The Grimnas Family Reunion

This transcript is machine-generated and may contain errors in names, terminology, or attribution.

(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+. Howdy everybody, I'm Jason. And I'm Brianna. And today's episode is brought to you by Patreon. Thank you everybody on patreon.com/dandr for supporting the show, for helping us out. We got a lot of great new content thanks to surveys we've been taking.

There's a description for the survey, there's a link in the description of this episode. It's on Facebook, Twitter and our website dandrpodcast.com on the forums. It would really help us out if you guys filled that out. It's great for the show, we've already come up with so many cool ideas for both the Patreon and the actual show because of them. So thank you so much for filling this out. Thank you for checking out our Patreon and we hope you enjoyed the episode. Yep, thanks guys. 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 Kelsey. Hey, I'm Kelsey and I play Arya Lethea, Drow Sion. Michael. Hey, I'm Michael, I play Amvin the Note Taker. And Robert. Hey, I'm Rob, I play Malkus Grimnus, Teethling Warlock. And Rachel. Hey, I play Tevin Brightheart, Minotaur Shaman. Guys, last time on the show you left the Overwatch to head toward Esterhold. Actually it was a fairly smooth trip, it took you a little while. If memory serves, you are kind of descending from the mountains and you're riding into Esterhold on the 16th.

So what is the first thing you'd like to do getting into the city? Because actually, who's been to Esterhold here before? I know Malkus has. Tevin has. Theo has, right? Theo has. If you guys remember after having a chat with the lovely Drow in Fairbay, you guys would have rode through and that's pretty much when the group split up. Arya has not been to Esterhold. Okay. Has Amvin? Nope, I basically lived in that floating city. Nice. We're both foreigners here, high five. Well, here's the thing, even if you have been to the city, you might want to do me a favor and roll a bit of a streetwise check for me because a few things have changed.

I'm so good at that. I'm so good at these. Yay! This, wow. Yeah, natural one. Theo needs to roll, Theo needs to roll. Theo, yeah, his streetwise is through the roof. Okay. Maybe he'll crit. He might. Jesus, run! He's the only one that knows anything, okay. Oh, wow. Okay, well. Theo got the highest streetwise roll for everybody at home. That shouldn't have happened, but it did. Oh, what's the date again? Hmm? What's the date? 16th, as of now. He does have a higher modifier than either Arya or David, so I mean. Well, he grew up in Brightport. Well, partially grew up in Brightport.

So, okay, there's a lot of stuff. So, in the last two, three weeks, a lot of stuff has been changing in the city of Esterhold. There was a bit, for Esterhold, it was a bit of a crime uprising. There were sort of warring factions and stuff like that. Seraph was actually leading the charge after a while. There was a guy named Cecil, Cecil Fowers, who died. There was a faction called the Greycloaks. All that's pretty much done as of now. Even Seraph's been dealt with, kind of driven out of the city. That's all done. After, and no one's questioned him about this publicly, but a lot of people suspect Seraph of murdering the previous mayor.

After that, a new mayor was appointed in Jadci of Grimnus Grace. On top of that, they have had multiple attacks from dragons. They had a lot of rebuilding to do, and the whole city's kind of in a state of flux right now. So, there's a lot of people kind of banging on the mayor's door. She had an open door policy, and once word got out that anyone can pretty much walk up to the mayor's office and not walk right in, but knock and be seen, there was a lot of people requesting aid and assistance. Even the smallest problems were kind of brought to her door.

So, it's been a mess. Boy, a lot of stuff. Theo actually grew up here for the first part of his life, so he would sort of know the lay of the land a bit. All the recent stuff, obviously, is new to him, too. There's new shops opening up, there's new people moving in. It's kind of being pitched as a really friendly place for everyone. No specific race is welcome more than anyone else. It's starting to gain a reputation for that. That's kind of like the new ad campaign for the city type of thing. So, what is the first thing you guys would like to do? What time is it?

This would be, I'd say, afternoon. Almost heading into evening. Almost. Probably should try to find somewhere to rest for the night to get that squared away, at least before trying to find out. Do we want to get on the waiting list for the mayor tomorrow, maybe, before we do that? Oh, I apologize. That would be something, through the streetwise check, your letter did get here and everything's being set up, but there won't be an official meeting to the 20th because your mom will not be arriving until then. Oh. So, we have days to kill. Yep. Did someone tell us that info?

Like, did they check it or something? Yeah, I would imagine part of the streetwise check is just asking around and then probably checking in with the mayor's office, because that would probably be your first stop, almost. So, yeah, all of that would have just been relayed to you. I figure over an hour or two, you guys just sort of gathering information is like taking the pulse of the city type thing. Now, there's a couple of days. OK, there's a couple of ways we could do this. We can kind of just simulate the next few days and whatever you guys might be doing and do it out, or we could roleplay the whole thing.

It's up to you. I'd like to awkwardly roleplay the brothel visit. Why are we going to a brothel? I know there's questions for Malkus that we said we would unpack later when we had the time. Yeah, that's probably the only thing. Like questions from the party to Malkus? Well, we took that tour and then we're like, oh, well, we should probably get on the road and we'll unpack all these questions we have for Malkus about everything. Oh, yeah. And we're like, oh, we'll discuss it later on the road or we had time and now we've got time. Well, yeah, if you want to go there.

We should probably get a room first or something so we have a place to be. Yeah. Also, so if I were to like rack my brain a little bit here, is there anything productive we could do with three days to kill? I know we discussed training Theo or at least trying to find somebody to help him with his armor or practice out. Already got armor help. Yep, that was in Overwatch. But practice while wearing his armor now. Ah. To feel it out and make sure he's not, you know. That could totally be something you do over the next few days. Just get him comfortable moving around in it.

Already we've kind of eliminated the problem of it being too heavy for him to stand up on his own and stuff like that. It isn't nearly as cumbersome as it used to be. We avoided the dragon situation going on further south, right? Yes. Okay, so that's off our radar. Let's go back and get it. Not the city though, just to be clear. Like that is a major concern in the city of Estoril because again, not only did Strahd fly overhead, land just outside the city and start flicking ballistas that were caught in its body just into the city, just demolishing houses.

But then they were attacked by smaller dragons after the fact about a week later. So there's a bit of dragon phobia here in Estorhold. Did those dragons just like follow Strahd away after that or is there... A lot of them, here's the thing. So Strahd came in and the paladins of Kord rode south to Odyssea to take care of that. And the timeline pretty much goes shortly after that, although there was a lot more dragon activity in the area. And this is well after him dying. And they were a hell of a lot smaller, attacked the city and were dealt with. They were killed for the most part.

And there's been minor dragon activity outside the city in the mountains mostly. Every once in a while there'll be one that lands on a path, though, like a major road, which is new and exciting for people. Okay. Well, I guess we can kind of keep our ears open and just, you know, if there is danger in the intervening time, we can help the city. Certainly make a case that we're productive members of society. Yeah, I can get behind the whole checking into an inn thing that people were interested in. Sure, nothing else comes to mind right now. Sounds good to me.

Agreed. All right. There's a lovely and affordable place. It's got a great reputation in the city called Doric's House. It's this cute little B&B. It's lovely. The whole thing is run by Doric Ulcers. And again, very reasonable prices. Like, it's another one of those places, something like an Aubrey, where it's just this quaint little house. And they only have a few rooms, but that would probably be like a nice full service thing. You'd basically have the place to yourself. Now, the other option is you could stay in a bigger inn, but yeah, you can get your armor clean.

You can get all that done. And yeah. I vote for that. Yeah. Sounds fun. Have the whole place to ourselves. Yeah. Besides, we want to keep a low profile anyway. That's a good way to do it. Yeah, you're not staying with anybody else. So it's, yeah. So yeah. Do they have accommodations for a minotaur? Ahhh. Few do. Not the stable out back. A room. Well, okay. The room? Yes. So they have like the equivalent of like a nice queen size bed. You can kind of like, you might have to like scrunch a little or your feet or your hooves might hang off. But still, still pretty comfy.

Bathing is always tricky, but they do have, they do have like a, like a tall, like shower type of thing where they just sort of pour bucket water over top of. So it's not, it's not the comfiness of a tub. I don't know if they have a tub big enough, but. Yeah, we got a few days to find one. Yeah. We need to make one and then keep it on the carriage. Oh, it'd be like a hot tub limo. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We just, no, we just like tack on a caboose to the carriage. It's actually the tub. We just remove the wheels before we use it so we don't fall away. Let's make it more cumbersome.

It's great. We should see about upgrading our carriage while we're here. That's, that's season two. Luxury carriage. It's Pimp My Carriage Theory Edition. That's, that's what we're doing. We'll put the mounted guns on the side. We'll invent the mounted guns first. Yes. So, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna check you in and get everything ready. And I assume you just tell him that you're staying for at least a few days. You don't exactly know how long, something like that. Okay, so we got you guys checked in. You guys, you said you wanted to talk? Yeah, I would say, well, you say it's like evening, so it's like dinner time.

Yeah, somewhere in there. I'd say it's about time to grab a bite. Sun will be setting soon and yeah. I mean, we can just eat at the, our new house that we're crashing. Maybe go ahead and like, we'll get dinner and while we're sitting around the dinner table. Yes. Sounds good to me. Like nobody's arguing, so I'm guessing that's fine. Because we're thinking with our stomachs. So as we're sitting down to dinner, how notelessly different is Theo's armor now as far as the noises that it makes when he moves and stuff? Because it was a thing before. Well, okay, it's still bulky armor.

Like it's still, like he's still trying to be the tank, right? He's still trying to be up front and everything. So it's still bulky, it's still probably larger than what he should be wearing, but compared to, basically he was wearing an old like refrigerator. As like one of those big boxy refrigerators with a latch and his head popped out and there were arms wiggling, but that's it. That's basically what he was wearing before. This is so sexy and streamlined compared to that. But yeah, it still makes noise, still a little bit cumbersome compared to like wearing leather armor or something like that.

But yeah, it's a lot better than it was. Awesome. Well, I guess as everyone's like sitting down, I guess, very kind of nice. So how's the new armor feel? It's nicer. It's lighter, that's for sure. I don't break out into such a sweat when I move. Well, it certainly sounds better and it looks good on you. I don't know what that role is for, but it's great. Theo, okay, Theo's going to very perceptively like blush. He's very like, it's like, oh, thank you. That type of thing. Just very, like very rosy cheeked. That's how he's going to, yeah, he's going to take that as a compliment.

Okay, yeah. I feel like Aria probably wouldn't pick up on that and just go back to start eating and stuff. Oh boy. Anyone else wants to say something? That'd be great. I feel really awkward right now. So is he still in the armor or did he take it off for... He's kind of always in the armor. That's what I assumed. Yeah, it's, I think he's just sort of used to the other armor being so cumbersome to put on and take off that it's like, you know what, just leave it on. It's just easier. But yeah, it's one of those things you have to retrain himself to like, oh, I could put this on pretty easily so I don't have to worry about it.

