Warning: The following recap of Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 82, contains spoilers.
Prison breaks and Polymorphed possums paved Bells Hells’ hypothetically tent-exploding journey toward The Bloody Bridge and the moon Ruidus in Critical Role’s first outing of 2024. Here’s a full recap of what happened in Campaign 3, Episode 82.
As always, Critical Role kicked off its opening ceremonies with an ad-read from Sam Riegel, and this one turned into a family affair. Riegel’s son played a reverse-Big version of the Emmy Award-winning cast member, who proclaimed he was cursed by a Zoltar machine. The episode’s opening gag delighted both the cast in studio and fans watching at home.
Bells Hells Carve a Path Toward The Bloody Bridge
Once Riegel was returned to his familiar form, Bells Hells picked up right where they left off in the Hellcatch Valley. The party’s powerful allies had crafted a flashy distraction on the frontlines, hoping to ease their path toward The Bloody Bridge. However, Bells Hells still had plenty of obstacles to overcome along the way. Thursday’s episode largely consisted of the party making their way through a Map Mercer playground, improvising tactics to evade detection as best as possible.
One such challenge arose along the gridlines of the episode’s first map, where an invisible Chetney Pock O’Pea discovered that a nervous Vanguard soldier. In Ruby Vanguard disguises of their own, Bells Hells commanded the soldier to the frontlines of the illusory fray. While this proved effective, there were much larger targets in the vicinity that Bells Hells needed to navigate around.
With the help of some honey and sourdough starter, Chetney was able to stick one of the party’s arcane EMP devices onto the patrolling Warder. When the nearby the Reiloran went to investigate, the party attempted to sneak away. But Laudna’s scout Pâté accidently altered a second, juggernaut Reiloran to the party’s position. Unlike Travis Willingham’s earlier ambush of the Warder, Marisha Ray’s dice were rolling particularly bad in the beginning of the session, leading to moments like Pâté’s unfortunate discovery.
What followed was some patented Bells Hells improvisation and, to quote Ashley Johnson’s Fearne Calloway, “Jazz is chaos […] I don’t know how you can’t love it”. Bells Hells certainly moved to a jazz-like rhythm when Chetney attacked the Reilorans, and Imogen used her telepathy to draw him toward her, pretending to snap his neck. However, despite Chetney and Imogen’s joint effort, Bells Hells’ ability to convince the Reilorans of their ruse was once more thwarted by Ray’s uncooperative dice.
Despite Bells Hells being made by the Reilorans, the party was able to handle the resulting conflict swiftly and without drawing attention. Of course, the witchy trio of Laudna, Imogen, and Fearne still left a little disappointed that they didn’t get to execute their exploding tent stunt. Though the tactic was one of many discarded strategies, it continued to haunt conversation throughout the evening.
A Good Old Fashioned Prison Break
After the episode’s initial encounter, Bells Hells stumbled upon two Ruby Vanguard soldiers debating amongst themselves just as their party had been about the tent earlier. An on-edge nature and nervousness regarding the Reilorans emanated from both guards, as Chetney utilized Arcane Eye to peek further into the cave behind them. Inside were two Reilorans keeping watch over an unconscious prisoner.
Mercer described the captive as a thoroughly beat-up human man in his mid-to-late forties, and the party decided to help him. Imogen and Chetney remixed their earlier deception, declaring to the two exterior guards that they had arrived for a shift change. The two Reilorans inside were harder to convince and reported that the prisoner was being held at the behest of Otohan Thull. As Imogen stepped out to collect herself, Chetney executed the equivalent of a “pull my finger” werewolf transformation, initiating combat.
Though less clean and simple than the earlier scuffle, Bells Hells still managed to neutralize the threats promptly. Once they eliminated their witnesses, the party brushed the evidence up along the sides of the cave and propped the Reiloran’s bodies up so as not to arouse suspicion from passersby. Riegel evoked the imagery of Kevin McCallister’s fake Christmas party in Home Alone to describe the scene.
Fresh Cut Grass then attended to the prisoner, a paladin of the Lawbearer named Ishto. He informed the party that he was likely the only survivor of a previous scouting mission and warned them about the shifting glyphs near the Malleus Key. Liam O’Brien and Ashley Johnson both earned whispers from Mercer when they rolled insight checks on Ishto’s account. Ultimately deeming him honest, the party offered the paladin some healing and brought him along on the final leg of the field trip to The Bloody Bridge.
Crossing The Bloody Bridge
The second half of the episode is where shit began to hit the fan for Bells Hells.
The party and Ishto continued their calculated crawl toward The Bloody Bridge with the understanding that there was a finite window allotted by their ally’s distraction. Chetney stumbled upon one of the glyphs Ishto warned of, surmising that the Reiloran and Vanguard forces must possess some protection against them, given their shifting nature. Though Bells Hells did not have such wards themselves, they had FCG’s Greater Restoration.
With the glyphs in mind, Bells Hells were likewise able to investigate the approximate area of Planerider Ryn’s petrification during their last visit to the Malleus Key. The party was unable to locate Chetney’s fellow planerider, surmising that her body must have been relocated by the Ruby Vanguard.
With the Malleus Key in back in their sight, Mercer unveiled his final map of the evening, and it was absolutely crawling with murder toys. The party once more debated the best route forward, opting for stealth if possible. But Ishto dropped a notable lore nugget before they embarked on their journey.
Ishto referenced the gathered Reilorans as “in line with the Imperium”. O’Brien bolted upright at this, noting it as the first mention of Imperium, and pondered its implications. Much like Ishto, Bells Hells’ mission is focused on reconnaissance and the many blind spots in Exandrian knowledge at play in Ludinus Da’eth’s plan. Aside from Ishto’s insight, Mercer’s descriptions of the Reilorans encountered throughout Thursday’s episode teased that plenty of enticing worldbuilding awaits on the other side of The Bloody Bridge.
Otohan Thull ascended from the bridge with two high-ranking soldiers and rushed off to handle the illusory skirmish orchestrated by Keyleth and Percy. This further signaled to Bells Hells that the clock on their distraction was rapidly ticking down, but unfortunately, one of the Reiloran Thought Eaters that arrived with Thull stayed behind to guard the bridge. And therein laid the party’s trouble. During their stealthy approach to the bridge, Imogen attempted to neutralize the newfound threat lurking in the skies above, but her efforts were deterred, and combat broke out at the base of the Malleus Key.
With the aid of Ishto and a great deal of the boons they had gathered from their allies, the party was able to fight their way up onto the bridge after the Thought Eater and surrounding enemies were alerted. Unfortunately, Ishto’s off-screen fate seemed predetermined as the paladin stood with one remaining hit point as the party crossed the Ruidian threshold.
One Giant Leap for Critterkind
Roughly 50 episodes after Bells Hells first learned there was a city on the moon, they touched ground where no Critical Role party has before – the surface of Ruidus. Mercer ended the episode by briefly describing the scene before them, with the planet that has housed every Critical Role campaign looming large in the sky above them.
Despite the veritable lore wonderland before them, Mercer reminded the party that the next episode would start in initiative order as news of their incursion had hit the Relioran telepathic Slack channel. A particularly unhappy possum was already hot on their tail, thanks to Fearne’s deployment of Polymorph at the start of the Malleus Key encounter.
Sam’s Can: Riegel produced an interactive gas can during Episode 82 with arrows pointing toward a big red button and the text instructions: “Travis do not touch this button”. Though Johnson pressed the button to no avail, packing peanuts were dumped on Willingham from off-screen when he inevitably took the bait.
And that was our recap of Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 82. If you’re looking for more, check out our recap of the previous episode. Critical Role is available to stream now.
