This ain't no place for a hero

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 only got to cast aspersions at me. From the director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity comes a new film. This your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm 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. [laughter] Uh, welcome to Dungeons & Randomness. Now that Daddy hit Mommy at the dinner table, we're ready to begin. Aw, come on. That wasn't that hard. Um, we should go around the room and introduce ourselves. The normal shtick. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the room, starting with Justin. Hi, Justin Massey, I will be playing the role of Jarek Ironhide.

And Rob. Hey, I'm Robert Weezahan, I'll be playing Malchus Grimnast, Tiefling Warlock. And Jake. Uh, Sue, I'm allowed to talk now. I'm Jake, and I am playing Draconis, the dragonborn fire mage, and I am, uh, neck and bed. Let's do this. Uh, Tyler. Uh, I'm Tyler, I play Thoril Songsteel, a human ranger. And Tom. I'm Tom, I play Yanward Firestomp, a minotaur fighter. Batman. And Dan, who is a new daddy. Yes, I am, uh, I am Dan Phelps, I play Rodswell Joybatom, the human war priest. And I'm sleepy. Nah, I'm fine. You need to start introducing yourself as Dan Phelps, father of Max Phelps.

Of House Phelps. Patriarch of House Phelps, Patriarch of House Phelps. Of the St. Louis Phelps. I'm not, yeah, I'm not, everyone seems to be like, "Oh, you must be so tired." I'm not really tired, but I like to play into the stereotype, so. I'm tired. Tyler's tired. Yes, I am. What do you mean by "new parents"? Tyler's not tired, Tyler's Tyler. That's, that's his thing. Um, so, it's been a while, guys, it has, it has been a while. Um, do you want me to recap stuff? Yes. Okay. All the most immediate stuff, not, there was a time when I think we went back to primer or something?

When a daddy loves a mommy very much. Yeah. With an open hand. Open hand tactics. Sorry. Okay, Jesus Christ. I've already made peace with what kind of sit down this is going to be today. So, the last time we sat down to play, obviously you guys have, have, have went forward 17 years into the future, and you kind of hash things out with Talia and Ian. You met their son Nathaniel. Um, you were then kind of tasked with recovering one of those carrier pigeons, the little bat wing robotic things, from one of the Warforged commanders. The last time you kind of had an opportunity at that, it slipped through your fingers and it retreated presumably back to the Overwatch.

My bad. And you're kind of waiting to see what the fallout is from that. On your way out to find a patrol, you were intercepted by a group of ambushers. And you made pretty short work of them. You hacked them all up pretty good. And a much larger force kind of surrounded you. And Liar, the Vampire Hunter, kind of stepped forward and was like, "Oh, that's enough of that." And escorted you back to a nearby cave system and you kind of went down, down, down into it. And you found out that that's a hideaway for what looks to be sort of a refugee camp or some sort of militia, something like that.

And you also happened upon Brianna, who struck Malkus with some sort of concussive blast. And that was pretty much as far as we got. Alright, so now that we're all up to date, you guys are standing in front of a petite looking girl. She's about 5'7", like a hundred and, you know, 105, 110 pounds. Like thin. Like almost like frail. And you're deep within this cave system. It's all kind of lit with torches and things like that. It looks like it's set up for them to retreat quickly if they have to. Move, run, something like that. And Malkus is kind of, kind of sprawled out like against a wall.

Like he's kind of slumped. What would you guys like to do? Roll for initiative. Okay. Vision strike first. Let's kill Brianna. Well, Malkus is knocked out. Just gonna have to make a decision. Just after all this. Just a month and a half of waiting. That's how it's like. She, Leora is kind of standing next to Leora, who's a bit older and a little taller than Bri, is kind of standing behind her off to the left. And after she strikes Malkus, Leora kind of goes to step forward and it looks like she's gonna try to put a hand on her shoulder or something and then kind of thinks twice about it and steps back.

Bri is just kind of standing there with her hands at her side and her fists are clenched. And coming off her hands is this kind of pale white, kind of a faint glow to him. And it looks as though her hands are vibrating. And she says in a very slow, deliberate tone, "Get up." Malkus will get to his feet slowly. Does anyone else do anything to help him or to... Yeah, Draconis steps back a couple steps away from the situation. We're good. We'll just stay here. I'll walk up and offer to help Malkus. Okay. Malkus just puts up his hand for you to wait and gets up under his own power.

That's kind of what I assumed would happen. She just kind of glares at you for a few moments. She seems as though she's so angry she's at a loss for words. And she motions for her people to take a step back. It looks as though she's going to lose her temper again and she kind of motions back almost to tell them, "Okay, I'm fine. This is fine." And she asks, "What were you doing in the forest?" "We came to search for a warforged patrol." "Why?" "We're here to begin the process of trying to stop them." "So after two decades, you ride into town and think you can fix all of this?" She has a point.

Well, wait, wait, wait. It's our fault that we were... Yeah, hold up. I don't like this bitch's tone. Do you know the details of what's happened with us? You can't possibly know what we've been up to, right? That's you saying that to her. That's me talking to her, yes. Okay, so she's been glaring at Malkus the entire time and she kind of shifts... She doesn't move her head, but she just kind of shifts her eyes to Rodswell for a minute. And then looks right back at Malkus and says, "I don't care where you've been." I mean, my question to you would be, can't you tell we're the same age?

We have an age. I mean, you have to know something's up here. Can we explain ourselves or are you just going to be angry at us? Do you laugh? This is very important. No, I don't laugh at the feet. No, you're in the face. I'm more confused. It's more of a, you know, like a... For the first time, after you said that, for the first time she kind of like takes a second look at everyone. And it seems more like just recognizing all of you. It was more about her knowing it was all you rather than what you all look like. Right. And for her, she really didn't think about it.

And she kind of stops for a second and unclenches her fists and motions for Leora to step forward. And they're whispering back and forth to each other. After a moment of speaking to Leora, she says, "Our scouts have been following you for two days. When you set foot in the forest, I wanted them to bring you here. Did you go to Winterhaven?" We did, yes. And you spoke with Ian. Of course. Why wouldn't I return to Winterhaven? It's been my home. Did you kill him? I was not given any indication that that would be course of action that needed to be taken. She mumbles something under her breath, which sounds like you should have.

But you're not quite sure. She turns around Leora and says, "They can stay as long as they don't cause any trouble. I have to take care of something and I'll be back." And she ventures down the hall. The cave is kind of made up of these longer spider web caverns. Very rarely you'll come across a section where there's a large open space. But whenever you do, it's kind of filled with, especially the lower levels, it's kind of, the further down you went, the more you started to see people who were either very young or very old or they looked sick or people who couldn't fight.

Anyone who's able-bodied looking or can hold a weapon of any kind are given, they're given some kind of training. They have these armbands. It's the same ones you noticed from the group that jumped you. From the, oh wait, not the Warforged group. No, the first group that we had. No, no, no, no. No, yeah, this last group that jumped us. Yeah, you've been getting jumped a lot recently. The Warforged all wear that red leather armor trim shit. Then they're all robots. Then they're Warforged. They stand out. That's pretty simple. It's a lot harder to spot these guys, mainly because they're more trained to stay hidden.

They're not really fighters for the most part. Unless they can get the jump on somebody, that's when they kind of strike. Not that that helped with you guys, but you know. Liara steps forward and she offers her hand to Malkus. Malkus just looks at her and says, "If our group here is going to get anything done in this time without looking like under-informed tourists, we're going to have to hear all sides of every argument. We have not been here. We do not know what we're getting into." She says, "That's fair. Firstly, let me apologize for my men. They were rather new recruits and they can be brash.

If it's any consolation, it didn't look like they were going to work out. So that's okay. I don't hold anything against you murdering them." Dark times. Self-defense is a murder. I want to see that too. Right. Okay, as soon as you say that, she takes a look at you and then the sword that's in your scabbard. And she says, "How's my sword doing?" Take backs. Jumping in and give really hard. Well, I mean, it's still... It's doing pretty good. It's pretty destructive in my hands. She says, "Let's start over. Obviously things have changed since the last time you've been...

How long has it been? When did you leave?" From what we can tell, it's been 17 years. That would explain that. Let me apologize for Bree. She's been through a lot. So it seems... I'm gonna... I don't think I have to play this out. But I think this is a good time to go ahead and explain to her what we know so far. So that we can kind of compare notes based on what her opinion of what's been going on is. Okay. So we tell her about how we came across the camp, found out about the warforged, fought the warforged, went to Winterhaven. Just kind of tell her the story of what's been going on so far.

So that she knows the position that we're coming from and why we were hunting down the warforged. Because that seems like something that Bree didn't appreciate. So get that part out of the way. So you're telling her about the whole... going back to Winterhaven, talking to Ian and Talia and getting that whole story. And then you were tasked with something, you're telling her about the whole thing. Yeah, and just kind of letting her realize that the reason we did the whole thing was to try to clean up the mess that people think we made 17 years ago. Okay.

As you're kind of walking and talking, you're telling her your portion of the story and she kind of motions for you to follow her, all of you. And she's kind of leading you throughout the cavern and showing you what they have to work with. There's very few... Like West Wing, right? Huh? Like West Wing or Wok Talk? Yes. Okay, cool. Except more cramped. There's not many what you'd call rooms. Every once in a while you'll come across something with like a makeshift door or something like that, but there's not much in the way of privacy or anything like that.

It's very much set up as a place where they can flee and retreat if they need to. But it provides them cover from the warforged or anyone else who might be looking to attack the very old or young or sick or anything like that. She listens to your whole spiel and then she tells you, "Okay, it sounds like you know about half the story. Firstly, we've never been formally introduced. Of course you know I used to work for Overdale alongside your old partner, Trayus, and things got messy there. How is Trayus doing these days? He's dead. Hmm. Okay. She says it very bluntly too, like it's, "He died.

He's dead." She's... in the midst of all this, Liar's personality is very flippant. That's just kind of how... whether she's doing that as a way to cope or... she's very just kind of brash with information. So, it's not meant to offend, but it's going to come off as that. So, I mean, you know, just letting you know in advance. So, she continues. I had left Overdale some years ago. Actually, about a year after Trayus left. He and Carta had a difference of opinion when it comes to how to treat prisoners and he ended up leaving. A year after that, even I had a problem with the way things were being done and I left too.

Trayus took me in along with Brianna a short time later. Trayus had formed the White Ravens and she kind of motions throughout the cavern, the guys walking by with the armbands. It was a way for us to fight back while staying hidden. We mainly deal in information, though. Which is... we just got a bit of information that set Brianna on edge before you got here. If our sources are correct, the Overwatch will march on Winterhaven. There's nothing we can do to stop them. They have a force strong enough to decimate and level that town. Why haven't they already?

The closest we can figure is they want to make sure they get the job done in one swipe. It took them 17 years to do that. You're saying that to her? Yeah. She motions... she kind of motions back out towards the entrance of the cavern. She's like, "This didn't happen overnight." What you see is the result of years. Years of oppression. Years of them running roughshod. Years of them expanding. Then she kind of turns and starts walking further into the cavern. Go ahead. You don't mind me asking, why did Brianna ask if we had killed Ian? She sighs and kind of... she kind of pauses and starts rubbing her eyes.

You can see that's kind of a sensitive topic. She says, "I honestly think she would if she could get close enough to him." My best guess is that... You guys had something personal in the past? Maybe she thought you would do something she couldn't do? Well... Ian came off as abrasive and not a nice person. But at least in our short meeting since we came back, it didn't seem like he was harming anything. What happened? Why does Brianna have such a personal vendetta against him? She kind of looks around and then pulls you into a small alcove type section. She's whispering at this point.

She obviously doesn't want anyone to hear. She says, "She's had night terrors every day since she was a child." And that's just the beginning. So she knows that Ian was responsible for...? Yes. Okay. Gotcha. And you're getting the sense that there was something more to that? Yeah. But Liara's like, "That's all I know. She never talks about it." Is there anything else you guys want to ask before we move on to this next little section here? Can I ask Liara a separate question that's not really concerned this part here? Just something else? Sure. Yeah, go ahead.

So I pull out the little ball thing. This is not the time. And I, you know, kind of ask her flippantly, "You know anything about this?" "You know, she's a vampire hunter, so..." Do you hand it to her or do you just take it out? I take it out. Okay. And it appears to be a large pearl, like a large... Like a good meaty, almost like a magic eight ball, something like that. And it isn't glowing or anything like that. It's just kind of... It's weighty in your hands and you can, you know... And she kind of looks at it for a moment. And she says, "That's a nice bauble.

Where'd you get it?" "Well, when we killed Drakh..." She says, "Wait." I thought we explained that already. "Back up." "You killed who?" Drakh? Drakh's tomb? The whole thing? "The famous warrior who's been dead for centuries. Okay, sure." "He was substantially less dead than his reputation led you to believe." "Yes." "We fixed that." "He's as dead now, but previously he wasn't." "He made a nice man out of him." "Yeah, we kicked the dead into him. But anyway, after we did that, I got this. And I sensed it had something to do with the undead and I thought, "You being a vampire hunter may know a little bit more about it than I." "You wanna touch it?" She just kind of looks at it for a minute.

"I have never seen that before in my life." "But, there may be someone who can help you." And she turns and starts almost, like, jogging. And are you gonna follow her or just kind of let her run around? "Wait, what orb is it?" The orb of light that Roswaal picked up. "Oh, the thing that helps kill a dead? Okay, okay, I got you." It has a few different functions. "Do you guys care if I divert for a second and go run off and try to-" "Go ahead." "Okay." "Let's all run." "Are you all following or is it just, like, a Roswaal thing?" "Let's all go!" "Oh, okay." "You don't wanna join us, do you?" "Yeah, I'll come." "Draconis had other shit to do.

Meters running, guys." "I'm coming, I'm coming." So, she kind of rounds a corner and there's this steep incline. And it leads up into this kind of expansive room. Now, there's a few things you notice upon walking in here. First of all, this is the largest expanse that you've seen so far, like, as far as rooms go. This is, and it's only about 20 feet by 20 feet. It's not super huge or anything, but it's the first time that, like, it's, you know, you can kind of stretch the ceilings a little higher. It's nicer in there. And there's only, there's only a few people in here.

You would think that this would house a lot of, like, refugees or something. People bedding something. You haven't seen any bedding yet. Any formal, like, beds or even straw, anything like that. So, what you walk into is a large stone base. But unlike the rest of the cave, where it's just this natural cave that they've kind of hollowed little bits and pieces out here and there and they've got, they've made the best of it. This is smooth, worked stone. This is etched. And it's a circular base with an archway that goes up into the center of it that stretches across the entire thing.

So, on the archway there's symbols kind of carved into it all along, like, either side of it. The center of it's blank and on either side of it there's symbols. Around the base of it, it looks like you kind of step onto, it's kind of like a dais type of thing. So you step onto that and it serves some function, but it's not immediately apparent to you. Working on the base of it, it looks like he's doing some etchings or something. Like, he's fiddling around with the carved nooks and crannies of it. There's a tall slender elf working with that and then across the room is just a couple of humans reading.

