Meet the New Boss

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

(glass clinking) (glass clinking) - 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 gotta cast aspersions at me. - From the director of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and "The Bourne Identity" comes a new film. - It's your first job? - I know what I'm doing. - It's 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, (beep) Um. - 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. - All right, let's get ready to go around the table here. And it's been about two months. So I'm Jason, I'm the DM. Going around the table, we got Brian.

- Hey guys, it's Brian. I play Rheekus, the mole rune priest. - And James. - Hi, this is James. I play Dagon, the Eladrin scion. - And Alanna. - Hi, I'm Alanna and I am an elf named Branath. - And Danielle. - Hi, I'm Danielle. I play Trixie, the drow rogue. Rogue now, right? (laughing) - You are a rogue. And Tyson. - Hey, I'm Tyson. I play Galford, the gnome warlock. I just want to apologize in advance if I cough at all in this one. I still have some sort of respiratory virus thing. So we'll work that into the story somehow. - And Galford has AIDS. - Yeah. Respiratory AIDS though.

- I only have AIDS in one of the lobes of my lungs. - Not full blown or nothing. It's not like-- - No, just lung AIDS. (laughing) - So we should probably recap a bit, huh? 'Cause it's been quite a while and someone at home might be forgiven for forgetting exactly where you guys left off. You guys were racing back through House Darksepain looking for a cure for Tala. That unfortunately didn't work as you ended up facing off against Doug and later on against Archmage Theremac himself looking for a cure. He denied that there was one. You guys ended up having it out against him and Laura in the same room you encountered the large white dragon from before.

The dragon was tied down. He cut several little symbols across its neck and gained some power from that, him being a blood mage and all. So you guys in the ensuing battle ended up cutting the dragon free. It burst forth from its chains and bit Theremac in half. The other notable thing about that fight were that there were about half a dozen warforged there too. So you guys had a bunch of stuff you had to kill. So right now what we're gonna do is you guys are picking right up where you left off which means that there is a huge hurt scared dragon in the room with you guys.

Now the last time you squared off against this thing it chased you clean out of town basically. - Right into the sewer. - Yes. So this thing is kind of backed up against the wall and it's bit Theremac in half. He's just ash, nothing left to him. But the thing is still just reflexive, just kind of in the corner kind of eyeballing you all, just jerky movements, real, real. It's very much an animal backed into a corner and hurt. So I'm gonna ask you guys, what would you like to do? - I'm gonna suggest run. - I'm backing up. I'm backing up right now. - Hang on, okay.

Does anyone have anything shiny? - I mean, I have no hair so my head might do it. - I'm trying to think of like a shiny like amulet or a crystal or like a silver coin or something. Dragons like shiny things, like they like valuable things. - Like your flesh. - I'm well, yes and also I'm very tasty. Is she coming after us? - Is there a check we can do to see if she's ready to bite us or she's like. - One of you could roll a nature check. - Yeah, who's got good nature? - I've got a plus seven. - I got a plus five. - I'm a plus 10. - Okay. - Wow, okay. - Oh, that's right elf.

(laughing) - All right. 22, you're reading the movements here. It's very much, she's not on the attack, it's defense. - Okay. - It's just hurt, scared. You get the distinct feeling that because you kind of broken and freed her that you've bought yourself some time. It's not, she's not attacking you. Now, if you were anyone but the people who broke in and attack her captors and freed her, you'd be dead by now. (laughing) But she's not stomping around or anything. It's back to clean up against a wall. - Okay. - I'm backing up and yelling, everybody back up slowly.

Don't make a lot of eye contact. Elf, you wanted to help, now's your chance to help. Try and heal it, I don't know, while the rest of us back up slowly. (laughing) - I'm. - Now, to heal it, that's gonna require contact. - Okay, you guys gotta back up. You guys gotta get ready to run because if someone's gonna gate and it's better just one of us rather than all of us, okay, I'm gonna approach. - Okay, so everyone else is kind of shuffling back a few paces. - I don't wanna move back. - You don't wanna move back? - No. - I don't wanna move back either. - Can I scoot next to Brandon so I'm closer to her?

Just in case something happens. - Okay, let me tell you right now, Valis isn't gonna back up either. So the only risk you run with that is it looks like three or four of you are moving in closer to this thing. - I don't think that's a good idea, you guys. - Okay, then I'll just stand still. - Yeah. - Can, it might sound silly and I don't even know if he'll do anything, but I think Riki's just gonna kinda bow down towards the dragon, kinda trying to attempt to show it some respect, obviously, 'cause of the size of it. - You guys gotta back up and look at the floor.

- That's exactly what I'm doing. - Yeah. - The last person that approached it cut into its neck, so we need to not outnumber it. Back up, and so Galford's sort of calling over to Baraneth saying, you know, you want it to quell its suffering, quell its suffering, just do it slowly. - Okay, all right. - Valus is gonna move towards it with his sword drawn. - I'm turning to Valus and you gotta put that away. Like, you're not gonna take her out with that sword. And if she thinks we're coming after her, she's just gonna attack you. - So he's just kinda pinballing, like looking between you and that thing and just.

- You have to trust me on this. - I'm calling over to Rikus. Rikus, if it attacks, we run, lure it out the front door, just like we did last time. - I'll nod. - Valus is gonna sheathe his sword and just kind of relax a bit. - Okay. Okay, I'm moving closer. I'm looking down and I'm moving closer really slowly. - This thing is gonna crouch down as soon as you do it. Much like an animal that's getting ready to pounce, just kind of, but it doesn't move beyond that. Like you're right up next to it, I'm guessing, that's where you're trying to get to. - Yes, oh God, please don't eat me.

- Is it wiggling its butt like a cat? You miss, you're fucking dead. (laughing) - I don't think I have catnip in my pockets, but. - The other thing, okay, this thing's way bigger. See, dragons age very slowly. And one of the big shockers is this thing is way bigger than when you left it. This thing, I mean, this takes up a good portion of this room, I mean, this is a big room that you're in, kind of a hall almost, and this thing is a large portion of it, like it barely squeezed out the doors before, it would just clean rip a hole straight through this building if it were to try to escape.

So yeah, a tail smack from this thing alone would be enough to just catapult you against a wall somewhere, you'd be an indent, like it's, yeah. - Okay, can I use, no, if. - Why don't you just do a heal check on it? - I know, like I don't know, should I do the heal check or do I use one of my powers, like healing powers? - Well, this would be a heal check, you're outside of combat. - Okay, so my, what's my healing, where's my healing? Okay. - A dragon healing surge is just eating you, it's like, and it gets to use a surge and it eats you and it gains 50 points.

(laughing) - It was nice playing with all of you, it's been great. And yeah, okay, so I rolled a heal check of 27. - 27 is fantastic. - You basically couldn't have healed that, I mean, you couldn't have failed it, like you're, that's what you do, you heal. So this thing is firstly, obviously no longer chained and the cuts in its skin vanish. The blood's still there obviously, but the cuts are gone and when you lay your hands on it to heal it, you feel this weird connection to it and you can almost hear a voice. - Whose voice am I hearing? - Sean Connery.

- I am the last one. We're not doing that. I never saw that movie, that's the only line of that movie. (laughing) - You are. - Yeah, we're totally not doing that. Yeah, it's definitely a female voice, but it sounds kind of monotone and faint. - Okay. Do I understand this voice? - You do actually, it's not, shockingly, it doesn't sound draconic to you, it's not, dragons speak, so let me give you guys a background on dragons. Someone wrote a history check just to see what you guys would know about dragons. - I apparently have-- - Well, you wrote a nature check, that'll do it actually.

We're cool, okay, so on the site I wrote an article a little while back about living in Theria for dragons. There are four types of dragons in Theria. There's black, white, red, and blue. So you guys, the white ones are the largest of the dragons in Theria. All dragons pretty much share one thing in common in that they all speak draconic, and if they were to speak to fleshy people, the bass from their voice would rattle their bones apart. Like it's so powerful that you can't, kind of think Skyrim dragon shouts, something like that. It's just too much, so they're not audible around anyone except Dragonborn.

