Episode 240 - We Are Not Ready

## Intro

**Episode description:**
n/a

**Opening Quote:**
**Sean**: I won't be accused of being a monster.
**Stephanie**: Um, false.

**Player introduction:**
**Sean**: Hello and welcome to the Tabletop Champions podcast, me and Lauren are your dungeon masters, and with us tonight is Kyle who plays Cam, and... ***whispering*** what's your other character's name?
**Lauren**: Irpaks!
**Sean**: Irpaks.
**Kyle**: Grip it and rip it!
**Sean**: Steph who plays Boone and... why can I not remember it?
**Lauren**: Raquel!
**Sean**: I'm bad at this.
**Ben**: Sean, just let - just let Lauren do the other ones.
**Stephanie (in Raquel's voice)**: Dahling, why are you sucking so bad at this?
**Sean**: Raquel! Raquel's the other one!
**Kyle (stage whispering)**: Let Lauren do it! Let Lauren do it!
**Sean**: Okay, fine, Lauren, you go for it.
**Lauren**: Matt who plays Cyrus and Fanel...
**Matt**: Ahhhhh, look into my eye and why are trees the best networkers? They're constantly branching out.
**Lauren**: Booooo. And Ben, who plays Kallas and Throden.
**Ben** **(in Kallas' voice)**: Greetings.
**Sean**: And Lauren who plays Dagna.
**Lauren**: And Sean who plays Travers/Abutton!
**Sean**: Woo! You're way better at this than I am Lauren.
**Lauren**: Imminent crisis! Wooo!
**Sean**: You're way better at that than I am.
**Lauren**: I wrote it down [inaudible]
**Sean**: Hey- hey everyone! Tonight could be a shitshow!
**Ben**: Woo!
**Kyle**: Could?
**Matt**: Ye.

## Episode Summary

### Act 1

The episode opens with Krizakth crawling through a crack in the sky, and the two parties facing each other across a field. Cyrus starts the fight with an Eldritch blast. The ground shakes, and Boone and Fanel are sent to Krizakth's plane. Boone is able to come back quickly, but Fanel is stuck for longer. As they fight, Cam sends a fireball at Krizakth. As it hits, Krizakth seems to dissipate into shadows, then reforms. The battlefield briefly falls silent, the portal opens further, and Krizakth falls onto the battlefield itself.

A rift opens near the party from Naluri, and Cam's mother steps through, followed by an army of spectral drow. Fanel reappears, and Boone gets immersed in darkness. Cyrus grows to a large size. The battle continues, and Kallas gets Feebleminded. Cam uses Inflict Wounds on his mother, but she seems resistant to the necrotic damage it does. Darkness regularly appears in various places, but can be stepped out of. Demons come flying out of the portal, casting Darkness in more places. Leo comes out of the portal and heads for Fanel. Fanel asks him why he's doing this, but Leo doesn't answer. He fights Fanel, seeming faster than Fanel remembers. Raquel casts Earthquake, collapsing a castle wall on Krizakth. Dagna traps Talisa in a Force Cube, stymieing Boone and Cam's plans to kill her, but also taking her out of the battle.

Thunderous clouds form and blood rains down. A pentagram draws itself on the ground and a lithe, terrifying, female form appears inside: Glasya. Time freezes for everyone except Kallas. She reaches to Kallas and cures his Feeblemind, saying that since he was unable to summon her, she came to him. She conjures a contract and irons out the final details with Kallas: she will close the portal, make Talisa easier to deal with, and take away some of Krizakth's advantages; in return, Kallas will sire her a child to give her a foothold on the mortal plane. Seeing the chaos around them, Kallas agrees, signing the contract in blood. Glasya spins into the ground and disappears. A void appears in the pentagram and imps swarm out, killing the drow army and clogging the portal until Glasya's hand reaches up and snaps, and the portal closes. She points a finger at Krizakth and strikes him with energy. The imps turn to ash, the pentagram disappears, the blood rain ends, and time unfreezes. The Darknesses have also disappeared. The battle continues and Fanel fights Leo, but does nonlethal damage. Dagna punches Krizakth with an Arcane Hand, and he falls and curls up, twitching, before the body explodes.