So Envid would look over at Theo and be like, well, look good in that armor. It's good. I'm sure it'll be coming handy in the future. How are you feeling overall? I'm fine. I mean, you know, all things considered, it's been a nicer few days, like quiet. Definitely. I got a lot of notes in during this ride. It was strangely quiet and calm for Theria. What are you taking notes on? For my thesis, for my book so I can get in to be an archmage. It's about... Oh, sorry, go on. No. I think you'd be more confused by that as an explanation. You have to do a book report?

In a way. In a sense, just because you go to school there and learn all about magic and you may learn all these magic spells doesn't exactly mean that you just jump to the top of the leadership and become the archmage that everyone knows and respects. You kind of have to prove yourself. So all graduates, before they can go further on to become an archmage, they have to pick something to study. It could be anything they want. They then have to either prove or disprove that and show it to the council for admission to become into the group of elders. Well, become an archmage.

And then there's even more things to do there. Oh, that sounds like a lot of work. It can be. But I think it's worth it. I've been trying to prove myself for a long time. What's the city like? It's amazing. I wasn't born there. I moved there, much like most people that become students there. It's like two different worlds from going from down here, being up there. You always have like no worries until things from down here, start coming up and getting involved. But most people don't even stay up there and live there. The shopkeepers, the students that just stay there.

They hardly even know this area down here exists. But it's blissful. Most of the time. And you can just spend all of your time just reading and studying. Yeah, you generally find your purpose. Well, first you start with your, when you find a school, you follow what the school's purpose is for you. And then you can find your own. But I kind of knew what I wanted ever since I got there. And what was that? I always wanted to understand how we were, how people are put together. How our friendships made, you know, just how friendships are made and how we all want to meet and talk to people or why people like to be alone or why is, why do we separate?

And he'll kind of look like he's going back to his notes and then he'll put his notebook away and almost looks like there's something hidden in there. Hmm. That's, Aria looks like just like interested in what he's saying, like shitting her body along and stuff. Sounds like an impractical field of study. Impractical how? So you're just studying friendships and relationships and... More? How about you can go this deeper in, that's what I can just figure out is why? How are you bonded to your magic? How does that come to you? Does it come to you because of a god?

Does it come to you because you have something inside you that actually lets you tap into something? Is there something more there? Is that magic strengthened or weakened based on being close to other people? How has our bonds to each other and everything changed the way the world works? Ah, I see the use for that then. Sounded very fluffy the way you talked about it earlier. It was very fluffy when I got there, that's for sure. I grew up with nobody, so I was looking for somebody and my first bond was Uminiro. Hmm. And it had some effect on, well, did just having a bond there affect your magic above and beyond being in a place where mages study?

I would say I didn't even realize the bond until I had years and years of studying of how the magic works. But I do believe that my theory at the moment is the stronger you have a bond with something or someone, the stronger that power is. My current highlight theory is our recent event where we were all very close to losing a lot. And I feel like in Theo's example, he was so close to wanting to stay alive and really hated that guy, and I think we all hated that guy. And the bond of all of us helped focus that magic, but I have to prove it. I have to prove all of this.

Well, it seems like the psion assists are your strongest case so far. I'm not sure if my magic has any particular bent toward my emotions, although I do tend to fight well when I'm angry, but that might just be anger. But the psions, I've seen them grow in strength as they experience heightened emotion. So, and he just gestures a hand over to Arya, exhibit A, I guess. Jason, does Uminir have a lot of knowledge on psionics? They have some, but it's not really as like, there haven't been a lot in the city to study or anyone there trying to work on their power.

So it's, I think the basic knowledge would be that they don't live to be very old. A lot of them don't get control of their power. A lot of that power manifests in your teenage years, something like that. And they would write down everything that they would know about it and sort of take reports or stories or whatever. And a lot of that power manifests at some point from having something traumatic happen in your life. So a lot of that basic knowledge, nothing too in-depth after that. Okay. So when Malkus, Arya isn't really paying any extra attention, but when he gets towards her, she's going to kind of look a bit confused and then put two and two together and then, wait, is that the word for it?

Sion? You said earlier that you didn't know, but that's, and she's going to kind of glance towards Anvin. Do you know anything? I have a cursory knowledge of psionics. It's a power manifested by, well, we don't really know the source, just like we technically don't know the source of magic. You either have it or you don't. And sometimes you get control, sometimes you don't. I imagine that I would just see it as more raw form of magic that takes, it's even harder to control. Sort of an instinct thing. Yeah. And for me, it took years and years of meditation and focus to get where I am.

Have you met a lot of psionics or, as far as I know, they've been really rare and I only have very few notes on them. Me? Yes, you seem to know a lot, Malthus. I only know what I've observed, but between Arya and my prior companion, that's two that I know of. As I look over at Arya, what has been your experience with your power? If I may ask, I know it might be a touchy subject. No, it's fine. And by the way, just before when he was talking and stuff, she was hanging on his every word. I mean, this is the first I've even heard the word "psion" before. I really never knew what it was.

I just thought it was some sort of magic something. I worked a lot, kind of by myself, on trying to control it or make it more useful. But I mean, it kind of worked. But before, and she'll kind of glance towards Thea, it really just sort of happens a lot in the moment. I don't think about it. It just happens. But you say you've had more luck in manifesting since you've joined this group, or has your powers been about the same? It's always been better when I'm around people. I don't really know why. What you said about bonds, maybe? When I'm alone, it's just more difficult.

It's kind of hard to explain. It's really more of a feeling than anything else. Well, what you said about learning to control your own magic, do you think that might be able to help with me? I think it's worth a shot. I mean, I've honestly never tutored a psion before. But I did tutor other entry level students in Umeniro to help them get past their barriers. A lot of people who technically have the spark in them have a barrier that stops them. For a while I was tasked with helping them break that barrier and get past their entrance exams and become a far better mage.

So we can try. I know Theo has some magic in him and maybe we can take him together. I don't know if you've given a thought about either learning to meditate more on the magic and maybe it helps you in battle or if you want to join in or not. I know we've had a chance to discuss since we talked last. Maybe? Maybe we're in a place where we're not around a lot of people and we could maybe practice in the woods or something? I appreciate that. Sounds like a caution is always good to have. No, no, I think it's a good idea. Yeah. Theo and Aria should be practicing together.

Don't you agree, Tivi? That would be great. And I can stay off to the side in case you guys hurt each other to apply bandages. But we want to give them plenty of space to test this emotional bond thing. I think there's room to grow in power. And Malchus is just kind of suppressing a grin, looking back and forth between the two of them. So borderline a smirk. Yeah, the longer this goes on, the more it OK. It originally sent all the ideas like, hey, do you want to practice magic and get better at it? And then the longer this goes on, it's like, wait a second.

Like it's slowly it's like at first he he kind of thought it's like, wait, do you want us to fight each other? Is that is that what you want? And then, yeah, slowly but surely, he's just kind of like something's up. I'd like to believe that Amven has actually just focused on the whole bond theory. Right. A lot of this is like, oh, Aria is too. She's just like, yeah, no, that sounds like a good idea. That makes logical sense. Yeah, you had a you had an outrage exploding moment when that happened. It's perfect. Exactly. While the two of them are over there doing the math, Malchus just kind of looks at Theo and just kind of winks at him.

May I also say every time the quote unquote incident is is mentioned where where Theo basically guns down that dude with lightning. There is not it's deep shame every time it's mentioned, like he looks down. He's not he is not proud of that at all. Like that's not a thing that he's that that's not a hurrah moment for him. Is that an insight or a perception? Yeah, I was right on the face of it. It's not like he breaks eye contact, kind of like disengages a little bit. Just like what he's hearing is is is basically like, yeah, you're right. I fucked up. I should have done that.

Like he's very, very much that. OK, I'm making a note of that. By the way, what is what is the food that we're eating? I want to get an atmosphere here. Are there any special dietary restrictions for the group? Just just wondering, any vegetarians, any vegans, anything like that? I think Teveen would stay away from beef, but otherwise, you know, I mean, just throwing that out there. Do you know that that is not a common minotaur thing? Minotaurs eat beef all the time. It's weird. Yeah, I don't think I don't think Teveen would. That's fair. I mean, it's the same with the reason she doesn't wear leather, but, you know.

Right. Yeah. And actually, I was going to ask, is the owner of the place there or do they basically just like sign us in and leave us the keys? Well, because there's so many of you, it's it's almost like an Airbnb thing. The guy lives next door proper. Right. So it's pretty much like, oh, you've got every room in the place. Please don't break anything. Here are your keys. I will be next door. If you need anything, ring this bell and I'll hear it and I'll come over and grab you fresh linens or whatever you might need. OK, because then I figured if he left us, like Teveen would probably start cooking in the kitchen if anybody wants to like help out or whatever.

But because you guys seem to be like talking and stuff, it's like it's dinnertime. Maybe we should start making food unless like somebody is there making it already. So she'll kind of be like coming in and like maybe saying down plates of like, you know, salad or whatever she can kind of scrounge up in the kitchen. I don't think she's going to be much of a cook per se. So you guys are get weak ass tea and some salad. Ramen. She can sew, but she can't. Can you say cook a salad like is that technically? She washed the greens and then put them on the plate.

OK. I grilled the lettuce, everyone. It's delicious. Malchus will offer to help in the kitchen if Teveen would like. Aria would also offer to help. Oh, communal dinner. Yeah. Any of you guys that can cook are more than welcome to assist. And she's got to look at her. I'm not going to say it's like a bad salad, but it is like when you think of rabbit food, it's like the lettuce with maybe a few hacked up tomatoes and like some shreds of carrot on top. It's like, oh, OK, let me ask a question. Jason's nightmare. Well, yes, it is. But OK. So is this like everyone's when everyone hears dinner in the group, does it conjure like is it like everyone kind of has that one big sit down meal at the end of the day where it's like, oh, we're going to have roasted boar or something like that.

So in the parks and recreation, that is is the group right now is is that like the Chris Traeger making like, oh, I'm going to make steak, but it's really like mushroom steaks. It's not really steak. It's and everyone goes, oh, that's not what I was expecting. Is it is it something like that? Or did everyone pretty much know by now? That's like, oh, that's TV. She's going to make she's going to make like something with lettuce in it. Not even a salad. Something with a lettuce. Something with a lettuce. I assumed as soon as that TV was like, I'm going to go make something.

Everyone's like, yep, I better go help. I'll be in there in a minute. Better put this book away and get over there. Also, does everyone else not eat beef around to being I don't know if my character would be a hipster or not. I'm thinking of the human hero lifestyle. Malchus wouldn't wouldn't not eat beef unless he specifically got like a look or a hint from TV. To be would let you eat whatever you wanted to be like, oh, you're eating beef. How dare you? She understands people eat whatever they want and she chooses to eat whatever she wants. OK, so you're you're a good vegetarian, not the type that pushes.