They're the only people that can speak to them in their native tongue that they can understand, that they can have any kind of dialogue with, other than other dragons of course. - Did my head just explode? - No, no, no, no, no, no, you're still very much alive, but the faint voice that was in your head has just become booming. There's some sort of mental connection you have with this dragon. After you, so okay, it's healed. Do you wanna stop touching it now? - Is she still ready to pounce on me? - No, no, no, she's relaxed quite a bit actually. Like she's getting the impression that you don't mean her any harm, and quite the opposite.

You guys have freed her and healed her. So. - Okay, well, I don't speak Draconic. I don't know if she's gonna understand me. I'll try talking to her. I'm sorry I scared you. Are you okay? - Are you still touching her? - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, okay. She's got this kind of monotone voice. And you're not sure if that would be her natural speaking voice or just, this is just like a mental link type of thing. 'Cause again, if she were to speak out loud, the whole fucking party would be dead. At this close of range anyway. She's gonna ask the little one, what is his name?

- Oh my. And I'm gonna, okay, so looking over at Galford, the gnome, is that who you mean? - Yes, the gnome. And she kind of like snaps her head towards Galford. - Okay, that's Galford. He's a friend. - I'm waving my hand under my chin like, no, that's enough, like. (laughing) - I was gonna say, the dragon looks over at Galford and Galford shits his pants. - What flavor is he? (laughing) Are there dipping sauces? - The thing is you can't hear the dragons end of the conversation. So it's just, it's like, you just see this, this thing's huge head snap, like, oh.

I remember him from before. I remember chasing them throughout the city. - Oh, dammit. Yeah, I think you've met before. - Why did he free me? - We came in here, we came in here to free you. You were hurting, you were hurting and we wanted that to stop. - Would you thank him for me? - I'm gonna look over at Galford. She says, thank you for unlocking her chains. - You're most welcome. Thank you for removing the blood mage from this room entirely. - The dragon's just gonna look back at Baraneth. Like she did. (laughing) - He says you're welcome and he thanks you in turn.

You've done us a great favor by ridding us of that blood mage. He would have hurt us all. - He was an evil man. I'm glad to be rid of him myself. - What's your name? - They call me Amara. I was named by a small band of elves when I was young. - That is a very fitting name. Do you know what your name means? - And she just kind of trails off like, no, no. - Your name is Elvin for beautiful beast. You've been blessed with a very gracious and very, very fitting name. - A small band of elves raised me, but this group of mages bought me when I was younger. I think I was purchased.

I'm not really sure now. - How long have you been here? - I'm not sure. - Have they been hurting you all this time? Like have you been locked up all this time? - I have remained in the house. I was chained up after my return to the house. I was loose in the city for three days. - How did they get you back in here? - It took several of them to corral me. I was promised that I would be given a larger space to live and instead once I was brought back inside, I was put in chains. - Goodness. - Are you communicating with it? It could be dangerous to communicate with it.

Ask it about the gold dragon, ask it about the gold dragon so we can leave it be. - Yeah, to answer your question, we're talking right now. - What does it want? Does it want freedom? We can certainly move on. There's not much else in this room for us. - She's just telling me about her life here. - And she's just kind of snapping, like she just like her, like... Just picture this giant head on like that large neck, just kind of snapping back and forth. Just, you can kind of feel the breeze from it as she turns her head back and forth. - Amara, we don't mean you any kind of harm.

Do you intend to harm us? - No, I have no reason to. - Okay, all right. Good, good. I'd like you to consider us friends. - I owe you all a debt for freeing me. - I would really like to be able to let you out of this house. How did they get you in here? Like I don't see a doorway large enough that you could pass through. - I was teleported in the second time. - Oh my gosh. (sighs) I imagine you'd like to get out of here. I imagine you're hungry. - They would feed me once a day. - What do they feed you? - Just livestock. - Okay. - Is it saying it's hungry? Could you just ask it if it's hungry?

- Yes. (laughs) - Don't ask it if it's hungry. - Galifre, she's not gonna eat you. - Well, she's gonna eat something. - She's not gonna eat you. - Galifre, trust her, 'cause I do. - The dragon just kind of looks at Galifre much like a dog would when it doesn't, like it's not understanding what you're saying 'cause it's kind of tilting its head. - Amara, Galifre is afraid that you're gonna eat one of us. And I've assured everyone that you're not gonna eat us. - Please instruct him that even if I were hungry, he would not slake any thirst. - Galifre, she says you are her favorite flavor, but as a personal favor to me, she's not gonna eat you.

- That's wonderful, I'm glad to hear that. - Galifre, I'm just kidding, she's not gonna eat you. - I'm not afraid of this thing. I'm extremely surprised that we're standing here right now communicating with the white dragon. This once again confirms that this ragtag group that we have, we are just being hurtled into something that, even I can't see what's gonna happen to us next, but you're the one that's conversing with it, so I don't know if you want to get it something to eat to open the door. I mean, the front of this building may be on fire, I'm sure there may be more minions of House Starksbane that we probably need to have a conversation with, or at least kill.

I don't know where we go from here. I mean, I hate to admit it, elf, but this is your call. Um, Amara, things are gonna be different in this house from now on, and you're no longer a prisoner here, and you're no longer gonna be abused and cut. But you've always got a home here. If you need a family, you can absolutely stay here, but you're not a prisoner here anymore. - If I wouldn't be a burden, I would rather like to stay. - I would be very, very happy to have you stay. - Although it would be nice to stretch my wings and fly, I don't see a way of doing that without collapsing the ceiling.

- Yeah, um. Does anybody here have teleporting powers? I... - Well... - Does anyone here know how to build a really big door? - Carpentry would probably be easier than teleporting. Teleporting is... - Can't we just have like Rika start smashing out walls and she can get up? - I was gonna say, I feel like with this house, and I'm looking at Brandon. - We don't care about this house. - Well, I was gonna say, just depending on what we're gonna do, if we make this a permanent home where we can store stuff, I feel like construction might be in order for, and reconstruction might be in order for our new friend.

- Well, I think this would be a huge advantage. Like if this were the base of operations from here on in, at least we've got a roof over our heads. And I mean, there's gotta be, you know, like spells and potions and weapons and whatnot here that we could, that would be useful to us. - Are you saying that in character? - Yeah. - Okay. I absolutely agree that there are things in this house that are gonna be useful for us. And we need to have a conversation about how we've ended up in this position. And you said this dragon wants to stretch its wings. I mean, let's just find the area of the room that is the least structurally sound and she can certainly make herself a window.

And I don't think we can deal with her needs at this moment, but if she wants to come back, she'll come back of her own accord. Meanwhile, we've got a fire, we've got more members of House Darksbane and we've got two other houses in the city of Brightport. We're probably gonna wanna know what happened tonight. - Okay. Well, okay. So we have things that we gotta deal with. We gotta clear this house. We gotta put out the fire at the front door and we need to create a door so that American can come and go. - I have an idea. This is a white dragon. It has freezing breath that we don't wanna be anywhere near.

So if she wants to stretch her wings, why don't you let her open up a door for herself and conveniently while she goes for a little trip and has lunch and flies away far from us, she could blow the fire out at the front door and then we can get back to looting. - Let me fill you in on something just a second. Two things. One, you just took out one of the three houses of Brightport. That's monumental. That's never happened. And there's gonna be this huge power vacuum as a result. Two, the last time this thing was free in the city, it wrecked a lot. And it's bigger than it was the last time that it was out.

So if this thing smashes out a side of the house and just starts, "Hey," it just wanders out, like that's a big deal. - There's gonna be some widespread panic. - Is there any way we can convince it to like, if it's gonna break out, it's like, wet it out, but tell it to not go near the city? - You're in the city. - Well, I'll look over at Galford as he suggests about having our new friend fly out the window and just say, "Right now, the key thing that we need to do is make sure that we have everything in order. We need to go through the house real quick and make sure there aren't any more people around here.

But the key thing is we have to make sure each one of our movements is careful and calculated because at this point, after the events that just happened, we have a lot on our plate and we have a lot of things that are really gonna be going against us. So we need to make sure that we have everything in order. I think personally, we need to make sure that, do we know, like, do we that haven't been communicating know her name, the dragon's name yet? 'Cause I don't wanna end up saying that in character and have it like... - Well, I believe Brandt said it out loud.