Liara walks in and just kind of gives you a second to, like, notice that huge monstrosity sitting in the middle of the room. She says, "I'll explain that in a second." And she motions to the elf and waves him over and they're kind of chatting back and forth. And the elf walks over to you guys and Liara joins him and says, "Laurielle says that he knows you guys." He knows us? How does he know us? And he reaches out and shakes Ironhide's hand first. And he's like, "Well, my first name's Finway." Oh! So he's reaching out to shake Ironhide's hand. Finway. I don't blame you for not remembering.

It was a long time ago. I was just a kid then. You guys were clearing out the forest? You helped rid the local water basin of a plague? Oh, yeah. He doesn't know me. I wasn't there. No, he doesn't know you. Yeah, he doesn't know a few of us, but he knows us. No, he doesn't know a few of you, but... They seem to know our grand pressures, though. That's true. So he shakes Ironhide's hand and Malchus's hand and Thoril's hand. And he's... I owe you guys my life. If there's anything I can do for you, just let me know. Keep that in mind. So is this the man that I'm here to see?

Yeah. Liora says... this is Finway. He's our local scholar. Hand him the orb. He'll take a look at it. Okay. I do so. As soon as you hold out the orb, the thing starts going nuts. Oh, shit. Oh, Jack. By nuts, I mean it starts pulsating, glowing. And for the first time, Rotswell hears a voice in his head. And it says, "No." Guys, did you hear that? What? No. No what? Who said that? And there's no reply. There's no... I'm just kind of in my eyes are like darting around. None of you guys said that. Nobody here said no. Nobody... No? I'm saying it now, but no. Freaking out.

Finway kind of reaches out and touches the thing. No! So do you pull it back? I'm confused. Yeah, I pull it back. I pull it back. And I don't know why even. You know what I mean? I apologize immediately. I don't know. It's just now I'm super concerned and worried about this whole thing. He says, "I've never seen that. What does it do?" It glows apparently sometimes. And I hear words. I don't know what it does. Have you ever used it as a weapon? Is it a holy artifact? Can you tell me anything about it? It's a holy... It is a... What was it called? Something of the sun?

Jewel of the sun? Orb of Light, but you don't know that. Yeah. Oh, I thought I did an insight check or something. I don't believe so. I don't remember. Well, we'll just pretend I did. I don't know, sir. I'm trying to learn information about it. So he's kind of studying it and then he kind of trots back and there's a few books on his shelf. And he says, "I can look into it if you want. That looks fascinating." Please. I kind of hold it out again, trying to hand it to him again and see if I get any kind of reaction. And it doesn't react to him so much, but it seems to be drawing you towards that archway.

Okay. Okay. And the voice kind of chimes in again. Go. Go. Why, I hold it up and walk towards the archway. Oh my god. Nothing happens when you walk towards it. It's just you're noticing that the orb is seeming... It seems to draw you towards it. And it doesn't seem to interact with the archway in any way, but something about it wants you to do something there. Can we do an insight check on the archway? You can't do an insight check. You need a perception. Yeah, perception. That's what I meant. Sorry. Perception. Totally. Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do it. First roll of the day.

Yeah. What do you perceive? 23. 23. Excellent. So you're looking this thing up and down. And a lot of the... You don't... It looks like a lot of the writing in it is elven, which is probably one of the reasons they have Fenway working on it. There are several kind of pictographic symbols on the sides of this thing, though. There's a large tree, a snowflake, a mountain, something that appears to be like an island or some sort of landmass. There's a ship, a bridge, and something that just looks like a pillar. Can I do an arcane check? Sure. I will then. I'll assist if that's okay.

That's... 21. 21. 21's good. There is some big-time mojo coming off this thing. This is all about magic, but you aren't exactly sure what it's for. There's nothing... You've never encountered anything like it. Would a religion check be good at all with that? You can try it. I can do that. I got 14. Okay, good. That works. Let's just do this and do that. 33. 33, how about that? In any of the religious stuff that you know of, you've never heard about a gate like this. There's several things linked to the occult and such, but this doesn't appear to have anything to do with that.

The occult stuff never had anything to do with elves or... nothing like that, so you don't think this is tied to that. Cults are mostly humans and orcs, right? I think cults could be anything. We fought a lot of cults earlier. There's cults for every god. Do you guys want to just ask him what's up? Ask him what this shit is? Finlay notices you studying it, and he says, "It's nice, huh? We've just been calling it 'The Gate.'" So any idea what all these words are? I mean, it seems to be in an elvish-type language. Yeah, the closest translation we've come up with is "In case of emergency." So wait, you people don't even... and this is in character.

You guys don't even know what this is, but you surround it with yourself, right? Well, that's why it's only me and my partners back here studying it. We don't keep anyone else in this room. We're not exactly sure what it does. So they didn't put this stuff here? No, no, no. He says, "We found it here when we moved in. It was covered in inches of dirt and dust, so we don't think it's been used for decades, maybe centuries. We have no idea." Can I do a history check on it? Sure, yeah. You found a lot of shit, and it's not good. Where's the history? The history is 15.

I got a 16. You do it! Boom. 19. That was shit. Draconis knows that there's a legend of there being an ancient... what breaks down to a fast travel system? But there's no real hard evidence on it, and there's definitely no in-depth information about how it would work. But you have heard of it. Basically like some kind of makeshift time machine? That's something you're talking about? Not a time machine. A space machine. Space machine. In the Stargate. No, because this will be interesting. No, Stargate was good. The movie was good. That was so not great. What was the show about?

Yeah, James Spader. No, it's more like a video game, like a fast travel. Like the gates in Fable, I guess would be the... Well, think of any... I mean... Well, okay, we're going to get into it in-game. I don't want to over-explain it. Should we share what we know about it, apparently, with him, just in case they haven't learned all that stuff yet? Yes. Okay. Can we do so? Well, Draconis does. Draconis explains the legend that he heard, or whatever it was. All that gay shit. All that gay shit, no. So Draconis relays all this to Finway and Finway's... Well, that would make sense, actually.

And he kind of rushes over to it. We managed to power it up once, but not for long. It seems to require an incredible amount of energy. The one time we tested it, we tossed some scrap warforged parts, and they went through the gate and never came back. Oh, okay. But you turned the gate on, and it didn't suck you in or anything. It just... He shakes his head, "No, no, nothing like that." It just kind of shimmered blue for a while, and then when Breeze couldn't stand it anymore, she stopped. How would I go about using... This is me. This is Dan. How would I go about using this orb?

Do I know how to use it? No. It's not apparent to you yet. It seems to have a mind of its own. But it's definitely helped you out in combat before. Hold on. I got a question here. Hold on. Am I missing something? Does this Bree chick, does she have some kind of powers or something that I was unaware about? Bree isn't here. Breeze. Yeah, he just said that Bree powered up... Bree's the one that powered up the thing, did he not? I did say that. He said when she couldn't stand it enough, she stopped. Did you guys know of her having any kind of power before? She knocked Malchus on his ass.

Yeah, I know. And her hands were glowing and stuff. That's crazy. She suffered from dark dreams, though, all throughout her life. Could be a sign of something. If you also remember, a month ago, because we haven't been playing this for a while, I think... Ikes? What the fuck is that guy's name again? Ikes? Guy with one hand? He also said that she has some kind of ability because the... Damn it, that bitch. That went to kill her to give Thoril his humanity back. She mentioned to him, "Listen, she's got some kind of power and I want it." That's right. Don Ives said that.

One hand, Magoo. I'm really interested in seeing if we could possibly get this thing powered up with the orb, but I have absolutely no way of knowing how to use it. Can I mention that to Finway? Sure, yeah. You could do whatever you guys want. So Finway, this orb seems to be crazy attracted to this archway here. And the problem is I don't know how to use it, exactly. I don't know if it's something I can use. I don't know... I have a feeling that, you know, there might be some reaction here, but I just don't even know how to go about trying. So Finway kind of studies the thing and has it ever given off any energy or anything?

Because if it had anything to do with the gate, it takes quite a lot of force to generate just a few moments of activity. I mean, when we... Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. When we found it, it was giving off some kind of... Yes. But then when Drauk died, it stopped? For the most part. Like, he obviously had the ins and outs of it down. Yeah. When Drauk had possession of it, it was giving off energy. It seemed very powerful. But since I've gotten possession of it, I haven't really noticed anything. I haven't been able to use... I didn't even know what it was until now.

He said, "We can give it a shot." He kind of seems... He kind of seems trepidatious about it, kind of. But I have to warn you, if this does work, it could cause you some discomfort. To hold the old tummy. Um... You want to shelve this for now, guys? Kind of get our wits about us a little bit before we... Yeah, sure. Jump into something that we might not be able to step out of, you know? Do we want to leave the orb with Fenway so that he can further investigate the connection? I don't really know if I can. Yeah, I don't know about that. You don't trust him. It seems to have some kind of connection with me, and I don't know what would happen if I let it go at this point.

Yeah, I realize no one else has heard that voice. Yeah, I know. That's why I'm... Well, I... 'Cause I kept saying... So they didn't hear it, but did they understand that it seemed to be communicating with me? 'Cause I was... No one... I mean, you didn't tell them that, and they didn't guess it, so... You looked like you had a sudden psychotic episode. Yeah, it was... So that's what... I just wanted to know what their inf... Okay. Okay. Um... And I don't even realize, really, that it's talking to me at this point, right? Like, I'm still kind of freaked out about it.

It's a voice in your head. Like, it was clear and almost booming, but it was definitely in your head. Like, you can... Yeah. Okay. Um... Yeah, I don't know if I want to take the chance of leaving it here. Perhaps after we get our wits about ourselves, maybe I can come back. Um... You know. I don't know. I don't know about leaving it, though. I don't think I want to. I think I want to hold on to it. Alright. Well, hang on to it. So... Sorry, Fenway. Sorry. Uh... That's quite alright. I have more than enough to take care of here with this gate. I've been working on it for the better part of a year.

We're still not figuring it out. Okay. Maybe after we kind of get everything figured out, you know, our wits about ourselves here, I can come back and we can kind of delve into this a little bit more. Does that sound... Are we good? Sure. That sounds fantastic. Uh... Leora... Leora asked you guys to follow her, and there's a room that's kind of adjacent to this gate. Uh... She says... Can I speak with you, frankly, for a moment? Oh, are we already out of the room? I wanted to do one last thing. Oh, you're in the room still. There's a room that's adjacent to that.

She's motioning towards it. Okay. Before we leave, I want to go up to Fenway and shake his hand one more time and say... I'm glad you made it. It means a lot to see that someone... Someone whose life we touched survived well. Uh... He shakes your hand vigorously. He's like, "Are you kidding? I owe you guys my life." Malchus probably... Malchus smiles for what's probably the first time in quite a few days. And then he'll follow Leora. Okay. Awesome. So, um... Once you're inside this room, she kind of checks around the corner there and closes the... closes the door.

Uh... And she says, "Listen, I'm gonna level with you guys. It's been a rough few years just since I've joined the White Ravens. Uh... I... I haven't known Bree as long as you guys have, and I haven't... I have no idea what Ian did or didn't do to her. All that aside, we are all going to die here if we don't do something to stop the Overwatch before they launch a full-scale attack. There's nothing we can do to stop them. We don't have nearly the force that they do. And to be honest, most of my men are good at hiding, spying, scouting, things like that. Not fighting.

If you believe yourself to be already dead, then why are you not running?" Uh... She... She kind of smiles at that, uh, and says, "Believe me, a few years ago I would've. Me and Traeus were involved. And he taught me a few things about myself that I didn't even know. And one of them is that I actually care for these people. And as much as I'd like to, I can't take the entirety of the West Coast and flee." So, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like as much problem as you, as Brianna in particular, seems to have with Ian, without the help of Winterhaven, you're not going to be able to survive.

Uh, she says it's... Even with... Even if the ravens and Winterhaven joined forces, they would still level us. I... If you know someone or know something that can help us, I believe that you could be one of our last best hopes in stopping this massacre before it starts. I guess the question would be, is it worth it to try to get you guys on the same page with Winterhaven, and then have us, and get all our powers together, or what are you asking? Like, what are you asking of us? She almost seems exasperated at this point. Almost like you guys had your own army that you could have brought to the table, or something like that.

Not that there's just six of you. She's... She kind of just sighs, "I'm honestly not even sure." Brianna's been going on and on about you guys for years. What has she been saying? Uh... Well, uh... Mostly about how you abandon us, but I've also spoken to Trayus before he died, and he spoke very highly of you. And then she looks at... She looks at Thoril. "I also have had the honor of fighting you all, and I know you to be superb fighters. If we could put our heads together and figure out some kind of plan." Do you think that, um... That Bri's gonna work with the people at, uh...

I'm gonna say Winterhaven? It's been a while since we played like that. Yeah, is there a possibility? Is there a possibility? 'Cause you said that she was wronged by him, so... Not Winterhaven itself, but Ian. But she feels wronged by Ian. Specifically. 'Cause we... Yeah, we... Go ahead. I will speak with her. We went into those woods to go after those Warforged with the impression that whatever happened at that point, we would have an army behind us. Um... If we could get you guys and Winterhaven on the same page, and then us there as well. I mean, that's our best shot.

The reason we don't work... The reason we haven't worked together with Winterhaven is because they're completely consumed with defense. They're only worried about protecting their own walls, protecting their border, protecting the city itself, which is fantastic, but that leaves the rest of the West Coast at the mercy of the Overwatch. Well, they seemed open to the idea of fighting when we spoke last. Um... And we certainly got pulled with them. We could be an effective liaison between the two factions. Actually, after the little stunt that happened outside the castle, and the fact that we went into the woods to do one thing, and now we're here, I don't know how much pull we're actually going to have with Winterhaven.

Ian had many to begin with. Ian doesn't like us. But we have the ear of the leadership, even if they question our ability to fix anything. We're still welcome there. You do have a direct pipeline. You can march right into City Hall, so to speak, and talk to the folks in charge. It's not like common schlubs. Right. Our best bet is honestly Thoril, to tell you the truth. He's not here right now. Don't worry. Yeah, Thoril, he's out. He stepped out. I'm here. She, Leora notices, uh... I was going to suggest that the vampire wait outside, but I saw him walking around in the daylight.

Oh yeah, he's not a vampire anymore. Yeah, she kind of curls her lips up into a smile after this. Oh yeah, everything's fine now. He's still rather lifeless, but he's not a vampire. She says, "That's fantastic. I'd hate to have to kill you." Mm-hmm. You still doing that? Malchus elbows Thoril and says, "See? At least it was nothing personal." You still doing that? You still vampire hunting? Yeah, that's what I was about to say. She's a chilla. She's probably on the bottom of that pole. Old habits die hard, you know? Oh, by the way, you remember Draconis. I'm sure.

She's been avoiding eye contact with Draconis the entire time. She better. But now you're in this tiny room, and it's really tough to avoid eye contact with the very large dragonborn who is sitting in the corner. And she says, "Look, that was a long time ago, and I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, this isn't incredibly awkward." You know what, listen. You are very lucky that there is much, much pressing matters right now. She says, "If you like, we can settle it another time." You know what? That absolutely sounds fantastic. No. Draconis just claps a hand over his face and shakes his head.

