of where you're all kind of clustered after emerging from this elevator.

It rushes in the middle and swings its forearms wide

to try and impact all of you.

It makes its attack against the entire group.

Oh my god, I dropped that dice.

I'm going to roll this one instead.

That's going to be 14 to hit.

Does that hit your team?

Yeah.

All right.

So all of you take

15 points of damage as these massive, rippling, dangerous arms just

pummel through your entire troop and it's now standing in the center of it.

Can I do an armor?

You can spend an armor to reduce that if you have it.

That ends my spotlight.

It's back to you.

What would you like to do?

All right, I'm gonna run up to it with my trapper keeper and take a shot.

Okay.

Where's the

small one?

There it is.

Paloma, use your force field to save yourself.

Don't get hurt.

Forgot about the damn force field.

She has a force field.

She can spend hope to reduce the damage.

What's the one you have?

Wait,

what is this?

Before you did it.

What's this one?

16.

But this one, if you want to prolong this before you turn something incredibly hard to do.

16 to hit.

Imagine you describe it with hope.

With hope, take it.

You guys are pulling some good hope, right?

That's great.

Okay.

For you.

For me, but for

time to play

a target within close range, on a success the target.

Alright,

Should we use it?

Yeah.

Okay.

16 points of damage.

16 points of damage.

Yes.

Alrighty.

That is going to be its major threshold, so it takes two hope points.

Break, break, break, break.

I'm also going to spend

a hope point.

I'm going to spend a hope to add insult to injury.

Okay.

And it also has to take a mark of stress.

Okay, how do you insult it as she slams it with this trapper keeper?

Say, uh...

Hey, buddy!

You're an asshat!

I could have done better.

I could have done better.

Feisner line!

Feisner!

I don't know.

I'm gonna spend the fear and activate it.

It's gonna go ahead and mark a stress to do charging rush as it kind of like leaps towards where you are, like kind of jumps in the air and lands.

And the three of you are now in a row, and it's going to

and charge in a line through all three of you on this side of the table.

So we'll see.

I think it's got to be on.

He's got spotlights on him.

That's going to be an eight.

That's a bad roll.

Yes.

Did I miss all of you?

Yeah.

You're evasion.

We got another signed character print up for auction.

It runs through, and all of you managed to duck out of the way and just barely dodge as it kind of slams its arms like hit the edge of the concrete wall.

And as it does, the concrete cracks and breaks off in pieces.

This is a dangerously strong beast, but you manage to avoid the 911.

What's your emergency?

A tornado.

It's coming right at us.

Listen to the wind blows.

ABC Thursday, the 911 universe expands to Nashville.

A fire out of tornado.

Two miles.

From executive producer Ryan Murphy.

Get everyone you can and send them out here now.

Chris O'Donnell, Jessica Capshaw, Kimberly Williams Paisley, Leanne Rhymes.

We are on the move.

The hell to save, kid.

911 Nashville, Series premiere Thursday, 9 in Central on ABC and stream next day on Ubu.

Hey there, critters!

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Roll, and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theaters to see the wedding of the year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

Visit fathomentertainment.com slash critical role to find tickets in theaters near you.

That's fathomentertainment.com slash critical role.

Spotlights back to you.

What would somebody like to do?

Wait, I've got this.

Wait, what?

How do I use this?

I've got an unleash.

I'm swinging this.

That's good, but this one is freezing.

This will freeze it.

Oh, time to split.

Yes, that's right.

That's a great idea.

That's how to freeze it.

Yes.

One minute.

Love it.

Okay.

For a minute.

And then we can run.

Yeah.

So run or just.

Now what do I do?

You use the time as places.

So you spend a hope.

Do you have a hope to spend?

I have three hopes.

Okay.

And I make a skill craft.

Okay, so I erase a hope.

And then I...

What is that?

Oh, skillcraft is this.

Yeah, so roll against the target within close range.

Yep.

So roll and add your presence.

Okay.

Against the target.

Roll and add my presence.

Roll and reverse.

You know, a 14 didn't succeed, so.

Right.

9

and 4 plus 2.

15.

15.

Do you want to stay with that or do you want to re-roll?

This one we might want to re-roll.

Let's re-roll.

Yeah, re-roll.

This is a big one.

Reroll?

Okay, we're going to reroll.

All right, so we'll spend another re-roll.

You have one more re-roll after this, it looks like.

10 and 4 plus 2, so 16.

16.

One better.

I guess.

I mean...

16 with fear.

16 with fear?

That does succeed.

Yeah!

So as it kind of turns around,

and it's just kind of like locked in place, and you see its body kind of like,

there's like a weird glitchiness as it's being held.

It's locked just outside of time.

You have one minute before this breaks free from it.

If we hit it, will it reactivate?

Will it be it?

If it takes damage, it breaks free.

Okay, we gotta run.

We have to shoot it point blank, but that might not kill it.

It might not kill it, and then it's awake.

Because you roll with fear,

the doorway that holds the elevator, shhoof, also locks down.

So there's no way to escape back up the elevator behind you.

I have to run to shoot.

But there's other doors, right?

There's There's three hallways.

Let's go down the other.

Let's get away from it.

Maybe there's a door we could close behind us.

Can I send my copter down the middle?

To see what's down.

Maybe they have a minute.

You can, but you'll probably go.

You just gotta go.

Just run.

Middle hallway.

Middle hallway.

Middle hallway.

Middle hallway.

You got it.

We haven't even seen.

Okay.

But rushing down the center hallway, it curves around almost like an odd S curve.

There's no other doorways like the other one had almost like an office set, but it does come to another double door with like a keycard element.

The red lights are just kind of flashing quietly as the Kalaxins in the distance are echoing the boom boom.

What do you do?

Touch the key card.

Key card, key card!

Alright, so you take the blue key card,

a blue light, and the doors open, revealing the interior of a new chamber.

Here, you see a low-lit warehouse-like room.

There's a number of metallic cage-like containment shelves

against the walls of the inside of this room.

You're seeing dozens and dozens of these like thick black rubber hoses that seem to attach to these like containment boxes that all seem to converge and wrap to a central computer system that sets on a table.

You see parts of the system look modern.

In fact, you see there's like an incredible compact Intel Pentium system that's running Windows NT right there on the table.

But there are other devices attached to it that have that kind of organic feel, that spark within, similar to the design of the cyborg Logan that you battled earlier.

So there's an odd merger of alien tech and the best tech modern technology has to offer that is attached to

all these various containment boxes here, as well as two

tubes that go into the nearby wall and seem to travel elsewhere within this bunker.

The brain.

Stacy's incredible dice set.

The VHS sharp-edge dice surge 1985 games, and they are

fucking beautiful.

I love them.

Okay.

All right.

What would you like to do?

I mean, I'll try and

get out of the way.

You got to hack it.

Wait, try to hold it.

Can we click on the door?

Wait, is the door closed behind us?

Close the door.

Close the door.

Can we close the door?

Close the door.

Close the door.

Okay, go over and you swipe the card on the opposite side.

The door's shh.

Great.

Close behind you.

We're in here.

Okay.

I mean, I speak a couple languages.

Yeah.

One of them is elfish, though, so I don't know that that's really going to happen.

I have very little help right now.

I know.

I I know.

All right, let me just hack it.

Let me just try and see if I can figure this out because I know computers really well.

Okay.

And I did, I got such a good look at that Logan's neck.

I feel like maybe I've learned something.

I can figure this out.

If you have the hope, you could also initiate a tag team roll and both of you could work together with your multilanguage or multilingual ability and your hacking ability.

Up to you.

But you have to have three hope to do that, right?

I have three hope.

I don't.

So you could...

Oh, but you could initiate it.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

I say, come with your language ability.

Sit down with with me.

Got it.

I'm getting on this computer.

I'm going to spend three hope.

Oh, God, he has to hope in one of the languages is elvish.

He has to hope in one of the languages is elvish.

Any tag team role you are part of can be initiated for only two hope.

Correct, but that you have to be part of it, too.

I'm doing the hacking, so I need her to look over my shoulder.

But you can spend a hope, if you have one, to help one of them with a D8, if you'd like to.

Wait, is there like any other writing anywhere on any of these tubes in like a different language that I might be able to...

Do you want to go ahead and inspect these containment shelves?

Or these

I mean,

we might be able to figure out.

I'm going to jump in the computer.

You look around and help me and just tell me what you see while I'm working.

Okay, so instead of the tag team, you're going to go ahead and inspect the containment games.

