Clan

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(CLINKING) Peacocks. This summer, during the biggest sporting event of the year, Peacock turns to two broadcasting legends for the Olympics coverage you can't find anywhere else. Um, I think they mean us. Oh, s***. Um... (CLEARS THROAT) With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold, Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Only on Peacock. Coming to Apple TV+ on August 9th. You're the Marine? Yeah. You're the ex-con. Yeah, I did time, but you don't gotta cast aspersions at me. From the director of Mr. and Mrs.

Smith and The Bourne Identity comes a new film. This your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm late for a crit change. Starring Matt Damon. Everybody in New England is after us. And Casey Affleck. Go, go, go, go, go! What are you doing? Taking notes. Taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. The Instigators, rated R. Streaming August 9th on Apple TV+. After finding a friggin' sweet risk chronobulator for Museum Replicas Limited that is currently available for $20, Dr. Breanna Marie vanished. She awoke to find herself trapped in another time and space, driven by an unknown force to change worlds for the better.

Her only guide on this journey is Jason, an observer from her own time who also showed up for some reason. That only Breanna can see and hear. And so, she finds herself leaping from world to world, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that her next leap will be the leap home. Okay, Jason. Where are we now? Looks like Transylvania 1897. But not your version. This version's from the fictionalized novel Bram Stoker. Fucking really? Looks like it. Who goes there? Sup. Ah, you must be my new apprentice vampire hunter. You know what? Sure.

Sure. Well, hurry up! Grab your vampire hunter's companion from ye olde Museum Replicas shop. Wow! That must be how museumreplicas.com got started. Definitely. No one would question that logic. Well, I'm glad the quality is still just as great. Look at this thing! It's made from soft, top-grade leather that fits right over my belt. The elegant 10-inch wooden stake with an ornate metal head and richly stained finish slides in and sits at the ready. Inside, there's even a beautiful leather-bound diary with a metal cross attached to the front and old parchment pages found within.

Don't forget your wooden twig pencil to write your notes, apprentice. I have been keeping my own compendium for many years as I've placed down Count Dracula. He is the king of the monsters, brutal in his methods and sly in his efficiency. He is the father of the knight and the mother of the demons. I have tracked him down to this very town and I believe he will attack tonight. We must gather our resources too. Blah! I am Dracula! If not for the finely crafted wooden stake, I would have conquered you all. But alas, I die. Curse you, museum replicas limited!

Curse you all! But I've wondered why that took so long, to be honest. Well, that solves that, I guess. Time for the next leap. You think you'll make it home? I don't know. I just have a funny feeling that no matter where I go, Museum Replicas Limited will be there. Such a reliable company, don't you think? Shockingly so. Let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, start with Valerie. Hi, I'm Valerie and I play Sora Greywing, the Halfling Ranger. And Kira. Hi, I'm Kira. I play Zoya Rook, the Dwarf Cleric.

And Jane. Hi, I'm Jane. I play Efthany, the Gnome-Bard. And Karen. Hi, I'm Karen and I play Erina Stonebreaker, a mole paladin. And Lisa. Hey, I'm Lisa and I play Elorath Beezinger, the Halfling Barbarian. And Zach. What's up, my name is Zach and I play Avland Bates, the Human Ranger Marauder. Guys, last time on the show, you were given a plethora of options. A brand new house, not brand new, but a house and a dog. I count that as a win. Did we ever name the dog? I'm not sure. Heinrich. Heinrich is the name of the dog. We'll use him to hunt wolves. That's fancy as hell.

So I want to, okay, I'm going to ask you guys for a bunch of stuff really soon. But yeah, you were given a bunch of options and kind of 24 hours to sleep on it. There was a lovely halfling named Pee-Bos, who is a facilitator for... Pancakes. Well, for pancakes, yes. He is a pancake facilitator. And he works with Liara. He's basically in charge of... he's kind of your handler. He's in charge of relaying things you want to management and then them handing you things to do. And essentially because of all your work in Lockfort and everything that's happened, you've been given tons and tons of things.

It's like, hey, if you want to help out the city and continue to be ravens and everything, if you're still in, awesome. Here's all the stuff we could use help with. And essentially gave you guys about 24 hours to think it over. And he was going to come back the next day and make pancakes. So what I'd like to do is pick things up the next morning because we talked about you guys kind of... You're kind of... it's squatting almost in this house because there's so much wrong with it. It's not like, oh, everyone pick a room and we're going to tuck ourselves in.

It's like, I guess I'm going to curl up here in this gym. Oh, we literally all slept in the living room. I was going to say it's not really squatting if it's ours. It's yours. It's just not... okay. It's not even like a motel vibe where it's like, oh, the bed's made. It's not even that. It's just clearly this was someone's house and now it's not anymore for reasons. And there's bits of the walls missing and there's like... You didn't get a chance to change the sheets or anything. It feels like you're squatting. It feels like you're breaking and entering even though it's your house technically.

It's got character. Yes, it's got rustic charm. Like me! I feel like we're building a Craigslist ad. Yeah! A quaint fixer-upper. With a little "elbow grease." An up-and-coming neighborhood. Great views. So let's pick something up the next day that will be the 12th of Thorim, bright and early. We're talking sun is just rising. I can't imagine that you guys slept incredibly. Yeah, but we weren't being attacked by werewolves. No, no, no, no. But it's still like strange surroundings and stuff, which as adventurers, I got to imagine you're used to. But for the last few days, you'd been sleeping in the castle.

It's got to be a little jarring. But you guys kind of waking up and getting prepared. Peebo said that he would be here the next morning, so it would stand to reason that he's not too far away. Would you guys like to discuss anything? Basically, have your characters had a chance to think over what they'd like to do? I think they have. Yeah. I think they have, but there's also pancakes. There's also pancakes. So if we're all just waking up and sitting there and waiting for Peebos, I guess Elorath would probably just be like, "So what do you guys want to do?" Because I'm good with going out and talking to people and maybe kicking a few slaver butts, but it would be nice to just walk around and be like, "Hey, can we do stuff for you that's not werewolves and death?" That does sound like a good idea.

I'm okay with the idea of helping everyone that we can. Yeah. Avalon's just getting up. He's looking pretty limber, like he slept well. He's going to say, "I agree with that plan. I want to help others around the city or outside of the city as well. I think that could help earn some trust with the Queen of Overwatch." So you plan on coming with us, you and Ephany? Oh, yes. Definitely. If you guys will have us. Avalon's trying to give puppy dog eyes, but it's kind of creepy as hell. Oh. Really? Please. I will. It's more like, "Please." Oh, God. No. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm sure that your help will be great and useful for us.

Thank you. I believe we will make great allies. Does he still have the bear paw? Yes. Probably is left with it. Oh, God. I don't know if it stinks by now, probably, but... Maybe you could take it to a taxidermist? Right. That's what I was going to ask. Have you done anything to treat it? Or is it literally just a lopped off paw? It's a lopped off paw. Yeah, that's going to smell. That's going to smell. It's been days. That's going to collect flies. Can we really smell it in this house? Well, the house... I was going to ask. The house has a plethora of built-in smells, so it just mingles with the other smells.

It's really just adding to the ambiance at this point. Right. Wasn't there a room upstairs that somebody had literally used as a bathroom? Yes. Just on the floor? Well... In a corner? Yes. At least it was in a corner. It was just one designated corner. That's appreciated. It was just one open corner. That's it. Yay. Yeah. Here's... Oh, man. The house itself, that's... What would be the group's thoughts? Like, after spending a night in your new home, what would be the group's thoughts on that? On your living situation? At least it won't hurt anything if we leave it alone for a while.

That is true. Real quick, could Evelyn go downstairs? I mean, go down and see what's in the basement? Oh, absolutely. Pretty curious. I want to know, but I don't want to know. Yeah, does anybody follow me? Ella Rath would. I'll stay a couple steps aside. Call me if you need anything. I'll listen for... ...peepos. Will do. Okay, Evelyn is going to go behind Irina. Oh, if you see peepos... You just sit on my shoulder. Tell him I really want my pancakes. *sniff* Oh, wow. If you aren't back by the time he gets here, I will call. Thank you. Oh, boy. Here we go. *clears throat* Uh-oh. *sniff* I'm so scared.

So, opening the door to the basement... ...there's going to be a new potpourri of smells. *sniff* *sniff* Let me smell that. *sniff* *clears throat* It's kind of a dank, wet, kind of a festering smell? It's a bunch of different things at once. Like, imagine someone leaving a bathroom for a really long time that was just dank and mildewy and wet... ...and mushrooms have started to grow in the tub, in that grout area. I mean, we're talking severely neglected. Just disgusting. And, um... It's so much so that you're getting the sense that this place was unlivable before the siege.

Like, this was... This isn't the siege that... You can't blame all of this on... This was a condemned building. Probably. Yeah, the siege didn't help. But, yeah, it's not... It's not... Yeah. So, a new wave of smells, and there's going to be these rickety stairs leading downward. And, um, the walls look kind of unfinished. Like, this was maybe dug out, and then there are stairs leading down and stuff, so it's kind of cobblestone-y. And then at the bottom it looks like a dirt floor. And it is going to be pitch black down there. Now, this is completely... Do you want to take a torch down?

How do you want to proceed? Um... Hmm. Do they smell like flammable gases coming up? Like, is there kind of a sulfa smell coming up from that basement? No, no, no, no. Nothing like that. It's more like, um... Yeah. I gotcha. Like, you ever smell a flooded basement and, like, everything down there is collected? Like, old books and stuff like that have collected water and then dried out? Like, that smell that's just like, "Mm." Just that kind of, like, "Ugh, this is unpleasant." Yeah, very mildew-ish. Very. Okay. So if it's pitch black, um, Avalon's going to turn around and say, "I can't see anything.

I think we need to go back upstairs and get a torch." Okay. The light vision does nothing for me when it's pitch black, huh? No. Alright. Like, with the torch you'll be able to see pretty regularly where everyone else will, like, outside of the torch's vision it'll just be like, "I can't quite-- I can make out a shape," or something like that, where you'll be able to make it out a little better. That's the dwarven in ya. That's the dorv. Dwarf? Dwarf? Dwarv. How to speak? [laughter] So, grabbing a torch, and heading back, lighting that up. Retackle it, yeah.

Yeah, starting your way down. There's going to be a knock at the door, the front door here. So let's catch up with, like, Zoya said she'd keep an ear out for P-Bos, right? Yep. I'll go answer the door. And the second you open it, like, P-Bos is there with his clipboard type thing, and, like, he's got his notes all ready. Good morning. Good morning to you. So, the offer's still on the table to make pancakes. If your team is up for that, I would love to pick your brains and see what you guys have discussed. Everyone would love to have pancakes. Do you want to come in for a little bit?

They're actually downstairs checking out the basement. His face is going to fall just ever so slightly. The basement. And Zoya's just going to, you know, be completely flied about it, like, not expecting, you know, anything particularly horrible in the basement beyond, you know, a basement. Yeah, I will come in. They're down there now? They are. I told them to call if they needed me, and I said I would call them once you got here, but they've only been down there, like, a minute or two. Mm-hmm. Excuse me. And he is going to march into the house and head toward the basement.

About that time, I would imagine you guys are most of the way down the steps and getting, you know, you're just sort of, like, looking around. The stairway itself doesn't really open up until you get toward the bottom. I would like everyone to do me a favor and run a perception check. Do I get a bonus for my little late vision? I'm going to give you, yeah, I'll give you a plus two. Oh! Jesus, F&A! Would I even be rolling since I'm not there? No. No, no, no. So mine would be a 12. Instead of a 10. God, that's sad. It's not the worst. It's not... Do you want a bonus?

Well... I forgot to put our contacts in. You're busy looking at the cobwebs. Um, let's see. Elorath, F&E, Aveline. The second the, the, the, this basement sort of opens up, and again, it's very dugout, very unfinished. There's lots of like odds and ends and things. There are these long tables stacked up on the, I say walls, I mean technically there are walls, but it's, it's, it's very, very cobblestone-y, very almost dungeon-esque? Hm. Once you get down there, you're going to see that on the floor, F&E's going to pick it up first. Below the torchlight, like on the, on the ground, there are going to be like something spattered, like something like staining the, the, the ground itself.

Oh dear God, we have a murder basement. Oh no. I love it. Guys, we were joking about this, that's real. And just about the time, just about the time you guys start picking up like within, you know, what's, what's around your feet in the torchlight, Pippos is going to call down. Team? Ah, Pippos, is that you? I've been waiting for you. The, uh, okay, how, how about we, we all come upstairs and get out of the basement and we can, we can talk about, uh, uh, the options. Oh good. Okay. What's wrong with the basement? Quick question, did we see the blood or not blood, but whatever was splattered on the ground?

Oh yes. Yeah, no. Uh, and yeah, that would be, it's new. Yeah, it's numerous. Like there are numerous like spatter marks around and it's sort of a, sort of a like, it's, it's tough to tell in the torchlight, but it's either a very dark red or black. And, um, kind of casting your eyes around. Like I would imagine like you start looking around, it's like, where is that coming from? And it's, it's sort of a sizable basement and, um, against the walls, it is tough to make out, but it looks like chains are hanging in the, in the back, like against the wall.

Not bad. And, um, yeah, lots of the, the odds and ends are scattered. There's, there's, there's sort of like a tarps and blankets kind of covering things up on the tables, but there's large stacks of things, uh, you know, kind of covered up in dust and things. Um, it doesn't look like this place has been used very much. Could Efrain go take a closer look? Yes, you sure can. Meanwhile, Peeples is waiting for a response, like, team? Like just, just, just like waiting. Oh, um, Aveline is already starting to head back up. Okay. And Zoya is asking him straight out, what's wrong with the basement?

What do you mean? He's really does not seem to want you guys in the basement. Oh, I just thought he wanted to talk to us. What's wrong with the basement? It's fine. I might take it as my room. It's pretty full of space. Zoya's just not even going to respond to that. She's too busy, like, glaring up at people. Well, not glaring, but, you know, giving the firm stare of, you should probably talk. Right. It has a colorful history along with the rest of this house. I didn't mention it last night. Um, sort of slipped my mind. I'm sorry! No, um, I'll tell you guys all about it.

It's not exactly something we're proud of in the city and, um, yeah. Like he's very, almost defeated, just like, ugh. Are they going to run into anything dangerous down there? No, no, no, no, nothing. Nothing like that. It's, it's, um, more historically embarrassing than anything. Zoya's going to look at him, look at the basement door. Guys, Pippos wants to tell us about the basement. So, Efanny, what exactly do you really want to take a closer look at? Uh, I think I'd want to go take a look. Just very tentatively pull at one of the tarps, maybe, and look what's underneath.

Alright, do me a favor. Roll a perception check. So, Efanny's going to pull back one of these, uh, one of these covers. It's like an old, like a thick blanket, like tarp type situation. And underneath there are going to be a number of different type of, uh, like shackles and there is no way to put this lightly, they look like torture devices. There are very clearly, um, things that, uh, it looks like it would screw onto someone's appendages, something like that, and, uh, like a vice titan. There are, there are things that resemble bear traps and sadly it looks like a lot of this stuff has seen use at one time or another.