- Okay, well, we need to make sure that our new friend, I'm just gonna refer to it as a new friend. Our new friend here is comfortable enough while we sort out the house and discuss arrangements with the other houses. And then I feel like once we discuss with them and give them the situation, it will be a lot safer and a lot easier to let her run free. - Like, what she wants is just to have a home here, but I mean, she needs to be able to exit the house and come back so that she can go feed herself. - Well, we can acquire livestock in the city. So you seem to have the connection with the dragon.

Ask it if it would be willing to wait in this room while we take care of some more pressing matters. And I'm sure we can bring it back to some livestock or morsels later in the day. - Yeah. Okay, so back to Amara. Amara, we've got a bit of trouble that we have to deal with right now. There's fire upstairs at the front of the house and we need to make sure this place is secure. Are you okay to wait here a while while we take care of that? I do want to create a door for you. I want you to be able to come and go as you need to. - I'll be fine. - Okay, I just don't want you thinking I'm abandoning you.

- Am I to understand you are going to be living here now? - Yeah, what do you think you guys? - I think it would be a good base of operation. I mean, we don't wanna move out of the place that we just took over since this has never happened before. - Yeah. - Well, we haven't taken this place over yet. I mean, there could be other members of House Dark Spain in the house. We don't know what Silverclaw and Hammerhand know. They have eyes everywhere in this city. So we really need to start cleaning up our mess before we're gonna start talking about the next steps.

Elf, you said, is she willing to remain here while we deal with some of this? - Yeah, she's okay. She's okay to sit tight for a little while. Amara, I think we're gonna be keep spending a lot of time here, but we have to make sure the house is secure first. So we'll be coming back to you. In the meantime, I'll let you rest. - That would be wonderful, thank you. - Oh my gosh. - There's one more thing. Since there's no more Thermac, you should keep his clutch of items. - What items are those? - Whoa, items? What did she say? (laughing) - Ask her about the gold dragon.

Ask her about the gold dragon. We are gonna need that in about three hours. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - She motions her head to the far right-hand side of the room. There's a hidden panel on that side of the room and she just kind of snaps her head and motions towards it. - Oh, like over here? - Well, yeah, yeah, somewhere in there. - Oh, okay. - So for those of you who can't see it, it's in the corner of the room. So if one of you guys wants to roll up and-- - I'm gonna stay with her. - Well, I mean, she basically told you where it was. - Okay, so I'm looking at.

- So yeah, and touching, there's this kind of loose stone and you push in on it and this large portion of stone wall slides over and you're gazing into this well-lit trophy room - Oh my. - With these gorgeous like glass, these glass display cases for several just wondrous looking items. The most notable of which is this golden statuette of a dragon sitting in the center of the room under glass. Would you guys like to explore what else is in that room? - Oh yes, very much so. - Now, should we do a dungeoneering check on this room just to make sure that-- - Yeah, no, that was the exact thing. 'Cause I was like, I feel like there might be some security system in place.

- Anybody see any eyeballs? Are there any eyeballs? (laughing) - I mean, she's a big, bad white security system. - Yeah, she kind of is a security system, but I think it'd be prudent of us to do a check. Who's got some, I've got plus eight. - Dungeoneering? - 10. - Yeah, there you go. - 15. - You don't see anything amiss in the room. You don't see where there'd be any traps. - All right. All right, let's have a closer look. So strolling about this room, you're gonna find a set of armbands, like bracers type of thing, which look to be for someone bulky. You're gonna see this small polished volcanic rock.

It's in the shape of a horse. Looks like a stallion rearing up. It's just this tiny little, it looks like it could be worn on a necklace, something like that. Just this tiny little figurine. You also see a chessboard that's already set up in the corner of the room, with two chairs on opposite sides, which is made of this gorgeous polished marble, with half the pieces being red and the other half being white. Walk throughout the room, you're gonna find a set of dice, two D10s to be specific, but there are only two symbols on the dice. It's divided half and half on each of the dice.

There's a raven's head on one and a raven's talon on the other. So you have a 50/50 chance of rolling either one. Now there's a brief, like a placard next to each item. So if you want any more information on each item, just let me know and I'll break it down for you. - Oh yeah. - Okay, so you want me to start from the beginning? - Yeah. - Yep. - Actually one question before we get started, the chess board, is there a game in progress or are they just lined up on board? - It's just set up for a game. - Okay. It's not an impending move? All right. - Nope. The Armbands of Power, that would be the first item.

Whoever wears these gets a plus two bonus to melee damage rolls. - Mm. - Aye. - The Obsidian Steed. This is a fun little item. This is a conjurable horse. This is like your battle cat to He-Man. This is something that you can wear this around your neck and it kind of bonds to a wearer. So until that wearer is dead or something horrible happens to it, that is their horse, ostensibly. So that is something that they can summon at a moment's notice and ride off. - Hmm. - The horse can even fight in battle with you. - Wow. - Yeah. - That's badass. - It's still a horse.

Like it's very, it's still subject to damage and yeah, it's not wearing armor or whatever, it's a horse. So the chess board has no explanation. It's just a chess board. The dice are really cool. So once a day, as long as you're not in combat, you can roll these, you can ask these dice, think of it as a magic eight ball. So you can ask these dice a question and roll the die and it will give you a breakdown, like ask it if, okay, we're thinking about doing this magic dice. Do you think that'll be beneficial to us in the long run or above and it'll tell you if it comes up with like two Raven heads, then yeah, go ahead.

It's gonna be, I mean, in the long run, it's gonna be great. You'll get a guess as to how that action's gonna turn out. If it comes up one in one, then it's like, I don't know, it's fuzzy. And if it comes up two towns, like you're plunging into certain death pretty much. - Wow. - Yeah, so it's a handy little thing. In the left-hand corner of the room is a piece of parchment paper rolled up like a map. And what it is is a rewritable map that charts a five mile area around you wherever you are. - Wow, is theory in GPS? - Basically, yes. It only shows you what's on the surface.

It doesn't show you the underground or whatever. It shows you whatever would be on a normal map on the surface. So it doesn't tell you crazy detail, but it'll tell you what, basically what Arthurian overworld map looks like. - Wow, that's neat. - Yeah. And the last item in the room, besides the gold dragon, of course, is this, what looks to be like a Viking horn, something like that. And what it is is, is a horn that you can sound. All creatures within one mile will hear this thing. And any one of the party that hears it knows exactly where the sound came from and what condition the person was in when they sounded it.

- Mm, that's valuable. - That's pretty interesting. - 'Cause that's valuable if we ever decide to, you know, beat stupid people and split the party again. - It happens. - Yeah. - Oh no, it's happened with us. - Yeah. (laughing) - It's like, you know, the horn goes off. It's like, "Rekus is three miles away getting a massage. Oh, he's fine." - It's actually just a Facebook status update. You just get it to your ears. - He's kind of drunk. Oh, happy ending. Okay, putting away the horn. (laughing) - And boom goes the dynamite. - So I'm kind of walking around in this room like supermarket sweeps, kind of looking at everything.

Can I do a history check on the chessboard? - You sure can. - 17. - 17. - You vaguely remember stories about a chessboard. Something about winning a game against the protector of the board, grant some boons, something you can't quite remember what, like any of the crystal details, but you remember something about it being important. - I'm gonna relay this to the party. - Now, do you wanna touch the board in any way or move towards it or? - I'm going straight for the gold dragon, basically. - Okay. - I'm gonna put my hand on it and then not quite pick it up.

I'm gonna turn around to Baranath and just say, you wanna ask the dragon if she has any attachment to any of these items before we loot Theramax Estate? - Yeah, I'll go talk to her. Amara, we found some items that could be really, really useful to us. And we'd like to take them. - You're touching her? - Yeah. - Okay. I have no connection to that man. You can have any of his possessions. - Okay. Is there anything in this room that you are protective of? - She's gonna glance around the room, no. - Okay. - Just kind of flatly, no. - Okay. You guys, she's okay with us taking what we want.

- Yeah, she's not interested in anything that's in here. - That's excellent. I'm gonna pick up the gold dragon. - All right. - So for the second time, you guys are in possession of this golden dragon statuette. Which means that legally, you not only own House Darkspane, but 33% of the trade control decisions in Brightport. - Oh boy. - When you say we. (laughing) - Well. - So. - I'm just being a shit, I'm just joking. (laughing) - I would expect nothing less. - Yeah. - That's our Galford. - You guys, someone who wants to roll a perception check for me? - I think that's Dagon's specialty.