You go ahead and make a knowledge roll to try and see if you can hack into this.

State-of-the-art technology.

And I'm going to spend a hope to give him the D8.

You can do that.

Hell yeah.

So go ahead and spend that hope.

The D8, yes.

Yep, that's it.

Yar.

All right.

So, yes.

All right.

So go ahead and make your knowledge roll.

And then I'm also going to spend a hope to do my.

I've read about this ability, which gives me, again,

advantage on the roll too i love it let's go all right so that gives me a d6 and then because she helped me out i get another d6

she's rolling it she's rolling d8 to help you on top of that gotcha

so what's my advantage on this is it d6 or d6 for you

yes

no it's a knowledge roll so i got 10 12 14 and she added eight

22 you happy with that yeah

we're gonna go two twos guys but Wait, but we don't have.

Wait, we're re-rolling.

Is it a crit?

No, because I'm my.

Oh,

I'm on the advantage die, but good looking out.

It's a fear die.

It's not a fear.

Okay, are you happy with that?

Or do you want to re-roll?

22.

I think this is a four.

I think it's a red.

I think it's 22.

Okay, I think I can do that.

22 is 20.

Your last re-roll currently, unless you all start donating to give them more re-rolls.

20 rolls?

An eight left.

That's great.

That's great.

Okay, so the eight stays.

So the eight would stay.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Yes.

17 plus 5.

So that's 22.

Plus 8.

Plus 3.

Plus 3, 25.

Oh, hold on.

What am I forgetting?

I have my computer savvy hacking.

Plus 5.

Oh, come on.

This is 10.

So that's 8 more on top of 22.

That's a 30.

30.

And then you whatever.

38.

28.

38.

38.

Yeah, that feels good.

That is so high.

Yes.

So full-on, like, oh, this is Unix.

I know this.

Like, you, you...

Connect your device to this system, and suddenly you can see, thank you.

You see,

this is, there's no physical realm for a minute.

you just exist in the digital space that will one day be cyberspace yes and

it's a great idea for a movie it's a great idea

this is lawnmower man straight up yeah you you're harnessing my fahy and you just dive into the system begin carving through all the there's all sorts of hidden lock files here uh you begin to uh to see things that you can print out and and expose here uh you reveal one as you you hit a button, there's a printer attached to it, and you print out two documents

that just kind of seem like they're the most recently situated here under lock and key.

One of them is this

scan file.

We're going to have to have these supernova dice tray by everything.

Dice signed by everybody is now up for grabs.

All right, to the exact one.

To the shareholders of the FRC channel, we are greatly appreciative for all your generosity and patience as we usher in this new phase of our business and production strategy.

We understand understand that it's taken more time and trust than many of you were anticipating, but I can assure you the results

will more than assuage your concerns.

The new wave of cultivated talent is already arriving and proving a boon to our production pipelines through a lack of contractual negotiations, legal requirements regarding underage talent, and ease of storage.

I told you guys I knew it.

The endless guidance and technological offerings of our beloved advisory leadership financiers has provided us not only the roadmap for this current phase, but an endless horizon of opportunity thereafter.

I would ask you all to prepare adequate offerings for our universally amiable patrons

over the coming weeks as we plan to unify our visions with them beneath the studio on the 12th.

Beyond their recent contributions, their council is helping us forge a new path forward for the industry, a new way to capture the masses and ensure we craft their imaginations.

Thank you again and may you all keep your overhead low.

Your humble executive, and it's signed.

You recognize that signature, Adam Pearson.

Adam Pearson.

That's Adam Pearson's signature.

So he sold this.

They're trying to replace us.

The other document that prints out on the opposite side here, you acquire.

Ooh.

Universally amiable patrons.

Wait, UAP.

You guys.

Oh, no.

This is a list

of people who have already been replaced.

It's imminent.

Or the proxy is gestating.

Who?

She's a little bit of a single.

Yeah.

I knew she was like.

Casey!

Huh?

Proxy gestating.

Oh, man, the stone!

Karin Marie Thomas.

Proxy gestating.

Wait!

Luke Belushi?

Luke Lucas.

Well, that's what it says on here.

That's what they were trying to do.

Substitution imminent.

That was Logan.

Wait.

Kurt Salmon?

Substitution complete.

Kat Nate Dannell?

Substitution complete.

Shauna Keegan-Keys?

Complete.

Marnie Coke?

Complete.

My God.

Wait a sec.

Did I even make this list?

I'm just curious.

The door slams from behind and you hear muffled in the song.

Oh no!

The device.

It's Melissa Jonah.

The entity that you had frozen in a brief time lock has come free and is now slamming the outside of the door.

This chamber you're in has no other visible exit.

But as you continue to hack through, there are multitudes of other systems that this is attached to.

You see,

one,

the various boxes that are in here, as you're going ahead and searching through the interior of this room,

one,

where is it here?

There it is.

You find that there is within a lockbox in here a red keycard.

that is used for access to what's called the visitor's hangar.

You also note that

all of these boxes that are locked in here contain incubating

protectors to the hive.

And as you glance over and look inside, there are small glass windows on these.

And looking inside, there's these smaller, like weird green gremlin-like

ovums that are kind of like pulsing.

and are being fed through some of these tubes.

A wrong step in trying to maneuver any more of these things could either find more information within this chamber or help elsewhere.

It could also open some of these chambers or these containers, containers.

You also see with your extremely high hacking role

that

one of the other rooms, the room that you first sent the copter to,

is called the processing chamber.

And that list of names there, everyone

that is on that list is also within that chamber that has been already completed, which means you get the sense that everyone who's missing, there's something about the processing chamber that involves them.

Is there anything in the room that can be used to block the door?

You can try and move some of these containment boxes over in front of it.

If it does jostle them, and there's a chance for failure.

It's up to you.

Okay, I have an idea.

I have an idea.

You could try and also, you, you, okay, uh, actually, because, sorry, a few things are happening here because green donations in as well.

So, somewhere in a lockbox in here is a green, sorry, as a red key card, you rolled high enough that you just unlock it, you press a button,

that kind of pops out of one of the near-red things, and you now have at your disposal a red key card.

Yes!

Nice.

You do know that this processing chamber has a similar list of the missing individuals.

You also note that it can be unlocked remotely, but that would be another skill check.

And the door that leads you anywhere backward is currently being slammed repeatedly.

You also notice a VHST, a VHS tape that sits slid underneath the desk that you've been hacking at.

Because we hit 50k.

And there's Christine's die set is now up.

The CMYK7P's die set by Dispel.

They're in it.

Hell yeah.

They're gorgeous.

Gorgeous!

There is a

mostly built-over, almost like

hive-flesh-grown-over VHS machine that is part of this computer, but it does have a slot and a monitor that is embedded within where the VHS tape can be placed.

We gotta watch it.

I'm trying to watch it right now with the monster.

We gotta.

We got to.

Alright, and there's like a strange, like, also like slime-covered, long-ish object that you have to pull the tape off of that you kind of like pull away and it's kind of grotesque there for a minute.

You see bits of metal kind of poking through.

You slide it into the machine and this is what you see.

So you press play.

After Mick and Tori disappeared, I knew I had to look into this.

Found Matthew's camcorder and the tape from them, which means they got Mick and Tori along with all the others.

I followed down into this futuristic hangar network until I ran into something invisible, something solid, but I couldn't see.

Suddenly, a bunch of alien-looking monster things rushed into the room.

I managed to run away.

I mean aliens just chillaxing under our studio?

Part of me says I should be scared, but a bigger part of me is pissed.

They're taking our friends, our gigs.

Hell no.

I got my backpack filled with my mom's taser and tools from my dad's shed, and I'm gonna bring this whole conspiracy down.

Here, I swiped this from the alien hangar.

Not sure how it works, but you know, maybe you can figure it out.

Now,

time to kick some alien butt.

As you kind of pull back, you look down at the ob the thing that it was attached to, and

the weird alien slime that only covered some of it, it looks like it's not part of what that device is.

And you kind of like pull it back and clean it off, and it can be cleaned off.

This is a metallic weapon of some kind, as you uncover, left behind by your friend Melissa Joan Hart, an alien disintegration ray.

Yes!

Yes!

That's what we needed, you guys.

Yes, that is what we needed.

So it was Melissa Joan Hart.

Yes, you were right!

The door is starting to

kind of bow from the impacts on the other side as you hear the behemoth.

Who wants to use the Ray?

