Spell Check

Spell Check is the 5th Oxventure episode of the Second 2 and the 12th episode overall, in which our adventurers find themselves in a strange place with their magic taken away from them.

Synopsis
A pit stop at a quiet tavern turns sinister when the Oxventure heroes are tricked and taken captive in a magic-proof prison. Rude. What will they do without magic? Who is behind the nefarious spell-sucking scheme? How many organs is Egbert missing?

Summary
After the Guild was chased out of Bumble, they spend three days wandering around in nature, while this makes Dob and Merilwen very happy it leaves the others less than thrilled. When Corazón sees a tavern in the distance, called The Scratchy Parchment, he makes a run for it. But, as with all taverns found in the middle of nowhere, it's not great, as they are the only customers there.

The group joins him and they order drinks, Egbert is insistent on ordering a sparkling cocktail, but the bar man does not have a recipe for one in his giant tome of drink recipes. Corazón wants to try grog, presumably for the first time, and the others just want something to drink in general. Seeing Egbert is upset at his lack of sparkler, he casts Dancing Lights on his drink so he can have something resembling one, Dob follows suit and casts Prestidigitation to give it the illusion of a little umbrella.

Seeing all this magic, the bartender becomes incredibly interested in the group, and gives them each what they want in exchange for showing him more of their skills. After a couple of drinks, Prudence realises something feels off and Corazón starts to notice his vision is blurred, the effect of the poison put in each of their drinks, and one by one each of them passes out.

They each wake up in prison cells in an undisclosed location, without their weapons. Corazón is across from Dob, Merilwen is across from Egbert and Prudence is by herself near the end of the hall of cells. Merilwen has her first hangover in her ninety nine year old life, and Egbert vomits on her. Dob wants to try to slide through the bars using Corazón's helpful Grease spell, but something is wrong. Corazón can't seem to summon that magical energy, and when he tries it feels like it's being taken away from him. Once he's done vomiting, Egbert soon realises that he is in a bathtub full of ice, and soon realises that whoever responsible for this has stolen his kidney.

Egbert tries to use his Flame Breath on the bars, to try and melt them and escape, and successfully melts them somewhat. He then tries to bend them open, but only gets so far as they make a loud squeaking noise. This causes a nearby guard to come in to see what all the noise is. Egbert calls the guard over, saying that he thinks his wound is infected, when the guard gets close enough he grabs him and somehow pulls him into the cell, where he threateningly asks him what exactly is happening. The guard relents and tells them that his boss is responsible for this, she kidnaps people with magical abilities, and sometimes sells off interesting organs.

After a small dispute about whether or not Corazón's organs are interesting enough, Egbert gets the guard to unlock his cell and all his friends' cells. The guard then laments about how his life is over now. Dob then "convinces" the guard to join them. The guard seems reluctant to share his name with the Guild, but does so when they correctly guess it to be Christopher Engelbert The 17th. Dob then tries to use Prestidigitation on Merilwen to get rid of the vomit on her clothes, but that magic gets sucked out of him. Merilwen scans the floor and sees that the floors and walls of the cells are covered in runes, some sort of magic blocking-siphoning trick. Prudence, although impressed by the dungeon, decides it must be stopped. She sees that there is a sort of "magic plumbing" in the ceiling and advises her friends to follow it to whatever is stealing the magic.

Egbert tells Dob to tie up Christopher, to make sure he doesn't betray them. Dob does, but not before he tells him that, despite all appearances, this is the best day of his life, as now his new life can begin. Christopher agrees to show them through the falicity, but refuses to tell them who his boss is out of fear. He also explains that there are other prisoners, which Dob is delighted at, as that means they can start an uprising.

Christopher leads them out of their cell block, and on the way to their weapons Dob asks Christopher for his backstory. He explains that he was raised in the Bumble orphanage and fell on hard times, like everyone else in Bumble, and ended up working for the person in charge of the facility to try and raise money for the orphanage. There's an awkward pause when he asks how the town is doing. He leads them to their weapons, and they retrieve them.

They discover a hall of eleven rooms containing other cells similar to theirs, that have pipes leading into them and all the way down the hall. They ask Christopher which one of the doors contains the most powerful magic user, but Christopher says that most of them contain people that have had the magic drained out of them that they now exist as husks. Corazón asks to be shown which room contains the most alive one, which he does. Inside they find a chest containing mostly decayed weapons, but Egbert receives a cool mirror shield and Corazón finds five coin pouches, which he tries to hide until Merilwen threatens to give him a "vomit hug".