- I have a 12. - Yeah. - 29. - 29. - You hear a set of footsteps coming down the hallway. (mumbling) And they sound not like they're rushed, but two things distinctly you're picking up is, one, it sounds like someone is, it's a very deliberate stride, which means they're not really phased by all of the bodies, that they must be walking past to get down the hallway. And two, it sounds like they're wearing dress shoes. - Oh. (laughing) Who wants to guess who that is? - Rikas is gonna turn towards the door and not like get in a full guard position, but he's definitely gonna have his hand on the grip of his hammer, just protectively.

- Galford. - Yes. - You've got the dragon. - I do. - You hold onto that and you keep that out of sight. Valus, now if you wanna take your sword out, now's a good time. - Finally. - And he just grabs, you can tell he's standing there the entire time, very uneasy about having no weapon, 'cause he's not hearing any of the conversation with the dragon. So if this thing were to attack, he's standing there with no sword out, like an idiot. Like that's how he's looking at it. So he's going to unsheathe his sword again. And it takes a while, this is a long hallway, so it's one of those echoey, there's no carpet in here.

You get the sense there's a lot of blood spills, so carpet would be a poor decision. It takes a while for these footsteps to get to a point where you think someone's rounding a corner. But finally, this older olive-skinned looking man is going to walk through the door. And he's not, you would think that a person's position would be a bit more shocked or scared maybe? Because for all intents and purposes to these guys, you are burglars who are breaking and entering. That he's just, it looks like he's mentally taking stock of how much damage has been done.

And he doesn't even walk into the room making eye contact, he's more walking, like surveying, like walking into the room, just like looking up at, like, oh, okay, all right. Just like you hear him just kind of make noises like that the entire time. And then he kind of pans around and sees you guys standing there and the dragon lose. Huh, is the gold dragon, okay, so the gold dragon's missing, obviously. - It's in my pack, I guess. - Right, but it's not on the pedestal anymore, right. - Yep. - Still missing, okay. Well, this is a mess. May I ask who you are?

- Um, I'll volunteer my name after he volunteers his. - So you're just gonna stand there and you're telling him that or you're just kind of, you're all just kind of standing there? - Um. - First of all, this guy is dressed in, like a decent suit. No armor, no nothing, the guy is kind of dressy. Doesn't look like he's here to fight. - I'll chat with him. Welcome to House Darkspane, friends. What brings you to these illustrious halls besides the mess that you pointed out? Would you tell us your reason for being here and we'll certainly share with you what ours is.

- I live here. I'm the steward of House Darkspane. I should be welcoming you. - I'm guessing you have the gold dragon. - That's an excellent guess. Who do you serve? - Do you know anything about the politics of Brightport? - I know a lot about the politics of Brightport. - Then you should know who the steward is. You wanna do a history roll? - Sure. Seven. - Seven? - Looks like I'm bluffing this one, guys. (all laughing) - Steward is the man that washes the windows. - You can-- - That's a door. - Dine shoes. (laughing) - Yeah, that didn't, you didn't, you didn't glean much from that.

You can barely spell steward. Yeah, so you're not getting much from that. You know that the steward is a position that each house has. That's all you know. You have no idea what they do, what they're, what, you have no idea. You do know that this guy's tied to House Darkspane. That's all you know. - I'm familiar with the title, but I have never been involved with the inner dealings of the houses directly. So as we get our introductions over with, why don't you tell us a little bit about your responsibility in the house? And I'm not gonna pull up the gold dragon yet.

- Well, you're about to get acquainted with the inner workings of a house, because looking around, I'm going to guess that Theramak is dead, and he's kind of pointing to Laura's corpse in the middle of the room, and the fact that the dragon's free, and the ashes. The ashes don't have anything to do with Theramak in his eyes. He doesn't, he, none of these guys would have seen Theramak's lich form other than you guys, that you guys would have been the first to see that, 'cause that takes some big mojo. On top of that, I can see that the gold statuette is missing.

I can only assume that you lot broke in here to take care of whatever personal vendetta you had against House Darksepane. To be quite honest, I don't blame you. - Can I roll an insight on that? - Sure. - 15. - 15. You are not picking up anything strange about that last comment. He seems on the level to you. Secondly, I'm the person who is responsible for cleaning up this kind of mess. Every house is afforded a steward. People normally get that confused with butler. What I am is a facilitator. I handle schedules. I make sure that everyone is afforded the opportunities that they need.

I acquire herbs and potions, specifically for this house. Silverclaw and Hammerhand would have their, would have their men do something completely different, I'm sure. For instance, the fire was put out on the front porch by the authorities and I had them turn away. I convinced them that it was a small snafu on our part and I assured them that there'd be no more commotion this evening. - Excellent. I don't think that there's a need for any more damage to this house. How long have you lived and worked with House Darksepane? I have been the steward here for about five years.

- You don't know what our agenda was, as you say, but may I ask you what your opinion of Theramak was? - Personally? - Yes. You're free to speak. Obviously, things have changed within these walls in the last couple of hours. - And he's kind of looking around like he's waiting for, like is this a test or is? - And you're sure that he's gone for good? - I'll point over at the pile of ashes and say, that pile of ash over there is all that remains of Theramak. We didn't come to this home specifically to have a confrontation with him, but we're relieved that he's no longer among the living.

- Oh, well then, I'm rather delighted, to be honest. I abhorred the man. - Then you and I have much to talk about and I'm gonna pull out the gold dragon. - I see. So, I take it you're the new owner of House Darksepane? - That was not our intention. We essentially came here to search for a cure for one of our comrades that was afflicted with a terrible virus curse by Theramak himself. And well, things escalated and we ended up in open battle with him and his assistants, I guess. He was abusing the dragon that has lived here in House Darksepane and my elf companion here sensed it was suffering.

We barely survived the battle. I honestly, I did not think we'd have a chance. Luckily, I had the wherewithal to free the dragon myself, knowing that that may give us an advantage. When the dragon was freed, it assisted us in defeating Theramak and now we're entering an unknown world. So, to answer your question, yes, I would say that for the time being, we're controlling House Darksepane. Unless any of my comrades have a different opinion, we seem to be moving down this path. - Yeah, I would agree with you. I'd like to just walk up to him and extend my hand.

I'm Braneth, what's your name? - David Crowley and he extends his hand back and shakes it. - David, nice to meet you. And this is the crew. Everyone wanna say hello? - What up, David? - Hi. - Dagon's just gonna look at him and say, did you have anything to do with my capture? - I did not. - I apologize for that. There's very little I can do beyond carry out the orders I'm given. I had nothing to do with the capture or keeping you here. And he kind of looks beyond you all and to the large white dragon in the room. That would also go for that. Did you say one of your comrades was infected?

- Yes. - Yes, she's deceased and will not rise. - Would this have something to do with the business of Onikal? - We were directly involved in the business of Onikal. - I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there is a cure. - Really? - If it's the same virus that was released in Onikal, there is a small amount of cure in the building. - Small amount, like? - Two or three vials worth. It can be reproduced though, is my understanding. I'm no herbalist, but I know of some people who can, they can reverse engineer what we have, I'm sure. - Wow. - Was anyone else infected?

- The entire city. - The city is awash with ghouls. We were lucky to escape with our life. What happened in Onikal was tragic and there are some pressing business matters to discuss right here in Brightport before we deal with the threats or the salvation of what's left of Onikal. Actually, our Sion friend here is new to the party. He was a prisoner of Dark Spain. I don't know if he's going to want to continue down this path with us. You're free, friend. Do you want to leave or would you like to stay and see how this plays out? And I'll kind of hold up the gold dragon and be like, eh, eh.

- This base of operations definitely could be useful to me. I'll stay for the time being while I try to answer the many questions I have. - Excellent. I'll walk up to David. My name is Galford Garderez, gnome warlock of Theria and I guess co-controller of House Dark Spain, interim, temporarily. Where do we go from here, David? - He's going to shake your hand. Well, that presents a problem. Several problems, actually, looking around. One, we have a trade meeting in just over a week and a half. (dramatic music) We are going to have to catch you up to speed on everything you'll need to know beforehand.

