Funny / Critical Role Mighty Nein Beginnings Arc

The first arc of the second campaign. Twenty years after the final adventures of Vox Machina, a new party assembles in a sleepy town called Trostenwald. They are brought together by an investigation into the cause of a sudden zombie outbreak at the circus, and then as a party, travel to the town of Alfield to clean out out a mine full of gnolls, and then to the city of Zadash, where they find themselves dragged into a plot against corruption in the government.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Episode 1: Curious Beginnings

• Laura's character: a Genki Girl blue Tiefling named Jester with a vaguely Russian accent, is already shaping up to be hilarious.
  Jester: I'm sorry I took all your friend's money...
  Fjord: You could give it back?
  Jester: Why though?
  • After this she's told "Your Laura is showing." and everyone, including Matt, breaks down into laughter.
• When Jester first starts talking to her and Caleb, Nott notes that Tieflings can only sense movement. Jester admits that while that may be true, she can still hear her.
• Similarly, Taliesin plays an extremely ostentatious Tiefling circus performer with shades of Snake Oil Salesman named Mollymauk.
• During the party's first meeting in the tavern, Beau asks why Nott is so wrapped up and Caleb anxiously explains that she's a goblin and not to tell anyone. It turns out Marisha meant it in the sense of Nott being wrapped in clothes like she's cold, and Liam (perfectly in character by accident) misinterpreted and overshared to an extreme degree.
• After teaching Nott to play cards, Laura asks if the pastries Jester ordered came out yet and is suddenly handed a real pastry on a napkin to Sam's surprise. A few seconds later, Sam pulls out a cupcake that he had hidden in his lap. It takes Laura several minutes to notice.
• At one point while speaking as Nott, Sam's voice starts to break and a few others are beginning to giggle. It's what he says next (while still doing the voice, too!) that causes the whole table to crack up:
  Sam: Yeah, I'm sticking with this fucking accent for the next two years.
• Caleb is browsing the bookstore, and while he's talking to the owner, Jester decides to misplace and rearrange a few books. She rolls a Natural 20, however, so there are stacks of pulled-out books, books turned every which way, and books completely misplaced all over.
  • Also, after failing to find any interesting books in the store, Caleb, trying not to seem impolite, asks to buy a book on farming:
  Caleb: How much for this book on, uh... hoe technique?
  Book store owner: Ah, Jamison's Hoedown, yes. That would be two silver pieces.
  Caleb: I'm very embarrassed, sorry, I gave away my last two silver pieces...
  Laura: No, I gave them back to you, remember?
  Caleb: I gave away my last two silver pieces.
  • When Caleb leaves, he calls Frumpkin - his tabby cat familiar - after him. Cue Matt meowing in response, followed by Liam and Marisha's reactions as they realise that Matt has to make cat noises now.
• As the group approaches the circus tent, they find Mollymauk outside, doing his fortune telling for a farmer who asks if he should be worried about his cough. Molly flips over a tarot card and tells the man that the cough will probably get better soon, but still encourages him to have it looked at.
  Farmer: Oh, right, right. Um, by who? What do the cards tell me?
  Mollymauk: (flips over a card, completely deadpan) ...Some sort of physician, perhaps.
• Making fun of the pronunciation of "falchion" when Fjord reveals his sword for the first time, with Liam suggesting "felching".
  • Made funnier by the fact that Matt, Laura, Travis, and Liam were all in Fire Emblem: Awakening, and thus should probably know how to pronounce "falchion."
• A case of Meta Black Comedy, the cause of this campaign's first battle is an elderly man turning into a zombie-like creature. The elderly do not have a good time around any PCs in this universe.
• Sam's new character, Nott, tries to sing. Everyone shrinks away in horror.
  Liam: He's killing the memory of Scanlan!
• Marisha's character is nicknamed "Beau", and by sheer coincidence an NPC happens to be nicknamed "Bo" as well. This causes confusion. At the end of the episode when the party is surrounded by guards, they milk this and all try to claim their names are "Bo".
  • Their full responses when asked by the guards to give their names:
  Jester: Shirley!
  Nott: Temple!
  Caleb: ...Caleb Widogast.
  Beau: Beau. Like him. [attempts to indicate the NPC Bo, but is technically gesturing toward Travis]
  Fjord: ...Bo.
  Nott: (who has already given an alias) I AM BO!
• When the guards start accusing the carnival of being responsible for the attacks after the battle at the end, Mollymauk makes an irritated remark about how of course they intentionally caused their patrons to turn into zombie-like creatures, just to deliberately ruin their own performance. The guards then declare that the whole carnival will be arrested and ask who belongs to it. The carnival master Gustav tries to exempt Mollymauk and Yasha by saying they came in with the other patrons, but because of Molly's comment earlier, Matt has Taliesin roll a Deception check... which he critically fails, leading to Molly being essentially arrested for sarcasm.

Episode 2: A Show of Scrutiny

• After Keyleth getting arrested became an unintentional Running Gag, Marisha makes it clear this character isn't going to jail for once. Thanks to a series of extremely poor rolls (failed Stealth, failed Deception when the guards see her, failed Strength when trying to elbow a guard and get away), Beauregard ends up getting arrested anyway.
  • And for ultimate comedic timing, just as Molly is allowed to go free, the party sees Beau being dragged in. When Molly snarks that it must be part of the show, Beau flips him off.
• While the party is swapping stories from their pasts, Nott talks about her thieving career so far. When she mentions she had a collection of stolen sticks and rocks, Jester points out that people probably wouldn't be mad about that. Sam has a perfectly-timed on-the-spot response, which sends the entire group into hysterics.
  Nott: They were people's canes n' stuff.
  • Later, Nott's sticky fingers happen to find a flask made of platinum. To put this into perspective, the party is currently dealing in silvers and single-digit golds; this single item is likely worth several times their total party wealth.
• When Jester and Fjord enter the jail to try to get Beau out, Matt describes the jail as smelling like piss and mildew. Jester's response?
  Jester: Ugh, it smells like Caleb in here!
• At one point, Nott says she likes "loves trinkets so much" in a fairly drastic turnabout from Sam since the last campaign, which the cast acknowledge with barely-contained laughter.
  • Similarly, Fjord admits that he's "not much for ale", with an identical reaction.
• When ordered by the city guards to wait in an inn for questioning, Jester declares that she is going to run up and down the stairs until the staff asks her to stop.
• Laura leaves the table just before the break, so Taliesin puts on her glasses.
• Nott tries to pretend-fight Caleb to deceive some guards, and rolls a 0 and a 4 (a 3 and a 7, but she has -3 to her Charisma-based checks) even with Caleb assisting for advantage. Caleb ends up real-hitting her in the face with his own Natural 20 on Deception, so the players joke that Nott's teeth were straightened because they were already messy. Meanwhile, Jester was failing at her own stealthiness by squatting in six inches of lake water.
• Jester offers to cheer Caleb up by showing him "something cool"... it turns out to be graffiti of a penis that she scratched into one of the tables at the inn.
  Molly: Is that— is that what they look like?
  Jester: I've seen a lot of dicks, okay? That's what most of them look like!
  Taliesin: I'm already in my cups.
• Jester fails at poo graffiti.
• Jester rolls a Natural 1 on a Perception check, causing her to get an eyelash stuck under her eyelid and spend an hour (with Fjord's help) trying to get it out.
• Jester and Nott's entire routine of "That's our culprit!" is comedy gold.
  • Nott and Jester make an amazing duo throughout the episode, even before wildly accusing half the circus of being responsible for the zombies at the end. While investigating earlier, they disguise themselves as a mother and young daughter. Despite this, Jester successfully persuades a bartender that it's all right for Nott to have whiskey (even though Laura can't quite get the line out without laughing).
  Jester: It's okay, she's my daughter, she loves whiskey...
• Caleb describes the group as including "a dirty ginger" when talking to Nott about their need to blend into the shadows. Cue Marisha silently questioning if Liam meant her, before remembering that Caleb is literally a dirty ginger.
• Beau's attempt at bonding with the Knot Sisters, by insulting Molly.
  Molly: Her name's Beau. She's, ugh... She's helping, she's awful, you have a lot in common.
  One of the Knot Sisters: Well, okay. Whatever you wanna know.
  Beau: He's such a dick, why is he such a dick?
  One of the Knot Sisters: Molly's great, why're you such a dick?
• Fjord uses a classy fake British accent to talk his way past some guards at the circus. As soon as they’re clear of the guards Travis starts speaking to Caleb...as Grog. It only takes him a sentence to slip back into Fjord but the reactions from the rest of the cast are pretty amusing.
• The revelation that Fjord has no pockets.
  Sam: You designed a character with no pockets? Why would you do that?
  Liam: He's just in a Blue Man Group unitard and that's it!
  Marisha: I'm sure Rob Liefeld just got a nosebleed and he doesn't know why.
• When leaving their inn rooms again, the group tries to think of a way to make it so that, when they return, they'll know if someone came into their room when they weren't around. First Beau tries using some bandages and cloth from her medical kit to tie the doorknob to something in the room, so it'd be moved if the door opens. This proves difficult, eventually leading Molly to exasperatedly just give her string to use.
  • Then, as that's being set up, Caleb comments how he can just use a spell to alert him if someone enters the room (so Molly immediately takes his string back), and Liam flips through his book to find the exact spell.
  Nott: (smiling) The best part is, it doesn't alert him if I sneak in or out!
  Caleb: (as Liam doesn't even look up from his book) That you know of.
  Nott: (smile vanishes) Wait...