Use the Ray.

I have to use the Ray.

Alright, well,

you open the door, and I'll use the Ray.

Well, wait, what does the Ray work on?

Okay.

I make a finesse or intellect roll against a target within...

Far range.

So who's got the finesse or who's got the best finesse or intellect?

It's finesse or knowledge?

knowledge.

Knowledge would be me.

I have a plus three knowledge.

I'm terrible.

And on a success, the target takes 4D 20 energy damage.

I have a plus three to finesse.

It's gonna be a high success rate, though.

Either you two would be good for that.

Yeah, choice.

Lucas,

do it.

I think this is you.

All right, you open the door with me.

I'll open the door.

Karen will support you.

You know what?

What if we do a tag team?

Does that help?

Tag team.

Jesus,

right?

Why Why are you some violence?

Why are you finally doing that?

You got two re-rolls from the audience is giving you now.

Hey!

All right, all right.

You also have plus 10 total that you can add to things.

I got some pelvis.

Oh, we love you guys.

Thank you.

So nice.

Also, you all gain a hope.

In finding this tape, in finding this weapon, there's a moment where you all look at each other, you all make eye contact, and you're like, we can do this.

And so with that hope moment, you get ready to the side of the door.

You get your disintegration rifle at your side as you charge it up and hit what you think is the way to turn it on.

The lights inside begin to

turn on, and it shakes in your presence.

Your hair begins to stand up, and you just aim it towards the door as you back up as far as you can because it can shoot from a long way away, and you get yourself ready.

Ready?

Yeah, I'm gonna, um, okay, I'm gonna, um,

yeah, I'm gonna do high anxiety on this, so that's gonna

mark a stress, gain a hope.

Stacy's Trapper Keeper is up next.

It would all be yours.

Alright, I can use a D20

fear die.

So, D20, Fear Die.

Oh my god.

All right, let's go.

All right, Red.

All right, so this is a knowledge roll or a finesse.

I get to choose because it says finesse or intellect roll.

Ooh, you got the little leopardy one?

Yeah.

That's like a very elusive.

Yeah.

Very elusive.

All right.

Because it says intellect, does that mean knowledge roll, Matt?

Huh?

It's a known.

Yeah, that'd be knowledgeable.

All right, cool.

So I'm doing a a knowledge roll.

Come on, Lucas.

Right, let's go.

Lucas!

Let's go!

Oh,

12.

You want to re-roll?

12 plus 3.

So 15.

Reroll.

I think we should re-roll.

I think we should re-roll.

Wait, should we add some?

We got 10, 10 plus ones.

I should use that before the roll, unfortunately.

Oh, shit.

You want to re-roll?

Reroll.

Let's go.

Come on, Lucas.

Let's go, Lucas.

Yeah, 25.

25, 60.

What we fear.

Until you hit the edge of the door, it slams open.

It comes looming in at full speed.

You

unleash this blast

towards the entity.

Go ahead and roll your damage for that.

As the beam strikes it in a little bit.

420, is that what it is?

Yeah, 4D, 20.

40, 20.

All right, so.

20!

Yay!

20!

15, 35.

45.

35 plus 12 is damn 45, 47.

47.

Yeah.

Once it's plus 3, 50!

50.

That is more than double its severe threshold, so it takes four hit points.

Woo!

Oh, yeah.

You blast a hole through its torso.

It disintegrates and leaves this gaping wound, and it goes, woo!

It falls to one knee, and its arms kind of prop it up.

It's now just like spilling out a viscera from the inside.

It's still up, but it's very deeply hurt.

It's like,

I'm going to go ahead and

take a fear to activate it immediately.

It's gonna mark another stress.

And actually, you know what?

No, I'm not gonna mark the stress.

It's going to

rush towards you since you fired at it.

It goes charging across the room.

Sorry, I keep hitting the mic there.

My apologies.

It's gonna rush.

And you see now in its tentacles that pull back, and there are these massive tusks that protrude from the inside.

And it's gonna attempt to gore you as it goes towards you.

That's gonna

13, I believe that hits your.

Alright, so that's going to be...

That's 2d8 direct damage.

So you, you cannot use armor to reduce this.

You take 11 points of damage that you cannot use armor to reduce.

Yeah, I'm dead.

You're out!

Oh my god.

Alright, so, so here's...

So we come to your death move.

You're not dead yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can either drop unconscious.

You could

Blaze a Glory, which means you can

take an action roll that's an automatic critical success, and then you're done.

You're out.

Or you can risk it all, roll your two dice, your hope and your fear dice.

If the hope is higher, you get back up and get to clear the number you rolled.

If the fear dice is higher,

you're gone.

Choice is yours.

Now, this card, again, I have this card where I can spend two hope to clear a hit point or a stress on somebody.

Indeed.

Though, can I do that now?

Well, he has to first see what he wants to do.

Right, after he designs.

Go unconscious, right?

Go unconscious.

Go unconscious.

Yeah.

I can survive.

Yeah, I'm out.

Lucas.

Lucas?

No.

Lucas?

He's unconscious.

Lucas

thrown against the back wall and rag dolls down onto some of the containment chambers.

Someone do something.

Well, now I know there was a podiatrist on the scene.

Well, yes, so I'm going to spend two hopes to clear either a hit point or a stress on

Look at his feet.

Massage his feet.

Bring him back.

Help us tiny feet.

Look what you're on Lucas.

Come on, come back to us, Lucas.

She only knows one thing, right?

All right, so you are going to spend two hope to bring Lucas back.

Yes.

Okay.

Not mouth to mouth, but.

So you're shaken back to consciousness, bruised and hurt, but

aloma's there.

You also hear behind her.

Lucas,

Oh no.

I'm going to spend another fear.

And the creature's going to rush forward.

I'm going to spend another fear

to do ramp-up.

We got Will's 1985 Crystal Ball Die Set, which is so fucking cool.

You should absolutely bid on it, but don't, because I want it.

No bid on it.

It's awesome.

How many points did I recover from that?

Just one?

One.

Just one.

One.

The entity rushes forward and is going to go ahead and spend a fear to make a standard attack against all targets within its range, which is going to be the two of you.

So it attacks both of you.

That's going to be a 12.

I think I stayed with the rule last time.

Yeah.

Okay, wait.

I have something called

I am a punchline.

I am the punchline?

Yeah.

I am the punchline.

When an ally within close range is successfully attacked or suffers a consequence, I can mark a stress to have the attack or consequence instead affect me.

Correct.

So I'm going to be the punchline.

Step in front of Lucas and just shut my eyes.

Oh,

that's so sweet.

The straight man takes the hit.

All right.

So for that, both of you.

You mark a stress.

You mark a stress for that.

Ooh!

Sorry.

That's 22 points of damage to each of you.

Ooh.

But you avoid the impact on this.

So it's 22 points to each of you.

22 points?

Oh, shit.

You can use that armor to reduce it if you have it.

I don't have it.

How many armor do you I have?

I have one.

So one armor per horse.

Perfect.

Oh.

No, you're out.

Well, I would

spend armors.

One, two, three, but I have three armors.

Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

So then I can come back to where I am, or you can only spend one.

I can only spend one.

Oh, and then, because I would be here.

So it would be under

her last

HP is out.

And then is on to one that's not,

the next square that's not filled out.

Oh, so you're marking all of your hit points are marked?

All of the hit points are marked.

So,

you are saved and you take the impact and you hold it and you're still conscious, Karin.

Oh, I didn't know you were down that far.

Well, but

an armor does what?

Paloma.

I have a Capricean, which we can get to in a moment.

I had a Prison also.

As Paloma, you, after saving Lucas and watching Karin take the blow, that moment of hope hits you

and

darkness as you

get to decide if you want to fall unconscious, if you want to risk it all, or if you want to go out in a blaze of glory.

Which would you prefer?

I guess I would go unconscious.

All right.

But I'm still confused about this.

Because

I do have plenty of armor, but if I only use one, I'm losing one

of the armor.

You only have four armors.

Well, right.

And you can only use one per turn per threshold.

Like,

that's what I'm saying.

So if I used one, that would bring me down just to there, which it would still be dead.

Is that it?

Still would be dead.

So you don't have all of these, you just have what's marked in here.

So those ones actually are not

clearable?

Yeah.

I see.

Okay.

Those just are filled in when you move up levels.

Okay.

So Paloma.

The darkness takes you as you fall unconscious.

You watch as this brute now nearly took out Lucas and has nearly taken out Paloma.

