History

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

[clink] [clink] Pickaxe. 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. It's your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm a little 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+. 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. Episode 200 of the DNR podcast is brought to you today by Limitless Adventures. Do you want to run a D&D game at home, but you just don't quite have the time to prep everything? Then Limitless Adventures is for you. Limitless Adventures has tons of 5e-based products that'll get your game in shape, ready to go, so that you can run it in your spare time and not have to worry about all that prep.

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They're all self-contained but can link into other stuff that they offer. They're all very, very affordable. Go check them out today. Let us know what you think. Let's do that thing! We're going around the table to introduce ourselves. I'm Jason. I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table starting with Robert. Hey, I'm Robert Weezahan. I play Malkus Grimness, Tiefling Warlock. And Karen. Hi, I'm Karen. I play Arena Stonebreaker, Mole Paladin. And Zach. What's up, I'm Zach. I play Evelyn Bates, the Human Ranger Marauder. And Rachel. I'm Rachel. I play Tevin Brightheart, Shaman Minotaur.

And Jane. Hi, I'm Jane. I play Efene the Gnome Bard. And Kelsey. Hey, I'm Kelsey and I play Arya, the Drow Sion. And Michael. Hey, I'm Michael and I play Amvin Yamil, the Half-Elf Stormmage. And Valerie. Hi, I'm Valerie and I play Sora Greywing, the Halfling Ranger. And Lisa. Hey, I'm Lisa and I play LRF Beestinger, the Halfling Barbarian. And Jasper. Hey, this is Jasper. I play Maric Ethelred, Human Cleric. And Susan. Hey, I'm Susan. I play Airlove Grimness, the Tiefling Invoker. And Jamie. Hi there, I'm Jamie. I play Kori Forestkeeper, the Goliath Seeker. And Izzy.

Hi, I'm Izzy and I play Una, the Half-Elf Paladin. And Alex. Hey, I'm Alex and I play Brelin, the Halfling Bard. And Bree. Hi, I'm Brianna and I play Santos, the Gisceri Sion. And Mack. Hi, I'm Mack and I play Kaluna Valgares, the Wildin Shaman. And James. Hey, it's James. I play Dagon, the Aladdin Sion. And Ian. Hey, I'm Ian. I play Cauldron Halac, the Half-Elf Blizzard Wizard. And Xavier. Hello, I'm Xavier and I play actor on this, the Revenant Cleric. Oh, and I'm out of breath. Okay, that was a bit going around the table. So let's catch up with group four really quickly here.

It is the 17th of Thorim. Now, when we last left off, you guys were kind of placed in a precarious situation. So Counselor Combs came to you guys and pulled you aside after you had talked to her. You told her you're from the Overwatch. You're here to sort of mend fences a bit. Which is easier said than done because to say that Overwatch and Winter Heaven have had a tenuous relationship is not even close to what the situation is, to be honest. And eventually after you guys spoke, she brought you to Nathaniel. Now, I'm going to be asking you guys what you'd like to do.

I've talked to you privately, obviously. So Nathaniel is not well off. He... the fact that he isn't dead yet is amazing. Now, their healers have done everything that they can for him to get him stable. And over time, he could recover. The problem is he is in such constant pain that they can't keep him conscious most of the time. He'll lapse in and out of consciousness, wake up, and to put it bluntly, he'll wake up screaming. His life is agony. It's terrible. Now, what would the group's reaction be to this? Just off the bat. I want to kind of gauge some things here.

I think shock. To see really just how bad he is. Would any of you have any preconceived notions about how Winter Heaven is run? Or just the kind of state of affairs here? Well, I think I did a Streetwise check last time and it kind of gave me the lowdown on what's been going on. But it kind of gave me the current situation, not really too much of a history of how they run things. And that would be a thing that Combs would be telling you about. It's like, okay, this is supposed to be our leader. Hierarchy-wise, this is the person... everything would be left on Nathaniel's shoulders.

And fortunately, you could see the shape he's in. And even if he were to get better, it's not exactly like he's a seasoned veteran. He's a 17-year-old kid. But there's going to be some more stuff dropped on you. And I'm going to be moving time forward in just a bit. But over the course of the next three days, it's going to become very apparent that some of the other counselors aren't going to be satisfied with waiting for this kid to get better. They have a very clear idea of how the city should be run. And they're going to want to make strides toward that.

Now, there are ways to help Nathaniel. There are going to be a couple sort of dropped on you guys. One would be ashen milkweed, which is an herb that grows in a couple of spots in Theria. The closest being toward the mountains just east of Winterhaven, which is about... I mean, getting there and back is probably a day's travel, something like that. If you're on horse, it'd be even quicker. The problem being, recently, outside of Winterhaven, the outskirts have seen an influx of orc activity, which is a problem all on its own. Sorry, did you say east or west?

East. Oh, but... okay. Sorry. No, it's okay. Thunder spires to the west. That's... yeah. Apologies. No, don't apologize. Mix it up. Get in there. Talk. I want to hear it. I was just going to say, if we were heading west, Elorath would be very excited. That was it. Okay. The only other thing you could do is... And this wouldn't be something that Combs would suggest, but the only other thing you can do is kind of hasten his deterioration, like give him sort of a dignified death. The problem with that comes from... Okay. If he were to die, there is no next in line. There is no next in line for Winterhaven, so it would be the Council.

And the problem is, the Council is greatly divided right now. They all have very different ideas. Combs has a different idea of how things should be run than Councilor Freeman. Freeman would be her direct opposition in this case. And Combs would tell you that Freeman is very much trying to place the blame for things on Malkus. Square on Malkus' shoulders. And he's doing everything in his power to make sure that the upcoming trial goes as poorly as possible. And even sort of hinting that this will not be as fair a trial as she would like. So my question would be, over the next three days, what would the party like to do here?

Basically, she would tell you, "Okay, you have a few days to talk this over. We're expecting Malkus and his party back at some point." They're expecting him on the 19th. Obviously, that's not going to happen. But what would the party like to do? Which way would they be leaning? Well, I believe you all feel a little bit differently about this. So I think we should talk it over as a group at some point during the next few days. I think that'd be a great idea to do. Let's role play it out. Okay. All right. So she would leave you to your decision and just... She'd kind of tell you, "Time is of the essence, but I don't want you to have to rush into this.

You're kind of being placed in a not-advantageous position here." So she would let you discuss it. All right. I think Avalon is going to peer around the room. He's just going to address the elephant on the table here. He's going to say, "I don't think that child is going to survive, no matter what we do." And just let it hang. "There must be something we can do for him. He's only seventeen." "Well, didn't they say that we could help him feel better, even if we can't make him like better, better?" "From what I know, he will be in constant pain, regardless." "No, right.

But like, wasn't there a thing where we could go get something that would help him not hurt so much?" "Maybe, but I do not think a full recovery is ever possible. And to be honest, I don't know what this child has done to be a leader of this many people. They have not fallen apart." He's going to kind of look around and say, "They have not fallen apart without him, so I think they're fine." "But that doesn't mean he should just die because he doesn't have his purpose anymore." "What if he wakes up and he doesn't want to be a leader anymore? We can't take that choice away from him." "His survival alone is already unnatural.

Who lives through dragon fire?" "I mean, I wouldn't say it's like unnatural though, because like we've all been hurt and gotten healed pretty quick and that's from like magic and stuff, so I wouldn't say it's like unnatural." "You could be right, however. I just do not know what one lone child would change in this city. I do not understand his importance, you could say." "So he's kind of like, if these people weren't here, he'd be like the ruler, right? He'd be making all the decisions and stuff." "And why is that?" "No, no, I just-" "I do not understand." "He's the Lord of Winterhaven.

He's born into it. His parents were rulers before him. That's how that works." "You can see on Evelyn's face, he's trying to grasp something that he's not accustomed to, like the idea of being born into royalty and stuff like that. He's not very accustomed to that idea of that, so he's having a hard time wrapping around his head." "So if he's supposed to be in charge, and we're supposed to help the city and stuff, does that mean that we need to help him feel better if we can?" "Mm-hmm. That is a valid point." "To me, I don't care who he is. He's hurt, he needs help.

And I don't think that it's our place to say who lives, who dies. If we have an option to help him, I feel like we should." "I agree. I agree with that." "I see your point. I do not believe this child is special in the way that we should choose whether he lives or dies. If we can't help, and the people of this city will appreciate it, then I agree." "Did part of the streetwise role that Irina rolled, that made sense I guess, did part of that streetwise let us know how the city was feeling as far as pro-Nathaniel, pro-cancel?" "Well, they've been keeping the entire Nathaniel thing really hush-hush.

The most they'd say is, 'Oh, he's recovering.' But, I mean, people are pretty much of the opinion that it's like, 'Oh yeah, he'll be back. He's just recovering.' Because they haven't announced a death after weeks, so they're figuring, 'Okay, then he can only get better from here.' That's pretty much what the public perception would be. And for now, it's just kind of, it falls on the council. They don't know anything about the inner turmoil with the council itself, and they don't know anything about how poor Nathaniel's condition actually is." "Okay, so it wouldn't be something where it could be like, 'Oh, the public will appreciate it if we say...' Because they don't know he's dying." "No, but I mean, if they knew that you were doing something to help him, like after all is said and done, then, you know, that'd be a different story." "Okay." "Can I do a nature check to learn about this milkweed?" "Sure." "I just want to know, like, what the effects are." "Dang, girl." "That's pretty good." "I was about to say, nature is not normally your thing, but that's..." "Nope." "That's a good roll." "That's a good roll.

So, commonly, and again, she would have told you why they need it, but it's an ingredient usually used in a potion to sort of... When clerics have done all they can do, right? And this is pretty rare. Normally, clerics can heal broken bones and gashes and things like that and sort of get you back to a point where it's like you can walk on it, you can move, you won't bleed to death, that type of thing. Usually there's a scar left or something like that, but when stuff is this bad, like, again, he has been burned head to toe on one side of his body, they had to amputate one of his hands, I mean, it's bad.

This is pretty much just for the pain. Like, he will recover over time, but that's if he doesn't... The pain is so intense that that could kill him. So, this is sort of an herbal aid to deal with that, to get him to the point where at least he could be conscious. He can be back on the road here." "So there's not any addictive qualities to him?" "Well, here's the thing." "Any painkiller." "Right." "Any painkiller can be abused, let's say, and in Nathaniel's case, it would have to be something that would be monitored very closely because, yes, any painkiller has addictive qualities.

No one wants to feel pain, so once you get, you know..." "So like, if I get in, it's good for a little bit, but then, like, don't do it too much." "Yeah. I mean, the only other thing you could do is give him yarrow, which would be ill-advised, because what it does is cut off the pain receptors to the body, but it works in a much shorter duration, and it would amp him up and he'd go fucking nuts. It would do a lot more harm than good." "And then coming down off that's not really good either." "Nope." "Cool. Thanks." "No, no problem." "I just don't want to, like, get him something that's going to help in the short term, but also be, like, a really big problem in the long term." "Right.

And Combs doesn't want that either. It's not even... Like, here's the thing, and she would talk to you about this. It's not even that she necessarily wants Nathaniel in charge of the city, but Nathaniel's young enough and moldable enough that she's hoping that he could be guided into becoming a great leader. And that's the best they can hope for right now, because she has an equal amount of power to the other two council members, but it would sort of appear that they've been talking, and it's not looking great. So she's kind of thinking, "Well, we don't have a ton of options right now." "Right." "So it sounds like the group kind of knows what they want to do." "Yeah, I think so." "I think so." "Okay." But a little over a week later, in the frozen continent of Kian, far to the north, Group steps out of a gate that led them here from an isolated mountain near the center of the continent of Talor.

They're getting ready to embark on a journey to the seal on the continent, though they arrive far sooner than they anticipated. What we're going to do is we are going to sort of fast-track things a little bit, and we're going to simulate what a month on Kian would be like. "Insert chattering noise?" Well, yes. It's obviously very cold. Now, the gate's going to dump you out on the east coast of Kian. Now, you do have that map, which is going to be so helpful, because without it, you guys have not prepared for a trip to Kian. You have not-- I mean, you have furs and things like that from when you were sailing, but I mean, I don't know if you're prepared for what's happening on this continent.

So what I'd like to do is I would like to have one of you guys nominate someone to roll a flat D20, and that's going to sort of judge how harsh this month has been on you. You guys want me to do it? Yeah, sure. Yeah, go for it. Fuck it. Oh, we bad. My bad. That's not bad. Sorry, everybody. We're going to freeze to death. I would say, firstly, traveling around in Kian is going to be slow going, and one is due to weather. It's obviously way colder than you're used to. A lot of it is making camp and just huddling together. I picture you guys in a puppy pile a lot of the time building fires and just trying not to freeze to death.

Again, those furs are helping out amazingly. And what we're going to do is we are going to fast forward to the first of Ringway. I would imagine you guys will get to the seal before G3. You are going to get to the continent before Group 3 is going to get to the continent by almost two weeks. So, yeah, they're sort of dealing with things on the west coast. So, is there anything your characters would like to do in that month? Would there be any conversations that you'd be having? Is there just basic survival stuff? No, we don't talk to each other. Okay, good.

Just for a good 30, 40 days. I think I would ask. We'll huddle in a pile together, but we don't talk. We would be able to set up camp or something or find a good spot in eyesight from the gate but the seal. We jump down trees. Are there trees? Yeah, what's it look like? Is it just like tundra where it's just like nothing as far as the eye can see? That's fair. Actually, I did this for G3, but I didn't get a chance to do this for G2. And Kien is a barren wasteland of ice and snow. And if there is water, it's usually frozen. The biggest thing you're going to find on your way is like if there's a tree, it's very sparing.

There is some mountain ranges on the out rim of the continent. But for the most part, it's just dead and barren. Like finding food is going to be tricky. Like that is going to be a lot. And you're going to have to eat more calories just to survive. So if you guys go hunting, that's a thing. You will find bears and stuff like that and some other things up north. But for the most part, it's just going to be, I would imagine, exhaustion. Like you guys are trekking and you'll make it a few miles and you need to stop. Make it a few miles, you need to stop. It's just going to be that.

Just to grind the entire time. Something you're going to see a bit of actually is the white dragons are something you will see up this far north. That's kind of their homeland. So that is going to be probably a shit your pants in amazement moment if you've never seen them in their natural habitat. Because again, remember how I said in the outer rim of Cian you'll find mountains and stuff? Lot of dragons flying around there. And these things are massive. Like way bigger than the dragons you're used to on the mainland. It's just they're huge. So picture something the size of like a jumbo jet flying over the party having no interest in you guys.

Like just none really. Oh yeah, Cauldin is totally enthralled by this. He is watching the skies. Actually, since there's all this time, is there a way that he can, like just in downtime, sort of, and with these dragons around, is there a way for him to sort of like practice, I guess, sort of like flexing that muscle of being able to communicate with them? Well you need to touch them. Okay, is there any like sensory thing he can do or it's just based on touch? It's pretty much just based on touch. And the problem is Amarr is one thing. Amarr is house trained, let's call it.

While these white dragons have no interest in you as food, necessarily, and they're not really combative, they're a lot more easygoing than the red dragons on the mainland are. I don't know if I'd advise going in searching out one and touching it. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, and it'd be kind of a trek out of your way. Another thing you're going to notice is they've, I mean, the white dragons for the most part have pretty much made Kion their home. And you will find some dragon carcasses here and there. You'll find like giant hollowed out skeletons of like, I mean, it looks like, again, it looks like someone stripped down an old, like, like an aircraft carrier or something like that, or like an old jumbo jet, something like that, like in like Lord of War.

Like just the skeletal remains of, yeah, no scales, nothing like that. Just... Can he touch those? Oh, absolutely. Oh yeah. Like, yeah, there's, yeah. There wouldn't really be anything to communicate with, but it's, it's just picture just this huge, like, skeletal frame that you can walk around inside. Like the whole group could just go inside and walk around. Can we set up camp in one? Yeah, I was going to say that's where we're, that's where we should set up our camp. That's pretty cool. Well, there, there's, there's some that are more intact than others, like a slightly fresher version.

Luckily, I mean, it's so frozen that there wouldn't be much of a smell. Like that is totally something you can do. We can't do like a Tauntaun situation. Oh, they're not warm. No, these are long dead. All right, gotcha, gotcha. If they're dead, they've been dead for a little while. And usually they die of old age. There's not much up here that's going to do combat with them. So, like they're, they're usually pretty big if you find them on the ground. Okay, so like bones and stuff. Yeah. If we're ever setting up camp, Cauldron will turn to the party and be like, "Let me show you a trick my mother taught me." And he'll, with sort of like magic and packing, he'll make like a very rough igloo kind of thing for everyone.

So just to shelter from the sort of like the weather and stuff. I imagine Cauldron would be a very good person to have in your party at this, at this point. I would also imagine that Kori is probably doing a majority of the hunting for the party. Yeah, I was going to say that, that she would probably go out and bring back whatever she could for more furs and food and that sort of thing. I would like one person in the party to do me a favor and roll a perception check. I was going to volunteer. Just one. I'll do it. In the meantime, can I just say that when people are hunting or eating stuff like that, because I don't have to, I'm going to take that free time to just like train with my new weapon, see if I can get better with it.

Mm hmm. Just saying. So eventually, you guys are going to find the seal. And this is, this is a huge deal. It's, this thing is in the middle of nowhere, right? You'd picture there'd be some sort of little gravitas to it. Like there might be a temple or there might be some sort of like outside structure guarding it or something. Now, the strangest thing is that you would expect the seal to be covered with ice and snow and stuff like that. And not only is the seal this, this large sort of gleaming silver tablet, it's, it's so big that the entire group could stand on top of it.

There's a lot of like, there's a lot of etching and stuff like that. It's more designed than language is what it looks like. That is completely clear of any ice, snow debris, anything like that. There is nothing on it. And if someone were to lay their hand on it, it's actually warm to the touch. So the ground around it is actually sort of soft too. Can we do like an arcana check? Excuse me, an arcana check on it? Sure. That's a lot of 30s. It's a lot of, it's a lot. I'm, well you know what, yeah, I'm going to roll two. I didn't know if everybody knows this.

Go team magic nerds. I'll just be over here. Hey, you natured the hell out of things, Paul. There is stronger magic coming from this thing than any of you have ever felt in your entire life. It's not even close. Like the next highest thing you can think of is it's just like, no, that, that doesn't even compare. It almost, it's like radiating off of this. And it's such a, it's such a tremendous overpowering feeling that you can, it, it almost feels like I should not screw with this. Like it just, it's, there's such a pressure coming from it. It feels like, it feels like someone plugging a dam, but through the arcane.

Does Dagon feel anything odd, you know, being a key? I wouldn't say that there'd be anything that, that stands out to Dagon, just beyond the fact that it's like, okay, this is super important. This is, this is some big, heavy, big time mojo. I wouldn't say that there's anything that would necessarily jump out to Dagon specifically though. Okay. So again, we're, I'm going to say that you guys have found the seal on the first of Renway. Well, I think once we get to the seal, Corey would probably like visibly start to not relax, but like almost excited. We're here.

We finally made it. Does anyone know what we do now? Braille doesn't speak up. Yeah, we eat. I'm starving. I know I've said this a thousand times before already, but perhaps we should have brought Terrandor with us. As unpleasant as his company would have been, I have to agree with you. Now that we're here, we, what now? Do you really think he could have survived the cult? I don't think he would have survived just leaving this place. Yeah. Maybe we should have just asked him more questions. But as we've said that a million times before. Well, Dagon went for the gate and opened it.

There was very little time to ask any more questions. Yeah, not that it was a bad call, boss. Just next time, can we make a checklist or something? I tend to get irrational. What can I say? But he's not here. We need to figure out what to do. Well, we have a few more days before the blood moon, so let's prepare. Let's get ready and wait and see if anyone else comes and meets us here. We know we have to perform a ritual and we know that only a scion can open it. And she's going to look towards Dagon. I'm sure it'll come to you in time, Dagon. I feel like we've all been avoiding this, but Dagon, the witch did say whoever performs this ritual will die.

Is that something that you are ready for? And then she'll look to the rest of the group and say, is this something we're all ready for? Actronis is going to sigh. Some of us get to be celebrated as heroes in their lifetimes, but he's going to put his hand on his chest. Some of us actually have to die to fulfill our destinies. But, Captain Dagon, I've been thinking a lot about this as we've traveled here. The power that you have, the magic that you possess, not even the Elodrin understand fully. You are probably stronger than any of us here. But that doesn't mean that we are not without power as well.

I don't know how this thing works and I don't know what's required. But if it's just straight power, maybe there's a way that we can provide you with something that you need so that it can take a little bit from all of us without taking a lot from just one of us. It's something to consider. But I really don't want to try anything until we know for sure what needs to be done. And as far as me opening it, I understand the risk. I also understand that the Elodrin who were sealed really had nothing to do with this. Maybe there was knowledge of what had happened and what could happen.

I can't say they're all innocent. But I know they all don't deserve this. And if I can help them and I can help you, Kori, then that's what I'm going to do. Kori's just going to sort of look down, like the realization that Dagon might have to die and just hit her. And she's just going to go hunt. Dagon, whether you're with us or not, after all of this is resolved. Know that I and he looks around, the rest of us will pursue your goal. We will make sure that the Elodrin gets released. Thank you, Dr. Onis. I don't know what to say. I just only hope that I can be there for you when it's time to help you out, to go back to Onikol.

Onikol can wait. He'll just nod and smile. There's so much going through his head right now. He's just really not sure how to process or really say what he's feeling. I know I said light a big-ass fire to be funny, but I think I will light like four fires, like one in each direction, like north, east, south, west, so people can see it from a distance. OK. To be like, hey, we're over here. See, that's the other thing, and that's something I'd say that you'd notice after you settle in for a while. It's been a little while since you've seen another living thing, be it animal or plant life or anything.

It's just been a while. And it'd be such a gradual thing that I don't know if you'd notice right off the bat. It's just more like, you know what? I don't see any animals. I don't see any... there's no... I mean, lack of plant life is something that you'd notice a lot of in Keanu, but not even the occasional tree or bush or anything like that. That's not ominous. On the 20th of Thorim, Group 1 departed from Esterhold on the back of Amara, Tessie's giant white dragon and the symbol of house dragonkeep of Brightport. Along with Craig, the head paladin from the Temple of Kord, they were flying to the city of Winterhaven to prepare for the trial of Malkus Grimnus.

It was an important event, as whether the city found Malkus to be guilty or innocent would surely dictate many decisions in the coming years of how adventurers were seen in the eyes of the law. But first, the group would have some things to take care of inside the city. For instance, speaking with their defense lawyer, Ren Ravishaw. Tessie would be loading up Amara with the party and Craig, so getting to Winterhaven would be pretty much a breeze. It would just be a couple hours. So this would be in the evening, and Tessie knows enough Draconics to sort of give Amara direction.

And she's going to be putting Amara down well outside the city. And the reason for this being that she knows some people tend to react negatively to Amara's presence. A dragon nearing a city, people get antsy, people panic. So she would set Amara down, and then once everybody sort of got off, she would probably give Amara an instruction to fly away a bit. Just sort of get Amara away from a populated place. And this has been done before, just like, okay, go there and then come back after a time and we'll hop on. How far away would it be from like where we encountered those orcs?

Oh, nowhere near there. No, this is more on the road type of thing. But it would be like, let's not sit down in the middle of like a convoy or something. It's more just, this would be directly south of Winterhaven. So you guys discovered those orcs a bit to the east. So this would be right smack dab in the middle of 10,000 horns. So this would be right about with a fork in the road from the south meets the road to Aubrey. So we're talking like a couple of miles outside of Winterhaven and you guys would sit down. Okay. So if you were to just venture to Winterhaven, it would be just a little bit time to get there.

And I'd say it would be like dusk, right around like 7, 8pm somewhere in there. On which day? The 20th. The 20th. Okay. Yeah, it'd be later. It would be later that same day because it's yeah, it does not take doesn't take long to get somewhere when you're on dragonback. Okay. So let me ask, let me ask the group a question. Firstly, how are we feeling about the trial situation after the meeting in in Esterhold? I mean, we've got some good support. It's just hard to know what the other side is doing. Right. Yeah, we need to go talk to the guy. The lawyer. Wren. Was it Wren?

Okay. Wren Rabishaw. Wren Rabishaw. I was going to say Wren Kenrever, but I think that was combining the two names. That was. That was Malchus Isalius. If that's if that's his name, there's a problem because that means your lawyer is hiding from something. Yeah, I think we should if it's too late in the day to talk to him, at least maybe drop a note by and be like, hey, we'll be by first thing in the morning. Yeah. Wait. Is the trial the trial's on the twenty second, though? Twenty second. Oh, twenty second. Okay. Yeah. How was our general we picked up a cleric of Kord, a high priest of Kord or something.

How was our general connection with him? Craig. Craig is one of those. Okay, let me tackle Craig in a nutshell. Being a high paladin of Kord, Craig is it's more about the the the fighting toe to toe honorable type of thing. Like it's all about courage, right? That being said, he is pretty close to Jadzia. He's seen Jadzia in combat, knows that that she's pretty honorable. So with Jadzia talking to Craig about the situation and just telling telling him, it's like, look, this is what's going on. Craig is there to speak for Jadzia, not for himself necessarily.

So whatever his personal opinions might be of Malchus, that's sort of set to the side and he's there to vouch as Jadzia's proxy, basically. He probably wouldn't he probably wouldn't have any like hatred towards Malchus or anything. He probably wouldn't like Theo all that much in terms of like a warrior, but I don't think that would come up too much. Like he's not there to fight. He's there to sort of be an envoy. How's it feeling after taking that dragon ride? Not a fan. Never been a fan. Yeah, not a fan of of dragon back and and Tessia would be used to it by now.

So so entering the city, right? Yeah, I think so. Probably headed to see Ren, not headed to see Ren team. I think we should go to see him first, at least till we know we're back, even if we don't have a meeting with him tonight and tell him we'd be ready to meet with him first thing in the morning. Because it's like eight o'clock, right? Yeah, it's it's so well, he eats at four and settles down early. So he's old. He's an older gentleman. He's let's let's go see. Let's knock on his door. This is me knocking. OK, this is me knocking. Talk, talk, talk. He's actually in his office right now.

You could see that there's still a lantern lit. He's he's still there. So the door would be open. Is it just Malkus going in? Tevien would wait outside because it was kind of small. So she's not a small person. This is true. Yeah, she'd just stand outside the door again. And then we'll follow. OK, I should note that Tessie and Craig would probably just check into the hotel and settle in because they know the trial isn't for a couple of days and they would be, you know. So, Wren would greet you upon seeing you. Mr. Grimness, I have to say I was expecting you yesterday.