OK, cool. She's not even strictly vegetarian. She'll eat chicken and like everything else. Just not beef. OK, cool. If there's like a slab of boar. Sure. Boars are fine. And everything's fine until we have a pig man join the group. And then, yeah, well, that's that's his thing, you know. Oh, the Talor pig man. That's going to be I mean, I had to stop beating cats when Susan Susan came. I like that now we can pronounce his name. OK, so we're all I think everybody volunteered to help in the kitchen more. Yeah. So you know what? Let's hmm. I feel like cooking's wisdom.

Let's yeah. Let's use wisdom. That would be great at wisdom. Let's yeah. I mean, so you might OK, you might be one of those people. It's like I know how to make that. I would need it, but I know how to make that. You know what? Let's have everyone roll a wisdom and we'll kind of combine the roles to see how well everyone works together. We're on an average. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, good lord. Yeah. OK, sweet. How has this never come up before? Malchus can cook like a god. That's because he just heats everything in his hand. He's like, here you go. Let me let me ask a question.

So as far as Malchus is cooking. Oh, it's super spicy. How spicy? Like, is this a thing or is it? I don't want to I don't want to profile. But so far on the show, tieflings have had a predilection toward towards spicier stuff. So is this is this something that it's not it's not so much that things are like extra spicy. It's just that everything is somewhat spicy, right? All his sweets have like some amount of cinnamon. All of his pastad dishes have some amount of cayenne pepper or something like it's everything is everything is spiced in some direction, but not necessarily a ton.

Right. So. OK, so even like your bowl of cereal in the morning, like instead of putting sugar on it, you put like cayenne pepper. No, no, no. Because that's where cinnamon comes in. Right. Cinnamon for sweet things. That's the spice that goes there. And then, you know, there's other there's there's an appropriate spice for every kind of flavor in his mind. So it's not just like hot spice all the time. It's like flavor spice. Yeah. Yeah. Like sometimes it's bitter stuff. Sometimes it's you know, it's more herby kind of. But no, Malchus, if you if you bring up that like Malchus, you know, is like, oh, wow, you're kind of a good cook out of nowhere.

He just like nonchalantly comments. Well, I throw a lot of fire. I've seen a lot of flesh burn. I just tend to know when things are done. Wait, that got dark. I'm sorry. Never mind. That would mortify Theo. Like just like because the innocence of it is like it's like, oh, what did did your mom teach you how to cook? It's like, no, I've roasted a lot of flesh. It's like, oh, God. And then when Theo comments on that, he's Malchus just kind of pauses for a minute. He goes, sorry, I. It just occurred to me, we've spent so much time on the road and fighting and rushing, and I just it's nice to get in here and cook and relax a bit.

I feel like I've just we're just nonstop sometimes. So you guys have made a lovely little meal. This is this is this is nice. Like it's probably rare you guys get a nice home cooked meal to sit around and even rare that you guys actually have facilities to cook in and all kind of work together. Like usually got the campfire rocking. So you'll have something on a spit or something kind of quick and portable, jerky, that type of thing. Dried meats. This is this is nice, though. You got like multiple courses go and everyone makes a little something kind of like a potluck and brings it together.

So sweet salad. That sweet salad. I feel like Amphen would bring like a special from Uminiro, like a delectable, whether it's a dessert or something. Show off. I feel like I feel like Theo would probably not want to get in the way and at the risk of like hurting something like he'd cut cheese or something like that. He would just have like it's like I'm helping like just kind of like, all right, I'll move the salad away. And I didn't mean fart before anyone types it in the chat. There you go. OK. I meant literally just cut cheese. Here's OK. That's something I was going to ask about Aria because we've asked about everyone else's.

So I was refraining. Right. Aria was. Aria has been living underground now for a while. Cooking below is a little different because you have a different set of ingredients. So there's things like roasted spider and like, you know, so it's almost like crab legs, like you just crack up. Yeah, basically crab. Yeah, it's basically crab. So then there's that and worms and and things like that. Mosses probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Also, picture when I say worms, I don't mean like a bowl full of like like maggoty type worms. I mean thick, huge grub type worms that like you like Thanksgiving turkey of worms.

Yes, like it spills over out of your hands. Like a worm the size of a terrier. But then like it's been like in the oven and like golden brown. Yeah. So imagine like stuff like that, like you roast it and then you cut into it and you mix a nice sound and kind of like things spill out of it. And it's delicious. So what what would Aria's contribution to this be? OK, but then also that plus whatever seafood ish. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like a mix of different things. She did roll like pretty, pretty highly decent on the whole like cooking thing. So I feel like after a lot of years making stuff like that taste good, she probably has a lot of experience taking what you can find and making it into something edible.

That actually tastes kind of nice sort of thing. Does that make sense? No, totally. And I mean, it all depends on what Aria would want to cook because there'd be like a shop in town. Like you can get exotic goods. There are some drow who kind of like, man, I could go for a taste of home. I I wonder if anyone's got a nice spider, something like that. I wonder if that let me go down to the market and see how much you pick them up. Yeah. They like to go if we're going like that way, then she's going to be getting seafood. OK, cool. Because that's home for her.

So I would I don't know, like nothing too expensive. I mean, I think if you're going for like a seafood on a budget, then you're looking for like a scrod, something like that. Just kind of. Yeah, it's it's a decent it's not it's not too fishy a fish and it's pretty cheap. Do they have a mushroom sauce? There you go. Again, I don't want to overthink that. I think it's a good idea to go for a scrod with a mushroom sauce. I think it's a good idea to go for a scrod with a mushroom sauce. I think it's a good idea to go for a scrod with a mushroom sauce. I think it's a good idea to go for a scrod with a mushroom sauce.

I think we're doing a good job gathering character witnesses of strong credibility, but it's a tricky philosophical situation that we're in. Right. Because giving me Winterhaven's blessing to do what I did sets a precedent. That others could follow others whom I might disagree with their means or their terms or their willingness to. Break a few eggs to make an omelet, so to speak. I don't know how it's going to go. I will make the best case for myself and my own decisions when we get right down to it. But. Well, I'll do my best. And I thank all of you for your contributions and doing your best so far.

It's good to feel like I have a team on my side. Is there anything you would want us to help you in any regard? I know we go to these meetings and we're we're pretty quiet because we don't know a lot of what occurred. We heard the story, but I don't know if there's any way you'd think that we would be more helpful in these meetings or what we're doing is fine. And the best way for you to help me is to supply the outside perspective that I lack. I can only view this situation through my decisions, my actions, my eyes, as Malchus Grimness. I need all of you coming from your various histories, your various places, your various morals, ethics to catch the things I'm missing and make me aware of them.

The more I have the edge cases covered, the ones that I wouldn't notice based on my own instincts, the better off I'll do. OK. I can agree with that. We can help that way as much as we can. Thank you. So I guess the short version is if you see something that you feel like I'm missing, speak up. Tell me. Ask questions if you need something clarified. The more you know, the more you can run it through your perception, your filter and discover things that I might have missed. I can definitely do that. You can see that that's like serious. Like, oh, yeah, I got this research thing in the bag.

I'm in my element. Check out these tables. We'll do an end of day recap and then we'll go over everything and create an agenda for tomorrow. I brought charts, everyone. Get your action items ready. Yes. So is there anything we should hear coming from you versus coming from somebody else? You don't want us to be shocked by. I've been traveling and fighting and slaying creatures and punishing criminals for some time now. So much so that some amount of it does blur together. So I can't necessarily bring up everything. Obviously, you know. The decision I made on the battlefield to do what I did to the war forged, I once again defend that decision as a pure numbers decision.

If 90 percent of their population was fighting for the enemy. The math played out that it was of the most benefit to making sure the Overwatch would be overthrown if I did what I did. Other than that, I've been involved in some amount of vigilantism at certain points, though at this time I'm trying to go more by the books, at least by Winter Haven's books. My current instinct is that if they do decide to imprison or kill me, I will attempt to flee because I am much more useful to the Peace of Theria free than I am to the Peace of Theria locked up. I can't imagine myself deciding in any other way on that point.

I know that ultimately makes me lawless and makes me a betrayer of the very people I swore to serve. I guess that makes that the path I'm going to walk if they decide not to stand by my decision. But don't take that as a sign that I'm not conflicted about it. It will hurt and it will bother me to walk that path if forced. And I sincerely hope that I'm able to continue working with Winter Haven. Certainly there's some amount of good leadership there and some amount of good for Theria that can be done through the leadership there. But I'm not going to be locked up.

And I'm certainly not going to a guillotine or a headsman's axe or whatever the method. You have to fight to survive. And I'm not going to waste my life rotting in some cell or waste it cut off this young. There are things to be done. I intend to do them. And we'd like to do them with you. I'm glad to have your support. Is there anything else you guys want to talk about over dinner? By the way, I can't promise I can cook this well again. This seems about in the top 5% of my performance if I were to estimate. So don't necessarily count on going this well every time.

But this stew, this turned out rather good. The spices and the potatoes. I'm taking notes. I'll try to do it this well again. We've got a few days in town, so maybe you can try again tomorrow. There we go. Practice makes perfect. And who knows? You could try something new for breakfast. What's spicy and breakfasty? I made breakfast stew. It makes monkey bread. It's got cinnamon in it. Look, you can be a jack of all trades or you can specialize. I've chosen my path. I was thinking like a spicy sausage with peppers and onions and eggs. I like the way you think. Would you guys like to just sort of simulate the next couple of days and get to the meeting?

Oh, I was just going to say with like three days to go through and the recent compliments on Malchus's cooking, he's probably going to take this chance to take a breather from serious stuff and be like, sure, let's cook things every day. Let's get some actual practice. Yeah, I think Tavine would try to fix the stitching on the carriage. Oh my gosh, is she going to do it like as a surprise? Like, I'm just going to walk out there one day and it's going to be like... Beautiful. You could put a bow on it like in the Lexus commercials for Christmas. Yes. Can I put a bow on the horses too, even though there's nothing new about them?

Just to make them pretty? Yeah, get them a nice good comb. Brush their hands. Give them flower crowns. Yes. They will always know who we are wherever we go. So how's about we do start advancing time, but people jump in when they say, OK, so Arya wanted to talk to somebody, right? Or was it a group thing? Well, it was kind of no, it's not a group thing, but I mean, like it's actually perfect. So you were talking about like cleaning horses and stuff. I feel like Arya would want to help out with that. She likes animals and whatnot. So that would be... So taking care of like the carriage and horses and stuff like that, you got some time.

You can't really do anything else. So like it's yeah, you might as well take care of them. God knows they could use a little pampering too, I'm sure. Yeah, they had to go through like the river and stuff. So they're probably pretty muddy. So we got to clean them off. Oh yeah, carriage is probably filthy too. You remember it got submerged in, yeah, so... So we're cleaning off the carriage and the horses. OK, gotcha. Yeah. So while that's happening, like Arya and him chatting with Tevine about stuff, I don't know, but really... About horses and things. So how did you learn to do first aid and heal like you do?