You are starting to feel the wear and tear of this.

What do you want to do?

I mean, I want to pour the Capri Sun in her mouth.

All right.

I already have a Capri Sun.

Now that I'm a current person, you're unconscious.

So you rush up

like a medic trying to get an Epi pen into somebody.

Pop that straw into it.

Into Paloma's mouth.

So I take it you want to do hit points.

Go ahead and roll a D4 and add plus one to the result.

All right.

Next up, we have have

a graphic purple dice tray from everything dice.

It's size.

Three, okay.

Three.

All right, so you heal four hit points.

You get to clear.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you, sir.

I'm taking the alien disintegration ring and hit him again, right?

Can we just keep using the alien point?

It says, once fired, you must mark a stress to reload it before it can be fired again.

Right, so you can mark a stress to reload it.

Neither of you, you've took your action.

You haven't gone really yet this round either.

You guys, what you'd like to do?

Can I use the time displacement device thing again to freeze it?

or no?

If you want to, it would hold it in place for another minute.

I mean, I feel like that would be.

I mean, we want to kill it, though, right?

Yeah, but I feel like if I hold it for a minute and you last it's a huge turn, right?

Yeah, so Luke Mark's distressed.

So it goes pretty quick because you like, load it in.

So if you want to try and knock it in place, let's go.

Say, what if I lock it and place it?

Yes, and then you shit and then you kill it.

All right, I'm going to use that and I'm going to spend a hope to

roll presence against a target with inquiry.

Okay.

Okay, so I roll my

right?

Yeah.

And I add two.

Okay.

Five,

six, seven, eight, nine.

That's not very good.

That's not good.

That's not so good.

Reroll.

Do we have another re-roll?

Yeah, reroll on the.

No, it's not.

Wait, courage, when you fail the roll with fear, you gain a hope.

What does that mean?

Yeah, so you fail the roll, but you gain a hope normally when you wouldn't.

So

is that with fear?

It was with it,

yeah.

Yeah, so it's a failure with fear, but you do gain a hope from it.

You go and try to get the device and it kind of like glitches out in your arm.

You're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

However, the spotlight comes back to me.

The beast turns around and looks at the rest of you.

It looks at you having lunged forward to strike, to give the caprice unto your friend.

And I'm going to go ahead and spend that fear to have it lunge forward and try and do another ramp-up strike against all four of you since you're all clustered in that very close space.

This attack is going to be at all four of you.

That's going to be that's a natural one.

Yes!

That is

perfect and apropos.

So that is an absolute miss.

The entity goes and tries to swing, but it slides and slips on its own Visera that it's been spilling

like a banana peel in a cartoon.

Lands on its back.

And it is prone and at your disposal.

Spotlight comes back to you all.

What would you like to do?

Shoot it.

Guys, shoot it.

I'm just shooting it.

Okay.

What do you want to do?

You're saying?

You want to take it out with a baseball bat?

No, I got a lasso.

Shoot it with a joke.

Should I like lasso it and then strangle it?

Shoot it?

Shoot it.

I'm just shooting it.

Shoot it, man.

I reload it.

Shoot it.

Out there, alien disintegration ray.

Ah, disintegrate.

This is for Paloma.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Eight plus three.

I'll say you have advantage on it because it rolled a one and it fell on its back, so you get to add a d6.

That might be enough.

We'll see.

Anything in for the plus three, so I'm doing it for love.

Does that count for anything?

So

plus two more.

What were you at?

So it was 11, so we're going to go.

14.

13 unfortunately misses.

And it fires wide, carves into the wall, and like burns through a portion of the bunker.

Roll a d6 for me, by the way, for each time you fire to see if I get any fear from this.

Each time you fire.

Two.

Okay, roll one more time.

On a five or six, I get a fear.

Six.

Hell yeah, I'll take that fear.

And that was a...

That roll was with hope or fear?

The one that you attacked it with?

Hope.

With hope.

Okay, so you take that hope.

You blast wide.

Stacy city, pop, dispel dice, blow up.

Stacy's dice.

Get him, get him, get him.

These, I think, are my...

These aren't going to be my favorite.

I think they are.

The creature gets back up, and it's going to go ahead and

spend a fear to angrily spin around to try and strike all four of you again since you're all still clustered in the base.

That's going to be a 10.

Oh.

Does 10 hits?

Is he, but is he at disadvantage?

Because he's prone.

Well, no, he's gotten up at this point.

So he gets back up.

I'm just trying.

I know.

Good call like now.

So does 10 hit?

It's me.

It's me, too.

I'm at 10.

So that hits you.

Yeah.

Hits you.

I'm 12.

12.

So it misses you.

Shit.

The rest of you take.

I don't know.

Oh, my God.

That's double ones.

So you take five points of damage.

Okay.

So you don't get crit.

On a...

Damn,

I get crit if it's a natural 20.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, yeah.

Okay.

So, yes, that's four points of damage.

Or five points of damage, sorry, to everyone, to the three of you right there.

Oh, shit, so well, so you could erase one of these, spend one of those, and then you wouldn't have to.

Yeah.

Spotlight's back on your side.

I'm out.

Can I please use my lasso?

You're out again.

Oh,

I want to rock it one time too.

So, if you want to go first, but I want to chuck a big old rock at it, too.

Didn't we try that?

No, that was the other one, the alien.

It did well.

Good with my rocks, bro.

I'm taking a rock chuck at it.

Well, she wants to do her lasso first, I think.

All right, do you want to like are you using your lasso to damage or hold it in place?

I'm gonna use my lasso to strangle it.

Okay, okay, go ahead and make a roll.

Yes, yes, strangle it

30.

Oh!

That'll hit.

Okay, let's go ahead and roll

it.

Yeah, motherfucker.

Yanakai.

Yay!

All right.

Wait, was that.

Wait, that's 20, baby.

Yeah, baby.

Damn.

What can I say?

That's crazy.

All right, yeah, that'll do.

I told you.

Come on, take a look at that.

That's the power of this purity complex.

Yeah.

That is.

That's true.

That's why.

Is this correct?

That's correct.

I don't.

I don't.

Don't ask me.

I don't.

I have to say that.

17 is past its major threshold.

That marks two hit points, which is all I had left.

How do you want to do that?

Yeah, yeah.

So, using this lasso, and we'll say, like, you're getting ready to throw this rock.

How do the two of you like team up in this instance?

We'll say, just narratively to finish off the behemoth.

Okay.

So I take the lasso out of my baby backpack.

And I unwind it.

I wrap it around my head.

One, two, three times.

Whoops!

I grab it.

It wraps around its neck.

It starts to strangle itself.

All of a sudden, black goo oozes from its mouth

all down its center.

And just at that moment, I look at you.

Go!

Rock and roll, bitch.

It kind of looks up.

It goes into its mouth like cave troll style.

Just

and slams on the ground, no longer moving.

Yes!

All right.

And Matt's Trapper Keeper is up next, including the character sheet.

All the shit.

You're going to want it.

Go get it.

It's got all my game notes in it.

It has all your notes from the game too in it.

Yeah.

I might bid on that.

All right.

Oh.

So exciting, you're going to be fun.

It's going to be fun.

All right.

So currently,

the Klaxons are still going off.

Go get it, go get it, go get it.

Carin's unconscious.

Now, I have a Capri San.

Can I use that on her?

You can if you want to, yeah.

I was going to say, see mad, but I can go over there and slam a slim jam in your mouth.

Yeah.

A slam jam.

A slam.

Wow.

A slam jam of a caprison.

Slam jam.

I can slam jam you.

I mean, I've only got one hit point left.

You do it.

I know we're both them wrong.

So can I get, I'll give somebody a slam jam.

Can we all have some gummy bears?

We can all have a little something.

The gummy bears will help us for stress, but we the slam jam,

which is which is hit points.

You need that back.

So I'm

so we have some extra caprice so i i could use a hit i could use to clear a hit point by the way we're not sponsored by caprice on i'm just letting you know yeah slam jack

or slam jam

plus one hit points or clear

okay so i would do hit points lucas you need this yeah i'm gonna eat the slim all right slam so i'm gonna do i'm gonna let's

leave that there add that your hit points one

the audience did allow everyone uh

two more of you can add a plus two permanently to experiences.

You can just add a moment to yourselves.

I did it last time.

And you do find an additional healing item in the space.

We'll say in scavenging through, you loom into your pockets and find an additional slam jam.

Oh, yeah.