I'm not sure if you guys realize this, but you're playing a very dangerous game. Once the other houses realize what's happened, they're going to smell blood in the water. If they sense weakness from you in any way, shape or form, they will kill you. Technically, they would have someone kill you and it wouldn't be linked to them, but you understand what I'm saying. - I'll walk up to David. Obviously, we didn't formally get introduced and I'll just nod my head and say my name under my breath, but then just look at him and say, "So with that in mind, obviously we don't have a huge group with us here right now.

Is there anybody else in the house besides you and do you know what their stances are if they are still alive?" - That would lead me to problem number two. With the exception of myself and everyone in this room, it would appear as though the entirety of House Darksbane is dead. - Were there any members of Darksbane in the field that could return to Brightport or are we really that low? - Tonight was supposed to be a celebration of some sort. People were gathered. If you've noticed, we just served dinner not that long ago, actually. There are several servants and cleaners.

I assume they're going to be busy for a while. There was also a freelance set of carpenters working on the front porch, which they're going to have to start over. Other than that, you are the entirety of House Darksbane. - Mr. Crowley, we have a lot to talk about. You mentioned dinner and dinner sounds excellent right now after what our party's been through. And I think we can all talk freely amongst ourselves. Would you give me a moment to talk to my compatriots alone and maybe we can make a decision on how to go forward? 'Cause as you say, we may be a sitting duck for the rest of the houses.

We have an opportunity right now to put the gold dragon down in the middle of the room and maybe wash our hands of this and call our vengeance complete. Or we're going to be inserting ourselves into quite a larger world. - Of course. The banquet that was served seems to have a great deal of blood in it. Let me see if there's anything left in the kitchen. And he's going to excuse himself and just walk off. - All right. - Gaff is grinning ear to ear right now. He's... Okay, everyone just gather around, listen to me. I mean, this is completely insane. I've traveled with a lot of, I mean, a lot of other groups of adventurers over my days.

And I mean, this is certainly comes a long way from stopping bandits and helping old ladies across the street. And I've woven myself in and out of different scenarios of this world, but we have obviously, we've been pushed down this path. I mean, we did not know this was going to happen. And my elf friends here has sensed that there may be some type of destiny in the air, some type of fate, some, there are more things happening here that even I would dare admit. House Darksean potentially could be an important tool for us to, I mean, improve the world, Rheekus.

You've been wanting to do that for some time. And certainly removing Thermac is already an excellent start. We haven't even begun to discuss the looming threat of Onakol, either maybe a cure, but curing an entire city of ghouls that could wipe out all of the Eastern continent. And I mean, I'm aware of the problems on the West Coast with the armies of Warforged. And we just fought Warforged in this room that were non-sentient, but loyal to Thermac. And I'd really like to know what they were doing here. Things are a lot larger and deeper than we thought.

Would anyone like to discuss openly their thoughts or feelings on what we should do next? Okay, Onakol is a big problem. Like if even one of those ghouls gets out of there, like you said, it could wipe out half the continent, the entire continent in a matter of weeks. The guy just said there was a cure. There is, but I mean, like we need to... We've seen how quickly it's spread. It's not gonna help sitting here when Onakol is swarming with walking dead. You know, we have an opportunity to facilitate this. We could save that entire city. I mean, the last thing I wanna do is play politics in Brightport, but we're in a position where we could have a lot of influence and do a lot of good.

I mean, we're not gonna be able to do anything for Onakol before the two remaining houses either decide to wipe us out and war over the remaining gold dragon. I mean, we need some type of position of negotiation with the other two houses. What have we got? Money, we have money. We have money coming in. This is, we have a lot of money coming in. This is, we're controlling some of the economic, I guess, direction of the city now. I'm sure that David can tell us how the cash flows. During this transition period, we may be able to placate the other houses. I mean, I'm sure they've grown bloated with trade over the years too, while we restabilize Darksbane.

It's only a matter of time before their spies know that it's depleted, we are vulnerable. - Well, I mean, I think we need to let David catch us up on all of this so we can at least figure out exactly what we're dealing with and then we can talk about how we're gonna proceed. - I agree, my mind is buzzing. I don't know if there's walls of war forged behind Silverclaw and Hammerhand. I don't know how they felt about Thermac. I don't know how much money or influence or power we're dealing with, but I'm tired of thrashing in the river. We're hurtling towards something, but we need to start moving with the current instead of just bashing us against the rock.

Something is moving and I think we just need to accept it. And that comes with learning a bit more from our steward. Would you like to retire for some dinner? - Are we all in agreement that we're all gonna be a part of this? - Does anyone here hold any other alliances other than this group? Is there anyone else you know of that we could bring in? - I don't have any friends beyond the people in this room. - Valus, you have a contact in, well, a contact in Gradic and you've lived in Brightport longer than any of us have, obviously. I don't have anyone specifically that could assist us.

I've usually done pretty well on my own. I've known Riek is the longest out of this group and I know he wants to do good, but I've never seen him travel with anyone but me at the moment and then this group. Can you help us, Valus? - Firstly, my mother has a connection with Gradic. I would sooner not talk to him. And two, I haven't really made too many friends in Brightport. - Though, if we were desperate, I'm sure he can get us in contact with someone. - Do we really want to go with Gradic though? - I don't see any good coming. Like, do you mean because he's a contact, because he's basically works with all the houses?

- I just think that David Crowley is going to be an excellent facilitator, like he says for us during this transition period. I mean, hopefully not the transition period before we get assassinated, but at the same time, we all know that Gradic understands the underworld in Brightport and we may need some more raw information from him if we don't get it from David. I don't think we should completely retire that card. And I have a theory about why he's called the Wanted. I mean, it's not because he's wanted by the authorities, it's because he's valuable to literally all three of the houses here.

I mean, he's currently aligned with Silverclaw, but I think his, let's just say he's got his fingers in a lot of pies and we may need information from him. And we've seen that he likes money and we now have money. - And he also likes screwing us over. - You had me with making this our new home, with moving forward with us being the leaders of this house, but I'm not getting involved with Gradic again because the last time we got involved with him, I ended up in a place that I didn't wanna have to experience again. - Fair enough, Rikas. Why don't we have a dinner with David and we can assist some of the servants of our house here in maybe a little bit of the cleanup.

We can explore some of the texts in the library for our scion comrades and get some advice from the steward on what we should do next. My point about Gradic was that if we need more information, we may need to think outside the box. Not necessarily him, I'll leave it at that. - Okay. We got a whole room full of stuff here, you guys. - I'm gonna take the armbands. - That is true. All right, hold on one second. You guys gonna divvy this up, then let's write this down. So Rikas gets armbands. - And then what does that officially give me? - A plus two to your melee damage rolls.

- So if I do a melee basic attack, it would give me one D10 plus 10. - Any of your attacks that are right up against somebody, you're gonna get a plus two to the damage. - Oh, cool. - Yeah. - And you have to swing your arms and pose like a Power Ranger with them, like connect them together, you know, like straight edge kinda, you know. - While I do some, like I'm gonna put some rocking guitar riffs in the background. - Yeah. - Just the entire time. - Armbands, yeah. - And I'll stand in front of you and play like the dragon flute, like. (laughing) - Trixie.

- Yes. - How do you feel about horses? - How do I what? - How do you feel about horses? - I would totally be okay with having a horse. - Yeah. - We named the horse. - Yeah, so Trixie's getting a horse. - His name is Rex. - All right. - Rex, sorry. Rex, like not the dinosaur, but Rex from like Mass Effect Rex. - Whoa. - Sure. - Cool. - Freaking awesome. - Rex was the shoot. What about the map? - I wouldn't mind the map. - That's a group thing. - Yeah. - So awesome. That does seem like a Dagon thing. So Dagon gets map. - Thank you. - I would really like that horn. - Horn goes to Baranath.

