#at this point half these motherfuckers have parasocial relationships with the gods

[12pt-times-new-roman]

c3e79

They have some convos in Morri's manor, and Orym does not seem happy that they've decided to run away into the Feywild. But he's rolling with having been mostly silent, brooding, and working out over the past day.

Fearne goes to talk to Birdie. She and Ollie were able to escape to the Feywild gateway, but Hondir took off toward Ashanadoor instead to reconvene with his allies.

Upon mentioning Tevon, Fearne -- apparently the party's lie detector -- can tell that Birdie isn't lying about not having had dealings with devils or demons, but she's still being guarded about something. "Fearne, you may not know how your father and I met, but know that he is a good man in his morals, and I've met no man greater than him. We met because we were both briefly entangled with the Unseelie Court; Ollie was a prisoner of theirs, and I was once enthralled by the wiles of one among them. This gentleman of whom I was romantically entangled with promised much, and delighted in my darker impulses... I was whisked away into the arms of this dark lover who danced with me, he waxed poetic about taking the moon from the Moonweaver herself, and he was beautiful as he was terrifying... I was in an odd place, and I do not like who I was then... my Unseelie suitor talked of the importance of our union, and when it was time for me to give birth to you, he brought me to a hilltop on Exandria beneath the red moon Ruidus, as he had planned and we had discussed."

Fearne's biological father is Atheon Zathuda, the Sorrow Lord of the Unseelie Court -- the person who chased them from the Malleus Key, who Morri fought for them as they fled. He had dealings with Otohan and Ludinus, who promised him that he'd be freed from the Moonweaver's imprisonment if he helped them make the key. Birdie notes specifically that Zathuda spoke with an "Exandrian high magus" to plan Fearne's birth so that she would be Ruidusborn.

Once Fearne was born, Zathuda stopped giving attention to Birdie and treated her badly, so she fled, taking Fearne and Ollie with her. When Ollie had his vision years later, they did what any parents would do: they kept Fearne safe. They knew that the Unseelie and Zathuda would be looking for Fearne, so they left her with Morri. "I don't ever want you to think that I'm asking for forgiveness, I know you can't give me that, but I'll try to make it up to you in time."

While that happens, Orym goes to talk to Ashton. "I realize that I didn't say a lot yesterday. I've just been thinking. To be honest, Ash, I was as freaked out as everybody else by what happened, but that's not what I want to say to you right now. I just want you to feel what you're gonna feel -- be angry, sad, confused, questioning, guilty, shameful, whatever. But we do care about you. I care about you. [Yeah. I think I believe that now.] Well, time, right? Whatever you're gonna feel, we're all going through it, and I get it, I do. You and your dad, Imogen and her mom, and me with everything I carry around -- it's hard not to let it be personal, and of course it's personal, but we can't let this be about our every little hidden heartbreak right now. [No. I mean, I'll admit that the positive reinforcement after jumping into a pool of lava may have been... I can see the escalation, the more I think about it.] I listened to everyone lay into you yesterday, and that's not what this is about. I care about you, and with everything that's coming, feel what you're gonna feel but also don't let perfect be the enemy of good. This group, as fucked as it is, this is the play. This is the angle, there are no legends coming in to save us -- it's just us, and we gotta pick up and do. When we leave, it's gonna be hard, but try not to spend all your time grappling with your demons, because I need your hands free so you can pick up that hammer and fight." Orym gives him a kiss on the forehead.

Allura assures them that every group of people who cares about each other falls out from time to time, sometimes drastically.

Imogen takes off the circlet because if she hadn't been wearing it, she would've known what Ashton was planning. Which is a massive fucking invasion of privacy and such an overstep that the people around her definitely need to interrogate her on

They start putting the pieces together between Zathuda, Otohan, and Ludinus, and decide to ask Allura about Sammanar (the leader of the Unseelie Court). "Sammanar is one of the five major archfey of the Fey Realm, Keeper of the Sun's Shadow (a region), master of the Unseelie Court. They are a moody entity, a rare sight out amongst the rest of the realms; they are the watcher of the twilight, the stiller of violent emotions, a bit of a prick." Archfey collect titles like rotten fruit. Zathuda himself is a brutal warlord who finds poetry in violence, and he has no other children; and he is the wielder of the Dusk Hunger, Blade of the Black Flame.

They show Morri the fire shard, and Laudna has to walk away into another room. (There's a point to be made here, I just don't have the bandwidth to make it.)

Allura speculates on why the Unseelie Court might want to depose the Moonweaver. It could be that they want to create a power vacuum, because the Moonweaver has significant influence in the Fey Realm — being generally good-aligned, she's definitely not a favorite of the Unseelie.

The leaders of the Fey Courts control who can and can't pass through fey gates, but some powerful archfey can mess with that "permission" — including Morri.