You always keep an extra slam jam.

You gotta have a slam jam.

Okay, use a capri sun.

Use that.

So do we still have this one?

Still around?

What happens to this?

If that's used, it's dead.

You all also gain one hope, as the audience has donated to this as you get to your final push of your endeavor.

The Klaxons are still going off.

You catch your breath for a second.

You steal yourselves, and you know that, likely, based on the information, that last VHS, and what you have,

the culprit behind the majority of this power, this intent, this dangerous, encroaching takeover lies within that hangar.

The one that is the hallway you have yet to take.

We gotta do it.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Where we go, one, we go all.

That's it.

Something like that.

It's our time down here.

It's our time.

It's our time.

I have that, actually.

It's our time.

Perfect.

This is my wish.

My dream.

Taking it back, man.

Take it all back.

Stealing yourselves.

You gather your things and begin to march back down the central hallway to the center where the collapsed inner portion of the containment unit for the behemoth is left open.

You go what would now be, from your perspective, the left-hand hallway, the one not taken.

It's a direct path to the double, the largest set of double metal hanger doors you've seen.

On each of these doors, there is a red key card marker.

Yes.

Who has the red key?

That's us.

Well, you got the red key.

I got the red key.

Let's do it.

Which one are we?

You got a charge.

You got the ray gun charged.

Oh, God, I'm going to use a stress.

Can you, or do you want to give it to somebody else who doesn't add any stress?

Oh, that's okay.

All right.

So I got two.

I literally only have one stress.

I only have two.

Yeah.

All right, then you somebody else take it.

I'm not so great.

Give me the ray gun.

Obviously.

Give me the ray gun.

Giant ray gun.

I'm going to take that.

There we go.

So I take a stress and charge it up.

All right.

All right.

Fuck yeah.

It's that.

All right, so there are two different doors, or is it one door that opened up?

It is a double door, but it has a red key card lock on it.

All right.

Did we, have we eaten everything we can eat?

Have we gotten

we're all prepped, ready for this?

I think you got it.

I have a few clearly Canadians in my pockets.

Would anybody like one?

Clearly Canadians.

Oh, those are the best.

All right, I'm going to pass out some Clearly Canadians.

Thank you.

Oh, life is shifting pressure.

Life giving clearly Canadians.

Yes, yes.

The Boys and Berry.

Love the Boys and Berry.

Alrighty.

So, as you

swipe the card,

the doors

shift open.

and lead you into

this darkened hallway.

Glancing around, the light here shifts into this kind of sickly dark green color.

Oh, it's so unflattering.

Where's the DP?

No one looks good.

This is a massive, mostly empty hangar, just an open space in the center.

You see the edges are flanked with these strange mirror-polished boxes, about seven foot by four foot,

with black cloth straped over them.

You see strange lights kind of blink on top of each of them that just barely glow through the material that's covering them as well as a multitude of striated cables that all kind of come together to disappear into like a three foot wide five three to five foot hole in the center of the hangar chamber.

You can

see nothing else really within the chamber at a glance.

If somebody wants to try and inspect the room as you kind of step in to see if you pick up anything strange in the environment.

This would be an instinct roll.

Yeah, let's check it out.

All right, who would like them to try and search the room, make an instinct roll?

I have a plus two instinct.

I have a plus three instinct.

Plus three instinct.

You want to try it out?

Go for it.

Go for it.

Okay.

Oh!

Crit!

Two tests!

That'll do it!

Take it a Vegas!

Take it to Vegas.

Doesn't even matter.

Maximum success.

Yes.

So take a hope, clear, stress.

Yes.

And this is a massive success.

So as you all are entering this chamber quietly, the claxin's quieter in the distance as the doors

close behind you, and you hear the

lock.

Glancing around this open, empty space, the dull lights blinking, you see a small figure that's kind of barely visibly hiding around one of these boxes in the far left-hand side of the chamber.

It looks like the outside of a black business suit, kind of just curled out of sight.

Someone get ready to shoot that asshole.

Yes, I'm all set.

I got him right here.

Okay, so you kind of entered the chamber to try and approach him.

No, I'm still keeping my distance, but uh, I mean, we should call out to him at this point, right?

He knows we're there, right?

Well, I would imagine.

Should we surprise him?

Do that.

I can sneak up to him.

I've got ninja stars.

What?

But you've got that ray.

Yeah, well, I got the rayon on him right now.

But ninja stars?

I ninja.

They're so cool.

I mean, I could strangle him with my stethoscope, but compared to the ray gun, it's not that great.

But I mean, do we just do we want to talk to him?

Do we want to figure anything out?

Or we just want to come in, guns blazing.

We got to find our friends.

What happened?

Yeah, wait.

Oh, it's Matt.

We use the ray gun to take him hostage and we march him down to that room and make him reveal, you know, and free the people.

Free Lisa Loeb and Tori.

We gotta free the people in the chamber.

Okay,

so what happens?

Who's calling Alcom Pearson?

Children?

And you see them kind of like shift back and kind of get purely out of sight now that he feels like he's been seen.

You see the voice go,

you're cleverer than we expected.

No, we're not.

Wait.

I appreciate your cap.

Capriciousness.

You are clearly

far more clever than your predecessors.

And I admire the heart you have.

I think the data we've gathered from it will be extremely important to your replacements.

How dare you?

Damn you, Pearson.

And

don't call us children.

We have adult jobs and adult responsibilities.

Yeah, we have jobs.

We've been emancipated

all our lives.

So don't call us children, sir.

Yeah.

We're going to take you down, but I also have a film I'd like to pitch to you later because it's a really good idea.

Hey, focus, please!

Sorry.

Well, you've come this far.

And he kind of steps out from behind the box now, and you see, like, he kind of emerges, his hands at the ready, he kind of looks at what you haven't

and genuinely looks kind of taken aback by it and goes,

Very well, I see we uh we have ourselves a bit of an impasse.

And he reveals his left hand.

There's like a smaller version of it, almost like a laser pistol that he contains with the same kind of odd alien technology.

Mike's bigger.

Anyway,

he looks, the shame washes over him briefly.

It would be unfair for us not to have a conversation.

And

before the end, really let you understand the changing of the guard, the changing of the tides.

This is the end of an age and the beginning of a new one.

You see,

for so long, us top-end executives and creatives have been at the whim of the audience, the whim of the investor.

But what if we could control that?

And what if we could do it at a fraction of the price?

Oh, you're such a cheap skate.

You always have been.

Just business.

But

I'd like to introduce you to our new partners and our future business initiatives.

I figure it's time, and as you kind of have notions, the center open space in the middle of the hangar suddenly begins to shimmer.

With this kind of rippling effect of the air itself seeming to shake, like something is decloaking in the center as static begins to build up into your minds.

And as the static gets very loud to the point where you almost instinctually go to cover your ears, a voice goes,

welcome

in the center of it.

And now, the cloak dispels, and there you see this smooth, polished, disc-like

vehicle.

A hundred or so feet from end to end has been sitting in the middle of this hangar the entire time as a door

unlatches and lowers and you watch UAP

That's it can go either way really it's more of a semantics thing anyway meet my new partner and as the mist

emerges from outside of this disc

You see floating

an entity of similar color and texture as the behemoth you had just defeated, only

thinner, lankier, and just kind of floating above the air.

Its head crest is long and comes into curled horns.

Where once there was that central behemoth eye, you see there are three affixed across its face.

No discernible features beyond three dull tendrils that kind of dangle down and a jellyfish length beneath its jaw as its hands just open here.

And you hear in your mind once more, Very well

I thank you for your viction

however your journey ends here we have what we need

as it expands its hands you all feel this terrible sense of dread begin to wash over this chamber

I'm going to go ahead and gain the two fear that I received from the audience.

Thank you.

And I'm going to activate the alien mastermind.

How dare you all?

How dare you?

Die in here.

This is for charity.

I'm going to spend two kill the child actors

to use summon the cyborg.

At which point it glances over and lifts its hand.

One of the lights blinks on the cylinder and the cloth pulls back as

the cylinder opens.

Mist emerges and fills the space and you see a figure watch out step out from inside in a familiar catcher's mask.

It looks like a mostly cooked version

of you.

Casey!

Casey!

As a Casey cyborg clone emerges, not fully finished, like you forced their hand at revealing things a little early, and it's just a little off, a little lopsided.

But you see that same kind of reddish glow sparking in its eyes as the cyborg logan you had battled before, As it immediately

lunges towards you at an impossible speed, as it rushes in, it's going to attempt to

grab and crush you.