- I got a question. - Yes. - Can Amara hear that horn? - If you're counting her as a member of your party. Yeah, you know what? We'll do that. Yeah. - Sweet. - She knows when we're horny. - That leaves the dice and the chessboard. - Did we, I'll look around to the group. Did we figure out if anything was attached to that chessboard or if it was just a regular chessboard? 'Cause I feel like we might want to check with David, but if it's just a regular chessboard, it's in pretty good condition. I think we might be able to sell it unless somebody wants to play chess.

- This is one of those things where it's totally packageable. Like the board folds up and it's nice wooden. Everything's real handcrafted about it. You can pack it up and take it with you. - Yeah. Galfer, do you want to run an Arcana check on that board? - Sure. - 24. - 24, big powerful mojo coming off this thing. This is... - Let's not sell the chessboard. - This is not just a common chessboard. This is something very, very powerful is tied to this. - Yeah. - We didn't figure that out. What was the information we got? - Well, we didn't get anything from the history check.

- It was something vague though. - Okay. - Like if you defeat the ruler of the board, you may get something cool. - Not may, what you remember is like something really good happens, but you can't quite recall. - Is there a way, and it sounds weird and might have been covered in the Arcana, but is the board possessed? Like say if we sat on one end of the board and started playing it, is there a spirit within the board that would start playing the other side? - You are on the right track. - 'Cause in my mind, I feel like that's where it was headed. It was either that or it was connected to the war forged in some manner, like they were the chess pieces.

- So what kind of check do you run like to make a move on a chessboard? Like a- - Ghost hunters check. - This would be, so I'll, if you were to play, this is a thing where you would, whoever decided to start the game would make one move per day. And it's a thing where you earn points based on how well your checks are. There's a whole little thing to it. It's not really complicated at all, but it's basically like you get to roll a check each day and the better you do, you get a little bump here and there. There's something tied to the board mystical. I don't want to give it away unless you guys want to approach it.

- Who wants to play around? - I don't know. - We could certainly offer it as a gift. - Well, let's talk to David about this. Like we don't need to jump into this right now. It's not going anywhere. - Yeah, I feel like he might know a little bit more information. I don't want to get our foot wet when there's a giant man eating piranha waiting there to chomp on our foot. With the weird analogy attached to that. - I was about to say that was an analogy, okay. - I'll hang onto the dice if nobody else wants to take the dice. - I would love the dice. - You have a big magical rod.

- I do. - That is true. You did get that rod. - I mean, the rod is random though. The dice would, I mean, if you have some sort of crazy idea, it'd be nice to know if it's a good one. - Well, any of you can use them really. Like any, I mean, any of you can ask the question. It's fine. Like it's a group thing. It's like the horn. - Okay, I'd like the dice if anybody doesn't want them. - I'm going to hang onto them. (laughing) - Technically that would give you both one or two and two. Okay, so you guys are going to adjourn upstairs to get a bite to eat, I guess?

- Yes. - So walking back through this hallway to get back upstairs, you guys have not toured any of the upstairs of this house it occurs to you. And to get back upstairs, you have to walk past piles of bodies that you have left in the way. The past, like in a room adjacent off the main hallway, you see the body of Doug and you see a bunch of, just a bunch of Dark Spade initiates scattered throughout. - Did we loot Doug? - Doug didn't carry a lot of cash on him. He wasn't very cash heavy. - Rekis will give Doug the finger as we walk by. - However, there is one body that is missing and that would be Talas.

- What? - Talas body is not where you left it at the entranceway here to the upstairs. So that could be a problem. - Did we not stab her in the head? - We killed her. - You guys definitely killed her. If I remember correctly, Rekis shattered her skull. (laughing) Remember? - Hulk smash. - So going upstairs, you realize you don't know your way around. And there's another man dressed fairly fancy, more like a butler than what David is wearing. And he sees you coming and kind of motions his hand out towards the left and he's going to take you to the kitchen area.

David is waiting inside and there's some plates set up. Not a huge spread, it's more just kind of what was left in warmers and things like that. It's kind of like, oh, there's some mashed potatoes and some of whatever wasn't eaten, some chicken, that kind of thing. But there are plates fixed for all of you. - You're more than welcome to whatever's here. If you'd like the people to cook you something fresh, it's well within your right. - I think I'm so ravenous, I'll just take the leftovers. What do you guys think? - This looks excellent after the food and on a call.

- Oh yeah. - I'll look over at David and just kind of give him a puzzled look and say, does House Darksean have any livestock around? - We don't really have much need for livestock beyond the animal testing they would do. There's a ranch that the city deals with. We can purchase something if you need. I imagine this is for the dragon. - Yeah. - I'll arrange for it to be fed immediately. - Okay, thank you. - And he motions for, someone's in the room and he just kind of like gives like a quick finger motion. They rocket out of the room. This guy's job, he is the central nervous system for this house.

- He's the Secretary of State. - Yeah, this guy, you request it, he makes sure it gets done, that's his job. - When the carpenters are done, their repairs to the front of the house, I'd like them to get to work on a door for Amara so that she can-- - And Amara is? - She's that white dragon in the basement. - Aha, I'm more than happy to get that done for you. A door that size is going to take some time, but there is the secondary problem of letting the dragon loose in the city. - I'm quite confident she's not gonna pose a problem to the city. I need her to get out so that she can feed herself.

She can't stay trapped in here. - That's going to be a tough sell to the authorities, but I'll make sure it gets done. - Thank you. - David, this is just my inner brain talking, but I have some weird feeling in my head. Where I come from, loyalty is a big thing. And to this day, I'm very loyal still to the people from where I grew up. But I have to ask, how are you so easy with the transition and us just basically busting down the front door and coming into your home? And with all the commotion that we caused, were you nearby? Did you hear all the commotion we were causing?

Or is it just procedure? You don't ask questions and you just wait for it to be told to you? - Well, for the most part, I don't get involved with the downstairs goings on unless I'm invited. Secondly, right about the time I heard roaring, I investigated, I smelled smoke, and I spoke to the authorities. I knew Thermak wouldn't want any interference. Beyond that, I had no love for that man. I am sworn to serve the people who hold the dragon, but beyond that, it's strictly honor bound. I hope you appear, I hope you are the people you appear to be. - That's fair.

- So, Galford's got a mouthful of food, but he's gonna turn over to David and say, "Well, we're certainly a little bit out of our element here. "We didn't think that this would be where we would be sitting "by the end of the day. "I honestly thought I would be in the pool of a blood mage "at the bottom of a dragon's belly, "but we're going to be relying on your advice "quite heavily in the next few hours. "One thing I'd like to ask is how long was Thermak "in control of this house?" - Since its inception. - Really? Do you know what was the attitude of the other houses towards Thermak?

- Let's just say no one was beating down the door to take the steward job here. - I see. Did you notice a change in Thermak's, I guess his direction or his agenda over the years of House Darksepane or has he always been who he was? - No, he's always had a lust for power. That's pretty much the main tenets of House Darksepane. Although he did keep a very detailed set of journals, I can look around to see if I can find them for you. - Oh, that would be interesting to read. - That would be fantastic. - Who were Thermak's allies? - Thermak had no allies that I know of outside of House Darksepane.

Again, I can fetch you his journals. I'm pretty sure that should be in his living quarters. - All right. - Has there ever been a power change within houses? And if there has been, how has it been received by the other houses? - Well, let's see. About three or four years ago, the leader of Hammerhand stepped down, but that was a bloodless transition. He just got old and wanted to retire. - Who was he? - Well, that was actually the house's namesake, Grufgar Hammerhand. - Wow. - And who was he? - Well, he was an older dwarf who decided that, are you familiar with the policy of shield hands?

- No. - They're basically hired guns, mercenaries. You can hire them for protection. In this city, you can imagine how quickly you can make a small fortune doing that. - Yeah. - They founded the house around that. - Okay. - They were one of the few people who would do it and were actually honor bound. You can hire them and not be double crossed as soon as you left the gates. - The three houses hold so much power and influence in Brightport. I mean, financially and otherwise. How much time do we have before they become aware of what's happened tonight? Is this going to, do we have time until the meeting or are there spies or others that are going to be delivering this information to them?

- Well, we could keep it a secret that Thermak is dead. Maybe up until the meeting, he rarely left the house. But the fact that there are no initiates to carry out simple tasks around the city is a big problem. If you're looking to keep this a secret, that is. - Well, I think we need to buy at least a small amount of time so we can learn best how we're going to approach our presence at the meeting and our-- - Sorry, back to Hammerhand. Who runs it now? - Actually, I'm not familiar with the current owner. Before the elf interrupted me, I was asking about, we needed to buy some time before the meeting.