Travel does not always allow us to adhere to a strict schedule. Ah, have a seat, please. Take a seat. How have things in Winterhaven been in our absence? Have you made any progress? Have you been able to take the temperature of our opposition? He would do one of those old man sits. So he's going to he's going to get that grunty old man sit. Well, I'm going to be honest with you, Mr. Grimness, this doesn't look as good as I was hoping it would look. Public perception of you isn't exactly as favorable as we'd like heading into this trial. Hmmm. Elaborate on that.

The people of Winterhaven have been through a lot in the past, well, past few years, but over the past couple of decades. And I'm afraid some of the counselors are using that to their advantage. Do you think they'll be receptive to our witnesses, our character witnesses? Well, it all depends. Who'd you get? Who'd you get to speak for you? We have Liara, the Queen of Overwatch, Craig, High Paladin of Kord speaking on behalf of Jadzia, Father White from Aubrey, and Tessia Grimness, my mother. Which, granted, perhaps some bias involved, but she is certainly prestigious enough that her words will probably make a difference.

And looking at this list, it occurs to me that we don't have a local. That would be the problem, Mr. Grimness. That would be a problem. I'm gonna level with you here. Mm-hmm. These people are scared. They're worried that we could go through something that we might not be ready for. We don't have proper leadership in the city, we don't have proper defense, we don't... In short, we're not ready for another full-scale battle like what we just went through. And what the Council is promising is a return to form. Safety. Part of that is punishing people who aren't good for Winterhaven as a whole.

And that's what you're being painted as. So what do you think they're posing as my harm to Winterhaven? I mean, if the people are afraid of external dangers, you want the baddest dog in the yard, so to speak, on your side. You want the guy who will do things a little messy, if that's what it takes to protect Winterhaven. That's what I did. But is there any way we can spin what I've done to make them realize that they want me free, because I'm going to do very bad things to anyone who tries to hurt this place? Mr. Grimnus, they're painting you as a rabid dog.

That's the problem. Yeah, you've done some questionable things, and most of them were for the greater good of Winterhaven, but... The Councils have been doing some digging, and some of them feel that they can present a case that you don't always act in your city's best interest. You act more in your own interest. That's what we're trying to disprove. Anven's going to pipe up here in a little bit. But surely there's a way to prove that if Malgus did not take action and do this, that there would be even more loss, and Winterhaven would be a more dire strait, or even not even be here anymore.

He's right. The nuance of what is on trial here is going to matter, assuming they're playing by the rules. Is it a question of my overall character, or is it a question of whether or not what I did was in Winterhaven's best interest and defended Winterhaven? I don't think there's any question about that. We just need to make sure that if... well, first, tell me. Is that the nature, the word as written as to what's on trial here? Your actions, while in Winterhaven, are what's on trial, specifically what happened during the war. Specifically? Specifically.

But I can't promise you that they're not going to try and paint you in a certain light. But can we make points of order to drag them back to the case at hand? If we can show that they're diverging from the actual thing on trial here? That depends on the crowd. They're going to want to pursue a certain line of questioning, and that's basically, "Can you be controlled? Will you stick to the rule of law within Winterhaven?" And he's going to start shuffling through some notes. You lived in the city of Overdale some years ago, correct? We were there for a time.

I have heard that there was an incident involving quite a few murders. That town guard was not privy to, no one in charge was made known of your actions. You weren't working for any law enforcement within the city at the time? We did make ourselves jury, and executioner for that matter. The problem is, Malchus, I know about these things. You can bet that the opposition is going to know about these things. You could be damn sure they're going to use it. Can any sort of rules of the court be used to... what do I want to say? Tell them that they're diverging from the case at hand?

Can we just shut down that line of questioning on that point? Normally that would be up to the council. And the council is divided. That's correct. Well, come to think of it, they can't split half and half. The real person we need to be convincing is... who's the undecided councilor again? Arela. Arela. Councilor Arela is who we need to be working to convince. Because, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but if two side in my favor, that's the case, right? That would be the case. What do we know about this councilor, Arela? Strictly speaking, not much. Normally very moderate in terms of decisions.

Haven't been many trials since the unfortunate events with Nathaniel, of course, but... Tends to swing toward the conservative side. If I'm being completely honest, that's why I'm so worried. Hmm. Is there anything that he is known for that is... does have a push for, is pro for, or anything that would make it something we would say we're behind? So to kind of understand the motivations instead of... I wouldn't imagine he would be neutral on everything. There's got to be something that we can create a commonality, align our views with. Well, he was pushing for advanced border for Winterhaven, setting up some sort of guard perimeter, but we just don't have the manpower for that kind of thing.

Unless it was some sort of volunteer army. But, again, it's mostly based in a fear. Just people afraid we're going to get attacked again. That sounds like we should be trying to fight and saying, with Malchus, with people like Malchus, that's why we're here to protect, so that fear can be washed away. And it is a point that we'll drive home. The point we should be driving home is that the mainland is a dark and chaotic continent, where often the mighty express their will over the weak, whether we like it or not. Winterhaven's best chance of long-term peace and survival is having knights who are willing to strike back when that sort of might and chaos ends up on our doorstep.

So that's one thing that we'll make sure to drive home. Here's another thought. Odds are we could not get a meeting with Councillor Arilla this close to the court proceedings. It would be considered bias-inducing or something. It wouldn't work in our favour to have it known that we met with the Councillor this close to the time for judgement. But do we know anyone who he associates with who is in favour of my actions? Prominent citizens, business owners... Wren is going to look around. That sort of look around is like, "Is anyone listening to this?" That type of thing.

And he is going to remove a sealed envelope from his desk and gently slide it over to Malchus. Malchus raises his eyebrow and does not place his hand and therefore his fingerprints on said envelope. What is this Wren? Okay, he's going to look down at the envelope and look up the envelope and in a very... it's like, "That's yours?" So it becomes very apparent right off the bat that this is from Councillor Combs. And again, for reasons that you just stated, her involvement in this has to be kept hush-hush. Right. But again, they were expecting you back in the city yesterday, so she's been in contact with your lawyer.

That much is obvious. And she wants to arrange some sort of meeting with you the second you're back in the city. Does she have any recommendation for where that meeting occurs in her note? She would. And there would be directions for you to basically head to Winterhaven Hall. Isn't that where the other Councillors would be? No, that is a separate building. Okay. Winterhaven Hall is actually a building that gets a lot of usage. There's tons of stuff going on. Originally it was Ian and Talia's manor. Not being used for that anymore, though. So that building has tons of servants and people going in and out and stuff.

And it isn't uncommon for, specifically knights, to have access to it. Okay. Does she state a time? Does she state how I'm supposed to signal that I'm there to see her? That would be something that would be pretty easy to set it up. And Wren could have a bit of a hand in that. So if you want to set it up, we could set it up for as early as later tonight on the 20th. Sure. You seem unsure. You're very perceptive. It's a trap. Who in our party is good at the perception thing? Insight or perception? Perception, specifically. So let me be clear. I'm looking for how I can use the other members of our party to station in such a way to make sure we aren't tailed or approached by anyone who would use this meeting against us.

Aria's very good at perception, if you want that. Yay! Pretty good. Nope. Okay, well, two's better than nothing. Theo's great, I'm sure. Oh, his perception's through the roof. He is excellent at perceiving. Theo is good at everything because he tries and we appreciate that. So I will briefly get in touch here with Aria and Tavine and basically just say, if we arrange this meeting tonight, and it does seem Councillor Combs wants to see me rather urgently, we need to make sure that it is not known that we meet. Can the two of you station yourselves near Winterhaven Hall when we make this arrangement and prepare to signal us if one of the other Councillors or any other Winterhaven official approaches?

Sure. What kind of signal do you want? Ah... Like how obvious? Yeah. That's a good question. Let's not go with anything that's historically done poorly for us. Technically, you've only tried it once. Yeah. Zero for one is enough judgement for you. What if, in the event that you see someone, the two of you bump into one another on the street and start an argument? That will draw their vision and be loud enough for us to hear in the hall. Okay, so cause a distraction rather than... Yeah, just noise and make it look like the two of you are perhaps one of you, you know, has been drinking or something or something, you know, and is getting unruly.

Something that creates a scene in that public place that would draw eyes and make enough noise for us to hear in the hall. Aria's gonna kind of glance at Tavine and be like, I don't know if I'd be good at that. You can be the sober sounding one. You make it sound like... Only because I'm more confident in Tavine's... Drunkenness? Thanks. Ability to project drunkenness. Theo would raise his hand. Yes, Theo. I don't, I don't really like to drink all that much. Is it okay if I just like break a thing or something like that? Theo, nobody's actually drinking. No, we're just, we're making a scene so that I can hear that someone's coming and whoever is coming will slow their approach.

I think we can make that and then Tavine's gonna look at Aria and be like, I've got an idea. And she looks really like unhappy about it. She goes, I got an idea of something I can do if it comes to it. Just remember, I do like you. I know this. It seems a bit complicated for a signal is all, but... Do you have a better suggestion? Any like bird calls or anything like that? Can you make them loud enough that I'll hear them in the hall from a position where you can see? Do you think you'll be able to hear an argument outside? Well, that's why I wanted the argument is both a noise and a distraction as opposed to the bird call, which is just a noise.

Okay. Is where we're going like, is it like all the council members go in that area or is it just Combs area? Traditionally, it's not it's not council members at all. It's just it's mostly servants and people taking care of Nathaniel and and a lot of stuff like that. There'll be guards and stuff, but they again, Malchus is a knight. They'd let him in. They would probably keep an eye on him. But yeah. Okay. My thought was if there was any like check for magic things, listening or something like that or some I don't know what. I do have one question is like, would there be a plausible reason for us to be going there, though?

Because that might raise more suspicion than than anything. It's just us walking right up there. Yes. Or like a bar or something. Well, there's not a bar in. Well, there's a bar nearby, but there's no there's no bar in the hall, obviously. Malchus has been there before. It's not that highly suspicious. It's not that people weren't allowed there because it's more like a not touristy, but it's it's kind of a point about. Do you remember the party going there after the 17 year jump and there's like murals and there's paintings and all that kind of stuff. So there's there's memorabilia and stuff dedicated to the city itself.

So taking like taking a stroll through there is not unheard of. Hmm. That's near the statue, right? But if we. Okay. But you said you. But did you also say that if I go in there, the guards will let me in, but they'll want to observe me or follow me? Not not follow you through the entire place. And you're you're being OK to put it bluntly, you're being invited. Like you'll be someone will like kind of pull you aside. It's like, oh, yeah, he's with me and pull you pull you to a room. That's that's basically what's happening. A meeting is being set up. It's not just like you walking in like, oh, like, OK, yeah.

It's just like you're making this much more complicated than it needs to be is how I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I was almost like picturing like we were just both going to like walk into like an empty like like almost like church sanctuary thing. And it's right. It's funny to see you here. Yeah, no, it's not it's not quite. This is a meeting being set up where it would be comfy and quiet. That's the point. OK. Just I'll go. I mean, just watch out for followers on the way there. Like, I don't even know that once you're inside, it's not like anyone following you is going to do much if they weren't already following you before.

It's true. I don't know. It's up to you. You're the boss. OK, well, let's see. Let's not keep counselor Combs waiting and let's go ahead and set this up. I would like the argument corollary to be in effect that if I hear you guys making a scene outside, we'll assume we're supposed to cut the cut the thing short. If you see someone entering who who might be trouble. OK, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Just just as a thing to listen for. So who the hell is going and who's staying outside? Davina will be outside. OK. Aria will be outside. Do you want me in there with you, Marcus, or do you want me outside watching?

You're smart. You should go in. You've been a good adviser. Let's have you in the talking portion of the party. Cool. I have really good diplomacy. That's been a secret. We could keep Theo kind of as a almost like a middle person, like have him stop inside, but like not all the way inside with you guys so that he's closer to hearing what's going on outside. I'm comfortable with that arrangement. Yeah. Just just ensure it gets heard. Yeah, he'd be fine with that. Just awkwardly talk to guards or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Just to be in the waiting room. Sure. Yeah. Just be weird.

Like I wasn't really invited to that party, but I didn't want to wait outside. Cold out there. Yeah. OK. I think we've got our arrangements to make this work. Let's go to that meeting and see where that takes us. All right. So, Malchus and Amven are going to well, Malchus, Amven and Theo are going to walk into Winterhaven Hall and Theo is going to stop right around the more public area. Now, after Malchus enters, a female figure is going to emerge that Malchus or Amven wouldn't recognize. But it's like, oh, we're expecting you come this way and kind of be ushered into like a private hallway type of thing, something that isn't isn't open to the public most most times.

I'm assuming he's going to go with her. This is us getting whisked. A whisk. Whisked away. You just saved me foley work. That's awesome. That's that's good. I need to put on a whisk sound now. Capes wish whisk away. Going down this hallway, she is going to lead you to a private room and inside is going to be Councillor Combs. There's going to be a few few chairs set up. Other than that, this room is very sparse. It doesn't look like a living area or something like that. It just looks like a tiny little like meeting room. And she's going to just kind of like, here you go.

And that type of thing. And close the door behind her, like walk back out unless you have an objection. No, Malchus turns the chair around and does a Riker sit. Oh, wow. OK. Malchus would Rikers sit. God damn it. I would sit nicely. I was trained to do a Umineiro. And then went to finishing school. Good. That's right. Combs would greet you both. Malchus. Councillor. I've been informed by Wren that your quest to find people to speak for you went pretty well. It has. We have a number of people on our side. Unfortunately, no well-known locals to Winterhaven, but certainly a number of prominent voices from the mainland at large.

And Wren has caught you up on our situation. He has. But any elaboration you can add would be appreciated. In short, our situation here in Winterhaven is deteriorating. Without concrete leadership, people have been left to their own devices. And it would appear as though, in the long run, Councillor Freeman would like to run the city of Winterhaven. Not as the Council, but as the noble, as the figure? Yes. I'll be blunt with you, Malchus. No one is expecting Nathaniel to live through the rest of the month. And once he dies, the city will be looking for someone to run the city as a singular entity.

Freeman does have experience, and I believe he plans to run on a platform of fear. I believe he could whip the city up into a frenzy enough that they would vote for him if the time came. And if he appears as though he's tough on crime, or a large proponent of the city's safety by... and she's gonna gesture. Over to you. By trying to put you away. So this trial is to be his campaigning point? I believe this would be the starting point, yes. Interesting. Well, there's always defeating him here and removing that feather from his cap. Do you have any good news?

The good news is I've been speaking to another group. They're visitors in the city of Overwatch. Their main goal seems to be to help Winter get back on its feet, to mend fences between the cities. We've sent word to their leadership. It's something we've been avoiding, to be honest. We've been dealing with our own problems. But the Queen there has offered to assist us repairing the city and building up an army to make sure that attacks like would have happened in the past won't happen again. That's going to take time, though. He's the Queen of Overwatch, right?

Yes. Okay. The good news in the immediate is that I've been speaking with this group about Nathaniel's recovery and might be able to assist him. I'm going to be honest with you. Our options here are slim. We could proceed with the trial and hope that everything goes according to plan. I'm not exactly sure what the other counselors have in mind. But some of it's going to come down to public opinion. And I can't guarantee that we could keep that in check. One of our other options would be to try and get Nathaniel back on his feet. If we could do that, the trial would almost be moot.

If you think that then you would vouch for you. It's been a long time and I don't know for sure. But do you think that sort of thing can happen prior to the trial? We do not have much time. I know. What is needed? What's needed is an herb that's about a day away. There's a wrinkle. Remember the orks that you brought to our attention? I do. Recently they've been encroaching on the borders of Winterhaven. And to get this herb we may need to actually go through an encampment. But that herb would aid Nathaniel. And if we could get him conscious and staying conscious, there might not even be a need for a trial.

If he would speak to you, vouch for your presence here in the city, then it would supersede the need for all of this. We wouldn't need to leave all of this up to chance. But on what grounds would the trial be dismissed? Are you saying you think Nathaniel would call it off? I think he might, yes. Your past with him would certainly indicate that. And there's nothing preventing me from leaving the city in the days prior to the trial, right? There isn't, no. Except the promise you gave me. How tight of a deadline are we on? When is the trial supposed to start?

Tomorrow? The 20th. Evening of the 22nd. Oh, evening of the 22nd. Okay. Yep. So we are not exactly flush with time. Essentially, what is being proposed is a day's journey total, barring any unforeseen circumstances. You'd be back well before the trial would even start. So you wouldn't be losing anything. What does the public know of the hearing happening for me? How is it dispensed to the public? How is it spun, as it were, to the public? I've done my best to keep that as neutral as possible. What the public knows is essentially there will be a hearing looking into the events that happened during the fight just outside of Winterhaven's gates.

We are trying to keep this focused on the Warforged. I thought that that would be the most beneficial to you. Most people didn't view the Warforged as anything other than a menace. And if we can keep the focus on the Overwatches Warforged and not our allies at the time, I think that that would be our best bet. However, once the trial starts, that probably won't be the case. My hope was to keep people as neutral as possible going into the trial. I'm pretty confident in my ability to argue for the necessity of my actions. Here's if we were to go through with fighting these orcs to go after this herb, do you think Counselor Freeman would go to any extreme measures to prevent us from completing this mission?

Does he have agents who might try to sabotage our mission? He would certainly know what's at stake, right? She would she would sit back in her chair just a bit. I don't believe so. The orcs pose a threat to all of us. And if you were successful in this mission, and honestly we would do our best to just keep everything as hush-hush as possible, the most you'd be doing is killing a few orcs. If you were successful, maybe reaching some kind of accord with them, leading them to understand that this is our territory and they're not welcome here. Why would we want to make this hush-hush?

I don't need to say that I'm going to get the herb. I can tell the people of Winterhaven that I've been made aware that you have an orc problem and I'm going to solve it. Certainly that would build a lot of goodwill if I came back having dispersed an encampment along with my allies, right? She would kind of do that thing where you stroke your chin. That is true. Honestly, I was thinking of it from the standpoint of sabotage, but... Wait, what do you mean? Well, it's no secret that Freeman isn't exactly a fan of yours and it would be a huge feather in his cap to see you fail, but I don't believe he would sacrifice the safety of the city to do that.

Telling people beforehand would definitely be a boon to us during the trial. Whether you succeed or not, the fact that you were brave enough to go try in the city's name, I don't see how that could hurt us at all. And if he does attempt to sabotage our quest, his bitterness will be made known to everyone. I could see through to that. We don't have to discuss the nature of the additional quest to find the herb. That can, as far as I'm concerned, be the business of your second group of agents, right? I'd like you to meet with them, if possible, beforehand.

And see if you trust them. If you do, then I'm sure they can complete the task. If all of you are working together, that's a small enough party to send out. You said their allegiance lies with the Overwatch? Yes, but again, it's- Different leadership. Yes. Right. Well, another question though. You said the Overwatch is interested in granting additional fortification and military to Winterhaven? It's being discussed. It's being discussed. In what ways, if any, would that make Winterhaven beholden to the Overwatch? It's not a matter of not trusting the new management.

It's a matter of being an independent city able to make our own decisions. Well, my understanding is this is more reparations. It's not in the pocket of Overwatch. This is just- Goodwill. Yes. I see. I believe the group you're visiting is the first wave of that. Then I would like to meet with them. Certainly, there's nothing suspicious about me as a night of Winterhaven learning that the city has trouble with orcs. There's nothing suspicious about me going out with a fighting force to dispatch them. The timeline looks clean for me to return on time for my trial.

This seems like an obvious right step. The only other thing we need to do is make sure to make a scene tomorrow morning and make it clear to the people that we're marching out there to make Winterhaven a more secure city. She's going to grin just a little bit. I think I can help with that. I like the sound of that. Is there any way we could also get maybe Orilla somehow involved in this as well to get her support? Or his support? Dang it. Get his support. My notes have hers. I just replaced that. Yeah. Those elves, man. You just never do know, huh? Right? Exactly.

Y'all look the same. Amven's got a good point. In the event that the trial does happen and we fail in getting this herb, we need the goodwill of two out of three on the council, just in case. Would he oppose the sort of direct military intervention that we're doing, or would he see it as the necessity that we know it to be? There was a mention of expanding Winterhaven or even guard posts. We could even maybe even have a thought of perhaps this area that we want to clear out might even be a good place to, in the future, add a guard tower or post to prevent oncoming threats in the future.

From what I know about the councilor, I don't believe that will be a problem. I think he would be on board with clearing out any orcs that would be encroaching upon the city. As for the rest of the trial, I'm not sure. I'm doing all I can, but I feel like he's closer to Councilor Freeman at this point. They seem to agree on more. Well, then we'll write our case in orc blood. I want to meet those other agents. Let's get this moving. We'll leave early tomorrow assuming everything with the meeting goes well. On the continent of Kian, in the first portion of the month of Estus, group three stumbled out of a lost temple of Vecna after just having parleyed with the Angel of Death.

Some of the group is expectedly still in shock after the event, and as the harsh cold of the continent closes in around them, they talk about their next move. So where are we in terms of the timeline for us before the Blood Moon? You've still got a little over three weeks or so. You've got some time. We've got Bardin as our guide. What's Bardin's plan of attack? Not that he's the one who's calling all the shots, but he's the only one who knows how to survive here. I think he knows where we're headed and how we're trying to go and what we want to do. What would he suggest?

I mean, honestly, there's even a possibility of, you know, I know we're supposed to get out of the temple, but at the same time, maybe there's shelter for a while. Maybe we could hunker down and use that as a camp. Let's not stay here. Well, it's either that or the desolate wasteland of death. No. Okay, as far as Bardin's concerned, he wants to get the fuck away from this place. Like that is not his deal. Like you could see that during the exchange with the Angel of Death. It was just like, I did not sign up for this and all the money in the world isn't worth.

You know what? That's fair. That's fair. Honestly, I think he'd be debating just leaving you there. I think it would be a thing where he's like, "I know that's just a taste of what you guys are in for. Fuck that. Didn't sign up for it. I don't care how good your word is and how good you'd be good at spreading my fame all over Brightport." I don't know. Would he express that? I don't know if he'd even express it so much as he would just, you know what, here's what we're going to do. Saving thrill. If he gets under 10, he's just going to try and make a break away from the group and just like, "Nope.

Good luck." And just fucking go. Parno! Oh yeah! Parno! Can we try and stop him? You've got to try. No, he just disappeared in the floor. He melted. That's a one. That's probably going to take one hell of a diplomacy check. Yes! With a one? Absolutely try it. Yeah. Okay, so as soon as we get out of this place, he's just like, "Oh, okay." And just starts running. He's not screaming frantically. He's like, "Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope." Just walking in a direction. Just like, back towards the ship. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Yeah, Merrick would be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

No, no, no, no, no." Because he's basically life or death for them. Yeah, this guy's our guy. We need him. Alright, so stop him. Turn him around and like... Is he clearly so shaken that he'd need a little bit of a slap? I don't... It's just... Just smack him. Yeah, just start this diplomacy with hitting him. That's... I don't even know if it's worth it. He's a dwarf. That might be perfect. That's the thing. He's not shaken and it's not like a Scooby-Doo Shaggy type thing where he's just like, "I'm out of here, zoinks." It's more, it's like, "I have reached my limit.

Fuck this. Good day." And just like leaving. That's what it is. Gotcha. So turn him around, like look directly into his eyes. And definitely like... Una would definitely be still kind of shaken having just had her brain like rummaged through by death. Um, to put it lightly. But she'll kind of just like grin at him and she'll say, "You just saw the Angel of Death. Now, I know that you want to leave, but you will never, ever have to buy a beer for yourself again in your life." Roll and hope that... Hope that savings in beer like 33. Savings in beer. You do realize I can't drink if I'm dead, right?

Barden, you just met the Angel of Death and you're not dead. You're fine. We're all fine. The only thing is we need to keep you around so that we can get where we need to go. Look, you've already gotten the worst over with. You met the Angel of Death and everything's cool. Like the Angel of Death said, "Nice to see you. Goodbye." Okay. We just traveled many, many miles to get here. And I honestly thought that all of you were insane and I was just going to take you on a sightseeing tour. Then that happened, and he's going to point back toward the temple, and that wasn't even the thing you came to do.

He's got him pointed. Yeah. I love him. Just for setting the scene here, whatever direction he was headed in, whenever Una grabbed him and turned him around, Merrick went on the other side of him, blocking his path back in that direction. Oh, God. Not in an aggressive way, but just sort of sandwiching him a little bit. We're both talking to him from two different directions. I should say, look, I know you're a practical dwarf, okay? You have a business to run, but there's got to be some part of you that is super interested in this, just for the adventuring prospect.

I mean, you will be famous. Your name will be remembered for the rest of time. He is going to kind of mutter under his breath as the dwarf got smeared all over the ice. Look, Bardin, the thing is, at this point, Merrick's going to point back at the temple. What we just went through, you're not our guide anymore. You're one of us. Do you get it? So whatever we accomplish here, you're part of that. Give me another diplomacy roll. Nice, nice. 27, nice. He is going to take a deep breath. He's going to kind of mull that over. You can see him turning it over in his head.

All right. What is it exactly you people are trying to do up here? I think Merrick would look at Una and realize that it's far more complicated because it depends on who you talk to. Is he addressing either one of us in particular? I would say he's sort of pinballing back and forth, like kind of looking back over his shoulder because you're both taller than him, obviously. So it's just like, like, all right, level with me. Seriously, I'm ready to believe whatever. But tell me exactly what we're in for is basically the tone of voice. So Merrick is going to say a big sigh and he's going to go, OK, it's not that we haven't leveled with you, but we just didn't want you to have to be involved if you didn't want to.

But now he's going to point back at the temple again. Now, this is yours for the taking. And let me tell you what we're going to do, hopefully. And and as long as everything goes the way we plan, nothing's going to change. Right. Nothing. All we need to do is get to that that certain place, smack dab in the middle of this continent and just make sure nothing happens. Now, what that's going to mean, Bardon, is that nothing bad, like, I don't know, a horde of demons and everything from the hoary netherworld is not going to just come out and become what Theria is.

As long as we keep that sealed, everything's fine. So honestly, this might be the kind of thing where you just kind of are there. We're just kind of keeping guard. We're just kind of watching, making sure everything's safe. We've got to spend the night and the next day we can take off. But the thing is, we're going to know we saved the fucking world. One more diplomacy check. You need to be at a certain place at a certain time, right? Yep. Do I have to be there? If we want to survive, yeah. I have to stay with you when you do the thing. Well, we need to get back, you see.