From what Allura knows of Morri, she is a "stalker of dreams, a voyeur of insecurity, a promiser of many things and a robber of others. There are stories that say she is an entity of balance, and others that say she is a reaper of sadness... in scholarly circles, she is a dubious and dangerous entity, in the sense that there are few that can even attempt to ascertain her true nature."

And thus, we begin the scavenger hunt. Morri gives them drinks, and says she has chosen three items from her collection, and has devised three different adventures for them: communciation, truth, and honesty. For each adventure they succeed, they gain an item. For each they fail, they "know what they have to work on."

They choose Honesty. Smoke fills the entire chamber, the temperature drops, and they feel a breeze — they're no longer inside the Manor, and instead find themselves in a dense fey jungle. In front of them is a massive cliff with no visible bottom, with broken stone and ruins across it. Morri gathers them and procures a brass monocle with a deep viridian lens — a veilscatter lens. "This, my friends, is the first item: the monocle of true essence. It will be your job to find this." She throws it into the ravine, and it disappears. "You all must work together to find it. The chasm is unclimbable, but it listens, and as our agreement, it only listens to honesty. Speak of your secrets, speak of your truth about each other, reveal something about yourself, and the land may show you a path forward." She puts all of them into a giant fucking hamster ball and tosses them into the chasm, like those levels of Super Mario Galaxy, and we go to break!

As they hit the bottom of the chasm, the magical shield dissipates, and they land in a muddy bog.

FCG is the first one to try "honesty," and admits that they like eating silver more than copper. Stone platforms move into place for about 15 feet — the bigger the truth, the bigger the gain.

Imogen's turn: she's genuinely scared to meet Liliana again. More steps appear.

Chetney attempts to argue that wood is fundamentally better than metal. Leeches start eating them.

Laudna: "Deep down inside, both Delilah and I kind of want the shard!" A jut of stone forms a 30-foot spike up to a vantage point.

Imogen: "I love Laudna deeply, but I'm disgusted at the idea of Delilah watching us all the time." A crumbled city begins to push out of the mud at the bottom of the chasm.

Orym: "I'm super lonely, even at night, and it doesn't matter if I'm bunking with one of you guys."

FCG: "Sometimes I pity some of you, because you have beating hearts and opportunities and you don't do enough with them." (bonus 4th-wall breaking Travis: "We're still in the game, right?!")

I actually fucking love this so much, because it's the fact that the Bells Hells fundamentally want to be honest with each other and to trust each other, but they've never done that outside of dire consequences, and this is giving them an opportunity to be honest without direct consequence.

Also Orym: "I guess I've always laughed it off, but I do kind of wonder if Chetney is my dad!" Laudna's vantage point that she climbed up to extends another 30 feet.

Ashton: "Oh, fuck it. I am the reason that the Jiana Hexum robbery went wrong, and the reason I got thrown out of that window!" Remnants of this ruined city's culture continue to emerge. This truth is the reason Ashton believed the Nobodies were right to leave them.

Fearne: "I feel like we are very ill-equipped for this job and we're gonna fail at saving the world."

Chetney: "I do fear that children will find my toys and thereby myself obsolete with every year that I grow older."

FCG: "Every time I hurt or kill something, it feels really good. It makes me relax a little bit, and some of my stress goes away." (hold up do we have BG3 dark urge characters in BOTH ongoing CR campaigns right now??)

Imogen: "I know we're supposed to save the gods, but none of them will ever respond, so I think I'm tainted. I don't know if I want to save gods that don't love me." *sigh*

Laudna: "You know we could all ripcord right out of this whole 'saving the world' thing any time, right? And I fantasize about it all the time."

Amidst the rain, Orym spots the lens and points it out. He leaps toward it, Laudna gives him a feather fall, and he lands on the roof where it is. He retrieves it and tucks it away, but they still need to get up to the top of the chasm.

Fearne: "Sometimes I do stuff to you guys while you're sleeping. Not weird stuff! I just look at you. You're so content and comfortable, and I can look at your faces real close and twiddle your hair."

Ashton: "Any time it's too quiet, I start worrying that one of us is going to end up killing another of us accidentally. Except for Orym, you're the one I worry about the least." Orym, in response: "I have all the faith in the world, all of you. And I have also thought about how to neutralize each of you."

FCG: "I kinda worry that I put all my eggs in the Changebringer basket and that she might betray us all. I had a weird conversation with her and she seems out for herself, and she might not really care about me, but she might and I'm saying awful things, and I'm sorry!"

Imogen: "Fearne, I was disappointed in you for running away from your power! You should take the shard!" (This one isn't enough of a truth.)

Orym: "I really miss Dorian, and sometimes I think that's okay but sometimes I think it isn't!"