Episode 3: The Midnight Chase

• Before the episode, Sam (as usual) does the sponsor spiel for D&D Beyond. He claims to be losing his voice and asks Laura to read the text while he lip syncs. Cue the text promptly mocking Laura for obsessing over dice superstitions and using her "dice jail".
• At the start of the episode, Laura and Sam trade dice for fun. When the episode starts and they roll initiative, they both roll the dice they traded...and both get Natural 1's.
• During the initial fight, Jester attempts to cast Sacred Flame on one of the zombies...while simultaneously trying to pet the nearby Frumpkin.
• Matt snatching up the Golden Snitch comes back to haunt Taliesin as Matt uses it to role a Natural 20 as a zombie crits Molly and knocks him out. Later, when Taliesin repeatedly fails to hit a single Imp in the episode's boss fight, Matt holds the Golden Snitch aloft and kisses it in a "my precious" manner.
  • When Travis realizes that Matt has been rolling Natural 20s with the Golden Snitch, he immediately turns on Taliesin.
  Travis: I will bite you in the anus!
• Nott gets the HDYWTDT on the last zombie. It consists of shooting it in the calf and running (screaming in terror) without even seeing if it hit, resulting in the zombie falling into a campfire.
• When the party comes into possession of some horses, Travis asks to check if it’s a mustang. When he’s successful & confirmed that it is, Fjord names him Shelby, to the collective groans of the group.
  Marisha: We had better get a hundred thousand dollars from Ford for that one.
• When the group gets back to the inn, Jester falls asleep while drawing the zombie guards making out with each other.
  Taliesin: Way hotter.
• After Caleb and Not come back from buying books Jester gets really curious about whats in them much to Caleb's irritation
  Liam: I hide it near my dick so she can't get at it.
  Jester: I am not afraid of dicks
  Marisha: She's not your sister anymore.
• Nott rolled a Natural 1 when trying to make acid in her chemistry set. Matt said that a little splashed on her glove, so she dropped it all on the floor, where it started making a hole in the wood until Caleb woke up from Frumpkin the sparrow and transmuted it into iron.
• Nott and Jester's embellished account of their "brilliant mystery solving" from the last episode, which boils down to getting the Devil Toad and Toya to confess "Aaaah I'm a fiend!" and "Aaaaah I'm a little girl!" Better, Nott wasn't aware Toya was a Dwarf, she just assumed Toya was either a small child or an adult unnaturally de-aged by the Devil Toad feeding on her life energy.
• Jester and Nott have an extended conversation about the biology of the Devil Toad, which descends into theorizing that the little Dwarf girl was actually a dangling appendage of his (think anglerfish) rather than a living creature.
  Fjord: So this thing has tentacles now?
  Nott: Not just tentacles. Dwarf tentacles.
  Liam (Out of character): Fuckin' anime actors...
  • After this, the others ask Molly if the circus has an opening for Nott and Jester.
• After Fjord's backstory is revealed to have involved being a sailor, the entire party indulge in "Sea Men" jokes. Everyone breaks into hysterics as the jokes continue to be embellished.
  • Caleb encounters a similar problem, as his insistence on being left alone to read his books leads the rest of the party to repeatedly suggest that he in fact wants to be left alone to do something else.
• Fjord disguises himself as an old man who claims to have seen a murderous creature to lure a guard away from the inn so the rest of the party can sneak out. When he realizes that the guard is still following him, Fjord quickly stops and pretends to be senile and have forgotten what he was doing to make the guard leave him alone.
• Fjord secures the group passage on a boat, if they bring the sailor a bottle of alcohol.
  Fjord: (to Nott) If I gave you some money, could you go pick us up a nice bottle of some stuff?
  Nott: (as Sam grins maniacally) Yes!
  Fjord: (immediately) I don't trust you. (to Jester) If I gave you some money-
  Jester: (as Laura also grins) Yes!
  Fjord: Could you- okay. (Beat) I don't trust you either. (to Beau) Beau.
  Beau: Yeah.
  Fjord: I'm gonna give you three gold.
  Beau: That's too much, but... alright. Do I get to keep the change?
  Fjord: (breathes in) No.
  Beau: Dammit. (Marisha rolls her eyes) I'll be right back.
• Thanks to mis-interpreting a few of Matt's descriptions, the party becomes fixated on a non-existent witch encounter on the island, misinterpreting a ruin as a hut, and even trying to will it into existence with their role-playing power. Matt warns them that if they want a witch encounter so badly, he can easily make one...
  Sam: There's a full hut with a witch inside, Matt.
  Matt: You want me to put a witch in this? You want me to throw a witch in this? There can be a witch, Sam! I got rules for this shit in the book!
• The crew tries to pass a message down the line from Fjord to Molly.
  Fjord to Beau: These shells have been devoured.
  Beau to Caleb: The shell has been devoured.
  Caleb to Nott: The bells have been deflowered.
  Nott to Jester: The whales are in my power.
  Jester to Molly: The veils are covered in flour?
  [Molly and Fjord exchange a thumbs-up]
• After Keyleth spent many episodes angsting about killing a child, Beau's initial contribution to the boss fight is pinning Toya down and knocking her out. Worse still, Matt forgot the rules for nonlethal damage, so Toya could have died! Children and old people: some things never change.
• Nott shoots her crossbow without looking. Sam rolls a Natural 1 on the attack, then rolls a second attack to determine that it ricocheted off of Jester's shield.
  Nott: I'm blinded by tears!
• What gives the party the most trouble in the boss fight? Not the boss itself, but a single Imp. Multiple party members waste their turns failing to hit it, and it manages to take out Fjord. The group jokes that there was a very real possibility they could've been TPK'd by a lone Imp after killing the boss. Beau finally manages to kill it, and uses her second attack to stomp on it repeatedly even though her first staff hit already killed it.
• As heartwarming as it is, Nott's Natural 20 medicine check to stabilize Caleb is described to the rest of the party as "the scariest mouth-to-mouth you've ever seen".
• At the end of the episode, cracks are made at Liam for "getting the full wizard experience", as two hits knocked him right out.
• Caleb explaining that Frumpkin cannot permanently die, being a summoned fey spirit rather than a real animal, becomes Black Comedy when Nott talks about how she was once turned into an octopus so Nott could safely jump out a window onto her, with Caleb adding that Nott has eaten Frumpkin three times.