The way she said she was sorry is like, "Well, I'm suffering right now because this is awkward, and I would have put you in slavery." Again, that's her nature. It's more that she's sorry that she has to deal with the situation right now. It's like, "Well, if it's any consolation, I never thought we'd be here." It's more that. It's not... It's a hatchet in the face. She was a gun for hire, so that's not... I mean, that's her job. Yeah, and I'm gonna take that bitch's other eye. It's what's gonna happen. Okay, and to be fair, it's not like she caught Draconis.

She was only there mainly for Thorol at that point. Yeah, she was... At this point, when Draconis says that, Malkus says, "Talk about what you must. I need to go speak with someone." And he actually heads off to find Brianna or find someone who can tell him where Brianna is. Okay, so we're off to find a drink. Okay, so we're gonna break off on our own little adventures here. Rodswell heads back into the room and kind of works with Fenway a little bit, trying to figure out the whole orb thing. We don't have to follow that. That's just where I'm gonna be.

Okay, so Rodswell is talking to Fenway, and they're kind of putting their heads together, and they're... I'll go with Rodswell, actually. Okay, so Rodswell... That's correct, yeah. Good idea. Shut up! It's kind of important that I know what their characters are doing, Josh. I just want to get through this. I really want to start playing. You are playing! Playing! That's what we're doing! I haven't said one word yet. I think he means magic. I haven't killed anything. So, Rodswell and Draconis are out with Fenway. Malchus is kind of in search of Brianna. And the rest of you are kind of putting your heads together and trying to figure out what you could do to avoid this cataclysmic slaughter that's about to take place at some point.

I have an idea, kind of. Go ahead. So, the legend that Draconis came up with, he said there's a gate. If we could get that working, we could just march everyone through the gate. Yeah, but we don't know where it leads. Well, that's just something we'll have to... That's a bridge we'll have to cross when we get there, aren't I? She said... Okay, so Leora... Leora kind of perks up when you say, "Oh, I have an idea," and then he says, "It's okay." A few problems with that. One, we haven't been able to keep the gate open for more than a minute. Two, it takes a tremendous amount out of Brianna when she does it.

Three, we have no idea where that leads to. And four, how would you propose that we evacuate the entire West Coast? Not just that, but evacuate Winterhaven when they're so absolutely sure that they can defend that city. I didn't say I had an easy idea, I just said I have. Roswell peeks his head in the room real quick and he goes, "Hey, by the way, how did Bri open the gate?" You never asked that question. You didn't. So Leora motions to the... There's a small circular slab on the base. It's like a smaller person-sized sphere within the base. So it's this etched circle stone portion.

And she says, "I don't know the ins and outs of it, you'll have to ask her." But her and Finway put their heads together and figured out that she could use some of her energy while standing on that. And that powered the gate somehow. Does anybody know what kind of energy she has? I mean, it's just... We have to ask her, so we have to wait until after Malkus kind of touches base with her. Okay, peace, I'm out. Peace is... Roswell drops the mic. How's about we catch up with Malkus? Malkus makes his way back towards the entrance. It's a little ways away, but that's the room where Bri had walked out of before.

And do you... How do you want to handle this? Do you want to knock? Do you want to... I'll knock. You don't just want to barge in. I'll knock. Okay, I didn't know if it was one of those things you want to fling open the door. I got something to say. I didn't... Pfft! Preeease! Let's Han Solo this thing. So you give a knock. And she says... She... It almost sounds as if she's got something in her throat, like there's a catch in her throat. And she says, "Leora, I don't want to be bothered right now." "Malkus." And then there's a long pause. What? Can I... come in? And then there's kind of...

There's another pause and it sounds like on the other side of the door she's standing up. She was clearly sitting down and there sounds like there's a lot of movement from inside. Fine. I push or pull the door open. Okay. And... Just close the door behind you. I do. What do you want, Malkus? Malkus kind of doesn't make eye contact and he just kind of starts like... finding excuses to look around the room at how it's laid out and decorated and everything. And he just goes, "You're a hell of a shot." Well, you were standing right in front of me. No, I meant in sheer magnitude.

In force. I do believe I was lifted off the ground. Well, I don't really have much of a choice in the matter. That's what I wanted to ask about. What do you know of the nature of your powers? I'm a psionic, which I'm told is pretty rare. Lucky me. I'm just kind of thinking on how you look at it. And she... With that out in the air, she kind of seems to relax. Just a tiny bit. And... She motions like she's going to sit back down, but then just kind of decides better against it and just kind of stands awkwardly. Like, she really doesn't know what to say to you.

Marcus goes, "Alright, we can cut to the other question then. I thought small talk might be a little easier, but... I guess we can talk about why you hate me." That should be pretty obvious. You left us. You set all this emotion and then you ran. You don't think I have a proper justification for that? I'd love to hear it. I am seventeen years outside of my own time, whether by sleep, hibernation, or magic. I don't know why I'm here, looking and... aged the same as I was weeks after I left. If I had any control over coming back, you know that I would have.

You know. If you're mourning the fact that you've missed seventeen years, I'd gladly trade you. I'm not asking for your sympathy on that issue. I am asking you to understand why I could not come back and stop what happened. Ask my father to understand. Uh, Marcus kind of purses his lips and looks down. What do you want me to say? That I could have somehow stepped out of these things? You're blaming me for your father's death when I was trapped somewhere? I'm blaming you. And she kind of balls her fists up and you kind of see that faint glow come back. I'm blaming you for not being there when we needed you most.

I'm blaming you for going to find fame and fortune instead of defend Winterhaven. And then you come here wearing that tabard and the glow is getting more and more intense as she's speaking. And it spits in everything that we stand for now. The fact that Winterhaven's only concerning itself with defense? That they're not searching for a solution? The fact that it's led by that and she kind of stops. The words caught in her throat. The fact that it's led by him. Uh, Malchus steps closer and says, "What did he do, Brianna?" Step back. Uh, Malchus steps back.

And when you take a step back she kind of like, relaxes. She's not as tense. Uh, and she starts to kind of pace around the room a bit. Uh, taking in like several sharp, deep breaths. And, uh, you notice the, the, the, that vibrating whitish aura around her hands is kind of dissipating a bit when she does that. Uh, she, she says, "Look, that man ruined my life. There's no other way around it. But what's done is done. If you need our help, you have it. But don't expect us to be best friends. I have a responsibility to these people. And if you can some way help, then do so.

But if you can't, then just leave. Don't give these people false hope." Uh, you think, you think that I would just walk away from your cause? I, of course I'll help you. Is that all? I, I'm almost insulted that you would think that I would walk away from this. It's happened before. So, so let me get this straight. You're, you're still bent out of shape that I went off after Drax II on a journey that I did not expect to take 17 years and found myself in that circumstance. Brianna, things happen when you go into this line of work. You know I would have come back if I would have been able to do anything about this.

I did not want you, I did not want this world for you. She's not making eye contact the entire time. She's just kind of looking at the ground. And it looks as though from your vantage point, it looks as though she's tearing up. Uh, Malka steps a little closer again. Okay. She doesn't, she doesn't appear to tense up or anything like that. I wanted, I wanted a better world for you because you were the first person who proved to me that the hatred of my kind, my people was not something innate. That you didn't see me as some horned monster, fangs and fire.

You saw me for what I did, for what I believed and how I behaved. That's why I wanted to make a better world for you. That's why I care. That's why I lit up every time I saw you. Uh, so she's openly crying at this point. Not, not bawling or anything, but you can definitely see, uh, you could definitely see a tear on the one side of her face. Her, uh, she's got longish black hair and that, that it's kind of combed into this swoop on, on her right side. You only see like her left eye crying, but like she's definitely incredibly emotional about it. And it looks like...

Malka's containing, but he clearly, he's like kind of got his, he's got his like jaw clenched hard as a rock. And, uh, and, uh, it looks as though she, she, she goes to say something and she doesn't want to be, she doesn't want to be crying. She doesn't want, so she just kind of, kind of clenches her fist again and just tries to like swallow hard and shake it off. And she says, I've, I've lost everyone I've ever trusted, everyone that I've ever loved. And if I thought for a second that you could come back into my life just to disappoint me again. And then she kind of like, she kind of trails off again as like tears start to well up.

Uh, and, and the entire time she's not, she's not making any kind of eye contact. She's just looking down. And she's like, I'll do the best that we can. Sometimes we can't control whether or not we disappoint the ones we care about. Uh, and she takes a step forward towards you this time. And she kind of hesitantly picks up her arms, uh, almost like they're made of stone. Like it seems to be taking a tremendous amount of effort. And, uh, she slowly but surely wraps them around you and kind of buries her face in your chest. Uh, Malkus wraps his arms around her and, um, he says, I'm glad you made it little Bree.

And, uh, she just kind of like the, the, the sound of her crying is just kind of muffled by the, the, the, the Winterhaven tabard. So she's just kind of crying openly into your chest at this point. Uh, so leaving, leaving Malkus and Bree for a bit, um, let's, let's check back in with Rodswell, Draconis and Finway. Uh, so they've, they, they've kind of been putting their collective heads together and, and tinkering. Uh, and what they've, what they've kind of come up with is that the, the symbols on the, on the side of the arch might somehow tie into locations.

And how you might go about activating them is, is anybody's guess, but like that's, that's kind of what you're getting at. Like that's, you, you've, you've pieced that much together. That you, you believe that since they're the only, they're the only symbols on, uh, on the gate that are different from all the Elvish and things that, that, that maybe they're meant to be universal. So the main issue right now is that the only way that we know how to open this gate is by using Brianna. Um, she can only do it for about a minute. If we send anybody through, they're going to be stuck on the other side unless they can also open the gate, which we don't, we have to talk to Brianna to kind of figure out how she was able to do so.

Uh, I'm kind of trying to sum up right now. I think maybe our best bet at this point would be Draconis. Cool amount of... I mean, in terms of how to, power to open it besides Brianna, I don't know. What is, okay, I'm sorry. We don't know about what Brianna is yet, do we? No, we don't. I mean, you don't. Yeah. Malchus does. Does Finway? Uh, yeah. They, they, they pretty much got a handle on what, yeah, they, they know what's up. Okay, so Finway, uh, so do you, do you understand the kind of energy that Brianna's using to open the door? Uh, she, she, she's psionic.

But I, we, we think that anybody with a large enough source of power can open it. It's just, she's way more powerful than us, so we've had her do it. And we're talking about specifically magic power, like? Uh, it, it seems to run off, uh, just pure force. Nice. Alright, I mean, if you want, we can try, I can try something out. What, what about, uh, well, you don't know how to turn it on. It was gonna suggest the orb, but... I'm, I'm just, I'm wondering if the orb can factor into this at all. Like, amplify, breathe... Yeah, I was telling you to go, I mean, well, I mean, I don't know that, but...

I've heard stories. I've heard legends. I, um, I just, I'm wondering if, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you guys something. So, that orb, the reason, when it, when I helped that orb up, it attracted me to this gate. Okay. I haven't told Finway that yet. Um, so, this orb is the reason that I am so interested in this gate, and I'm thinking that the orb and the gate may be connected somehow. Uh, Finway kind of, like, cocks an eyebrow at this. Do you think the orb spoke to you? Someone's opening something in the background. I, I definitely heard a voice when I pulled the orb out.

Um, at first it said no. I thought it said no. It could have said go both times, but either way it was, it said go, and it seemed to be attracted, I, I can't exactly explain it, but as I was holding it, it seemed to be attracted to the gate. As if it was pulling me towards it. And all it said was go? Yes. And he kind of ponders that for a second. That's not incredibly helpful, is it? No. Um, I don't, I, I don't know, at first I didn't even, until we're having this conversation right now, I didn't even put the voice with the orb together. I kind of thought I was going crazy.

And... I didn't say anything, but... Finway kind of looks at you like, almost like, "Aha!" and, and kind of shifts back a tiny bit. This is gonna also sound crazy, but I don't, I wonder if maybe I could communicate with the orb. Have you tried just talking to it? Yeah, this is the first thing that's happened when I heard that voice. That was the first, I was a little freaked out. Um, but I guess we could try it? The orb. I mean, the orb's out. You wanna go step onto the slab or something? Maybe that'll... No, no, no, I don't think we should jump that far. I think maybe...

See, maybe say, "Sup?" or something and try to... Sup, orb? Take baby steps here. Um... This has never been a strong suit for us. Is it still glowing? I would assume. Is it, Jason? Uh, it, it, it's still glowing faintly, yeah. And it seems to be, uh, the intensity of the glowing seems to be in direct proximity of the gate itself. Um... I guess first I'll try speaking out loud to it. See if that does anything. Um... I, I, I, I look at the orb, focus on the orb, and ask the orb if there's something it wants me to do with the gate. And I'm sure everyone kinda looks at me like I'm...

So, you're, you're, you're kinda holding the thing up in your hands. Yes. And you're, okay, so, say what you're gonna say to the, to the, to the sphere in your hands now. What exactly do you want me to do with this gate? And you, it, it, nothing happens. Okay. It, uh, it, you almost feel as though, um, the feeling's kind of weird. It's, it's, it's psychic. It's not physical, but it almost feels like you're holding a kitten in your hands and it's moving around. Okay. Like a baby? Like, it feels like, like, like it feels like, uh, it, it feels like it's stirring.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Um... And then I try to do it non-vocally. Close my eyes, focus on it, and say the same thing, but not out loud, more with my mind, and see if it reacts at all to that. Maybe it doesn't talk, but anything changes. Uh, and, like, you, you concentrate on this for a while and it doesn't seem as though anything has changed. And just when you're, just when you're about to give up on it, you, you, you're gonna go on, just, just figure that it's part of your imagination or, or something. Uh, you hear that, that booming, raspy voice in your head again, and this time it's coming through a lot louder.

So it's almost, it's, it's, it's, it would be deafening if it were something you actually heard, but it's, it's, it's in your head. Right. And it just says, "I hunger." Take it out in the backyard and shoot it. Are you hearing anything? Is it working? It didn't answer me. I look at Finway. How would you react if I told you that the feeling that I'm getting from it now is that it hungers? Uh, it just kind of looks at you? Oh, that, I'm, that doesn't sound good. What's on the other side of that cave? We don't know what's on the other side of that cave. I mean, we've kind of figured out the whole thing about locations.

Yeah, you have yet to do any practical testing, anything like that. Yeah, like, is there actually something, I thought it was just like a, uh, a gate to, like there wasn't anything behind it. What it is is, uh, it's, it's a sphere. So let me draw it for you real quick on the map. Actually, I can do that. So if you imagine it as just a, uh, a circle base, so it's, it's like that, just a circle, and then in the middle of it is an archway. So imagine that standing vertically. Now the area you said that Brianna was standing on? That would be like there's, on, on the one side of it.

So that, that, like, that looks like there's someone meant to stand there to power it. Or at least that's how, that's how they perceived it should work. And they've got results doing that, so yeah. Okay. I'm gonna take a leap of faith, I think. Finway, what do you think about me stepping up on there with the orb in my hand? Um, he, he looks, he looks really, like, I, I don't know about that. Uh... Like concerned? Yeah, you, you should, I'm not in charge here, you know? I mean, you should probably ask Brianna about it. Okay. I think we, I think we need to get a little pow-wow with all of us in here with Brianna.