### Act 2

As Krizakth's body explodes, Irpaks and Cam are knocked to the ground and black ooze starts seeping into their orifices, suffocating them. Cam rips off the ooze, but Irpaks starts thinking Raquel is trying to kill him, and that he must kill her. Fanel sees Leo on the ground, ooze dripping out of his orifices, unresponsive. Throden, seeing Irpaks isn't doing great, casts Healing Word, but it doesn't cure Irpaks' condition. He mutters under his breath and does psychic damage to Raquel, who is compelled to flee. Travers shoots at the box experimentally, and Dagna tells him it'll last for an hour. Travers starts eating chicken. Leo is dead: the link to Krizakth was all that was keeping him alive. Raquel asks Irpaks what he's doing, but he claims to be just standing there. Not believing him, she tries to shoot him, but misses. Since Irpaks has been very subtle, it looks like Raquel is the aggressor, and Travers draws his bow on her. Throden remembers the tendrils that were controlling people at Raquel's brothel, and says he thinks something is controlling Irpaks. Travers turns his bow on Irpaks. As Irpaks walks by Throden, Throden reaches out and casts Greater Restoration, curing the condition. The worm-like ooze falls out of Irpaks' nose, and he apologizes for trying to kill Raquel. Travers shoots the puddle of ooze, which does nothing.

Dagna casts Mass Heal to prepare for the fight against Talisa. When the box vanishes, Talisa appears prone on the ground, tied with demon whips, with a gag in her mouth and "Compliments of Glasya" carved into her forehead. Cam beheads her and walks away.

Grifto descends from the sky, applauding, wearing a halo and fake wings falling off his back. Travers hides in the hut he was using during the battle. Grifto asks after him, saying he wanted to apologize. He says he'll send everyone home, and tells people to grab hands. He then says grab butts, and is pleasantly surprised when Dagna obliges with Boone and Cyrus. He says to think of their worst memory, and Irpaks complains, so he grudgingly sends them home with a snap.

### Act 3

The Naluri group finds themselves on the outskirts of Ebreosea. Boone continues to adventure, never settling down for a happy ending.

Cyrus gives up on reuniting with his family, instead rebuilding Jildos as an army for good causes and staying on as a general.

Everyone who was turned to stone in the Battle of Jildos was unable to be recovered. Dagna mourns the loss of her clan, donates Cadran's mansion to a charitable cause he would have loathed, and creates a network to keep up with everyone in Naluri. She travels around, looking for a cure for her clan for the rest of her days.

Kallas and Cam fetch Brenna's body and Cam uses his True Resurrection spell to bring her back, taking 15 years to find the components needed to compensate for her unique deathly journey. Brenna travels around completing all the tasks of her ancestors.

After some years, Kallas is visited by Glasya to fulfill his end of the bargain. He does, and spends the next 20 years raising a little hellion, who loves him very much, but there is obviously something very wrong with her. She promises Kallas she won't lead an uprising in his lifetime, and she doesn't.

Cam goes as far from Jildos as possible, retires from adventuring for 7 minutes, then starts an adventurer's league filled mostly with attractive people. Naluri experiences an era of peace.

The Irulan party returns to Haven. Fanel turns to drinking, but Clover talks him out of it, convincing him to train guards instead, who are lacking in both physical and magical defenses. Clover apparently accidentally polymorphed one of the guards in a way he can't undo. Fanel agrees to set up a school in Haven, teaching both guards and Burning Arrow members.

Raquel returns to her brothel and picks things up again. Given her abandonment, she's required to give partial ownership to the other workers and become a worker as well. One day, Aramel returns.