Pate, out of left field: "I'm barely alive! What do you want from me?! I don't have feelings!"

Ashton: "I feel worse because I just fucked up Fearne's live way more than mine, and I should've died instead of that happening!"

Chetney: "I grew up in the Bramblewood, and when I was a kid, I came back and realized my whole family had left. All they left behind were toys. They left because oft he Rimelord, so I'm afraid of dragons — I had five siblings, and I was so angry I never looked for them so now I think they're dead, and I'm afraid that any family I have will leave me, so that's why I don't get attached to anybody."

Chetney's last confession bridges the gap. Zebra-striped manta rays, flying, with hands where their head would be, grab the Bells Hells and drops them at the top of the chasm. Morri waits for them there. "Well! It looks like you succeeded. Congratulations on your first team building exercise. I hope you got a lot out of it."

The monocle they got can cast detect magic once per day, arcane eye once per day, and see invisibility once per day, and gives advantage on insight and perception checks. It also doesn't require attunement.

They choose the Communication trial next. Morri brings them to a barely-lit, underground chamber with a tall rock ceiling that goes endlessly in all directions. There's a glowing yellow orb in the middle of a round platform; it's textured and odd, almost organic. There are three thin walkways that curl away from the platform. "Welcome, friends. This is a thunderwasp hive. Be mindful not to panic or speak too loudly; they get riled." She asks for three volunteers: Chetney, Ashton, and Imogen. The three of them are blind as the skin grows over their eyelids, and Matt has them put blindfolds on. The three of them vanish, and are placed on the ends of the three winding platforms.

OHHHHH I SEE

Each of the blindfolded players has a small map with a path drawn on it, and a mini they must guide along that path. The non-blindfolded players must guide their hand using instruction alone along that path. If they get too close to the edge, that player rolls a dex save to avoid falling into the pit below. Then, if the instructions get too loud, the wasps create an obstacle.

I honestly love that Orym/Liam is taking the lead here. It makes so much sense — Orym was a soldier. He knows how to command, knows how to communicate, knows how to make sense to people. In challenges like this, a leader will always emerge, and here it's Orym.

Chetney succeeds, and the two major contributors — FCG and Orym — are silenced for Imogen's trial, while Chetney is able to contribute. And yes, the interplay between Travis directing Laura as her husband and Laudna directing Imogen as her in-game girlfriend is exactly as entertaining as you'd think, but it's also working far better than I thought it would

Imogen succeeds, and Chetney and Laudna are silenced because they were the two major contributors. Only Imogen and Fearne are left to communicate with Ashton. Somehow, this is the calmest group so far, but because a single failed saving throw that had absolutely nothing to do with either Ashton or his directions, they fail the trial — a planned outcome.

Morri gives them an ultimatum. They can try one more time, all-or-nothing: if they fall, they die, but they get to choose who is being directed and who gives direction. Orym volunteers to go, and chooses Chetney and Imogen to give directions. (This is, objectively, the correct choice. Orym has the best dexterity, giving him an advantage on every check associated with this test; and Travis and Laura proved themselves to be the best direction-givers in the previous trials. I'm honestly amazed at Travis here, because he's giving directions like "lift up your 3 fingers" because he knows that makes it easier to maneuver.)

"Go, go, straight line, put your arms out to Nana Morri, you are there honey!"

Morri claps, congratulates them, and gives them their prize: the scarf of intrusive intent. The bearer can cast suggestion twice per day, magic mouth twice per day, and fear once per day.

Lastly, trust. The cold gives way to warmth, and the sound of birds, insects. They find themselves standing in a deep fey forest. Above is an enclosed canopy, and they are surrounded by runes, archways partially crumbled, extremely sharp thorns. In the center is a large well, filled with mirror-like water.

"Well, friends. We're here at your final test. Here, in this interesting site of lost fey history, you all learn to trust one another. There are three altars somewhere in these surrounding ruins, and upon each of these altars lays a section of a blanched ivory branch. I need you all to work together to bring all three of those back here and lay them into the water. Do you think you can do that?" "What's the catch?" "Let me introduce to you some friends." Two figures step out, humanoid but not, elongated and gray. "These are two doppelganer friends of mine, and they've been studying all of you, in and out. Two of you will be removed, and doppelganer taking their place, but you have to figure out who that is before they ruin this for you."

It's a literal game of werewolf! Two of them will get doppenganer cards, their objectives, and clues to the map.

Matt is out here playing mini games within mini games within mini games, I swear to god–

#critical role #note watches c3 #critical role spoilers #critical role liveblog #how many times are we going to have to have the 'just because the gods don't love you doesn't mean they deserve to be genodiced' talk? #at this point half these motherfuckers have parasocial relationships with the gods #and if they all keep projecting their parental issues onto them it is NOT going to end well