I think that's really the only way that we can hash this out. Pretty much as far as we can right now. Unless, I mean, Finway, you got any better ideas? Uh, this is the first headway I've made on this in months, so I am really anxious to test this. But, yeah, we should really, we should really run it past Brianna. Um, so, uh, Brianna and Malchus, uh, have, have finished their chat and are, uh, coming back down the passageway. Uh, so, there, there seems to be a lot less tension in the air now. There, there, there doesn't, there doesn't appear to be any, any threat of anyone harming one another now.

So, uh, uh, she sees you all gather around the gate, uh, and she asks, "Did Finway brief you on this thing?" Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. I have a fat lot of good at Stoness. I, I can only hold it open a minute or two and we have no idea if it even works or what it does. Um, I, I, I approach Brianna and, uh, I, I say, you know, we haven't interacted too much, uh, I'm assuming things are, you seem to be calmed down a little bit now, is everything alright? I just want to kind of test the grounds here before jumping in. Alright, um, she, she kind of just, she kind of brushes past the question and continues.

Like, she, she, you can tell that she has no interest in, she's not really making eye contact all that much and she kind of struts on over to the gate. And she, she's kind of like touching the archway and you see this, uh, almost a crackle of something, like this white crackle come off of it. Uh, and she says it, it seems to react to me. I don't really know how it works, nuts and bolts wise, but we've got it to glow and, and do some fancy stuff like that. I, I really don't know what it's going to do beyond that. Um, well, I pull out the orb and show her the orb.

Um, this seems to be attracted to the gate and what we're trying to do right now is to figure out how this orb exactly is going to interact with the gate, because it seems like it's going to somehow. Uh, she, she kind of holds her hand out. Can I hold it? Um, I'm a little bit reluctant. This isn't me talking. Um, Rod Swells was a little reluctant, but, uh, he kind of sees it as his best chance right now. So he hands it over carefully. Um, as soon as you go to put it in her hands, um, the thing kind of crackles and snaps at her with this, uh, almost a lightning arc and, uh, she draws back, son of a bitch.

I guess I can't give it to you. I'm sorry. Um, she, she looks like, like hurt, like angry, like you, like almost like just for that split second, like, even though it's not your fault, it's just that she, her hands start glowing again. Uh, and she turns away for a minute and takes a few, uh, sharp, sharp breaths inward and just, she paces back and forth. Uh, Leora steps forward and says, yeah, just, uh, you might want to give her just a second before we try that again. And this chick needs to calm down. Yeah, really. Um, why don't, do you want to bring everyone in here?

I mean, this is, um, I was under the impression pretty much everyone was in here. Oh, okay. I thought they were, cause you said, at this point, yeah. Cause yeah, it seems like there's a major powwow going around around the gate. So, um, Um, and I, I apologize to Brianna. I really want you to understand, I don't know anything about this thing yet. I'm still, we're still trying to figure this out. Uh, the whole glowing thing goes away after, after she takes a few breaths. It's, it's fine. And she's kind of rubbing her hand where the thing shocked her. Uh, it packs a hell of a wallop.

Where the hell did you get that? I don't know exactly what Malkus explained to you. Um, Malkus, did you tell her what we've done? Um, I guess we haven't been over everything with her, sure. So I, uh, Malkus exposition dumps on Brianna, uh, including details of, of what we got out of Drax tomb, uh, including that orb. Uh, and she looks stunned by all this. It's the equivalent of you telling someone at work, "Yeah, I rode Sasquatch into the mountains and we killed three unicorns." And it was like, that's, this is all stuff that shouldn't exist. And like, you're, you're telling her that not only did you go find this, this, this thing that's pretty much greatly considered to be either myth or exaggeration, but you found this guy alive and he was going to trap you for all eternity.

So you beheaded him or, or buried an axe in his skull like that. That's some high grade, like craziness. Um, whereas most people would, would call bullshit. They would probably go, yeah, come on, seriously. Right. Uh, it seems as though she's processing it for a few seconds. And she, she's almost saying it to herself. It's kind of under her breath. You guys actually did it. And then it kind of seems like a lot of things click kind of internally for her. And then, uh, she, she kind of looks back at the, uh, at the orb. She says, "That thing, that thing has to have a lot of power then.

If we could tie this to the gate somehow, then we may have, we may have the fastest way to travel in all of Theria. But it still does a fat lot of good without an army. Well, if we can, if we can figure out how to use and utilize the gate, then I don't think it's going to be a hard, I don't think it's going to be very hard to convince people to help us. I mean, we still don't know where it goes. Yeah, that's the problem. But we can, but if we can figure out how to run it, then we can learn where it goes. As long as we can figure out how to keep it on and to make sure that we can power the other side, then we can take the time to learn where it goes.

True. Could be like the orb could be the key. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, she's listening to all this and then she turns to Liara and says, "Make a list of all possible allies. It doesn't matter. Distance doesn't matter. Time doesn't matter. Just, just let me know of anyone who could come to Aedas if we had a way to get to them quickly." And then Liara kind of tramples off into the next room and starts compiling a list. And then she, she points at Rotswell, "In the meantime, we got to figure out how to get this going. If there's a way we could get this to operate and have any semblance of control over it, this could be an incredible weapon." Is there a safe passage from here to Winterhaven?

Are you asking her that or are you asking me? Yeah, I'm asking. You guys got here, didn't you? The patrols are gradually moving further and further into this territory, but we could give you, we could give you the whereabouts of a safe passage, at least as far as we know. Cause my question would be is, would it be safe for like me and Draconis and her to hang out and work on this since we have, since we have to hurry up and start getting this stuff done? Would it be safe for us to continue to work on this and maybe have the rest of the party head back to Winterhaven and try to make peace over there and get things going on that end?

I don't want to break up the party though if there's... Okay, just know that if they do encounter combat you won't be there. Right. Okay. That's what I'm, that's what we're, that's why I'm asking, you know, how safe is it? Like, right. And I kind of look at Malkus and Ironhide and, you know, what do you guys think? Like what, seems like we're on a time limit here. If you want to stay back I guess that's okay. Leaving the healer behind doesn't seem like that would backfire at all. I'd prefer to have you with us. Okay. So what do we need to go to Winterhaven for?

Are we trying to get them to become allies now? Is that what you guys are thinking of? We need to amass the biggest army possible. I know at the same time I was taking a huge leap there because I didn't know what Malkus and Brianna had discussed in terms of that. You're discussing this openly in front of her, right? Right, I know, that's what I'm saying. I was, you know, I was just kind of, it was... So, she, okay, when you're discussing the idea of you traveling back to Winterhaven, she didn't seem to have a problem with it. The second that you insinuated that they would work together in some capacity, you can tell she's kind of getting heated about that.

Like that's not, like she's not jacked about that. She hasn't said anything, but you can tell by the expression on her face. Okay. Well then, while Leora, is that how you, is that it? Leora. While she's amassing a list of possible allies, do we want to test some stuff out here with this gate? Maybe? Uh, I'm down. I don't know how we're going to do this, like all of us together, or, I don't... But yeah, we should, let's do something. Well the way the gate has worked so far is that whoever's standing on that smaller portion of the base is powering it. And then the gate itself kind of comes to life, whatever, like in the center of the arch, kind of thinks Stargate, yeah.

Like, where you could walk freely in between the arch all the time, and nothing's going on, but when it's powered, that becomes like, that's... Like a doorway. And we don't know if both sides are powered. Right? You guys don't know anything about this, really. You've never seen it in action, you've never... Does anyone have a boomerang? Does anyone link? That returns to my hand when I throw it. You do! You fucking do! But then we could lose it. Oh yeah, that would be bad. Is it your good axe though? Is that like your main axe? That's Stormrender. Yes, I think the legendary Stormrender is Yzien Ward's main axe.

I don't remember ever having that power beforehand. I have the ability to do the sword swing thing where I throw it on and it comes right back to you. Okay. Do we have like a shitty sword that we could... I imagine they have one. They're nothing but fish farmers or something over here, so... Fish farmers? They run a salmon hatchery in this game. I think Justin listens to every fourth word that Sam says. Fish farmers. So I look at Brianna and I say, "Do we have any kind of sword that you'd be willing to part with, just like a cheap, or... I mean, I just don't know how starved they are for weaponry." I hope we don't stab someone on the other side.

Are we going to tie a rope to it and pull it back? No, Ironhide can throw a sword and it'll come back to him. Oh, that's right. Okay. But we don't want to waste his good sword in case it doesn't come through. Okay, that's a daily, isn't it Justin? Yes it is. Okay, so just to let you know, you are taking one of their swords and you are spending a daily to do this. Are you okay with that Justin? I didn't know it was a daily. I just said yes. Okay, cool. That's assuming we can get this open. And that's assuming they have swords that we can use like that. I have as much as him that he would have just taken Malchus again and just thrown him through.

He doesn't have any power over Malchus' ability to return. He only has the power to throw. He didn't say he wanted him to return. He's just going to throw him. So, Brianna, do we have any weaponry that we can spare? She kind of looks around. We don't have a ton of extras, but there is a rusty old sword around here somewhere he can throw. Okay. Okay. Now, the other question. Brianna, do you feel comfortable holding the orb? I mean it didn't seem to like you too much. I just don't... I don't think it feels comfortable with me holding the orb. But I just don't know if I could produce the same kind of energy.

I guess it's worth a shot. I'll step up on that thing. Okay. So you're going to step up to the plate here. You're going to stand on it. Let's do this. You got to swing, right? You can't hit the ball if you don't swing. Yeah, I'm on some of that action now. Yeah. Okay. So let's get the sword ready. Okay. Ironhide in place and then I'll climb up there and we'll see how this works out. So, Ironhide is standing at the ready and Rotswell kind of saunters up to the pedestal. So are you standing on it now or do you want to take a step onto it when you feel like everything's ready?

I'll take a step on it whenever. The only other thing I want to get in order here is do we think we might have any way to decipher the locations and that... You said that we kind of figured that it might give us a way to control where we go, but did we crack that or is that just a theory? The best... It's kind of a theory. The best thing you can figure... Because all the other writing is in Elvish, you're thinking that those are kind of basic... Almost like hieroglyphs, something like that. Something where it... They tried to make a universal way for people to be able to see what these are.

Something that would translate in any language, so what they used was symbols. But we have no way to know how to focus on those symbols or... No, but I can read them off to you again and let you know what they are. Please do. You guys can take a stab at it because they do all mean something. This isn't random, I'll tell you that much. From left to right, going above the archway, there's a large tree, a snowflake, a mountain, what appears to be an island, a ship, like a ship at sea, one of those kind of ships, what appears to be a rope bridge, and a pillar.

Okay. Why don't we focus on the snowflake? Just kind of mentally focus on it? I mean... You can also reach it, by the way. Oh! Okay. Okay. So I can reach it from the pedestal? You would have to kind of step forward and touch the arch if you wanted to, but I mean, yeah, that's... You can touch any of the symbols that are on here. It's meant for... They're kind of low, actually. It looks like it was maybe meant for even someone like Halfling's Dwarves, something like that. It's supposed to be universally accessible, it looks like. Okay, well, can I touch it real quick before I jump on and see if it reacts?

Sure. Okay, I do so. Which symbol are you touching? The snowflake. You touch the snowflake and the symbol with it... So these are kind of deeper etchings into the arch. And for the first time, the arch itself reacts to you touching it. Okay. And the snowflake glows like a bright white. Almost like there's a lamp inside of that deep groove. Okay. I'll step up. Finway is alarmed at that. So I guess they've tried to touch it before and nothing happened? Yes, I mean, imagine having a year to poke and prod and play with this thing. Okay. And he says, "That's never happened before.

I don't know what that means." And he kind of seems nervous about it. So now you're stepping onto the pedestal? Yes. Stepping onto the pedestal, as soon as you do so, everyone in the room shields their eyes and nothing happens. Okay. And where you would expect there to be some sort of brilliant flash of light or arcing lightning or something, everyone after a few seconds just peeks up and sees that nothing's happening. And Breanna kind of steps forward and whispers, "I don't know, it just kind of happens for me." "My powers are tied to emotion, so I just kind of think of things that piss me off." And then she kind of...

Now is she implying that I should start thinking of things that piss me off? That's how her powers work, so that's all she knows. She doesn't know anything about holy energy or powers or anything like that. She doesn't know anything about radiant. So that's... She's just telling you what she does. Oh, okay. Try to cast a spell, Rodswell. I don't know if... I mean, I could cast Sunburst or... Earth a shot. I'll shoot you with Sunburst. Let me see here. Now is the snowflake still lit up? Yes. It's almost like you selected an icon. He's still standing there, so yes.

Okay, what about Sun's Glow? You can use any spell you'd like. I'm gonna use Sun's Glow. The target sheds bright light that fills its space in squares within four squares of it. The light lasts for one hour. So I'm gonna cast Sun's Glow on the gate? Or should I cast it on the orb? Can we get a consensus on it? I think orb. I'd say whatever you're standing on. Like, the gate thing. Well, you know what? It's not a daily, so I could try both if one doesn't work. I could try the other. So... To be safe, let's try the gate first. Okay. There's no role involved. So you cast this, and so a light fills the room.

Not blinding, but it's almost pleasant. Like, it radiates the other room. And it's definitely a lot more illuminated in there than when it was just torch flicker, things like that. After you do that, the base etchings all around in Elvin start lighting up. And the gate definitely reacts to that. And then Finway kind of steps forward and, like, kind of a heated anticipation. Like, he's expecting, like, "Okay, now we're gonna... here we go." And that's kind of as far as it gets. And then the gate just kind of... it looks like it's powering down. And Brianna steps forward and says, "I don't think that's enough power." Then I guess we should try to cast it on the orb.

Done-zo. Oh. So you try casting it on the orb. The orb reacts violently to this. Oh shit. Uh oh. I'd like to hit the deck. [laughs] So you cast this light on the orb, and the orb almost immediately shakes it off, and the room goes dark again, except for the torch light flicker. And the thing just starts screaming in your head. Oh shit. It's not anything that you understand. It sounds like it's speaking in a different language. It's just, like, just hollering at you. And you get the general sense that it's disappointed, or angry at you. And then it says a word that you definitely understand.

"Death." And then it repeats the phrase, "I hunger." So Brianna steps forward at this point and says, "Look, do you want me to try it? I've gotten the thing to power up twice now. I don't know what you're going to do when it happens, but I can only keep it open for about a minute, maybe, tops." That's enough. I mean, that's enough to at least throw the sword through, so yeah. I mean, I don't want to hurt you. She says, "I'll let go if it becomes too much. The most that'll happen is I've got to go take a nice long map." Okay. Is the snowflake's snow power, like, glowing?

Do we need to-- Yes. It's still, yeah. Okay. Let's try it. So you're continuing to stand on the base, like, next to her, but she's taking the spot on that little dais portion? Um, yeah, I suppose. Okay. So she kind of spreads her arms to her sides, and spreads her hands. And she tells everybody, "Okay, just give me a second and you might want to cover your eyes." And then she clenches her hands into fists, and you see that white light vibrating thing. And after a few seconds, like, she starts breathing a little heavier, and a single bead of sweat kind of rolls down her forehead.