I'm so glad I can't see any of this. I would have started to make my way upstairs too, because like if I'm not noticing any of this, like it's not really that big of a deal. Natalie has the torch, so like I would imagine, like it's very tough to make this stuff out, but it's just, yeah, there are knives, there are, um, yeah, there's a lot of stuff here. Okay, she'd probably make her way back upstairs, join everybody else then. So people just would greet you, uh, the second you, the second you get to the top of the stairs. All right, I'm going to start making pancakes and we can talk.

Where would you like to start? We can, have you, have you decided what you'd like to do? Let's talk about the basement first. Yeah, Zoya said you have- One second, one at a time. Go ahead, Jane. I was going to say, Efny was going to do that exact same thing. She's going to point at the basement and be like, I want to start with that, please. All right. Um, well, how much do you know about this city's history? Specifically the last decade or so? Do we need to do a history world? You can. Okay, because- Everybody? Everybody. Check if I know how much Zoya would know about Overwatch.

I'm pretty sure Adlan would know absolutely nothing. Screw you, Dice. He's going to stare blankly. That is how much I know. Can't see the torture devices in the basement, but I know everything about Overwatch. So, all of you firstly would know the cursory bits, right? You know, Overdale used to be the town, and then slowly but surely they got bigger, leadership changed, and you'd know about Carter, you'd know about- I know that everyone went a little bit nuts and tried to take over Theria. Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that, yes, but basically yes, under Carter's rule, not only were they walled themselves off from the rest of the continent, but then slowly but surely realized that that's not sustainable unless they take over the rest of the continent to protect themselves, that type of thing.

And that was very much a Carter-centric philosophy, but there were a hell of a lot of people that followed that, that was like, "Oh no, this is for the betterment of our city." We have to, you know, that type of thing. Now, Arena, let's see, Arena and Sora and Effeny would know that it's a hell of a lot more complicated than that, that a lot of people who were in the city during the time of its lockdown didn't really have a say in any of this. This was just policy and a lot of people didn't agree with it, and there's not much they could do about it once they were locked in.

No one was allowed to leave or come in unless they were approved and all that stuff. It's a very messy, complicated, terrible thing, and a lot of people just had to live with it that way because, I mean, sadly at the end of the day, it was a fairly safe place to live compared to the rest of the continent. That being said, within the city there was a lot of terrible, terrible things that happened. There was an event called the Trials which lasted years and years and years, which was essentially when the city was first really changing. Back when it was, you know, when they shut themselves off from the rest of the world and all that stuff.

Any non-humans that lived within the city, even if they lived there their entire lives, even if generations of them lived, they were looked at like potential enemies. They were essentially interrogated and tortured and eventually executed. A lot, a lot of people. We're talking, you know, thousands. So that's what you would glean from your history check. There is not a lot of great historical things within the last two decades that has happened within the city walls. So I would imagine that's pretty much what you'd relay to people. It's like, "Oh, we know this, this, and this." Yeah, like, "Not enough.

What would you like to just tell us? What specific little tidbit do you have on your mind?" Particularly as it relates to the basement. Okay, well, this house has not been used in many, many years. It's actually been unoccupied by any official tenants in 10, 11, 12 years? Somewhere in there. But the last person to own it was enthusiastic, let's say, about what was happening within the city at the time and didn't trust non-humans and took it upon themselves to torture and eventually murder many, many people in the basement and kept them there for sometimes weeks.

So you want us to live in the murder house? Well, okay. Yes. It's not that bad. First of all, I meant to tell you about the basement. Maybe avoid that area until we can officially clean it up. What we'd like to do is start work officially whenever we can get some contractors down here to this part of the city. There's something maybe you should know about this neighborhood. Traditionally, when the city was run by previous management, this particular neighborhood was not very fond of a lot of the people who'd be in your party. Let's put it that way. That's understandable.

Not too many people like me. I think he's talking about non-humans. I think he means all of us for the most part. Actually, no. All of us. Every single one of us. It's getting better, but that's why we want to work with you. We want to change things. We want to erase all this horrible, horrible stuff. And hopefully something like this will never, ever happen again. But I don't think you can erase it. I mean, you did bring us here without even bothering to clean the basement first. Well, there are a lot of things going on right now. And again, I meant to tell you about the basement.

I'm sorry. It won't happen again. We meant to cart all of that out of there. It's just the building's been off limits to people for the most part. I think we've had a problem with squatters here and there, but we can get a cleaning crew in and hopefully at the very least get things cleaned for you guys. We could do that probably later in the week. I mean, we could get someone down here. That'd be nice, because one of the squatters was literally squatting in that room up there. Check the corner just for you. I just feel like maybe the torture implements aren't bringing good karma to the house.

He's going to he's going to take a seat in one of this, one of the old pieces of furniture, so much so that it's kind of dusty. I mean, like it's got a real Addams Family vibe to it. And just sort of plop down. Can I level with you guys? Please. To the outside, Overwatch was built as this beacon. It's always pitched like that. I lived here for a little bit now, and it was always pitched as this safe place. In terms of getting attacked from the outside, it was. This city was doing way more to itself than anything from the outside was going to do. There's nothing we can do to fix that.

The previous things that have happened, but the best we can do is move forward and try to clean up this huge mess. And some of that starts with you guys. If you're uncomfortable living here, I can run it back up the chain and let him know and we can maybe find something else. But space is kind of at a premium right now. I don't think it's that so much, but it would have been nice if he'd at least been honest about it. I wasn't trying to hide it. It wasn't that. It just, I was running everything down last night and it just sort of slipped my mind. I'm sorry.

I'm anxious to get started, if anything. It wasn't about trying to hide anything, I assure you. Well, if it makes any difference, we have been talking this morning and I think we made a decision about what we want to do next. It seemed like there was a general consensus. That's fantastic. Hold on, let me get my notes. You said there was a poop room. Yeah, it's upstairs and on the left. Okay. There's also some bug infestations that, you know, it might be helpful to have a professional deal with those. Okay. And he's jotting things down. And the murder basement.

Basement is a priority, I assure you. Let me see if I could talk to somebody. I think maybe we could get a couple of people down here tomorrow morning? And we can just gut everything, just take everything out if need be. The place will be a little bare, but we can work with it from then on. I think, well, what Irina was going to say, we did come to a consensus and I don't think we're planning on staying in town for that long at the moment. And Zoya will look over to Irina so she can continue her thoughts. Yeah, I was going to point out that really, I don't think that there's that big of a rush on it.

You had been talking about things, the things that you had presented to us yesterday. And I think that we were leaning towards helping out diplomatically and then she looked around at everyone like, yes? Zoya will nod. Yeah. So you mean leaving the city proper? Yeah. And doing some goodwill work for Oferdale. That's fantastic. Honestly, we can use all the good press that we could get. Did you have a city in mind? Because I have a short list of places. That would be really helpful, I think. Zoya will look back to the group for agreement. And maybe a list of things that is within our right, maybe that's not the right word, to grant to these places in the name of Overwatch or Oferdale.

Sure. Yeah. I wouldn't want to put any, like, God, I can't talk tonight. I'm sorry. We don't want to promise anything we can't deliver. Thank you. Well, most of it is just, again, resources. We don't want to spread ourselves too thin and not be able to help out anyone because we're trying to help out everyone. I'm sure you understand that. Shortlist, right out there in Hollow. That town is a mess. Mess, mess, mess. And we've been sending lumber and construction workers and things, just trying to rebuild the city. I don't know if you've ever been or know about the situation there, but the small portion of the town burned down.

They have no economy. We've been working with them. It's been getting better there gradually. Bridges have been burned with Winterhaven. Like literal bridges or like... Bridges, buildings, people. So... Oh, you are being literal. Oh dear. Years ago, the city of Overwatch attacked Winterhaven formally and burned their walls to the ground and it was not a bright spot in the very dark history of Overwatch. And recently there was a secondary attack. Now that one was unsuccessful, largely, but... A secondary attack? Um... How many of you know what happened recently up north?

And he's got like his head in his head, just like rubbing his forehead. Elarath would raise her hand. I'm going to assume I know very little since I haven't been there. Right. This is all secondhand knowledge, but from what I understand, there was a coalition of armies that gathered for some sort of summit north and... The leadership at the time decided that that was the best course of action to outright attack the city and try to just level it and kill everyone there. Something happened and the Warforged soldiers we had all died. Most of the Warforged in total died, even the numbers on their side.

And most of the battle was avoided, still many people died and there was significant damage done to Winterhaven and his people. Right now we're trying to figure out how we could fix that, even though structurally everything has been gutted. We've taken out anyone who was in power at that time or had any knowledge or decision-making power and they have been removed. New people have been put in place, obviously starting with the Queen down, but that doesn't undo what was done. So we can spitball solutions and we can go from there. That is an interesting story you're telling, but how did one race in particular just die off?

That doesn't make any sense to me. Well, that depends on who you believe. Right, and you have to understand I wasn't born yesterday. That sounds very far-fetched. I have to admit that along with being curious as to how an entire race could be wiped out, I think that might be a little bit more than a diplomatic party is going to be able to assist with. We're not expecting miracles. This is going to take decades, who knows how long, but we want to start to at the very least offer aid. We haven't really been able to sit down with anyone in power there. We have it on good authority that their current Lord is incapacitated.

He was somehow hurt in the Battle of Lightwolf Valley and we haven't been able to get any word there. So maybe start there if we could get some sort of dialogue going with leadership of Winterhaven, we can offer humanitarian aid. Maybe we could help rebuild their city, dig holes, whatever they need. We could try. I know, like that's what we could tell. We could just be like, hey, we would like to try. At the very least, see what they actually need, what they want from the city. Well, and there's certainly no harm in trying. You mentioned some other places.

Is there anywhere else? Well, we're still trying to trace it back, but if you're familiar with the dragon Strahd, there's quite a bit of extensive damage done in the Evergreen. We're still getting estimates, but it looks like a quarter to one third of the entire forest is burned down. What? Oh, that's horrible. Because of Strahd, you said? Directly, yeah, but indirectly it had to do with the battle up north and measures were taken by everyone and things got out of hand, as it often does in a wartime situation. It didn't help that before that, the Overwatch was clear cutting the forest for raw materials.

Oh, my goodness. Well, you have a lot of ground to make up with a lot of people. He's just kind of shaking his head. There is a lot of rebuilding that needs to happen. And all of those seem like they could use a lot of assistance. I wouldn't even know where to begin to start. What do you guys think? Well, maybe we start with the biggest one. And if we can get something started with the big one that we think there might be the most to do, it can be like, "Hey, we're already helping them and they hate us more than you do. So what can we do for you?" Well, if we get one of the biggest ones, get them some assistance, when they get back on their feet, they can also trickle that assistance to other places too.

At the very least, starting some communication with them, I'm sure would be helpful. So we're thinking Winterhaven then. That sounds like fun to me. Julia's just going to give Elrath a slightly incredulous look. Fun is one way to put it, I'm sure. There's a lot to do. I personally second Winterhaven. I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I feel like we could actually make a difference there. However, the problem is we don't know exactly what they need. The problem is we don't know if we can get a hold of their higher ups if nobody else has been able to.

Has anyone actually been to Winterhaven? And so he's asking Pippos. Has anyone from Overdale actually gone there specifically to find out what's going on? Well, the last solid information we had is from the Queen herself. You asked a question earlier. How did what happened to the Warforged happen? And the best answer I can give you... Does the name Malchus Grimnus ring any bells for anyone? Never heard of it. I can't say that I'm familiar. I would say that anyone who got a high history roll on Overwatch's history would probably... There's got to be some cursory tie-in.

It's like, "Oh yeah!" I only got a teen, so... I would say define high. I would say anything over like a 23, something like that. 23 or over, I would say. Okay. So yeah, I'm definitely going with the, "Nope, not ringing a bell for me." I'm just going to be like, "I'm familiar. He had a part in Overdale's history." The early reports that we have, this is some of it's from eyewitnesses, essentially are saying he did it. He... One guy? That was perfect! Sorry. That's what we're hearing, and we're not exactly sure how. It was magic. In nature, obviously, it wasn't a physical show of strength.

But we're not exactly sure how that happened or if it could happen again. But yeah, that's what we're hearing. So one man eradicated a whole race by himself cleanly. How formidable. How could one person have that much power? Well, if you find out along the way and want to send word back, it would be very helpful. He must be an excellent hunter. I wonder if he is looking to join a guild. Oh, oh, God. I don't know that that's the sort of person you'd want joining you. Well, I've learned personally not to judge people by how they appear. I don't think it's so much the appearance as much as the body count.

You might have a point. I haven't had a chance to really speak with the queen about it all that much. I only know a few tidbits here and there, but everyone in the city has been talking about it. That's for sure. He's a bit infamous within the walls here. His old house is actually, well, that way. And he's going to point behind him about a quarter mile or so. What? He used to live here? Oh, yeah. There's a museum. I don't know if they still do tours, but they used to. It was top notch. Does their basement look like our basement? If he's that kind of guy that could be like, bam, an entire race is just gone.

Maybe he had a murder basement. I can't really argue with that logic. That seems fair. Well, from what we understand, he's in hiding. So we don't think you'd run into him in Winterhaven. I don't think that would be a problem. We do want to assist you in any way we can. If you're heading toward Winterhaven, maybe there's something we could do. You need new weapons and armor. And maybe we could stimulate local economy by sending you there with a large parcel of money. Some of it could be donated to the city in the name of the Overwatch, or the Ravens at the very least.

And then a portion of it could be a stipend so that you could re-outfit yourselves using their local commerce. That might be an idea. Maybe until we have a better idea of what the situation is there, perhaps we should be representatives of the White Ravens. Hmm. Not saying that we wouldn't also represent Overdale, more just that it might be a good idea to proceed with caution. No, no, no, that's actually pretty smart. You could be assaulted. No, that's good. It might be a hard thing, by the way, for people to reconcile the fact that the Ravens and the Overwatch are almost one entity now.

It might be very, very difficult for people to wrap their heads around that. So, tread lightly. Is there anything I could personally do to maybe set you guys up a little better or anything like that? Also, how early were you thinking about leaving? Also, how do you like your pancakes? I like mine with fruit. I would imagine that we would probably want to proceed as soon as possible, don't you guys think? Yeah, unless there was anything that you guys wanted us to do before we headed out. And I mean, certainly while we're away, you could maybe take care of some basics on the house if you needed something to assist us with.

We can definitely, yes, definitely. We'll get to cleaning the house. At the very least, construction is going to take time and money. I think the cleaning is the more important thing, really. We will definitely de-poop the house. That is a thing we will get on it. And while he's talking, he is going to start going through cabinets looking for... I don't know why he thinks there's going to be anything to cook with in this establishment, but... Just out of habit. Or why he would want to cook in a place that has a poop room. That seems pretty unhygienic. Well, there's no poop in the downstairs kitchen, really.

Well, not human poop. That you know about. But as he's opening cabinets, that is not fruit. And just kind of close it again. I don't think that we're really set for making pancakes here. Maybe you would be willing to take us elsewhere? Yeah, I will take the entire team out and it'll be sort of a bon voyage. A nice send off. When you say out, will there be pancakes there? Yes. That is the implication, yes. Good. I've been thinking about you and your pancakes all night, Pee-Pose. In what context? In the context that I think we were all looking forward to breakfast.