No one in the party ever sees Irpaks again. He tries to find his offspring, and finds that they were indeed murdered, and placed in an unmarked grave. Irpaks tried leaving messages anyway for the next decade, but after no response, suddenly becomes a younger Irpaks and finds a mate to restart his legacy. He changes his ways from someone who keeps secrets to someone who tells stories, and passes this on to his offspring. Old, grumpy Irpaks is never seen again. He hears stories of his old companions now and then, and when Clover has a child, he sends Clover a walking stick with the note "Every youngun needs a good thwackin' - Irpaks".

Throden wanders, planting mushrooms. Some were originally planted by Lisan, and a new drug finds its way around Irulan. He eventually wanders to the tree where he last saw his wife, and finds the mushrooms he planted in the tower growing on it. Hearing something in the forest, he finds a clutch of lizardfolk eggs. When no one returns for them, he cares for them until three rainbow-crested lizardfolk hatch, one with a scar across her jawline and missing teeth. The new drug Throden has planted, Harlequin, spreads through Irulan like wildfire.

Clover grows up and graduates from the Mage College with honors, then returns to Haven to run the orphanage. He falls madly in love with an otterfolk and they have a mousefolk child. He puts the cane on the outside of the orphanage with the sign, "Every youngun needs a good thwackin'", but explains to the children that it's a joke. After many years of service, he gets elected to one of the five council seats in Haven.

Travers becomes a stablekeep, wanting to live a normal life, but is overwhelmingly popular and is elected to another of the five council seats in Haven.

The episode ends with a teaser for next season:

> “*Somewhere, in a dark, grey, colorless world, the wind howls on the walls of a city.*”
>
>
>

## Memorable Quotes

**Cyrus**: Cam, do you think you got your mother while I go take care of the spider?
**Cam (singsong)**: I don't have a mother!
**Cyrus**: Can you take care of this woman then.
**Cam (singsong)**: Gladly!

**Raquel**: Well dahling, this is getting interesting isn't it, dear?
**Irpaks**: Uh uh, no. Interesting is a book and a nap. This is fun!

**Kyle**: If she has teleportation, then she can make a charisma saving throw. If she doesn't then she's just in that box for an hour.
**Sean**: Um, yeah, I mean she's- she's in the box.

**Travers**: I - I did it! I survived one!
**Various**: Oh my god.
**Lauren**: A castle wall falls down and squashes him.

**Stephanie**: I'm getting murdered over here, thanks for asking!

**Lauren**: Seem almost like lizardfolk eggs. Fuckin hatch 'em, no one can tell me otherwise, I swear to god.
**Sean**: I was gonna say, "I was planning on eating this later."
**Matt**: I was about to say that.
**Kyle**: Om nom nom.

## Trivia

* Lauren got inspiration for Dagna's Cam rap.
* The spectral drow army had poisoned crossbow bolts that, if the party failed a CON save by 5 or more, would knock them unconscious, but the Naluri party was immune to poison due to their Heroes Feast.
* Kyle rolled a 1 on Cam's 1d12 bardic inspiration to add to his roll to hit Talisa, but it was enough to convert a miss to a hit.
* Talisa cast Hellfire Orb during the battle, which is an ability belonging to Death Knights, though she wasn't undead. In the season retrospective Sean reveals that he reskinned the Death Knight stat block for Talisa, explaining the discrepancy.
* Stephanie was very mad about not being able to attack Cam's mom.
* Glasya took away Krizakth's advantage on all his saving throws.
* Lauren used her inspiration to give Dagna advantage on her saving throw against Krizakth's explosion, giving her a crit.
* Irpaks rolled a 2 on both his wisdom saves against the ooze.
* Throden was too far away from Irpaks to cast Greater Restoration on his turn. Then Irpaks walked past him, giving Throden an attack of opportunity; since Throden is a Warcaster, he can use his reaction to cast a spell, so he was able to cast Greater Restoration as his attack of opportunity.
* Cyrus was actually the one with True Resurrection235, but we're ignoring that.