It's going to mark a stress.

No.

That's going to, it's only going to be a five.

Yes.

You just duck out of the way.

As you pull up,

you're now face to face with an awful nightmare mirror version of yourself that's just

mouth halfway agape, its eyes kind of milky white with a red glow in them.

With that, I'm going to spend another fear to activate Adam Pearson.

Hulinao goes like, sorry, it's just business, you know, it is capitalism, huh?

And it's going to go ahead and run behind one of the unopened crates.

And you get the sense now that all of these cylinders contain a number of gestating cyborg clones.

Adam Pearson pulls behind with his laser gun and points it at you, and it's going to go ahead and fire at you.

Now, he has baseless executive opinions, as it's passive.

When attacking you, your evasion is halved.

Oh.

That's going to be a 12 to hit you.

Yes, I think 16.

Correct.

You take

8 points of energy damage.

So can I use armor?

You can.

Great.

Wait, who's attacking him?

Adam Pearson.

That concludes my spotlight.

It's back to you.

Question.

Yes.

Looking around the room, is there some kind of central thing that's obviously operating all of the clones?

Uh

you get I mean all the clones are

like the devices they're coming from are attached to these cables in the center that go down into the hole.

Cables that look similar to the ones that were connected to the computer that were there earlier.

Do I know what they mean or

you're not entirely certain?

Like some of the some of the texts and things that you were acquiring in the system you could find but you couldn't understand the language that they were written in so the alien language could come through um you think there could be a way to maybe disable them but you have to go back to the computer to do so which is possible if you wanted to attempt that uh it could come to your advantage if you make it in time uh however this floating mastermind also appears to be having some sort of psychic control over these devices as well so you gather those are the two options to try and disable this

I think I should turn and just shoot at the main mastermind right and like right off the bat, right?

Go for it.

I mean, yeah, go for it.

I'm gonna alien disintegrate Ray, the main bad dude.

Go for it.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and give you a minus six on this roll.

Oh,

well, I'm gonna go ahead and give myself a plus eight.

See?

You can do that.

You gotta get it.

You gotta get on your spend.

Y'all wanna bounce that out?

Take it a plus two?

Let's go.

So let's see.

How many extra points do we have right now?

Right now, it looks like you have, after that,

four.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Agreed.

Alright, so wait.

It's a plus two from what you added to it, plus your.

So plus two, then minus six.

So wait, what are we doing?

Sorry, you said you added eight to it.

Oh, I was just making that.

Am I allowed to do that?

Yeah, but we have eight points.

Oh, no.

I was.

Oh, okay.

I thought you were being serious.

Yes, yes, we can bring you up.

Plus two.

Okay, good.

So let's do that.

Let's go.

I can't see.

Oh, please let that up be another seven.

No, it's an eight with fear.

So ten.

Ten?

That's all you have ten with fear.

Can we re-roll?

Really?

I think we're gonna do it.

How many rolls do we have?

We have one re-roll that came into the audience.

That's right.

The chance.

It's up to you.

Might as well.

Man, crit.

Come on, crit.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

Come on, crit.

Oh, that's much better.

So 22 plus 2, so 24.

Okay.

24 will hit.

Yeah.

And roll damage on that.

And so it's

what?

It's 4d20?

4d20.

Come on, big numbers, big numbers.

What is that?

I don't even know what that is.

Is that a 20?

No, it's a 1.

Oh.

Okay.

Standing.

12.

Oh, 12.

12 total.

Oh, my God.

Damn you.

15.

15?

All right, 15 and 14.

Great.

So 29.

29.

That does cross its severe threshold.

It says three hit points on the mastermind right there.

Oh, wait.

And then I'm also going to add insult to injury.

Is that with hope or fear, by the way?

Uh, that was with fear.

Thank you.

Uh, but I'm gonna add

insult to injury,

and

I can make a sarcastic remark.

Then you have to

mark a stress.

You got it.

What's what sarcastic remark do you make as you fire this beam into the mastermind?

I say, uh,

God, I don't even know.

Hey, hey, ass face.

Oh my god.

This one's for Lisa Loeb.

Yeah.

Boom.

You blast into its bike.

It draws back.

You see, it puts up like a psychic field to try and protect itself, but it just carves through it and slams into it as it kind of damages and burns away part of its torso.

So you can...

In all of your minds, you hear.

It matters not.

I will have this world.

Today we begin with Thursday night content and tomorrow domination

and adam's like it's a big jump he's like well and and the contract we talked about we negotiated this and he kind of like

of course of course i mean i'll take what i can get

reloads his laser pistol

um but that was with fear yeah so the spotlight comes back to me i'm also going to add a stress to instantly recock the gun got it go for it all right that now brings us to the mastermind mastermind can be spotlighted twice per gym turn but so first it's going to go ahead and

Let's see

So who somebody roll with fear earlier or failed with fear?

I don't think so.

I forgot about that.

Alright, so first off countdown

I'm gonna go ahead and put this so when the mastermind is spotlighted for the first time it should have before it would have been a it's called a countdown of four on it.

So as rolls happen, it's all countdown and something is happening.

You feel like the psychic energy is brimming within its mind.

And the pressure in your consciousness is pushing harder and harder and harder.

Who knows what that means?

So that was Roll of Fierce.

That would count down

two.

Well no sorry countdown one so it's now a countdown of three.

It will

use its arm scythes against you as it shh goes towards it and you watch this from its body what you thought was just like part of its rib cage disengage and additional arms that are like it almost has like a floating spider feel

and

carves into you with its bladed arms for a 10.

11.

11!

Dang, it just misses you.

That's awesome.

I'm gonna spend a fear to activate it again because I can do that.

Perfect.

And you know what?

It's three tentacles are going to spread out and strike towards you and try and pierce into your body.

This one is going to be.

That's better.

That's going to be a 16 to hit.

That's a hit.

All right.

So you on this one take

16 points of energy damage

as this.

So I can bring it down to.

So wait, if it goes down, if I bring it down one, if I have one armor left,

it could then go.

Well, first, it hits you and you mark an armor slot because of its tentacles, which removes your ability to use armor.

I can't use mark.

That's it then.

So that's my last armor?

No, no, that's my last armor, yeah.

So you just go take full damage on this one.

But I want to do not in the face.

Sure, you could spend a stress to reduce that by one.

So then reduce it by one, so then it goes down to...

Is it on your...

It's between 11 and 11 and 22.

So it would just be one hit point.

So it'll be just one.

Okay, gotcha.

Alrighty.

From there, I'm going to go ahead and

activate...

The cyborg clone again, which is going to continue to pummel towards you.

It's going to go ahead and mark a stress,

it's

secondary stress to try and grab and crush you.

Ooh, natural 17.

It's going to be an 18 to hit you.

Okay.

You take at the impact of that

nine points of damage as it grabs you by the throat and lifts you up in the air and begins trying to crush your windpipe within your own grasp.

Your vision briefly begins to tunnel as you see the weird nightmare version of yourself kind of almost enjoying trying to snuff the life from your fleshy form.

Can I mock this person and help her out?

If you want to.

Yeah.

Spend three hopes to embarrass this target.

Bless you.

Thank you.

I'm allergic to this guy.

We said nine, but it would be a minus two penalty to their difficulty.

Oh.

This is the clone or the mastermind?

The clone.

The clone?

So AI reduces his difficulty to ten.

The clone is easier to hit now.

Much easier to hit with anything.

That's awesome.

That's going to finish my activation.

It comes back to you all.

I think I should run back to the computer.

Ooh, I get an additional fear in the audience.

I don't know.

I mean,

we can just stand and fight, or I can try and disable.

Yeah, you can't.

You definitely need to disable it.

Yeah, you should leave and disable the guy.

Let's see if I can figure that out.

Yeah, because it's only the dead guy back there, right?

There's nothing else after us.

All right, yeah, I'm going to take the red key card and

just book it for the old computer off of it.

I love you, Lucas.

Oh my god.

Lucas.

Use the O work.

Oh my god.

You guys heard that, right?

Oh.

Yes, yes, yes.

All right, I'm filled with hope.