Episode 4: Disparate Pieces

• Beau makes Kylre's head flap its jaw like a puppet to make Jester laugh. Molly is utterly mortified that they're making a puppet out of his former coworker.
• As Molly hurries Toya to the boat, the rest of the gang kinda forgets they're carrying Kylre's head on the way there. Toya just screams.
  Travis: We literally cut the head off of Barney and shoved it in her face. "I love yooouuuuu" *dies*
• Toya is understandably uncomfortable around Beau after Episode 3, so the gang coaches Beau through a rather unconvincing apology:
  Fjord: It might do for you to apologize.
  Beau: Sorry.
  Jester: Sorry, for whaaaat...? Beau.
  Beau: ...Sorry for choking you with my stick.
  Nott: 'And I'll never do it again.'
  Beau: And I'llneverdoitagain.
• Beau, Jester and Nott try to sneak back into the inn, and are quickly spotted by guards. The results are impressive:
  • Jester makes a disastrous attempt at deceiving them ("I lost my shoe!"), which is so dumb that Matt forces her to roll Deception at a disadvantage. She and Beau get arrested.
  • Nott claims to be unconnected to them...and rolls a 0 on Deception. Matt snorts cola up his nose.
• Apparently, after Yasha's dramatic departure at the end of the first episode, she was caught by the guards immediately.
• During the party's late night trial, Nott's identity as a goblin is revealed to the Lawmaster and her reaction is to immediately become hostile to her. As a result Nott gets a bit... scared as the trial goes on.
  Lawmaster Norda: Is that goblin pissing in my court?
• Liam constantly engages in Self-Deprecation to explain why he's telling the truth during the trial, including talking about how he's a hobo who reeks of yesterday's garbage.
• Jester and Beau celebrate Beau getting her first nemesis of the campaign... whom Matt points out is a 12-year-old girl.
• Before leaving, Gustav delivers a farewell speech, but Jester mishears a crucial word:
  Gustav: To the new family, don't make the same mistakes your forefathers did.
  Jester: ... Nott, they had four fathers.
  Nott: That's progressive.
• Caleb takes Nott to an expensive bathhouse. What's the first thing she does? Pour the cucumber water on the ground and eat all the cucumbers, and steal everything in the room not nailed down. Matt cracks up and doesn't even ask for a Sleight-of-Hand Check, since they're in their own private room and no-one else is watching.
  • Also, when Caleb was stripping down to get in the tub, he still had Disguise Self active. The cast compared it to a "glitchy video game character", with his real clothes popping out of nowhere.
  • The other kicker is that Caleb spent the whole time reading and relaxing instead of washing - he used no soap and didn't get even a drop of water above his neck or try to clean up his clothes. And neither did Nott. So Caleb spent his silver on a very nice hot bath to have them not take a bath.
• The healer's kit Beau gave to Jester in the last episode? We find out that Beau originally bought it with Jester during Session Zero... and Beau paid way too much for it due to Jester swapping out the price tag. And now Jester owns it, which Laura points out is a double win for her.
• Jester re-arranges the wares of a store again.
• Jester straight-up tells the shopkeeper of Natural Remedies:
  Jester: My friends keep dying, do you have any healing potions?
• What starts as a normal shopping trip quickly becomes a drug deal thanks to Taliesin's improv as Molly, causing the shopkeeper's character to instantly shift from normal salesman to shady dealer. Taliesin apologizes to the audience and points the finger at Matt because he'd obviously prepared for this. Matt replies that he totally didn't make the NPC up on the spot or anything.
  • When Fjord rolls Persuasion to get healing potions for cheap by hinting that the Mighty Nein might report him for drug dealing if they don't, the shopkeeper slips him a dose of the drug anyway for free. Matt brings up the possibility of a TPK by overdose.
  • Beau shakes the shopkeeper's hand and asks for his name. Matt pauses for a long time before responding and Travis jokes that he was still deciding on a name by the last letter.
• After Molly discusses his philosophy of life, Jester chimes in with "Life needs things to live, after all". Taliesin uses this opportunity to take a jab at his previous character.
  Molly: That is stupid, who said that?
• Just before they leave, as they are finishing up the last packing, Beau takes the time to commit mail fraud against a brewster company she dislikes. One successful Deception roll and she's got three packages to take with her on their journey.
  Taliesin: That is actually the worst crime we committed today.
• Thanks to a poor Animal Handling roll (from Nott with help from Fjord), their horse ends up taking off in fear, the cart right behind it. Forcing the group to end the session chasing after their things. They comment on how horses and carriages are the new doors.
• After Yasha comments how Nott "the Brave" seems to be intimidated by her, Nott answers that actually there is no comma in her name. She is just "Nott (not) the brave".
• Nott giving flowers to Yasha.
  Nott: I give them to you because they might perk you up, coz you're so drab and also you won't want to kill me.
  Yasha: Well I don't want to kill you.
  Nott: Of course you don't, I just gave you flowers!
  Jester: Did you get me any flowers?
  Nott: No... Because you're less of a threat.
  Jester: (Ominously) You don't know that...