Oh. She's just going to like... poof. Yeah. Right in there. Yes. Yeah. No. Yes. Full bellies make for a start to a prosperous journey. So let's get out of here and away from the basement. Let's say that the hours pass and you guys... you are full of pancake. You've had a... Are they delicious? Oh, dude. If there's one thing Pee-Pose knows, culinarily speaking, it's the breakfast. Oh yeah. We have to take Heinrich with. Are you... that's... okay, I had a number of questions. One, are you taking this dog? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Cool. That's not even a question we are taking Heinrich.

Heinrich will come with. Okay. I'm going to have... I'm going to have a couple of dice rolls for this dog. One... you know what? Three dice rolls. We're going to get back to that in just a second. Oh no. I totally want the dog with. Okay. Sweet. Okay. Oh god. I want Efthony to ride the dog. I am in love with the dog. I want Heinrich. Heinrich. Yeah. This is a larger dog. Let's see. I'm thinking like Irish wolfhound. Giant, massive dog. It's a big dog. Yeah. Some of the smaller party members. Like if you were to take it for a walk and let's say it saw something it wanted to chase, it may be walking you.

Maybe. Not me. I totally want the dog because I know Zoya with her penchant for farm animals is in love with the dog. We're going to come back to the dog in just a sec. Was it Zoya or Sora? It was Sora that rolled the high nature to get the dog. So the dog didn't attack or anything like that and the dog is relatively friendly toward the party. Because that could have went not good. It could have been just a wild animal in your abode. Poor poopy. Actually, wasn't it both of us? Didn't we do an assist? Something like that. I forget. Yeah. So I think it was Sora and I.

Final line is it ain't hurting anybody. Something I want to... So you guys are getting ready to... Would you want to take off today or the next day or how would you like to handle this? I just think we'd probably want to wait until tomorrow. Okay. Get a nice clean start. Yeah. Start out early in the morning, you guys think? Yeah. I'm down with that. Peebles would want to go back to the castle and communicate with some people and try to set some things up. Let them know what you've decided. And then he's going to get back to you with some last minute things. And probably something to take with you.

As for the dog. Yes. I would like... Let's start with Karen. Okay. I want you to do me a favor and roll a flat D20 and that's going to determine the age of this dog. Oh no! Higher or lower? Better. I was going to say, should it be 20 if it were going on dog years? Well, dog years in theory is slightly different. The max age of a dog is right around 20, 21. And you're talking like... Oh! Old man Heinrich! Yeah. So in the real world, if a dog gets up to be like 14, 15, it's like, wow, that's a pretty ripe old age. It's only slightly longer in the area. I want him to be an old, arthritic dog and I love him.

Aww! Good job, Lisa. I love my fat old man dog. The poor old man is going to have to be adventuring with us. We can walk? Do my healer skills work on dogs? Not to de-ageify him, but yes, if it gets injured along the way, yes. Alright, just making sure that we can keep the dog reasonably safe and comfortable. Yes. So, this dog is 16. And that's right around the age where, like, if it were to pass away, you'd go, "Yeah, that makes sense." Doggy retirement age. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're not as bouncy as you used to be and stuff. Now, who else? Zoya. Can I just say that I think this is the highest, like, flat D 20-year-old we've ever rolled and it's sad.

I think that is true, actually. That might be. That's sad. The one time when a low roll might be useful. Yeah. Not on a puppy. Well, Heinrich might have puppies one day with someone. You never know. Dude, skipping forward- Older dogs might be more manageable. That's what we're about to find out. Zoya, I want you to roll a D 10. And the higher the roll, the more this dog will listen and be prone to, like, Heinrich, no. And it's like, "All right, all right." "Alin's going to teach you how to hunt." The more this dog is going to listen to you. Seven. Not bad. All right, that's pretty good.

So, only in pretty extreme circumstances will this dog just do what it wants and not listen and stuff like that. So, again, older dog maybe means a little more manageable, a little more, you know, yeah, that's good. He has better doggy manners. Good boy. Now, here's the one that I'll take volunteers first, then I'll assign somebody. I need someone to roll a flat D 20. I'll do it. Hold on. This is going to assign the general health of the dog. Oh, no. Higher the roll, the better the health. Okay. You guys, sure you want me to do it? I can take the blame. I don't care.

I was going to say I can do it. I don't care. Well, we had to, we had to, let's go with, let's go with Evelyn. All right, Evelyn, it's all on you. Do it. You got this. Wow. This dog is excellent health. He's healthier than he is old. That's, yes. So, it's still got, I picture. He's still pretty spry for an old guy. Yeah, but strong, like very, like. He's been eating well in the poop house. Yeah. He is well prepared for his moose hunting. Yes. So, I picture a, I picture a larger dog, almost the size of one of those, like, bear dogs we talked about, like the, the, the Kumo's.

Like we, we talked about that before, but like this is, this is not quite one of those. This is native to the mainland itself and pretty, pretty large dog tall. Like if it were to stand up, it would tower over even like the, the, you know, halflings and things like that. This is a big dog. Great health, like great condition, good teeth, good, you know, just really strong. Is it sturdy? Strong? Very sturdy. Yeah. Like you'd have to, you'd have to really work hard to like tip this dog over, like very sturdy. We can wrestle. Yeah, totally. Also. He'll give him little kisses on his doggy face.

So, older dog, but listens to you is in good health. Like you guys did good with the roles on this dog. Heinrich is, is going to be a loyal companion if he doesn't die. Now. Wow. Why, why are you so out there? Wow. Jason, thanks for that, Jason. Thank you. Now he has like doggy leukemia or something. What the fuck? No, he's in good health. Jason apparently just wants to be a puppy killer. He's going to die tomorrow of old age, that's all. No. Oh no. Well, because of the roles, I'm going to assign stats based on that. And in a pinch, this dog will actually be able to assist in, in combat and such.

Now, right off the bat, this dog is going to have 25 hit points. I think if I have more hit points than I do. So this is a, this is a big dog. Now, I'm going to assign, I'm going to assign some, some stats in just a little bit now. Obviously AC is going to be low because it's a dog and you know, not wearing armor. I, there's, there's a shop in Winterhaven that does customs. Oh God, we're going to have dogie armor. One of those guinea pigs in the armor. Yes. Except a fricking giant dog. We need like Sora to ride it or something so she's going to shoot off it.

Yes. Yeah, but that's not going to be good for the dog's back. He's old. It's sturdy. He won't be very sturdy if we're using him as a horse. Sora's little. So am I, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ride the dog. I am anti-dog riding unless emergencies happen. Well, the bottom line is it would appear that group four is on a bit of a run of luck. I mean, compared to the last. Oh, because Abalon's in the party. That's it. Yep. That must be it. Abalon is our weird lucky charm. It pays to be creepy, baby. That's all. It's a sacrifice. Somebody had to do it. You were there to build a void.

So I would say time passes and eventually people would come back to the party. And I'm guessing you're in your house. By the way, I want to point out my notes from the session last time had housing in quotation marks. After the rolls, it's like housing. In quotes. How? So, yeah, he would he would knock on the door and we have been like picking some stuff up like general cleaning. Yeah, I basic tidying at the very least. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big job. I mean, where do you even start with a place like that? I guess like the living room. Probably living room. Yeah, I would say probably wherever we're all sleeping, which is the living room.

Right. So I imagine it's a lot of like beating the furniture to get all that, like settled dust and dirt off of it and like opening the windows, trying to like shake the shake the little carpets out and stuff like that. That kind of like they take the garbage out, which is like everywhere. But like, you know, start to clean stuff up like sleeping in a corner. Right. So let's you know what? Let's let's let's see how effective that would be. Someone roll a roll a d20 for me. OK, that's fair, because I was actually going to be like, all right, well, I called Jane out last time.

I take blame for that. Here we go. Oh, yeah. All right. So you guys walk out of this living room. I'd say you guys have made a pretty sizable dent in the living room, like cleaning that up. And maybe that was because no one was pooping in there and it's not as it's not as decimated as the rest of the house. But like, yeah, like I'm trained. I'm right. That's part of our role. Yes. I would say that comes in with his obedience. Just not. Here's the thing I need to point out. Not all the poop that was in the room is dog poop. Like that's not. Yeah, no. Yeah. But at least the dog isn't adding to the poop anymore.

Anymore. Yes. Did we also clean the dog? How dirty is the dog itself? The dog was not clean. That is not a clean dog. It looks like this dog has been living maybe on its own for a while. Maybe it used to have owners and stuff. Let's keep the dog a bath. Yeah, there's like a spigot outside or something. Yeah, there's there's like water buckets and stuff like you guys could. Yeah, there's there's there'd be like some some water supply. Let's assume that we bathe the dog. Yeah, I would. We'll count that as part of the role for the living room. Because you don't want to clean the house and then have dirty dog up on the on the furniture.

Because this dog is definitely the type to jump up on a couch. I love him. Who's a mighty hunter? You are, Henrik. You're a mighty hunter. I hope you're scratching that one spot in his like hind legs. He's going, I am. I am. I am. Totally. There better be tongue rolling and everything. Pee-pus knocking on the door. And if you were to let him in. Could I answer it? Sure. So I'm going to I'm going to walk up to the door. I'm going to like crack it open a little bit and see that it's Pee-pus and say, oh, Pee-pus. It's good to see you again. Would you like to come inside?

And he would he would he would kind of like doff his cap like it. Avalon. Yes, please. I actually have a little bit to talk to you guys about. Come on in. And he would every once in a while, he would side eye you just like that is just could you not breathe my name out. Staring at him the whole time in his eyes, making that very awkward eye contact. Yeah. Yes. And just just kind of look at you as he passes, just like, OK, people, before you go, could I tell you something? Those pancakes were delicious. He just walks away. I think like as like he'd be like the normal social things like, oh, I'm glad you and you just walk away.

It's like, I liked them just like you were excellent pancakes. So I ran this up the ladder and the queen signed off on everything and wholeheartedly endorses you going up north. She actually gave me a letter along with a package and some other things to take with you on your journey. If you do get in contact with whoever may be running the city right now, if you can hand them the the letter and I'll talk to you about the package, that would be very, very, very helpful. We are giving you twenty thousand gold. What the fuck? Oh, my goodness. Can we even carry that much?

This is obviously a huge deal, and this is mainly a symbolic gesture. We want you to take half of that and completely re-outfit your party, everything you might need and patronize some local businesses, just stimulate the economy that way there. And then the other half should go to the actual leadership of Winterhaven right now and just to help them get started on things and the letter. Preparations? Obviously, nothing we could give them would make up for what's happened, but we want to help them rebuild. And the letter essentially says as much as just open lines of communication, get them talking, and we are there for them.

One thousand percent. Just just we want to help. We want we want to fix. If you could write us a letter back once you've established some sort of contact there, let us know what's happening. We would love to know. And we could go from there and that would be a great first step. I think we still have the raven, don't we? The gauntlet. And Zoe is just going to look over at Sora. Sora has it, doesn't she? I think so. Unless you got rid of it. Oh, no, I didn't get rid of it. I think Sora had it last year. As far as I know, so we can send a raven. That would be amazing.

Yes, we'll never get word back to us as quickly as possible. Now, it's obviously going to take you days to get there. We want to send you off with full packs, the maximum amount of rations that you can carry, whatever we can do to make this journey as easy as possible. You're just taking the north route, so it should be relatively danger free. Is there anything else we can do for you? I can't think of anything. Can you? Did you say that we could get some people to start helping with the fun room downstairs and the poop room upstairs? People said he would be taking care of that while we're away.

No, I know. I just wanted to make sure, because we did a lot today. And she's going to kind of gesture to the room. She's like, "We tried, and I just wanted to make sure we're cool with that." It looks head and shoulders better than it did yesterday. As of tomorrow, there will be a small crew coming in to take care of everything in the basement, and then we'll be working our way up. And at the very least, try to clean things up. Again, construction is going to take some time, and we want to run some ideas past you on renovations and ways to fix up the house.

But in the meantime, we can at least clean things up and get all the nasty little reminders of the past away from you. I think that's really the priority. Just, you know, the cleaning would be immensely helpful. Well, we'll get started on that tomorrow. Are you taking off this evening or in the morning? We had planned to take off in the morning. All right. Well, we wish you all the luck on your new quest. And please let us know if there's anything during the journey that we can do to help, and I'll see what we can do again. We have our priorities scattered around, but this is huge for us.

If we can start to speak with leadership there in Winterhaven and make amends, that would be very, very helpful. And I think we'll probably do our best to maintain regular contact just to let you know how things are going. Yes. We would like to not repeat what happened last time. Yeah. So, again, good luck on your journey and I guess I'll be responding to you in letters. I'm sure we'll see you again soon. Will you tell Liara bye for us? Of course. Yes. Yeah. I'll be keeping her completely up to date on everything that's happening with your group. OK. Thank you.

And he sort of tip his cap and he would leave. I love people's. He is kind of a darling, isn't he? Awesome pancakes. Anyone who wants to eat us. Yes. Well, you guys are going to have full backpacks. You obviously have money to play with now, which is something the group has not had. I deserve that. Coming in low. I said I deserve that. Thank you for the champ. I think this Paul would come in handy. It's a lucky charm. Speaking of has he perhaps considered taking it to a taxidermist before we leave? If I'm sure we would be noticing the smell more in the queen living room.

Like that's the thing, though, if someone in the party complained to him about it or like, say, if Anthony just like was yelling at him and just took him to the taxidermy, he'd get it done eventually. Like he needs someone to tell him to do it because like he doesn't mind the smell. Because he's still smell it. She'll bite the bullet and just say, you know, if you want to keep your bear paw, maybe you should take it to a taxidermist so they can treat it and preserve it. Do you think I should keep it now? No one seems to be wanting to have it. Well, when believes I killed a dire, dire bear.

Me? I thought this would be proof, but I think if you want to keep it, you'll definitely want to preserve it. Otherwise, you won't have anything to keep. Good point. Do you know where a taxidermy is? Do you want to come with me? Okay, sure. Yeah, let's go find one. I'm not familiar with Overwatch. Arena, do you know where there's a taxidermist? Do I know where there's a taxidermist? I don't think I've ever been to Overwatch before. I thought somebody was familiar with the history. Yeah. Well, should I maybe roll a streetwise and see if I can find a taxidermist?

Yeah, there's a place that kind of treats and stuffs animals and things like that. Sometimes it's like an old pet that people don't want to get rid of, or sometimes it's like, hey, I killed this thing and I want to hang its head on my wall, that type of stuff. So it would not be hard to find one. All right, when we get there. I guess Avalon and I are heading out to find to the taxidermist. Okay? Yes. So, walking into this place, there is something tremendously creepy about a place that's filled with stuffed animals. Not the cuddly stuffed animals, but the kind that are just in like fearsome poses.

And it's like, here's a wild cat that's just sort of like, but it's clearly, everything's dead in the shop and it's just kind of weird and off-putting. I was going to say, I'm kind of wondering if Zoya might be slightly hiding behind Avalon since the weird you know is better than the creepy animals. Right. Avalon just looking around, nodding in approval. That's nice stuff. Yeah, I was going to say, there's no way he cares. So, there's going to be a bearded man behind the counter as you walk in. And he's going to, he's going to greet Avalon. Good day. Is there anything I can assist you with?