Alright. Counter proposal. I take you where you need to be, and then I fuck right off and make camp several miles away. And I'll wait for you for a time frame that you decide on. And then if you don't come back because you're all dead, I leave. How? Alright. Fair enough. I get it. You don't want to be in the dangerous way. And you know what? I don't either. But there's bigger things at stake here. What's to say you're not just going to fuck off completely? Right? I mean, how can we trust you? Not that you're not a trustworthy person. Believe me, we wouldn't have brought you here and we wouldn't have been with you if we didn't feel that way.

But this is harsh. What means you're not going to leave? He is going to--this is the first time you're going to see him kind of bristle with that and just kind of stiffen up a little bit. He's going to turn to address Merrick specifically. Are you questioning my honor? Yes, he is. Fuck. Yes, I am. But not really. If you give us your word, and your word is as good as anything I've ever heard, then that's good enough for me. He is going to prod you with his index and pointer finger, middle finger, and just kind of prod you in the chest. Listen here. If I wanted to leave you, I damn sure do it after what we just went through in there.

And if I wanted to leave, there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop me. So, I'll take you to wherever you need to go, and then I'm going to back way off from the blast radius. And I'll wait, and then you come get me if you're alive, and then I'll take you back. Merrick's going to not move anything else, but just sort of--his eyes are going to dart at Una just to kind of get a--like a temperature check. Yeah, she'll just kind of like give a nonchalant shrug, just like, "Eh." But she will say, "You know, if you do camp a couple miles away from us, there's pretty much nothing we can do about your safety.

I have no problem with it. Do whatever you need to do to feel safe and secure, but if some shit does go down, a two-mile radius isn't going to--a ten-mile, a hundred-mile radius isn't going to protect you." Well, let's just say I feel safer being a little further away from you than I would be camping next to you. You want to shrug again? That's fine with me. Alright. Merrick is going to just stick out his hand, like, "Alright, we have a deal." Oh, he'd shake. Kind of a little fiery now, like just kind of like a little--it's like, "Rat bastard." Like, just kind of like--he's not the kind of dwarf who is like, "I'm going to smash you with a hammer," that type of thing.

But there is something that kind of runs through dwarves, like, "Whoa, whoa, you calling me a liar, son?" Like that type of thing. Just very--like, you could tell that hit him to his core. Got it. Could Kaluna just sort of waddle up and just--it's very hard for them because they're bundled up so thoroughly, but they're going to try and reach out with both hands and shake his, just like, "Oh, my God, thank you. Holy shit." Yeah, he'd shake. And they just--they look so appreciative. Like, just--they look like they're about to cry, but they've already used up all their tears.

So here's what we're going to do. We are going to--we're going to simulate this journey throughout the next few weeks because this is slow going. You guys are basically heading more toward the center of the continent and you got a ways to go. Is there anything you guys would like to talk about in that time? I think Una would just, like, kind of work on Bree in terms of, like, "Hey, like, nobody else wants to open the seal, but I do, but I don't want any scion to die for it, so yeah." Just, like, just kind of just generally, you know, bring that up. But also treat her really nice.

Like, if she's having trouble walking in the snow, like, piggyback her, you know, like, really make things easy for her. Oh my god, Una's a nice guy, but instead of wanting sex, she wants Bree to kill herself. Yes. I've put in a lot of work here. I think you owe me a suicide attempt. I thought you were a drink. Seven fedoras. Honestly, if this was a conversation that's happened over and over again, I think Bree would be very clear with just, like, she understands that it's important to you and she would, she would, she would, if there was some guarantee that she can get that everything would be better having that happen, then awesome.

She, I think she'd be pretty glad to sacrifice herself to make that happen and make sure that you and everyone else has a better life, but there is nothing to her that would indicate, it's like, "Oh yeah, everything would be great with that." There's nothing, there's no concrete evidence at all. So it's more, she doesn't want to dick everyone on the planet over. It's a huge responsibility, and the more she has the chance to think about it, I think the more she would just be, like, riddled with self-doubt over it. Cowards. Okay, continue. That's fine.

On the 20th of Thorim, in the city of Winterhaven, Malkus and Anven, having wrapped up with Councillor Combs, reunited with the party as they prepare to meet with the team from the city of Overwatch. Malkus totally fills in all the absent party members on what he discussed with Combs and basically says, "Any questions, any misgivings? Otherwise we're going to go meet these agents from Overwatch dispatched by Liara and get ready to clear an Orc camp to protect the city, and we will leave it to this other group of agents to bring this herb back so that that is more distantly related, like, basically so that it can't become clear that we had insider information group-wise, that this group can operate separately from us and if they revive Nathaniel, but it's good for us." Okay.

So they're not specifically going to help with the Orcs unless they have to, to get through to where the herb is. I assumed we were going to double team the Orcs and then just split up after they got their herb. Got it. Okay. Yeah. We're assembling a team. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. So guys, getting to the fancy gentleman, which is the establishment you guys were staying at, you'd reach the room number where this group is staying from group four. Who would you say would answer the door if a knock came? Elorath. Wow, we just elected someone. Just call her out.

I mean, like, probably isn't though. I was going to say, because if it's pretty late, Irina's probably still up. Either one, yeah. I'd say it's like 9 30 10. It's not, it's not, it's not insanely late. I'll do it. Elorath will open the door. Alright. It's going to be adorable. Mel, because it's kind of like looking at eye level when the door opens and then confused and then like looks down. Hands down. Yeah. Oh, you're going to be doing that a lot with this party. We have two talls and four smalls. Oh, greetings. Are you the envoy from Overwatch? Maybe. No. Malchus just arches an eyebrow and waits for clarification.

Okay. Can I roll, I guess, probably a perception check to see if she would recognize that this is Malchus. Sure. Okay, here's the thing. I don't picture Malchus is an unrecognizable face in the city of Winterhaven. I imagine there's some, there's some sketches, there's probably, there's probably both some artwork that would be very realistic. Because people draw stuff all the time and then Malchus is a pretty big figurehead within the city. And then there's probably some more cartoonish, almost like a political drawing type thing. So I, all in all, I would say Elorath would recognize Malchus.

Okay, well, she'd be like, if you arch an eyebrow at her, she'd be like, "Oh, why, why do you, why do you ask? Like, what, what's up?" I'm Malchus Grimness, Knight of Winterhaven. These are my allies. We would like a word with you about a certain orc related business. Oh, that. Okay, she'll just like turn around and start walking in. Yeah, Malchus steps in. Negative one charisma. I would imagine the rest of group four is kind of like hanging out. I'd imagine it's something groups do a lot where they're just kind of crashing in one room, just talking for a while into the night.

We're definitely trying to teach Chynric some tricks. Oh yeah. For sure. Oh no, I was gonna say we were playing werewolf. But like, that doesn't really work. That's not cool. Oh no. I feel like our group would not play werewolf. Awkward. PTSD. So yeah, as everyone kind of crowds, it's probably pretty crowded getting everybody into a single room here. Yeah, a little bit, but yeah. It's private at least. Malchus kind of waves at them, and as I said a moment ago, I'm Malchus Grimnus, Knight of Winterhaven. These are my allies, Arya and Tevinne and Amvin and Theo.

What's up? Malchus is just kind of like doing the little circle hand motion, like go ahead, introduce yourselves. Theo would wave. Hi. I think Tevinne would be looking at the dog, just like, "Ooh, a real dog. I pressed." Got you one of those corporeal dogs. Nice. Fetch is much better. Nothing goes through. Yeah. Could I get your names? I think at this point, Aveline kind of stands up, because maybe he was laying down playing with Heinrich or just watching. And he's going to get up and walk straight over to Malchus and just kind of give him a look up and down and kind of rub his hands together like he's assessing his worth.

And he's going to mumble to himself. "Mm, yes. Interesting. Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Aveline. It is a pleasure to meet someone like you, Malchus Grimnus." You said he'd put his hand out? Yeah. Okay, yeah, he'll shake his hand. And the rest? Elarath would have plopped down, probably. "Elarath!" She's got her tiny arm up and waving. "Sup?" Efthony will put her book down and stand up and say, "I'm Efthony. Pleasure to meet you." Marina's probably just sitting on the floor in the corner closest to the door. She's like, "Arena. Head nod." "I'm waiting for all the introductions.

That's all. I want to make sure I'm not..." Marina's going to look up and give a little bit of a smile and say, "I'm Sora." I've been informed that you have a mission out in the wilderness with an orc camp in your way. I have a need to have a better reputation in this city for an upcoming "test of character," let's call it. I feel like we can be each other's aid in this situation. Certainly more blades are better when taking on an encroaching encampment, and we both have needs that would be easier to fulfill as a team. Wait. Are you talking about your trial?

I am. When is that? That's like two days from now, right? It is...yes, about two days away. We do have just enough time to get out there and get back. Oh, okay. At least by my estimation, assuming we don't run into any extra trouble. Cool. It would be a good opportunity to have everyone see agents of Winterhaven and agents of the Overwatch working together side by side. A promise of a more peaceful time ahead, I would think. We would all benefit from that. You're a quiet bunch. Well, it's pretty late. We were kind of getting ready for bed. Sorry. I hope you'll forgive me, and I hope you understand the urgency of my request.

If you do agree that we could work together, we would need to leave bright and early tomorrow in order for me to get back on time and keep my promises to the...leadership. But you would have nearly double the size of the fighting force to handle these orcs. Are we sure we're going to fight the orcs? Our mission isn't to do that. We were going to try to avoid them as much as possible, I think. Hmm. But the orc encampment is in your way, you said. Do you have any strong objection to engaging them if it looks like we have the force that can stand against them?

If they try to fight us, then I have no problem defending ourselves, but I don't see a reason. If they're leaving us alone, why should we attack them first? Well, you may not have a strong motivation to do that, but as a knight of Winterhaven, it is my goal to evict them from our lands. Valkis, shouldn't we at least try to see why they're here first? I mean, if it's like the other group we encountered, they'll just attack us right away, but if they don't...that doesn't sit right. Have you ever negotiated with an orc before? It's not a matter that there could be no way to negotiate with them.

It is that in the event we show our faces, it is unlikely they will ask what we're doing there to begin with. In the event that they are peaceful upon first contact, and that would ease your tension on the issue, certainly. We can talk to them. I suspect we will not need to pursue that avenue. I've never known a friendly bunch of orcs. If we encounter them, chances are we'll probably end up fighting them. Particularly ones squatting on the land of another region, not their own. It's also a matter of time before they hurt someone else, whether it's a traveler or someone coming to Winterhaven or anywhere else.

I think it's only a matter of time before they do start hurting people and we could have a chance to stop them. He's right on that. They have a marauding and raiding culture. I would not estimate they will be in the mood to talk. Yeah, the last time we encountered them, they killed like two of our people, and we had to fight other people to get their stuff back. So I'm all for punching them in the face if we need to. You have my condolences for your loss. Thanks. So I know you weren't necessarily looking forward to a full on engagement with the orcs, but it would probably feel pretty good to give them back in turn what they gave you.

If we're working with Winterhaven, I don't know if they might have someone on their forces that speaks orcish. If we don't even know why they're here, if we do end up wiping out this one group, then more might just follow. The problem with that thinking is, what do we then look for a way to capitulate to orcs? Do we look for a way to give more and more of Winterhaven's territory to them? No, but it's better than just jumping to murder as a solution if there is another one available. We will talk if they offer to talk. I do not assume that they will do so.

But if we don't have anyone that speaks their language, they might just assume that we won't talk either. That might just be a problem of communication. Malkus looks the room over. Any of you orcish? Anyone? Nope. Everyone shakes his head. How about the guard we met with last time? Cal something? I believe he was a half-orc. He gave us the message while we were in the bar. Library? Or bar, yeah. Could we bring him along as a... could I deputize him? Doesn't speak orcish is the problem. He's half-orc and he doesn't speak orcish? Well, that's a little racist. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Wow. But I mean, we don't know if he... I mean, there might be someone else on the floor that's like, like, artist is saying, like, it's worth asking. Like, just... It's, um, excuse me, here's the problem with that. Actually, someone, do me a favor, roll a history check. Can we all roll history checks? Oh, I'm so good at history checks, guys. Yeah, just, sure. Look at that, I'm good at history checks. Yeah, Reina, what's up? Bad roll. Bad dice. Okay, so, traditionally speaking, and here's the problem. Orcish is not a language spoken outside the orcs, for the most part.

And the reason being, only orcs trust other orcs to, that they speak, and even when they speak to each other, it's normally very physical. It's, it's, it's, it's, they'll shout and grunt and stuff like that, they do have a language, but it's, it's, it's very visceral. And the problem is that it's not like they're teaching outsiders how to speak their language and, and that the only people who pick up certain phrases and stuff are prisoners, if they, if they do take them. And most of them don't get out. So your odds are exceptionally low running into somebody who speaks orcish.

It's not, it's, it's not exactly common knowledge. They're not teaching it in schools and stuff. How likely is it that the orcs have among them someone who speaks some amount of common? Higher. Higher? Higher, yeah. So can we assume that whoever processed that history check basically gave that info dump to us? Yes. Okay. So Malkus looks at Arya and says, how about this? We'll go in, we'll see if they have one who speaks common. We will shout our demand that they leave our territory or explain themselves. They will almost certainly let out a blood curdling scream and engage us in combat.

Will that satisfy your curiosity as to why they're visiting? It's not curiosity, it's that they're people. I mean, if it were a group of drow, they're tieflings that had settled there, that people would be saying the exact same things about them. Whether or not their actual attentions are, it doesn't feel right to just assume, but it's all for the bad. I mean, if we go out there just yelling at them, they're going to assume that we're attacking. But Arya, if we ask them to leave and they engage us in combat, that's what we're saying is we'll first ask them, you know, that they tell them they're encroaching.

So this is a compromise. We're just saying orcs are more prone to attacking rather than speaking. Historically. Yes, I agree with all of that. I've got an idea. When we approach the orc encampment, you talk. That way, none of us say something that you wouldn't say. You can make your best shot at it. It's not about what I wouldn't or wouldn't say. But you seem the most concerned with us making sure the diplomatic approach is exhausted. You're the one who has the most interest invested in this. If you talk, you can give it your best shot. You send her in there, they're just going to attack her.

We won't be sending her in ahead. She will have us directly beside her. I guess to group four, Arya probably likes a bit. She doesn't have any weapons on her or armor or anything. Well, that's the thing is she's not very intimidating looking. Yeah. And orcs typically respond to strength. They're not going to respond to her. So bat wings and spikes, that's what I'm hearing. What would you have me say, Arya? I will deliver your message with as much confidence as I can muster. It's just do what you will. It's not about what words, it's just about attempting at least.

Just words in general before elsewise. I mean, I'm sure it will end up in a fight where we have to kill more people again. But it's just wishful thinking, I guess. To ease your conscience, I will try to talk to them first. I appreciate that. Malchus nods. Any other concerns, misgivings in the room? I don't want to put words into your mouths, but nobody has objected to our alliance. It'd be good to have a couple extra hands if we're going out that way. Evelynn nods his head. Good. And hopefully this can be the start of a long history of cooperation between Winterhaven and the Overwatch.

Unless there are any more things to discuss tonight, I will leave you to rest up. Meet together at sunrise, and we will inform the people that we're going out to take care of business. Sounds like a plan. All right. Unless anyone else has anything to say, I'm ready to leave their room. I'd say if we're going to leave right at this, I would quickly say to Arya that I really respect your views on respecting other life. It's very similar to how we live in Uminyiro, but it is a shame that the rest of the world doesn't like Uminyiro. I'd like to visit there one day.

That sounds pretty idyllic. It has its faults, but so does everywhere. When was the tournament supposed to start? That's next week. Okay. Then no. Okay. We cannot miss that. That is in our calendars. I know. Let me tell you. Yeah, safety of the city. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that tournament. Did we set up a Facebook event for that tournament? Did we? I'm curious if after we leave, does this group four say anything about Malgus Grimnus just walking in or something? I mean, after the group leaves, Sorrel will turn to Elorath and Eren and be like, "I really like that Arya girl." You would.

That's kind of a little eye roll from Aryna. I get it. Do you think that he knows about Bree? Like, should we say anything? Because I don't know if that's like for us to tell him to be like, "Oh, by the way, she, uh, yeah." Do we know how connected they were? Is that something that's well known? I feel like we traveled with her enough that it might have come up. I don't know. I think it probably would have come up. Okay, that's what I was saying. I was like, yeah. I feel like between, well, you know from Liara at the very least. Yeah. That that was an issue.

I mean, does Malgus even know that Bree went to Lockford? Oh, gosh, I'm trying to remember what Liara told us when we were in New York. I can't. Uh, Jason, help. I don't believe we were told much. Yeah. Not a ton. I know that Liara basically asked Malgus, like, you know, because she was kind of in the dark about some things, but essentially just asked, and was like, "What do you plan to do with that? What do you want to do about it?" So none of the other stuff was discussed. Like what actually happened to her? Because like, I don't want to say stuff if we don't have to.

I think that that might be a personal conversation that they need to have with each other. Okay. I know that we told Liara, but Liara really needed to know. Right. And she's like our queen and stuff. So yeah, but like, okay. But I don't want to just run around spilling everyone's secrets. By the way, happy trial. Your friend got bit by a werewolf. Bye. We were there. Don't worry. It wasn't that bad. Yeah, I think that might be a conversation that they should have. On the third of Rengue on the continent of Kion, two days have passed for Group Two near the seal.

They've constructed a makeshift camp, and, thanks to the seal itself, have kept relatively warm in the harsh climate. Food, on the other hand, has become a bit of a concern. With tomorrow night being the blood moon, everyone in the small camp has a lot on their minds. I think at this point, Kory had probably been hunting for most of the day and she would probably bring back whatever she could find. Should I roll to see if she got anything? Give me some nature. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Look at that shit. That's pretty good nature. That's some sexy nature.

Mm-hmm. Again, even though pickings are a bit slim, I would say that Kory had to travel quite a ways to get this. But yeah, she would bring back some food for everyone. It would have to be cleaned and gutted and all that. But yeah, you got a nice little fire going, some nice little spit roast. Okay, and then I think after she had gotten that all taken care of with the skinning and the cooking and the eating and everything, she would probably try to find some solitude. Not solitude. She would try to have a moment alone with Dagon. And I'm not sure what he would be doing.

He'd probably just be meditating by the seal. I mean, he doesn't know if it's going to do anything or not, but... Right. So it's warm there. That's where he'd be. Smart thinking. She would probably go over to him, see that he's meditating and sit down next to him. And honestly, it'd probably take her a few minutes to say anything. But she's just going to, after that time, come right out and say, "Dagon, I'm so sorry." Sorry for what? The whole time since the witch, I've literally only been thinking about getting here. About how to get here, about myself. I've been so selfish.

Nah. If I was in your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. I haven't thought about the costs that we would have to pay. Corey, if it ends up being me, I mean, I've lived a good life. What better way to go, so to speak, than helping a dear friend and potentially saving thousands? You speak of selfishness. How selfish would it be of me not to try? Not to do that? This whole time she doesn't want to look over at Dagon, so she's sort of just sitting down beside him, looking at the ground. It would be better if you didn't have to go at all. If nobody did. I know.

Isn't that just the problem with this world? Nothing's easy. Nothing has been easy. I'd like to believe that once you and the other gods are released, that maybe things could be easy. I mean, you can't walk five feet without running into some sort of beast, and it's just... this life is not good, Corey. I mean, there's things to be thankful for, but for everybody, it shouldn't be this hard. But what if it's not better? What if it... What if we're doing all this and it's not better? It's worse. And then you'll be gone. Hmm. But think of what you have to gain.

I mean, you're a god, Corey. And there are a lot of people that need you. A lot of people that have been praying for you in vain. I mean, I thought about myself a lot leading up to this point, and... I think seeing my people, seeing my mother put a lot of perspective on things, and there needs to be some sort of change. And for me, I think this is the right thing. I don't know anything about anybody praying or needing me. All I can think about is the fact that I need people too. And she's gonna sort of look up at him. I honestly am having a really hard time picturing a better world without you there.

I don't see how a world without you here could be better. We need you. Your family needs you. Your son. My son. My son doesn't even know who I am. But he could. Well, I'd like to think at least I could make a better world for him. Please don't think that any decision I make is taken lightly. I mean, I never had friends before you. But I think of this as a gift. And I'll always be with you. I mean, this is the area. Stranger things have happened. Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know. I'm just I'm very conflicted. Maybe. Maybe what the group said would work. Maybe we can all.

I don't know. I just know that right now. I'm I'm not willing to have you die. Just so I could be free. I don't even know what that means. Well. Remember, nothing's set in stone yet. There is another group that could very well be on their way here. I mean. Well. I don't really want to think about the other options. She'll sort of like pick up, I don't know, like a rock or a pebble and she'll just be like playing with it in her fingers. I'll I'll let you meditate. Sorry, I interrupted. No, please. It's it's nothing. I'll see you in the morning. Of course. So as you come back and sit down, the actor on this is still awake and probably like standing up somewhere looking at the the barren landscape.

And as you come back, he looks at you and comes closer and asks you. Say, Corey, when this is all over and done. Can I ask you one thing? Yeah, always. He's going to come closer and grab both your hands and both his hands. If you can find my people out there. Just help them find peace in the afterlife. They've suffered enough in death. It would mean the world to me. Sort of a little caught off guard and almost embarrassed. I think her cheeks would even flush a little. I mean, I'm not sure that I'll be able to, but if I can. Of course, I will. I promise. And he bows super low and says.

Thank you so much, my Raven Queen. Again, super embarrassed. And he comes back from from from from leaning. And says, and as soon as this is all over, we'll make sure that Onakol has the largest Raven Queen temple in the whole world, and it will be glorious and will bring riches from all over Brightport and the East Coast. And he starts trailing off. Airlove's like arms crossed, obviously trying to stay as warm as possible, like she's probably almost standing in the fire, like that close to it, but she's looking dead into the fire, but she'll speak aloud to Kaldin and Brelyn, who are next door.

I don't know if we're going to make it through this or if I will make it through this. I mean, I've already died twice, but if one of you make it out of this and I don't, could you make sure my mother's OK? I've been thinking about it a lot since we've killed the demons, and I'm pretty sure the Black Hand knows. And I just don't know what's going to happen. And I don't know if I'll be able to be there for her. Like she's not making eye contact. She's like looking into the fire. I think Brelyn will get up where he's sitting, walk like right in front of her, because I'm short.

I'm assuming you kneeling is Brelyn standing. He's going to look at her face and say, hey, he's going to put his hand on her chin, lift it up. You got it. Don't worry about it. I mean, come on. You got the Iceman over here. You got me. We'll be fine. She's going to do like a half smile and be like, OK, just as long as someone makes sure she's OK. Absolutely. I would take your couple of deaths as evidence of your resilience. And if your mother is anything like you, I'm sure she's resilient as well. Well, we will. I assumed we would make this our next journey altogether to make sure that she's OK after our fight on the boat.

Good. Good. I know this takes precedence. This is end of the world, but I can't get it off my mind. I'll stay focused, but I really want to make sure she's OK. And don't worry, Erelove. All of us will be returning. You will see your mother again. She looks down and says kind of softly, I hope so. And Braelyn will interrupt. Yeah, besides, I got to figure out who that guy's girlfriend was. What's his name? The old housekeeper guy. My mom did say she was going to Esterhold. She was obviously holding herself very tensely. And it's kind of like you could visibly see like a weight has been lifted off and called in.

He's been he's been trying to like cook curry this whole time, like the curry that that Erelove showed him to cook on the ship. So he's been like cooking this the whole time. And he like gives her a bowl. And and he's like, try this. You can give me pointers on how I did. You know, like pass out bowls to to Erelove and Braelyn. And Braelyn, as he eats, he'll put his food down and he'll start playing Black Magic Woman by Santana just to lighten the mood. Would you guys do me a favor and roll a perception check? Everyone sitting at the campfire? Jason, why?

Why? I just have to ruin this, don't you? I love you. I care very much about you all. Erelove. Barely. Barely is going to... In the midst of this conversation, towards the end of it, the weather is actually, you know, fairly clear. There's a chill, well, more than a chill, but like the wind isn't as razor sharp and flowing like it normally is. You're going to see some figures from the distance trudging, as was put in the chat, toward this campfire. And after a few moments, they're going to come into view. You're going to recognize a few of them. Group three, having found this campfire and group two, what would the reaction be?

Run for the campfire with renewed energy that all thought was once lost. Wait, I mean, do we have any... So we've seen a campfire probably for some distance. Oh, probably. Can we make out any individuals at this point? When you get close enough that you could see people huddled around it, yeah, definitely. I imagine these guys stand out, just like you would. I guess. I feel like if there was fire from a distance, I feel like Merrick would want to be super careful, especially if we were getting close. I would imagine you would approach with some care, but like...

Corey's silhouette probably stands out. Probably, yeah. That's true, at a certain point. But for a while, it's like, is that fire? Is this the seal on fire? Is this what's going on? Oh, this is a campfire. Oh, hey, look, it's Corey. Yeah. So you guys have been taking it pretty damn slow. Like, if you're playing Oregon Trail, you got it on the slowest setting to avoid the most danger. Barden would be very insistent upon that. And group two took a long time to get here because they didn't have a guide. They didn't have anybody, so they're lucky they didn't fall into a precipice or get swallowed alive by some of the larger things.

But thankfully, D20 run was pretty good. So. Yeah, so it would be a little bit of a... I don't want to say that Merrick would run to them, but I think there would be vigor, right? Like, "Hi. Hello. Good to see another..." Hey, look, Corey. Yeah. Hey, is that Curry, basically? I'll call him and take a little step back and put the curry, just put his body in front of it a little bit and sort of look at Braelyn and Airlove and say, "Do you know these people?" Yeah, these are our friends. Mustachio and Armor Woman. Tree Person. And the other one, I've never met the other one.

Julie would make a beeline for the fire, first off, but the entire time sort of eyeing the seal like, "Holy shit. That's it. That's the thing." And it would be more out of studiousness. It's very much like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever, people. But that thing. Look at that. I've only read about this. I've been reading about it for fucking weeks. There it is." The moment it's clear that we know these people and they're no threat, Actronus would blatantly just carry Stormrender on his shoulder, just making it almost a show, just making sure like, "Oh, this?" Just walking around it towards you guys.