So as you rush off,

grabbing your stuff and charging out into the hallway, you run down that way, going for a full run, make an agility roll to see if you can cover cover the distance before the end of your turn

agility is more plus one

allow it's 12 12 okay that that that that's a success to get there was it with hope or fear a hope with hope great take a hope so you rush over you get into the chamber and you look and you can see the computer there uh you can i say if you want to go ahead and try and start hacking into it now we can go ahead and jump over to them in a second but you can go ahead and begin your initial descent into the system again yeah all right so go ahead and make a knowledge roll for me As you rush into the system,

you begin to kind of find out where this is connected to.

I get a plus five with my computer savvy hacking.

Spend a hope to do that.

And

can you have more hope than is on the sheet, or if it's full?

If it's full, it's full.

Oh, okay.

So spend a hope, spend a hope, get my experience bonus.

And I got an 11 plus 3.

So 14 plus 5.

That is 14 plus 5.

That is 19.

19.

Are you happy for that?

I mean, I can't.

We don't have any re-rolls left here.

No, it's not bad.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

So, 19.

You start getting the system.

You're getting closer to the path of where this might be.

You're not immediately finding it, but you know you're on the path.

It'll take you a little longer to access those files and try and manipulate them.

So we'll come back to you in a minute and attempt to get further into the system.

You're not locked out of it.

Yeah.

And you're not quite there, but you're in the process.

Coming back to you all on the spotlight currently at the moment, since that was with Hope, what would you like to do?

As the mastermind and Pearson are still there.

I'm going to mock this cyborg.

Yeah, so how do you mock the cyborg on this one?

Well, one of you gets some kind of battle armor ready.

I look at the cyborg.

Hey, buddy.

Roses are red, violets are blue.

I thought Shrek was ugly until I met you.

Birch, what's What's the Shrek?

Wait, what was Shrek?

It's in the future, you'll like it.

The sideboard kind of like,

that's a child's book.

A child's book.

I am not a child's book.

And it skins to freak out for a second.

And indeed, it feels like it's been fairly mocked.

It doesn't like being compared to a child's book that'll eventually become a CGI film.

I don't even know if it was published by now, but you know, it's fine.

We'll go with it.

Really lovely.

Indeed, and so it is distracted.

You can continue forward if you want to try and take a crack at it.

If any of you want to try and do anything else to go after the masterminder, minus two penalty to the difficulty.

Correct.

Does anyone want to do like a triple team, a double team?

She can do the difficulty.

I can spend some hope for cheaper, and she has a gun still.

I do.

That's true.

And then we could double, double attack.

Any attack team roll you're a part of can be initiated for only two hope.

And whenever you help an ally, you add one D8 to the result.

Okay,

so I will spend two hope then,

and

I'm gonna

because it's my my best weapon.

I'm gonna hit it with my Trapper Keeper.

Let's go.

Yes.

Did a good job last time.

Did a good job last time.

You're going for the cyborg.

Yeah, cuz we have cyborg and we have mastermind and Adam Pearson.

Those are the three targets currently

You do take a stress by the way if we do this.

I take a stress.

Okay, that's okay.

She takes all the credit.

Yes

Shoot, who do we want to hit?

Pearson doesn't scare me as much as the other two.

Yeah.

okay.

Yeah, cuz he kind of seems like he's he's human, isn't it?

He's not the mastermind.

He's human if he's like deferring to the

moment.

Yeah, let's go mastermind.

Yeah, let's go mastermind.

Okay, so

let's see if it hits.

Okay, let's do where did it go?

1d8.

That's the sky.

Okay.

And then I'm adding eight.

Alright.

18.

Five.

Okay.

Mine's 18.

Okay.

Um.

Adding anything else.

23, right?

Five, right?

23 total?

23 total.

Okay, so I have 20 total.

With hope or fear?

With fear.

And you have a 23 with hope or fear?

No, I added five.

Oh, yeah, five.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah, so that's that would be 23.

23 altogether.

All right.

No, it's 25 altogether.

Yeah.

25 altogether.

Yeah, I'm not counting what you're adding.

That's the success with the fear.

Great, great.

Okay.

So

now we roll damage.

Indeed.

So

there's a negative two penalty.

For him.

For him?

Wait, indeed.

Well, this is against the mastermind.

So the cyborg has the minus two penalty.

I don't think I do.

So if you

if you guys are tag teaming, you decide what you were doing as part of the tag team to combine.

So if you want to attack as well, you can combine your your damage

we can combine the damage so like if you want to distract if you wanted a stethoscope or if you wanted we can oh i see i see strangle with your stethoscope

i do still have my gun shoot it

fire at him yeah

let's go for it all right so so to that case uh go ahead and do roll an attack roll see which of those two you want to use so either that has fear and so go ahead and roll for your finesse

fear

So

you just roll your two dice and then add your finesse bonus.

Just in case you roll a crit or roll higher.

Yeah, your two 12s.

Which is, there's one.

I don't know.

Anyone else have a...

You could do these two.

Oh, okay.

So.

Okay, 11 plus finesse, which is two.

Well, yeah, so.

13.

Okay, so you probably take your roll now.

Okay, we'll take mine.

All right, so you both roll with fear.

Okay.

Which does give me an additional fear.

Well,

you rolled with hope.

Right, but the number wasn't as high.

Oh, right.

So it depends on you.

Would you prefer to take the lower number?

Would you prefer to take the lower number that is hope or the higher number that's fear?

That's up to you guys.

We'll take the higher number that's fear.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I take the additional fear.

Okay.

That does succeed, though.

So you both can roll damage and combine those together.

So mine is 19.

What will your damage end up being?

I don't know.

You'll do 2d6 plus 4 or you can do your secondary, which is 2d8.

Right?

Yeah, we push them out.

The gun.

Oh, you're using the gun.

Yes, yes, yes.

2d6 plus 4.

Okay, great.

All right.

Let's go.

6.

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Great.

Eight, plus 4, 12.

12.

So 12 plus 19.

Yeah.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, that'll be three more hit points of damage on it

as it crosses its major threshold.

You slam it with the trapper keeper knocking it up into the air right as you aim and fire.

The bullet rips through it.

Because you rolled with fear,

you both mark a stress

from its resistance's futile reaction.

So whenever a PC rolls against it with fear, you mark a stress, and all other PCs within close range lose a hope.

So

the three of you lose a hope.

Me?

Yeah, all three of you do.

Also, because you both rolled fear, that ticks this down.

The timer goes to zero.

The psychic vortex triggers.

So now,

that static that you've been feeling since you arrived gets louder and louder, and suddenly you feel like the air and the wind begin to pick up in this massive swirl.

The creature kind of curls into itself.

And

that's how this high-pitched, screeching, psychic beam of a blast that carves through your minds.

All of you, except for you, because you're out of the chamber,

take another stress.

So you mark another stress, and you all lose another hope.

Okay, and I still got three hope.

If any of you are out of hope, let me know.

What if you're out of stress?

I'm out of hope.

Okay.

If you're out of stress, you mark.

Out of stress, you are vulnerable.

That means all attacks against you are at advantage.

And if you take any more stress, you take a hit point instead.

That's right.

Okay.

Can I eat some gummy bears?

On your occupation, you can.

Okay, okay, okay.

On your spotlight.

Great.

So it was the the fear.

Big hit.

Big damage.

The mastermind is looking hurt.

The mastermind, however, comes back to its spotlight because you're over the fear.

The spotlight is going to rush in towards you again since you have the laser cannon that it's threatened by and you have zero hope, which it senses that dread washing over you.

Yeah.

It's going to go ahead and attempt to, let's see.

Yeah, it's going to go ahead and come after you with its arm sides.

Of course.

That's going to be a 13 to hit you.

Hit.

Now it has existential dread here.

The mastermind deals double double damage to PCs with zero hope.

So you take double damage from it.

Of course I do.

So with that.

You don't have any hope left?

No, I have no hope left.

Oh my god.

Okay.

13 plus 5.

18 points of damage doubled.

36.

Yeah, you take 36 points of damage as its scythe arms begin.

You guys watch as this alien mastermind glides forward and its arms just

begin to just stab into and slice Joey, lifting him up off the ground as one leg kind of jams through the center of his stomach and lifts him up in the ground for a moment.

How you doing?

I'm okay if

I could do not in the face, but then I'm fully stressed.

So that just means I roll with disadvantage every time.

It means attacks against you have advantage.

Any further stress you take will be hit points.

Right, right, right.

Okay.

But I think I have to do that because I only have one hit point left.

Okay.

So I'm going to fill up with stress

and then I can knock off one of my hit points.

Let's go.

I'm going to go ahead and spend a fear to activate that mastermind a second time since it has relentless as it's passive.