Hello. He's going to pull out his bear paw. It probably stinks like hell or whatever. He's going to say, my friends thinks this smells bad. Could you make it smell better? We were hoping you could treat and preserve it for our friend. He wanted to have proof of his feat of heroics. Yeah. I was also wondering if you could somehow attach a string to it so I can wear it around my neck. Hmm. And he's, he's just going to like have this kind of weird like like stare at the guy like, yeah, I don't know. Okay. He's gonna gingerly take this and just this, this is not a fresh kill.

This is, I mean, this is. Only a couple of days, isn't it? Let me see what I can do here. What's your name? My name is Evelyn. Havas, and he's gonna, he's gonna hold out his hand. Alan's gonna shake it awkwardly. Why the paw? Why just that? No offense. I mean, it's a great paw. It's just usually people, the head or something more identifiable. Well, when we killed it, I was thinking I could take the paw into town to try to sell it because I was told someone wanted a dire bear in the local area killed and I thought there would be enough proof. However, you're right.

It is not enough for if I should have gotten the head. But at the time the companions I was with they didn't like the fact I was cutting up the animal. And we were on the move, so I had to make it quick. So I decided to take a paw. Now that the paw is rendered useless, I might as well use it as decoration. Okay. You see the bear almost killed me. Right. Yeah, no, a bear that size. Yes. Yeah, it makes sense. It was very large. Very large bear. Whatever you can do, I think, would of course be very helpful. Right. You're going to have to give me at least the night.

Can you come back tomorrow and I can have something for you? We're actually leaving the town soon. However, if you treat the paw, I'll come back some other time. Maybe in like a week or so and pick it up. Or if you want, would you be able to have it in the morning? We could stop and get it before we leave. He's going to look at this thing. Yeah, yeah, I think I can get you something by morning. Sure. We really appreciate anything you can do. How much is this going to cost? It's just the paw. It's not like I have to pose it or anything like that. Just to make sure it stops rotting.

Say 10 gold pieces and we'll call it. Please, I know about your merchant tricks. 20 gold pieces. And... Excuse me? Ah, you're trying to haggle me. I know how these merchant things work. We barter. I keep going higher and higher and you go lower, right? Avalon? Yes. We'll pay whatever you think is fair. Alright. She'll say to pay this. Right. You know, you shouldn't let these merchants get the better of you. Oh no, no, no, no. Don't worry. Okay. Usually, Ethnium handles this kind of thing, but I think I'm pretty good at it, to be honest. Did this bear hit you in the head by any chance?

A couple times, probably. Mm-hmm. Not to be cleaned out. I'm going to get this done and you're going to leave. Alright. Okay, and then you can come back in the morning and I should have a less smelly version of this. Alright. Thank you. Again, we do really appreciate it. It's not a problem. I'll talk to you in the morning. As we're walking out, I'm going to whisper, "I almost had him." Yes, yes, you did. Mm. Your haggling prowess are unparalleled. I have never seen anything like them. I get that a lot. I can imagine. He doesn't think so, though. She says, "I don't know what I'm doing." See, I'm just fine without her.

See? Well, I'm sure that having her along is certainly beneficial to both of you. She is very priceless to my goals. However, I am not as hopeless as she thinks. Right? Everything always gets better with practice. Ah, thank you. I was going to be a smile. Is there anything anyone would like to do before we just sort of pick things up the next day? Oh, I would probably need to pray to Evandra since we're heading out and that is my thing. So. You guys about ready? Yeah. I am prepared for all things. Okay. How's everyone feeling about the journey? The upcoming? How do you feel?

So nervous. Excited? Why nervous? Because I don't know what's going to happen when we get there. Well, of course you don't. That's the fun part. But you guys have been outfitted in every possible way. You've been giving this huge amount of money. You have a great dog. You. I mean. Yeah, we're doing great. Yeah, stuff could not be better. Can I just say to all of our people out there, we are taking commissions for Heinrich fan art. To me, I believe it's L. Borum. Twitter. Send us all the Heinrich fan art. Tweet the pictures of the dog. We do want all of the Heinrich fan art.

There is a thread on the forums for fan art and stuff. And that's been dormant for a while. This could be a good reason to resurrect that. All right. Check out our forums at dandrpodcast.com. All we want to pitch is fan art of the dog. Hey guys, this is Lisa from group four. Send us fan art of Heinrich. I can't even. I almost said Heimdall and I was like, no, that's not right. Heimdall. Heinrich. Your dog is the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. Our dog is Idris Elba. That is pretty fantastic. I love him so much. Yep. Getting started. This is now the 13th of Thorim, guys. 13th.

Chucking right out front. We're just chucking right along. You are. You guys are getting started on an epic new journey. A brand new chapter for the Ravens, for the Overwatch, for you guys specifically. And we're off. We're off and running. Before we go, do I have my bear medallion? Yes, I would. Yeah, without needing to. Yeah, let's. It is now a medallion. It is a medallion. Please tell me you're wearing your shirt open, like, unplugging out of your chest to show off the bear medallion. If need be. This guy did a pretty good job on this. First of all, it no longer smells.

It is. Has anyone ever had or seen a rabbit's foot? Like an actual rabbit's foot? Yeah. It's creepy, right? Like, it's a creepy thing. It has its little bones in it and they're clogged. Yeah, everything is still intact for the most part. The blood's been removed and, you know, like, everything that they could do for it to get it to not smell. Yeah, so there's that. Now, I want to paint a picture because this fucking paw is huge. This belonged to an animal that towered over the entire party and could have just murdered everyone. So this would be about the size of Avalon's chest.

Oh my god. It's a big fucking... It's like extra bear armor. Yeah, that's essentially what it... So if you had it tucked in your shirt, first of all, your chest would puff way out. And it would look like dark brown chest hair. Like, just look at this mane. This is truly the greatest thing ever. It would honestly look like Avalon is part shifter or something like that. It would look like he's partially wolfing out all the time. Okay, so... This isn't bear rack. That's what I'm hearing. I think instead I'm going to sling it over my back so it can be an accessory for my huge backpack.

No, no. You said it's a medallion. You put it on his ring. You are wed to this idea now. You don't get to back out. You got me. You got me. My chest is out. Puffed out. Medallion on full effect. Alright, you are... Wow, you are stylin'. Man, this could not be a better setup for you guys to get going. In terms of you having a good start, this is pretty good. Who would like to do me a favor and roll a flat d20 to see how lucky you are in your travels? Who hasn't rolled today? Who hasn't rolled today? Hold on. Valerie. Valerie has not rolled today. That's correct. Valerie.

You can do it. Do me a favor and roll a flat d20. Okay. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Awwww. That is not terrible. That's totally respectable. That is solidly middle of the road. That is... yeah. Well, that spun for a while. Yeah. Yeah, that was weird. It made us wait for it. You guys are gonna get started. And sadly, right now, you're walking. But you guys are... Are we gonna get extra horse? Mm-hmm. We had one horse. We should have picked up an extra one. Well, the problem is... We probably needed, like, more than one. Yeah, yeah, 'cause you would be doubling up, then you got the dog, then you...

I mean, there's... And we have two more party members than when we rode out, 'cause we only had four with the two horses, now we have six. Yep. And Heinrich. So we're probably better off on foot. Yeah. Can we get a carriage? Oh, no. We've already left the city. Alright. Maybe we can stimulate Winterhaven's economy by... Dude, that's... You've been allotted half of that money to do with what you see fit. Like, that's sort of your... But I think everyone had their hearts set on doggy armor. I mean, priority is doggy armor. Well, depends on how good you are at bartering, I guess.

Depends on how good you are at bartering. Let Ellen go in. I have pretty excellent diplomacy, guys. Just saying. I have a plus 12. Now, to break that down, 10,000 gold is an amazing sum. Like, you can get a house with that. You can... I mean, that's a lot of money. Now, high-end weapons and armor... But will the house have a murder basement? Well, that depends on what neighborhood you buy it in. Or poop rooms. The thing is, high-end weapons and armor, when you're buying for a whole party, that gets pricey very quickly. That is an expensive thing. So, yeah, we'll see what you guys can do when you get there.

Getting started on your journey. Heading north. So you're going to be heading through White Wolf Valley first. That is, you've got a long trek. You've got days on the road. Specifically on foot. So, the first day here is going to be pretty uneventful. I imagine you guys are setting off, you're walking. It's pretty decent outside. Not too warm or anything like that. It's fall, so it's a nice cool breeze every once in a while. Like a nice gust of wind. Specifically in the valley. And the occasional passerby, like people on the road heading into the city. Some will be splitting off and heading toward Durn Hollow.

So you're going to reach a fork in the road and see people coming and going. Heinrich will be there walking with you the entire time. Again, this dog is in great shape, so he can keep up. You don't have to worry about him being this sad old tired dog. Let me ask you a question. Are you leashing the dog? Or just walk with us Heinrich? Because, again, pretty obedient dog. I would assume he has like kind of a... I would assume he could just walk. Yeah, he would just be walking with us. Okay, sweet. Just checking. Just trying to paint a picture. I would imagine as long as we have the food, and he likes us well enough, that should be sufficient.

Oh yeah, no. I'd say after a couple of days too there'd be like a bond. It's like, oh okay, I guess this is a thing. We're his people. Yeah, you're his people. So I'd say about eight, nine hours on the road here. It's going to start to get to be around dusk. And this is with you taking minimal breaks. Like, let's take a half hour sit and break and grab some water, get some rations, that type of thing. About eight hours on the road, you're going to be well past that second fork in the road. The one where you'd basically, it's like, I want to go to Durnhollow, or I want to continue north.

So you're well past that first river, and you'd be about halfway past the trail ridge. So that's a pretty good first day. And again, there's nothing really impeding your progress all that much. So I don't know if you guys want to just continue on into the night, or if you want to camp, or what you'd like to do. Is there someplace safe for us to camp? I think Sora has the nature check, right? Yeah. Do you want me to look to see if there's somewhere? Sure. Because I was going to say if there's someplace safe to camp, we could probably camp. Otherwise we probably want to continue until we do need to.

I mean, this is the main road. Yeah. The odds of something attacky or pretty slim? We have a lot of gold, though. Oh, yes you do. But as long as you don't go flaunting that, people won't usually assume. Plus, there's six of you and a dog. The more people that you have with you, and the more you look like stout, hearty adventurers who are well outfitted, the less people will screw with you, as a general rule. I don't think we're in too much of a hurry, so trying to push through the night isn't really something that has to happen. Alright, so let's do this.

Let's have Sora roll to set up camp here. So just a nice nature roll, and that'll be finding a place and then setting it up. So let's see how nice the camp is. So that's a 20. That's a pretty good camp. That's really nice. It's relatively safe. So away from the main road, obviously, because you don't want to camp on the main road. That's just, as a general rule of thumb, you don't want to put yourself out on display to passersby that, "Hey, our guard's down!" So there's a little bit of treeline and stuff you get behind and make camp. Nice little crackling fire.

You're cooking. So this is a pretty nice camp, and day one would be pretty much over for you guys. Is there anything you guys would like to do while you're camping before we continue on? Got to feed the dog. Well, of course, yes. Yes. This dog would just be lapping this up, by the way. You get the sense that this dog has not gotten a lot of attention. So anytime you're doing the thing, you're scratching his ears and stuff, just big mouth agape, just loving it. Just big dopey dog, loving it. While we're resting at camp, I'm actually going to, when it's a good time, I'm going to take the dog a ways for a little bit.

Kind of set up a tree or something and start training it, teaching it how to hunt. Okay. How so? Well, I was thinking at first I would start off easy, like a lot of fetching going on. I grab a stick, throw it out, and I'll try to train it to bring it back. Okay. Let's start with that. So retrieving. Yes. Right. Start with the basics. Totally. Okay. So let's see here. Do me a favor roll a nature check. Okay. That's not terrible. That's not, yeah, that's not bad at all. Low roll, high modifier. So you're doing okay. So I'd say given Heinrich's age, he might be a little slower on the uptake because he's 16.

There's an adage about teaching an old dog new tricks. Yeah. But he's in good shape and you kind of get the sense that he's eager to please. He wants to, he's like, "Okay, we're doing the thing. Let's go." So it might take a few tries to get, like, you might lose a few sticks, but eventually, yeah, this is a game. Okay, cool. I'm down to play a game. And eventually, he'd start grabbing the stick and might run around with it a little bit and not bring it back right away or go out into a field, grab it, and then sit down in the field and just start gnawing on the stick.

That's fine. Evelyn's very patient. Right. But I'd say after maybe an hour of this, he'd start picking up on it. He's like, "Ah, I gotcha. I get the rules now." So nothing too heavy. I just kind of fetch with the dog for now. Okay. And this is a very jumpy dog, too. So, like, every once in a while, not just bring back the stick and then just drop it, bring back the stick and sort of jump up and put its front paws on your chest type of dog. Like, "Got it!" That type of thing. Just very, very happy, eager to please dog. Gotcha. Anything else? Anybody else want to do stuff while you're camping?

Nothing for me. Zoya'd probably just be hanging out watching the dog training. Since she already said her prayers to Avandra. So... Zoya, quick question. Yes, sir. So when you're praying to Avandra, are these... Okay. Is this more asking for guidance or just like, "Hey, just checking it." Is it like a Dear Diary type of thing? Like, what would Zoya be relaying to Avandra? I think it would depend on the situation. Like, when they, you know, get to someplace safe, she'd be thanking Avandra for getting them someplace safely. Saying, "If there is something that you need me to do, just send me a sign and I will, of course, do it." But mostly just, you know, thankfulness for whatever good fortune has happened.

Right. And the thing is, there hasn't... Since Zoya has found the party, there hasn't really been any what... There hasn't been what Zoya would consider any direct signs or contact from Avandra. There hasn't been, it's like, "Hey, Avandra here. Just checking in." So this is cool and it's like, there hasn't been any of that or any nature reaching out to say anything like that. Any speaking through, like, say, animals or speaking through, like, "Oh, just send me a sign." Nothing like that has happened. So would that start to bother Zoya at all or would it be just like, "Well..."?

Oh, no, she would just assume that means that she is on the right track. That what they're doing is the right thing, because if it was the wrong thing, obviously Avandra would be telling her. Hmm. OK. OK. I just kind of wanted to check in with that really quickly. So you guys getting sleep for the night? Probably set a watch, but... I always assume that there's a watch. OK. Because I don't think there's been a group since maybe two that has just like, "Yeah, let's all go to sleep." Like, I don't think that that's been a thing. We have all learned to the last set of groups.

The cautionary tale. OK. So next day, it is now the 14th of Thorm. You guys are just trekking along. You guys got a few more days on the road before you'd reach Winterhaven. Who would like to do me a favor? Roll a flat T20. I'll do it. I was going to say, who hasn't rolled? Yeah, who hasn't rolled today? Yeah, I don't think James done it yet. Jane! It's not me this time calling you out. Stephanie! Do me a favor. Roll a flat T20. Let's determine the group's luck. Come on, you got this. What's about to happen? I'm really sorry. Hey! I don't know what to be sorry about.

Geez. That's totally respectable. Yeah, that's fine. So you guys are going to be on the road for a while here. Again, another day you're waking up, you grab a little breakfast, splash some water in your face, that type of thing. And you're on the road again. Anybody who's ever slept on the ground, you kind of get like a stiff back thing going, but after you stretch out, it's not so bad. And thankfully the weather's been on your side because it could be so much worse. This time of year, it's really rainy and wet and that's no fun to camp under the stars when it's doing that stuff.