And I think we may have that. We can learn as much as we can from you. I had one other question is, while we were engaged with Thermak, he unleashed, I mean, a grouping of non-sentient war-forged fighters on us. And I'm sure you're aware of some of the goings on in the western continent. I mean, I always chalked it up to some brush fire war that meant nothing for myself. But I was quite surprised to see these, I mean, soulless fighters attacking us here in Brightport. Do you know anything about that? - I take it that was the bits and pieces scattered about the room downstairs.

- Yes. - The scrap metal. - That could be a problem. I'll tell you what, I'll look into the owners of the houses and I'll get as much information on the war-forged as I can for you. In the meantime, how about I find those journals and you can get caught up to speed on what Thermak was doing. - All right. - Hey, David. - Yes. - Just two quick questions. They probably don't have quick answers. Our fallen comrade, we had, obviously we told you she deceased, but she was by the front door. Do you know what happened to her body? - No, I haven't seen anyone beyond the initiates and the bits and pieces of the war-forged.

- And then the second one was we discussed before we came in here, some of the issues we'll have regrowing the house. And one of them would be obviously getting the manpower. You had said that we basically unintentionally cleared out the entire house. House Darksean doesn't have any contacts outside of the house, nor do you know of any place where we could get manpower to at least help protect the house until we can get our affairs in order. - Well, that depends. Who would you like me to bring in? Are you planning on running the house business as usual or do you plan on making some infrastructure changes?

- Before anybody can answer, I look him straight in the eyes and said, "Things are gonna change." You tell me what kind of people you're looking for and I'll make sure the house is stocked with at least a few of them by tomorrow. - Thank you. - So he's going to kind of excuse himself and go look for those journals. Is there anything you guys wanna do besides kind of catch your breath and eat and do all that? - Well, we gotta explore the rest of this house. - Okay, you totally do that. - And I think we really gotta investigate where Tala's body is. - Okay, let's do this.

- It didn't just get up and walk away. - I'm afraid someone came and stole it. Or while the carpenters might've moved her and possibly put her in like a burn pile or something. - That'd be okay. - The second idea is the one I'm hoping. The first one is the one I'm afraid of. - So there were no carpenters here when you guys stormed the gates. 'Cause the main job of the carpenters they were brought in to fix the damage that you guys caused the first trip into House Darkspan. So these guys are just, you know. You guys got a real vendetta against this front porch and door.

So they were making, so like the first time you guys went through I was describing it like picture them just, it's very much unfinished. Like it's not painted or anything. It's just them basically rebuilding the front door and you guys threw a bomb at it. So yeah, that's a problem for them. I mean, what are they gonna do? Bitch at you? I mean, like you're paying them to do the job. So what do you guys want to investigate before? Tala's disappearance or the house itself? - I think we need to figure out where Tala is you guys. - Yeah, that's gonna be a big thing.

- Well, someone do me a favor and roll a perception check on the area where she was. - I got a 12. - Okay, go ahead. - Dagon's a bad ass. - 28. - 28. - She's right behind you. (all laughing) - You found her. - She's in the stew. - She tastes delicious as a minor action. (all laughing) There is a definite, there was a pool of blood where you had left her and that's still there. And there is this big wet streak where something came and drug her away. And it gets to a point like she was drug upstairs. So someone went through a considerable amount of effort. And then at a certain point, once it looks like about halfway up the stairs, the blood just stops.

The trail just goes cold. And there are like little rivlets of blood beyond that. But what it looks to you is that someone got tired of dragging her upstairs and they picked her up and carried her the rest of the way or many people. - All right, shall we continue upstairs? - Yes, let's do it. - Follow this trail, okay. - I'm relieved that she didn't walk out of here of her own accord. - This blood by the way, is not a fresh looking. This is not like a healthy looking red blood. This is like black kind of Taurish, like congealed nastiness. - Well, she wasn't dead.

- Right, I mean, yeah. Not a very clean bill of health. So the rivlets kind of continue, but lesser so right up until about the front door. And then the trail just kind of goes cold. - So it's leading towards outside the house? - Yes. - Is there anyone around? - You get the distinct impression, like just based on what David is telling you that there was a large commotion, because picture this as there's no fire department to speak of. So we're talking many buckets and lots of people throwing water at the house. Like that kind of thing, which I mean, this is the entire job of the steward is to facilitate.

And one of those things is to, they're PR men. They're to keep the authorities out of the house, to keep like, it's an incredibly secretive operation that you're running and it has to be by nature because everyone in town is gunning for what you have. So it's an incredibly, it's this weird line you guys walk where you're kind of, you're the mafia kind of, you're legitimate businessmen, but not. - Okay, I'm just, I'm wondering if there's anyone around who - We could ask if they saw. If you're asking anybody, the only people that are around inside the house are the staff, but the streets are fairly clear.

Like the occasional like walker by something like that. But yeah, it's the streets are actually pretty clear. - You gotta be careful who you ask, you know, is anybody carrying a dead corpse? - Do you happen to see like a really dead corpse? - Friend walking around. - I'll look at the group and just kind of look off into the distance and say that I don't feel like it's probably a good idea for us to try to venture out of the house quite yet until we at least get things squared away inside, even though I know we need to find out where Talus body went. - Yeah, I'm relieved that she didn't get up and walk out of her own power.

And she's currently eating the citizens of our fair city. - I'm not relieved at the fact that the possibility that somebody might've come and stole her body. - I mean, her armor may have been some value. I mean, the good citizens that were helping to put out the fire may have snuck into the house in the hopes of looting something and all they found was, well, what Tala was wearing. - Yeah, but why would they take her along with it? - Why would they take the body even though that might be quicker in retrospect? Why would it? Yeah. - Yeah, she's not an ideal mannequin.

- That's a good point. You know, when I've taken items off of corpses before I usually leave the corpse. - I'm gonna do just do a perception check on the area, kind of the yard, just see if I see anything like a direction or whatever. - After you say that the whole, when I take things off, Valus is just gonna look down at you in disgust. He clearly doesn't like you and doesn't care if you know it. - Easy, big guy. - That's a perception roll you said? - Yeah, 23. - And what are you looking for? - Just the yard, like the, you know, like the, if there's any, you know, brush or if there's any, you know, roads that go off in certain directions, paths, just to see if I notice anything about the surrounding area outside in the yard.

- Some of the staff is already digging holes near the graveyard. This may be why House Darkspane has a built-in graveyard right outside their front gates. Like it's, I mean, it's in their yard. Like that's, they have a cemetery in their yard. That's pretty damn imposing. That's the, everything, okay. One of the big things about this house is everything about it is very Addams Family. Like it's all set up to be creep factor. It's all to add to the mystery, to intimidate everything about it. - I imagine it looking like a giant, souped up haunted house. - Kind of, yes, with this huge, weird, you know, umbrella company underground bunker thing that you guys, you know, like the, it's very old Victorian house.

That's what you guys are in, like this big old spooky mansion. And then beneath that is your, you know, the dungeon basically. The yard there's, there are staff members digging holes for all those corpses that you guys created, but you don't see where, like, there are a couple of drag marks already where the, like the people at the front gate you guys dealt with, you kind of, that those bodies were drug away. And like, you could tell, like it's, Dark Spains got kind of a crappy yard in turn, like it's kind of crab grass, intermittent with dirt. So no lush green yard.

So it's just, you could see like these dirt trails where like someone's just being drug in their arms or just like ragdolling behind them. And it's just very, it's like, oh, you could follow that trail real easy. And it leads to the cemetery. So yeah, there's a few of those drag marks. - Okay, we don't see. - Should we ask the staff if somebody buried her? Like do you wanna go start? - I think that might be the best bet. - Like, let's go check some grave markers and talk to some people. - Okay, when I say cemetery, I don't mean, like these are mass graves.