Well, when I grew up on the farm, I had to kind of help watch over Derek, you know, when he was in classes and things that I was kind of left out of, you know, because he was an elf and the master and everything. He got to attend special classes, so to speak. I would sit with some of the other help and they would teach me how to stitch, how to sort of how to cook. Not my thing. And she's going to kind of do that look, you know, the remembering the salad as good as it was. I would just pick up other skills as I felt I needed to. And then I picked up more of the first aid when I lived in the Evergreen with the elves for a while while I was learning to be a shaman.

You can't do all one thing all the time. You have to give yourself mental breaks. You know, what are your other skills besides punching things when you get mad? Well, I used to. I still do like to read a lot. And I mean, I kind of draw and take notes of wildlife and stuff like that. But not too useful when it comes to other things. I picked up a few skills here and there, I guess, kind of like you when it was necessary. But do you know I was underground for a while? There's not really much to do in the ways of hobbies down there. I mean, even if it's something small, like catching, she's like almost looking like she isn't sure what you would catch underground.

And she'd be like, spiders? You guys have spiders, right? That's that's one thing. She'll nod like, yeah, yeah. OK, like even if it's something like that, you know, you're learning a skill, you're working on pande coordination, something that can benefit you in other ways. So I say if it's small, it's still something, even if it doesn't seem that important to other people. It's like sewing might not seem important to Anvin, who reads all the books, but I can't read a book. I mean, I can read a book. I can't read a book. Well, I read slow and I don't really like it.

I find it boring. And she's going to smile like a giant you book people are weird. But, you know, that's different. People like different things. Yeah, I mean, I know I just asked him to teach me some stuff about magic, but if I don't know if we're on the road sometime, I'd like to be able to help out a bit more after battles and whatnot. You kind of do a lot of the work, pretty much all of it when it comes to that sort of stuff. And I mean, I know I'm not going to be like a healer or anything, but I want to be able to help more. You mean just basic first aid type?

She'll nod. I know a bit. I'm, again, underground kind of a necessity, but not anywhere nearly as skilled as you are. Taveen looks beaming, like really excited that somebody wants to learn something from her, even if it is just, you know, first aid stuff. And she's like, well, I can definitely show you what herbs are good for burns versus wounds kind of stuff. I can definitely help with that knowledge and I can show you how to properly wrap a wound. She looks like really excited. Like she's, you know, she's kind of like stitching. I imagine she's working on kind of the seating inside the wagon, like she's working on cleaning out some of the mud and inspecting the stitching along it to see what she's going to have to do to fix the mess that is in there.

Aria is also going to kind of be back and she's also going to get a bit excited. She likes learning stuff too and seem to be excited. It's good. Happy. Yeah. Hopefully we won't have any more battles in the coming future, but if we do, I'll point things out as I remember and show you. That would be fantastic. Thank you. I mean, I'll even take notes so it's written down and I'll look forward to that a lot. And as kind of a trade off, could you maybe show me some of your drawing? You said you do drawings, so maybe you could share those? She'll kind of blush a bit.

It's not really much. You can definitely see them. It's more of sketches. I just, I read a lot of books on animals and plants when I was little and trying to sort of piece that together with what we see in our travels and just... My dad always used to have flowers and when he was out working in the fields would pick them and bring them in at night. So I like flowers. She's smiling pretty big. It's been a while since I've been able to talk to someone about stuff like that. That'd be really nice. I can sew, but I can't draw. Well, I can't really sew at all.

So that's pretty cool. I got you covered if you need patches on those clothes. I guess she'd go back to kind of stitching and small talky stuff. I think Theo will go back to probably brushing the horses or something. She's also going to braid their manes and their tails just to clean out there. That's definitely a thing. What would everyone else be doing for the next few days? Just kind of generalized stuff, going to the shop, you know, little things like that. Just sort of relaxing. Theo would definitely not be looking to leave the house too often. Just kind of be sitting around in the place.

Does he look like depressed? Not depressed. Just maybe laying low a bit. Similar to, okay, if I had to compare it to something. Not to the level of what Malkus was doing when you guys were in Winterhaven. Just like cloak up type of like, "Oh, I don't want anybody to know me." But definitely just like if it's like, "Hey, we were going to go to the store." And it's like, "I'm good." Whereas normally he would probably jump on there and kind of hang out with everybody. It's just like, "Nah, I'm going to kick back for a while." That type of thing. But it's in every time situation.

Every time someone's going to leave the house. He just withdraws a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, Malkus will swing by on that one. So are you soaking or just enjoying quiet time? Me? Yes, you. The one who's been indoors for days now. I'm not sulking. I just kind of wait until the meeting. Do you have any hobbies? Aren't you bored? He's going to. He's obviously being evasive, but well, I mean, last week or so was pretty exciting. I mean, bored is good, right? It's nice to not have anyone trying to kill us, but you're sure you don't want to go do something else? I mean, seems a shame to just sit in here.

What are you? Are you reading? What do you do? I didn't really. I didn't really bring a book or anything. I guess I should. I should get a book just to kind of have something in the off time. We usually are pretty busy, though, so it hasn't hasn't come up. What do you like fiction or nonfiction guidebooks? What what sorts of things do you read? I like detective stuff. Detective stuff? Yeah, like like solving, you know, solving a mystery, that type of thing. Fascinating. Are there many authors in Theria supplying that sort of fiction? I've never I've never read any myself.

I had a couple things from Aubrey at one point. There wasn't a ton of Brightport, honestly. There wasn't. It wasn't a big following for that kind of stuff. That strikes me as odd, though, it's a bigger place. You would think that sort of thing would be available. He's going to draw a blank like, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Anyway, you want to come along? You want me to pick you up something while I'm out? He was going to look around. Actually, do you do you have a second? Go on. And he's going to lower his voice, kind of kind of look around, making sure that like it's just just him and Malchus.

I'm kind of just avoiding someone while I'm here. I there's I have family in the city and I'm I just I really don't want to deal with any of that right now. I mean, I know we got to be here for for for the meeting and everything. And I'm I'm totally fine with that. I just kind of want to get in and get out, you know. I see. I understand. Is it is it strictly personal or is it legal slash criminal? No, no. What? No, I mean, like, are you avoiding being outside because there might be some kind of scene or argument or? Scene maybe. My mom lives in the city and I just she can be.

Difficult. So it's some. It's just better not to not to deal with her right now. It's it's probably just better to breeze into town, get out, and hopefully she'll just never even know that I was here, you know. Difficult judgmental, difficult fawning. What what sort of difficult? Difficult violent? And he's got like very like little teen voice, like going way up, just kind of like it's hard to describe. She's actually a really she's a really powerful mage. She's kind of semi well-known in the city. What's her name? Tanya. Her last name's Annlyn. I don't I kind of took my dad's last name.

Does that ring a bell for Malchus or anything? Roll a streetwise check. Streetwise or history? Probably better at the streetwise. So let's do that. That's pretty good. Yeah, 22. Yeah. So when it comes to when it comes to power, she is a lady of note in in Astarholts. Lived here for decades, lived here the better portion of her life and yes, sort of developed a reputation. If for no other reason than kind of violent outbursts with people not above flexing that that that magi muscle to to prove a point or outright hurt somebody to to get what she wants. And as such, she's never really been invited to like large kind of there are not conventions, but there are mages that get together outside of Uminero to discuss like, oh, like, you know, there's all kinds of techniques and things like that and just knowledge.

Magecon. Yeah, it's something like that. She has been openly barred from these get togethers and they usually try to hold them in secret away from her. She is not allowed in the city of Uminero. There's there's a lot of things like, yeah, she's she's got quite the rep. OK. Actually, I've heard your mother's name before then. I understand your trepidation. Under other circumstances, I might encourage you to go out and face this situation and perhaps find some room for personal growth, but considering we have a rather strict timeline to keep me from becoming a wanted man.

I endorse your indoors behavior. I will, however, happily pick you up a detective story if you're going to stay. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. A lot of a lot of people don't understand that. So I appreciate it. And if you ever decide otherwise that you do need to make contact with her, perhaps bury the hatchet, not physically, not but, you know, metaphorically. You have our support. Yeah. I just don't think she'd be really happy with this. And he's going to kind of gesture to the armor. She wanted you to explore your magic more. Yeah, that was that was always her thing.

Well, on that point, I don't necessarily blame her. You do seem to have a knack for it, just a little unpolished, but you are practicing from time to time. Power is not your problem. It just looks like finesse. I do encourage you to take up that opportunity to train with Arya and Amven. Not necessarily today or now or while we're in the city here, but. At some point. Don't. Don't let this thing with your mother that hangs over you here prevent you from reaching your full potential, Theo. Can I be honest? Course. The stuff I can do from time to time. I don't see how that could be used for anything other than hurting someone.

As a man who has made a career of hurting bad people to protect good ones. Sometimes hurting people is necessary. He's going to give he's going to kind of give like a slight nod, just like, yeah, I guess, but still not happy about that. You have a gentler soul than the hand you were dealt. What? You've got these powers, but you you feel like more of a peacemaker at heart. Is that it? I guess I. I just don't want to hurt anybody. I mean, I don't want anybody to hurt me either or you guys. I just. I don't know, I kind of wish that. That wasn't such a huge thing all the time.

We all wish for that, Theo. But it's not the theory we live in. And there are certainly optimistic things to say about a better world and being the first one to put forth peace. Turning the other cheek or taking the high road, those sorts of things. But the fact of the matter is there is a violent and scary place with lots of powerful forces ready to do people harm. Sometimes the most good you can do is stopping those things, and that means violence. Not all peace is nurtured. Sometimes peace is carved. Yeah, I guess. Well, I don't want to hold you up. I am.

A book would be nice, though. I mean, if you happen across one. I'll pick you up something. I'm. I'm not trying to belittle you for what you feel about violence and trying to avoid it. I'm just encouraging you to remain pragmatic. He's going to give another nod. I know. Malchus kind of smiles a little bit. Any particular authors you've read widely that I should avoid to make sure I don't you pick don't pick you up something you've already read? None that I can think of. I haven't I haven't read a ton. Just just a few books. All right. I will do my best to judge a book by its cover and bring you home something worth reading.

And he'll give he'll give a smile. So you've done a bunch of stuff over the last few days, but eventually. It will be the 20th of Thor. Now, you were informed when you got to the city that on the 20th, well, actually late the 19th, your mom was expected. And if you listen to what the lovely people of Esterhold said, a dragon landed in the city, which caused quite a commotion. Big old white dragon. So did the dragon land while we were there? This would be probably in the middle of the night while you guys were bedding down for the I'd say because. OK, yeah.