So you are going to be on the road for, I'd say, another four and a half, five hours. And you have made it to, well, you've made it beyond Betrayal Ridge. And there's this patch of forest that is going to be slightly to the east of you. You can see it from, you can see it from the path. And I would like everyone to do me a favor and roll a perception check. Oof. Wow. Oh my. Oh my. Okay. Wait, did I actually get the highest roll? I think you did. Oh dear goodness. That's not good. I'm not far behind. No. Arena Zoya, Ephini, Sora. You guys are going to hear screaming coming from the east.

And it sounds like it's coming from that tree line. And creating your head to look, because it's one of those things, it's distant. It's probably, it's probably like four or five football fields away, like four or five hundred yards, somewhere in there. So it's very distant. You can just kind of barely hear like, just like this scream. And looking over, you are going to see the trees part just a bit. Like there's, there's definitely like the tops of them are rustling here and there. And let's see, Zoya is going to see a smaller tree get completely uprooted.

Like, like if you see the tree line, right, you're going to see one of them get picked up, like one of the thinner kind of like scraggle your trees. You're going to see it get picked up and then kind of like smashed to the side. That's concerning. It's a bit concerning. And you're going to hear a second scream. And it sounds mobile, like maybe someone's running, obviously running from something. And I would like, let's see, I would like everybody who, let's see, Arena, Zoya, Effany and Sora, do me a favor roll a nature check. Hmm. Wow, again, Zoya, geez.

Zoya and Arena, based on what you're seeing, based on like the, this area that you're in, the probable cause of something like that is a hill giant coming in from the Highland Mountains and making their way towards that, that, that, that tree line. And that sound is probably people running from it and screaming. I would assume that we alert the party that trouble is afoot. Okay. Now here is, here's the thing. You guys can just continue north and there's a decent chance that the people in the tree line could lose this giant in the trees and use that as cover to either hide or maybe it would slow it down and they can get away.

Or you could make your way to the tree line and do something about it, scout it out, maybe cause a distraction, something. Now to give you, okay, the people who rolled for Zoya and Arena, a hill giant is nothing to scoff at. They're big, tough creatures. They're, they have really thick hides and they're large. Like we're talking, you know, 12, 13, 14 feet tall. They can pick smaller trees up and use them as clubs, throw giant rocks. Like they're, they're, they're big creatures. They can do a lot of damage in a hurry. Now that being said, they're relatively slow and they're not very quick on the uptake.

Pretty dumb. So that's what you'd be dealing with. I feel like we would tell the party and I would, I can't imagine that we wouldn't want to intervene if people are in danger. Yeah. And some of the party you've already run into a hill giant before. That's true. Yeah, LRS speaks giant. I do. We could try a similar technique. Intimidate it and giant. Mm-hmm. The problem is if that goes poorly. What you guys thinking? Well, I was going to say, since we're telling the rest of the party, what does the party want to do? So you say there's a hill giant over there. And there's people.

They're screaming. Yeah. It's going after someone. I believe the right thing to do is at least see what's going on. I would at least check it out. I'd like to try to help if we can. Yeah. All right. I would imagine you're hustling it up here a bit, like kind of running toward that tree line. Just cautiously. Well, OK, not not screaming like into the trees, but I mean, like it's a pretty big distance and yeah. Well. You guys are going to make your way there after after minutes. Everyone do me a favor. Roll a perception check. I'm making up for my good rolls earlier.

Let's see, Avalon, Effie, Sora. You guys are going to spot what you're going to hear it before anything. But as you as you get closer to this tree line, you're going to see that it's not it's not too far in. And what it looks like, it looks like it's searching for something. And Avalon is going to notice that there is definitely a person in there hiding behind the set of rocks. Cowering, like just completely cowering. So this this this this giant is definitely looking for someone. And you can see every once in a while it'll lean down and just like these these huge nostrils just taking in like long breaths of air, just like searching.

And then it'll it'll slowly start to move in that general direction and then it'll think it's like, gotcha. And it's like this tree just like snap it and and then get frustrated and throw something because that wasn't the thing. And it's driving it nuts because it's like, I know I smell something here and it smells delicious. Quick, throw your paw. If it was still bloody, it might work. I mean, it's all nice and cleaned out now. Yeah, I don't have ghost sound anymore. I have it. OK, just looking at that. Can I use that? Avalon is going to say to the party, it seems to be looking for someone.

We might want to intervene before he finds them. I could try cause fear. That could work. How would you cause fear? Um, but it doesn't know that we're here right now. Like we don't if we don't have to, why would we draw attention to ourselves? Maybe try to distract it in another direction. I agree, we should try to change its direction stealthily if we can, but I think we should hurry because the person hiding might get found soon. So what's the verdict? I think we should try the ghost sound. I think that's a good idea. So trying to lure it away. Yes. Yeah, so we can give that person chance to escape.

Alright. So let's try that here. So the way this is set up is you're still a decent clip away from the actual treeline, right? So you'd have to get a lot closer to be able to use ghost sound effectively or anything against this, the giant itself. So would this be a thing where like Eph and E would be moving in and trying it? I guess so if the party thinks that's a good idea. I'll do you a favor and set up a map. Oh yay. Should you? And just in case. I would assume that we would I would assume we'd be backing her up if she has to get closer. Yeah, at the very least, Irina would go with her so that way there is a buffer there.

Elareth probably would too, just because she's like, hey, I yelled at the last one and he went away. Yeah, I'd be following, you know, as I usually do, but I would definitely be there to back up. Sora wants to be on the front line so she could do we see the person hiding or just know that there's like someone hiding? I would imagine after Eveline points it out, it's like, hey, that person over there. Who's moving closer besides Eph? Is anyone going with Eph? Is Ephony going north? Like, is she going up top? I think we're going down this way, right? If we want to go down though, don't we want to like try and get as far away from the other person as possible?

Yeah, I would say going up top seems like the better plan and more coverage. Because then I was going to go down so I could try and get the person. Should we be stealthy about this? Try to sneak around the trees? Oh, yeah. We could kind of split, have Ephony and Irena and Elareth go one way and Sora and I and Eveline go towards the person. I think maybe not me and Elareth in the same group. Alright. Only because we're a little heartier than everyone else. So if something happens, at least there's somebody there that can defend a little bit better. True. I was just thinking I'd probably go with Sora towards the person in case they're injured.

And do we all want to go or just do some people want to stay back here? Because I was thinking of it being like stealthy thing. Just trying to get in and get out. I mean, Jason, a range 10 is that's 10 squares, right? Yep. So I mean, even if OK, so like you're talking about splitting up, but even if we all go down, there's still it's like more than eight squares to or it's like eight squares to the edge of the map, like up north. So if we just get it to go northeast a little bit, we can sneak that person over. And there's more tree coverage down here. I just I don't know.

I think it's that the giant is less likely to see like two people like Sora and the person like they're probably able to be a little bit more sneaky than, say, half of the party. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, but if we're all moving into the trees for coverage, that'll also make it less likely for him to see us just sort of hanging out there. Yeah, we should not be out in the open. I just like shouldn't we have the the giant's like attention distracted, like before we try and get the person right? That's what we're going to do. Go send. Right. But like we have to.

She has to get closer in order to use it because the range 10. So if she wants to send it off somewhere else, she has to get closer. All right, I guess it doesn't matter because if we move and the giant sees us, it's going to see us. It doesn't really matter which direction it's going. Yeah. Let's paint a picture here. Let's divide into the groups that you're going to go into. So, Ephony is moving north. Yep. So go ahead and move your character to where you're going to want to be here. We're going to have you roll a little check because you guys are close enough to this hill giant now where he might be able to hear you, depending on how poorly this goes.

So half the party here. Arena, Avalon, Ephony are moving north and you are going to try and get this hill giant's attention away from this bystander here and try and lure it away. Meanwhile, let's see. Zoya, Sora, and Elorath are going to move toward this person and see if they're injured or just like terrified or whatever and try and get them the hell out of there. Right? Yeah. Yes. All right. First, obviously, you're going to want to try and get that hill giant away from that person because otherwise you guys might get spotted. So, Ephony, Ephony, Arena, Avalon, do me a favor, roll a stealth check.

And as long as you don't do horrendously, I would say that you'd be able to get this tree without the… this tree line here without the hill giant hearing you. No modifier, guys. Ooh. Oh, gorgeous. Awesome. I'd say Arena would be the only one among you who'd make like a little bit of noise. I'd say it's probably armor, like rustling something like that. So the hill giant would like every once in a while just like and listen for a second, but not hear anything definitive to like pick it up or anything like that. So, Ephony, like somewhere in this area? Yep.

Like moving north. Okay. So you guys would be… I would be a little ahead of you. Okay. Like right in here somewhere in there? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sweet. So you guys have moved north to paint a picture at home. So you are above this giant and, Ephony, you are going to use ghost sound, right? Yep. All right. So where would the sound, where would the sound originally, like I'm imagining like further north just trying to draw this giant up? Yeah. If I can send it as far north as possible, yeah. Okay. What are you making it sound like? I guess maybe a person running away, maybe crying, that kind of thing.

So like it's got to be like non-vocal, that type of thing. So you can make it sound like all kinds of things. Like again, like I mentioned like arenas like armor. Like you can make it sound like some kind of like oh something hitting weapons or armor or something like that or like rustling in the trees, anything. You could make it sound like frantic footsteps like running away? Yeah. Ah, my jingling, that kind of thing. Yep. That's going to happen just north, right? Yep. This giant is going to hear it and just like, "What the fuck?" Okay, so he's going to think, "Ah, I got you now." And he is going to move up.

Just like start to move away from that. Now, Sora, Zoya, Elrath, are you going to move in toward this person? Yes. Okay. So you're traversing a bit of ground here. I would like you guys to do me a favor, roll a stealth check. And again, unless it's horrendous, you're not going to make enough noise for this hill giant to hear you. Okay. Minus Curtis City. Yeah, Zoya, here's the thing. Zoya would make the most noise, so it would be like while people are stepping over branches or something like that, it would just be like crunch, snap. It's like, "Oh shit, sorry, sorry." But I think there would be a couple of times where you're like, "Oh, god." Everyone just like pauses for a second.

It's like, "Oh shit." Son of a bitch. Right. But nothing quite so bad to get this giant's attention. And you're going to reach this person. And this is a guy, he's just sort of like curled up. He's going to see you coming and just like wide-eyed, just like, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." And I think it'd be pretty evident on his face, he's worried about you drawing attention to him. It's like, "This is my hiding spot. Get out of here." Like that type of thing. Like he's thankful for the help, but at the same time, I think he'd hear the crushing branches too.

Aww. Do me a favor, roll a perception check. Specifically Zoya. Oops. Bloop. Let's see here. That's perfectly fine. Let's see. This person's ankle appears to be either sprained, maybe broken, something like that. They can't get up. They can't run. Probably, just as you get there and are checking out, I'd imagine it's like, "I'm going to heal you if you need it or you hurt." And one of the first things is like, "I twisted my ankle running." Just very, like, "I can't move. I can't run." So do me a favor, roll a heal check. Okay. Not the greatest heal check, sorry.

No, that's fine. Hopefully it was sprained and not broken. Right, yeah. It'll be enough to take pressure off him and have him be able to move and get out of here. Now, the question is, do you make a go for it now? Or do you wait and see if this giant's going to get distracted and continue north? I thought he was already going north. Well, he's checking out that sound. Like, he's moving north to check out that sound. But eventually, like, either he is going to figure out that it's like, "Nah, this is a dead end," and move back. Or he's going to decide, "Well, it probably continued even further north," and move that way.

One of two things are going to happen here. I thought he assumed that what he was looking for went up that way. Well, in that general direction, but it's a ghost sound. There's nothing there. There's no proof of anything ever existing there. So there's no... you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, the ghost sound is not a cure-all. It's more of like... it's exactly what it's supposed to... it's a distraction. And when you're dealing with a creature like this, it's like, "Well, I didn't see anything this way, but I did see something back here awhile." That type of thing.

Plus, he's operating on scent. Okay, yeah, fair enough. Probably make a run for it then, right? So even if you were to make a run for it now and started making noise, you'd have a pretty good lead on it. It's up to you guys, though. I think we should just run. Yeah. I think he's in good enough shape. Yeah. I was gonna say, I can throw his arm over my shoulder and help him run if he needs it. Okay. Like, we're gonna stealthy run, though, right? Okay, it's one or the other. You are not doing both. Okay. I think you guys should stealth. Yeah, we'll take them. Okay.

Do me a favor. Roll a stealth check. L or F. You're gonna get a negative two because this guy is gonna be kind of leaning on you a little bit. Okay. Oh boy. Oh, fuck my stealth check. Jesus. Alright, here we go. Ugh. That's with a negative two. Hope you guys have your shoes laced up. Always. Oh boy, okay. Hum. Hum. You guys are gonna get to, I'd say you'd get about 15 feet away. Maybe 20. So, right about to here-ish with this person. And Zoya is going to sort of get- I'm gonna put myself here because he was on me. Right, okay. Um, Zoya's going to make a lot of noise.

Like, I'd say maybe get kind of like, get caught in a bush, something like that, and just like, rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, that type of thing. And the more- like, you ever get into a situation where it's like, the more you just try and shake something off, the more it seems to stick to you and gets worse? Something like that. This giant is going to hear it. And he is going to start to move toward the sound of that noise. He's going to get to about here. So he is still a good- 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 feet away from you.

I'm gonna have him roll a perception check, and if he sees you, he is going to go into pursuit. And a giant can close that gap pretty quickly if you guys don't do well on athletics checks to run. So let's see something here. Okay. He is not going to see you right away. Are you going to run? I would say all of you would know that this giant is- like, I'd say you are keeping a pretty close eye on this thing. And you're going to see it's like, uh oh, he's coming back this way. We're not undercover or anything like that, are we? You could try to- you could try to stealth to cover.

But again, it kind of operates on scent, so it might just be a matter of time? I mean, like, so he doesn't really see us though, right? No, he doesn't see you at all yet. Yeah, so we should just keep stealthing away, right? Yeah, I feel like we would pause and then try to keep sneaking, maybe? I want to put it there. He's not blind. Right. His eyesight isn't amazing, is it a thing? I feel like unless it became clear that he was actively running towards us, I feel like we would try to keep stealthing away. Right? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I would assume so. Okay. Do me a favor, give me a stealth check.

Let's see how badly I can do this time. Yeah, minus two. Oh, great. Name! Hmmm, thought I'm a bitch. Now he's going to pick up on it. For the listeners, I keep getting twos. Twos in my stealth checks. That's a shame. It's that bonnet. It's not a bonnet, it's a hat. I know. My veil. It got caught in a branch. Oh my god. I would say you'd get another ten feet in and make a noise that reaffirms everything in that giant. It's like, "Oh, yep. Nope. Nope. That's where they go." And he is going to give chase to that area. He knows there's something up at this point. So he's going to get to about here.

Is that water? Yes, that would be a small pond. Fantastic. He is going to spot you. Everyone do me a favor. Roll initiative because I want to see what exactly happens here. Oh wow. I am so alert, guys. Yay, me too. Oh, the hill giant is not as alert. Oh yeah, he's getting pushed down in the initiative. Alright, so here's what we're going to do. Arena, you have a decision to make. You can see where this is starting to go south. Right. Do you wait to see if the team can get away and get out of range, or do you do something else? Do I be stupid is what you're asking.