Episode 5: The Open Road

• Since Sam wasn't there in episode 5 of the first campaign, he's wearing a green screen shirt (something he mentioned on the previous Talks Machina that he could do it after Marisha suggested it) so the fans can edit it.
• Travis compliments Marisha's "dope jacket" at one point and mentions how jealous he is. Matt tells him that they can get him one that is the same size, prompting him to go into hysterical crying.
• When Caleb goes into a trance to see through Frumpkin's eyes for spying purposes, Jester keeps asking him questions about what he's seeing, despite Nott's repeated reminders that Caleb can't hear her.
• While they're on the road, Jester has Molly do another card reading for her:
  Molly: (looks at Jester's card) Oh, that's very good.
  Jester: Is it? What does it mean?
  Molly: It means that you're on a cart.
  Laura: (on the card she drew) It was the chariot.
• When Beau and Jester climb a tree during a break, Beau spies some knots on the tree and asks Jester what she thinks lives in them. Jester's answer? Really tiny unicorns. Apparently, some of them can be as small as hamsters.
  Beau: What is it like, inside your head?
  Jester: It's pretty great!
  • Later on, Jester critically fails a perception check while keeping watch at night, so Matt decides she suddenly had the urge to draw tiny unicorns in her sketchbook.
• When the party takes watch, Caleb notices something moving and wakes Nott, suggesting they get Beau up as well. Nott, in the middle of panicking, doesn't want to, noting that she's the most irritable. This wakes Beau up anyway, and she grumpily complains about them calling her irritable. And then everyone remembers she, like Caleb, is human and can't see in the dark any better than he can.
• The group quickly discover that the movement they saw belonged to a small herd of bison-like creatures. The party has a brief discussion on whether to pursue them (to use them as beasts of burden for their wagon), or leave them alone. Fjord, however, with unbridled glee, has reasons of his own.
  Fjord: Well let's go look at one!
  Nott: You want to go cow tipping, don't you?
  Fjord: FUCK yeah!
• After Molly takes third (turd) watch and rolls a 6 perception check, Matt asks everyone but Fjord to leave the table.
  Travis: WHY DIDN'T YOU ROLL HIGHER PERCEPTION?
  Taliesin: I *literally* don't know. That's actually the problem.
  Marisha: Just don't like, get a lich phylactery installed in you again.
• After Fjord wakes up from his dream and vomits seawater, Jester asks him, with complete sincerity:
  Jester: Do you think you're slowly turning into water? [...] If you feel like it's happening, let me know and I'll catch you in a jar.
  • Fjord notes in deadpan that no, that utterly terrifying thought hadn’t occurred to him, but thanks, he'll add it to the list.
  • Jester then implies that, if he did turn into water, she might drink him. Molly has to genuinely explain to her that you can't drink salt water.
  • In the same scene, Molly runs his hand down the front of Fjord's shirt and smells the water and finds that it smells briny. Jester and Beau both go to take a taste, prompting Beau to say that "You taste like sea men"... which is followed immediately by cackling from the players and an extended double face palm from Matt.
  Matt: I've never been more proud of my wife.
• When the group finds a city under attack by Gnolls, Matt informs Nott and Caleb that they've fought them before. Jester asks for advice.
  Jester: How do you kill them?
  Nott: Keep hurting them until they die!
• In the battle, Jester creates a Spiritual Weapon... in the shape of a giant lollipop.
  • And her radiant damage spells, instead of the standard white are pink.
• Liam has a little My God, What Have I Done? moment after a rolled nine results in several cries of "Nein!" to go up around the table.
  Liam:What have I wrought?
• Nott rushes up to the second floor of a house to get a better vantage point... only to find the entire floor is on fire. She takes a look around the flames and says "This is fine".
• Jester uses Hellish Rebuke on a skeletal Gnoll... by yelling "I'm rubber, you're glue" in Infernal.
• Nott uses Hideous Laughter to force a Gnoll to laugh at her joke: "Do you know what happens to a frog when its wagon breaks down? It gets toad away!" The other players debate whether the Gnoll takes physical damage from holding in the groan, or psychic damage for hating itself after laughing at that joke.

Episode 6: The Howling Mines

• Early on, the group asks about Molly's swords and how he got them, resulting in Molly making an incredibly obvious fake story about his family being part of a cult of some kind before stealing the swords and running. The group then drills him for more information, and all Molly can do is give super vague answers, such as when Nott asked about having any other family out there, he answers with; "Not that I've ever known." Matt doesn't even make them roll, it was super clear Molly was just bullshitting them.
• To help Caleb resummon Frumpkin, Fjord gives the wizard the small amount of incense he has on him; unfortunately, the contribution is rather neglible in the grand scheme of things, given that Caleb needs a lot of incense:
  Caleb: (fumbling) Oh... That is really, very, ah...
  Fjord: Changed your day, didn't it? Everything's coming up flowers now.
  Caleb: Yes, this has helped me immeasurably...
  Fjord: Don't mention it.
  • Hilariously, Caleb's subsequent show of cameraderie, in which he goes "Thanks, big guy" and then punches Fjord in the shoulder, backfires due to the two men's low strength stats (10 and 11 respectively). Liam and Travis act out the "put on a brave face followed by secretly wincing" perfectly.
• The group asks about the closest thing to a shop left in the town, which they find out previously was a barn. Jester, curious as ever, asks why it used to be a barn but became a shop, resulting in the NPC Matt made going on a long speech about the history of the barn becoming a shop. As soon as he finishes, Jester has a blank look on her face, clearly having not paid attention, and merely comments that it was a good talk, in a dry tone.
  • This conversation:
  Store Owner: What kind of establishment do you take this for?
  Caleb: You're a barn
  Store Owner: Touche
• When looking for the gnolls, Jester rides on Beau's shoulders to act as a lookout, while Beau barely passes the Strength check to hold her up.
  Jester: I'm flying! I'm flying, Jack!
  Beau: (visibly straining) Yes, you are! Doin' great!
• When deciding the marching order, Nott comments that she'll be part of the Fjord Expedition, a pun so bad the players can hear the recording crew groaning in pain.
  • Later on, upon trying to decide whether to press forward into the mine or backtrack to a previous unexplored tunnel, Nott asks if they should be Fjord Explorers or Fjord Escapes. Travis immediately looks at Sam with Tranquil Fury eyes.
    Travis: (whispering to Matt) Kill him.
• Fjord creates a Minor Illusion of a plump, wounded bunny to distract some hyenas. After the party kills them, Jester tries to look for the bunny.
  Jester: That's really sad, they ate it.
  Nott: We'll have a funeral later.
• Fjord suggests sending Frumpkin, still a bird, into the Gnoll's mine, leading Beau to comment that it's a "canary in a Gnoll mine". The entire cast admits that was Actually Pretty Funny.
• Out of nervousness, Nott finally drinks enough from her flask to get drunk. The cast instantly finds out how hilarious drunk Nott is.
• Caleb sends Frumpkin-sparrow into the mine to scout it out. Searching for light, Frumpkin smacks into a sloped ceiling and flops to the ground like a bird hitting a window.
• Nott, drunk off her ass, inadvertently summons the gnolls by setting off the mother of all log traps. While she's making excuses to the party after the fact about how sneaky she was, Matt describes the party's eyes moving as one to the entire tree dangling from the ceiling by a rope that wasn't there a minute ago.
  Nott: That happened after they spotted me.
• One of the things they discover after their first battle in the mines is a stick of dynamite which Jester proceeds to wave in the face of a terrified Nott and try to balance on her upper lip like a moustache.
• The party comes to the conclusion that, of two paths, the raid victims are most likely to be down the one that is booby-trapped.
  Jester: Unless maybe they want you to think that, and the hostages are down the path of least resistance.
  Nott: Reverse psychology!
  Molly: Unless they knew you would think that.
  Nott: Reverse reverse psychology!
  Caleb: These are dog people.
• During a battle with Gnolls in the mines, Beau reveals she had a bag of 1000 ball bearings all this time, which she apparently bought in Session Zero.
• During that same battle, a gnoll shoots an arrow at Beau, and she stops it with Deflect Missiles. She then holds it out and does a makeshift Mic Drop.
• Later, Beau tries to "parkour" around the room and attack a Gnoll with her staff. The parkour itself succeeds, but the staff attack misses horribly. As the Gnoll laughs at her, Beau simply punches it in the face.
• Nott using Mollymauk's ass as a firing platform.
• Nott's terrible Hideous Laughter jokes return.
  Nott: If you spend a day down a well... well that's a day well spent!
• Both Caleb (two 13s) and Beau (a 2 and 3) manage to miss a lone, prone Gnoll despite having Advantage. In extreme pain from her failed jumping elbow attack, Beau's second attack, out of frustration, is a Natural 20. And that's still not enough. Jester tries to finish it and also fails, before Nott finally gets the HDYWTDT. Level 3, ladies and gentlemen.
  Caleb: A toast to that guy there... he had a good run.
• Sam describes the above gnoll as "Like Beyonce: one hot gnolls". The pun is so bad that Matt suggests 1 point of psychic damage to everyone.