Camilla's just running past everyone and diving into the snow next to the fire like, "Thank God." They don't give a fuck. Yeah, if Stormrender is out. And I'm into different armor than what you've seen before, so you might not even know who that is. Oh, we can tell by the smell. You are rotten. He's been bathed. I have a different smell now. It's true. It's a whole different kind of decaying corpse. They've been hanging car air fresheners off of him. He looks like Severe. He's frozen. He doesn't smell. He's carved out a bunch of giant monsters. Yeah, if Stormrender is out, then Una would probably run over, taking a quick second to bow to Kori.

She doesn't forget that that's a fucking god. But after that, she would say, "Where did you get that?" She totally knows, but she wants to make sure. So you'll actually do that. "Oh, this?" Oh, and you recognize his voice immediately. It turns out, fate would have it that it was put on our path, on our way to Talor. It was carried by four demons, so we had to relieve them from it. Brie would speak up. "You fought demons?" Brielyn would jump in. "Yeah, look!" And he'd lift up his shirt where he got hookshotted like twelve times, and then put it back down.

Are the hooks still in there? Nah, just a bunch of arm. It looks like car crash guards. Check it out. Check it out. It looks cool, right? As a matter of fact, we did. We actually agreed to carry them overseas before knowing what their actual identities were. But I don't think they were carrying it on their own. They were working from some new crime element from Wrightport. They seemed to be under some form of control. That's bad. Yeah, emphatic nod. Uru's gonna look over at Merrick and be like, "Hey, Merrick. They've already seen demons." Merrick's gonna sort of step up over to where they're talking and say, "So you fought and won, correct?" "Indeed." He's gonna look at Una.

"Okay. Alright. Well, hopefully that's a good sign. How did you get here?" "Is Dagon with us?" "Yeah, I mean he probably would have heard the commotion or whatever and slowly made his way over." "Yeah, I'd say so." "Yeah, I would imagine too that we're probably not all too scattered away since there's really just fire to be around." "Actronus would probably extend his hand towards Dagon. Would you care to describe our means of transportation here?" "Well, I was able to open a gate." "That? Okay. First of all, when Dagon sort of joins the party, Bree would kind of just warmly smile at him.

And then after saying, 'Oh, I opened the gate,' she would sort of chime in, 'Congratulations.'" "Yeah, I guess he probably would have looked at her and been like, 'Hm?' No, don't congratulate me. It wasn't... I had to go somewhere else inside to do it. And I fear it has changed me. And I assume Bree will know what he's talking about." "Yeah, she'd probably give you a look. Well, if it means anything, it doesn't have to be permanent. You can control that. You've been around for a long time, you know." "Yes. There's... We'll be found the Aladrin. And it wasn't a warm reunion." "Julie would spin around." "Yeah, Una's gonna snap her head up, just like, 'You what?'" "Yeah, Julie would...

That would kind of snap her out of her thing with the seal, because I imagine the entire time just touching it, it's like, 'Oh my god, it's warm, the whole ground around here.' It's like I'm studying the entire thing. Having said, 'Oh yeah, we met the Aladrin,' like, fucking turn around and just like, 'You what?'" "The witch only told me part of what happened. It turns out she used me to trap them, froze them in a mountain. And he'll just kind of trail off, because he doesn't really know where to go from there." "And while this is happening, Kaladin comes around with hot bowls of curry for everyone, just putting it in their hands, and says, 'Grimnast family recipe,' and thinks that heir love." "Kaluna looks at him like he's a god." "Go ahead, sorry, continue." "I was just gonna add something.

As you're passing them out, she'll be like, 'And that's Merrick?' 'And that's Una? And that's Kaluna?' 'And I don't know who this is? I don't know who this girl is?' 'Kuri for you, girl?' She'll just grab it and not even introduce herself, just like, 'Yeah, thanks,' and just take it. No name, nothing. 'Kaldenhalek. And you?' 'Phantos.' 'Spoon.' 'Thank you.' 'Maybe later.' 'She is.' 'Halfway through the bowl.' 'Just Thanatos.' 'Big spoon.' 'She's like Prince.' 'She's breaking into a vaudeville routine.' 'At some point in all of that, Merrick would introduce Bardin and say, 'Well, he's how we got here.

Nothing as fancy as a gate, and he's gonna clap him on the back.' 'He's basically trying to win over Bardin a little bit more since he got on his bad side.' 'Nothing as fancy as a gate, but something great, right?' The entire time! Ever since spotting the fire and everything like that, I imagine he would tell you very gingerly and everything, and then basically seeing that you are at your destination. This is where you're at. Yep. I can go now, right? We're good. We're done. And you can tell he's looking around a little nervously? Yeah. Yeah. Look, anything that's gonna happen here is gonna happen in three days' time.

You can either stick with us for now and stay around the fire. We're gonna have food, you've got protection, and you can take off whenever you want to. I'm just letting you know it's gonna be a rough few days if you go off by yourself. But respect whatever your decision is. Nope. I'm gonna be this way, so I'll give you four days, and if you're not there by nightfall on the fourth day, I'm just gonna go. And I'll assume you're all dead, of course. Braedon's gonna jump in. Yeah, I mean, in four days you'll definitely know if we're all dead, because then all demons will come out.

We'll be fine. He is going to narrow his eyes at Braedon, and then he's going to look back up at Marek. I don't like him. That makes the two of us, bro. Marek's gonna just say, "You don't have to. We'll see you in four days." Alright, have fun with your demon party or whatever. Marek's gonna just turn back and start to eat some of the curry. Is there any sort of role that Marek could make? Oh yeah, how good is this curry? To see whether or not it passes his standards. Oh wow! I'm not saying he's gonna be a dick. I think Cauldron will have to roll on the curry.

Right, that's fair. Cauldron has to roll against something of yours. Let's see. Yeah, that's right, because Marek doesn't need to make a roll, because he's not gonna be a dick about it. I just want to know if Marek would be like, "Not bad." Or if he'd be like, "This is really not very good, and I could probably teach him a thing or two." Right. I would say, "Cauldron, do me a favor. Roll a Wisdom check." Oh, fuck me. I've been training him. Yep, yep. Oh, I'd say that's pretty damn good curry. Yeah, totally. I think Marek would do the- I think he's a little bit mad that it's better than his.

No, no, no, no, no, because that's not how he's coming at it. He's just like, "I really want this to be good. I hope someone's made some really good food." And he's gonna go, you know, and just slurp it up, and then he's gonna be like, "It's not bad at all." And he's gonna sort of just give a, like a, "Huh, not bad look." No, he's not gonna say anything, but just like, "Good." I hear typing. And then he's gonna type a lot. Sorry, I was just saying that I'm back in the Skype call, so. Okay. Yep, hear you loud and clear. Kaldun will smile real big at him, and then he'll like turn and smile real big at Erolove, and like, maybe like just underneath his robe, like give a little thumbs up.

She'll smile back and give a thumbs up back. Like, "Good job. You got it." Julia's going to sort of grab Una by the shoulder at one point. Kind of that thing you do when you see something, and you're like, "Fuckin' hey," like that, just to get someone's attention. And she's going to point towards actor Onus and say, "That's Stormrender." Yeah, Una's gonna like make like, make that eye contact you make with someone when like there's other people around, but you wanna be like, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Um, and she'll say, "Yeah, did you hear the part where they killed demons for it?" No, I, no, I wasn't listening.

That's the seal over there. I was looking at that. That's the thing we're here for. Yeah, okay. Demons, though. Demons. Fucking demons, the things that are supposed to be... demons, not in the world. They had fucking Stormrender. Something is happening, and it's something we don't know about. I think after that, Julie would ask for very specific details. We don't have to give them here, but I think it would be like going around like getting accounts of everything. It's like, "Okay, tell me everything you know about them. What are they like? What do they do? What happened?

How did you fight them? Were they corporeal?" All that. I think I'd avoid like any mention of the Black Hand, though. I would talk like thoroughly about the demons, but I'll leave the Black Hand out of that for now. Fairland would exaggerate and talk about how he took on four demons by himself. Could we share too that like the plan... or you didn't want to talk about the Black Hand, but the plan about it getting to the Lion Folk? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we definitely mentioned that. That it was trying to get in the hands of the Lion Folk to sort of turn the tide of war in the continent.

That's not good. Yeah, Una would definitely want to talk to Dagon and Acheronas and pretty much the entire group too. Like, can you elaborate on the fact that you found all the Aladrin? You said they're frozen in a mountain. Are they dead? No, they're in sort of suspended animation and they've been there ever since they disappeared. They haven't aged. Oh my god. And you just left them there? Well, it's not like I really had a choice. I have... I mean, we had an option to free them one way, almost guaranteed, depending whether we could kill that witch or not.

But there's other things to consider. We left them there, but I know where they are finally, and they're safe for now. So what are the other options to consider? The other option is to put some faith in the gods that, even though the Aladrin were the ones to imprison them, some of them may be willing to forgive on the basis that those Aladrin aren't around anymore. And I'm gonna try my best to free them. I have a friend, my best friend, who's a god and that's what she deserves. Bree would have... it definitely perked up after you said something about killing the witch.

And she would sort of wait for the conversation to die down just a second. So she was the one behind the Aladrin? That was her? Yeah, more or less. And he'll look sort of uneasy, kind of guilty, and he'll look at Bree. She used me. She used my abilities to put them in the mountain. She would probably go to reach out and maybe put a hand on Dagon's arm. I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah. I really don't know how to feel about it right now. I mean, you name it, I'm feeling it. But at least I know where they are. And we'll kind of look over at Bree like she raised a good point or question by asking.

Or say, well, alright, so I'm gonna say, well, if she is Aladrin, then they more or less had it coming to them, right? No offense. Well, perhaps the original Aladrin who trapped Aladrin did, yes, but certainly not this generation. Well, I've been so far removed from my people for so long, I've forgotten what it's like to be one of them. But we've seen with Terrandor that perhaps they haven't changed that much at all. And he's embarrassed. Dagon, you've changed. I don't want to say this as if it was an impossible cause. With you, certainly they could change their ways.

Certainly they could learn from history, from their past mistakes, as you did. Which is what we elected to do. We elected to correct the Aladrin's mistakes. And if nothing else, they should at least be given the chance. I agree. It just pains me to think that anyone can be so egotistical to put themselves above the gods. So Oona's gonna kind of like be following this conversation and say, okay, can someone add some information in here? What exactly did they do to put themselves above the gods? They started by trapping Alvarin. They used the seal's power to seal her off so that her being the first, there would be no retribution for their act.

So they took her away. And when that worked, they moved on to the next god. And then the next, after that, until there were none left. Which is why the witch is the first one to remember who she was. The power the Aladrin used wasn't infinite and it's starting to wear off. I'm just worried that possibly, after all this time trapped, Alvarin might become a goddess of vengeance instead of justice. This is what bothers me the most. The brave one's gonna chime in. Can gods do that? They just switch jobs like that? Is that allowed? Um, Julie would chime in. So to clarify, Alvarin's trapped in the swamp, remembers who she was, uses her power, and she's gonna point a dagon, and you, to seal away an entire race of people.

Am I clear on this so far? Pretty much. I'm going to ask the obvious to the group. She did that trapped as a mortal. Obviously she's pissed off. What happens if we let all of them loose and give them infinite power? Merrick's been just sort of staring at the ground, sort of sitting, just listening to all this, taking it in. But he's gonna say, "Yeah, exactly. Look, I don't know what's right or wrong here. I absolutely don't know. But I do feel like a couple of things are true. First of all, it's incredibly sad if someone or some people trapped the gods. I'm sure that that's really horrible for them.

How awful must it be for them to be trapped away? But the thing is, if this is even true, if this is even really what happened, it's not our fault and it's not our fight. So as far as I'm concerned, nothing needs to change. Nothing is that bad. I know the world is a harsh place, but do you think it was any less harsh when the Aladrin did something like this? It's always been this way. And I'll be honest with you, it scares me just as much to have the gods have infinite power over all of us and have someone like that witch having more power than it is to have the demons pop out and take over the entire world.

So as far as I'm concerned, let's just not touch a thing. Let's leave it be. I get it. I really do. He's going to look at Dagon. I get it. I completely understand. But life has to move on. All of this has to move on. We don't have to open up anything and start something over that we can't even comprehend. I'll speak up and say the demons are coming whether we do something or not. The magic that keeps this seal here, it is weakening. And we have seen demons in this world. They might come tomorrow. They might come 150 years from now. They might come during the next blood moon when there's none of us here to guard this magic.

But they are coming indeed. And we have no other recourse than to unleash the gods and have them balance this world. That's what we have a chance to do here is rebalance the world of Theria. It's been thrown into chaos. He's going to take all this in and he's going to start shaking his head towards the end. Not more out of frustration like, "No, no, no, no. I know that's what it feels like. I know that's what it sounds like. But for that to be the only recourse, that's a big leap." And I disagree with you about one thing. Even if the demons are coming, and Merrick's going to point at the seal and he's going to look back at Caldin and say, "They're not coming tomorrow." They may not come tomorrow.

But like I said, we do not have the perspective of the gods or demons. If we want to keep Theria safe, the world, this world, far beyond us, we have to do something here tonight. Merrick's going to look around at the entire group, sort of taking all this in and say, "What makes any of you feel that the gods," and he's going to look at Cori almost as though he's sort of apologetically saying this, "What makes you think that the gods, free and clear of everything that they've been bound to, have perspective? What makes you think that it's better? What makes you think that it's right?" And then she's going to look towards Cori, like straight in the face, and be like, "I have faith.

I have faith in my friend here, Cori. I believe that her good soul will continue. I have faith." And then she's going to look over to Una, "I have faith in Craig. I have faith that he will do what's right. And I have faith that the other gods are just as good as the two I've met." That's what all of this is about. It's about faith. And you don't have to have faith in gods. Have faith in the ones, in the people you know. Do you have faith in the witch? I believe she's been blinded by this, by a horrible fate that's been beset upon her. They renamed her the Chained God.

But once she has her godly powers back, I believe she'll regain her perspective. She's the god of justice, not vengeance. They gained these names for a reason. Not out of a whim. Sounds like it was a whim to name her the Chained God. That was a name given by the Eladrin. Who named them before? They... Gods name themselves. Ugh. Wait, just wait. You don't need to have faith in every god. I'm saying this. You don't need to have faith in the witch, specifically the Chained God, Alvarin. We have polytheism for a reason. There are multiple gods. Even if she goes insane and becomes a vengeful god, that doesn't necessarily mean that the other gods won't be able to control her.

And how many people will she kill before the other gods can stop her, if they even want to? Who's saying they'll kill anyone? That's my whole point. We don't know anything from this point forward. I agree. Una, you might be exactly right. This might be exactly what happens. Or, or, or, Calden, or anybody. They might just be awakened and everything will be great and everybody will take their place on their thrones wherever they happen to sit. And everything is perfect and perfectly balanced. And all of a sudden the witch is no longer this untrustworthy, distrustworthy, whatever the word is, no trust at all, kind of a person where we can't even believe anything she says and everything she does is for her own gains.

Look, the point is we don't know what's going to happen. And as far as faith goes, I do have faith in Cory and Meric will look at Cory and I do have faith in Craig and he's going to look at Una. But Cory and Craig aren't gods. Cory and Greg are holding gods. They're gods that don't know they're gods. They're not acting like gods. They don't... Cory, who knows what you're going to be like? Who knows if you'll remember yourself? And if the witch knows who she is and she's this kind of person, this kind of god in a mortal body, then I don't trust any of it.

And actually, I think, I think with that Meric is going to stand up and he's just going to walk towards the seal. He's just going to, he's just getting away, right? He's just starting to get a little bit too overwhelmed. How far away is the seal? I imagine you guys camping out somewhat near it. One, to keep an eye on it. Two, because it's kind of warm. Right. I'm sure it will be well out of earshot. I mean, he's just he's going to trek away over to the seal wherever it is, but it's close enough that you can see him probably. But he's just going to he's going to go brood because I don't...

Meric doesn't feel like he's going to get anywhere with anybody and he doesn't know what's right or wrong, as he keeps saying. So he's just kind of trapped. Alright, Una's going to like just kind of put a hand up and just say, okay, I'm sure everyone here has their own opinion. And if you're still on the fence, raise your hand and people will try and argue one way or another. But we can spend all night talking, but at some point the sun's going to come up and shit's going to go down. So we need to find out what we're going to do. We need to vote, battle it out, punch each other, debate.

I don't care. But we need to find a system to knowing what we're going to do. We can't just sit here and bicker. And Julie, she'll give Julie kind of a sharp look. What kind of fucking paladin are you? And it's just kind of like look back to the rest of the group. Like that's that's all she's done talking to Julie. Julie's not done talking to Una. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Do you want to open the seal or not? I don't want to run headlong into something when we don't even know what the hell is on the other side of it. So no. Pretty much no. If we had some kind of concrete evidence as to what was going to happen when we did that, then maybe.

God, I better start keeping a journal right now and this journal better survive my death so that paladins in the future will know what the fuck you became at the end. But regardless, we need to we need to figure out what we're going to do. Julie's going to step in just a little bit. Being brave doesn't mean you have to be stupid. Take two seconds and think about this. You're talking about changing the entire landscape of the planet and you have no idea what you're tampering with. None of us do. No matter how great our hunch is, we have no clue. So what does it matter?

All of life is uncertainty. With the lifestyles we lead, we don't know if we're going to see tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. That's just how it is in our lives. Don't think I haven't been thinking about this since we found out about it. It has been on my mind constantly. And that's a decision we get to make about our lives. You're talking about changing everyone else's. Everything anyone does changes lives. At some point, at some fucking point, you can't tally the whole world up and say yes or no should your life change. It just happens. And sometimes chances have to be taken and chances have to be based on faith or love or hope or hatred or whatever you have.

I'm not trying to make an argument. I'm just saying sometimes things have to change. Who the fuck knows what's going to happen? You don't. I don't. It's a coin toss. Why the fuck not? Worst thing that happens is we're going to die. Everyone's going to die. And you decided it. I didn't decide it. I'm not the person who's making the decision. This group is. And if that has to weigh on our conscience, then I hope you guys are fucking strong. Kalden's going to step in and just sort of like do that gesture with your hands when you're sort of like, everyone settle down, settle down.

And he's going to say, let's not let our tempers get ahead of us here. On the mountains, sometimes change comes as a season, like the winter and the spring. And sometimes it comes as an avalanche. And that is the decision that we have to make right now. That is the change that will come. As I see it, we have two decisions. One is to open the seal. It is unknown what will happen. We don't know how the gods will react. The other is to do nothing. Stand here and guard it and make sure that no one else tampers with it. And that the blood moon passes and none of us do anything.

The world of Theria remains unchanged and we go on until the next blood moon. But with that, the demons will come. If we do nothing here, they will come. They will enter this world and we may not have the power to turn them back. If we open the seal and break this magic and try to bring the gods back to Theria, they may raise this world and destroy everything in it. Or they might rebalance it. And he's going to walk over to Kori and say, "I haven't had a lot of need for gods and I don't have a lot of faith in the pantheon, but I do believe in Kori and I believe in the people who trust her.

With that, I think we can make a case to gods and have a good chance of making a case to make this world fit again. To stop the chaos that seeds it to." And he's going to look to Thanatos and say, "Stop the wars that rage across the continents." And he's going to look to Kori and say, "If we have allies, I think we have a better chance than just doing nothing." But you don't know if she'll stay your ally. She's going to point to Kori. You're right. I don't know. But I know the demons are not our ally and they are not the ally of Theria. And if we do nothing, they will overrun us.

We keep the portal closed. Until their magic is broken and it is weakened even now. The demons are already in this world. How long will you fight them on your own? During this whole conversation between Kal'Din and Thanatos, Aq'Thun is in the back, which is use Storm Render and start drawing a line, a long line in the snow. And then stand on one side of it and just wait for the conversation to continue. So I think while this whole conversation is going on, Kori is sort of squatted by the fire, just like staring into it. You know that feeling when people are talking about you when you're right there?

It's sort of like that. And she'll just look back at Kal'Din and say, "I'm trying really hard not to put my personal feelings into the mix." And then she'll look around towards the group. But the fact of the matter is, the gods were supposed to be here. That's the way the world was intended to be and the Eladrin fucked with that. They took them away. So I don't think it matters if what we do has consequences. Everything does. I see it as we're putting things back to the way they should have been this whole time. Kori's right. It's up to us to correct this mistake.

And if anyone deserves to be back where they belong, it's Kori. Is anyone not... Does anyone not know their own mind? Are they wavering at all? Anyone? Well, those who know what their mind is settled on, those who want to free the gods, come join me on this side of the line. The others can step on the other side. As you said, Una, there is very little time. Dagon will step over the line. Brelin will follow Dagon immediately. Yeah, Una will step over the line, but she'll cast a sad look back at the rest of her group. Kori will stand up and step over the line as well.

And Cauldron will follow her. Erolove will as well. Jesus. Oh boy. Brelin high-fives Cauldron and Erolove as they come by. High-five back. Can we do a windmill high-five? Yeah. Kaluna will... Jesus, I hate this. Can I just say how much I hate this? Kaluna will walk right up to the line and they'll do their best to sort of look between everyone in the eye. Although there's a lot of height variance and they are very close to everyone, so it's just a mess. They'll say, "We wish we could agree with you, but we haven't been very good at taking care of our people, but we have to do it now.

We can't risk hurting them." And they're gonna stand firm on their side of the line. Therin, there is one last thing I'd like to interject. He's gonna look at you and I truly appreciate everyone's concern for whatever could happen for all the victims that we can't foresee what might happen. And as much as I value all these lives we might lost, there is one thing that I believe we know is broken about this world and is above our dead. He looks at Una. Una, what was it again that made you doubt your faith a while ago? She like winced just a little bit because it's both not gratifying to think about her loss of faith and it's also horrifying to remember what made her lose it.

Sorry. But no no no. But she'll just think like, "Well, it was dying and having nothing on the other side." He's going to reach for his helmet and take it off slowly so it's not too much of a shock, but yeah that would be the first time everyone sees his actual face except for group 2. So he looks down, kind of not making eye contact with his one working eye. I've been petrified at the idea that all my people have nowhere to go now that they're gone. And I'm afraid that this might even be the same terrible fate that's going to befall on Theria as a whole when the demons come.

And if there's anything we can do to open the path who are dead, and he looks at Una, and if there's a way we could be the one to help restore the connection to your ancestors and fight with them in the afterlife, then I think it's worth giving our lives for it. And then when Actaronis takes off his helmet, you can see Kalluna flinch. Like they want to back away but they're also like, "No, I gotta be a badass. Stay right here." But they will grimace. And when he's done speaking they'll say, "We don't believe in the things that you do. When we die, we don't go anywhere.

We stay right here. We go to the earth. We go to the air. And we go back to everyone. The gods don't change what happens to us." Then you have somewhere to go. I'm just afraid we don't. Kalluna will shrug. Not like, not my problem, but just sort of like, agree to disagree. Just to clarify, Kalluna's on the other side of the line that's to not release the seal, right? Okay, cool. So Kalden will just sort of step up near Kalluna and look at them and sort of smile and say, "I've heard stories of your kind and they said that there were even some of them in the mountains, though I never saw any." That'll get Kalluna's attention.

Like, you know, they're standing up and then they'll sort of relax a little bit like, "Holy shit, what?" But they won't interrupt. "But I know that you must know the way of the mountain and that there is a balance there. There is a way that things work. If you suddenly take away the rabbits, then the wolves might starve. The wolves may come down to the cities of men and maybe find food there. They might even find food in the people that live there. And if they're successful, they wipe out a village. And if not, then the wolves themselves are wiped out and we lose them forever.

That is the way of the mountain. If you unbalance something, it throws the entire system into chaos until it shakes out under its own regard with heavy loss. This is where we stand with Theria now. The gods have been removed. The balance has been lost. And the world is trying to shake its way back into some kind of form. We have already lost so much. Come join us and help us try and restore this world." Julie would speak up. Thank god. Has any balance been lost? I'm not going to argue that bad things don't happen to good people. What you're all asking us to do is potentially catastrophically change everything on the planet.

And I don't think you understand the magnitude of that. Everything. You can call it faith. You can call it a hunch, a good guess, whatever. But none of us here have any idea what that would do. And she's going to kind of motion to Dagon. You said you spoke to one of the Aladrin. Yes. I'm not going to argue that what happened to your people wasn't terrible. And if you ask me, I don't think they should have been punished. An entire generation of Aladrin that had nothing to do with sealing away any gods are punished. But you spoke to one Aladrin, right? Well, I mean one, but not just anyone.

He's the keeper of records. It's his job to know the past. To account for everything that's happened. If anybody knows, it's him. She's going to step forward just a little bit. Dagon, I like to consider myself a bit of a keeper of knowledge too. At least for the temple. Who does this call? She's going to look at it and say, "Shut up." The best we can do is know what someone before us wrote down. What they choose to write. The bottom line is you spoke to one Aladrin who wasn't there when it all went down. We have no idea if they were completely justified or if it was just some horrible grasp at power.

We have no idea. And yeah, we could release the gods tomorrow. And maybe the world is this immaculate place afterwards where there's nothing but peace and justice and everyone has what they have coming to them. Or maybe we wake up and everything's changed irreparably and there's nothing we can do about it after the fact. The world's not always fair. But at least we know we have some kind of control. The world is never fair. You can't walk 10 feet without running into some sort of trouble. And it's not about what we want. It's about putting things right. Putting things back to how they should be.

You pray, do you not? At times, yeah. And how do you feel that all your prayers are empty? Are being heard by no one? She's going to look down. Have you ever had a bad run in with someone? Let's say it's someone from a different race than you. Obviously, you're not running into a lot of Aladrin out there, right? And you said there's nothing but trouble. If you had a bad running with a tiefling or a drow or a dwarf, would you judge every tiefling, drow, and dwarf because you had a bad run in with one of them? Of course not. Braylon's going to laugh a little bit.

Well, I mean, come on, boss. Drow? He'll look at Braylon like, "Not now." Luna just shifts uncomfortably. I'm not talking about the people I run into. I'm not expecting everyone to have ill intentions to want to kill me. But there are things out there that always do, that always want to skin me alive or bite my head off, what have you. There are monsters out there. And those monsters were created by someone, right? I don't think they just showed up after the gods were imprisoned. And I can't believe that the gods would allow these things to be out there.

So many of them. Julie's going to cross the line and stand next to Kaluna. I'm sorry, it's... there's too much we don't know. Hell yeah! Kaluna high fives Julie! Not really, though. That would be inappropriate. But like Kaladin said, those demons are coming, whether we want them to or not. And if you think things are bad now, they're only going to get worse. At least with freeing the gods, there's a chance. There's a chance that some will be on our side and things can get better. You're up against the unknown whether you like it or not. Kaluna will laugh at that, just like a loud bark of a laugh.