This would be noticed. I mean, it's a big dragon. It's a big dragon, but it's not roaring or OK. As quiet as one of these things could happen. Whoosh, whoosh, clump, fuck your head mage. I mean, there was a car accident, but the car didn't literally explode. So you guys probably slept through it. No, no, I'm saying that's ridiculous, Jason. I know what you're saying. OK, dragon would fly overhead and for the most part, pretty quiet, except for the landing. Landing's always a little a little rocky, but you can remember Esterhold's a big city, right? So it's probably something that would escape notice.

We could roll for it if you'd like just to see. But this dragon will land at an old manor in the city. It used to belong to a guy named Dharmak who, boy, if you think Tanya had a rep in the city. Dharmak blows that away in terms of being antisocial, let's call him. Widely regarded as firstly insane. Secondly, a murderer. This is one of those things that everyone kind of knew, but did nothing about. Because they feared him. A very powerful blood mage. And again, off his fucking hinges. Like very, very, very scary. Insane. Lock people away with him for years and torture them.

Insane. Recently dead within the last month or so. And yeah, someone else pretty much took over that mansion. Living there now. But in the back there used to be this huge hedge maze. It's actually not famous, infamous within the city. Because in the night sometimes you would hear someone trying to escape the house and get lost in the hedge maze. And scream and scream until their voice was just hoarse and eventually silenced. That's flattened now, thanks to this dragon. Not this time. The dragon flattened it long before now. But it's pretty much just this, it's almost like a big dragon cradle in the back.

It's just big enough for this dragon to kind of curl up. So yeah, do you guys want to roll to see if you would hear Amara landing? I mean, if you say it happened in a different part of town and we didn't hear it, that's cool. Well, we have urgent scenes to play, I guess, so I understand skipping it. And I feel like if we hear a dragon landing we're probably going to go investigate, so we should just skip to the thing. Right, so okay. But we slept through it, it's cool. It's cool. Crazy Thor-um, right? Okay, 20th of Thor-um, and it is time for you guys to make your way to the mayor's office.

To the mayor's. Crossing the threshold of this building, the door is open. There's a little bit of setup, actually, if you look around. Everyone do me a favor, roll Perception. Yeah, that's not bad. 17's not shit. It could be a 12. I have a plus 12! It physically can't be. Theo needs to roll. We both know how this is going to go. I don't know, it could go the streetwise. I want to let him have a chance, okay? There we go. He's reading his book. It's fine. So, walking into this building, they've kind of decorated a little bit. You can tell that they... not a huge to-do.

But it's very much like, "Hey, we're going to have guests. Let's kind of gussy up the place a little bit." Oh boy. Walking in, though, there's going to be one particular standout. And Arya's going to notice right off the bat, and so is Malkus. There is going to be a... No doors. That's the manor house. This is the mayor's office. Still doors on here so far. It's only a matter of time. Yeah, so if she ever gets to lose those. There will be a drow gentleman in the building. But you get the sense that he is not there to necessarily greet you. He's just kind of hanging out.

Now, Malkus and Tevin... Malkus definitely is going to notice. Tevin, I would say, would pick up on it. But you have seen this drow before. Thea would recognize too. This is Seraph. Last time you ran into Seraph was in Fair Bay. Yeah, and then we snubbed him. Yeah, you did. He is going to watch you walk in and a big, kind of a... just a large smile. It creeps, just on slithers across his face. Well, it's about time you got here. Looking directly at Malkus. We've been in town for days. Just waiting for the appointment. And he's going to gesture. There's kind of a back room, a little hallway that leads to the mayor's office proper.

"Oh, they're all waiting for you. I don't want to hold you up." But yeah, Malkus will just nod and walk right past him. He is going to be just eyeballing the entire group. Just kind of watching. Nothing threatening about it or anything. Just kind of taking you all in. Does his perception pick up that there's only two of the original members he met? Or three, I guess. Sorry, it's you. Yeah, he's not spotting the big minotaur or the dwarf. The other half. Yeah, the other half of the party that was there. You guys just walking into the room? Sure, I am. So, walking into the mayor's office, they have obviously...

There's a table set up in the middle of the room. And again, they've got chairs out. There's this nice little... It's kind of cozy in here. It's not the largest office in the world, but it's definitely big enough for you guys to get in and not be too cramped. It's not like a closet or anything. And the first thing that's going to happen is this little creature is going to run up and sort of attach itself to Tevinne's leg. And just start to try and scale her. Just kind of like gripping a fistful of fur and just like... Just like start to try and climb up Tevinne.

Um... [laughter] Yeah. Okay. Um, does she recognize it right away? Like, what it is? Or... I would say... Would it kind of just feel like... almost like a monkey crawling up her leg? Picture like a small chimp. Something like that. But reptilian in nature. Kind of green and just... Unnatural. Oh, very. There's not something you see skin around. Yeah, she'd quickly start doing that leg shake and swatting at it. Like, what the hell? Oh my god, that's exactly what a dog would do. Like that back leg shake you see dogs doing all the time. Yep, basically that. She's like shaking it and also reaching down trying to swat at it to like chew it off and making just like "ugh, no, ugh, what the hell?" John Seagal would probably be like...

At first she'd do what all dog owners do, which is first she would try the yelling at dog like "Yellin' Sheldon, no!" If that doesn't work then she'd come over, but first she's gonna try the yelling. Do me a favor, roll a flat d20. Let's see. See how well Sheldon listens. Oh boy. He's very well behaved. Very well behaved. Yep. He's been a minute or before, he's excited. He must smell other things on you. He has clean. He has other treatments in the house. See, he smells the other demons. That's what it is. My pocket's next. Alright, then she'll go over and like pluck him off.

Yeah, just, I think the second, I would say the second Jadzia stands up, Sheldon, much like a dog, would go "Ah, should I push this too far?" And just kind of like immediately like "Ah, ah?" And just like let go, just kind of like, yeah, like under the table, like under the, like just kind of under, like, yeah. I'd also like to add something to Sheldon that I've been meaning to add for a while, which is I imagine at some point while Orquídeus the Mayor, Jadzia had a collar made. Oh, I love it. And it's a cute little collar. It's probably purple and there's a bell on it.

I love it! So it's so lucky. Oh boy, that jingling is going to get annoying. Yes, it is. I'm so happy. That's so good. I hope you don't have to record in the Mayor's office at any point because that jingling would have to be something that would be stopped. She doesn't have a collar in recording. I would like to see an awkward silence happen in this meeting and then there's just a bunch of jingling in the back. Scratching his ear. Could I roll a nature roll on it? I mean, I know it's probably not, I mean, that's not the thing that you should be rolling. I feel like that's what Aria would be like looking at the back of her mind, like, what the hell is that thing sort of thing?

And that's what would be what she would go to first. You could roll nature. You're not going to, I'd say religion. Okay. I mean, what do you think? Go with religion. Let's see. That isn't bad at all. I would, there could definitely be a book that Aria has come across at some point and it's like, okay, that doesn't match any animal I know of. But strangely enough, that matches something else like that. It could be something like that. Nothing concrete, but definitely that thing's not from here. Could Anvin roll an arcana roll or would it be history maybe if I read anything Lon Uveniro?

You might be able to make the argument for history, but I'd probably say it's much closer to religion. If you wanted to make the argument for arcana, you could see if there's any ties to like blood magic, something like that. I wanted to tie it to like that. That would be no. I think I'll do history because to me it's like I've read all these books. It's like core curriculum junk. Right. It's not associated with the naughty kind of magic. She wouldn't do that. Damn, why are you guys getting all the higher levels? I would say the same thing for Anvin. It's like, huh, that matches some stuff I read in a book one.

But never, it wouldn't be something you just see. It's like, wow, I've never seen one of those before. Doing that, like, you know, that shudder where you're like, ugh, that. And she's like, okay, okay, focus. Whatever the hell that was, don't want it. Yeah, Marcus will go and I guess kind of greet Jedzia. As soon as we pluck Sheldon off, she's going to put him down and ignore you guys for just a second as she's kind of scolding him. She's like, you better behave or I'm gonna put you back on your leash. And she takes it out of her coat pocket to show him like leash.

Bad. And then put it put it back. I'm gonna give you one more chance. And I'm putting you on the leash. Again, Sheldon would look down definitely like he's being scolded and just kind of instead of usually stands up on like his hind, like his back legs. He's going to get down on all fours and just sort of like make himself as small as possible and slink across the room and get under a desk. Aw! Tessia would stand up and walk across the room and definitely greet Malchus and hug him. Yeah, Malchus will definitely hug her back. You made it safely, mother. It's good to see you.

It's excellent to see you. It was actually a short trip. There is a dangerous place. No trip is short enough. Gonna be a slight silence. And she's gonna she's gonna glance across the room. And there's a hulking tiefling already sitting down kind of kind of at the desk. And I would say jaw clenched narrow eyes just just sort of boring into Malchus. Malchus will walk up to him, brother, and he'll extend a hand. He, hmm. Valus is going to look over to Jadzia and his mom. And he's going to... you could tell that there was probably a conversation that took place before he walked in the door.

And he is going to very gingerly reach a hand out and he's going to he's gonna grip Malchus's hand. Probably squeeze a little harder than he needs to. But not trying to like hurt Malchus or anything like that. Just just yeah. I'm glad you're well. Let's just get this over with. And he's not even it's not even like he's not even standing up or anything like that. He didn't even do the like, oh, we were looking what nothing just like, yeah, let's just go. Malchus turns back to the rest of the people in the room and says, Well, you heard the man. Let's begin.

Once Jadzia is done scolding Sheldon, she'll turn to the roof. And first of all, she'll kind of like bow to to be like, I'm so sorry about that. He misbehaves sometimes. I'm Jadzia Grace. I know that I've met some of you before. And then she's going to offer a hand to Malchus. Yeah, Malchus will shake her hand. It's good to meet my brother in law. Did any of you have this explained to me at any point earlier? I don't believe you have, no. I don't think so, no. I think it was I, geez, I think it was pretty like very I don't think anybody in the party had any knowledge that they were married or anything like that.

Well, actually, Tessia might have talked to you about it. I think the whole like them actually being married might be a bit of a shock. I feel like if Rob doesn't remember, Malchus might remember. Yeah, maybe. And then Malchus wouldn't remember that he lives in Faria. Love you, Rob. I look, there's a lot of proper nouns floating around. There is. I can congratulations and Malchus will turn to Valus and say, and do you as well? He's going to have his arms folded and just like he knows you're being nice and he knows he's supposed to be cordial. Thanks. Thanks.

That was beautiful. Lovely. Jadziel kind of motioned the chairs like everyone sit down. Did Seraph come in behind them? Unless he's invited, he's probably just going to hang out. She'll probably go to the door then be like, Seraph, we're starting if you'd like to join us. Oh, oh, yes. Oh, definitely. She goes and invites him in? Yes. I think Tevin is going to like bristle at that and kind of almost like cast a glance to Malchus like, did you know he was going to be, you know, that kind of look like, are you okay with this? Malchus mumbles to Tevin under his breath.