After Prudence takes two husks for dark magic purposes, they meet another man in one of the cells, a Dwarf Druid named Beron who has been there for about a month. He explains that he arrived in the prison in a similar manner to the Guild and, even though he is weak, he comes with them through their journey in Dob's papoose. As they give Beron some food to regain his strength, they ask him what he knows. He explains that he knows the name of the leader of this place, Lady Liliana, because he once witnessed her destroy some prisoners who tried to stage a revolt.

The group then take turns trying to pull the magic sucking pipe from the ceiling. Dob takes a running jump at it, but misses and lands head first into the ground. Egbert clings to it and everyone pulls on his legs, causing it to form a crack. Corazón tries to suck all the magic out of the crack, but gets a mouth full of dust. Despite this, he still gets a surge of power none the less, possibly due to a placebo effect. Dob then gets the idea to use Corazón as a transfer conduit. Corazón puts his mouth back on the crack and points his hand at Beron and Dob casts Cure Wounds. Surprisingly, even though most of the magic gets flown down the pipe, some of the spell does go through Corazón and Beron does get a little better. With him in pretty good shape, Beron exits the papoose and takes out a big battle axe, ready to fight.

After a quick brainstorming session they devise a plan to have Christopher escort Dob to Lady Liliana as a distraction technique, Christopher will claim he found the prisoner trying to escape, and says he has a message of love for Liliana, before casting Sleep. This plan falls apart when the other point out that they won't be able to cast magic. They then ask Christopher to lead them to where the magic ends up, which turns out to be the room Liliana is in. After looking around Corazón and Prudence notice a vent into the room and decided to become "team pipe", crawling through the pipes to find out just where that magic goes. Dob reorganises his plan to have Egbert and Merilwen hide on each side of the door while he woos Liliana, ready to pounce the moment Dob gave the signal, at which point Corazón and Prudence will jump into the magic container and smash it. With the plan sorted, Dob uses his Disguise Kit to make two fake arms so Liliana won't find it strange that Christopher is tied up.

They then try to open the pipe with Beron's axe, the first two attempts resulting in Beron getting hurt, but Corazón eventually opens it up, allowing him and Prudence get into the pipe. The plan is then set in motion, with Corazón and Prudence crawling through the pipe and Merilwen, Egbert and Beron waiting outside, Dob and Christopher prepare to enter the room. Corazón and Prudence reach the lip of the pipe and see it dipping into a giant glass vat of swirling magical energy. Prudence reads the runes on the side of the pipe and becomes impressed with how devious it is, almost not wanting to destroy the magic sucking siphon.

With everyone in position, Dob gives Christopher one last pep talk, and he boots in the door to proceed with the plan. The room is filled with massive tanks, containing vague humanoid figures, which are getting taken care of by some scientist. At the end of the room are a few guards, standing in front of Liliana, sitting in her throne in front of the magic vat. She seems satisfied by what she is doing, but she quickly becomes irritated when Dob and Christopher enter. She asks Christopher what he is doing, and after Christopher explains their cover story, she orders the guards to take Christopher's kidneys.

Dob begs her to listens to him before she does anything, as he is but a poor Bard stricken with love after hearing tales of her beauty, imploring her to listen to the poem he's written for her. During this Dob drops the signal to Corazón and Prudence, but they "don't hear it" and wait for Dob to actually compose a poem for her. Liliana is amused by the idiotic prisoner, and allows him to preform. Dob prepares to preform, trying to prompt Corazón and Prudence again, but they end up arguing on who should go first.

Fed up at waiting, Egbert runs in and throws his mace at the vat, causing a crack to form. Hearing this, Prudence pushes Corazón into the vat before jumping in herself and they both become overwhelmed and overcharged with magical energy. Prudence sees Corazón as the pirate he views himself as and Corazón sees her as an Eldritch monstrosity with glowing white eyes. Anything is possible for them in this moment, and Corazón feels more powerful than he ever had in his life, so he summons a bunch of sandwiches to test his strength. Seeing this Merilwen tries firing an arrow at the crack to beak the vat, but she only makes the crack bigger.