And they'll smile, just real big grin, and they'll say, "Everything's unknown to us." I think I made that exact argument a little while ago. I do want to clarify one thing. A lot of this, and I know this is completely based on character perception and all that stuff, a lot of this is stuff that you just don't know for sure. And it's, you know, whether your character feels very strongly or not, we all got to remember that it's like we're taking stabs at like the demons coming. And like all that is just like, that's not proven. It's just, well, I mean, I've seen them.

So I'm just saying that's all. In the character's perspective, what would you think? You're battling these demons. You've never battled demons before. There's demons. There's this, you know, people are speaking. Anyone would spook up and just say, "Okay, we've argued this over and over and over. Everyone's heard the best arguments. They've been patronizing and shitty to one another. So let's just, is anyone else on the fence? Does anyone else need to be convinced? Does anyone else need to hear the best arguments from both sides? Are we voting on this? Is this what the side choosing is or is it just we fight and whoever survives does whatever?" I figured this was our informal vote, considering there's a literal line to cross.

So on one side, we have Una, Kori, Erolove, Dagon, Brelin, and Actaronis. On the other side so far, we have Kalurna, Julie. We're still waiting to hear from Marek, Thanos, Bree. Thanos is going to look up at Bree for a second and kind of awkwardly take her hand and squeeze it for a second before going to stand by Kalurna and Julie. She's going to let go. Like she's not pulling Bree to her side. It's just, she knows she can't make the decision for Bree, but there is a hopefulness in her eyes. She's like, "Bree, please don't let them kill you for this." But she's not going to say anything.

She's going to go stand on her side. Right. If Bree looks like her decision is incoming, Una's just going to say, "Look, you don't have to come onto this side just because I'm on it. It's not going to change anything between us." She would, um, she'd obviously make eye contact with Thanatos and then as soon as Una speaks, her too. She's kind of in the middle here, quite literally. Well, Marek's by himself over at the seal. He's, um, honestly, he is basically convinced at this point that sure, maybe everybody's right about the gods, but there's a very just as equal chance that they're deluded.

And he would rather not rock the boat and spend energy on releasing, potentially releasing something that's a completely unknown, could be horrible thing and spend that energy on something that he knows is coming and that he can keep away. It's just, it's a no brainer kind of a gamble. It's like, "No, I know the demons are trying to get out and I know stupid Dharmak, right? Like, that's all I need to know. I don't know anything about the gods. And the only god that I've ever met is a witch who knows that she's a god and she doesn't really seem like somebody I want to release from anything.

So that's what Marek's thinking all by himself over at the seal. If Marek refuses to take a side, and that's apparent and he's within earshot and obviously can hear all of this going on, I think Bree would join him over by the seal. I'm sorry, if Marek refused to take a side, is that right? Well, I'm saying he doesn't formally come over and step on one side of the line. Oh, right. Oh, right, right, right. I think Bree would go and join him. Just as a way to maybe get away from the situation. Is Bree going to come hang out with Marek and chat or just kind of be over there away from people as well?

I think it's more just like, definitely stand side by side with Marek and just sort of regarding the seal. I think it's more, this thing is going to tear us apart. Yeah, that's what, yeah, that's it. On the 21st of Thorim, in the city of Winterhaven, complications had arisen in the form of what appeared to be an orc camp just outside the city's territory starting to grow. Both groups 1 and group 4 have decided that it would be in their best interest to go tackle the problem head on in some fashion, while gathering a valuable herb that could save the life of Nathaniel, the current Lord of Winterhaven.

Both parties understood the complications that could arise from something like this, and as they prepare to leave the city, they all realize it could be for the last time. As you're getting ready to leave the city, this little going away party type of thing has been arranged. Words gotten out, who knows how, that you guys are kind of spearheading this. There's concern in the city now for days that they found out about these orcs and when people went to investigate and scout ahead, they realized that this is a full-fledged thing. These orcs are just kind of setting up camp.

So this would be a thing where they're really happy that someone's spearheading this. Malchus doesn't have the best reputation in the world, but he does have a reputation of someone who gets things done. You may not enjoy his methods, you may not necessarily like him as a person, but it's like, okay, results though. So going out to tackle these orcs, it's a big deal, like people are excited. There's a small contingent of people who would be of the mindset, it's like, yeah, let's see if he comes back, that type of thing. Like there's always going to be that negative press type thing, but so people would be excited and they would be just go get them, that type of thing.

Like it'd be a nice grouping of people. I have a really important question before we leave. Is Heinrich's armor done? Did we get that? I would say, do me a favor and roll a flat d20 to see how quickly this would be done because this is custom stuff. This is not off the rack. Ah, that was almost good. I would say not. I would say that wouldn't be a thing that would be completed in time because it's only been a few days that this would have to be made from scratch, like to fit Heinrich. Do we want to bring him with us? That's a good question. I feel like it'd be better if he stayed home.

We're coming back. Can we have Heinrich roll a stealth roll? Do you want to leave it? Nope. I don't because I love him and I don't trust the felt. Okay. So far in the history of D&R, pets have traditionally not worked out in the long run. I'm rooting for you guys, though. I believe you. I mean, we're only going to be gone for what, one day tops? Yeah. Like one of the innkeepers can walk him. I'm sure we could pay them to keep it on. Well, they're not going to want him to poop inside. So yeah, they're a little extra. Just put it on our tab because we're important.

Okay. You guys came in as high rollers. Like you're spending quite a bit. So I'm sure you could convince somebody to walk your dog. We're simulating the economy. Make sure our dog poops. Well, the pooping will come. That's just going to happen. So is there any, like, is there anyone addressing this crowd or has it just kind of been like, hey, rumor got out that someone's going to solve this work issue? No one is officially leading the crowd. It's just one of those things where they're going to see you coming. And it's like, if you're, if you're making your way toward the gate, they're, they're going to just assume it's like, you're going to go deal with the Ork-Borom.

That type of thing. Okay. Is there something I can climb up onto to get a little height on the crowd so I can talk to them? There'd be some boxes and stuff. Sure. Okay. So Malkus will just kind of like stride confidently up onto like a little stack of boxes there to get the people's attention and he'll, he'll do, he'll get like by a lower box and a higher box and do kind of a one knee up Captain Morgan kind of thing. And he'll raise his hands to kind of get the crowd to quiet down a little bit. They would. He'll say, it's come to my attention that Winterhaven is having an Ork problem.

Is this making all of you anxious? There'd be a murmuring in the crowd. Of course. Well, good news. Myself and my allies are headed out to the frontier. These Orks will be made to leave our lands and if they will not do so willingly, and then he manifests his shadow sword to punctuate, he goes, they will be convinced. No, do me a favor. Okay. It was like, surely cheering. Do me a favor, roll a diplomacy check. Now, statistically speaking, I'm good at that one, but the dice are fickle. So we'll see. Brace yourselves. Look at that. That's a 29 for the kids at home.

That is a 29. This crowd is going to erupt into cheers and just be all kinds of uproarious. I would even say with a roll that high, there would probably be a little bit of a Malkus chant going. It'd probably be the nice beginnings of a grassroots Malkus chant in there. Malkus hoists his sword aloft for a moment and then he gestures to all of his allies to show that he's got this whole strong crew, this fellowship headed out there to wreck stuff. Daphne's rolling her eyes so hard. There is the highest of eyebrow looks aimed in Eloraf and Sora's direction.

And Malkus steps back down, like, among them and then just, like, looks around and as they're all, like, giving him the look, he goes, marketing. Come on. Facepalm. Abilene looks impressed. He would. Fist bump? Irena's just going to start walking. Do you fist bump? Abilene will totally take one. Malkus is familiar with fist bumps from his time with Duncan. So, yeah, Malkus gives you a fist bump. I love it when the rolls work out. Okay. That so rarely happens for you. I know, right? It's, what a relief. Hopefully they maintain that enthusiasm when the court case comes around.

I better, I'll bring each of them a scalp. I'll bring scalps for all the kids. Scalps for days. Scalps for days. I got scalps for days. So, as I said, this is about half a day's journey out, right? So, on the way, I would imagine at least once you'd probably make camp, take a break, that type of thing. But what I would like to do is I'd like to have one of you roll a flat d20 for me. Just one. No, it's cause. I'll be tribute. Oh, wow! Oh, man. You got cocky. I did. I did. Oh, this is gonna be fun. Turn sour before we even walk out the gate. Can't we just take a rain check?

A black dragon appears on the other horizon. Yeah, really. That's a one for the kids at home. That's a one. You rolled a natural one. And there's a black dragon and an army of little tidier dragons and we're all just gonna die. The world is made of dragons and... We actually stumbled upon a dragon later, so it's a mama dragon and her babies. We come back to the town and we're like, "Look, okay. Bad news, we didn't handle the orcs. Good news. Here's the head of a dragon!" Also, parents, characters, that's... Hey, listen! No! You guys, if there's any time to roll a natural one, the time when two full groups are together to fight whatever happens is the time to do it.

I agree. Jason, just remember, we are a much lower level than the other groups, so the monster should be as far. Here's the thing, Val, this is not a game of stats. I can't favor anybody based on that. Here's the real question. Is the area you're grabbing your encounter from, is this a new list based on two groups or just the original list of one group? Everything for today's sitting has been custom built for the two of you. I expect only the best from you. I try. Okay, so on the way to this mountainous area you're heading, again, I would imagine that camp has been set up at some point just to grab a drink, get some water, that type of thing, and rest your feet.

Is there anything that you guys want to talk about while you're taking this little rest? If not, we'll just jump right ahead. I think everyone's been filled with nervousness about this natural one at this point. Hey, don't even worry about the natural. The carriage that's being brought up is going to be crushed. That's what it is. Are we taking the carriage? I don't know if it would hold the carriage. Yeah, we're going into the woods and stuff, it's better to leave it for it's sake. You remember the carriage is an esther hole. Oh, right. No, it's being, wait, isn't it on its way?

It's on its way, yeah, but it's going to be fine to get there. Well, I was going to say, probably on the way out there, if we're leaving town, Elarath will probably approach somebody in the party, whoever's closest to her, and just be like, "Is he always like this?" Yes. Thank you, I was, okay. Awesome. That's great. We're going to be real stealthy now. We're going to sneak so good. Malchus is just at the front of the group just beaming to himself. He is so pleased that all his diplomacy training finally paid off after all those rotten diplomacy roles over the years.

Boy, I nailed that. Yeah. Oof. It just seemed like fate was on my side today. Oh, jeez. Stop it. You're making it worse. Funny you shouldn't have. Funny you should mention that. Malchus was two days from retirement. No. Literally. You know, I can't imagine a single thing going wrong today after a start like that. Just piling it up, aren't you? I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa. And don't it feel good? Oh, jeez. I want Aveline to sing that. Yes. I want to see if Aveline can rejoin him. The funny thing is, like, Aveline right now, he's kind of a little behind Malchus, but he's just like peering at him, just looking at him like, "This dude is a verbal magician.

How does he do it?" There's a lot of that going on. I think as we're walking, Irena's going to be kind of interested in Theo and how well he's walking in his armor and stuff like that, because she's kind of trying to assess where everyone's at if we're going to be getting into a battle. And obviously Theo kind of sticks out. Oh, no. She's probably thinking, "I can beat this one up, too." I mean, Theo with his new armor probably looks better than Aria, from the first guide, I don't think. But then again, he's probably nervous. She's kind of luck-shaped.

Are they holding hands? Oh my god. No, they're not holding hands. I don't think so. Stop it. They're cute. I want them to. I don't think they've exactly progressed that far yet. All right, fine. They're totally holding hands. They are probably holding hands on the dragon. Ask her if she's an assassin, then she'll be your best friend. Yeah, threaten to burn her face off with hellfire. That usually worth does a trick. Oh, goodness. I mean, that's what could. Yes. And now we're buddies. That's the end of that story. So anything else before we pack up and head into it?

Could Efrain pull Avalon to one side? Yeah, sure. So just kind of pull you off to one side away from everyone just briefly and just say, look, I just wanted to say, before we get deep into whatever this is or will be, I just wanted to say, you've been handling yourself well in Overwatch. You know, when you had to tell the group your story, I know that wasn't easy for you and you're handling yourself well here. I just wanted to say I'm proud of you, buddy. And she's going to stick her fist out to do a fist bump. Avalon is going to connect on the fist bump and he'll say, thank you, Anthony.

I've been holding in a lot. And it's taken a lot of restraint so far. And I've felt rewarded in life. I'm just so happy to be around people again. So I found value in keeping my mouth shut and kind of thinking more like you do. And trust me, buddy, all of us here, we really appreciate that. And she pats on the arm. Yeah, you kind of take that, you know, you kind of blush a little bit because he doesn't get complimented that often. Yeah, Anthony's looking really awkward because she's not used to complimenting you. She's usually used to yelling at you. And it must look weird because you see us two just going off to the side now.

I'm like blushing and she's just patting me and stuff. It must be a weird visual is all I'm saying. It is now. I'm just saying, that was in the fucking... never mind. It was touching before. I'm sorry, I ruined it. But yeah, that was it. That was all she wanted to do. Anyone else? Say your goodbyes, everybody. Basically, that's what it feels like. We'll be fine, guys. I feel like if it's all right, Elorath would probably whisper to Sora at some point. Just be like, "You think Zoya's still gonna come?" I don't know. I mean, I hope so. What if she shows up and we're out here?

Well, I'm sure someone in the town would let her know that we're out here and we're only gone for a day. Okay. I don't want her to leave. If, well, I don't know. I just didn't want her to be like, "Oh, they're not here," and then move on. 'Cause, like, you know, she's not here. I think it'll all work out. And Sora will put a hand on Elorath's shoulder. Just a smile. Okay. I just worry 'cause, you know, it's been a while. I haven't seen her yet. Hopefully it'll be soon, then. [♪♪♪] On the fourth of Rengue, on the continent of Kion, the weeks had bled into months of anticipation, but the day had finally arrived.

The event known as the Blood Moon would be taking place soon, as evening started to settle over the camp. While Groups 2 and 3 agreed that the demon should not be set free, and that everything should be done to stop any individual who attempted to do such a thing, they remained divided as to what to do after the fact. I picture during this time the camp is relatively quiet, after all the melodrama with the line, and talking about the seal in-depth, and just everyone sort of venting not just their beliefs, but some frustration mixed in there. I would imagine things have been a little quiet since then.

Is the line still visible? I picture the weather actually, against all odds, being very cooperative. There's some gusts of wind here and there, but for the most part it's almost eerily quiet. The precipitation stopped, the... it's just kind of... You ever go out after it's snowed quite a lot, and it's almost too quiet, like deafening? Like you can hear the slightest rustling in a tree, or someone crunching snow from many, many feet away. That kind of thing. So if anyone moves in the camp, it's one of those things where everyone's pretty aware of it. So the line hasn't been disturbed?

No. I'm guessing just everybody's sort of hanging around in camp roughly, just sort of roughly around each other? Merrick is going to... he's not trying to make a show of it, he's not trying to get everybody to look at him, but he's just going to finally at some point just walk over to the line that actor Onis made, and just start filling it back up, scuffing it, whatever needs to happen with his boots, with his weapon, just whatever, just to sort of get rid of it. Until it's gone. He's just going to do it, he's not going to be looking up at anybody, he's just going to do it until it's just not visible anymore.

Like it just never happened. And I don't know, I guess after he's done he would look up to see if anybody's even paying attention. I think Kaluna would have watched, just sort of sitting by the fire, like what the fuck is he doing? Yeah, actor Onis did. When he's done, Kaluna would just smile at him. Is anybody else sort of paying attention or not paying attention, or does it matter? Una would pay attention, for sure. She'd be watching that carefully. Yeah, Brie and Julie would too. Pretty sure Brianna, I mean, Santos sat down next to Brie and is just bundled up and looking down, but then when she hears the commotion she'll look up and pay attention.

Whenever he feels like everybody's kind of staring or something like that, I mean, I think he's going to do all of that not to try to get attention, but I think he's going to sort of come out of his little reverie and sort of look around and realize that maybe people are looking at him. He looks pretty angry or frustrated or something, and he's just going to look around at everybody and say, "We can pick sides about the way we feel about all of these things, but we all need to be a united front, and while I'm not going to convince anybody that the gods don't exist and there's no point, and nobody's going to convince anybody else that doesn't believe that it matters to release the gods, that's not what we need to do. Can we all agree that we'll just do whatever's right as whatever happens happens?" I didn't think that was a matter of discussion.

Of course we're going to do what's right, what happens, what happens, or whatever happens happens. As long as we do what's right, whatever that happens to be and however we all feel about it, just do what you think is right, and then we're all one. Actra, this is going to stand up and go towards Merrick. Don't let that line bother you too much, Merrick. There's a reason in Onikol we etched these lines in the sand and not in stone. It was merely a matter of voting. This doesn't build anything between us. We just can't be divided. That's all that matters right now.

This is potentially a very, very, very big deal. Maybe the biggest deal that we'll ever be involved with. So we just can't be divided, that's all. He'll put a hand under your shoulder and nod. Julie would nod her head. Kalin will do a little fist pump, like "Yeah!" And Kalin will hold up a bowl of curry up towards his way. You guys' digestion tracks are just going to be wrecked. Yeah, it's been like two days of curry! This was a good curry! It was good! And I hope it's as good the second time you experience it. I mean... It's going to be the only warm part for our bodies.

Oh, that's spicy. Oh, that's spicy curry. That said, Thanatos is just kind of staring at Merrick, like deadpan, then her eyes are just going to go back down. That didn't quite convince her. She's not going to argue. Fair enough. I'm imagining Merrick is actually just kind of sad. He doesn't want everybody to be fighting. Not that he wouldn't fight anybody about all this stuff, but just that this is the last moment that we should be doing this right now. Whatever we all believe, as long as we're doing whatever we feel is right, then we're all on the same side.

That's all that matters right now. So that's his momentary philosophy anyway. If everyone's kind of done with their hearty gestures of companionship, I want to just kind of stretch and just say, "So Merrick, are we supposed to drink that bottle of yours before we die or after?" Oh, the only way that bottle is going to be had is when all of this is said and done and whoever's here to drink it is going to get this bottle passed around to. Well, that's an incentive not to die. There you go. This is some good shit, I'm telling you. Thanatos is going to kind of like, her eyebrows are going to go up for a second, like, "Hmm." She's gotten drunk a few times now, so she knows it's kind of cool.

Yeah, getting the hang of it. Kaluna's going to give a more enthusiastic fist pump this time. From what I understand, Thanatos deals her alcohol better than Una and Julie combined, so... Yep. Hey, Jason, real quick. The landscape here is relatively flat. Are there any sort of mounds of anything like a snowdrift or anything like that? This sort of like a sand dune of snow or something? Oh, there's lots of snowdrifts. Again, the area around the seal is fairly clear just because of the warmth of it. Beyond that, you can see in most directions. There are little hills and stuff like that.

The only thing I'm looking for, now that Una's brought up the bottle, he's going to take it out of his pack and he's just going to start walking off by himself to any point in the distance that's far enough away. And I mean far enough away like, it's going to take him a while to walk there. Not like an hour, but he's going to walk pretty far away from everybody to the point where he could not hear anything and everybody's very, very far away. So he's going to stick that bottle on top of something where it can be seen, right? Like just like down into some snow or something like that and then walk back to the camp.

Okay. Basically getting it out of the way and letting that be like the trophy for him to go pick up if possible. Brie would want to pull Una aside for just a moment. At this point, the last bit of sun is going to dip, meaning that night has officially fallen on the continent of Kion and the moon will be visible in the sky. She would probably stand up from where she was sitting next to Thanatos and kind of put a hand on Thanatos ashore and just give it like a light squeeze. Just kind of like, "I'll be back." That type of thing. Brie's going to be looking down just a bit and then sort of gesture up at the sky.

And the moon is very much its usual silvery color. So you can kind of hear just a little bit of like catch in her voice. "I don't know what's about to happen and I don't know what's going to go on with the seal, but whatever does happen, I just I wanted you to know that I love you." And she's going to lean in and hug Una. And it's the kind of hug that's you're very much holding on to someone like you might lose them or they might lose you. So instead of like saying anything and ruining the moment, we'll just kind of grab Brie's head, you know, like in a not violent way.

Just kind of like peel her back a little bit from the hug and like give her like a look. Just solid eye contact for like five seconds and then give her a kiss. Like a good one. Everyone do me a favor and roll a perception check. Dagon, Erolove, Thanatos, Merrick, Kaluna, Kori, Una. You are all going to hear a separate set of footsteps sort of crunching in the snow. And this is going to start very soft. And eventually I would imagine the party would look around and realize, okay, that's not us. And after moments of this, a male Githserai is going to walk into your camp and start making his way to the seal.

He is alone and sort of bundled up in these bulky furs. And is he like taking note of the fact that there's like 10 people just chilling? I would say, yeah, he's he's he's regarding you. He's he's sort of looking at the group. He hasn't said anything yet. Just sort of looking around at the party. No, I'm just asking. So but he's going like he's like walking through everybody, looking at everybody and just going straight over to the seal. Yeah, I'd say there'd be a moment's pause where he'd sort of pan his head one way and then the other looking at everybody and then walk straight for the seal.

Yeah, Halluna would pull out their totem like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Merrick, because Merrick's not sitting around like he's he's ready, just about ready to go just stand next to the seal and protect the shit out of it. He's stupidly, but yeah, basically he's just going to go get right in front of the guy and hold up his his weapon and basically like push it again. Like if the guy keeps walking, he's going to like use it as a bar like, uh-uh. Yeah, Una would like unsheathe her hammer, go sprinting towards the guy and go, "Phantos!" Does she recognize him? And if so, how far away before she realizes who it is?

I would say you would know that it's not, you know, any anyone in your group's footsteps before you see this person. And I would imagine it would just be behind behind like one of the snowdrifts, something like that. I think I think the entire group would pretty much watch this person walk into camp, not brandishing a weapon, nothing like that, just walking in alone. And I would say it's it's pretty evident. At first, she's just going to like as soon as she recognizes the face, she's going to just freeze and her eyes are going to get wide. And I'm not sure if she's if Bree came back to sit down next to her or anything, but if she did, she's going to she'll take Bree's hand and pull her back.

And she's just going to run backwards. And she she'll probably even mumble like, "Run, run!" and then try to get away. So you're holding Bree's hand while doing this, like tugging her? Yeah, like trying to tug her away, like not not like sprint out into the woods or anything, just like get back. Right. Like Bree would obviously see this panic and she's not going to take off running, but definitely drop back with you just a bit and start looking at this person and try to try to maybe get between you and him just sort of like spread arms, something like that.

Bree doesn't offer a lot to hide behind, but it's just the gesture of like, "OK, OK." Because she's looking at him and sees one person and like obviously the way you're reacting is like, "OK, you obviously know something we don't. Let's take this seriously." The worst case scenario is he doesn't offer a threat and we're prepared, that type of thing. So just dropping back and taking stock of what the rest of the group would be doing. But is he headed for her or for the seal? The seal. We can gather that they obviously know who it is. I would say there's some recognition there.

Yeah, definitely. I think if we notice that there's a threat by this, Dagon would probably teleport himself. If Kaltas is right up against Marek, he'd probably teleport behind Marek to get himself between the seal and... So you're blocking his path. Yeah. And for the record, Marek's not thinking twice about anything about Thanatos and who this person is. He's just like, "No, if somebody's going to that seal, there's a chance that they're trying to break it or something." And that's against Marek's thoughts right now. So he's just blocking whoever's going there that he doesn't know.

He's blocking their way. I think Dagon probably would ask him, as he's marching towards, "Who are you and what is your purpose here?" So again, wearing a lot of heavy fur is kind of a hood covering his head and stuff like that. Obviously just kind of guarded for the elements. And he's going to stop when he realizes that you're in his way. And almost with an exasperated sigh. He's going to look up and pull his hood back. And again, gets her eye-mail. But there is definitely something off with this person's eyes. Sort of a red tinge to them. "I am giving you the chance to leave.

All of you." And he's going to pan around the camp. "Realize I don't have to do this. But if you impede my progress further, you will leave me no choice." Oona's going to roll her eyes and say, "Oh golly, thanks mister!" Brailin's going to chuckle in the back. "How much damage does he take?" Okay. Yeah, Actronis will join the group of people starting to muff off. He'll stand up and crack his knuckles. Kaluna's inching back to sort of line up with Thanos and Brie. Kaluna, after all this panic, I think he's definitely taken away. I think he even manifests his little ice dagger in his hand.

And he's going to call out, "You still haven't stated your business!" How close would you say you are to him? The people standing in his way? Is he pressed up against Merrick's Morningstar? Merrick's using that as a baseball bat pressed up against his chest. Ah, so okay. And then I'd be halfway between them and the seal, whatever that is. So, to paint a picture, you are, I would say Merrick and this individual are a good distance away from the seal. I'd say a good, you know, 40, 50 feet, somewhere in there. And Dagon would be somewhere in between the seal and Merrick and this individual.

And he'll kind of look to Keldon as he's speaking to him. "I'm sure you know why I'm here by now. I'm here to open the seal. My suggestion would be that all of you leave and take your last precious hours and huddle together with your loved ones. And he is going to look directly at Merrick when he says that. I am giving you one last chance." So is everyone fine with murdering this guy? Yeah. In character. Straight up in character. Let's ask him if he's going to open the seal for the gods or the demon. He's probably totally here for the demon. Yeah, for the ominous undertones.

Well, sure. I mean, come on. Even if he is here to open it for the gods, we should just murder him. If we need to sacrifice one scion, I mean, he could. Dominate him. Dominate him. I don't know if it'll work. This guy seems a little high on the badass scale. Not as high as us. Oh yeah, there's like ten of us, yeah, for sure. So he's staring right at Merrick. Merrick's not breaking his gaze at all. Not flinching. Well, from where Thanos is standing, which is kind of behind Bree, she is almost hyperventilating. She's so frightened. But she's looking in on this scene and she's going to kind of, still grasping onto Bree's hand, call out Merrick's name.

Merrick hears it, but he's not flinching. He's going to match his gaze, unquestioningly, confidently. But he definitely hears Thanos. Merrick's going to just say, "No one breaks the seal if it means demons." He is going to look around at the rest of the camp. And you all stand with this man. Have I progressed in my running to the point where I'm close by now? Oh, I'd say. Okay, can I just attack him? Sure. Oh, there we go. I've never been part of a patented easy pop-off like this before, so I'm excited. Alright, just shut up. And then, yeah, let's fucking go.