Well, desperation makes strange bedfellows. And a million fan fictions were born. I can't even say bedfellows. Okay, come on. Okay, well, just keep an eye out, I guess. She looks visibly like annoyed. He's going to he's going to be hanging by the door. He's not looking to interfere necessarily, just just he was invited in and mostly to probably just just be part of the proceedings, if only to have an idea of what's going on. But yeah, he wouldn't interrupt. Tessia would probably speak up. So, I understand you're in a bit of trouble in Winterhaven? Indeed. Well, I suppose I better recap the pertinent details.

I was technically an acting Knight of Winterhaven when I activated the device that purged the war forged. And Winterhaven is deciding whether or not to endorse my actions. And by that I mean if they choose to do so, I'm free to continue serving and free to continue, you know, acting as a Knight of Winterhaven. And if they do not agree to that, I will probably be jailed or executed. On that note, I have gathered all of you here, some subset of you here and others whom I am surprised to see in this room, I suppose, in an effort to find character witnesses to testify on my behalf.

More or less to say, look, yes, he did something substantial, but he's of sound mind and he made it under his best judgment and difficult situations necessitated his actions. That's why I've asked you all here. I need influential people on my side to make the case for my freedom and continued ability to help Theria by way of being a Knight of Winterhaven. Oh, and my company, Devine Brightheart, Aria Lethea, Ambin Yemel, and Theodore Pox. They have been instrumental in keeping me safe and sane on the road. I owe all of them a debt of gratitude for that.

Tessie would definitely be very nice to meet you. Thales would nod to the rest of the party. Soon we all nod back. Tessie would speak up. So you essentially just need witnesses for the trial? We don't... Is there anything else we could do? Well, I'm certainly open to other ideas, but the core of it is to be there as character witnesses, to be there as persons of influence that the crowd and the leadership of Winterhaven can look to as people of sound judgment that I should not be jailed or executed. I am certainly open to other suggestions. Obviously, anything that you can think of to aid my case is welcome.

Tessie would speak up again. I'm not clear on something. Are these people trying to defame you in some way or... What are they trying to gain by doing this? Uh... It's a good question, I suppose. And I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps they just believe strongly that what I did was abhorrent. As far as I understand, there are three people on a council in Winterhaven who will be casting the final judgment. One supports me, one does not, and the third is undecided. So the impasse demands a public hearing, at which basically you'll be making the case that I made, if not a good judgment, a necessary one in the case at hand.

It's a matter of, I suppose, more than anything, setting precedent for what Winterhaven's government is prepared to endorse regarding the actions of their knights in the field. May I ask a question? Of course. The word you used to describe what happened that day... "purged." That word has a few connotations to it that might make it sound like you were happy that the Warforged were all killed, even the sentient ones. I am not. You'll have to forgive my choice of word, I suppose. More so than anything, as cold as this will sound, everything I had heard was that somewhere to the amount of nine out of ten were serving in the Army of Overwatch.

I looked at our forces and looked at theirs and said, "This will even the odds." And when two armies come together and fight, there are guaranteed to be casualties, but the amount of chaos in those casualties and the amount of casualties one's own forces take is flexible if you have the right tools. I said I wanted to see the people serving under me go home to their families, their spouses, their children. And so I chose to activate the device, knowing that there would be some amount of collateral damage, but that vastly more on my side would be protected because of the action I took in an effort to overthrow the tyranny of the Overwatch.

You were aware that the Warforged had no choice in the matter, right? The ones that were being controlled by Overwatch were literally being controlled. They had no power over their own minds. And if we had come to face them on the battlefield, we would have had to- Kill them anyway, I understand. And she's going to kind of give you a small smile. Like, don't worry, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Like, I'm just- Tessie would speak up again. Well, do you have any idea what kind of questions they're going to ask? Where they might try to lead this? Do they have people to speak against you?

I do not know any details of that, but I would be all but certain they will form a defense of people I have wronged or had negative interactions with in the past. I will do my best to be prepared for those, but I cannot be sure about all of the people that they will connect with in their efforts to build a case against me. I cannot claim to have always done everything by the books, by the rules, or even by good morals. Everyone has done things that they regret, and so there will be some case to be made against me. I am not asking you to defend a man who has only done one thing that people question.

I am asking you to show up, knowing who I am, sure of your conscience to defend me, in spite of mistakes I have made. Do me a favor, roll a perception check. Perception? Perception, please. I will say, Aria and Malchus are going to notice a big old eye roll from Thalas, Malchus driving that last point home. He's like, "Oh, I've done many things." That type of thing. Just a big old eye roll. Kind of a, again, arms folded, just kind of a huff grumble. Malchus will utterly ignore that. Okay. Aria would kind of look like glance in between Malchus and Malchus.

She's not going to say anything, but... Seraph... Seraph's going to walk into the room a bit more at this point. And kind of approach the party. Pardon the interruption, but... Am I to understand that you're being put on trial for evening the odds in combat? It is philosophically more complex than that, but yes, that's the concrete core of things. And he's going to kind of look around the table. Does that sound insane to anyone else? To be clear, they were going to kill you if you didn't kill them first, correct? That was my working understanding when I pressed the button.

I don't see the dispute here. And he's kind of going to look over to Jadzia. Almost, just kind of look at her like, "What? Yeah, what's the problem? I don't understand the problem." The problem, in essence, is asking the leadership of Winterhaven to endorse an action I took in the field without consulting anyone. I received the device from the Mages of Umenyiro, I decided independently without consulting anyone else to use it, and I did so under the banner of Winterhaven, whether I like it or not. And in doing so, killed many innocent people. Malchus will gesture with his hand to what Jadzia just said.

I did. Innocents were killed because I pushed that button. Innocents that may have had nothing to do with combat had stayed aside or been off the battlefield. At the end of the day, I decided those were acceptable losses, considering somewhere to the effect of 90% of the Warforged population fought in defense of the Overwatch. As Malchus is saying all of that, Jadzia is maintaining eye contact and kind of nodding along. Like, she's glad that you understand that that's kind of what matters more. Seraf would raise his hand and say, "Alright, I'll back up.

Just wanted to throw my two cents." That type of thing. Tessie would speak up. Well, I can't speak for everybody in the room, but I would be happy to help in any way I can. I don't know how much my testimony would be valued. I probably have a pretty big bias, to be honest. I think you're more influential and admired than you give yourself credit, Mother. But I do understand the point of bias. Can I ask one more question? Please. After this is over, after the trial, what do you plan to do with your life? At that, Malchus actually looks at the party that came with him, the members of our group here.

These four have stood loyally by me in my efforts to satisfy the Council of Winterhaven. And they are people of far more admirable character than myself. I owe them more than gratitude. And once this business with Winterhaven is behind me, I would do as I've always done. Continue traveling with the companions, seeking to make Theria a better place. And I sincerely trust that I would do a better job of it at their side than I would do so on my own. Valus is going to speak up. There we go. Realize that the entire time I'm like, nah, he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't.

And that's just like, oh, fuck. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yes. Low grumble from the other side of the table again, dropping his hands down to his side. No more folding his arms until you don't need them anymore. Alright, Malchus will look over at him with that. Well, don't just insinuate. We haven't talked. What little I've seen of you since the bizarre gap in time I experienced down in Drax Tomb. All I've known is that you are furious with me. So why not just air the dirty laundry, brother? What do you want? He is going to grip the end of the table here. Just just kind of like put his put his put his hands down.

Oh, please. You can con these people all you want. But you and I both know as soon as things get difficult and you don't deem them necessary anymore, you're going to leave them. You're going to run and you'll find a new group of people to dupe. And you'll get them to help you out of the next jam. That's a rather intense accusation coming from someone who has spent no time with me in a very long time. Jodzia is going to kind of she's looking down while Val's talking kind of in his general direction, but she looks sort of melancholy at what he's saying like wistful, kind of sad and then she's going to glance up.

Do you know Brianna Amplemeer? I do. I have not seen her in a long time either. You did leave many people on that battlefield. I'm sure that you know what happened to her. And what happened to Phallus after you left Brightport. You've done a lot of leaving. I do not know all of the fine details of what happened to the people I left behind. In particular, in the case that we're talking about now, I left that battlefield because I presumed that explaining the power I had gotten ahold of and talking about whether or not it was right to do what I did. Would slow the assault on the Overwatch when the critical tactic was to seize the advantage and push forward.

I left because I did not think I could afford to explain things without slowing the assault, without people becoming tied up in the ethics of it. I respect that the ethics are complicated enough to be worth becoming tied up in. Phallus would speak up again. You left because it was easier. It was easier than staying behind and explaining yourself. It was easier than potentially being punished. Tessie would speak up and kind of not reach across the table but put up a hand. Phallus, that's enough. Let him go on. Because you know as well as I do that the assault on the Overwatch would have slowed down and become entangled in the ethics of using such a device.

They would not have seized the moment. They would not have capitalized on it. And we would not have a more stable Theria today had they not pushed the way they did. Did it benefit me? Of course. There would have been cries for my blood from some corners. But at the end of the day, it was for everyone's benefit that I got out of the way. Your entire life is about abandoning people who relied on you and letting someone else finish the job you started while you get the glory. You did it to us when we were younger. You did it to your friends during the Overwatch.

And I'm sure if you give these people a half a chance to get to know you, you'll do it to them too. You think I got any glory for doing what I did against the Overwatch? I've had to hide my head in most civilized places as I walk through. I don't want the glory. I never did. I wanted the job done. And as for what happened when we were younger, and Malchus will step a little closer, I'm sorry, Valus. I'm sorry I left you alone. I'm sorry it sucked. I'm sorry you were miserable. But each one of us has to do what we think is necessary with the hand we're dealt.

You want to be mad at me? Fine. You want to tell these people that I'm not worth trusting? Fine. I have a colorful history. But that doesn't mean I can't turn things around. I've changed a lot since you last spent any time with me. I am trying to do things by the books here. I'm not going to ask you to believe that. I'm going to prove it. Valus is going to stand up. And he is going to sort of lean over the table here and get closer to Malchus. Do you know what the difference between you and me is? I admit what I am. I'm a murderer. And I have killed countless people.

Partially. I'm going to point over to Tessie to protect our shop and our mother. And partially because I don't like people. I don't call myself a hero, though. There are no statues erected in my honor. You want these people to vouch for your good name? And get you off scot-free one more time? Fine. I'm not going to stop them. But you and I, deep down, both know what you are. And he is going to lean back. I would say Tessie would stand up because this is getting a little... probably a little more heated than she would like it to be. What? This is so casual. I would imagine just be like, just kind of putting up her hands like, okay, okay, is this going to escalate?