Episode 7: Hush

• Sam's D&D Beyond jingle is both hilarious and awesome.
• The tone is set when Matt's narration is almost immediately interrupted by Laura, who's cracking up at the mention of "shaft". Things only go downhill from there:
  Laura: The ''shaft'' curves to the right, y'all.
  Travis: Well, it usually curves to the left, but... whatever.
  Sam: Not from her perspective.
• The guest player, Khary Payton, makes his initiative roll, the first roll he's ever done on that particular dice...and rolls a Natural 1. The others go nuts.
  Travis: Welcome, welcome!
  Liam: One of us! One of us!
• Nott runs over to reassure a child during the gnoll fight. Matt indulges in some girly shrieking as he describes Nott, a sharp-toothed goblin, rushing out of the darkness shouting at a young child.
  Nott: I'm good! I'm a good one!
• Fjord takes a page from Nott's book and indulges in some Incredibly Lame Puns upon casting Armor of Agathys:
  Fjord: Everybody... chill.
  • Bonus points for Laura's extremely exasperated Lame Pun Reaction.
• Nott performs a sleight of hand check against Shakäste to pull aside his cloak and see what he's wearing on his belt.
  Nott: It's assless chaps!
• During the fight against the gnoll leader, its first action against Beau is to attempt to shove her into the nearby pit. Thing is, Marisha didn't know there was a pit right next to where she moved, because the walls of the model of the mine had hidden it from her point of view. The next few rolls to try and save herself from falling in are incredibly tense (along with Travis and Liam trying to give her their energy a la Dragon Ball Z)... but she still ends up falling, fortunately not taking that much damage.
  Beau: (After climbing back up from the bottom of the 40 foot pit) Did you guys know there was a hole?
• Nott and Jester's joint HDYWTDT on the gnoll leader:
  Nott: Jester, we've solved the mystery! It was him! He did it! He did it!
  Jester: It was you! It was you!
  Both: (intense battle cries as they take out the gnoll leader)
• Shakäste's Spiritual Weapon rivals Jester's in the awesomely hilarious department - it's a bust of a 120-year-old Estelle Getty, and just as sassy.
• Beau's attempted rescue of Nott, accompanied by her increasingly frantic outbursts of "The fuck?!!"
• During the fight with the Manticore, Jester casts Hellish Rebuke on it. Taking a page from Molly, she decides to say her incantation in Infernal. However, in a far cry from Molly's Badass Boasts, Jester almost coos at her opponent (who, keep in mind, is a terrifying lion-monster with a human face:
  Jester: (in infernal) Argh! You're such a cute kitty!
• Nott tells another terrible joke, and it makes the manticore double over laughing. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome, since the monster was absolutely furious at Nott for killing its baby (a fact that even led Matt to give the manticore advantage on its saving throw, to no avail).
  Nott: What did the incontinent druid say at his surprise birthday party? "I'm so excited I wet my plants!"
• After the group returns to town, Jester realizes she forgot to tell the Gnolls "Thaddeus Candleglow says hi" like she promised, so she unscrews the jar of Gnoll ears and whispers it to them.
• At the end of the episode, Khary takes out a dice (from a plastic bag, with gloves) that was apparently used by Wil Wheaton. He mentions that it was given to him in the hope he would use it, but he intends to instead dispose of it, and asks that the disposal (which Matt compares to throwing the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom) be filmed.
  • And filmed it was.
• At some point after a battle, Jester decided to hand out some of the gold they found in the mines and try to distribute it evenly amonst the group. After giving some to the group, she has one more left and offers it again. Travis winks at Laura, clearly trying to get her to give it to him, only for Marisha (In character), to ask for it, to which Laura does so. Travis looks at Laura with an almost betrayed look, as if expecting her to have noticed him winking at her.

Episode 8: The Gates of Zadash

• While the announcement that Travis and Laura are having a baby is heartwarming, Sam adds this.
  Sam: Are you going to hold a Critter contest to name your child?
  Laura: What a good idea, Sam! (beat) No!
  • In another mix of funny and heartwarming, the sticker on the bottom of Sam’s flagon reads “Baby On Board.”
• When Beau puts on the goggles she got in the mines and discovers that she can see in the dark with them, Caleb asks her to look towards him... and immediately calls her a nerd.
  • Fjord joins in on the goggles shenanigans by pulling them back while Beau is distracted and having them snap back onto her face, startling her. She promptly punches him in the shoulder, causing it to go numb for a minute (Travis' face really sells it).
  • The entire description of Molly trying, and failing, to put the goggles on over his bedazzled horns. In the end he just holds them up to his eyes (and they don't even do anything, since he already has darkvision).
• While Caleb is casting Identify, Jester makes a Sleight of Hand check to draw a dick in his spellbook and rolls a Natural 20.
• When the group is going over the loot they got from the previous episode, nobody in the group is sure what to do with the Glaive since nobody present can wield it properly. The thing is, they completely forgot about Yasha, meaning the group sold a valuable weapon near the end of the session, and completely forgot about the one person who could wield it. Many people in the chat/comment section had a field day with it.
• The characters come up with their new group name, the Mighty Nein. Matt points out that it sounds like Mighty No. 9 (since he played a role in that game) and starts to call it a Mega Man game, but Liam quickly goes, "No. No."
• More laughs are had when Sam volunteers "Tough" for Fjord's surname.
• Fjord knows about Jester's mother, a famous courtesan (similar to Inara), and tries to describe her profession somewhat delicately. Jester is far more blunt about the matter:
  Fjord: She entertains gentlemen. She is hard to describe, a performer, an entertainer...
  Jester: She is mostly known for her "herm herm herm", but outside of that... Her voice! It's amazing. You should hear her sing.
  Caleb: What does that mean? "Herm herm herm"?
  Jester: She has sex for money!
• After everyone finds out that the reputation of Jester's mother basically borders on mythical in certain parts of Wildemount, Beau asks, "is [your mother] what that song is about?". Laura attempts to compose said song and it leaves something to be desired.
  Jester: (flat singing) "The Ruby of the Sea is the best... lay ever."
  Nott: It's a translation, I think!
  All but Jester: It sounds better in the original Infernal!
• The prank that got Jester kicked out of town was when she cast Disguise Self to look like her mother and lured a lord onto the balcony outside while he was only wearing one of her girdles - then she locked him out in broad daylight so everyone saw him. Death threats ensued, but the party unanimously agreed that the lord just had no sense of humor.
• Nott asking Jester why she's looking for her dad, especially after Scanlan's relationship with Kaylie:
  Sam: Are you trying to find him to meet him and know him? Or to seek revenge on him?
• Before leaving Alfield, the group asks Bryce to keep an eye out for Yasha and gives them several tidbits of description:
  Nott: She carries flowers.
  Jester: She's super scary-looking, but she's got a Heart of Gold.
  Molly: Extremely charming.
  Beau: Very in shape.
• Not a minute later:
  Nott: Are we sure we want to leave this place? People like us here.
  Jester: It's only a matter of time before they don't.
• Caleb tries to scare away the group of bandits that ambushed the party at night by claiming they are infected with "extreme syphilis". The bandits don't buy it in the end, but the party tries to sell them really hard on it.
  Caleb: We might have tried a few things with that [manticore] head, but we paid the price.
• The bandit encounter ends with a hilarious conversation between Molly and the not-very-good bandits. Matt voicing several similar-sounding very confused bandits all getting chewed out by a former victim has the entire group in stitches on the table. Molly’s glaive-point lecture to the bandits includes asking them if they felt unsatisfied with their old management ("Would you agree that the previous leadership of this group has probably failed you on some level?") in a sequence that wouldn’t sound out of place in a certain other D&D based series, having them elect a new leader ("Do not criticize new management until it's had time to take full effect."), and threatening them into changing their line of work. He even gives them money as enticement to follow through, after criticizing their efforts.
  Molly: Now for this, you promise that your terrible bandit days are over because you're really not very good at this. I mean, we were barely paying attention, this is pathetic.
  (beat)
  Beau: Well, you were barely paying attention.
  Molly: Well let's not cast aspirations on new management, it's only been two days.
• The group goes shopping in Zadash and ends up in the magical shop of Enchanter Pumat Sol, the Canadian-accented, absurdly relaxed and polite Firbolg shopkeeper, and his three magical clones. The players are in stitches the entire time he’s present.
  Marisha: This guy's our new Gilmore.
  Liam: I am not seducing this person.
  Matt: You say this now...