Okay, do me a favor. What attack would you like to use? Yeah, let's do Debilitating Smite. Go ahead and roll that attack. Alright, let's see how this works. Well, here's the thing. This individual, he isn't putting up his hands. He isn't attempting to block. Oh, sweet. Okay. And he's going to eat this hammer full onto the face. Alright, I'm okay with that. You're going to watch his neck sort of slough over, and you're going to hear it crack. Ugh. So he's going to take 33 damage. And then you're going to watch him sort of shake his head just a bit, and you're going to hear it crack again.

And you're going to see this pale blue and black sort of aura snaking through veins, and it's definitely supernatural. And you're going to very slowly pan over to Una. And he's going to try and hit you with a strike of his own. He is just going to roll a flat-out Force Punch. Does a 37 hit your AC? That was not, honestly. No? Okay. Oh, shit. He does 33 damage to you. Okay. And he's going to fly backwards six spaces. So the sequence of events is Una walks up, runs up, I'd say at least a good trot, takes a swing at this individual, and seemingly breaks his neck in the swing.

And he is going to reactionarily strike back at Una, knocking her back in prong. Then he is going to undo this coat that he's wearing. And underneath he's sort of wearing these tattered, like, monkish robes type of thing. This guy has been out for a while. And he's going to let the coat fall, kind of bunch up around his feet. And this guy is not huge. Sort of on the thinner side. Gitzerite tend to be. And after he regains his composure, you can see that he's definitely, like, trying to restrain himself just a bit. He's going to look up to the sky. I don't have time for this.

And he is going to spread his arms. There is going to be that same energy you see kind of swirling within this person is going to kind of spark outward. You remember how I said that there were a lot of bones of dead dragons in the area? Well, this energy is going to start to swirl and almost infect the bones of these dead creatures. And they are going to come together slowly behind this man. And they are going to form a towering abomination of a dragon. And he is going to continue to look at Merrick. If this is what they've sent to stand against me, then I have no choice but to destroy you.

On the 21st of Thorim, just on the border of Winterhaven, groups 1 and 4 close in on a small orc encampment nestled in the hills of the beautiful countryside. I would say, after some more walking, 2-3 more hours, somewhere in there, you are going to get to the area that you've been told that the Ash and Milk week grows. Now, everyone do me a favor and roll a perception check. Awesome. Yeah! Holy shit. Oh, dang! That's a bean! Shit. This is a formality. He's part of the group, Jason. Are you rolling it in the box or are you just clicking on it? No, I'm clicking on my skill.

Well, it was a 17 the last time I rolled it. It's not bad. It's fine. No, it's fine. It's what it is. Too busy checking out Theo's armored butt. Yeah, totally. That's what I'm into. Yeah, that butt armor. That butt dough. It's just like boob armor. It's contoured to fit the box. Just so. But does he pose to accentuate it in every panel? Only on body pillows. Oh no! Hawkeye initiative. In his damage shot, it's like torn in places. Strategically torn. I understand all these references. How good do you feel about yourself as a person? On a scale of 1 to 10? We'll throw a d20.

We'll find out. No. All right. You're going to see some orcs in shorts. You're going to see a whole mess of orcs. My brain briefly took that as orcs in shorts. Orcs in shorts. They're in shorts. I love it. They've got a spin class. I would imagine orcs wear jorts. They wear jorts to go with shorts. Like three quarter length and way too baggy. It's either jorts or cheekbones. Like half a dozen wallet chains. Yeah. And their fitted backwards baseball caps are just being caught lovely in the sun. Like you could just... But do they have sleeveless jackets though? Yes, and they're all drinking Four Loko.

They're all... I hate orcs now. God damn it. Let's kill 'em. In the immediate you're going to see... What appears to be about 15 orcs. Which, for an orc encampment, is really small. Now, the bad news is that they look to be fully armored. And combat ready. This does not appear to be a contingent of orcs that aren't warriors. You're only going to spot the thing you're after. It's kind of growing at the base of this mountainous area here. And the good news is that there is plenty of it. The bad news is that you would have to get past the orcs to get to the bulk of it.

And even getting to the stuff on the fringe, I mean, you're close enough that them not spotting you would be a small miracle. What are the orcs doing? Right now it looks as though they're building. The large majority of them appear to be building some sort of shelter. So this is sending a very clear message that they're setting up to live here. They are... they're taking this. Malchus looks at the party and says, "Well, we wanted to try the diplomatic approach first. Any objections to approaching within shouting distance and asking them to state their business?" I think that's their business.

And she's going to point at the building. I think that. I'm in agreement, but we promised we would talk. Thea's going to raise his hand. Yes, Thea. Um... not to be rude. If you're going to talk to them, I wouldn't do it like how we did back in the city. Oh, no. What, manifesting the sword while I do it? Um... yeah, that, and... Kind of talk... don't talk at them so much? Like maybe talk to them? What does he mean? I don't understand the difference. Would somebody else like to do the talking? Because apparently I'm not trusted. I... I didn't... come... I'm just saying, all of you seem very concerned about how this is going to be delivered.

So if any of you would like to step up... Thea would put his head down. And Malchus looks to Arya as well. I think you'll do just fine, Malchus. I don't think much talking is going to be needed. As we've somewhat established that they're not ones for talking. So any of us will have as much a chance as you. Am I wrong to think that you need to speak authoritatively when working with orcs? I mean... No. Maybe don't talk to them like they're stupid. I don't think I'm going to do that. I was just going to say... Okay. Because I know that makes me feel bad when people talk to me like I'm stupid.

So... Okay. We'll take... we'll take a census. I'm going to walk up there and say... Hi. Hi. Just say maybe that you're a knight of Winterhaven and that you're here to see what they're doing. And that's... just keep it like that. Simple, maybe. I come on the authority of the knights of Winterhaven. State your business. And Malchus looks... That sounds angry. That sounds challenged. It sounds official. By the authority of the knights of Winterhaven, please state your business? That's better. That sounds amazing. Malchus like runs his hand down his face in the slowest face palm.

This is what diplomacy by committee gets you. Okay. Come on. Weapons not drawn. Approaching openly. Sturdy folks to the front. Yeah, we know where it would be like right there. Yeah, I was about to say that that'd be... She's gonna get herself all puffed up, you know, like... I'll be way in the back. I'll be solidly in the middle. Here's the thing. I can already see the party formation in my head. Usually with a group this big, it's like, okay, let me get to... No, I pretty much know where you guys want to be. Like I can... I can... yeah. Yeah. Malchus will be toward the front because he's talking in this case.

It'd be just like a step to the side of him. So as you approach this encampment, there's going to be a few orcs just sort of scattered around and it looks as though they're hammering posts into the ground. And they are going to notice you coming. So they're going to stop what they're doing with their hammer. They're going to throw down their hammers and they're going to draw weapons right off the bat. But not run toward you or anything like that. Just more like, hey, you're on our land. You know, that kind of thing. Like they're just sort of like puffing out their chest type of thing.

Okay. And just FYI, Winterhaven does govern this land. Like it's not just like, oh, we treated it like ours. No, no. This is on their border. Like this is their land. This is Orcish land? No, no, no. Winterhaven's land. Okay. They are inside Winterhaven's borders. Yes. Okay. For a minute I thought it was like, wait a minute, we just walked across our border into their turf and we're telling them to get off? Okay. Are you looking at legal ramifications? The orcs, here's the thing. The orcs technically don't have turf. They have turf that they just took. And it's way to the east.

Like they are, they're way outside their jurisdiction if they had any. Like at least, at least people look at that and it's like, yeah, that's just orc. We don't go there. If the things live, that's just, that's a bad neighborhood. We don't go there. That's near Stonesunder. Just let them have it. They're way outside that. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So if they, once we're within a kind of shouting distance, Malkus shouts out to them, I come representing the Knights of Winterhaven. We request that you state your business. They're all going to look at each other. And you can almost see it, you can almost see it in their face that they don't get a word of what you're saying.

However, a slightly larger orc is going to step forward from behind them. You're going to hear this guy coming a mile away. Very large, very, very broad. Wearing different armor, less armor than the orcs in the front. And he's going to shamble forward and he's going to point down at the ground and then at you and then just sort of make a motion to like scooped shoe, get out, that type of thing. Malkus will step forward a couple steps and make the same motion and make his shoe motion back in the direction of orcish lands. Gosh. He is going to start to shout in orcish.

And it sounds like a couple of long sentences. It's very intense, very, very descriptive. And he's going to make a lot of hand motions, a lot of like chest pounding and just you're not exactly sure what's being said, but you're definitely sure of the tone. And it's coming off as almost a warning. We were like insight to see if we can pick up more of like what the hand motions connect to or is there just like no way to? It would be a higher insight check. Yeah. But I mean, the general vibe is get the fuck out of here. Is anyone in the insight check? I mean, I guess I might as well.

I don't know. That's probably not going to. Yeah, I'm not going to do it. I'll try it. It's an insight you said? Yeah. Oh, no. No, it's general. Jesus Christ. OK. Are we all doing this? Do it. Don't forget the "O". Ariana with the 25. Again, the general vibe of this would be that they want you out there. They're trying to communicate. And what's strange about this is that most times orcs don't request. This is of orcish behavior. This is generally civil. Just shouting and screaming, a little spittle in your general direction and stuff, but no, this new orc did not draw a weapon yet.

This is downright nice by orcish standards. Do these orcs look like all the other orcs that we know or they look different? No, they look like they just look like orcs. Nothing that would distinguish them as like a different like a subspecies or something like that. Malchus turns to the party, an expression of profound annoyance on his face. They aren't attacking us, but they are in sovereign territory. But we have the right to evict them. But they haven't attacked us yet and we can't communicate with them effectively. I just I feel like we're missing something here.

Question. Do we know where the edge of our territory is? For Winterhaven? Yeah. Yeah. Like do we know how far into our territory they are? They're a decent ways in. They're, I'd say, an hour and a half within Winterhaven's borders. One foot. And even if it wasn't within Winterhaven's borders, this is outside of where they should be, basically. Because the next town over would be Albury and that's not great. Oh, God. Do we have like any Winterhaven symbolism on us? I don't think like we would. Malchus might. Didn't he have a tabard? He used to be rocking the tabard.

I don't know if he still does. I think he took that off when he was in Conmido. Yeah. I mean, can it be among my belongings? Oh, I'm sure it would be in your bag. Alright. Is the suggestion that I brandish it at them? I don't know that that's gonna have any better... I mean, it's a recognized symbol, yeah? Maybe? I don't know. Okay. Arya! Winterhaven here. You leave. While he's doing this, Arya's gonna, she's gonna take out her like drawing trail and she's gonna start drawing. It's like very, like she's gonna start drawing something while Malchus is taking out his tabard.

Did the orcs have a symbol? They did. They had that flag that we took back to Winterhaven, right? Yeah. Okay. So Malchus brandishes his tabard and points back at Winterhaven and then points to himself. And then he points to the orcs again and points back toward orcish country and jabs his finger in that direction multiple times. Gotcha. Like GTFO? Yeah. Got it. Awesome. Making friends. This larger orc is going to bring out his hand axe and he is going to slice his own chest wide open. Yes. Oh! And he is going to run his hand and give it a nice coating of his own blood.

And never breaking eye contact with Malchus, he's going to bend down and sort of slam into the grass and just rub it all over. He's claiming our sovereign territory. At least that's my interpretation of bleeding on our lawn. He is going to stand up, blood dribbling down his chest. My land. In common, very clearly. Very rough. Malchus looks back at the party and says, "And of course he's wrong about that, so we're going to have to do something." What if he understands us? Simple words. You said not to talk to him like they don't. If they can't speak more than a few words of our language, I mean, it's...

Malchus looks back, points to himself and says, "My land. You go." And then he looks at Arya and says, "I want you to appreciate how far I am taking your request right now." She does not look happy with Malchus. Malchus does not look happy with Arya. This orc is going to step forward, and he's going to loom over Malchus. Oh, we're like all up right now? He is going to close that gap at that point. It's like, "Oh, okay, now, okay, let's communicate." Because this gentleman feels that there's been a breakdown in communication. He stated, "My land, you disagree." He is going to bend down, and he is going to sniff at Malchus.

He's going to sort of, the entire time, very chest-flexy, neck-cracking, that type of thing. You could tell this dude is limbering up for something, or at least trying to send the message that's like, "Dude, I will fight you. What the fuck?" That type of thing. Very, very aggressive body language. He's going to bend down and inhale a few times, just kind of get all... Really, near Malchus's neck and throat area, mostly. Okay, first of all, Malchus does not break eye contact, because that is seeding authority. Second of all, while this is happening, Malchus has locked eyes with this orc and has not looked away.

And he says, "Aria, are you drawing something extremely convincing right now?" I mean, she probably... Okay, yeah, you know what? This is dumb as heck, but whatever. She's going to walk forward, kind of slowly, and she is exactly the most intimidating figure to begin with, as we all know. And she's kind of torn out this piece of paper. So what she's drawn is kind of, I mean, it's very stick figures, kind of. So, I should describe this with words, but it's a group of stick figure orcs with tusks and stuff on the right side, and then an arrow pointing towards the left with a smaller group of orcs with a symbol of the banner that we had taken from them.

And so she's going to kind of like, hang on, she's going to lay it down on the ground and retreat a few steps, wanting to see if he's going to... Does it have an arrow toward the other group of orcs, or like... Yeah, so what she's describing is like a smaller group of orcs breaking off from the rest, going to the west, and then she drew that banner over them. What she's trying to do is figure out why they came here. So here's what I want to do, because he's going to bend down and wrap his giant mitt around this paper, kind of crumpling it up a little bit and looking at it.

Not a gentle touch on this guy. What I would like to do is combine that with what Malkus did. So I want Malkus to roll a diplomacy check, and I want Arya to assist. Okay. Look at this teamwork we're doing, Arya. This is not going to go well, I'm just going to go ahead and say that. He didn't say that. Just give me... Ah! Malkus did well. That's just a roll of flat d20 there, Arya, to assist. Are you trained in diplomacy? So there you go. That's amazing. See, you were worried. So this guy is going to point toward the banner. And for the sake of this, I'm going to say that the drawing of the banner was fairly detailed.

He's going to point down to the banner and then hold his hand back up to his chest in kind of a claiming motion. And he's going to say, "My people." And he's going to motion to the fact that the rest of the camp would belong to him as well. And then he's going to motion back to himself. "Gorga." And he's going to look back to you expectantly. I'll pat my chest and say, "Malkus." Arya will put her hand on her chest and say, "Arya." And he's going to give a sort of a bro-ish head nod. Return it. And then he's going to bend back down and touch the ground.

"My land." Like we're going in circles. That's the thing. He's going to pat the ground and say that and then look at you. It's like, right? Right? It's like, I'm glad we got this sorted out. This was tense, but yeah, I'm glad we got it sorted. Okay, so Arya is going to say something. "Your people need land." I don't know if there's no need, but hey, it's worth a shot. He will nod his head in agreement, and then he will bend back down and touch the ground again. So, Shil motion towards the drawing, which I assume that he's still holding in case of the other orc.

Okay, Malkus will try. He said, "Gronk" was his name? "Gork." Wow, Malkus. Look, I'm not going to suddenly start being good with proper nouns. Malkus looks at Gork and points in the direction of Orclands and says, "Orkland." And then points at Gork and says, "Gork," and does like little finger legs walking across his arm and says, "Go." So, "Orkland, Gork go. Why?" The only new word in that is "why." Please say he knows why. He's going to look back to his people, and they're going to give him a look like, "Ah, fucking no." He's going to look at Malkus and motion toward the ground, almost like if you're holding up someone's height.

He's going to lower it quite a bit, like if you were to motion for a halfling or dwarf type of thing, right around in that height area. He is going to suddenly draw a weapon and just motion like he's fighting something, like he's fighting something that tall. Oh. It's dwarf territory that they've invaded, right? Historically? No. Well, okay. Yes, but that's very muddied. That wasn't dwarf territory originally. The dwarves took it from the minotaurs, and then the orcs came in, and it's a big fucking mess. That land didn't technically belong to anyone but the minotaur back in the day.

So Ari's going to turn towards Malkus. "So they were driven out by the dwarves, so that's why they're here." "Do you think that, I don't know, if we can convince them to work with Winterhaven or something?" "If they need a new land, there's other places for them, maybe, that aren't here?" "I don't know how to say that without it coming across bad." "We need better communication than this to explain something that complicated." Well, we don't really have another option at the moment. Hey, Jason. Could I just do a perception to see what the rest of them are doing?

Have they stopped building? Oh, I don't think you'd need a perception check for that. You've garnered some attention. I'd say most of the orcs are just sort of looking on. Because again, this is a little outside the norm. The orcs don't usually communicate with the outside world in terms of other races. So this is kind of like, "Wow, what's going on?" And they don't understand half of the conversation. But they're not drawing weapons and slowly circling around our party or something? No, no, I would let you know. This is very much a thing where they're following their leader.

This is clearly their leader, and they're sort of following his lead. So how far do Winterhaven lands, if you go down between Winterhaven and the Overwatch, that area, is that claimed land by someone? Technically, no. It's just sort of in between. That area was just considered... It used to have a ton of logging encampments and things like that, but it was kind of considered suicide to stay there for the longest time. However, with no war, land would technically be up for grabs. Gotcha. Okay. Oh, man. So Malchus has his Winterhaven banner thing, right? Okay, so she'll kind of motion towards that.

Let's say, like, "Land. Others have land." And she'll kind of make an angry face. But clearly, she's not angry. "I will fight you if you stay. Other land." And she'll kind of motion towards the south. "Better? No fight." Before I ask you to do anything. I'm trying so hard. The rest of the party's here. Everyone else, you're hearing all of this and you're seeing all this. What would be going through people's heads? What the hell? What the fuck? Avlin would be enamored because he's never seen high-stakes, tense, diplomatic, just speaking two different languages.

And they're trying to communicate still. He's never seen anything like this, so he's just watching. As far as Amvin goes, he's only heard all the stories about how all the books, how they rampage and pillage and you can't talk to them. So he's like, "When are they just going to start trying to murder us?" Looking over and over at them. So is that land that you talked about that was unclumbed-ish, Jason? Is that something that I can reasonably point to from here? Give them a gist of it? I mean, it would be a difficult concept to describe. Yeah, you could draw.

Depending on how they react to this, Arya will probably sketch a map. We have to see what happens next first. Arya, start trying to draw using general big nature landmarks where we want them to be. Yeah, she'll start doing that. I mean, she already had her stuff out. And Malchus will just put up a weight hand at Gork and just point at Arya's drawing and then give him the weight hand. So she'll draw a basic area with Winterhaven's banner in it and she'll also draw a bunch of little stick figures with swords in there and then point an area down south with a happy orc.

Listen, I don't know how else to do this. With a house, a happy orc in a house. But we've got general landmarks of here, Winterhaven. Yeah, with a bit more of a mappy thing around that too. Do you realize this is the most high stakes game of Pictionary ever? Yeah, pretty much. So Malchus will use Arya's drawing and say, "Gork here," and point to the ground right below us and then pound his fists against each other and say, "Fight." So, "Gork here," and then Malchus will show the picture and point to the place where we want them to go. And he'll identify, so he'll point to, "This thing on the picture is here.

This thing on the picture is Winterhaven." Point toward the city. "This thing on the picture is off in whatever direction we want to go." So he'll say, "Gork here, fight," and he'll pound his fists together. And he'll point off toward where we want them to be and say, "Gork there," and then clasp his hands in a cooperative, handshaky motion. Does he do a goofy, over-the-top smile? No. He's thoroughly annoyed. His smiles are beyond him. Well, Arya drew a happy orc, so hopefully that'll come across. This is so dumb, but oh man, I'm nervous. Malchus? Yes? Do me a favor, give me a diplomacy check, Arya.

Go ahead and assist. You're trained in diplomacy, right? Me? Yeah. Yep, so that's a plus two to that roll. Ooh, okay, so that's not well. Still hot dice today. Fucking hell, okay, wow. 27 for the kids at home. 27. Gork is going to look at you, look at the paper, look at you, look at the paper, look back to his people, and then sort of crane his neck in the direction of Winterhaven. And then he's going to look at Malchus and slowly nod in agreement. And he is going to turn and shout at his people, and they're going to stop building. Any that were still working on the structure have stopped officially now.

And he is going to start shouting at them in Orcish. And he is going to point to a few of them and start pointing east and shouting. That's where we wanted them to go, right? No, that is back where they came from. Oh. But he's pointing to a few of them, so he's telling them to go back and tell others, I think. Oh, there's going to be more Orcs, you guys. But they're in unclaimed lands, I mean that's the best opportunity. Yeah, but they're also our neighbors, and they don't have a history of... Well, but these ones were different, so there's a chance for it to be better and for them to change.

Oh, that's the kind of optimism that kills people in Tharia. I don't know if the Orc is going to turn back around, but Tharia is going to give him a deep bow. And then she'll also nod and thank you. The Orcs don't have a word for thank you. They have words for give me and take. Thank you is a new one. Those three are going to start to head off in that direction, though, into the east. And he is going to lean in and sniff at Arya. Theo's going to tense up just a bit. Aww. And after a few good sniffs, he is going to rub his hand again in his own blood from his chest, and he's going to reach out to Arya and forcefully grab her hand and then shake it.

She'll go along with it. Yeah, it's a very mechanical, like, this is what you people do, right? I've seen this. And like that. Look at Gork. Gork a human now. Yeah, she will do that. And he is going to turn back to his people and start to shout, and they are going to start to disassemble what they were building. What would you guys like to do? First, Arya is going to turn to Malkus and she's going to give him a hug. Malkus will hug Arya and says, "I cannot believe I'm saying this, but you were right. You did good." Thank you. Thank you. I'm really happy that worked out.

Thank you a lot for going along with it. I know it's not your first intent or whatever, but we should go back to the others, yeah? Malkus looks back toward group four and then back to the orcs and shouts, "Gork!" He would turn around. He pats his chest and then gestures to the rest of his team and then makes a motion like going around Gork's camp. So not problem, just going around to other side. He would look over to where, like, where you're motioning. And then after, like, a moment's pause, just sort of wave his hand, just like, "Fuck, I don't care.

Go." Whatever. "Yeah, don't care." F right off back to your human country. Yeah, it's like, I don't, there's nothing there we want. I don't care. Malkus looks back at the party and says, "I think we can go pick some plants." Eben's mouth is agape. He's like, "My notes don't cover this. I don't know what is going on." Yeah, I think Eveline walks up to both of them and he says, "That was truly impressive." You're not the only one impressed. Yeah, Arya's just smiling, but she's also shaking a bit, just like, "Oh, wow, that was really intense." "I added good to the world." Yeah.

So yeah, if nobody objects, I guess we just kind of start circling around their camp to the plants on the other side. And Malkus looks to Group 4 and says, "I think you all know what you're looking for better than I do. Is this the spot?" Like, Arya's not even paying attention to that stuff. She's just still watching the orcs and, like, just... Oh, they're watching you. ...keeping a very close eye on them. She's ready. Eveline will opt to carry the medicine in his large backpack. So do me a favor. What if you roll a nature check? I want to see how good the harvest is here.

I'll do it. I mean, I didn't know if anybody could really... Doesn't Sora have a really high nature? Yeah, what's your nature? Eleven. Oh, yeah, you're better than me. Yay! Good job. Good times. So that is a that is an excellent haul, right? That is that is gorgeous. So you guys are heading back to Winterhaven with an excellent haul. No blood was shed. I'm proud of you guys. Yeah, Malkus isn't looking forward to explaining to people that he didn't kill the orcs. He just convinced them to move into the neighboring lands. If they're trying to say that your reputation is like a mad dog on a chain, having you do diplomacy to fix the problem instead of mass murdering is probably not a bad idea.

I'm just saying. Actually, it might discount your favor. We can find a way to market this. I think there's an excellent spin here. Yeah, I think Tevine at one point, like on the way back, may want to try to pull Malkus aside for a moment, though. Just to be like, hey, so my only worry is we don't know how many extra orcs that they might be bringing and if they're going to continue with their normal ways. So that could be a concern that comes up later. I agree. And he kind of looks over at Arya off in the distance and says, I wonder if we've made a big mistake today, but...

We did avoid killing anyone for now. I think we need an orcish translator as quickly as humanly possible, but we did what we could for now. On the plus side, and she's going to give you like kind of like a small smile. Maybe the orcs will help bring Overwatch and Winterhaven closer together if necessary and just kind of like leave it very open ended, though. Well, possible. And we did meet an orc willing to talk, maybe because he thought his group couldn't take us or some other reason, but communication happened. And if we find a proper way to get a translator, maybe it can happen again.

Here's hoping. Who knows? Maybe we could even convince them to enlist? Is that the right word? I mean, they like fighting. They do. And people need some more muscle. Are we going to create like Therian-nado? Is that what we're doing? Creating a military alliance. There may be a way to make use of our neighbors' singular gifts to the betterment of everyone involved. It's something we'll have to look for on the horizon. For now, I'm admittedly, selfishly more concerned with how to best return this news to Winterhaven to make sure it is not leveraged against me.

Although, if the herbs work out, maybe this is all moot at the end of the day. But you are right that this may bring about future complications. I'm thankful to have someone as forward thinking as you at my side. These are challenging times. We'll just keep an eye on them for now, I suppose. And then hopefully nothing more comes of it other than new neighbors. Agreed. And maybe we should all start studying Orcish in our spare time. Do we have all the herb we need? We should get back if that's the case. On the way back to Winterhaven, everyone present is going to hear a series of noises.

And the reason that you're all going to hear it is because it is so loud and ear-splitting that it would be pretty much impossible for you not to hear it. This is going to be a large shriek that sounds like a rending, twisting metal is mixed in with it somehow. Oh no. And if anyone were to look to the south, they would see a massive black dragon flying very quickly to the north. And it is going to circle the city of Winterhaven. And it is going to open its mouth. It's very difficult to see where you are, what this is actually hitting. But it is going to be almost a green mist.

Projectile vomiting from its mouth. And then they're going to see something else. They're going to see a large white dragon. What? Flying in from the west. Oh no. Now this dragon is slightly larger than the black dragon. And they are going to collide in midair as Amara runs headlong into this thing. And they are going to almost tumble into the city of Winterhaven itself. They are going to narrowly miss, catch themselves in midair, and start to flap away from each other, only to collide again south of the city. And they are going to do this over and over again, biting and clawing and scraping at each other.

And Amara is going to bite down onto the spine of this creature. And the black dragon is going to reflexively shriek. And then bite into Amara's stomach. And what it looks like from where you're sitting is the black dragon is going to dig its talons into Amara's gut. Drag down. And Amara is going to tumble out of the sky and fall to earth. On the fourth of Ringway, on the continent of Kian, groups two and three stood between a lone Githzerai man and the seal that they were guarding. After a short time it became clear that this Githzerai man was not ordinary by any stretch of the imagination.