So I can do it twice per jam spotlight.

As you're carved into its stomach, it's going to look at you in the face, and you all hear through your minds.

Another false

like the wrist.

And it's going to go ahead and attempt to jam the blade further up into you.

That's going to be, that's going to be a 15 to hit.

Oh, it's a hit.

And with that, two.

That's not a great damage roll necessarily.

It's four plus.

That's nine.

18 points of damage against you.

Okay, so that's two more.

So I'm unconscious.

So you get to choose to either.

Actually, no, I'm not unconscious.

I want to go out on a blaze of glory.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

All right, so you get to make one action roll that is an automatic crit success.

Okay.

The last thing I want to do is fire the laser cannon

point blank right at this thing

while I have the blades.

Let's go ahead and roll some damage on this.

So first off, it's maximum damage, so it's 80 plus 4d20.

Yes,

fuck it.

80 plus 4d20?

Yes.

Amazing.

Because it's a crit, it's a critical hit on this on this weapon.

Yeah, I gotta go out and ablaze.

Go for it.

Joey's gotta do it.

So

it's 80 plus 420.

Okay.

92

96

plus 15.

That's how I'll do it.

So it's 111.

111.

Natural 20.

131 points of energy damage.

That more than doubles its threshold.

That is four hit points.

The alien mastermind is defeated with your alien disintegration ray.

How do you want to do this?

Spock goes out.

Death rat.

Yes.

Scuck.

Say there.

What's the glow?

It carves through.

Hock gives out this horrible screech before you watch its body just burn away into ashes and cinders.

Joey Squawk falls to the ground in a pile.

And in a moment, here,

you have your final moments to express with your friends before you fade into the veil beyond.

And the accent disappears, and he just looks up and says,

I would have been so good in that movie.

Joey!

He died so y'all could live.

That's the quietest he's ever been, though.

As the creature's like body is slowly burning away on the ground, it's like,

it reaches up its hand, and as it twitches one more time, it gives out its final little maneuver, and all the lights and all the cylinders start

blinking.

Coming back to you as you're trying to hack through desperately.

I gotta stop it from opening up more chambers.

That's what I want to do.

Because I don't want any more clones coming out or whatever.

So you have two options here.

You can make another knowledge roll.

It's going to be a very high DC to still continue to find out where this is and finish it.

Or you can make an instinct roll.

It'll be a lower difficulty to see if you can just rely on your innate sense of systems to lead you there.

The choice is yours.

Do I get the computer savvy hacking bonus either way if I spend a hope?

If you spend a hope, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

I'll do an instinct.

I'm going to dig down deep here.

Let's do this.

But I'm going to spend a hope, too.

Well, double ones.

That's a cool.

That's a lesson.

Holy shit!

The narrative asks for it.

Okay, then.

You take a moment like you're getting caught up in the system.

The alien code in here and the

strange esoteric merger of this newer Windows update that you don't fully understand

are merging in a place where even your hacking knowledge is kind of balking you.

It's keeping you from understanding it fully.

And you take a moment and just kind of instead lean into the alien coding and follow the thread of where that might take you.

Instead of looking at language and text, you're finding patterns of movement.

And for a moment...

You feel like you can almost understand it's not about, it's different from our language.

It's almost like an art.

it's it's an expression of shape uh more than symbol and as you follow that thread you begin to almost see you begin to see through the matrix you begin you begin to know where all these wires are connected and you find the center point where all of these cyborgs are centrally connected both autonomously and to the larger hive mind of the alien minds that exist here and there

there

is the button you have to press to disable it.

Hit it.

The rest of you watch as the containment units are

opened and the mist roils out as

more than two dozen cyborgs come out.

Strange, malformed, unfinished versions of your troop and Melissa and Mick and Matthew and Lisa.

All of a sudden, Tori comes...

This is the next wave of replacements that the alien technology and the greed of this executive were going to lean forward.

And as they begin to charge towards you all with murderous intent, you watch as they all

just collapse onto the ground, unmoving.

And there in the moment, you see standing in the back with a laser pistol, Adam Pearson go.

You know what, children, this has been a great exercise, and I think you've truly proven your worth here.

Honestly,

me and all of the shareholders are extremely proud that you saw through this wonderful exercise to show that you were to be the top stars of our TGIT program.

In fact, we'd love to have a writer's room next week to see what creative ideas you have to bring to the table, and we will happily renegotiate contracts.

Why don't we all go upstairs and

share

a cocktail or two?

Why not?

Nobody's watching.

Did I hit him in the head with a golf club?

Yes.

I don't want to do that.

Have you seen my bat?

Yeah.

I don't think that's necessary.

I don't.

And with that, a series of heavy blows bring this man low to his knees as you bludgeon the executive here at this point.

Oh,

I love this.

This is amazing.

It doesn't take too much longer before the...

You're just a man in a soup!

The gates or the doors

that open to the previously locked...

elevator down below emerge and a number of law enforcement along with Myers and other friends of yours,

who went to find Help Beyond, begin to both capture the executive and begin to take in what they've seen here with absolute confusion and concern.

Who are then quickly overtaken by a number of government officials that quickly lock down the scenario and tell everyone to leave and not worry about it.

You are all, however,

sent out into the night to your various caretakers, your parents,

with exemplary dedication from the studio and apologies immensely for this weird, unfortunate circumstance that you were

heroic in stopping.

Promises of renegotiations to come to your management.

I think we should all take a percentage of the Salamander studios.

Yeah, I do too.

And I think Schwak should get a Youth and Film award post-connected.

Oh, you know what?

We should have

a memorial award.

A youth and

his honor.

A memorial award.

Maybe we should see if we could get him a star on the Walk of Fame.

Yeah.

I think you did just buy those.

You could probably buy those or you can walk.

Yeah, looks like it's a real outsider.

As the remaining five of you wrap your arms around each other and take a moment of silence for your lost friend and the sacrifice that he made to save all of you.

I'm going to pour out some Capri son for him.

Yeah.

I'm just looking up at y'all and really proud.

I mean, that one's for the home of us.

Of all of us that could have gone, though, it's it's okay.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah.

As you all, arm in arm, step off into the now cold, early morning air before the sunrise.

Kind of blankets over your shoulders and cups of cocoa given to you by the

blankets, yeah.

All wrapped in the

ham.

The music plays you

into the night air.

And what an end to this adventure.

Yes!

Yes!

Amazing.

So fun.

We did it.

We did it.

Well done, you all.

That was

great.

Thank you all so much for your incredibly generous donations tonight.

Thank you.

For joining us for tonight's festivities.

This was such a blast.

We hope you had anywhere near as much fun as we did because we had a fucking great time.

Tonight, with your help, we raised over $68,000

for our charity partner, NC Wit.

With a matching bonus from our friends at eBay and eBay Live, we have total over 78k total tonight

for our newest charity partner.

Thank you all so much for helping out with this.

If you want to learn more about NC Wit, please check out ncwit.org.

It's ncwit.org or go to critroll.com/slash foundation to learn about all of our magnificent charity partners that many of you have helped us support through the years.

So proud of this charity and so proud of this community and what you all have done.

If you missed out on any of the auction items, fret not.

Pardon.

We have some signed character art prints and dagger heart core rulebooks available on our eBay storefront until this Sunday afternoon to still push money towards this charity endeavor.

So bid while these supplies last.

Also, keep an eye out for more CRF events coming across your screens in the future.

My God, thank you all so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Seriously.

Such a joy.

And for those of you for your first time in your tabletop experience,

picked it up so fast, wonderfully ran with the wonderful story.

You all did so wonderful.

Seriously, Jodi, Christine, Casey, Ryder, Will, Ashley, you're fine.

I'm just here.

No, you've all been so amazing.

Thank you for being a part of this.

Thank you for your time, for your creativity, and just your positive energy.

And as

to not get weird for a second, having grown up alongside and watched all of you and all your various endeavors, it's also very cool for me personally to be here at the table with you all.

So thank you for being a part of this.

You like that.

Thank you, Matt.

And thank you all for your donations.

Yay!

We love you.

Amazing.

You're all amazing.

Thank you all so much.

Thank goodness it's Thursday.

Is it Thursday yet?

Good night, everybody.

Yay!

I've been asleep so long.

And that concludes this episode of Critical Role.

If you liked the adventure, please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

We love welcoming new critters, and your review could be the map that leads other kindred spirits our way.

We hope you enjoyed the story, and thank you very much for listening.