And then just this huge arcing blast comes from both fists, and the gait just goes nuts. The entire thing illuminates and powers up, and you feel this huge force in the room, almost as if there's wind rushing around. But there's--you know there's nothing--there's no possible way that there's wind down here, but it just--you feel this force kind of pulse through the entire room. And this bright white light fills the place. And in the midst of that, the gait around the outer portions of the arch start filling in with this luminous blue light. And after a couple of seconds, the entire thing is just this shimmering wall.

It almost looks like a gel. Alright, throw it, Ironhide. Alright, so... Wah. What? Really? Wah? That was-- Does he have to roll? Does he have to roll? No, he doesn't have to roll. Just I expect a little more than-- You rolled the gait. Wah. You want to attack the gait. So, you throw this thing, and after a couple of seconds of nothing happening, the sword pops back through the gel-like substance. Now, the only problem with this plan is that you can always see your sword return to you so you know when to reach out and grab it. You can't see the sword coming back at you until it's-- Now I'm gonna duck.

Okay, so Ironhide ducks, and the sword ricochets into the room. Draconis, I want you to roll a-- Oh my god. Do me a favor and roll an acrobatics check. Okay, let me-- Oh my god. Hold on, skills... Thwack! Alright. Acrobatics is six, that's not bad. I don't want to lose you, Draconis, but like you. Yeah, I don't-- Okay. Okay. That's enough to you. That's pretty good. Um, don't tell me my job. We're surrendering Draconis. Sword through the throat, dead. At the last possible second, Ironhide ducks and this rusty sword comes flicking into the room with a lot of force.

Draconis narrowly dodges out of the way before the thing slices into his thigh. You'll never be a cop again. And it kind of falls and clatters into the room. And shortly after that, Brianna stops and kind of falls down to both knees. And the gate powers down. And all that force and light and everything, all that stops. But there is this kind of holy shit moment as both the gate powered up, it appears to work, and a sword almost sliced into Draconis. Malchus goes over to Brianna and kneels down by her side, kind of puts a hand on her shoulder, makes sure she's alright.

The sword shows Draconis. Next time we turn it on, he has to stick his head and see what's going on over there. Okay, so it didn't slice his thigh, right? No, it didn't. It narrowly missed, but it didn't hurt him. So what we've discovered now is that it works on both sides. So next time somebody has to put their head through and see what's up. But obviously we can't do that right now. I know Rott's well a little disappointed in himself that he couldn't get it to work and that he had to cause that on Brianna. No, you got something to flicker. I mean, I can do magic too.

Maybe we can both try something, I don't know. I'm wondering... Okay, so when I cast the spell on the orb, the orb seemed to speak to me again. Or at least send me a message, and the message was "Death." You're taking that awfully well. That's all it said? And then it said "I hunger." It hungers for death. Yeah, so it sounds like it wants you to kill stuff. Let's go ahead and kill some. Brianna, you're right. It hungers for death and it's feeding time. Blade! Blade! I like this orb. I like the cut of its jib. Because at first I was thinking, maybe I'll pray or something.

But I don't think that's gonna do much. Considering it's hungering for death, right? I wonder what would happen if one of us calls damage to somebody. How would we respond? Like a cut on the arm or something like that. Nothing life threatening, but just enough that would cause blood. Malchus raises his hand and says "Not it!" in the eating capacity. I put my hand on my finger and my nose, not it. Shit. No, I'm trying to... So what do you guys think, I mean, what do you think we should do? I think we're hurling ourselves at this problem in a trial and error fashion.

We should probably work on something that we can affect more tangibly and more immediately. Then perhaps we can come back to this when we have more information. Leora kind of enters the room after all that's said and done. She has a list in hand and she sees Brianna on the ground. She races over to her to try and help her up. She's like "Did you open the gate? Is she okay?" She asks for it. We open the gate for a moment to test it and she's drained. Okay, I want to do something real quick. That blade didn't cut into Draconis, did it? No. Okay, can I check out the blade to see if it does have blood on it or something?

Sure, absolutely. Also the gel, does it have gel on it? Yeah, so you're going to check that out. While you're doing that, Brianna's kind of bracing herself with her one hand as she gets ready and stands back up. She's just kind of panting at this point, breathing heavy. She's like "I'm fine, I'm fine." So, Ironhide goes and checks out the blade. There doesn't appear to be... it's just an old, rust-covered claymore-looking sword. It doesn't appear to have anything on it other than some nicks and scrapes in it where it's obviously been used over the years.

No blood, no gel, nothing like that. No Draconis. Good. Okay, so the gel that it went through didn't stick to it. It appears to be like a jelly. Yeah, it's a jelly-looking surface. Like it looks like it shimmers. Like if you had to compare it to anything, like a gelatinous cube, something like that. It looks solid but squishy. Gotcha. Yeah, okay. Leora, how's this look? Let's go. Well, I've wrote down everyone I can think of that may be able to help us, or at least has an army. There's the elves in the evergreen, but they kind of have their own problems with clear-cutting right now.

There's Winterhaven, we already know what's going on there. There's the Stonesunder Dwarves. They have their own problems though with the orcs. And as she's running down the list, she's almost kicking herself for listing all of these people. That's not going to help. That's not either. There's the mages in Umineiro, but they stick to themselves. There's the Dragonborn and Orash, and if we really get desperate we can go buy some slaves for Monokal. This is a terrible list. Well, you come up with one. Draconis, no idea can be left untested at this point. There's some very lovely people up north in a camp.

I was thinking that. Oh, I love them. Those people though, they weren't too interested in fighting. No. They also weren't too interested in Ironhide. In fact, they were running away so they didn't have to fight. It's this world's version of Canada, right? Or they just don't go looking for a fight. Just lost all the Canadian fans? No, I didn't. It's like our American friends. No, Americans when they were dodging the giraffe went to Canada. That's not an insult towards Canada. You should explain that joke. Actually, Canada has been attacked by America a couple of times and fended us off.

I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah, I'm just talking about pansy Americans running away to Canada. Now we're losing America because you went too far, Dan. Other way. America's filled with some... We're losing all the people with truck nuts. We're the only people we're losing right now. I think that's okay. Okay, so I guess we have a decision to make here. We kind of have history with a sizable army of minotaurs. Because you killed them. Yeah, they're not really happy with us. That was a long time ago. She, Liara kind of responds like, "You know the Dark Hooves?" Yeah.

Go way back, about 17 years. Well, they don't usually respond to outsiders, but if you know them, if you think that could help... We killed their leader. Oh. Yeah. Just makes me their incumbent leader. So you lead the Dark Hooves then? No, he doesn't lead the Dark Hooves. Yin word, skullable. And each time there's this pinball of hope in her eyes, and then she's like, "Oh." And then she's like, "Ah, okay." The frogrid is also cursed. Oh, man. I think we might just... Why don't we take the list and look it over. Now, this isn't a situation where it's like, "We're gonna hit all these places up, right?" It's up to you.

You're right. Being very clear, the list was compiled with the expressed direction of, "Okay, don't worry about how long it takes to march there. We're trying to make allies end quick." Yeah. Because what you know is that sometime within the month, the Overwatch is coming, and that's it when it happens. Let's ask her who on this list seems the most promising. Well, the closest... The elves in the Evergreen, if you can convince them. If you can get rid of the Warforged problem they have, and the fact that their forest is being clear-cut, I'm sure they'd give us some help.

If you know the Dark Hooves, that would be amazing, actually. Everything else is kind of a trek. Okay, I think we can scratch the Dark Hooves. I don't see us being able to... What is the state of the Dark Hooves? Because we kind of thought we disbanded that whole thing. We just killed their leader, and we still have their leader's axe. Actually, you killed the leader's brother. Oh shit. Is he gonna make them happy? That's kind of worse. I don't think Tramp tranced it in there. To be fair, the Dark Hooves aren't really a warlike Minotaur clan. What happened was, Telros, I believe his name was, kind of went rogue.

And decided that all the land that is up north once belonged to the Minotaur, and it should be... What if Native Americans rose up and there were fucking hundreds of them, and they just decided to go crazy and just start killing eastward? And that's kind of what went on. It's like, you know, this is all Minotaur land again. You need to leave, and if you don't, we'll murder you. And that's kind of what happened. That and the whole Baphomet thing, it was kind of a cult deal. And we took care of that. You did. They do have a lot of manpower. I mean, they should be able to be pretty strong.

When we speed up Telros' axe. If I had to pick between Elves or Minotaur, I would definitely go with the Minotaur. If I had to pick between those two. You're dealing with different strengths, because what the Elves lack in brute strength, they gain in stealth, speed, agility. You think it's around us and just plop plop plop, you know? I will burn the fuck out of some Elves, alright? But they can also surround our enemies and do the same thing. I mean, I don't think... Oh, I'm just... No, I'm not trying to dissuade... I didn't know you were Jason. I just wanted to remind people that we're not going in for a fight right now.

We're going in to convince them to help us. Well, you're not intentionally going in for a fight. Right. I think... On the... Okay, first I want to ask Ruri how much time do you think it would be before she can recover and do this again? Because it was fun. Man, you almost took my fucking leg off. I do want to ask her how long it's going to take for her to recover so she can do this again. So, she... Like, it clearly took a bunch out of her. Alright. And she's kind of brushing her hair back down into her face, because it was just fucking all over there for a second.

And she's kind of got herself composed again and caught her breath. And she's like, "I could really use a nap and something to eat, and then I think I could go again." Jason. Is there a definitive list you could read out of the possibilities that we have right now? Sure. I kind of just did, but I could do it again. I'm sorry, I just want to refresh. Sure. It's complicated for... Wait a minute. How many were there? Like, was there a number? Seventeen. One for every year! Well, let's see. We've got the minotaurs north of Winterhaven, the Darkhooves in Thunderspire.

There's the elves, which kind of are all over in the Evergreen, that forest that rides west of Overwatch and up the coast. Oh, there's trees there. Yes. And if you wanted to go to Onakol and buy slaves, you could do that. You can go to Aurash. It's a cliff-top city, and you could speak with the Dragonborn there. You may have an in with them. The dwarves in the Stone Thunder Mountains. Okay. And then there's the Mages of Uminyru. Not to mention Winterhaven itself. Okay, so I'm starting to think that some of these places that are on the gate may line up with some of these factions that we could talk to.

That's what I was thinking too, because there's six and six. I was counting. I guess the pillar would be Thunderspire. The ship was probably where the slaves are. The tree is where the elves are. The mountain is where the dwarves are. Yeah. Where's the snowflake? What the hell is a rope bridge? A snowflake could be a minotaur, just set up north. No, that's the pillar in Thunderspire. Yeah, pillar is Thunderspire. Snowflake might be Winterhaven. Oh, yeah. What about the rope bridge? The rope bridge might be the Dragonborn. When we do visit Winterhaven again, will you need to make a point to ask Sigan?

Yeah, I was saying the rope bridge, because they're on a cliff. Right. When we do visit Winterhaven again, we need to make a point to see if anyone knows about a corresponding gate there. True. While Bree rests up, why don't we make our way to Winterhaven, since that's kind of the place that we know, and talk to them. And then while we're there, we can ask about the gate and see if they know anything about that. And then once we're done with that, we can come back and kind of try to work out the rest of this. Does that sound reasonable? Yeah. Yeah, man, that sounds like it.

Okay, I want to finish up what I was saying before. I'm sorry I interrupted. Wait, what? When were you speaking? I was speaking before about how long it was going to take for the rest of the people to get in there. I got so much sick. Okay, go ahead. I was thinking that we should go to Umin-Yuru, where the mages are. That's the only people that could actually make the war forged, and maybe some answers lie there? And then, well, they could also maybe help open the gate, because they're powerful. So, let me tell you where these places are in Theria, so that if you were to, let's say, avoid the gate, skip it, and march there, how long it would take you to get there?

Yes. Okay, running down the list. I would load up the map, but that's kind of pointless. Let's see here. So, if you were to travel the Evergreen Forest, that's obviously not that far away. You can be there by the end of the day, and it would be nighttime, but you'd still be in the forest. They would see us. The elves? Most likely, yeah, especially if you're walking... They would know that we're coming. Yeah, remember the last time you guys went into the forest, and they tracked you pretty easily? Obviously, you know where Winterhaven is. That's within a day's march.

That's not that far away. If you were to travel to the Stone Sunder Mountains, that's more north-center Theria. So, that's a trek. You're talking about a week of trekking, and then there's getting into the mountains and getting accomplished, whatever you're going to accomplish there. So, that's a sizable chunk of time. Uminyero, if you were to travel to Uminyero, that's all the way in the eastern corner of Theria. You're talking weeks. Same thing if you were to go to Onakol, and then that's in the middle of a desert, and that's kind of its own problems.

Aurash is in the Hazon Mountains, so that's almost as far as Uminyero, but not quite. So, yeah, you're still talking a couple of weeks. On foot, anyway. Yeah. Okay. The Thunderspire is right north of Winterhaven, so that's not too far away. That's hours. So, I mean, Winterhaven, Thunderspire, or the elves are probably going to be our best bet right now. My only argument for Winterhaven is that we know Winterhaven. Maybe we can do a circle. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm talking about? Well, the only... Yeah. Yeah. Do we want to hit them all up at once, or do we want to do Winterhaven and then come back?

Well, why don't we go to Winterhaven and figure out if they know of a gate nearby? Because if we can figure out that a gate is actually going to Winterhaven, then we'll know at that point that we can travel through the gate so we don't have to make these treks every time. Does that make sense? Yeah. Malchus? How urgent is our timeline? Didn't we say that Overwatch is preparing to march as we speak? About a month, right? That was what we do. Within the month. It could be like two weeks. Yeah, they don't have an exact timetable. They're amassing a huge force is what they know.

If we can figure out that this gate is going to take us to the places that we need to go, we could get this done within days. Because, I mean, while we're in the gate, Bree can rest up. Although, she's going to have to recharge for us to get back through. There had to be a set time. We'd have to be back at the gate at a set time to do so, unless we can figure out a different way to power the gate. Or if she comes with us. I don't know how you would do that, because she's staying right in the center of that thing and then she's focusing on everything. I'm still saying we should go to the island, that floating island with all the mages.

It's going to take the entire time, though. We won't have time to go anywhere else. We would go through the portal. There's the floating island. But we don't even know that portal definitely works. That's a real shot in the dark. Malchus turns to Ironhide and says, "You're saying you're willing to test it? How bold if you Ironhide." Real team player, bravo. If we hit up one of the places we can trek to before we test this out, then we can at least get some sort of army going in case they come while we're trying to figure this out. I don't know, it's tough.

I'm not looking for an army. I'm looking for a one-hit kill. If we find mages that actually know what they...mages that obviously helped on making these things... I don't think it's obvious that they did. They are mages, but that doesn't mean they're the only mages. You think one person made all this? You think Carter made all these guys? I don't...I just don't think that a group of mages across the land necessarily have anything to do with this group of Warforged. I could have sworn, like, out of character, I could have sworn the last episode we were talking about this where...