That is, do you want to help friends, not be stupid. I could challenge. I could totally challenge. But that would put me in a bad place. Alright, I want to be stupid, guys. Are you ready? Okay. I'm going to come out here and I'm going to be like, hey. Okay. Actually, yeah, I'm just going to stand here and I'm just going to divine challenge it. So it has to attack me or it takes damage. Oh, I don't think that will be a problem. No, I'm mostly trying to distract it and then maybe I can run away or something. I don't know. Okay. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Oh, you're marking it.

Yeah, that's the thing. It has to attack you or it takes a negative two. Yeah. Alright. Sora, your turn. Now, seeing, here's the thing, seeing a arena do this, you have a choice to make. Do you kind of wait and see where that goes and try to get away, or do you wait and see if she needs backup and then move into position? What do you do? Because you're in a completely opposite place than her with that innocent bystander person. So do you draw attention to yourself by attacking and then maybe get the giant to run toward you? Do you try to get into a better position?

One quick thing. I'm going to roll a flight to each one. And one through ten, we're going to go with arena's party, and eleven through twenty, we'll go with Zoya's half. And, okay, Heinrich is going to be with arena's half of the party. Oh no. Heinrich, no. Let's place Heinrich on the table. Ooh, let's do that. Eevee, no. I was going to say, I swear if Heinrich gets eaten by the giant. Oh my god. You need to put him back with Averland. Yep, I'd say right there. Yep, okay, so we got Heinrich on the board. So, Sora, what are you doing? I think Sora would just want to try and get away from the giant.

I feel like she wouldn't feel it necessary to attack him, just try and get away from him. Okay, so you're going to move away? Yeah. Alright. Alright, anything else? No, that's it. Alright, Elorath. Well... You get it? Yeah. Uh huh. She probably, seeing arena do that, would probably... Oh god. She'd probably go to do the same, actually. Just say, like, she'd probably tell this guy, just be like, like run. Okay. And then she'd probably make her way back towards the giant and try to yell at it and get it to go away, because it worked the last time. I love you. Alright.

And she does speak giant. It's not going to work because we're not live this time. One, two, three. Well, here's the thing. Intimidate the fuck out of that thing. Okay, here's the thing. Um, because the giant's been challenged already... Oh. It's going to require a pretty big intimidate check. Okay. Because, yeah, so go ahead. Let's try it. Alright, what are we shooting for? I would say, I'm going to give you a plus two because you speak giant. Yes. I'm going to say you're going to need at least a 24. Wow. Oh, oh. Um, yeah. I have to roll a 19 or a 20 to do that. It's got it.

Pick another Heimlich. You'll save him. You can do it. I believe in you so much. She's at least going to try. So she'll probably yell out at him pretty much the same thing that kind of worked the last time. She's like, "We've got you surrounded. Get out of here." Or something, you know, just like, "Dear sweet, sweet, sweet baby Jesus." Tuxedo wearing. Tuxedo shirt wearing baby Jesus. Comb that beautiful feathered mullet and help me out. Here we go. Nope. She tried. Oh man. Yeah, that's not going to quite do it. It's a great try though. Are you sure? It's only like 11 less than we need.

She's not funny a little bit. We're going to take a couple steps back. This giant is going to look over toward Elorath and just sort of like, "Raaar!" Just like big slobbery mouth. Like wind and spittle. Just like tendrils of spit. Just kind of like coming out of this giant mall. Out. And Elorath's going to pick up this stench kind of coming from... It's like, "Oh wow. That is not good breath." The giant is going to turn its attention back toward Erina. Oh. Bitch. Abalan. Almost as if the giant's like, "Took care of that." Like you're not even going to... That's sick.

Cut his giant ass off. Um... Abalan seeing what's going on, seeing that this thing is ready for a fight and running away is not looking like it's panning out. He is going to prepare for the worst, so he's going to, from the tree, he's going to kind of scope where the hill giant is and kind of like start stalking it a little bit. Then he's going to take his broadsword and his spear and kind of like hold it in an X and that's basically like up in the air in an X. He's going to begin his skirmishing stance. Okay. With that... And what's that going to do? Basically, every time I move more than four squares, I believe, I gain a plus two power bonus to AC.

And I think just the power overall. If I attack him. Okay. So I'm going to move one, two, three, four right here. To kind of have Erina's back just in case. I mean, I know it's coming. So I'm going to sit there and prepare. Yeah. To give a full for everyone at home, that is a daily. So until the stance ends, whenever you move at least four squares away from where you started your turn, you get a plus two power bonus to AC and reflex until the start of your next turn. And your next attack before the end of your next turn deals 1d8 extra damage. Oh, that's a plus two to reflex.

Got you. Yep. And AC. It's been a while since that. So both of those. Yes. All right. And that's it. Yes. Efanny. Efanny's got a decision to make. It's hard. It's hard. Efanny is looking very wide eyed at this giant. As much as she'd like to stay huddled where she is in the tree, she's going to move closer to Avalon and Erina and try and help out if she can. I think as a minor action, first off, can she do glimpse the future? Sure. That might come in handy. What have I done? One at a time. Roll flat T20s for me. Oh. So perhaps gazing into several different versions of what could happen in the future.

Efanny is going to. So that's a 17. So that's some version of the future where, like, hey, things could end pretty well. Like, they could take this giant down and everything's okay. We got it, guys. There's a version that ends even better where it's like the giant trips, breaks its own neck, and everyone just gets out of there. And there's a version that's like, okay, we took some lumps, but in the end we took this giant down. So we're going to take that 18 and we're going to pocket that bad boy. And when things get really dark, you can swap out a roll for that 18.

That sound good? Yep. All right. You could also choose to take that 11 if you want and swap out one of the giant's rolls with that one. Though 11 is still not crazy bad. No. Yeah. All right. So what else are we doing? Can I move? I'll move next to Avalon. Okay. Anything else? No, that'll end my turn for now. All right. Boy. Okay. That will bring up the hill giant. This hill giant is going to lower its head and it is going to charge toward arena. It is going to get right up next to arena. And along the way, what it's going to do is it's got this small tree, basically, that it's just holding in his hand like a club.

And it is going to move toward arena with this thing like it's like a batter up position. And as he reaches arena, he's going to swing for the fences here. And he is going to target arena and he is going to swing and that will hit. That's going to do 33 damage to arena, knock her back two spaces, and she's going to go prone. Oh my God. So this thing hits hard. Like it's not fucking around apparently. That will end the hill giant's turn. Zoya. Okay. So I am going to move closer to the giant. Hopefully I'm close enough for this. Alright. So what I'm going to do then is cause fear.

I'm going to try it. And I will tell you what it does if I actually hit. Okay. Good luck. Thank you. I need it. That's going to hit. Awesome. So what happens is Zoya takes her staff and from her staff a little tendril of smoke just starts billowing up until it turns into a giant, terrifying, horrifying monster head drooling and gnashing its teeth at this creature. So it is the target is compelled to take a free action to move as far away from you as it can moving a number of squares equal to its speed, plus your charisma modifier. So it is going to move in the opposite direction of you.

Oh no. But it provokes opportunity attacks. So if it moves past you guys, you get to hit it. Does that knock it out of its fear stupor or whatever if it takes damage? This movement is not considered force movement so it provokes opportunity attacks. I would say no. But it is going to remember all that when it reaches its destination and regains control of itself. So the target is compelled to take a free action. So its speed plus your charisma mod. So your charisma mod is plus three. So that is going to move eleven spaces. So lets see here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

So it is going to move way up here. So I would say that Efanny and Avalan go ahead and make a melee basic attack against it. Because it would move past you guys to get there. Alright. Okay both of those would miss. Yes. So anything else Zoya? Okay I am also going to use a healing word. Okay. But I am not sure if I am close enough. It is close burst five. Am I close enough to you, Erena? I don't think so. No. Yeah so then I am just going to wait until my next turn and then. Alright that will bring up Heinrich. Come here Heinrich, come here. Yeah I will call the dog.

Because minor action. Come here, come here. Yeah just take a stick and throw it in the opposite direction. So Heinrich is going to watch Erena get the shit kicked out of her. Just like that is going to cause like. So what I would like. Here is what I would like. Who didn't get to roll something for the dog? I don't think Zora did. Okay. Right. That is what I think. Yeah I want to know how protective Heinrich is going to be of the party here. Of party members. So Zora do me a favor and roll a flat d20. The higher that number the more protective. Okay. Oh. Doesn't give a fuck.

Yeah. That is actually not too bad. It is not too bad. Maybe Heinrich is just not a very violent dog. He is a pacifist. Yeah. Good luck teaching him to hunt. Okay. He is just not very aggressive. So. Okay. He is just going to. If Zoya were to call him he is going to move. In that direction. And he is not going to be happy about Erina getting hit but he is just like I don't want to bite anything. I don't want to hurt anything. Erina your turn. I am going to stand up. Okay. If I can find my character she I am also going to give myself a lay on hands. That sounds like a good thing to do.

Probably yes. A lay on hands. Where is it? Okay. Did that work? Yes. Totally worked. Oh God I am still so damaged. What are we doing? What are we doing? I don't think I can do anything right now actually. Because I stood up so that is my movement. And that is my miner and I don't have anything that is ranged enough for that. That is all I am doing. Maybe use your standard to convert to a movement. I think we should regroup. I don't want to get too far away from Avalon and Ephne. Maybe I will back up a few. I will come back here a little bit. Okay. So you are going to move back a bit.

Sora your turn. Are you going to leave the battlefield here? Is the plan to just get out of here right? Doesn't sound like a bad idea. Yes but it is just like how fast can we get out of here before that giant catches back up with us. Because I was going to say that I will say something. We can just get out of here. But if that is everyone's plan then... I think we should definitely get the group back together. Just in case it catches back up with us. Okay then I guess I will just stay. Oops. You start breakdancing in the middle of the clearing. Yes she will just start dancing.

I guess I will just stay over here then with Zoya and Alerath. Okay. That will bring up Alerath. Oh goodness. So after watching Arena get hit. And watching the hill giant move in a north westernly pattern here. What would you be thinking? Probably group up and get out is what she would be thinking. She would be wondering why that guy didn't move. Is he not going to turn? Right. Is he just frozen in fear? He is just watching the show now. Dick, he did this all for you. I would say at the end of each round he will move. He is still hobbling a bit but I would say he would move four spaces.

So he would be moving south. She would probably just yell "Let's get out of here" or something. And then say where she is really. Yeah, just make sure. She is staying right there to make sure Zoya and Sora are okay. And then she is going to yell "Let's get out of here" to the others. Alright, so just communicating to everybody. Hey, let's fucking go. Yeah. Okay. Avalon. The first thing Avalon is going to do is kneel down and reach his backpack over to F.E. and say "Let's get the fuck out of here". Like instantly, he is about to run. She will get what you mean and hop right in there.

She wants to book it too. Alright, so I am going to move my full six squares I think. Can I convert my standard action to more movement? Sure can. I am going to jump over the dog. One, two, five, six. The dog is a pummel horse and just like "Go!" Efanny? Can I move myself to where Avalon is? You sure can. That will be it for now. Yeah, it seems like we are trying to scram, really. Is the thing still feared? Do we know that? Well, I mean, you wouldn't know in the first place. On the hill giant's turn, it is going to look back toward the party and then let's see.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. There we go. I was going to say, would it really be able to figure it out? I am sorry, how much movement does that thing have? Eight. It has a movement speed of eight. You said it was slow. Oh, no. I mean brain function-wise, it is slow. Yeah, I was... Nothing is faster than me. We might be in trouble, guys. He should be dumb enough to know that he should run away. Why? Because he was frightened off by a horrible scary thing. Yes, momentarily. He should think that the horrible scary thing is still there. He is dumb.

Right, but it is not. Okay, two things. One, picture this thing as having no object permanence. So, like, it is... The baby. One, the scary thing isn't there anymore. And it is like, wait, what was I running? Like, being very, very, very slow. Like, sometimes that works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't. It is like the ghost sound. It is not a fix-all. It is just a temporary measure. This giant is going to bring back the club again and do the exact same thing it did before. And... that is going to miss Erina. Thank god. Zoya, your turn. Alright, I am going to cast Halo of Consequence.

That is a range 10. So, the target is affected by my Halo of Consequence. Save ends. Until the Halo ends, he will take a -4 penalty to attack rolls. And after the target attacks you or any ally, it is dazed until the end of its next turn. He takes a -2 penalty to saving throws against the Halo. So, let's see if I can hit him. Okay. Alright. Wish me luck, guys. Good luck. Oh, never mind. That is a crit. Do you want to take my 18? Yes. Okay. You want to take the 18? Sure. Alright, that will hit. Okay. And so, since he has been hit, then Zoya will use her movement and move back towards the group.

So, we're getting away from him. And I am finished. That will bring up Heinrich. Heinrich will be moving towards you guys down here. And this guy is going to leave combat. Yay. You did it. You're welcome. Arena. I'm going to do this thing called Lay on Hands because I'm still damaged. And then I'm going to - you know what, I just want to hit this thing in the face. Alright. So, I'm going to use a daily. I'm going to try to hit him with my Paladin's Judgment. That will hit? Great. Nice. Thank you. Thank you. So, there's damage on that. 14 damage to the giant. Sora, your turn.

Look, I feel bad for being the first to leave, but I'm going to blame it on the combat tracker. Okay, I'm going to delay my turn until later. I can do that, right? Yep. That's what I want to do. Alright. Elrath, your turn. She'd probably run. She'd probably - seeing that people are, you know, kind of getting - you know, the idea that we're all trying to get out of there, she'd probably, you know, move - one, two, three - she'd probably move here. She'd just try to get out of there, I guess. Okay. Adolin. You know, Adolin's doing his thing. He's running for two, so he's in full skedaddle mode.

I guess - one, two, three, four, five - oh, right here. I don't want to get too far ahead of everybody. I want to make this a slow getaway so we don't lose anyone, so I won't - I guess I won't use my standard action for more movement. I'll just kind of wait here. That's what I was thinking, too. Okay. Even though this thing can catch us, I'm a little worried. That's - okay. Ephany. I guess I'm hanging out in the backpack, but I'm keeping an eye on the giant and on Arena because she's still not close with us, so just, yeah, hanging out, keeping an eye. All right, so you're with Adolin.

Yep. Okay. And hill giant. Can I underlay my turn? Sure. Underlay! Wow. Nice. Thanks. Okay. Hill giant is going to move up to Arena. Got a target Arena. Gonna use his great club. He's going to miss. And then he's going to take a negative two penalty - oh, no, he's going to be dazed. Sorry. He's going to be dazed. All right. Zoe, your turn. All right, so she's going to look at, you know, Johnny McRandom dude and tell him to get his butt moving, follow everyone. Oh, yeah, he left. Okay. And she is going to move on down the road. Okay, are you using both your movement action or your standard as a move to get out of the combat or just sort of?

Yep, just moving to rejoin the group. So. Okay, Arena, your turn. I'm going to shift and then - Wait, if something is dazed, does it get an opportunity attack? I wouldn't think so. Well, all that still - yes, all that still stands. The only thing dazed does is it gets one action per turn instead of standard in the move. Oh, okay. Sorry. So I'm going to shift away and then I'm going to move my six down to rejoin the group. But, like, I'm going to be like, let's go. Let's go. If we're going to go, we need to go. Wait, I'm sorry, dazed. Yeah, no opportunity attacks or anything like that.