And probably, probably look over to Malchus just to make sure that there isn't going to be some sort of like retaliation or something or this doesn't get physical. You want to ask if this is going to escalate? Ask that one. I don't have a fight with him. He's the angry one. Valus is probably going to push his chair under the table aggressively and probably start to walk toward the door just to get away. Just to kind of get out of the room. And then he'll immediately get up and follow him and try to take his risk. Don't go. He'd stop. Just... kind of probably, probably give Jessie a look like, okay, this is going to get bad.

If I don't get away from him, like this is this could get bad. Probably take that for a second and then reach up and cup the side of his face and kiss him on the cheek and then let him go like, okay, I understand dude. All right, I'll be there in a minute. He's not going to slam the door or anything like that. Like he would open it and unless Malchus is going to say something. As he's leaving, Malchus will pipe up one more time. Brother, I mean it. Congratulations. And I wish you happiness. He's going to stop and stare at Malchus. And just the slightest like head nod.

Just yeah. And he's gonna leave the room. The cape switch runs in the family. Judsy will turn back to the group and since the seat has opened, she's going to kind of motion for Seraph to sit down if he'd like. And she's going to sit down again. Everyone settle back down. Fuck it. It's fine. So what would be in store for us? Would we need to come to Winterhaven? I... If all you can do is send correspondence with your seal, that will be appreciated. But I'm sure appearances in person would have a stronger effect. Well, I'm not sure if you know this, but I do have a council and Seraph is one of them and she'll kind of motion to him like...

Oh, he's he is going to walk over to the now empty seat and he's going to sort of like brush just kind of brush the seat off. Just yeah. And he's he's going to like the opposite of Valus, whereas Valus is big and gruff and not clumsy, but definitely not not not elegant in his movements. Seraph is the opposite of that. Just very gingerly sit down and kind of prop his feet up a little bit. And one of the things he does is he has he has these he has these very long daggers and he's going to take one out and start to kind of clean under his nails. Play with this dagger.

It'll make you look like more of an asshole. Yeah, that's basically what it is. And then she'll motion the door in. The other is Valus. And I can't give a solid answer until I've heard from both of them. Seraph would speak up. Well, I think we know where the large one stands on this. If you're asking me again, I feel as though his actions were justified. And perhaps if this gentleman weren't a tiefling, this trial might not be taking place at all. Mayor Jadzia, are you considering going yourself on my behalf or sending Seraph on your behalf? Oh, Seraph would look over to Jadzia, if for nothing else than to stir the pot.

Oh, my lady, I would be happy to go in your place. Kind of a wide smile, too. She's going to smile and I'm actually not able to travel for the time being. And then she's going to look over to Tessia very quickly and then back down. But I could certainly send Seraph with some sort of letter to present. But as I said, first I have to agree with my counsel. And she's going to kind of look over to Seraph again, like, no, like we're gonna- Valus is coming back. He's just gonna go hit something and then come back. Like she's sure of it. Right. And he's gonna- he's gonna kinda get where you're going with this.

Do you want me to go get him? If you have yet another moment, I would like to speak with both of you here before you do so. Seraph. Hmm? You offered me a job some time ago. Did you offer that job as a representative of Mayor Jadzia or did you offer that job independently? Oh, I was more freelance, let's call it. I've since made other arrangements though, don't worry. I'm glad to hear it. Do you, Mayor Jadzia, know all the details of this other freelance work? Because if Seraph is to represent you on my behalf, I need to know that I can trust him. Considering our prior business that fell through, I rejected a job from Seraph.

And I need to ensure that it is not being taken personally or creating a complication in your ability to support me. Jadzia's going to kind of smile like she's heard something similar to this maybe a few times in the past few weeks. Seraph's life before becoming my aide has been taken off the record. Anything done before he came to Esther Holt has been forgiven. And he will continue to work his best to help our city. How do you like that stock answer? She'd kiss a baby after. He's going to sort of stop cleaning his nails and just sort of wave his dagger.

"I'm a changed man, Malkus." Barf! Again, huge smile. Yeah, no. That does sound less genuine. And he doesn't care how it's perceived. So, okay, so Malkus will continue. Are you telling me that you trust him completely to execute your will away from this city? Seraph would look at Jadzia. Jadzia would look back and then look back to Malkus and nod. I do. Then I will not further question your choice of aide. Thank you. Now, how about I go fetch my husband and we can continue the meeting? Malkus will not. Alright. While you're doing that, I would imagine Tessa is so Jadzia gets up and leaves the room.

Tessa has some concerns just when they were setting the trial up. Did it seem like they were leaning one way or the other? Is this strictly defense? Do you feel like we should all be on our guard? We should always all be on our guard. But to answer your question, it was specifically, exactly split. I had one supporter on the council, one who wanted to see me locked up or dead, and one who was riding the fence. I could not tell if he was conflicted or trying to figure out which side would grant him more political benefit to support. Well, it doesn't sound like they have an axe to grind then, at the very least.

None that I'm aware of. Though I'd rather, if possible, do this without greasing the palms of a politician in it for their own benefit. Suppose that might be a necessary evil though, considering what's at stake. We'll have to see. That does make me feel a little better about the situation. I was worried that this was going to be more of a witch hunt. Well, there is one council member who is sure to carry that torch, so it will happen. It just will not be fully supported by the rest of the council. I would say by this point, Jadzi would have found Valus kind of maybe maybe counting to 10, little little pacing in the in the hallway, taking a few deep breaths.

And probably probably brought him back by now. Yes. So they're both going to come back in and she'd like I assume there's another chair in the vague area. There would be. Valus wouldn't want that chair. God fuck! Is that Sheldon's chair? No. Here's the thing. The very first thing. This is so good. I love it. The very first thing he would do upon reentering the room is sort of gesture. He's going to walk up to the chair and not say a fucking word. Just kind of grumble. And when Seraph doesn't move, inevitably because he's an asshole, Valus is going to put a very large hand on on Seraph's shoulder and he's going to look up and eventually he'll be like, all right, fine here.

Just have your chair. I'm going to stand over here and just very, very patronizing. Like very. Yeah. I would like it to be noted that Tavine is hiding a very, very small smile at that. Otherwise, she's just been sitting there kind of glaring at Seraph most of the time. Not going unnoticed. I'm sure he would. I'm sure he's used to that. Oh, I'm sure he notices. She doesn't care. She doesn't like him. She doesn't trust him. Yeah, he's used to that. That's not. So Valus will sit back down and Seraph will kind of stand near the table. Jadzia is going to sit back down, reconvene again.

So now that the council is reunited, Valus, while you were gone, Seraph said something that resonated. And then she's going to look over at Seraph. Do you truly believe that if Malchus were not a tiefling, this trial would not be happening at all? Seraph would... I feel like he would kind of double down on it. It's been my experience that certain individuals, they tend to catch a little more blame than the rest of us. Tiefling, drow, things like that. Valus... Valus is going to kind of scoff at that. Valus? And you could tell, like, it was probably talked about before.

It's like, take a deep breath. Try not to be so angry about it. He's going to look over at Jadzia. Please, he's barely tiefling. Jesus Christ! And what he means by that is, okay, there is a huge discrepancy in how Valus looks and how Malchus looks. Malchus looks like someone who could own an apple cart and just kind of hang out in the city. He takes after their mother a little more. Like, he has blue eyes. He looks friendly enough. Okay, to use a term in Therian society, he's passable. Like, he's not one of the demonic ones. He's one of the... he can own it in or something like that.

Valus is this huge, yellow-eyed, monstrous looking creature. And as such, people would look at him and go, "Oh, that's one of the bad ones." And he looks like he's just because of how he looks. So there's kind of a little bit of a chip on Valus' shoulder about that. That's another bit of, like... Kind of, it's like, well, that's not fair. They look at you differently than they look at me because you just look a little more like them. That's kind of how he's approaching it. And he's immediately going to kind of... kind of resist... he's going to apologize.

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to be antagonistic." And he's talking to Jadza. Oh, that was the word that was used in the hallway, for sure. Oh, yes. "I will try to be more present." Like, "Ooh, this has been talked about." That was not Valus' word. Definitely. Jadza's going to put her hand on his shoulder like, "You're trying, that's good!" Malchus, do you feel the same way? As Seraph, I mean. That... perhaps I catch more flak as a tiefling than others might? Let's try to keep it to this particular instance, though. *sigh* If you're just addressing this particular instance, we cannot dismiss the magnitude of what I did.

In general, I would tend to agree with Seraph. In this specific case, there's a certain magnitude to what I did that has to be respected. I think anyone of any appearance would be questioned for doing what I did. J'onn-T'ih is going to look over to Valus like, "There, what do you think of that?" She's really trying to get him to talk a little bit more since he's the holdout. It's not trying to convince him, it's just trying to get him to choose his side based on the facts instead of how pissed he is at Malchus. Right. And I think after a couple of seconds...

I don't think he's being targeted because he's a tiefling. Again, kind of low, just like that's his honest opinion. And he would continue, "It's not exactly like he had a bad reputation in the city beforehand. It basically treated him like a god." Well, I feel like we've been talking in circles for a while. So is there any sort of agreement that can be reached? We've discussed sending Seraph in my place. I could just send a letter, go myself, or we could not do anything. Like she's laying out all the choices for him. Valus is going to lean over and whisper something and Jad's ears hear.

Perception? Yep. Give me one second, though. Oh, that's true. She's going to kind of half-nod like, "Oh yeah, fuck." Go ahead, roll Perception if you'd like. Aww, Malchus! That is terrible tonight. Let him try! Let him have a chance! Let him fight! Put him in the ring! Dead splat. Oh, that didn't... yeah. That's a 10. I'm trying. Aria, on the other hand, would hear a very specific phrase. "The drow are still a concern, and it might be better to keep Seraph here to speak with them." Oh! Just the one person who I wish hadn't heard that. Yeah. God. There's a reason juries reconvene behind closed doors.

Okay. Man. However, Valus would offer to take his place, if need be, and go to Winterhaven. Oh. For several reasons. First of all, he's not going to be convincing. He's a great god. He's just... he's clenched. What an awesome person he is. This is very much... okay. Did he literally just make that offer out loud? Does Malchus have time to pipe up? Up to you. If you have something to say. Well, I'd say that when Aria overhears what you're saying, she's not going to say anything, but she's going to kind of sit up a bit, and she's going to look at Seraph. Like, glance towards him.

She's not good at having a poker face. I'm just kidding, I'm sorry. Seraph is sitting there just kind of like watching. Just kind of smiling the entire time. Malchus... if Valus makes that offer, Malchus will pipe up and say, "I would accept Valus taking that role." And then he looks at Valus and he says, "And do you know why? Because you wouldn't be working for me." And he looks back at Jadzi and he says, "You'd be working for her. And I know you don't want to let her down." Aww. Jadzi is going to look devastated, though. And kind of take his hand in both of her... like, both her hands are about the size of one of his, so...