You were. No, no, no. I'm saying like you were, where like you said one of the characters, they mentioned that a mage from there came by. Yeah. And talked to Carter. I did. So...I mean that sounds right there like that has something to do, some significance. If not, we can go grab some elves, some orcs or whatever like that and we'll fight an actual war with these guys, but... I'm just saying, trancing through a gate that we don't know how it's going to react when we go through it is an awful big risk. React pretty well with that sword I threw. That was a sword.

Like, if we don't even know, like, are we going to appear in front of them? Are we going to have to go, you know, I mean, I don't... We don't know where it leads us. We know it leads us to an island, but we don't know where on the island. We could be, we could end up in the middle of, you know, fifteen dragons or something, you know, we don't know. That's a lot of dragons. If they got fifteen dragons, then we might as well put down everything we can. It almost hit one of my fifties, right? Take two, three tops. That's fine. Each of you just take three or four dragons.

It'll be fine. So, why don't we hit up, while she's healing up, why don't we hit up Winterhaven and then when we come back, the first place we can go is visit those mages. If this gate works out. If the gate works. Yeah. I mean, is that... We're just discrediting the dark hooves. That's cool. Well, if the gate works, then we have a little bit of time that we can hit up all these places, you know. I don't like them because they're dark. I don't like Justin's idea of... Me either, but we have to make sacrifices to war, Justin. I do like Justin's idea, because I completely forgot what you were talking about with those other mages.

So, if that's a fact that they did have something to do with it, then, you know, that's definitely something we should pursue. To me, it just seems like that guy would be up to shitty shit. Okay. So, do we have a consensus? Yeah, sure. I mean, that's me. Yeah, I think so. Okay. So, you're all going to depart and take off for Winterhaven. Yes. So, before you leave, both Brianna and Liara wish you luck. And they say that they can get their scouts to, at the very least, try and distract any warforged that may be on the road to give you safe passage in order to make this as speedy as possible.

Do we need to do any healing or anything? Because I notice... Yeah, we're dying. For some reason. Well, in game time, you guys have... Game time! You guys entered the cave just after a fight. You haven't rested or anything. We're limping. Yeah, you want to pop some surges? Turn it off. The inward surge value is 20? Okay. Yeah, it's order of itself. Wow! That's too much damage for one to manage. So, I'm just going to pop some... And you don't want an army of that, you guys? That's a good point, actually. That's the way they actually look at us. Like, we're allies. Like, "Hey, didn't you kill that guy?" But they didn't like him.

He was all culty and weird. It's cool, though. Hey, I was backing up the minotaurs. I was backing that up. We still have time to do the minotaurs, guys! I know. We got all of them. We're gonna be... So, you guys have departed and... I ain't that broke as shit. I saw everybody's full health and I'm like three off. Did you want to spend another surge to get those three? No, I'm good. You know what's going to bother you? Just do it. Yeah, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to fight the urge. You just did 54 damage. Wouldn't that suck? As you're leaving the cave...

Got shaved. ...you notice something white flutter by you. Oh, shit. And at first glance, it almost looks like one of those carrier pigeons that the Warforged have. Let's catch it! If you want to make a check to catch it, go ahead. Who has got athletics? I have... I think I actually got athletics. He's acrobatics. He can do a backflip. My athletics... plus a... my acrobatics is a plus 14. Oh, would it be acrobatics? This would be... Acrobatics. Because you're kind of jumping for it. I'll give that to you. Acrobatics is fine. Or I'll do it. So we're actually going to try to catch this.

Yeah. Now, wait a second. Before you make the check, how are you trying to catch it? Grab it gently so you don't break it. Basically. Now, this is fluttering from within the cave outward. Oh, we have that net! You have to be quick to pull out a net. You can try it though. Go ahead and use fire blast. Still putting that shit down if you guys want. We don't want to destroy it. Yeah, let's try to use that net. Try the net. I used the net. I jump up and use the net. 20. So this thing streaks by you and you have the presence of mind to grab this net off your back and flick it forward as quickly as possible.

And in the low cave walls, you actually have a much better chance of catching this thing. And it... The net tumbles to the ground and inside the net is a small white bird fluttering frantically. And tied to one of its legs is a note. Oh, so it's a real bird. I want to loot the bird. Loot the bird. Let Dr. Cronus eat the bird. Yeah, let Dr. Cronus eat the bird in case... Give him some hit points if he... Give him those three hit points. Goddamn monster. So it's a real bird. This isn't a mechanical bird. No, this is a real... It appears to be a white raven, actually.

So it had some Natasha's leg. Yes. So we grab the note, read it. And the note says, "To forward scouts, please distract any incoming war forage." Put the note... Did you eat the bird? Let the bird go. Tie this right back on there and... We used the net. The bird's not dead, so... No, no. But you're kind of embarrassed looking around, making sure no one saw that. Good job, Thoril. Geez. I've been seeing and shield the bird with my massive... Yeah. Put the note back on the bird. Let it go. So as soon as you kind of tuck it back in... And the bird kind of is disoriented for the moment and is bouncing around the cave walls looking for...

And then it just kind of finds its way and darts down the corridor and out the cave entrance past... Like all the brush that kind of guards the entrance of the cave. Almost fucked that one up. Why did you give us an option to do that? Yeah, did he get some experience for that at least? Sure! You passed the check. I'll give you a little bump. Good job, Thoril. You got it. You guys pressured me into that. Yeah, well it was a chance to roll some dice. It was the right move. It was the right move. I regret nothing. Let's get that net. As you guys are leaving the cave, Draconis, do me a favor and give me a D20+1 check.

He's having a bad luck today. It's alright. I kept my leg. Oh, look at that. 17. Draconis doubles over in pain. And begins coughing frantically. And after a few moments, he appears to cough up a small amount of blood. And then he kind of gets control of himself again and slowly stands back up. But it's clearly shaken him a little. He did this in plain sight of everyone. Awesome. Did anybody else see besides us? Like the crew? This is my second time seeing him do this. Yeah. I mean, sorry. Oh, you mean anybody else besides us? You guys are outside of the cave now.

There doesn't appear to be anyone standing guard. They're not trying to make this look like it's the entrance to something that would need to be guarded. Got you. Draconis, are you okay? Yeah, I've been just thrown off this whole time thing. It's okay. It's fine. I mean, the time thing isn't affecting anyone else that way. I don't know what's going on. Apparently, somehow it's affecting me. We just need to get going. I'll be fine. It's not that bad. I want to do a check. Insight check. Sure, you can do that. I'm going to insight you. You said insight, right? Not inside.

As long as you said insight. We'll see where this goes. Whoa. I'm going right inside you. My insides are nine. Did 13. What he said kind of checks out, I guess, to you. You don't see anything shady about what he just said. My passive insight at 17 doesn't do anything? No, that's more for if he's running a check against you. That's when your passive insight really comes in. And we can't sit here and, like, I can't roll an insight check? That would be boring. Let's move on. Let's say it popped up "Queer to Ironhide" and he was the guy to go, "Hey, wait a second!" Like that kind of thing.

Yeah, okay. Moving on. Okay. The bird... Bleep it! Bleep it! I found that ironic. So, you guys travel north and the bird must have done its job because you didn't run into any more patrols of Warforged while you're out. Good bird. You make your way back to the gates of Winterhaven and the guards see you coming and they kind of let you through immediately. They do no search or anything. They just kind of nod to you. "We've been given instructions to let you through as soon as you're back." And then they open the large iron doors and then you walk through to where the second airlock type door is and they let you through that.

Now, was there something you wanted to do in Winterhaven first or did you want to go right to Talia and Ian? Let's go right to him. Yeah, let's go to Ian and then... I think you don't see Ian right now. Yeah, Malchus... Well, he doesn't know what's up yet, really. I mean... Malchus does. Ian doesn't know Malchus is pissed, but Malchus knows he's pretty pissed. And Malchus was... Bleep it, bitch. Malchus was talking about it the entire time on the way back. It's a chatty cat thing. This motherfucker... Almost knocked that nigga's head off. Jeez. Goddamnit, Talia.

I think we now have two words we're gonna have to do. Apparently, yeah. Bleep it. Goddamnit. Let me mark this down. More editing for me. Next time, have the sword go after his leg. You guys are acting like a bunch of Jews. Can we please just... Oh my god. Bleep. I'll just cut this entire portion of this. Yeah, let me just cut the back half. Let's just... I think I'll get it all. Okay. Malchus. I mean, I'm torn about it. Like, on one hand, we need all the help we can get, and it's... You know, we're facing annihilation. This is not the time. On the other hand... Do you wanna maybe see if we can just get a meeting with her?

I think that might be better for the time being. Does she have any power here? Oh, good point. She's the lady of Winterhaven. Yeah, she is the power here. Right, but I don't know, like, he's kinda power hungry, so... Like, he didn't want us to be around at all. Like, that's why he joined up in that tournament. That's totally up to you guys. Let's try to... I think she... I mean, yeah, he didn't want us around, but we still are around because of her. Like, she's the one that we should be talking to anyway, so why don't we... try to request a meeting with just her.

See how that works. Okay, so... You make your way to Winterhaven Hall, which is their house, basically. Their big living quarters. And the guards let you inside. Because, again, they have expressed they wanna know how this mission went. Like, as soon as you get anything, come back. Let's get going on this. Try and find out what Overwatch is up to. At least that's what they think you're out doing. And you walk into their big foyer-type deal, and it doesn't appear as though either of them are in the vicinity. Your best educated guess would be that Ian would be in his study, and Tali would be somewhere in the downstairs area.

Because that's where she was kinda hanging out the last time. Can we ask around to figure out where they are? You can ask the guards. Okay. So, we ask the guards. Okay. The guard says that Tali is down the hall in the dining room, and Sir Ian is in his study. Dining room? Yep. So, you guys make your way to the dining room, which is pretty swanky, to be honest. It's nicely decorated, and yeah. And she's just wrapping up what appears to be just a snack, a small meal, something like that. And she kinda lights up at the sight of you. You're back! How did it go? Before we get into anything, can we take this somewhere a little bit more private?

And she kind of... she looks kinda puzzled at that. Yeah, I suppose we can go to the library, but anything you can say to me, you can say in front of anyone here. Malkus, do you want to go to the library, or do you feel comfortable? Well, who else is in here? I just thought maybe if we go somewhere else... There's guards. Yeah, there's guards. And I just thought maybe if we go somewhere else, there'd be less chance of him just walking in. Like he... Owns the place. I mean, I feel like "let's go hide from your husband" unpacks a little differently than "let's go where we can have privacy." And it's...

I think, you know, he could go walking into the library just as easily as he could go walking into the dining room. I don't think it's an issue. Look more suspicious. Okay, that's fine. My main reason was because I have a feeling that one of the guards could very easily just go up to, you know, tell and inform Ian that we're back and he'll come running, so... I guess it really doesn't matter where we are at that point. Just kill him. Right. That is your solution to everything! The little fucking sword at his forehead is like "Whoa, what the hell?" Okay. Um...

Malkus, do you want to kind of hit this one? Kind of try to explain what's going on here? So, um... I guess I start with... We're totally cool telling, like, it's not a secret to Winterhaven that this other group exists, is it? Um, the White Ravens? No. It's not a secret. It would be new knowledge that you've met them and you've had interactions with them. And Winterhaven and them haven't... they don't communicate with each other. It's been years since they've even seen Brianna. You're... you're familiar with the White Ravens? Uh... she says I am. Um... we... we made contact with them while we were out.

Um... Did they hurt you? No. No. Not at all. Um... In fact, we made contact quite peacefully with them. Um... I know you're not on the greatest terms with them, so to speak. Uh... she says, well, that has more to do with Ian than me, per se. So I've heard. Um... so... I guess, man, which topic do we broach first, guys? Um... like the gate thing or the... Well, let's make it clear that we weren't able to do what we were sent out to do. Like, I don't want that to come as a surprise. Okay. Um... I suppose before we go any further, I do need to tell you that we have not been able to acquire one of the Warforged carrier pigeons yet.

Uh... she looks crushed by that. Oh, gosh. That's what I like. Uh... we caught luck. She should have carried your pigeon. You did. You did take... well, it was a raven, but like, same principle. Um... she... she kind of sits back down in the dining room chair. Uh... and sighs heavily, she says. That... that... I could have went a long way into finding out what Overwatch's plans are. Agreed, but that's not our only lead, either. Um... And then she kind of looks up at you like, oh? Are you... are you familiar, historically speaking, of anything that looks like... and then I describe...

I describe the gate to her. And I say, do you know of anything like that ever being found in Winterhaven, above, or in the city, or below ground, or anything like that? Uh... she kind of shakes her head. No, I've never heard of anything like that. Hmm. We found a strange magical gate device, uh... that the White Ravens are watching over. And we're led to believe that it could allow us to travel across Theria with great speed. Uh... and that would... that might be a resource that would allow us to rally people against Overwatch. A viable army. Uh... and... um...

While she's interested in this, uh... she... well, we don't have to worry here. We can defend our own home. This might sound crazy. I'm gonna butt in for a second. Did you hear any stories about a random sword flying through the air and then disappearing the past day or so? Um... she looks at you like you're insane. Okay. Good. I heard a rumor, I was just clarifying, I'm glad that... glad you're not crazy like that other guy that we were talking to. Anyway, let's move on. It's gotta be pretty embarrassing for Rottswell, you guys. You put everything into this and just bam.

Yeah. Um... after that, the booming voice in Rottswell's head comes back. Uh... and... uh... it... it... for the first time it forms the closest thing to a sentence it's formed the entire time. Uh... and says "I hunger for death." Hey, I had it right earlier. I... I, uh... I excuse myself and back up out of the conversation a bit. And I seem... I look to be, like, trying to wrap my head around it. She probably thinks I'm insane right now, but that's what I... Well, what... what... you ask if there's a disembodied flying sword somewhere around here at this stage.

And then... and then I... Just close the side of your head and go sit down. Rocking back and forth. That's why Malchus is the one I'm letting you take this one. Excuse me, I have to take this. And you leave the room. I hold it eager, like... Told you, don't call me while I'm working. [Laughter] Yeah, it's just Bluetooth, don't worry. I'm crazy. Um... uh, yeah, so she watches you leave and... is he okay? I don't leave the room, by the way. I'm just kind of... Oh, you just walk... I just back out of the conversation, like... Oh, okay, okay. And, uh, he asks Malchus, "Is he okay?" He's... it's... it's not important.

He's... he's just having some side effects from something. Um... this is Talia, right? That's... that's her name? Yes. Okay. Uh, Lady Talia, surely even... even if Winterhag wouldn't can defend itself from whatever Overwatch is up to, do you want to see a world where Overwatch is at your doorstep, outside of your walls at all times? Where they've hounded all your neighbors to the point of destruction or tyranny? Of course not, but the most we can hope for right now is to at least repel them from our walls, while we come up with some way of maybe ending this once and for all.

I will tell you right now that if you will... if you stand by while your neighbors are torn to pieces by the wolves coming toward your doorstep, there will not be a force to amass that can stand against Overwatch. Um, she seems to mull this over, and she looks down for a moment, and then, uh, looks you dead in the eye and says, "What would you like us to do?" "Only to be the first of many. To give us a token of proof, at the very least, that we can bring before other leaders of other, uh, civilizations and cities across the continent, to say that there are people who will stand up against Overwatch and fight beside one another against tyranny." Uh, she says, "Give me a moment," and she leaves the room, and, uh, bounding down the stairs you can hear him coming, is Ian.