Episode 9: Steam and Conversation

• Sam's DnD Beyond plug, where he tries to "appeal to their British viewers" by giving a speech filled with Cockney slang in an exaggerated Cockney accent. Taliesin is facepalming from beginning to end.
• When entering the Leaky Tap inn, the group begins to question what they're going to do. Jester suggests renting some rooms, but as soon as Beau points out the group playing a card game, she immediately goes to interfere with it.
  Beau: Oh, you don't have to-
  Laura: I'm already gone.
• Fjord attempts to teach Beau proper manners. Hilarity Ensues.
• Molly tries to teach Nott about not stealing from people who need money, and instead advises her to steal from people who have too much money and therefore tend to be grumpy. When he adds that some people who are grumpy are poor, Nott innocently asks what kind of grumpy Beau is. Molly's response?
  Molly: Definitely steal from Beau.
• After Molly makes a grand speech in what the group should do next, starting with going to the blacksmith:
  Taliesin: I take five steps and go [As Molly] "I have no idea where the blacksmith is."
• As one of the town criers is announcing the news, Jester trails behind her and yells:
  Jester: Town crier has toilet paper stuck to her shoes!
  Town crier proceeds to actually pause and look at her feet
• Nott follows a fancy-looking woman and tries to pickpocket her: thanks to some low rolls for the stealing but high rolls for Stealth, Nott manages to only make the woman suspicious of the children running around and cause her blouse buttons to pop off (which she then blames on an innocent vendor, causing her to slap him and storm off). Nott then takes the buttons and leaves. (After all, she doesn't care if the things she steals aren't valuable, as long as they're pretty)
  • Equally hilarious is how Matt makes this NPC the most over-the-top Upper-Class Twit stereotype imaginable, so no-one feels bad that she's about to get robbed.
• The jokes related to Fjord's name continue when Nott uses Disguise Self to make herself look like Fjord (just a 4-foot-tall variant).
  Marisha: So, a very focused Fjord?
  Travis: Like a tiny little fiesta.
• The conversation briefly turns to the Ruby of the Sea again, whom Yasha has heard of:
  Yasha: [to Jester] That's pretty spectacular that that's your mother.
  Jester: I know!
  Beau: She has her own jingle.
  • Hilariously, the cast then proceeds to butcher the original 'jingle' (which only consisted of a single line), causing Jester to go, "You guys have really bad memories."
• While Jester and the others are in the bath, she says she likes public baths because she can get close to people she knows and make them uncomfortable, which she says while slowly edging towards Fjord.
• When it comes time to leave the bathhouse, everyone but Yasha and Beau leave at the same time. The two of them then proceed to play the gayest game of chicken ever put to screen by waiting for one of them to leave so the other can ogle her. And, when Yasha relents and gets out first:
  Marisha: [to Matt] Do I get a nice view?
  Matt: [in an "I can't believe you" tone of voice] ...yeah.
  Ashley: [simultaneously with Matt] Yes.
• When Jester leaves to get her package from the Pillow Trove, she gives Yasha a big hug. What could be a heartwarming moment is immediately offset by Yasha's response.
  Yasha: Oh...thanks, Jester... (out of character) I get uncomfortable.
• While Jester and Caleb are away, the rest of the party picks up a contract for slaying a beast lurking in Zadash's sewers, but Voloshin, the Herald of the Hall, is skeptical about their chances of success:
  Yasha: We'll take care of it.
  Voloshin: I'm sure you will.
  Yasha: I sense a little sarcasm from you, sir.
  Voloshin: It's a dwarven thing. Got resting bitch voice.
• Black Comedy ensues with Frumpkin once again. After horribly failing a Stealth Check for him to sneak past the guards at the Pillow Trove, one of the guards simply kicks him. As Liam only rolled a 1 for his HP when he last cast Find Familiar, Frumpkin died, again.
  • Out of character, Travis and Taliesin instantly agree that this particular Jerkass guard has just signed his own death warrant.