Sorry. So you could take your - So I could take two - Yeah, you could just take your full. Yep. Okay, then I'm out of combat. Okay. Bye. Goodbye, Arena. Elrath, your turn. Same deal. Move out of combat. Okay. Goodbye, Elrath. Evelyn. Oh, you already know. Do we have the same? Evelyn's gone. Okay, you and Efanny then are gone. Sora? Sora's gonna go. Okay. Heinrich. Yeah, the dog's behind us. I yell at the dog. Oh, yeah, dude, the dog's been following. Yeah. Thank God. Hill giant is just - at this point, it's just like, this is fucking too much work. I'm - you know what? I'm too old and rich for this.

And just - And it's just going to let you go at this point. It's just like - because these days, these - it's just - it's not - it is not worth it. And that is going to take you guys out of combat. Oh, my God. That was a successful runaway. Has that ever happened before? Like, you just dip out? Once, maybe twice, something like that, but yeah. Last time I ran away, it ended in death. Well, yeah, some people successfully ran away. This is a clean getaway. My escape was the escape of death. Yes. So you guys are going to get done with this encounter here. And the way you guys exited, I'm guessing you left the tree line here sort of staggered, kind of came out one by one, I'm guessing?

Kind of got split up a tiny bit? Yeah, because we don't all leave at the same time. No, you kind of - you filed out one by one and all of you have different speeds and stuff. So everyone do me a favor, roll a perception check. Crushed it. I did not crush it. Did not. Oh, yeah, Sora, what's up? You me. Typical arena. You know we still alternate, right? Like you and me? It's great. I love it. Let's see here. So Elorath, Avallan, Sora, and Epheni. Everyone's going to look around. Everyone's going to look around once you get out here and you're pretty sure this thing is not chasing you.

Because I believe that's just the main threat. And I guess for the most part this thing had just decided, you know what, this is not worth it. I do not care. So the giant's going to stop chasing you. And getting out of this tree line, looking around you're going to see Heinrich. Heinrich's just sort of like perched on the side of the tree line, just like looking back into it, just kind of growling. Just waiting for something to, you know, and you're going to see arena would be the last one to exit the tree line. Arena's a little slower than everyone else.

Plate armor and all that. But you're not going to see that bystander that you were trying to help in the first place. And you're not going to see Zoya. What? Ooh. Okay. So we see everybody else? Mm-hmm. Quick question is, uh, Efni's still in my backpack. Oh. Um, I'd say, well yeah, I'd say unless she made any effort to get out, like I don't see why not. I mean that would be a quicker means of travel than her running, I think. Oh yeah, I'm still alive. When we're safe and we notice Zoya and the bystander are not there, I'm going to, or Evelyn's going to let Efni down or out of the backpack.

Efni will nod her thanks and climb out and she's going to be looking around and she'll just look at everyone and just say, "Everyone okay?" Yeah. I'm okay. Wait. Where's, um, where's Zoya? Where's the beast? I thought she was with you guys. No. No, I think we all got, like, apart from each other. Like, is she not, did you not see her? Where's that dude? I will be honest, I was, I was too busy running to pay attention to any of that. Oh, me too. Wait. This. Oh. This isn't good. They could be anywhere. Maybe they're still coming. Maybe he was hurt, right? Maybe she's helping him?

Maybe give them a few minutes? Yeah. Okay. Um, what time of day is it? Um, this would be afternoon. Okay. Yeah, because we've been walking for a little bit, right? Yeah. Well, we're kind of waiting. Yeah. I mean, it's just going to be like, "Why didn't you guys leave when I distracted it?" I was giving you time to go. Truth be told, I wanted to have your back. Yeah, me too. I understand that, but, like, we were trying to help somebody, and I was just going to distract it for a minute, and then give you guys time to go, and I was going to catch up. But you guys, you didn't go.

You don't seem like you're the fastest. I wasn't going to, like, outright fight it. I was just going to bang my shield a little bit, run around, and then come catch back up with you guys. It's not the first hell giant that I've had to distract. Hey, you remember that other one? When you scared it away? Yeah, that was pretty great. It didn't work for this one, though. I really appreciate it, you guys, but we can't be stupid about stuff like this. Okay, so, like, maybe if that's going to be the plan, because I... did you say that was going to be, like, you're like, "Get out of here?" I don't know.

It all happens so quickly. Yeah, okay. Maybe next time, if we're like, "Ah, get out!" we need to actually be like, "Ah, get out!" Okay, I'll try better to communicate. Me too. Me three. Yeah. Me four. Of course, I will try my best. However, I've never fought a giant before. I've never even seen one. I used to be an hunter. That was the biggest thing I've ever had the displeasure of looking up at. Oh boy, you just wait. That's like the second one we've seen in, what, like, a week? Wait, what the fuck? Is that really two in, like, one week? Do you think that's the same one?

Could it be? Huh. Question, where did we find the other one? Um, that was actually closer to Odyssea. Okay, so it's like not... So it had to go over the mountain. I'm pulling up my math now. Yeah. Oh, I was going to, but then I remembered. I don't have it on my phone, because my phone did affect what you said. Okay, closer to Odyssea. Oh, that's right. Yeah, okay. Okay. We set out. Oh, oh, okay. Wow. Probably not the same one then. Because I'm looking at the map and I'm like, "Mm, that's a whole lot of mountains." So then, what's happening with the giants? Hmm. So some time is going to pass.

A few minutes while you guys are talking. And you're going to hear the giant. And when it sounds like he sees, while he may have lost interest in you, he's still like moving around and making a whole bunch of noise. And it does sound like he is moving closer to where you are right now. Eh. So you have a choice to make. Either you can get stealthy and hide and wait to see if this person and Zoya turn up, or you can take off, or you can just actively fight the giant and, you know, yeah. You got options. See what happens. Just pick a fight with this hill giant, you know?

No big deal. One that just almost crushed you with like one blow. Yeah. That wasn't pleasant. Your armor has taken such a pounding. Oh, you just had that buffed out. I did. So it's been like... Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry, I think I'm on like such a delay that I can't tell. So it's been like, like six or seven minutes, like 20 minutes. I'm thinking more like, you know, 10, 12 minutes, somewhere in there. Okay. They would have been out here by now. Maybe they went the other way. There's so many trees, they could have got separated. Okay. Should we go try looking for them?

But I don't want to bring that hill giant back down on us. Maybe they, maybe she's like, hey, we're going to Winterhaven. Maybe, maybe do you think they might have gone that way? Like the way we were going before we got all like, oh, run. They could have done. You all hear the giant's footsteps, right? Yeah, we can't figure. I see. We either wait here and we can brace ourselves in case the giant does attack, or we can move and hope for the best. But right now we're sitting ducks in broad daylight. Eloraf's going to turn to Sora. She's going to look right at Sora and she's like, I don't, I don't want to lose another friend.

Sora will look at Eloraf and say, I know me either. But Zoya does know that we're on our way to Winterhaven. If she and the other guy find their way onto a main road. That's probably where they'll be heading, right? I think so. That's what I mean. That's kind of what I was. She's, she's little like, like us. And I, OK. She doesn't have words right now. She's kind of upset. I know what it feels like to lose someone very close to you, someone you believe to be family. And I'm willing to do whatever I can in my power to help that not happen to you. Now, I don't know where Zoya is, and I don't know why she didn't even know to her, just left with some random man.

But if she truly cares about you, if she is truly part of your clan, your faction, your family, then she will be back. If she's not, then you have your answer. Sora will kind of give a small, small, small smile and not at him. Elorath will probably like turn around like she's looking at the tree line and she'll like rub her face like, oh, I'm so frustrated right now. But there's totally wiping it's ear. She's really she's like scared and upset like Zoya is her B friend and she really likes her. Efren is going to just reach out and just put her hand on Elorath.

I'm just just briefly just like offering a little bit of comfort. OK, OK. So, um, do we, um, I guess just keep walking. I think we should move to a different location. Then we have things to talk about. OK, let's go outside. So you guys get back on the road? Yes. I think the main goal is we want to walk away from the area. Yeah, I kind of. Yeah, just the immediate danger of it all. So is this the thing where, OK, you're moving back toward the road and like setting up camp or are you just continuing down the road hoping basically are you giving it more time, but just from a safer locale?

I think we're starting we're going to walk towards I think we're just going to resume walking in the hopes that like Zoya and random person for whom we risked our life. Kidnapper. Of course. Like I think we're just walking in hopes that we'll see them along the way maybe. Yeah, like you keep your eye out, but you keep walking. Yeah, OK. Just like my cat. Oh, well, maybe. Well, here's what's going to happen. You guys are going to continue to walk here and. Let's see. Pts, why did you roll a D 20 Jason like forever ago? Oh, great. We'll see. I wanted to see something.

That's all. OK. So you guys are well, OK, you're going to continue to walk. And I would imagine just kind of definitely keeping an eye out and just hoping that maybe they'll maybe they'll be on the verge of the tree line or there. But you kind of you kind of know that if they OK, I don't want to phrase it like this, but if they're up and about, if they're able to move, then they're probably not going to be anywhere near that tree line like you guys, like you understand the danger of it all. Like you're not going to just stand there. Right. Because if that thing emerges from the trees, I mean, it's already proven to be, you know, violent and angry.

So you're going to continue to keep an eye out, but you're not you're not going to see them. At least at least not yet. So time is going to pass and the sun is going to start to dip in the sky. And you got the option. Here's the thing. It's the 14th Thor. You can continue on and right about now you're in 10,000 horns. It's you would get to Winterhaven either if you kept walking by morning or if you were to camp out for the evening, then you'd you'd probably you'd probably get there sometime in the afternoon, late afternoon, probably. What is 10,000 horns? 10,000 horns is basically that entire area outside of Winterhaven, that that huge valley the Minotaur just sort of named it that.

And no one do people just stop correcting them, basically. Would there maybe be a greater chance of encountering Minotaur here? I know they kind of like up by Ebony Harbor, which is like kind of to the oh, I know my directions west, like north and west. Yes, you you might catch one or two. OK, here's the thing. The name 10,000 horns is a bit of a misnomer. OK. There are not that many Minotaur. Right. Thanks to the dwarves. And they usually hang up by Ebony Harbor and Thunder Spire. That's where you're going to see it. You'll catch a few floating around Winterhaven or something like that.

Do you think everyone will history check if you'd like? Can I have do you OK, so given Elorath's like backstory. You'd know a bit more. OK, so is there like a mod of like a. Well, OK, specifically about the Minotaur, you'd pretty much know where they'd hang out. Right. OK. That was what I was going to ask. Yeah, like you wouldn't have to really roll a history check on that. You'd have to. Yeah, yeah. You pretty much be blind and deaf if you like. Everyone else. So, yeah, like everyone else in the party would have a pretty, pretty generalized like Soren, Ebony would probably know the most about that.

They they originally made their own in the Stone Center Mountains. They were they were chased off and mostly executed by the current leader of the dwarves, Stone Thunder. And then they were driven west. They look for a new home. They ended up settling in Thunder Spire, which is small and leaning and not not for them. And then they eventually sort of there's a decent chunk of them that just sort of migrated west and decided to live in Ebony Harbor in exchange for hunting and protection. That type of thing. So as far as ten thousand horns goes, they just sort of rename that valley and no one corrected them.

And you're the odds of you actually spotting a minotaur out and about are kind of slim. And in this area anyway. OK. I feel like if we are like reaching this is kind of like familiar territory, right? Because Eloraf's from Ebony Harbor. So I feel like her step might I mean, she's still really sad, but I feel like once she realizes that she's in kind of like the ten thousand horns area, I feel like her step might get a little just a touch lighter. Yeah. Like, I mean, there's that feel like it's like, oh, wait, like, oh, I'm almost home. I'm kind of home.

Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. That's why I asked. If we go out throughout the night, you said we'd get there at like dawn? Yeah, probably around there. Yeah, probably just about as the sun's rising. You'd probably get there. Unless, you know, your journey were to be hampered for some reason. What's like the danger level around where we are? What color is the threat level? What color is the threat level? What death con are we at? Well, I can't really tell you that now, can I? I mean, I mean, just like what we know about like the environment and stuff, like what types of dangers there are like.

Well, I'd say with that history check, you'd know that traditionally the stuff that would be. So in this area, mostly traditionally anyway, there's wolves and bears and stuff, and you'd get attacked by by that or like maybe bandits or something in this area. It's not great. Every once in a while, you'd have to look out for something like roving bands of war forged and stuff. That's not really a problem now. But yeah, the closer you get to the city, the more quote unquote, like civilized it is traditionally. OK, so we run the risk of maybe just kind of like generic wildlife for the most part.

That is historically. Yeah. Wait, what did we roll before setting out? I don't think we rolled yet for today. Oh, we rolled and then we got the hill giant. OK, so. Oh, what's the 11 for then? Oh, wait, we already talked about that. You're so suspicious. I mean, it's almost like I repeatedly hit you guys before. I mean, you scared the shit out of us while we were trying to sleep. That's true. I think it's still out there. Oh, what? No, it's not. Some people say we're chicken 2016. We're not about we're chicken. Never mind. Listen, I have an issue. OK. Just one. I mean, honestly, fair point.

Sorry about that, man. It's the truth. So what's the verdict, guys? I mean, I wouldn't mind that. I think you should camp. OK. Let's make a fire. All right. So the sun is going to eventually dip in the sky the rest of the way and make way for night. You guys are going to set up camp here again, way off the road, just to just to make sure that nothing bothers you. Now, who's going to do me a favor and roll a flat d 20 for me? I'll do it. OK. I think it is a little liquid encouragement, but I'm feeling I'm feeling decent. You've got this. Ha ha. It is my media. So you guys are you got your crackling fire going.

It's it's crickets chirping, that type of thing. It's actually really nice that it's just starting to get that, you know, that you know, that point in the year where it's that that chill starts to creep in just as just as like night falls. Like, oh, like it's comfortable during the day and it's like, oh, OK. It's just that you need like a little blanket or something like that just to keep cozy. I want to make sure it's clear that Avalon is like looking out into like the expansive wilderness, just kind of has his eye open just in case he sees anything and a bit like like everyone's going to say no sign of stuff like that.

Eventually, he's going to he's he's going to go over to ethnic and it's kind of like probably argue for a little bit about something. That's about right. Just argue. It's like one of those arguments that's like she's probably trying to convince him of something that's like he's just not budging on it. So they're just like going back and forth. Is that their shtick? A little bit. They argue about nothing? It's not exactly nothing, but it's like it's an argument they have all the time. I told you, you got to replace the paper towels when you're done with them.

Yeah, it was something like that. Told you, put the toilet seat back down when you finished with it. Over, not under. Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank goodness. Wow. I'm sorry. OK. Well, if they're going to have like their like fake argument thingy, I think Elorath would probably like sit down next to Sora. OK, cool. And just like like not really say anything like at first, just kind of like say it like she's like, I just want to be by a friend that I've known for a while. And then she'll look over and she's like, you OK? So I was probably just like kind of staring into the fire.