Oh, cool. Naked. I'd like to get possession to hold Malchus back. [Laughter] Uh, so Ian enters the room. "Why didn't anybody tell me you'd returned? How did the mission go?" Malchus just kinda hesitates for a second and sees if anyone else wants to pick up the ball there. And noticing the hesitation, he says, "Well, speak up!" I'm still collecting myself, so... We didn't get the pigeon. So you failed. We were ambushed on our way out there, yeah. You didn't fail. Yes, we failed. We were distracted. You know all about that. Okay, don't get haughty with us, we're just trying to lend you a hand.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. [Laughter] I need to find out how much of this is in character and how much of this is just witty quips. There were four quips at one time. I know, I'm trying to figure. Okay, Thoril, uh, Tyler, is what you said as Thoril, or are you just... I'm up to it, Thoril, do it. Yeah, I'll do it. Jesus. Okay, so he comes barking in the room and you basically come at him with knife blade quips back. Okay, so, uh... Can we throw Malchus? Can I throw Malchus at him? [Laughter] Jen was the one who said, "Well, lend me a hand." [Laughter] I feel like Malchus is making all the decisions for the party.

What if Malchus stepped back a little bit? [Laughter] You guys are getting into far less trouble if Malchus stopped making... [Laughter] I was doing okay, it's not my fault, I got an orb telling me that I should defeat him death or something. Um... So, uh, so, after all this is said to Ian, he kind of recoils like you slapped him in the face. And he steps forward, real brazen. Uh, and it looks like he's going to motion towards Yenward and then looks up. And then motions right to Thoril and walks up to him because he's more... He's more Thoril-sized. He's actually a little taller than Thoril so he can kind of like do the shout thing.

Don't you dare take that tone with me! Smack him. Tell him you dug out his old lady. [Laughter] Oh my god. Okay, I've collected myself at this point. Yes, please, thank you. I'm going to try to do diplomacy real quick. Uh oh, here we go! Twenty-one diplomacy check. Well, yeah, okay, what would you say? Um, I, I, uh... Oh, what do I say? [Laughter] Uh, I look at Ian and I say, um... Before you two start addressing personal issues, why don't we get back on topic and explain ourselves about why we failed in our situation. And our task. Um, and then Ian starts to respond, but you can't hear him because the voice in your head is booming again.

Jesus Christ. And it forms the second sentence that you've ever heard it form. "Cleanse the land." Jesus. Oh my gosh. Fire. What did he say? I started looking around. I saw his lips. And then I pulled my mouth shut because I don't want to back off again. And then, uh, Ian kind of looks like he was going to shout at you and he's halfway through the sentence. Are you listening? And then he kind of noticed you clamped it and back up and... Is he okay? He's been doing that. It's fine. Guys, I need to cleanse the land. [Laughter] I feel like I need to go cleanse this land, guys.

That's what got us into this in the first place. Might as well ask him about Bree. Can I do a history check on him and Bree? Well, not specifically, no. What's going on? What's you and Bree's history? Why don't you ask him? What's going on with you and Bree? We can get to that later. No, I'll still write now. He's being all haughty at us. Counter. With counter haughtiness. [Laughter] So, okay, okay. So he's kind of dealing with, like, he's seeing what you're doing as insolence, basically. Like, you're coming into his house and, uh, you, like, within the first day you kind of act like you run shit.

That's how he's looking at it. That's a good point. Uh, so, let me get this straight. You were sent out for a simple task. You know how important it is, and not only did you fail, you come back and revel in your failure. [Laughter] Nalkus! Nalkus! [Laughter] Even with his anger, I still think he might be the best choice here. I think Nalkus went out for a coffee. No, I'm just trying to find the words to unravel the audacity that just happened when I let go of the conversation for a moment. He's trying to find the words to unf*ck yourselves. That's what he's trying to say. [Laughter] I need to cleanse the line, guys.

Okay, okay, well, we have a new plan that can actually end this in one step, rather than multiple steps, where we're fighting a f*cking war. Sorry, I don't want to say "f*ck you," that's wrong. Pile language. Uh, and he's, uh, he's looking at I heard. Go on. Well, I throw my sword right at him. [Laughter] Okay, make an attack roll. We found this gate, uh, portal of some sort, that's got symbols, uh, that seem to match up with landscape around this continent. And we figured we could, rather than walk or march, which would take several weeks to months, there and back, uh, we could just take that to these places and gather a force.

Uh, and he's kinda looking at you, not as if you're crazy, but as if he doesn't believe a damn word you just said. It sounds like, to me, you're trying to just leave again. Where is this mystical gate? I'm not telling you. [Laughter] That's pretty convenient. I have no idea what happened with you and Bree, so I'm not telling you exactly where it is. Oh, shit. Oh my god. No one said Bree beforehand. As before. [Laughter] As soon as you mention the name Bree, he gets right up to your face, like right... I hit somebody in the mouth. What are you gonna do, punch a robot?

Uh, and he's, instead of shouting, it seems like he's gone beyond that kind of anger. Never mention her name in my presence again. I want to do an intimidate check. Sure. Dude, what? Mouth is... Twenty-four. Okay, what do you say to intimidate him? No. I don't think we can un-fuck this situation. Alright, the last person that jumped in my face, I chucked him on top of another man. [Laughter] That was an intimidate, though. You were intimidating him. Oh, that's what you're saying? Okay. Yeah. Okay, I thought you were saying that you wanted to chuck him on top of another man.

I will throw you. I'll grab somebody and chuck him on top of this guy. Uh, he takes a step back. Uh, and... You threaten me in my own home? In my own city? Uh, and he turns, uh, and starts to walk out of the room and shouts, "Guards!" Son of a bitch. [Laughter] Uh, a cadre of armed individuals. Oh my god. Okay, here's what we're doing, you guys. Here's what we're doing. We're gonna pause, we're gonna go to the menu, we're gonna reload the last save. [Laughter] Do we have those? We're gonna start this over, and y'all are gonna shut your faces. Really? 'Cause apparently I can't trust you to say a damned word.

Yeah, I don't know what happened. To anybody of any measurable importance. I'm terribly sorry I'm not the cowardly leader that just crumbles. I think we can all, like, blame this on Thorol. But no, wait, Deema, coming here was to get them on our side, and you all made fun of him. [Laughter] You're too busy going insane. I thought I was on my phone when I'm going insane. You're the one that wanted the order. I tried to talk to him, honestly. This is very rude, thank you. Oh, god. I even got a diplomacy check out there before the orb told me to cleanse the land!

I got a pretty good intimidation check. I'm proud. [Sigh] I roll to pick up Malkus. Oh, no. You chuck him? Oh, Jesus Christ. Is this money Python? Are we in the parody now? Is that what we- Okay, um, wow. Okay, so, what's gonna happen with these guards? We just get the fuck out of here. So- That fucking- Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me understand. We can salvage this. I just wanna understand. We can't come back without a character pitch, no. We f- now we can't come back to Winterhaven. Thanks, guys. We did it! Hey, I didn't do this. It's not over yet, we can fix it.

I'm thinking ahead. Why is it that they should- I'm thinking like this. We tell him where Bree is, and that gate. He could have another plan for it. What? He could have a plan to actually sign an agreement with Carter or something. So why don't you discuss that with us first, instead of just doing that? So he's in my face, and I say, "Okay, guys, I think this is what's gonna happen." Right into his mouth. We can pause and talk out of game, and come up with a plan. Then how am I gonna- Then how's that role point? Then how am I actually telling you guys- What's I do with Zakk Mor's timeout?

Well, that happens a lot here, like- No. No, it doesn't. Okay, okay. Let's just try to fix this. We can't- what- I wanna hear- yeah, actually, yes. I wanna hear your idea, Draconis. How are we gonna- Oh, I don't have an idea yet. I don't know what these guards are gonna do. They could be coming here fucking- Oh, you know what these guards are gonna do. They're kicking us out. You know what these guards are gonna do. Maybe not. I'm getting really nice, uh- I'm getting a lot of deja vu here, by the way, with the yelling at the leader and the guards being called in.

And probably all could have been avoided if we- If we- listen, if we actually did kill Carter then, none of this would have accidentally made my situation more concrete, thank you. Ugh. We should have killed Carter back then, just like- Okay, we should have killed Carter back then, but that doesn't mean that we have to cut all ties with the only place that was supporting us. Like, now we have nothing. We're supporting- Now they were telling us what to do, why they said to- We're having a circular argument, let's just- Yeah. I mean, Malchus. No, this is classic DNR, and now we're arguing after a decision was made.

There was no decision made! There was- Oh, there was! There was- Hah, calm your danglers, it's okay. Okay, um- Well, okay, here's the situation. Ian is leaving the room, he is appalled. And angry, and his patience with you is pretty much rung dry, even- I mean, what considerable- The considerable little patience he had for you anyway, and then that happened, that whole thing. And then he's sending guards in. Now, um- Here's- Sorry? It appears as though these guards are, at the very least, gonna kick the shit out of you a little as they escort you out. That's not gonna happen.

He- Okay, how would you like to handle this situation? Okay, is she still in the room? Yeah, Talia's gone. Talia left for him. She went to go fetch him. This all took place in a span of about 40 seconds. Yeah, I know, I was gonna say we could have her talk some sense into him, but she's not in the room, that's not good. Oh, and I'm sure she would defend us after how you all just behaved. I- I didn't do anything. I handled this just like how I handled Talia. I'm talking about the half of the party that were just dicks to him. I said like three things, and they were like, you know, I was like, "Yeah, we didn't catch the pigeon," then all of a sudden, you know, "Hey, fuck this guy walking into the room." I was like, "What?" I was like, "Look at this guy." Malchus calls out to Ian and says, "I've said nothing, my lord.

May I remain?" Uh, he- he kind of stops, uh, uh, like mid-doorway, like he's right- he just stops, uh, and he looks back at you. Uh, and the guards are continuing to kind of stomp forward, uh, and, uh, he tells him to- to stop at the last second. And he says, "I'll speak to you alone, but make it quick." Alone? I don't like that. Uh, Malchus will go wherever he wants to talk privately. Uh, and he motions for you to follow him into the- the- into the next room. So you're kind of rounding a corner and- I was about to talk some shit to that guy. Uh, he instructs the guards, "Make sure they don't leave this room until they can leave with their friend." Can Rod's well sit in the corner in the fetal position and rock back and forth for a little bit?

He absolutely can. That's what he's doing. Uh, and, uh, one of the guards motions to him. Is he okay? I don't- I don't even know- no. I don't know. I have to close the land, guys. We have to close the land. Obviously not. Um, so, uh, Malchus and Ian round the corner in a separate room, and he says, "Make it quick. I'm about to escort your friends out of this city." We have not been able to intercept a carrier pigeon. We have not run into another war-forged unit yet to attempt it. We are, however, connected with the White Ravens, and as you'll know if you speak with your wife, we're trying to take care of something exceptionally critical to making sure that this world does not fall under the grip of tyranny.

I do not know what came over my allies. Uh, and, uh, okay, as you're talking about the White Ravens and everything, um, there's a look at his face which is a cross between "Oh shit!" and then composure and then anger again. Mm-hmm. Um, and then when you say the part about "You don't know what came over your allies," uh, he kind of interrupts. "They spoke out of turn." Oh, motherfucker. M-M-Malkus, Malkus stays silent, but he... yeah, just... is he gonna say more? Is... No, no, no, no, that was, that, like, he's just kind of nodding in agreement with you.

It's, yeah, I don't know what, yeah, they are assholes. Okay. Um, whatever's happening, whatever... believe me, there are a great many things that I would like to do differently right now, but none of us have the time. We've got, we've got an unstoppable army heading out to take the world under its thumb, and the only hope for a world not under its grip is cooperation. Now, we're trying to activate resources that could accelerate opportunities for us to connect with other cities around the continent, other armies. We need to support one another, in spite of the incident that just occurred here.

Um, so he, he waits for you to stop speaking, uh, and he says, "I suppose I can excuse your friend's ignorance," and he raises his voice, uh, intentionally loud enough so that the group in the next room can hear him. And then he said, "However, if you're suggesting that we march on the Overwatch, I can't, I don't have the resources to do that. I'm not trying to have any more innocents die. We're concentrated with taking in anyone who would like to live here and then defending these walls with our lives. This is the only spot we have left." "Even if I tell you, you wouldn't march alone.

Even if I tell you that this would be the most united front of civilized people in history against a force of evil." Uh, and he kind of looks at you quizzically, quizzically here, and he says, "You, you have allies?" "That is what I'm trying to achieve, but I need someone to take the first step, make the first show of support with a sizable force so that I can tell others they are not alone." Um, and as, as soon as you finish the sentence, what you're saying is you're asking us to put our neck on the line. I am. I can't do that. I'm responsible for all of these people.

And as he's speaking, Talia walks back into the room, and she walks specifically up to Malkus and kind of cradles his hand in hers and then puts a rolled up scroll into it. Uh, and, uh, she says, "Here is my signature on a letter promising support. Show it to anyone that would give you theirs. We will march on the Overwatch together." I fucking knew it. And Ian is gobsmacked. Is Justin upset that we've succeeded? No, I'm saying, I said this before, where he only craves power. That's why he's in this predicament, because he believes that this would just bring him power instantly.

Wait, but Talia's the one who agreed, not... I'm saying, like, he's the trophy wife. Oh, okay, I get what you're saying. Okay. He doesn't, he can't actually make decisions. No, he just likes the... He likes the appearance of power. Uh, and, uh, Ian appears to be upset enough that he's just done. Like, he's, he's, uh, he walks away. Before, as he's walking away, I hold the scroll up in my hand, and I say, "Ian, I need two signatures on this." Oh, God. Uh, do a diplomacy check. Uh, that's one of the worst things we can... We didn't lose his role. Is that a good che...

I forget. What is your diplomacy? That's not bad. Not at all. Um, Ian, Ian kind of pauses there, and it seems like a really long time. He's just kind of looking at you. Uh, and then, uh, he looks at, uh, Talia, and Talia just kind of nods her head. Uh, and he holds out his, his one good hand, and, uh, requests the, the scroll from you. I'll take it over to his surface and unfurl it. Uh, and he kind of puts it, so he places it on a nearby table and holds the parchment down with the stump. And then, uh, he kind of, like, he, he signs it, but it's kind of a sloppy looking signature, which you probably don't want to call attention to.

It's just enough that that's his signature. Um, and then he, he rolls it up as best he can and hands it back to you. Uh, and then he leaves the room. Thank you. Uh, no, I, I, I let him walk off in silence. I don't, I don't specifically say anything. Right. Um, I look at Talia, and I go, "If I don't kill my allies, I think we're about to save the damned world." And I just walk out the door. #CaveSwissTurnaway Oh, wow. So, literally no more than we're out of the city gates and beyond the, the earshot of any, any nearby watch. Uh, Malchus turns around and glares at Ironhide, at Thoril, and at Yenward, and says, "You ignorant bastards!" Aw, fuck.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? What are you trying to do, just destroy the sole chance we have of protecting everything?" I'm, I'm sorry? What? I, uh, I'd be more than diplomatic to Talia. Uh, fuck Ian, though. What power does he honestly have? Alright, who's this conversation between us, three or everybody? It's everyone here. Yeah, everyone's here, yeah. He just addressed you three. I handled that conversation as I would have. I wasn't... You know what, I'm... Okay, what? Sorry that, you know, he just, he came in and he was... You, you know how he was being.