Episode 10: Waste and Webs

• Sam's outrageous ballet performance ad for D&D Beyond.
  Travis: What would you do every week without sponsorships? You would just explode.
  Sam: I would do this at home.
  Matt: He needs an outlet, it's healthy for him.
• Vax'ildan returns briefly to help promote Farcry 5... and he's giving us an idea of how boring it is being an eternal servant of the Raven Queen.
  Vax: Y'know, most of the time I sit here in a big black room just wondering where the fuck I am and what's going to happen next...probably nothing [...] Send me some comic books, 'cos I'm really bored here.
• Molly has... interesting ideas on how to spend his time at the Pillow Trove:
  Molly: I want to defile a very expensive shower.
• Matt describes the entrance to the sewer system:
  Liam: Are there any clowns in it?
  Matt: Make a Perception check.
  Liam: That's a... 10.
  Matt: (creepily) You don't see anything dangerous, Georgie.
• Beau has another go at social interaction and it goes about as well as you'd expect. She tries to get some information from a crownsguard before the party enters the sewers, but her blunt demeanor flusters him something fierce:
  Matt: He kinda scratches his head over his helmet. (makes the sound of squeaking metal) Doesn't realize he's not getting to the itch.
  Beau: Stop with the nervous ticks!
• Yasha is the first to go down into the sewers and has a brief look around. Ashley is quick to conclude they're in the clear, but Matt has her roll a Perception check. Cue the Killed Mid-Sentence jokes:
  Ashley: Everything looks- AAAAAAAHHHH!!!
• Beau successfully finds signage inside the sewer saying where to go. Marisha is unfortunately not very skilled at drawing them for reference.
  Marisha: This arrow splits into three arrows, and then....it's a penis.
  Travis: If you ever make a road sign, people are fucked.
  Liam: That's a Nintendo controller.
• When the party delves into the sewer to find and kill a monster, their search turns up some unidentifiable sludge... which Nott tastes for clues. Because Sam manages to roll really high for his Intelligence check, Nott actually picks up a clue from doing this.
  • As Sam is describing the experience Laura can be seen nearly spitting out a bite of pastry. Really it's the other players' reactions throughout that sell it.
• Fjord is the first one to take down one of the sewer rats and barely manages to avoid the cloud of poisonous gas that releases from its dead body. In response, Jester accuses him of farting during combat.
• Beau is not so lucky when she is exposed to one of the gas clouds, and rolls a Natural 1 on her saving throw. At the end of the battle, Nott shoots a rat with her hand crossbow, killing it near Beau... who rolls another Natural 1. The die is promptly sent to dice jail as punishment.
• Fjord asks Nott to watch their backs as they venture further into the sewers. Unfortunately, Sam's Perception check amounts to the grand total of 1. Later on, Yasha wonders if the creature might be behind them. Cue Nott:
  Nott: (confidently) It's not behind us!
• Marisha finds the missing mini for Jester's lollypop, causing everyone to gush about how cute it looks:
  Taliesin: It really ties the sewer together.
• Beau decides to join Yasha's team when the party declares their positions in the sewer.
  Travis: (disgruntled) "Wow, f—-ing betrayal. Okay."
  Marisha: (indignant) "I was trying to split it up evenly-"
  Both start giggling out of character
  Marisha: "Look, there's a new girl in town..."
• Molly get the HDYWTDT against the Phase Spider that's been killing guards and citizens... by boiling its blood via Vicious Mockery. Even he can't really believe that just happened.
  Molly: I've never seen it do that before.
• After spilling the beans about the Gentleman, Thed prepares to depart and does the standard I Was Never Here, which Beau is willing to play along with. Jester, however...:
  Thed: I would hope that you would be kind enough to know that that information did not come from me, and that you've never seen me before in your entire life.
  Beau: What's your name?
  Jester: His name was Thed.
  Molly: Of course, friend, we've never seen you before in our entire lives.
• The party nominate Nott to be the first party member to climb out of the sewer. She proceeds to press her goblinoid face up against the grate and shout for help in the most terrifying snarl imaginable.
• To verify whether the correct beast was slain, Voloshin has someone get the guard that had previously survived his encounter with the Phase Spider. The guard's panicked reaction says enough and he is promptly sent away again, but Beau protests:
  Beau: You should let that guy go on leave... for mental collapse and- that's rough, man.
  Voloshin: You look like just the person that I would take advice from when it comes to administrating my people.
  • Fearing Beau will get into another argument, Fjord prepares to step in before things escalate, but, to his surprise, the ever-combative Beau relents and admits Voloshin makes a fair point. And then there's Molly:
  Molly: He just said you don't look like an administrator. That's actually almost a compliment.
• When the party returns to the Leaky Tap, Nott tries to steal Fjord's letter of recommendation for entrance into the Academy, but Molly catches her in the act. He then tricks her into thinking that he has Fjord's letter and trades it for a vial of acid, only for Nott to find out that he gave her a blank piece of paper.
  • Then, after returning the vial of acid and leaving Nott in the room, Molly makes a beeline for Fjord and tells him that someone’s going through his stuff. Cue Fjord, in just a towel, hurriedly making his way back into the room and shooing Nott away like a stray cat.
• Molly and Nott bring up their prior discussion about stealing from "grumpy people" and Nott wonders if that includes Fjord. Molly thinks Fjord isn't grumpy, but Nott counters by saying that standing next to Beau all the time just makes him look less grumpy by comparison.
• While talking with a Dwarf member of the Knights of Requital, Beau brings up how awkward it is that her weapon, a Bo staff, sounds so similar to her name. The NPC tells her to blame her parents, but it's also a thinly-veiled jab at Marisha's choice of character name from Matt.
• After the meeting with the Knights of Requital, Fjord and Beau return to the rest of the group just in time to catch the end of one of Jester's stories. It involved a man being chained to a bed and unable to find the key, no doubt the result of Jester messing with one of her mother's clients again.

Episode 11: Zemnian Nights

• Sam's D&D Beyond ad of the week, a skit featuring himself and Ashley... who couldn't make it. He soldiers on nonetheless, with hilarious results.
  • This bit, in particular:
  Sam: Hey guys, the promo code from last week - "invisible wand" - is still active for 25% off any purchase from the D&D Beyond store. But Ash, why don't you tell them the secret other promo code that unlocks everything on the site for free?
  (beat)
  Sam: Well I hope they wrote that one down.
  (everyone loses it)
• In the morning, Frumpkin is summoned back into existence and Liam rolls a 3 for his hit point total, to the delight of the cast. Laura jokes he'll be able to survive at least two kicks.
• Nott discusses her Disguise Self spell with the others, and tells them how hard it is to focus on a disguise if she doesn't have a specific person in mind. The others all start adding suggestions, starting with the nose, leading to an increasingly ridiculous image.
  Liam: This is getting into Mr. Potato Head territory.
  • Fjord then starts adding suggestions that lead to something sounding suspiciously like a certain clown...
• Beau talks to Fjord about how to get through to Caleb, and he tells her having a mentor often helps you learn things about yourself. Beau... takes it how you'd expect.
  Beau: I should punch him in the face?
  Caleb: I'm sitting right next to you.
  Beau: I was having a side conversation!
  Caleb: It's a small room.
• While trying to split up the party so they can do their respective errands, Fjord somehow shifts into an auctioneer's voice, and it is hilarious.
• The mini-party of Fjord, Molly and Nott head to Pumat Sol's shop to peruse some more magical items. Since it's raining heavily, they arrive there drenched, leading Fjord to obliquely ask if Pumat can use Prestidigitation to dry them up. Pumat happily agrees... and then starts breathing on Fjord. However, moments later, Fjord becomes completely dry.
  Fjord: That is much better, thank you, Pumat. That is wonderful.
  Pumat Sol: It is, quite literally, the least I can do.
• Laura's reaction when she finds out that the Handy Haversack for which they traded the glaive cost over a thousand gold.
• The other mini-party, composed of Jester, Caleb and Beau, is looking for Chastity's Nook, a bookstore renowned for its selection of smutty literature. When Jester is informed that said store is next to a large bakery, Travis already knows what's going to happen next:
  Travis: [to Matt] What have you done?
  Sam: A bakery and a porn shop? If they find a Fight Club, you guys are just gonna be orgasming, orgasming, orgasming.
• Caleb decides to buy Jester some sweets before they head into Chastity's Nook.
  Travis: Your hands are going to be all sticky before you get to the books.
  Liam: Better than after.
• Caleb, Beau and Jester's time at Chastity's Nook is a gold mine of comedic moments:
  • Asked for recommendations, Iva Deshin, the owner, cycles through a fair few novels, including "Zemnian Nights", "Scent of the Sea" and "a "more saucy" story called "Tusk Love". Jester immediately asks to buy the last one.
  • Caleb reveals he's into historical porn. Because he likes to learn something while he is "being titillated". Marisha coins it "Edubation".
  • While Iva is fetching the books, Jester accosts a regular, who quickly excuses himself.
  Jester: What's your name?
  Patron: I need to go.
  • Matt compares the smutty book said patron was reading to Anne Rice's fairy tale works, forcing him to recount his first encounter with Anne Rice's pornographic novels when everyone looks at him funny.
  Matt: I remember...
  Taliesin: It's okay, we've all been in high school.
  Matt: I got really into Interview with the Vampire, my mom got me all these new books and I am like "Oh, she's writing new books about Cinderella! That's..." (mimics opening a book) "...Oh..."
  • Iva turns out to be an aspiring writer herself. Beau convinces her to show her a few pages of the manuscript, and it reads like typical mediocre Yaoi fanfiction with its overemphasis on "equipment". When Iva asks for Beau's opinion, the monk, calling on her social interaction lessons with Fjord, does the polite thing and, thanks to a high roll on a deception check, successfully tells Iva she liked it.
  • Jester does her trademark messing around with stores again. Especially funny is the lead-up.
  Jester: While she was distracted...
  Matt: Oh no.
  • She ends up writing "We're watching you. We saw you come in." inside an easily-accessible copy of "Crown of my Heart", a Crownsguard-based romance novel.
• It turns out that Caleb bought a warm loaf of bread... so he could stick his hands in it and use it as makeshift gloves. Ones he can eat later! Beau and Jester are suitably squicked out.
• Jester reads Tusk Love, a steamy "forbidden love" story between a half-orc named Oskar and the daughter of a traveling salesman. As Fjord asks what she's reading:
  Jester: Nothing, Oskar.
  • Fjord's utterly bewildered reaction to this is also good for a few laughs.
• During a discussion of what books were bought from the bookstore, Liam drops character for a moment and refers to one book as "A Tale of Two Titties", much to the amusement of the group.
• While Fjord, Beau and Caleb are conferring with the Knights of Requital in the Leaky Tap's cellar, Nott is posted outside the inn to be on the lookout for potential crownsguard. She eventually reports back using her Message spell:
  Nott: Everything's okay!... You can reply to this message.
  Fjord: Thank you for keeping an eye out. Would you like to join us inside?
  Sam: (out of character) I can't reply.
  Fjord: Nott? Would you like to join- hello? Hello?
  Nott: (casts Message again after 6 seconds) Yes! You can reply to this message.
• The party's all fired up about locating the High Richter, until they hit a hitch:
  Fjord: Anybody feel like finding out where this High Richter lives, this evening?
  (Beau, Jester and Nott voice their approval)
  Fjord: (determined) Let's do it.
  (beat)
  Fjord: How do we do that?
• When Caleb comes to Jester and Beau's room to borrow one of their books, Jester (still fresh from reading Tusk Love) is a bit... enthusiastic.
  Jester: (sultry voice) What is it that you want, knocking on our door so late at night, Caleb?
  Beau: You've been reading too much smut.
• With the help of Molly, Fjord manages to catch Nott as she once again sneaks into their room to rifle through his stuff. Blatant Lies ensue when Nott tries to explain herself:
  Nott: I was hungry... There's a definite explanation for this.
  Fjord: What were you looking for?
  Nott: Seafood. You must have some on you, you're of the sea. I love shrimp and I never get the chance to get any so- we're so landlocked in here. I love the taste of the sea.
  (Travis rolls a Natural 20 on his Insight check)
  Sam: (with a shit-eating grin) I was not looking for shrimp.
• After Nott, Molly and Fjord's dramatic conversation and a small, dark exchange between Nott and Caleb, we cut to Jester and Beau's room.
  Jester: And then Oskar falls in love with her, and he carries her across a field and they love each other so much! It's the most beautiful story, Beau...
  Beau: That's so great... can we go to sleep now?
• At the High Richter's, Fjord and Beau do an admirable job selling themselves as suppliers that have been swindled out of their payment by a prominent brewing family, but Jester really pushes it when she claims they also stole their puppies.
• Jester gives a fake name to the Knights of Requital upon meeting them, introducing herself as "Tonya Fancybottom". This leads to a rather ironic statement when the Knights of Requital and the Mighty Nein agree to work together:
  Jester: The Fancybottom name is one you can trust!