Dob tries his best to keep his eyes on Liliana, to keep her eyes set on him and not realise that Corazón and Prudence are in the vat. Corazón casts Mage Hand Legerdemain which, due to him being fueled with magical energy, becomes a massive spectral fist and tries to smash the tank from the inside, only causing it to tilt somewhat. Liliana teleports in front of Egbert and Merilwen, causing Merilwen to run to Dob, firing an arrow in Liliana's arm in the process, slightly annoying her that Merilwen just ruined her cloak. Prudence casts Agonizing Blast, causing an comprehensible vortex of energy to appear, shattering the glass and spilling the magic all over the place and the scientists and the guards to get thrown against the walls.

Egbert gets blasted to the floor at Liliana's feet and, with his magic back, tries Command her to surrender. But this doesn't work, as she is not impressed with the Dragonborn laying on the ground. Dob runs up to Liliana, claiming to be ready to preform his poem, but skims Egbert away with his foot instead. With his friend at a safe distance, Dob uses the excess magic in the room and casts Thunderwave, sending Liliana flying across the room, causing her minions to give up. Liliana states that she did not expect this day to turn out like this, but she will remember what has happened to her, and she will remember Egbert especially. She then takes out a jar containing Egbert's kidney before disappearing, much to Egbert's annoyance.

Christopher, fed up with the Guild, leads them out of the facility to a tavern's cellar. Corazón leads the Guild to go beat up the tavern owner who drugged him as Christopher leaves to find something else to do. Oh, and Beron leaves too.

Notable Events

 * The Guild was poisoned and kidnapped.
 * Egbert's missing a kidney.
 * Corazón and Prudence swim around in a tank full of magic.

Guild Hijinks

 * Corazón summoned sandwiches when he was overcharged with magic
 * Dob put Beron in a papoose, but he wasn't happy about it.

Character Development

 * Corazón casts Dancing Lights on Egbert's drink so it can have a sparkler.
 * This is the first time in a campaign you really see Egbert get angry, understandable in his situation, showing that Egbert is more than the series comedian and unwise dragon we've come to know.
 * Corazón's insecurity, established early on in the series shows up again in various bits of the episode.

Trivia

 * This episode introduces a new villain, Lady Liliana.
 * From the way Corazón speaks to the barkeep in the strange tavern about grog, this may be the first time he's ever had it.
 * This is the second adventure with no deaths, accidental or otherwise. The first was Heist Society.
 * This is arguably the first Egbert centric episode, but it can be argued that Quiet Riot had some Egbert related themes, though it was not focused on him.
 * Corazón calls himself a powerful wizard early on in the story, but when Prudence urges him to jump into the vat, he claims she's the better/more experienced at magic.
 * Corazón apparently does not use hair pins when styling his hair, a fact that surprised Prudence.
 * This is the first episode that you get to see Dob the Bard actually actively participating in bard-like activities besides playing magical songs.

Recurring Themes

 * Corazón's insecurity/uncertainty as a pirate are alluded to when he tells the tavern owner he has heard of a drink called grog, and that pirates drink it, and twice later on when he says he feels like a real pirate whilst drinking the aforementioned grog, and when Prudence and him jump into the vat and become overcharged with magic, she is able to "see the pirate he thinks he is", The fact that Corazón is so adamant that he is a pirate, but has to prove it to himself in various ways shows his insecurity about his chosen profession, possibly hinting that he considers himself a poser.
 * Corazón also boasts that he is a powerful wizard to the bartender, but tells Prudence she's the better magic user later on, this may have been a way for him to get out of jumping into the tank and ruining his outfit, but it may also be born of his insecurity that he's not a real magic user and possibly feels he is just a poser.

Behind The Scenes Trivia

 * The weeks following this Oxventure spawned worry among fans as the episode had not been uploaded as of the first week of June, Outside Xbox spoke on this in the June 7th Show of The Week with Mike and Andy explaining that the footage for this campaign was located on a hard-drive that had not yet arrived and referred to as The Lost Oxventure episode on Twitter,
 * When Corazón is supposed to be freaking out about Prudence during the vat scene, Andy nearly falls off the stage, but regains his composure.
 * Some arguments have sprouted on whether or not Corazón's powers should have been taken away due to a misunderstanding on how arcane trickster's work, with some assuming that it is simply a flashy but effective magic trick and not real magic, But as Johnny stated within the campaign, Corazón was drawing his magical energy from somewhere.
 * Mike states that he feels the events of this episode as "important" and states he feels like it's setting up for something important later down the line.
 * The entire character and storyline of Christopher was improvised on the spot because the Guild wanted to take a random NPC along with them.