That's kind of what she's doing. And she's just going to kind of shake her head. Like, she doesn't want to say it, but she's like, "No." It sounded complimentary. I don't know why she's upset. No. I think it's more about him leaving. Yeah. Oh. Oh, okay. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, that part. Like, she doesn't want him to go. Oh, god. Okay. I need you here. We could send one of the paladins with a letter. Or we could all go. All three of us, like, that desperate. Like, "No, please." Are you just going to raise her hand? If there was a question of bias in regards to Tessia, then I don't see why...

Excuse me. Phallus would be better in the place of Seraph. I feel like I'm missing something here. Jadzi, as soon as she hears that excuse, is going to start nodding along. If you're both family members, it won't make much of a difference, right? And her voice is just like, "No! Do not leave me." Right. And he's going to kind of see that worry and backpedal a little bit. The only reason I offer it is to make you and Mom happy. Aww. He called her Mom. I don't know. It's cute. He's going to kind of pull Jadzi a little bit closer. "I can stay, though." And there's going to be a sudden, like, "Hey, wait a second.

Why not send Krig?" Jadzi is going to kind of brighten up. That's true. He's our lead paladin. He runs the Temple of Kord, and he certainly has the type of credibility you'd need. Aria's going to speak up again. Her fists are clenched. She is visibly super uncomfortable saying anything. But she's lost her nugget here. It's not adding up. I apologize. I'm not understanding. Why, if Seraph is part of your retinue, why would sending him not be a viable option? Jadzi is going to sit up a little bit. She was leaning on Phallus a little bit, all not very professional for a mayor.

And then she'll sit back up. Honestly, I have my own concerns as far as the war and casualties. And she's going to meet Malchus's eyes when she says this, which is why I understand where you're coming from so well. And Seraph is here to help me with that. And then she's going to turn her eyes to Aria, and she kind of has this smile like, "Oh, you're..." Like, she relates to how shy you are, because she used to be that way. But that's all I really feel comfortable saying. Then you mentioned someone. Craig, did you say? He's a good man. Very wise. Very boisterous.

And I'm certain if there's anyone to be asked of what it takes to survive on the battlefield, he's your man. And you think he would credibly carry your will? That he would be looked upon as a representative of you and not, well... Not as one outside of your inner circle. Because, as is apparent, he is not in this room right now. Can he credibly carry as a representative of Mayor Jedzia? She's going to smile. He's the one who appointed me. Well, I think that settles it. Then I have no complaints about him. None that haven't been satisfied at this point anyway.

Tessie would speak up. I'm to understand the trial is in a few short days. The 22nd of Thor. We actually probably should set out tonight just to be safe. Well, I can get the group there quickly. We can all just take Amara if you like. I have to warn you though, it is, um, bracing. So as in we ride a dragon back to Winterhaven? It's much more common than you think. At least within House Dragonkeep. That's where they keep the dragons? If you think she can safely carry all of us, I suppose we can go for it. She can definitely carry the entire group safely is up for debate.

I would hang on very tightly. At regular carriage speeds, could my carriage arrive in time for the... Probably. You could, okay. I'm just saying you could send Craig with the carriage and then he could... Oh boy, Craig's not a huge fan of the dragon, but he would ride it. You don't think so? I feel like he'd be picked if he didn't get to drive the dragon. That's the thing. Okay. It's more of a I can't control the heights thing. It's not something he can control, but it's more like, it's like what I mean. I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to say I did it.

It's that type of thing. Because it's a braggy cord thing. It's like, fuck yeah, I rode that dragon. It was awesome. Who wasn't scared of the heights at all? Fuck you. We'll get the carriage later. It's not important. I'm coming to terms with it. Okay, I'm done. I'm there. It's safe. It's not going to be. It'll be safe. Guys, I think that might be a good time for us to stop for the night. Unless anybody has anything they'd like to wrap up with? I do. Go ahead. Okay. So it does just Zia say, great, dismiss us basically, tell us to break. Yeah, she'll probably tell you like, I'll call Craig in as soon as possible, write a letter, all that stuff.

But then she, right before everyone leaves, she'll look over to Valis and there's a question in her eyes. And then she looks over to Tessia. And hopefully he gets her drift. Yeah. And if he gives her a nod or anything, she'd be like, Tessia, could you stay here? Like something like that. Just real quick. Yeah, he would definitely nod if for no other reason. There was a wedding she wasn't invited to. So if something like this happens twice, that would be bad. So yeah, she would just ask Tessia to stay. Okay, well, I needed to pull Tessia aside too for just a minute.

Oh, I mean, it's a grimness family thing technically. Technically, she would probably be like, Tessia, could you stay? And then if Malchus looked behind, she'd be like, you're welcome to. And then look over at Valis like, please don't be mad. Right. I guess Malchus is staying at the very least to hear what all this is about. Okay. I think to be in we get up and walk out though and wait outside for Malchus. Because I'm assuming we're going to be leaving pretty quick, right? Yeah. Okay, because she's going to want to show off the cart before we go. So at least get to see it.

Seraph would probably laxa-daisily get up eventually and just to see if like, if I stayed, would anyone notice? And then probably eventually just like, alright. And then just kind of saunter fop out of the room? Yeah, just kind of like, I'm going to go get an apple so I can look more like an asshole. Yep. He's so good. There's a whole set of verbs I just think of when Seraph moves and they're things like flounce. Here's the thing about Seraph. He, the way he carries himself is very, like, apathetic and just like, whatever. And then all of a sudden, if he were to get into a fight, like a goddamn cobra just like striking just like over and over and over again.

And that's, it's kind of a tactic. Like he uses that to make people think it's like, ah, that guy's probably not. Oh, God, you're stabbing me. So he's kind of like a cat. Kind of. A little bit. I always picture him like a black cat. Should we let Valus do his thing first or should I do my thing first? Oh, this would be more of a Jadzi announcement, not a Valus thing. Oh. Well, both. Well, yes, technically, but now that Malchus is here, yeah. Does it look like Malchus has something on his mind? Yes. All right. Then she'll nod to him first. Like, go ahead. So Valus, or Malchus will turn to Jad- or, ah, names!

Okay. Malchus turns to Tessia. Oh, it's like a minefield for me. I'm terrible. Malchus turns to Tessia and says, with all of the family here, I can't help but be reminded of the fact that I'm a little bit of a freak. Just be reminded. How is Erolove? She's good. I actually spoke to her very, very recently. Just earlier yesterday, actually. She's leading the continent for a bit. Her group is taking a ship to Talor. On any particular business? That's quite a distance, right? It is. It's pressing, but I think the group can handle it. She's in good hands, then? She is.

Yes. I trust them very much, actually. Does she have a similar opinion of me as my brother does? He's right here. He is, yeah. And he's going to- I almost expected him to spell soon, just like, "S-V-A-L-L-U-F." There may be some bumpy roads we could smooth over, but that's for another time, I'm sure. Maybe once all this is done, we could get together as a family and talk. Malchus will kind of give a side glance at Valus as he's talking to Tessia and say, "I'd like that." Not happy. But don't let me hold up what you were going to say any further, Jedzia.

Jedzia will smile and kind of nudge Valus to stand up. And he will. Well, speaking of family, and she's going to kind of meet Tessia's eyes for a moment. We just found out that I am with child. So two things are going to happen. One, partway through that sentence, the speaking of family, Tessia is going to get a look at her eyes like, "Oh my God, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it," just instantly. And after the announcement, she is going to- Remember how I was just talking about Seraph? Tessia is that way with hugs. Just sort of like, "Fuck yes, come here," and like bear hug the two of you.

Just kind of, just, yeah. Aww. Malchus will say congratulations and open his arms at least to Jedzia. If she comes in for the hug, he'll give it to her. Oh, she will. It's becoming clear to me that it is to my detriment that I do not know you better. We'll have to remedy that when things are not as urgent. But again, congratulations. And then he looks at Valus and says, "And to you too." He's going to give Malchus a nod, not as terse as it was before, just because of the moment, just like, "Yeah, thank you." That's, yeah. Gotcha. Yay. When- Technically eight months away.

And she holds back the, "If the world lasts that long," because she can't let that one slip. Well, and Malchus looks around at everyone remaining in the room and says, "I think we all have more incentive than ever to try to make Theria a safer place." And then he looks back at Jedzia and says, "I'll do my best." She'll smile and kind of move back over to Valus and put her hand on his chest and cuddle up all cute like, "Yay, we did it." I will send word to Craig and have a letter drafted within the hour. Thank you. I wish you well. And she'll just kind of nod to him and smile at the room and then kind of like all leave because it's clearly the meeting room.

So like she's not going to be staying here either. I would say Tessie would start getting Amara ready and Craig would be notified. And unless anyone has any objection, I would imagine everyone would get ready and load up and start their flight to Winterhaven. One thing is, Tavine would want to show Malchus the carriage that they fixed up. Okay, so I guess, yeah. How do you do it? Are you just like, "Hey, do you notice anything?" Or do you point it out or do you... I think while you guys were chatting, Tavine would have grabbed Arya and been like, "Hey, we should definitely show Malchus before we leave since we're going to be taking the dragon." Yeah, Arya will nod.

She's not really paying attention. So then like when you come out, Tavine would be like, "Hey Malchus, before we go, we should set up arrangements to have the cart taken maybe to Winterhaven for us." And she's going to kind of look at Arya like, "Yeah?" She doesn't know? Okay, so she's like gesturing Malchus to get in and ride somewhere? She doesn't know how to do it, so it's probably obvious that she's like hinting like, "Look inside," without saying it. Okay, Malchus will climb inside and kind of give it the once over and as he's turning around inside of it, he places a hand down on the cushion to just keep his balance.

And then he kind of double takes with his head for a moment. And then he just kind of traces down the straightened stitching with a fingernail. And he just looks at Tavine, smiles at her, and then gives her a hug. She'll give you a big hug back and be like, "Yeah, it needed to be cleaned up, so since we had some time to kill, we fixed it." And she's going to like motion to Arya. She helped. What does Arya say? Shrugs? I'm sure I would have gotten over it eventually, but still, thank you. And then Jason's going to squeeze in one last little thing. Sure, go ahead.

I want to get a cigar and a box of candies to send to Jedzea and Valus. And I want to tuck a little note with the cigar for Valus that basically says, "Valus, you have all the reason in the world to be happy. Don't waste it." And then Malchus. Hmm. That's really sweet. And then we can get on a dragon. Yeah. I think that's probably a good time for us to stop for the evening. Thank you guys so much for doing this. So much RP feels. That was a lot of RP tonight, man. That was so good, though. You guys were all really, really good. That was really awesome. Oh my gosh.

That was intense. I don't hate you, Rylus. No, no, no. We're actors, Jason. This is a craft. Hey guys, it's Rachel from Group One and I just want to say thanks for listening to the episode. If you really like what we're doing, go visit Patreon at patreon.com/dandr and toss them a few bucks so they can keep the lights on, keep food on the table, and give us a five star review on iTunes. That helps get the word out. And if you want to join the discussion, check out the forums. forums.