Episode 12: Midnight Espionage

• Sam's Surfer Dude persona returns for the D&D Beyond promo.
  Sam: He's a fan favorite... and by "fan", I mean me.
  • Sam (in character as “Brody Slater”) also plugs the infamous RPG F.A.T.A.L., which has the entire table cringe-laughing in abject horror. Made even funnier when we learn that Sam has no idea what FATAL is, and the rest of the table beg him not to look it up.
• Upon checking their equipment to see if they have anything that could help with a break-in, Travis jokingly suggests Beau's ball bearings, to which Taliesin reveals that Molly also has ball bearings on him. Then Marisha suggests they "break into a building using only ball bearings" as a Self-Imposed Challenge.
  Matt: The new D&D Nightmare Mode: you're all Lv 1 Bards with only ball bearings. Go!
• The Metagaming Pigeons Running Gag.
  Matt: Can we please make Metagaming Pigeons a thing now?
  Liam: Coo, coo, Bonus Action. Coo, coo, Hunter's Mark.
• The entire train wreck that is the hospital infiltration; it goes more wildly Off the Rails than anything since Grog and Tary’s potion-buying misadventure in Campaign One. To wit:
  • Molly suggests going undercover as a patient, by using his disguise kit to create boils and lesions... on his genitals.
  • After spending the better part of an hour on makeup, he decides to cause a bigger, louder scene, so he concocts some “vomit” out of day-old breakfast food and bursts into the clinic (with Fjord in tow) spewing it everywhere, and cuts himself bloody for good measure while crawling around on the floor, all while insisting that he does not need medical attention.
  Molly: YOU HAVE NO LEGAL AUTHORITY OVER ME!
  • Molly is ultimately restrained, failing to use Vicious Mockery on an orderly, and tossed into a locked room.
  • Meanwhile, Fjord attempts to convince the head physician that he’s just shit his pants in the chaos as a pretext to “go to the bathroom” and rifle through the doctor’s paperwork.
  • While all this is happening, Caleb (disguised as a half-orc woman) and Nott (disguised as Caleb’s baby) attempt their own infiltration. They’re swiftly chased out and the guard called down upon them.
  • Molly, still locked in a room, attempts to jimmy the window pane out of its frame. He fails and is forced to resort to a Super Window Jump, which ends in the guard being called again. Afterwards, Jester pries the glass shards off his coat, to which Molly protests that "some of those are sequins".
  • Finally, a disguised Fjord manages to get into the head doctor’s office and grabs the first paperwork he can find before making a narrow escape. Turns out it’s not the handwriting sample they had intended to retrieve, making the entire mission a total waste of time. This is not lost on Jester and Beau.
  Beau: Are you serious? He spent an hour cosplaying his junk!
  • The cherry on top is Jester's Stating the Simple Solution moment!
• After an Epic Fail at throwing a grappling hook at the roof, Beau decides to jump the roof herself. When the others protest, she says:
  Beau: It's fine, we're basically gods.
• As Nott uses Mage Hand to move a rug, Matt drops a Player Nudge that Mage Hand is very good for setting grappling hooks on roofs. Sam turns it into in-universe dialogue.
  Nott: Shut up, Ulog!
• While the Rug of Smothering is enveloping Nott, any damage it takes is shared with her. Because she, in-universe, doesn't know this, Beau attacks it anyway.
  Nott: I'M HURTING, YOU CAN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!
• The rug releases Nott and immediately envelops Beau.
  Beau: Hey guys, we need to get this thing off Nott-OH SHIT!
• A few turns later, while Beau is still smothered by the rug.
  Beau: [Muffled, from inside the rug] Guys, I think he got this rug in Marquet, it looks Marquesian!
  • And after she's freed, heavily injured, her main concern is avoiding getting her blood on the rug. Even though the rug is shredded to bits at this point.
• When Nott gets paralysed by a trap, Sam takes a page out of Travis' book from the previous campaign and holds the one pose for several minutes.