And she'll kind of lean, like angle her body a little bit towards Elorath and say. I'm I'm holding up, I guess. How about you? I mean, I maybe I guess we should like I feel like. No. If you think about it in it's it's been like not that long and there's been a lot of friends that we've like that aren't here. And I don't know. I'm glad you're here with me and us and everybody. OK, so smile and say. Thank you. I'm I'm glad you're here, too. A lot of people. Have left since we started this. But I think the thing to remember is that we have to keep moving forward.

We have a greater purpose right now. And it would be nothing short of a disservice to those we lost. If we don't stay on that path, you know, I guess I'm just I'm just kind of sad today. I don't know. But I mean, I guess we do have like new friends and she's going to kind of look over it like the rest of the party. And she's going to kind of smile a little bit. She's like, we do got new friends. I just I don't it just makes me I don't like losing people. And that's that's all. It's a lot. So, yeah, I kind of like bury her face in her knees for a second. Sorry, I will put her hand on a shoulder is kind of a comforting pat pat there there.

You awkward child. And she'll kind of like look up and just kind of like smile and kind of do that thing, like where you're sitting next to somebody, just kind of like lean over and put like kind of like nudge your shoulder into them like, thanks. I like that you're here right now. She'll kind of nudge you back a little bit. Love it. Evelyn is actually going to say to Anthony. You saw her right? I think I saw her. She I think I think she was a squirrel this time, or maybe maybe a rabbit. But she's out there watching me. Kayden. I know she's out there. You see you see her right?

No, I didn't see her. I saw forest creatures, not her. You've got to let it go. No, her affinity with nature magic is too strong. She can turn any of these things. She's been watching me. She doesn't trust me. She doesn't think I'm strong enough to save her. So she won't come out. If she wanted you to find her, she'd have. She'd have come to you should have approached you by now. How can you be so sure? I just know. That's what you always say. But I've been waiting. I can't wait much longer. Can I ask a question? Yes. How loud would this be? Very loud. Oh, okay. Well then.

I'm not hiding anything. Okay. I didn't know if that was like a private conversation. No, no, no, not at all. Okay. So the rest of the party would hear this. Okay. And then, um, at least he's kind of has, he kind of has this, uh, kind of like a thousand yard stare going on where he's like just looking out into the vast trees and he's just like looking at any, any squirrel that like walk, like goes into a tree or like does anything. He's just like looking at it for like something special. He's just looking, but it's just so obvious. There's nothing there. He's trying to convince Effie to convince himself, you know, so that is a lot of that going on and it's pretty, it's pretty loud, but it is, this is an argument they have all the time.

Oh, now I feel bad for mocking it. I think we should all talk, have a talk. We haven't been clear about what our motivations are and these people have trusted us with their lives in a matter of days, which astounds me. I don't know what to think about it. And the fact that someone they were traveling with, it's just gone. I can't help but feel like a burden. And that's the last thing I want. So, Avalon is going to, he's going to like, he's going to try his best to gather everyone around if they're willing, if they're not doing anything. Um, yeah, I think we're all pretty gathered though because we're kind of around a campfire, right?

Yeah, but like, you guys are having your own conversation. So I didn't know. To this more like the, like tapping the champagne glasses, like, excuse me, like that type of thing. I've been watching you guys like the whole time. Like she's got a book out, but she's just been like watching you guys. Okay, that's what I was interested to see what Arita was doing. So if she is paying attention, Avalon is going to like basically walk up to her, but like have everyone else like clearly in earshot. He's going to say, I just want to thank all of you again from the bottom of my heart for giving me a chance.

I've, as you can imagine, I've been away from the natural proceedings of this world. I've ran away from it. I've spent a long, long time running and hiding from truths. But I think I'm done with that now. Seeing everyone here and how much just one person leaving meant. I realized this is a chance. A chance for me, a chance for all of you to do something right. I think what happened today could have been avoided. But we've all been a little distant. And I just wanted everyone to know if it's if we're all distant because of me, because of how I am and how I act.

I can change. I don't want everyone looking at me like the way they do. I know I'm a human. But sometimes I don't feel like that. Sometimes I want to make people laugh and smile, but I can't because of the way I look and the way I talk. So I want to change. I want to be someone everyone can rely on. And I think that starts here right now. So I want to I want all of you to know I'm willing to lay my life down. For all of you. Then he's not like he's a little sheepish because he's not used to big speeches. And he just kind of has his head down waiting for like any response yet.

How anybody's feeling about this. I mean, it's going to like close her book and like just put it on a lap and look at you or Evelyn. What do you want? What is your goal? I think we're all a little hesitant because we don't know what you want. Evelyn's going to let out a long sigh. As I said before, I. I had a family. It was more of a clan. They found me when I was younger and I had nothing. They took me in. They taught me everything I knew from how to hunt, how to survive. And how to treasure the people around you. They were not blood, but they were the closest thing I had to a family.

And they happened to be a group of drow. Which. Around the time and around where we were. Was a heinous crime. Eventually. He's gonna kind of look down. Well. We had a leader. Her name was Caden. She loved nature and she loved the way the moon looked. So. She formed a company. From drow from that came from the under underground. And decided to hunt and survive with it for that for themselves. Not wondering on anyone. They decided to take me in. And ever since then, I've always felt like one of them. One day, they were all massacred. All of them, except for Caden.

She was very strong with magic. So she managed to escape by transforming into a small woodland creature. I personally never saw her again. But for some reason, I don't know. I have a strong feeling towards her. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know what it is. I've never had such a strong feeling towards anyone. But I can't let her go. So I decided the best way to bring her back. Was to bring the company back. And it was called the moon flower company. And that is the name of the guild I'm trying to. To bring up and that's why I went to Overwatch. To try to gain favor.

For this guild to spread the word. And you can see how that turned out for me. To be honest, I was very close to giving up. But I ran into you all. And even Ethene here. She's been helping me for a while but to be honest, I was starting to get content with just having her around. My goals didn't seem as important. I just wasn't alone anymore. But now, I see all of you. And to be honest, you are so special. Everything you do is very impressive. Compared to me, I don't have magic. He's going to look at Sora and say, "I see what you can do with a bow." And to be honest, it makes me very envious.

I could never do that. I never had skill. The only thing I could do was run. And now, I think I can use that skill for good. And that's why I'm here. Ethene is here because she has a good heart and she just wants to help me. She didn't have to do this. And every day, the guilt I have just racks up because I feel like I'm forcing her into these dangerous situations. When she could be at home, back at her farm with her family. And Evelyn and her children are going to kind of slump after all that. Ethene will just say, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be here." I thank you for that.

But then, that is my story. I assure you, I have nothing to hide. The only thing I want is to see Caden's face again, but I don't think that will ever happen. Maybe we can help you find her? Do you have any idea of the area she may be in? I don't. This was years ago. Ever since I've lost her, I've been wandering the earth. I mean, I've been wandering Theria. Looking and searching, but honestly, it all feels so hopeless. However, your help, to be honest, it would mean the world to me, but I don't think I could ask such a burden. I think I should be the one to help you.

Well, I mean, that doesn't mean we can't do both. You help us, and we can help you, and we can ask. That is true, but I've been asking for years. No one has even heard of a drow named Caden, and if they did, I doubt they'd tell me, because very recently, I've come to realize drow are not the most favored people in Theria, which sickens me. Well, maybe if we find her, we can change that. When you say, "maybe," when we find her, Aveline's eyes are gonna light up and say, "I can't imagine a world where she just suddenly pops up out of nowhere, but those dreams, that sliver of hope, is what keeps me going on full throttle." Well, come with us, and we'll try to help you, right?

She's gonna kind of look around at everybody, and she's like, "If you want, we can all try to help each other." Because, I mean, we just kind of assumed you would come with us when we were at Overwatch. I mean, do you want? I would want nothing more than to be of service to you. Let's just be friends. Agreed. And Aveline's face is, uh, he's beaming with a smile, because it's not every day someone says, "Let's be friends to Aveline." Yeah. I apologize to the rest of you for springing this on you. I don't, I just want to make it clear, it is not your burden.

You said you wanted to do good, right? Of course. We can all do good things together. Aveline's gonna nod, emphatically. Well, what about the rest of you? Why do you do all of this? Why do you risk your life? Well, I mean, I just want to do good, too. Right? So, like, 'cause, I mean, I don't, you're nice and big, and you look like you hit pretty hard, and you run real fast. But, um, I'm kinda, I'm little, and I can hit real hard, and I just want to use my ability to hit hard, and help people who can't maybe hit as hard. There's no shame in that. Where I'm from, I was taught, everyone has a strength, and yours is very clear.

Yeah, my, uh, he's not really my dad, but, like, the guy who helped, um, like, teach me how to be strong, right? Um, I think he was the only one who didn't laugh at me when I wanted to pick things up and hit things, so, now I just want to do that, and help people who can't hit things. I mean, I was gonna, like, just let out this big sigh, and just, I'm trying to make up for things that I've done. I didn't really have a lot of control over it, but now that I do, I want to do as much good as I can to make up for all the bad things that I've done. That's it.

There's no shame in that. We've all been in dark places before. To be honest, I was in a dark place for a really long time, after the bandits tortured me. What? Oh, yes, after the company was massacred, I was tortured by the bandits. What bandits? Well, I should say the ex-hunters who turned to a life of crime because they couldn't compete in the area with our company. At the same time, they hated the drow, and they were furious about going out of business, so they turned to a life of crime. And eventually, they caught us unaware, and killed most of us.

They knew I was with the drow, and they saw me as a traitor to my own species. They didn't understand it at all. And for weeks, he was going to stop and look down. It's okay. Well, it's not okay, but we got you. But I should say, even though I want to be a hero, I don't think I can be. Because if it came down to it, if I had to go back to that dark place in order to get Kayden again, I would do it in a heartbeat. Well, I mean, just because you have, like, dark there, I mean, you can still be good. This is true. The world is not so black and white. Even I know this.

After some time has passed, Evelyn is going to kind of say, "Are you two specifically all right? I know it's been a while since Zoya has left. How have you taken it?" I mean, Elarath would probably just, like, she'd probably say that. She'd be like, "Um..." I mean, it's not the first time on this journey that we've lost people. I guess I might be a little numb to it now. I'm sorry you have to feel that way. I assure you from this point on, the only way I'll leave you guys is in the dirt. Just, like, smile. Just like, "Let's not make that happen, but that's nice." It'll happen eventually.

It always does. Well, technically. I should say before, I'm no adventurer. All I know and all I've been taught is how to hunt. And the most important thing about being a hunter is having a strong bond with your companions. I like that. So, do we have a definitive plan for when we get to Winterhaven? Does anybody have any ideas? Well, we need to get in touch with whoever's in charge. It just seemed like there was so much to do. I don't even know where to start without their advice. Well, I should say right now, I'm not the smoothest talker, but I'll give it my best shot.

He's gonna give a smile. I mean, he's gonna smile back at Evelyn and just be like, "Well, we can do it together." How's that sound? That sounds great. I like doing things together. Do you guys think we should go straight to the people in charge in Winterhaven or maybe try and get a feel for the city first? Don't we have a message from Liara? Or was it just us coming as representatives? We have money. Oh yeah, we do have money. We have a butt-ton of money. We could, when we got to the city, we could walk around a little bit, kind of see what's what, because it'll be afternoon when we get there.

So we could walk around, look at some shops, scope some things out. Ah, yes. I love shopping. Yay. Shop guys! Maybe we can get like a snack or something, because like, I'm getting really used to eating in the city and not in an attic. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I'm quite adept at getting, I mean, at bargaining. So if you need to sell anything in the city, just let me know and I'll go with you. Ephin is going to be like shaking her head behind him. Like the cut motion. Yeah, nope, nope. Well, I don't know about you guys, but maybe we could all like, maybe we could stay together so we can all go at the same time.

Yes, I like that. I like that. I'll definitely make sure something like today won't happen again. Yeah, that's that's kind of what I was thinking. So if there's like a long silence, Evelyn's going to do that thing where you're like, oh, I know. He's going to say, check this out. He's going to call. He's going to call over Heinrich. Oh, yeah, puppy. And now there's going to say, I've taught him something new. He's going to he's going to say, here Heinrich, fetch. And they're going to go through the motion of what they practiced. Like showing like, ah, look what I taught him.

Yeah, he'd go get it. Bring it back. Just kind of bounding over like, like, you know that thing dogs do where they're like, I like they're there. Yeah, it's like, check this out, like that type of Evelyn is doing the same exact thing. Who's a good boy? I'm a doctor. Oh, then Evelyn's going to say, you know, this is a really good dog. I call you like him a lot. I'm surprised he didn't get spooked by that giant. He's quite smart. He knew not to run in. And they say a smart dog is an old dog. He's going to smirk again while petting Heinrich. I thought you couldn't teach old dogs new tricks.

He's not that old yet. I hope he looked offended at you. Excuse you. He's getting pets, so he don't care right now. Little doggy. I was going to say, aside from that, I think we can turn in for the night. Yeah. I hate to say it, but I think that's probably a good time for us to cut it. I know it's, you know, I know I feel like I feel like that would be pretty good. And I'm thinking the next time we sit down. Let's see, I think I think not only will you guys obviously go to Winterhaven, barring anything truly unfortunate and tragic happening. I think you're going to be finding out what you're going to be doing there.

OK. Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting. It'll be very, very interesting. It it may be helping to tie up a loose end. I have a sorry, so we're on the we're on the 14th of Thorm, correct? It'll be 15th when we start up. Yeah. OK. I can't recall. I'm sorry. When was group one there? Probably before we got there. Yeah, because they're kind of a few days in the past, right? Yeah, they arrived there. Let's see. They arrived there on the ninth and not. Wow. OK, so almost a week. OK, never mind. Yeah. Apologies. No. What were you what were you thinking? I don't know. We've already played with Rob once.

I'm just saying. They move on to the next bit is why I haven't listened to the next. I haven't listened to the most recent. Oh, yeah. Still in town or. Oh, no, I don't want to I don't want to spoil anything for you. They're having a rough. Oh, OK. Yeah, then the next group one is a who it's a doozy. You definitely get that listen. Yeah, I don't work by myself like four days a week now. So I don't have like oh, my listening times are different. Oh, damn. I think you'll like it when you do. Oh, I will love it. I love pretty much everything. There's only been like one episode.

Literally, there's only been one episode I couldn't listen to. And that's the one where Joe got killed. Yeah. No, I that's literally the only one I'm like I downloaded it. I was like, I can't fucking do this. I understand that. That does not get easier when we add Foley. Yeah, Lisa, if I can listen to it, you can listen to it. Well, you know what? I was going to until I saw like a tweet that Brie made about like ripping lettuce. Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, no, I know that. Oh, no. I won't be honest. It's hard to listen to. That's like to this day, like every other one.

I've been able to listen to it. I'm like, yeah, that's me. That's the only one. I tend to listen to episodes more than once. I haven't listened to that one since the first time. Oh, no, it's OK. I mean, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I may go back and listen. Take notes. How not to kill a character. Hey, guys, it's Lisa from Group four. If you enjoyed what we did today, please take a minute. Go over to our iTunes. Leave us a lovely five star rating because it really helps us reach new people and get the word out about our podcast. You could also check out our Web site at the podcast dot com.

From there, you can get to our forums, you can get to our store where we sell awesome T-shirts. Let me tell you, I have like five of them and I love them. Every single one of them. Check out our Twitter, D and our podcast, and we'll talk to you later.