Using borrowed demonic power, he created an immense, nightmarish presence using the bones of dragons. It now loomed behind this Githzerai man, waiting to pounce on both parties. And he is going to start to place his hand on Merrick's weapon. And I think, sorry, just for everyone, we're all good to go into combat, right? Everyone's just okay to do that. I don't know about that, because Thanos and Brie backed away, and Thanos, if I remember correctly, is freaking the fuck out. I don't think she wants... Right, and I would say Brie's charging up. As soon as this whole dragon business is starting, it's like, oh fuck.

This is straight out of nightmares. Especially for Brie. Though, can I say, Cauldron is getting just a little bit of a boner seeing this dragon. Right. I was about to make a boner joke. Warriors cannot clash fully torqued, Ian. Torqued down, torqued down, he's trying to think those thoughts. Got a thing for dead dragons, huh? Does anyone not have a thing for dead dragons? I very much not have a thing for dead dragons. Well you're missing out on all this fun. She's thinking about Kal-Toss. Oh. The dragon means nothing to her. She's like, no, stop. So even after this dragon starts appearing, it's still Kal-Toss that she would be...

That's the one she's still afraid of, and she's not gonna let go of Brie's arm unless Brie shakes her off, which... Might have to happen soon. I'm not trying to say what Brie's gonna do, but... Thanos is not fighting right now. So, Merrick gets a... Like an opportunity attack, basically. Basically. Kal-Toss is going to reach for this, for his weapon. The way I'm gonna envision this is that Merrick's gonna do a cool, awesome, like, drop the weapon and spin around and then make an attack. Okay. And then he's gonna drop out of the way so that he can't grab the weapon and try to surprise him.

And he's gonna use what's called searing light. So what's gonna happen is his weapon is going to, through his divine powers, is just gonna start to, like, glow. Not like a scion glow, but more like a sun. Like, as he swings his morning star, it's gonna have this blinding light with it. And that's why this should probably try to hit and not miss. Alright, let's do it. How about heroic effort? Do you want to expend heroic effort? No. I mean, yes, but I don't know. No. I don't think it's gonna work. Okay. Okay, so that's his weapon attack. So this Githrai is going to sort of dodge last second.

And he's going to furrow his brow and start to charge his powers. Everyone, do me a favor and roll initiative. Just gonna go on record as not rolling initiative? Well, Khaotzas is going to motion back towards this terrible looking creature. And then he is going to nod toward the party standing in front of him. The dragon is going to stomp forward. And he is going to target Actaronis. Hello. And he is going to use something called Frigid Blast. That is going to miss. Hold on, wait. As he hits Actaronis, I'm going to use... It doesn't matter. If he declared an attack, he's gonna get some of this Hobbit power.

Okay? He is blinded until the end of his next turn. Okay. And that happens right now? That happens... immediate reaction. Okay, so he is blinded as of right now. Okay. He's going to use action recovery. Whenever the dragon ends its turn, any dazing, stunning, dominating, blinding, deafening effects ends at the end of its turn. Oh poop. I'm trying to dominate him. Hey-o. Yeah. You activated my trap card. That will bring up Dagon. And I'm going to whisper to Corey. Corey, he's a scion. I'm going to use Mental Trauma, one of my dailies on Kal'tos. That is going to miss.

Half damage, or miss. Okay. Alright, so that is going to be about 20 damage. Take it. And is that it? Umm... yes. Alright, sweet. Umm, Kal'tos. So Kal'tos is going to take this, and this time, unlike the first time he was slammed, he's going to react... He's going to react a little differently. This one seems to have hurt him. Which could mean a couple of things. But he's going to grit his teeth. And he is going to just use his full concentration. And he's going to target Marek. Oh boy. Okay. He is going to use Instant Death. He's going to use Crippling Strike. 30/40 or Fortitude.

So that'll hit. 25 damage to Marek. That's not bad. What a pussy. Kal'tos is going to grab Marek by the throat, and then start to punch his kidneys repeatedly. About three times. And he's not using the full brunt of his fist, but more pointed finger technique. Marek, as a result, is going to be a little more powerful. The result is going to be immobilized, and he is going to grant combat advantage to Kal'tos. And that's a save-end. And he is going to look into Marek's eyes. This is what they sent to stop me. This handful of people. And he's going to pan around the camp.

Brianna's turn. Whoa. So Thanos is still kind of clinging to her? Yes, she is like holding onto her arm. Fuck. Sorry. No, I'm... She would probably turn at this point, seeing all this, and say, "Just stay here. I have to go do something." And she is going to try to just shake Thanos off. I'm debating between her, like, really grabbing on, or just letting her go. I think she just let her go. Okay. She's going to move a little bit closer, and she is going to target Kal'tos and try to use a Force Blast. Just to maybe get him away from Marek. Fuck. That is going to miss.

Airlove, your turn. I'm going to do... Cerulean Flames. So Airlove is going to start to heat up, and then that heat is going to travel through the ground and then burst up. That will hit the dragon and miss Kal'tos. What? Okay. And then damage. 18 damage to the Dracolich. And blinded. And that's a start at every turn. I need to feel like persistent. That will bring up Kaluna. We're going to use a little something that I like to call a Raging Storm Spirit. Crit my dudes! Oh, yes! Kaluna time. Okay. So, Pig appears next to Marek. And he's mad. Because Kaluna's mad. And he's going to roar.

And it rumbles like thunder. And a big old bolt of lightning comes and hits the fucking dragon, motherfucker. Bam! 29 damage to the dragon. Julie. Fuck. Oh, god. So much of her stuff is just melee. Alright. Well, guess what? Fuck it. So she's going to go next to Marek, target Kal'tos. And she's going to use her longsword. That will hit. Sweet. Alright. That'll wrap up Julie's turn. Acta Ronis, make another zone. Yes, please. He will step forward and just shift right behind Marek here. With a hand raised in the air. And kind of like close his fist. And it'll create a shield on everyone.

Shield of Faith, everyone within five. That's everyone except Thanos. Sorry. He's going to bring this fist downwards and then he'll settle into a really grounded fighting stance with Stormrender in his hands. And as he clenches his fist, there are some sort of wide energy streams coming out of his armor. And some of them will slowly seep to Marek's heels. And so that is Stream of Life. So I'm going to take five ongoing damage every round and be able to heal 15 hit points to everyone. Not everyone. People I choose. Let me heal Marek this turn. Thanks. Acta Ronis is going to fire this off.

And having done this many times, this should all go according to plan. And Marek should be healed, but there's something blocking that from happening. The dragon has an aura of decay. Anything standing in that aura can neither get healing surges, temp hit points, or any other type of healing while in that aura. Got it. They're also making zones. Yes. Everyone's got zones. Who's in there, Blast? Anybody standing in Acta Ronis? I guess so. Cool. I'm going to notice that and yell, "Get away from that dragon!" As if that wasn't the natural thing to do. I'm going to give myself five wounds.

Okay. And then I'm going to use an action point right now. And use Shield of the Gods. I'm going to do a Close Blast 3 each enemy in the blast. And he is going to slam his weapon forward and there's just a huge rush of energy. Just going to blast on them and attack. That will hit both. Those are fantastic rolls. Oh great. Okay. So they'll take that damage plus one extra die, so let's roll damage now. Okay. 19 damage. Cool. And on top of that, they are prone. Both of them. Well, you're okay. You're not knocking the dragon prone, but you'll definitely not count those.

If you say so. One final thing that this does, it'll give Marek an additional shield plus three to his ACN reflex. Dang, thanks. So I'm going to target you. Alright, Brelyn, your turn. We are going to start by looking at Cauldron. Brelyn will look at Cauldron and say, "Look man, I know you really like this thing, but we have to kill it." And then he will use Glimpse of the Future. He's going to close his eyes and see the possible futures. Wow. Yay. Excellent. Awful. So there's a 16. A 6. And another 16. Alright, we're going to keep a 16. Show you what the 6. Oh yeah, I'm pretty positive.

Alright, I gotta ask. And then we mark it off. So he sees three futures. He sees one where Kaldun and him get eaten by the dragon. He sees one where he gets frozen by the dragon. And he sees one where he like slides underneath the dragon's legs. And somehow magically has a really cool sword and cuts them, but he doesn't really have one. He just sees it and he's like, "Aw, nice." So that was my miner. And for my big one, I'm going to use Song of Discord on it. That'll... ooh, that'll miss. Damn it. It's attacking his will, right? I'm going... no, I'm going to keep my 16.

Alright, well, it missed. Fuck it, I'll bust my action point since we're here. Let's do it. He needs Righteous Beacon after my action point, so I think I get everyone except... ...three, four, five. Una doesn't get my bonus because she's too far. Let's use Distracting Shell. Oh, shit. That will most certainly miss. Oh, I don't think I get anything for miss. No, I don't get anything. Okay. I'll have to stay there. That's the end of my turn. Kaldun. Kaldun will look at Braelyn and say, "We will make them all fall like the reeds in winter, but I see an opportunity." And he will conjure up some ice and snow and will sort of like form while he's on the ground.

Okay, so... Hit. Okay. 18 damage. That will bloody kal-toss. And he takes a -2 to his Reflex. He also grants me combat advantage and has five vulnerability cold right now. Alright. So the sort of like snow mound and snow and ice will like close up around his feet. Alright. As a result of being bloodied. You ever see The Exorcist? So many times. Okay. Kaldun is going to stand back up. Now, I don't mean that he... He kind of uses his hands and braces himself and then uses his feet to stand up. I mean, like almost like Dracula. Like sort of just like spread his arms and just be stood up.

And his eyes are going to erupt in this bright red. And he's going to charge his fists. And he is going to teleport. To right there. And he is going to shake off all effects. Or, you know, don't. I... You have the choice. I was going to have Santos roll into initiative as soon as everyone was done. And you still can. Yeah, I'm still gonna. I just... I was expecting him to stay, you know, over there. Yes. Over that way. Right. Oh, shit. Marek? Revealing light. So, yeah, this is going to be some super power sunlight that just sort of... Should, if it hits, just sort of ram him in the chest and then start giving him some radiant damage for a while.

So revealing light is... Yeah. Nice. 21 damage to count. That's 21. Now, also, the target takes ongoing five radiant damage and cannot become hidden. But a save will end either or both. So five ongoing radiant damage. Well, that's not good. Anything else? Saving throw. Oh, yes, please go. Just a 20, right? D20? Yep. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. You are no longer immobilized. Excuse you. That's a 21, guys. Well, yes. Cool. You know what it did? It looped back around and you're immobilized again because that's up now. All right, Buna, your turn. Remember, you're prone. Yes. So I'm guessing you're standing up.

Yeah, gonna stand up. I'm gonna do Windfury Assault. So that'll allow me to fly to him and make an attack. Four. That's gonna miss. That's okay. I still get to move there. And I will pop an action point. And then I will, on pain of death, him. I'm gonna turn your nine into 16, Buna. Fuck yeah. All right. Thank you. That was awesome. That's 15 damage. Corey, your turn. So I was literally here watching the combat ticker go by, hoping that he would be dead before it was my turn. Because I really don't want to do what I'm gonna do. Okay. Jason, being that we are in combat, and I know this happens in a matter of seconds, so I think Corey would look back at Dagon and nod, what would it take for me to stealth up to Kal'Dos?

Oh, you're not stealthing up to anyone. Even though he's like super distracted with all these people on the field? He is absolutely not. Okay, he is distracted paying attention to the people on the field. You're not stealthing up. You're the largest party member. You're bright white. The dragon would almost have an easier time stealthing up to someone. She's gonna walk right up, even though I really don't want to, but Corey would, because she would respect Dagon's opinion and think that he knows best. I hate everything. Sorry. Okay, so this, okay, so you're walking around then.

Okay. Yeah, I hate everything, and I'm going to attempt to put the Nullifier on Kal'Dos. Okay, well first you gotta grab him. Okay, I have Boots of the Giantkind, which give me a +4 item bonus to make a grab at a creature until the end of my next turn. Okay, so what you're gonna do now is make a Strength check. This will be versus his Reflex. Okay, and I'll just put my... So a Strength check +4. Okay, I'll put my item bonus in there. Oh, my Strength is, oh, it's not horrible. Literally my heart is beating out of my chest. Oh, come on! Oh, that is not an amazing roll.

No, it's not. Alright, is there anything else Corey would like to do? I'm gonna Action Point and try again. Okay. That is going to miss. Alright. So, Thantos's turn. Um, no, when Brianna ran ahead, that's like, Thantos had to kind of look around and... It was clear that she wasn't sure if she was gonna run away or not, but now, like, as she was making that decision, it was kind of decided for her because Kal'Dos just appeared next to her. So, she's going to look over at him and meet his eyes and... I guess she would try to Force Punch. She'll get up close and try to Force Punch him.

Okay. She is going to, like I said, look dead in the eyes. I wish she had the courage to deliver a cool line, but I honestly don't think she would. I think that she'd be too scared. And she's going to try to hit him with a Force Punch. That'll hit. Hit. Oof. Ten damage. Okay. And he's going to go backwards, but I guess he'd go into Kori. I did not think that out first. Yeah, sort of tumble over Kori here. I'm too nervous in character. Like, out of character. Can she put the dampener on his head as he tumbles into her? I would say no. Alley-hoo. Alright, anything else?

I don't think so. Drackalich's turn. The drackalich is going to open its mouth. You are going to see this rolling ball of blue energy, this intake of sort of ice and snow. And he is going to get ready and use Breath Weapon against the party within five squares of him. Oh boy. Okay, let's see what we got. Oh jeez, that is going to crit hit Julie. That is going to miss Erolove. That is going to hit Actaronis. That is going to miss Bree. That is going to hit Dagon. Dagon, Marek, Actaronis. Fifty damage. Hey! Guess who only takes eleven. Julie's taking a crit, so hold on a second.

Bye-bye, Julie. And... Fifty. Oh yeah, fifty. That will almost drop her, but not quite. She's within four hit points. Alright then, that is the end of... Nah, you know what? He's going to pop an action point. Oh god. Well, here we go. Just do that again and wipe out half the group. Well, the good news is it takes a while for that to recharge, so you're okay there. Oh, King no longer exists. Ah yeah, he's been obliterated. I'm going to come back anyway, so I'm just going to... Is the regen gone? A couple of you get regen. Oh yeah, one bloody... Julie included. Yeah, those two in there get regen five.

Not in the aura. Oh yeah, shit. Oh my god. This fucking Dragon Age ass fucking thing. This is fun. This is a fun time. He is deadly chill, and he's going to target a close burst five again. Now this is a slightly less powerful... That will hit Marek. It will hit Erolove. And okay, that will miss Acta Ronis. It will hit Dagon and miss Julie. Holy god. Okay, roll damage on this and just go home. 29 damage to all of them. Oh my god. Marek's dying. I have one hit point. Oh, Marek's dying, huh? Marek is dying. Wait, you're dying? Alright, can I pull... What's it, Martyr's Blessing for that?

Because you can't recharge, right? In the zone of the dragon? Nope. Alright, can I pop Martyr's Blessing then and take that damage for him? Uh, you sure can. They are also slowed. Now, so... Who are you taking it for? Taking it for Marek if he's the one who's about to die. Alright, that will put Una up to 62 damage and Marek back down to 75. Thanks for that, Una. Gotcha, buddy. Do I just get really cold all of a sudden? I would say yeah. It just doesn't feel good. Oh, the dragon tries to save, he doesn't. That's Dagon's turn. You used a daily on your last turn. I know, the only thing I can do is charge.

Okay. Yes! That is a crit! Oh, finally. Golly, if ever there needed to be a crit. Now he's going to get killed because if he gets hit... Yeah, I was going to say, we'll use it. I got you, my dude. You're fine. You're not in the zone of death, are you, James? Oh yeah, I got one hit point. No, he's not in the zone. Can he just do a second wind or is charging like a standard action thing? I have to charge. Oh, okay. Kal'tas is going to sort of catch himself here. He's gonna wipe a little bit of blood away from his mouth. He's definitely been hit now a few times and very well.

And he is going to... You're going to see that... That sort of faint blue kind of magic just sort of swirl again within him. Kind of like it did the first time. And he is going to use his action to move forward. Toward Kori. And he's going to sort of look at her. And you can tell he is trying to get to Thanos now. And he's going to sort of look, almost through Kori, at Thanos. Do you really think you're going to stop me here today? All of this struggle, this pointless fighting back. In the long run, do you think any of this is going to matter? Your hollowed out, frost covered corpses are going to litter the area around this seal.

And I am going to release these demons tonight. And he is going to try and force punch Kori. That'll hit. You know, I mean, he's making contact with me, so if I wanted to try to just wrap this nifty little necklace around him, would I be able to do that? No. Damn it! 51 damage to Kori. That's going to end his turn. And that'll bring up Bree. Holy lord. So, Bree is exactly stuck in the middle of this dragon and Kaltos. So on the one hand you got the dragon that's just devouring the party, and you got Kaltos who's making a beeline for Thanos. I think she's going to try and target the dragon and force blast it.

And that is going to miss. God damn it. Okay. Good try buddy, good try. Aral of your turn. Does she have action points? Yeah, I... hmm. Alrighty. You know what? Fuck it. She'll pop an action point and try for the dragon one more time. That'll be her last one before she has to charge, so... That'll hit. 35 damage to the dracolich. And on her next turn she is going to charge. Aral of! Okay. Who needs to move? Me first. Gonna attack Kaltos. Because why not? And... or not. You know, that's cool. Aww, good try. That's a good try. Yeah, yeah. My six roll, real good. Well I mean, there was effort put in.

Is that called Bolt of the Rising Sun? Yes. So this beam of energy shoots out of her staff and strikes him in the chest, but doesn't affect him. But she is going to take an action point. So until the end of my next turn, any enemy that hits or misses me or an ally within five squares of me takes one d6 plus my constitution modifier damage. I'll try to remember that. It's up on my screen. And then my action point, I'm going to do Thundering Summons. And I'm going to move people out of the death zone. So I yell out their names. Merrick! And then I guess, Actronis or Dagon?

I think we're Julie. Dagon can be healed. I gotta... well there's a bunch of healers coming up, so. Yeah, but you can't be healed. I can move. Okay, she's gonna go, Merrick! Julie! Get all over here! And then like a thunderclap happens and then you guys appear right next to her. Alright, Kaluna. So instead of summoning Pig as a minor action, I'm going to use Sudden Call. So he's a free action. I'm going to summon him right there. And now I'm going to use Healing Spirit. I'm going to heal Julie. Target can spend a healing surge and gain six. Julie is going to heal up.

Get... yeah. Okay, so. Alright, sweet. And Dagon. Gets 3d8. Do you want me to roll that? Yeah, please. Yeah, there we go. So that's 16 hit points for Dagon. Yeah, thank you. Okay, and I'm going to trade everything else down. Oh, fuck. No, yeah. Trade everything else down for minors. So I'm going to use Blessing of the Iron Tree on Merrick. Because he's bloodied, right? Resist five to all damage until the end of the encounter. Okay. Alright, Julie's turn. Julie is... fuck. Julie's going to use Second Wind. Because she's probably going to get ready and charge this dragon.

Actor Ronis, your turn. Alright. You are still in this aura, so. Yeah, he's going to quickly walk back while still facing the dragon. And scuttle up next to Dagon. And he will again raise a hand up in the air and use Battle Surge. You and each ally in the burst close burst five, so that's going to be everyone. Bear with me as I select everyone. Okay, good start. That's going to be as if everybody used a Healing Surge. And everybody's going to get plus two to their attack rolls until the end of my next turn. Nice. So, is that everyone? I think that's everyone.

Yes. Including myself then. And then he's going to turn around and look at you guys and use a Miner. And he's going to start glowing a soft white light from inside his armor as I activate Angelic Presence. And he's going to say, "Stay here so you can be healed and also kill that man." And he's going to turn back and I'm going to use an action point. And he's going to run towards the dragon to keep him at bay. That's it for me. Angelic Presence, by the way, is just that enemies take minus two penalty to attack rolls until me. Until the end of the encounter or until I'm bloodied.

All right, Brailin, your turn. Okay. I don't have any... I have some stuff left, but not very good. Let's go with... Okay. We'll do Inspiring... Ah, no, his AC is probably crazy high. Ooh. All right. Let's do Distracting Shout. So, it's Charisma versus Will. Silence actually has super low AC, by the way. Really? I think. I don't know. Could be wrong, but based on how squishy Bree is, I think that's the case. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, you know what? Thanks for the heads up, Una, even though you're like 30 feet away from me. Appreciate it. Just kidding. I won't have to take all that back.

Okay. Inspiring Refrain, Charisma modifier damage. Each ally within five squares of me gets a plus one bonus to attack roll until the end of my next turn. So, let's do Selectos. Oh, God. Oh, God, please, please, Jesus. Oh, no, you let me down, God, why? That is kind of nice. That's exactly what Braylon says. He's like, "No, God, why?" And then he misses. It's like, "Oh, yeah, they're sealed away." Yeah, they're not there. I forgot. Oh, actually, you know what? I had to have moved to do that. So, I'll have to, I'll put myself where I'm supposed to be because that was my fault because I'm a dumb-dumb.

Put the next actor on as, "Hey, what's up, friend?" Yeah, I know, I fucked that one up real bad. But, but... That's pretty in character, though. Yeah. Yeah. I can use something I've never used before. I'm wearing Quicksilver armor, which allows me as a minor action to shift one square away. So, I'll say that I ran up, I did the attack, and then I missed, and I'm like, "Oh, oh, oh," and I just used Quicksilver armor. And I shift one space back, which would be behind actor Ronis. Help me. Behind my legs. I think that would be it for me. All right, Kaladin. Okay, so Kaladin has these gloves on that his mother gave him.

And Ian forgot this, but Kaladin remembers. They can give a bonus to damage for cold rolls, or they can ignore five cold resistance. And he's going to see this dragon and sort of take this gloved hand and touch it to his forehead and remember his mother. And then he is going to say to actor Ronis and to Una, "Watch out for this one!" And he's going to pound into the ground to bring up a couple of large ice stalagmites that come shooting out of the ground. They're both going to miss. But they're just going to shoot out and sort of explode into ice crystals.

He is going to use an action point, and then all of those ice crystals that explode from stalagmites that didn't work are going to form up into spears and shoot at both the dragon and Kaltos. Okay, that is going to hit the dragon and miss Kaltos. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Eleven damage. And, okay, so if he resists any, it ignores that, and he's now got five ongoing cold damage. Okay. Merek, your turn. Okay, cool. I'm slowed. That just means two, is that right? Two, yep. Two. So that's a quick move. I'm going to go ahead right now and let Prophecy of Doom happen for Una.

And this is where you can choose to make the attack, any attack, a critical hit. Oh, you gorgeous man. So you or an ally who hits the target with an attack can choose to make the attack a critical hit. I have Martyr's Distribution all saved up for this. We good. Cool. All right, so not only that, but I'm going to pop an action point. And Light of Arvandor, which is going to be radiant damage again using some divine power here. Thirty-five is going to hit him. And eleven. Let's see, also, I'm going to deselect Kal'thas. Each ally in the burst, which it's a burst one within five squares, so that would be for Una, right?

And Pig? Yeah, Pig doesn't get healed, I don't think. Pig is a second-class citizen. You get a plus two power bonus to your AC until the end of your next turn. Awesome. Thank you. Fuck this up. All right, Una, your turn. All right. Blow a quick kiss in Marek's direction, forgiving me that beautiful automatic crit. And then Una is going to raise her hammer overhead and bring it down on Kal'thas's head. Power says, let's see, you are an ally, so you are an ally who hits the target with an attack, can choose to make the attack hit. So it has to be a hit. You gotta hit him first.

So it's an auto-crit, but you can choose to hit the pig. Resubmission, targeting Kal'thas. All right, that's going to be a hit. Kal'thas is going to use Dodge and Parry, melee one, trigger, Kal'thas is hit by a melee attack, effect, the attack does no damage and the target is knocked prone. I use a melee interrupt, that's not fair. Well, trying to think of anything I can do to stop him from doing that, but I don't think I have anything. All right, I guess end my turn then. Um, Kori, your turn. All right, Kal'thas, let's try this one more time. All I want to do is make you beautiful with some sparkly jewelry.

All right, go for it. Is this for all the... is it marbles, is that the same? Yes, you can do this. Oh, fucking A, man. I quit everything. That is a four. All my ice points are gone, I haven't hit anything this whole fucking fight, like... I'm sorry. Hey, I had a game where I literally got like a ton of crits, so this is just my comeuppance. Oh, boy. Um, Thanatos, your turn. Okay, um, Thanatos is going to charge at Kal'thas, and essentially I don't even want to attack him. I just want to run at him and like tackle him to the ground. Is that something I could do?

Like, could that count as a move action if it's not an attack? Huh, so like, just... so pretty much knocking him prone and you being right there. That's what you're trying to do. I'm trying to break it down to game turn. Okay. Um, let's see. Like, tackle on top of him, like pin him down. Right. I would say if you're moving like right there in front of him. Yes. Do me a favor, roll an athletics check. Okay. Ah, never mind. Okay. Okay, I would say that this is this is going to be one of those things where you run straight at him. Like he sees you, he sees you coming in and just sort of like plant his back foot and like, like you are like right next to him.

Like you kind of run into him and he doesn't fall down. But like he can see that you're just, obviously angry enough that you're not even throwing punches. Like you're just furious and running at him. Mm-hmm. Um... I guess she'll just, uh, scream why. Honestly, that would probably catch him slightly off guard. Like he's, he's figuring, okay, you're coming in, you're gonna, you're gonna fucking punch, let's go. And not that at all. What do you mean, why? Why did you do it? And she's going to... Her eyes are black and she's just... Why did you kill him? So all this is taking place in the span of a few seconds.

And I'd say he's clenching his fist. Yeah, he's clenching his fist and he's, he's, he's pulling it back. You mean Apollos. One very terse nod. And her eyes are completely blacked over like, and her fists are crackling from rage. But she's holding back. There is going to be... It's not a smile. It's... His mouth is going to turn upward ever so slightly, but it's not, it's not out of joy. It's not a smile. It's just he's... Sort of a look like, you don't get this. I didn't kill him. I wanted him to live. I wanted him to see what I'm going to do. And bear witness to it.