I'm sorry. Guys, we can't be so reactionary. We have to think of other people and consequences. We can't just go in there yelling. We can't. I don't care what our personal theories are and what our personal thoughts on people are. We can't just go in there like that. We have to be diplomatic right now. When this is all over, you can do whatever you want. You can chop off his other hand, you can feed him his own dick. You can do whatever you want. I'm gonna keep, keep, keep that in my back pocket. I'm not here to get yelled at. I handled that situation as I needed to.

He came in there pissed because two other people wisecracked him. He jumped in my face when I brought up some good points, so I struck back. I know you struck back. He didn't come in pissed because we wisecracked him. He came in pissed because we're apparently failures. It's not like he's caught a pigeon, you know, ever. But we could have very easily explained ourselves. He didn't understand what was going on. He didn't have any context. He just knew we failed. He didn't give us, you know, that's how conversations work, guys. I noticed. I noticed I had high.

Yeah, but he immediately assumed. He assumed, and then we could have corrected him. I noticed you barked back at him, you savage, mindless automaton. That's all you know how to do. Either escalate the situation or run a sword through it. That's why I'm in the group, to make those kind of decisions. We could have done that with Carter rather than run outside of that room that day, and none of this would have happened. And this was the time and the place for shit-talking a nobleman? A nobleman? He married his way to that. He was nothing. He was a guardsman. He was the captain of the guards before, and he lost his hand, and he laughed out of shame.

I don't care whether or not he deserves it. He is in charge of men who can fight against the Overwatch, and if you want this world to end up halfway peaceful by the end of the year, you will shut your metal face when there are people important in front of you who can do things about this. That happened. She signed the agreement, didn't she? We didn't need his name. He's nothing here. Would I have gotten that scroll at the end of the afternoon had I not walked in there and done everything in my power to keep from choking the life out of that man to smooth things over?

Do you think I do not agree with everything you said, and yet I found the patience? Maybe you should have done that in that room rather than sit there and cower. Oh my god. Mokka steps up right into space and says, "You say that, it's alright." Guys? Thoril starts stepping back. No, no, no, bullshit. We need to get no. This needs to... no. We can't be doing this. I was the one that spoke up. You didn't have half the chrome that I did. We're going to do something. I'm the one that spoke up. You didn't have half the chrome that I did. I was ready to end this way before this. 17 years ago, in fact.

Jason, I think we're starting next session with me trying to kill Ironhide. We're at least putting... We're starting next session. I think we're starting next session with me trying to put Ironhide in this place at the very least. Alright, hold on. I think that's a good time to stop, honestly. Oh, god damn it. I don't feel like we're going to get any resolution until next time. I don't see any at all, no. So we're going to start the next session with him fighting? It may start off that way, yes. Wait, before we end this, I wanted to say this, in character of course.

The last time in Winterhaven that you stepped on my face like this, I threw you off a balcony. I will run you through the next time you do this. Alcus, you gave me your word that you'd wait until the end of this. That's true. You gave me your word. Now think about this. If you take him on and you lose, this is over. All of it. Malcus is not responding. No. This is turning into a throwdown. He needs to be put in his place. Okay, so do you need us next episode? I think everybody's going to be needed next episode. So, that's a...wow. That is an excellent time for us to stop, ladies and gentlemen.

May I say, rate us on iTunes? Make sure to spread the word. Check out Audible. Check out Audible! If you sign up using...yeah, D&R Podcast. D&R Podcast. Then we get a little cut of that and it helps us keep the lights on. Yeah. Feels really weird to show things after that. It feels awkward in this room. I want to record a little solo thing to stick at the beginning, Jason, for that part. Sure. Yeah, that way you don't have to ruin the mood. One more thing. Tyler, what the fuck is your Skype picture? That's...Michael Bolton is Forrest Gump. Justin with the lash out at anyone.

I got so much rage in my heart after this. May I say, Justin... What's up with you and your Skype picture? I don't want to take any away from you, Rob, but I've come to expect that from you. Like, you did excellently today. Like, you had two major scenes. Justin, way to fucking put on the roleplay gloves. Yeah. Let's turn it back into the Malchus and Ironhide show again. That never went away. That tension is always there. So, we got that going. I got some stuff in today. You got that football stuff going on. I would say your insanity took up a nice chunk of it.

No, I know. It's just I feel like I have a bad feeling about where this is all going. And it may not have a happy ending. I mean, this... Oh my god. It's the fun of dungeons. Not everything has a happy ending. But it's not fun. I'm not having fun. I'm having a tremendous amount of fun. I'm really stressed out. And my stomach hurts now. But you're feeling something about something that's fictional. That's awesome. But it's gonna make me poop all night. You mean hunger for death? I don't know. And I actually hurt a chain elf. I have a problem. When I get stressed out, I end up on the toilet all night.

You can both bond over your poops. I did say that I do not intend to kill him, but I am going to beat him to unconsciousness to put him in his place. But I can't control if he kills you. That's the problem. He will kill you. Ironhide would feel nothing about killing him. That's interesting. He'll try very hard. He won't succeed. I've got this. What I want you to do right now... Go grab your car keys, go take a ride around the block and play There's No Easy Way Out. [laughter] Then he's gotta stop at that statue of Robin St. Louis and then throw his motorcycle helmet at it.

Get a motorcycle helmet. This is perfectly into the "what were you doing, three on three" thing? I know. It's gonna be like in six months though. I know. I didn't plan on something crazy going on. Six months now. Well, like I said, we'll work it out. We got a group two session next week. Dan, it's no better in group two. You'd be just as stressed out. They've got a whole different form of stress going on over there. Obvious slaves all live in places. Like I said, it just seems like every time we... I don't know how many times we can solve this problem and it come back up.

It's just like you guys seem to really want to fight. But that's the thing though. I don't want to patent anybody on the back too hard, but that's good roleplay. They're both diametrically opposed characters, but they have to work within the confines of this group. So every once in a while, there's gonna be major topics that come up that they're gonna be completely opposed to. And it's gonna naturally lead to them wanting to... And these problems have... Like with the Ian thing, that's something that's lasted not just the 17 years, but months and months and months before that.

Let's skip the part where you both... you all fast forwarded, but the entire... Like you guys have had so much history with these characters beforehand. This isn't like some random guy in the forest. He says, "Oh, he likes red. I like blue. Let's stab him." And then Malchus says, "No." This is big stuff. And another gentle reminder, between the four of you who are not in this fight, you could subdue either or both of us. There's no way either one of us can handle this if you guys decide to knock both of us unconscious and stop this from happening. We're out in the middle of the woods.

We are on the way back to the White Ravens. Actually, you would be in a large open field outside of Winterhaven. Right in the middle of Warforce. Well, this is pretty close to Winterhaven. Like if anything, you'll see... they'll have a scout from Winterhaven see you from the walls, but it's kind of unlikely. Imagining scouts from Winterhaven like watching this fight. I guess here's my point. I am not going to try to mediate anything anymore. Why? But that's to say, you are changing what your character's about when they're not. They're doing it the correct way.

That's their characters. As much as you see Justin as a pain in the ass or an Ironhide or whatever, he's playing his character. And is he an annoying ass? Kinda. I mean, he's doing it correctly. So am I doing it incorrectly? No! You're playing your character the way you want to play him. Your character ends up playing nursemaid a lot. And that's not wrong. It's just you gotta relax and stop trying to metagame the situation and control it. That happens a lot where it's like, "I want to throw Malchus." "No! We were whatever!" I'm not saying, in character, of course, if you want to try and stop it, try and stop it.

Because that's worked out well for you in the past. The Thoril Carter thing. Carter would have had his throat ripped out if you didn't stop Thoril. And maybe you should have. [laughter] Maybe a gruesome murder is all we need. [laughter] I guess my point is that you talk to me a lot about metagaming, but it seems like outside of the game, there's a lot of, "I want to fight because I want to fight." You know what I mean? Oh, don't get me wrong. Justin's got bloodlust for days. In the game, I have done a good job of mediating them. So I don't understand why it keeps happening.

You know what I mean? Because they don't like each other. A hatred won't die out. Let me put you in Malchus' head for a minute. Malchus is trying to save the continent, and Ironhide is the one thing consistently standing in his way. See, this is how I do it. Malchus does not want to fight Ironhide. Malchus wants to protect the world that his loved ones live in. But Ironhide is doing his damnedest to ruin the entire operation! The way I look at it is that Ironhide wants to do whatever it takes to solve this problem, but not have BS in his way. Like this guy right here is like, "We want to do the problem." It's like, "All right, fine, but I'm not a part of it." It's like, "Why not?

Why is Ian so special that he doesn't want to send his troops out?" "Well, I will if you have a full army, so you don't really need us." He looks at it as weakness. See, okay, yeah, the way I'm reading it is Malchus being a character of diplomacy, well, the default character of diplomacy that you guys have, like he's kind of in that role. Okay, it's stats. I mean, he's fine with talking. Ironhide sees that as, okay, the closest way between two points is a straight line. Why the fuck are we bouncing all around? Are you in or out? And then why the fuck are you in power anyway if you're not in?

Okay, here, you know what? I think my main thing, and this is something that I was thinking about in the hospital, and I'll just say it, I think my main thing is that I think there's so much arguing going on between those two that no one else is being able to develop their characters a lot. Oh, I don't think that's true at all. I mean, we don't know anything about Yinward. Well, no, but that's mainly-- We don't know much about Draconis besides the fact that he's a drug addict. Well, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. I've spoken to everyone here, and everyone has given me some form of backstory.

And I've written that in. It took a little longer for some people. Like, Tom gave me his backstory, and we haven't played really since then. So he gave it to me over a month, month and a half ago. And we've worked on it, and he knows what town and everything. So that will be coming up. Wait, who? Yinward. And then with Thoril, we had an entire arc where he was a vampire. We know he's had relations with Talia, so we got that. He may or may not have a child. He's had a lot of character development, too. Draconis, as mysterious as he seems, you know that something shady happened in his place.

He may have murdered somebody. And he apparently has a terrible drug addiction. Blood shits, also. And he's coughing up blood intermittently. And every time we ask Draconis, like, "Hey Draconis, what's up with the coughing up blood thing?" "Oh, just the time travel, don't worry about it." "What are we supposed to say? Please?" "Please tell us why you're coughing up blood?" Obviously he doesn't want to talk about it. Yeah, he obviously doesn't. Now, granted, okay, Dan, one thing I will give you. I was so caught up in the diplomacy that Malchus felt like he had to do, and the stuff with Brianna, that I don't think I paid adequate attention to what Rod Swell's suffering through.

And I wish I would have seized on that better and interacted with you about it. But it's not over. You have plenty of time to... Well, right, right. If he dies, I mean... You're gonna be stuck with voices forever, Dan. But as it was happening, Malchus wouldn't just let that sit. But I'm sitting over here at my computer thinking, "Oh my gosh, there's so many things." "The silky of the world is at stake, pause everything else." I guess that's what it is. It just really seems like so many of the big moments are focused on those two, and there's not a lot of big moments for anyone else.

What? I mean, Malchus speaks up and tries to solve all the problems, and Ironhide tries to take a dump on all the problems. So they rob the spotlight. I understand. But there's been no situation where someone's been like, "Hey, Yinward, come into this room with me and let's have this conversation." Let's have vicious sex. But there's just one episode, Malchus. I'll grant you this was a Malchus-heavy episode, but it was gonna be that way when we entered into it. Diplomacy speaking. In an episode where we didn't have any combat and it's mostly talking, guess who the spotlight's gonna be on?

The one character who's proven he can do that. Now, obviously we set up something with this orb. Have I ever introduced anything that just didn't go anywhere? With what? With the orb. No, I understand that. I understand that. Like I said, I listened to a lot of the podcasts while I was in the hospital. I just noticed that it was like, almost every episode there is a point where someone, at one or two points, where someone takes Malchus out of the room and they have their own private conversation. Almost every episode. But that happens because, well, I didn't separate him.

Yeah, Malchus asked for it. You're talking to Mr. Capeswish Walkaway. I know, I know. That's, you know, it just seemed, like I said, it's, I just want to make sure that it doesn't become like... Dude, all this... This doesn't become the status quo. All this shit, like, the only reason that Ironhide has such a problem with Malchus is because he announced it in front of everybody, and he's constantly talking about it. Like, Tyler, I thought he was going to jump all over Leora today, where it's like, okay, well she's here, it's perfect time, there's nothing going on really, perfect time for him to go and talk to her about, like, hey, vampire run.

Yeah, but it's kind of clear that we were all, like, working together and... Yeah, but I still am. Why didn't you use that project when we got into the room with Ian? 'Cause fuck him. I'm saying, like, that's what I thought he would do. What my character would do is not forgive and forgive. So maybe it is a matter of, it just... Not to mention, not to mention, when we did face her, I did swing at her first. True. Yeah. So maybe it is just a matter of, I, everyone else, everyone needs to speak up a little bit and kind of pull that, because you're right, Rob does ask for those moments and...

Again, it's not... I milk them. I mean, like, I just... I don't, my voice is raw from all the Malchus voice I have done today, just, like, trying to take these for everything they're worth. That's... One of the things I'm recognizing is the difference between Ironhide and Malchus is, the crazy thing is, they both want the same thing. But Malchus will endure any insult and any torment because he is the avatar of torment. Like, he is the person who burdens himself with the torment of, you know, of all the bigotry the world throws at him and everything. And Ironhide says, you know, like, "You take one crooked look at me for being a warforged and I'll break your face." Like, that's...

It's crazy that they want the same things, but they will also probably kill one another. That's what's awesome about this situation. Justin's not being a dick to be a dick, he's... 'Cause that's, like, his character has beliefs and he's just more violent about attaining those. Like, the fact that, like, we are the only thing that really stands in the way of them just getting, just, walked all over and it's like, "I don't trust you guys!" And, "I want you to go out here and do this mission." And then when we come back and say, "Hey, yeah, we didn't do that, but we have a better way." And then he has a fucking tantrum.

But we didn't say we have a better way first. We... we insulted him. That's true. You told Talia you may have a better way. We told Talia we had a better way. We didn't tell him we had a better way. He said, "I hear you failed," and then we insulted him. We didn't insult him. Well, that's because he just walked all up in us and he was just like, "I hear you guys are losers!" And that's when we say, "But we have a better way." Not, "You f*cked it," you know what I mean? God damn it, let me mark that down. What about, we're recording this? Yes! I always record it after the show.

No, well this is, I always throw in a little decompress, like, if there's something to be said. And this one is a big one, so... Us six didn't say that nasty remark. Tyler's Skype picture said that nasty remark. [laughter] Michael Bolton dressed as Forrest Gump said that remark.