And he is going to charge up his fist. Is Thanos going to do anything else on her turn? No, I don't think so. Dragon is going to target Acta Ronis. Take minus two to that attack. Please. Please. And he is going to try and claw. Oof, that is terrible. That's great. Yeah, that'll end the dragon's turn. Saving throws all around. That he will save. The blinded and the... Negative two. And that'll be Dagon's turn. Dagon, you have a crit. A, I'm going to make it count. Or try to. B, Kalthos is pretty surrounded, so I'm going to go for this dragon. One, two, three, four, five, six.

I think, Brelan, if he saw you run away, he'd be like, "No, don't leave us, Dagon!" I'm going to target this Ice-Wrought Licorice. And I'm going to try Decimate, because I haven't done it in a very long time. And I don't think I'll hit anybody from here. Except the Dracolich. Holy shit, okay. Okay, here we go. I really hope this hits. Fuck! Don't take that. Okay, well, I can't really do anything else. I will, however, pop an action point and do my charge. Okay. Oops. Well, we'll take the 14. So it's a plus 10 to the next attack if you hit. Okay, that was messy.

All right, I'm done. Kalthos' turn. He's going to try and Force Punch Thanatos. Force Punch. That'll hit. That is going to knock Thanatos back. One, two, three, four, five, six squares. And... Knock her prone. That is 39 damage. And... Fuck. That... That will bloody Thanatos in one hit. That'll bring up Bree. Bree has to charge. Okay, that's just as good. 17. Okay. Aralav, your turn. I feel like that turn went a lot faster. I don't know. I wasn't ready for this. That's what I'm saying. I think everyone's running out of shit. Yeah, I think that's it. Okay, well then... Dailies.

I'm going to do Dawn's Blazing Fingers. So like, these... Fire's going to rain down from the sky, but only concentrate on... Kalthos. God damn it. God damn it. I think this is daily. I think I do shit though. Miss... Five fire and radiant damage. Holy Lord. Kaluna! Good news. I'm running out of things. Like I said, I think everyone's running out of things. I'm so glad. I'm so very glad. We'll use Healing Spirit again, so I have no more of those. I'm going to get to spend a Healing Surge plus six. And Mary gets 3d8. And would Julie like to stab Kalthos? Would she be down with that?

I think she would. Well then, I get to use this daily that I've never used before. Thank God. Vengeful Blood Spirits. One or two allies, but I don't think anyone else is around to charge him. Within range. Each target can charge as a free action and deal 1d10 extra damage if the attack hits. Oh please. In addition, until the end of the encounter, each target gains a plus two to attack and damage rolls when charging. Ohhh. So please, please hit him. Also, just a quick question. Where Julie is standing, is that adjacent to Pig? Now, yes. Okay cool, then she can also do three extra damage because he's bloodied.

Okay, so a plus two. If she hits. Okay, but it's a plus two to the swing itself. Yes. Alright, so just a regular longsword attack. Everyone cross your fingers. And she's blinking. And she's flanking, so that's a plus two. Good lord, please. That does hit. So it's a plus five to the damage. Yes. Alright. I find an extra 1d10. Did we want to use the crit damage? Just saying, throwing that out there. The one from me? Yeah. No, it has to be specifically... It's you or an ally, right? Yeah, it's me or an ally. But, let me make sure. Sorry. I feel like I'm holding everything up.

No, no, no, that's good. Yeah, it's actually not targeted on anybody. Oh. Do it, do it, do it. Yeah, it just says you or an ally. And it lasts until the end of my next turn. I'm talking to you, do you want to use that? Oh, it's not for me to use, it's basically a... Oh, sure, yes. I didn't know if that was a target thing. Alright, so this is an automatic crit. When Julie lands an automatic crit with her longsword, she gets an extra d12. Oh my god. This is my favorite thing that's ever happened. That will kill Thanos. Oh my god. Sorry, that'll kill Kaltos. No, not Thanos.

I would say this is a thrust right into the neck. Oh my god. Nice. This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Kaltos is going to clutch at his throat as she draws her sword back and blood is just going to stream down his body. And he is going to stumble to one knee and then eventually fall prone. Good. The dragon is going to also fall over. Yes! And that will take you out of combat. On the 21st of Thorim, the city of Winterhaven was attacked by the black dragon that had been nesting in the abandoned city of Odysseia. Both Malchus' party and the party from Overwatch watched helplessly as the dragon descended upon the city, unleashed its breath on the walls and houses on the outskirts, and then did battle with the giant white dragon Amara.

Sadly, Amara lost her life that day, trying to stop the dragon from attacking the city. After she fell to the ground, various healers tried to do their best to mend her wounds. But the combination of her sheer size and the extent of the damage that had been done made that impossible. Thankfully, the black dragon had its own wounds to deal with and retreated from Winterhaven to the south. Those who watched the fight guessed that it would be a while before those wounds would heal and the black dragon might return. The damage to the city of Winterhaven was not as extensive as some would have believed, with only cosmetic damage to the stone walls that surround the city, and only the houses on the outskirts needing any actual structural repair.

Even so, the city was understandably in an uproar after the dragon attack, and it took some time for the masses to calm down. The wheels of justice keep spinning, however, and there was business in the city to attend to. The trial of Malkus Grimnus started on the 25th of Thorim, in the city of Winterhaven, in front of a very large gathering of the city's people just outside of Winterhaven Hall. The trial itself was a spectacle, whereas most public hearings are over within a day, maybe two. Malkus' trial stretched out for nearly a week. The now infamous tiefling's character was called into question numerous times.

The prosecution reminded the people of Winterhaven time and time again of circumstances in which Malkus Grimnus took the law into his own hands. Events in the town of Overdale, which led to the slaughter of the Black Hand and many of the Black Hand's men. The bounty hunters, bandits, thieves, all met their end at the end of Malkus' blade of annihilation, which led the prosecution up to the events of the demise of most warforged in Theria. Malkus' team was not without a rebuttal, however, as many of those events, it was argued, led to the betterment of the world itself, and saved countless lives in the process.

That, combined with recent events involving the orcs outside of the city, Malkus' various character witnesses, and even connections within the city of Winterhaven itself, led to the crowd seemingly favoring Malkus in most of the debate. However, the decision had yet to be handed down from the council, and at the end of the long trial, Malkus himself was permitted to speak to the people of the city on his own behalf, and present his closing argument. Citizens of Winterhaven, esteemed councilors, today you've brought me here with lots of questions about situations you didn't have the ability to observe.

Chaotic battlefields, questionable decisions. I hope that the people that have come to vouch on my behalf have been as convincing as they are sincere about their positions. I just... I want you to look at the people beside you. Look to your left, look to your right. Look to the fellow citizens around you. Look to your spouses, your children, your neighbors. War is chaos. Had we walked out on that battlefield and not capitalized on every single advantage we had at our disposal, who knows who you'd be standing next to today, and who knows who you would have put on the ground?

The decision I made when I made it was on the basis of cold math. Volume. Send a bunch of soldiers, adventurers out there. Let them swing swords at each other, scorch each other with spells. See who comes out on top? Or look at the numbers. Look at the quantity of theirs you would take, and the quantity of yours you would have to let go, and accept it. To many of you, that probably sounds vicious and desensitized. I understand that. But know that every night you sleep safely in Winterhaven, every day you kiss your spouse and your child and send them off to their daily tasks, every night everyone comes home and sits at the dinner table together.

It has a cost. That cost is paid outside of these walls. It's paid in wars, it's paid in fights against savage beasts that fly through the sky, or ram against the gates, or rampage in hordes across the countryside. It's paid by people who go out and do the dirty, uncomfortable things that must be done. I'm not here to ask you to praise me or pin a metal to my chest, but I am here to ask you to accept that I will do what needs to be done. That you will have more dinners with your whole family at the table, more nights where you sleep soundly, because I'm outside of those walls doing the things that you don't like to think about.

Theria is a profoundly unforgiving place in my experience. And I don't take pleasure in going to extreme measures. I think you'll agree that our most recent incident, facing the orcs that traveled across our lands, I was more measured. Partially in thanks to my companion Aria and the other members of my party who encouraged a more diplomatic approach and stood by me and assisted me in taking that approach. Every situation is unique. Every situation calls for a different solution. Sometimes the decisions about which solution to use in the situation has to be made quickly, right there in the field, without an opportunity to appeal to leadership.

Today I ask you to put trust in my judgment out there, just as you put trust in all of the Knights of Winterhaven, in anyone who serves this city out there in that dirty and chaotic place. We have work to do, and we're thinking about you when we're doing it. We're thinking about what we can do so that you live on in peace here. So that, to put it frankly, you don't have to become like us. I thank you for your consideration today. I hope that you will understand better what we do out there now. As you walk by anyone who fought in the war against the Overwatch, or just anyone who serves in the defense of this city, extend them your thanks.

There are very few of us who truly love to be what we are to make this place safe, but knowing that you appreciate what we go through goes a long way toward making it easier. I am at your mercy. After nearly three hours of deliberation by the Council of Winterhaven, Malkus Grimnus was found not guilty. On the fourth of Rengwe, on the continent of Kion, the Gitsirai known as Kaltas is dead. His body lies still, laying face down in a pool of blood, forming on top of the powdery snow. The bright red moon still hangs high over both groups, as a solemn reminder that they still have a decision to make about the fate of the seal, and perhaps the world.

So wait, wait, wait. There's a thing that I'd like to do, Jason. So Kaltas has been killed, and I have a free action that I can do any time before my next extended rest. I can do it now. It's called Soul Cage, and it means that I can ask the dead enemy one question that it must answer truthfully, and its answer is limited to 100 words. So just a short answer, but it must answer the question truthfully. So, all good? Uh, yes. So I'm going to go over to the Dracolich. Kidding. I am going to go over to the corpse of Kaltas, and with some sort of clerical hand waving and something divine, Merrick is going to speak to Kaltas just one last time and say, sternly, will releasing the gods bring balance to Theria?

Will it make the world a better place? So you get one question. Sure. It's meant to be comma. Will it be balance? No, I'm not saying, no, no, no. This isn't me like, no, I'm just making sure that is your one question that you want to ask. The question that I want to ask is, will releasing the gods bring balance back and make the world a better place? So, I picture this as being something where he's clearly dead, and there's sort of a mouth hanging open, sort of an exhaled, like a spirit type of thing. I have no idea. I just wanted to see them pay. And with that, his soul would slip away.

Merrick is going to sort of bow his head like out of frustration. Now, here's the situation the party faces. The Blood Moon is imminent. It's here, basically. There is no more time. Now, it's only going to be around for a short time. How would you like to handle this? Basically, what would be the party's first move? I think Braelon would go up to Dagon and be like, well boss, this is end of the line, right? It's time to do it. We were told the ritual and everything, right? We know it all? Yeah. I guess Dagon would sort of look over the crowd, looking for some sign of consent that we're ready to go ahead with this.

Merrick is shaking his head, staring at Dagon. A little step forward. Like in support. Shaking is in no, by the way. Yeah, right. Kaluna's like just tired, but they're looking at him like, don't fucking do it. But they aren't going to make any moves to stop him. Right. Even Kaltos had a reason to want them to pay. This is just one more point to consider that the gods may not be better off for us to be released. But he was on the side of the demons. If he wanted them to pay, maybe it's because they've done something to the demons. In the background, Santos looks sick and she's kind of walking back and forth, but she'll say, he wasn't talking about the gods.

He was talking about you. All of us. He meant the world. And she's just glaring at his corpse. I think honestly, Merrick would, it would shock him. Like he would, he would be sort of, it would be a slap to sort of knock him a bit. And I think he would, you would sense that Merrick just kind of shut up. Surely would step forward and sort of cleaning the blood off of her sword as she is putting it away. Here's how I see it. We took a vote earlier, right? And she's going to be looking at, at everyone here. Has anyone changed their minds? No. Kalino will shake their head.

Yeah, Braylin's shaking his head too. Yeah, Lulu will just cross her arms. Kalino will step up to Dagon and just give him a look. My decision stands. Well then, we have two options. Either we fight to the death over this and continue to shed blood, or we treat this as a diplomatic vote. And we don't stand in your way. And she's going to look to Merrick and Kalino and Thanos. Just more of a sign of like, what do you want to do? Do you want to stand in their way? Do you want to fight them on this or? Kalino will look to Merrick and Thanos. Merrick is going to drop his weapon to the ground and just say, I'm done fighting.

I'm not going to fight anyone else here. Thanos is still staring at Kalitos's body and tears are going to run down her cheek. And she's going to say, I don't fucking care. And she's going to just sit down in the snow. I think Bree would move over to Thanos. Julie would look at Dagon. You'd better be really sure about this. And she's going to step out of the way. Dagon will be standing there, sort of staring at the ground or running things through his head because he's sort of come to the conclusion that it's going to have to be him. Because the other two Scions are on the other side.

Corey's going to look at Dagon really quick and sort of like not rush to his side, but go up to him and sort of like grab his arm to almost stop him. Like she can see it in his eyes as well. And they had previously talked about it, so I'm pretty sure she would know what his intent was. But she's not going to say anything. She's just going to look at him with like full emotion in her eyes. Because she doesn't, it's so conflicted for her. She doesn't want him to do this. But she also feels like it's right, you know? Yeah. Dagon, he'll look at her and smile.

Corey, I've lived a long life. I'm over a hundred years old. It's fine. And I don't do this just for you. I do this for my people. One life for thousands is... it's okay. She'll sort of tighten her grasp on his arm and then look down to the ground and just let go. I don't think she'll be able to look at him in the eyes for this. I guess he'll just give one final look at everybody. And step up to the seal. Dagon, wait. You can hear it from the back. Brailin will be right behind Actoronas too. I'll be following you. Yeah, well actually I can picture that Actoronas tosses his helmet in the ground, tosses Stormrender and starts running towards you.

Probably with Brailin doing the exact same thing. Yeah, I'll throw my instrument on the ground. Actoronas just grabs you and hugs you super hard. Something he's never done before. But he just straight up bear hugs you. And takes a step back. We'll make sure to free your people. We'll make sure to take care of your son. We'll make sure to take care of your family. Is there anything you want us to tell them? I've got that covered, Actoronas. But she's not going to lift her head when she says it. It's going to pat you on both shoulders. Leave some space for Brailin.

Yeah, he's going to grab Dagon's leg and hug it. The tightest he's ever grabbed anybody. He's actually going to give a quick look to Bree and just a little bit of a glare. I don't know. Cauldron will come up and put a hand on Dagon's shoulder and say, "You are my captain and my friend from now until the end of times." And then he'll embrace him. Well, as soon as that embrace, he lets go. Like completely out of character for Erolove. Usually she's really stoic. She's just going to bolt towards you and wrap her arms around you. And say, "I will always consider you family.

I will always treasure the memories that we had together." And then she'll give a squeeze and then let go. And then tears. She wipes away tears. She's trying to look tough, but she's obviously crying. I guess Dagon will look down at Brailin and look at everyone and just kind of smile and say, "Don't worry. If this goes right, I'll see you all again on the other side." Brailin cries more. Is he still holding on? He gets the idea. He lets go. Ektoronus suffers through his leg. He definitely cries in Ektoronus' leg. Okay, Dagon will take a deep breath. And exhale and step up to the seal.

Bree's going to speak up. Just stop. He'll look at her confused. She's going to stand up. She was kneeling next to Thanatos. And she's going to glare at Ektoronus for just a moment. And then she's going to lean back down to Thanatos. I want you to take care of yourself, okay? Do I have to roll insight or something to get the gist? Okay. No, I do not think so. Thanatos is going to reach up and take her hand? Don't. And she's already starting to cry. She's going to shrug. It's going to get open anyway. I think I'm already on the way out. This just makes more sense.

But you're still young, so you... Just take care of yourself, okay? Thanatos is going to stand up and wrap her arms around Bree. And she's just going to start screaming. Don't! Please don't! She'll squeeze you back. And kind of pull your head in just a bit. Reassuring hand to the back of the head. It's going to be okay. They're going to take care of you. And everything's going to be okay. Now I want you to promise me... That you're going to look after them too. Thanatos is going to be quiet for a long moment and then she'll nod. And she'll give one last squeeze.

And then she's going to turn towards Una and walk up to her. And for a long pause, she's not going to do anything. But eventually she's going to lean in and hug Una. And then kiss her on the cheek. Yeah, so she'll kind of like lean down. And she'll say, "Look, if you're going to do this, you're not going to go up there alone." "I'm going to be with you every second." And you can see she's starting to cry now. So she's just going to nod her head. And she's going to turn to the rest of Group 3 specifically. Hey, that's... Yeah, Kaluna will still just like defeated.

They're going to walk up to her and hug her real tight. And she'd hug back. And while they're hugging, they'll say, "You might not leave anything behind, but you'll always be with us, okay?" "You won't really be dead, because if we always remember you, you can't die." Yeah, she's going to hug Kaluna real tight. And Kaluna's just got tears streaming down their face. No sniffling or sobbing or anything, just tears. And finally she's going to turn to Merrick. Merrick is just completely gutted. Like he just looks super concerned and sad and frustrated all at the same time.

I want to thank you for everything, you know? Because... Without you, I'd probably still be in Brightport chained up for... Dead? Well, that was never going to happen. Not like that. Listen, I know this is what you want to do, and I'm not going to be able to stop you. But you know you don't have to do this. This may not even be for any good reason. And she'd almost hold up her hand like, "Yeah, I know." And Merrick would sort of nod like, "Yeah, yeah, I know you know. Yeah, yeah. Yap, yap, yap." "But you are noble. And you'll never be forgotten." And she would lead in and hug Merrick.

Yeah, he would give her an incredibly, incredibly tight hug. And then she'd turn toward the seal. And she would sort of motion for Dagon to just step away from him. "You don't have to do this. This was my idea. My people are at stake here. My burden." "Then you should go take care of your people." And she's going to reach out and try to shake Dagon's hand. He's going to hug her. Yeah. He's going to hug her. He's going to start crying. I think it would catch her off guard for a second, but she'd hug back. And after a moment, she would look to the rest of the group too and just sort of nod.

He's actually going to step up to her with a very stern face. Same face with the same look he gave her. And he'll get right up to her. And after a beat, he's going to go down on one knee and bow extremely low and not make eye contact for a while. And he's going to say, "This world has not been kind to you. This world has not been..." Sorry. Yeah. "This world has not been kind to you." But its people have given you chances, many chances, and now you're giving this world another chance. And he's going to look up to her and direct eye contact, he's going to say.

"I want you to know that we'll keep fighting for the people of this world and this chance you're giving us will not ever go to waste." "We'll keep reminding, telling the story of your sacrifice." "You're helping us move forward and we'll make sure that you are never forgotten." She won't know exactly what to say to that, but she's going to... She's going to, after a bit, just sort of nod. "Good luck out there." "Thanks for giving me a little more time with Una." And she'd also look at Julie. "That goes for you too." And Julie would kind of smile. And then Brie would step onto the seal.

If possible, I don't know if it seems like there's enough room. But yeah, obviously Una will follow her up onto the seal and like... Is she standing in the center of it? Could you like... Yeah, this is a pretty decent sized thing. Several party members could fit on it. But yeah, she'd be standing in the center of it because she doesn't exactly know where to stand, but the center seems like the right thing. Alright, Una will stand there in the center with her and just face her. She doesn't look sad exactly, but there's definitely sorrow there. But more than that, it's just like pure admiration.

And she'll just kind of like take one of her hands and just say, "You are without a doubt the bravest woman I have ever known." She's almost going to chuckle at that. And sort of sniffle at the same time. And she's going to hug Una one last time. And then she's going to take her dagger out. And she's going to slice open her hand. And sort of sprinkle it on the seal. And she's going to start to charge. And sort of take a wide stance in the center of this thing. And she is going to unleash as much as she can into the seal itself. And she is going to recite the incantation to release the gods.

And after a few moments, there is going to be a white light sort of cracking, running through the seal. And that white light is going to intensify. And then finally, a column is going to encompass the entirety of the seal and shoot straight up into the sky. And this could be seen for miles and miles. And it's going to continue. This is blinding. There is not a single party member, not a single living thing that could be able to look directly into this. And after several seconds, there is going to be this almost deafening boom. And the force is going to push back every party member to sort of knock them down.

And then the light is going to die. And that deafening sound is going to stop. Brie is no longer standing in the middle of the seal. Una is on her back. But still alive. After a moment, Corey's eyes are going to go white. And then smolder as if they were burning. And she is going to open her mouth and a second column is going to sort of erupt from that orifice. And after a moment, Corey's body is just going to be an empty husk. Shortly after that, Actaronis is going to fall over. With Corey... I'm sorry, the Raven Queen being freed from Corey's body, the magic keeping Actaronis alive is gone.

And Actaronis is going to tumble to the ground, dead for the final time. And there's going to be a stillness that settles in when the noise and thunder and light finally stop. And Theria has been changed forever. I think that's a good time for us to stop for the season. And we will pick things up in Act 2. * It makes sense, right? Yeah, it does. I kind of had a big feeling that way. Who's going to be my friend? It doesn't make sense. Yeah, it does. I guess for round 2 of being a Raven Emm. It was actually... he did about a lot. It was in the episodes a few times that Corey's magic was keeping him.

I know. So we lost two members. Was it great? Could have lost three. Oh my god. It would have been the Errol of it, Braelyn and Cauldin show? That's nuts. All the secondary characters. It's like watching Friends and then watching fucking Joey, dude. Yeah. No one's a secondary character. Stop it. That's a good way to go, though. That was pretty epic. We pop in the biggest bottles when Wokora happens tomorrow. I'm drinking myself to sleep. I loved it. I'm not upset at all. I'll never be upset over that. It was really good. I love it so much. Thanks. I'm really glad. I've never evoked this and I never will again, but I want it to be canon that Cauldin uses frozen powers to make ice palaces for all of their bodies.

I don't want to be in the ice palace during that song. That was fantastic. I can't wait to see what happens next. We have a bunch of plans for the break. One of the things we're going to do is sit down with every group and talk about the last 200 episodes. I'll start planning those. I don't need to think about going back to reality so quick. Oh god. That was good. I had so much fun. Thank you. That was fucking wild. I can't sleep though. Are you kidding? I'm sorry. If you are in the stream tomorrow, I'm going to be giving everybody a big shout out. That's everybody in the cast.

But yeah, we're going to be editing this for two weeks. You better be done by next Saturday. Because you're not getting any as you've done then, buddy. You and Bree and Elle, we're going to party all night long. Honestly, I think we need it. Tonight, I just... It's a lot, dude. We've worked very hard. Lots of shots. We're going. Everyone, enjoy your night and we will talk very soon. Bye, Group 2. Bye, guys. Bye. What up, buddy? Messages and all that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bye. See ya. Hey, everybody out there. Holy shit. Episode 200 is a wrap. And I guess arc one is all done.

Yeah, the entirety of the first arc of DNR. For those of you who have no idea what the fuck we're talking about, we are starting a second arc of DNR. And you can find out everything about it. We have a Twitch livestream that is now up on YouTube, correct? Yeah, those changes were also in the feed. They were in the feed. Okay, I wasn't sure. No, they totally were. I knew we were going to. I just didn't. So those are all out there for you guys to know. You know that we're gearing up for this new arc and we're going to switch to fifth edition. It's going to be fucking amazing.

In the meantime, for the feed, we'll be sitting down with each group to talk about their history on the show. And kind of have a calming, calm down moment from all of the fucking nonsense that's been happening. Including this episode. Yeah, it gives us a chance to kind of speak with some people. Might be a couple of special guests on there and just talk about their run on the show and stuff. Their favorite character moments and things that have happened in the story. And just now that they've, well to you guys, they've had a couple of weeks to digest this.

Because it took us time to edit. So they're going to get to sit down and just kind of talk about all that. And I really can't wait. That's going to be a lot of fun. So at least for the next four weeks, we're still going to have Monday content. When it comes to that, we're going to be posting that. After that, we don't know how much longer it's going to take for us to switch everything to fifth edition. To figure out what's going to happen with the world after what you guys just listened to. It's fucking huge. I am currently writing. There's a lot. There's a lot of writing.

I've heard a few things. It's going to be cool. He won't tell me anything fucking relevant to me and what I care about. Nope. That's not how this works. I know about some things that other groups are facing. So you can catch all of the changes as we do them. And the brand new content that we are producing, such as Safe Haven Society and all of that on Patreon. We are still doing biweekly newsletters on there. And we're still doing all the stuff that we just came out with. If you guys heard the feed, you know, we changed a lot. We're still doing character chats.

We're still doing Living in Tharia. We're still doing Safe Haven Society. So if you miss roleplay, you missed and there's little stories that we just- Actually, there's one you might have missed. Yes. That actually connects with this episode a little bit. So if you want to see something that you wouldn't see otherwise, that is canon, doesn't affect the show, go check out Safe Haven Society this week. Yep. You can go to patreon.com/dandr. And yeah, we're posting tons of new stuff there. Even mailbags. Mailbags making a return. And we're trying to get brand new people on the show and middle ground.

If you have a D&D campaign at home or you're a part of one and you need advice about something, send it in. We actually got a ton of feedback for that already. We did. We're actually really excited to sit down and record the first one. Yep. And finally, now that we're done shilling Patreon, GMT is up in a new feed. So please go check that out if you like GMT. If you don't, just enjoy the fact that it's not fucking here anymore. Yeah. You don't have to listen to us drone on about stuff. If you do like it, then you can find it on iTunes and eventually it'll probably go to Stitcher and all that stuff.

We just got to submit feeds to different people. But yeah, you can find it on iTunes. Give Good Morning Tharia a search and it should pop right up. It's got our faces on it. We're galaxies. Yep. Which is real, real original. Real original, guys. So thank you so much for listening. Fucking... Thank you for supporting us for 200 episodes. We want to make this next arc even better. We are... we're killing ourselves to get ready for that. And we're really, really excited. We really think you guys are going to like where it's going to go. Don't worry, same world. Same world, same continuity.

And we're going to pick up after Episode 200. So all this counts. Yes. And the world is definitely changed. Right. So thank you guys so much for listening. If you want to go and try to see if you can guess how the world has changed, you can go to our forums or I'm going to pitch our Patreon one more time. We do have a private Discord server for our patrons. So if you connect your Patreon page to your Discord server and you are on ours at $5 limit, you'll be directly connected to our Discord server where a lot of people are meeting together and they play games.

And fucking we talk about the show. It's actually really cool. We do a monthly hangout there. Yeah. We do all that. Thank you guys one more time and we will see you over the coming weeks talking to different groups. And then after that, we're going to see you guys in the new arc. Thank you guys so much. If you want, send your emails into dandrpodcast@gmail.com. That's dandrpodcast@gmail.com. And we'll see you guys later. Yeah. Bye guys. Bye.