- It's just, they're not really truly marked. - Like some of them are, like some of the, like this clearly started out, like if it's a member of the house that dies that has some stature, yes, they get a single grave. Some of these are just big holes where they're just rolling corpses in. And these guys are operating on the notion that you guys are keeping it business as usual. So they're just doing it the way they would have done it whenever. So if you wanna stop them or change protocol or whatever, that's completely up to you. What you, you guys control all your survey.

You can get these guys to do pretty much anything. - All right, well. - Let's go talk to them. - Yeah. - So it's a couple of guys digging right now, and they appear to be working on their second, like real big hole. And glancing next to them is a hole with three bodies in it so far. And these guys are all wearing the dark Spain, like purple black robes. The same thing all the initiates were wearing, the big Assassin's Creed hood type of thing, like the whole ominous secret society cultish looking stuff. And these guys notice you walk up and they stop digging and just kind of look at you.

What do you want? - I still have the gold dragon in my possession. Is that right? - Yes. - Okay. So I'll- - Don't pull it out. - Well, I mean, they need to know who runs the house. I mean, or has- - Or they need to know who to steal it from. Don't pull that out. - Or has also, Alfred, we're outside right now. - Has David informed them that we're in control of the house? I'm assuming he has. - It's still pretty early. Like it's like, he's getting around to everybody. It's that there hasn't been a big staff meeting thing yet. - Okay. - Go ahead and tell them that they're under new management.

You keep that shit concealed. Like- - Rikus will step forward and look at the guys and say, there's gonna be some changes around here. There's no need mean to be alarmed. You'll get the information when we are able to get everything cleared up, but we're right now just looking and trying to clear up some mishaps for us. There was a body in the front door of one of our fallen comrades. I know this is a lot, just if you can take this one step at a time. There was a body at the front door, one of our fallen comrades. We were wondering if you guys happen to have moved the body and plan to bury it.

- What would they look like? - She was a razor claw. - It was a female. - No. No one like that yet. We haven't got downstairs though. I heard there's a big mess downstairs. - Do you, how long have you guys been out here working? - About 15, 20 minutes so far. - Has there been anybody else out here with you or has it just been you two guys working? - Nope, just us. We're on hold duty. - All right. - Can I roll inside on that? - You guys got any water? - Sure, sure and sure. (laughing) - Yeah, 13. - 13, that seems on the level to you. - Okay. - I'll ask if these guys need any water.

- And they're looking at you like, what is that, is that a trick? - Look, this is a lot to take care of. It's a lot to take in for not just you guys. Obviously it's a little difficult for you guys to comprehend, but it's pretty difficult for us to comprehend. But just know that some of the hostility and the negativity that you experienced at this house will hopefully end up coming to an end. So if you guys, do you need any water? Do you need, we can see if we can get some resources to eat for you. - Okay. - We can get you right now. - This guy, the entire time you're talking, this guy's eyes are glazing over.

You get the impression that hole digging may be the only thing this guy is cut out for, intelligence wise. This may be the task he's best suited for. So you're rattling off big words and he's just, I'm thirsty. - I'll turn to the group and go, is there any chance we could get someone to get them some water so they are still able to do this job? - Hey, you volunteered to play waiter. - I'll run inside and grab a bucket of water. - There you go, a bucket of water, not a glass. - They drink out of buckets. - They drink out of buckets. - Well see, he probably doesn't care.

- I don't know. - Leave me alone. I'm trying to be a nice guy. - It's water, it's fine, yes. Where would you guys like to go? What would you like to do? - I guess we can explore the upstairs. - Sure, oh yeah, you can totally do that. The, someone roll a perception check for me. - My turn, 22. - 22, so this place is decorated. Again, very Addams family, very just creepy, big, big pictures. There's a couple of them up there Mac, like oil painting type things. Dude is just, he was not, if this was a digital age, he would not be very photogenic, like not that guy.

Like a big hook nose, kind of a shitty, just he looked miserable all the time. Just not a smiler, that there Mac. So there's a couple of him sitting down, like scattered throughout the house, like different poses and things. And then there are some oil paintings of different, like demonic looking shadowy figures, or just general, it looks like someone in the throes of using some sort of a spell or incantations, something like that. Just displays of power, I guess, would be the easiest way to describe them. And then you're gonna shuffle past a room where David is digging through a bookshelf.

If you wanna keep going, let me know, or interrupt him doing what he's doing. - He's looking for journals for us. I think we might as well keep looking. - I picture us like having a new picture on the walls of all of us wearing Christmas sweaters. We're all like, at the Sears portrait studio, like we take down the thermac one and then we hang this one together. - There's like a baby Dalmatian in the background somewhere. - Yeah. - They call that copies, not babies, I'm an idiot. - And then like the dragon's in the background, but you just, all you can see is like leg.

It just cuts off the rest of the dragon. (laughing) - This is a big house. Like this is a pretty massive house, especially for being in the middle of such a large city. Like space is kind of at a premium and you guys have some gaudy new digs. After a few minutes of just looking around, David's gonna kind of shout out to you guys. I think I found all of them. And he brings out this stack of leather bound journals and he's going to hold them out to you. - All right, are we in like a- - I'll take as many as I can carry. - Are we like in the study or? - This is just the upstairs hallway.

Like there is a study if you guys would like to kind of plow through these and take a look at them. - Yeah, maybe we should, yeah. - Okay. David's gonna leave you to it. I should really get back to the staff. There's a few of them that don't know about the changeover. Is there anything else I can get you in the meantime? - Where will our quarters be? Is there a barracks or a room or where will we be staying for the evening? - Well, anywhere you want, really. Everyone's dead. Their max room's the largest. I don't know if any of you would like to sleep in his bed.

We can change all the sheets if you like. - That would be a good start. - Yeah. - I'll alert the staff. And he kind of shovels off. So you're cracking open these journals, right? - Yeah. - This is a wealth of knowledge. There's a hell of a lot of insight you're getting from this. So first of all, these date back years. Like this guy kept an immaculate set of journals. Like he would write in them every day. So if you guys wanna be thorough and read it all, like flip through and find specific stuff, it's gonna take a while. But you let me know how thorough you wanna be and how far you wanna go back and I'll tell you what you found out through doing that.

I'd like to read-- - I think we need to be as thorough as possible. I think we need to read everything. - Yeah, I would agree with that. - So just all of you are taking one basically and kind of like thumbing through and seeing what you can find out. - Yep. - Okay. So hours go by and you guys are thumbing through these journals. So I mean, you have years of information to go through. But the highlights of what you're picking up are that within the last 15 years or so, this is a while back, it appeared that Theremac kind of saw the writing on the wall for Brightport in that with the three houses constantly going against each other in this Mexican standoff, no one's gonna win.

So Theremac's idea was to reach out to another city and he kind of found an ally in Zan and Carter in Overdale at the time. And those two ended up really hitting it off. They're kind of like-minded in their kind of quest for power. So they struck up a deal and Carter was looking for an army to help bolster his regular human forces. And Theremac was looking for an eventual ally when he decided to make his move in Brightport because what he wanted to do was claim Brightport and then eventually claim Uminero. Uminero is a floating, it's basically where any mage goes to train who wants to hone their skills.

This is basically a college city for mages. And the reason they're floating is because they've basically seceded from Theria. They want nothing to do. They don't have any, I mean, it's a city full of mages. So they have defenses in that they have people that can cast spells, but they have no army to speak of. They are just a floating city away from all of the nonsense that goes on below. Theremac originally came from Uminero, but was exiled. They found out he was into blood magic and he wasn't there to learn for the sake of learning. He was there to learn for power.

That's the only reason he's there. And he was eventually exiled because of that. His, he wanted to go back and actually claim the city eventually. And the guys got very lofty, well, he had very lofty goals and ambitions. The deal he struck with Carter was he would help him create a war forged army in exchange for Carter backing his play in Brightport after he was done in the east or the west. That didn't work out so well, being as how you guys kind of put a stop to that. In the journals, you can see where they've had a correspondence with each other as recently as last month.

So these guys were still in touch. Beyond that, you can see what his relationship was with the other two houses. It was very standoffish. He wouldn't give an inch on any trade agreements, anything like that. Whereas Hammerhand basically offers protection and they kind of have the bulk of weapons and armor trades and Silverclaw would have, well, they have assassination contracts or if something needs stealing from someone somewhere, they can kind of offer their services that way. Darksbane was very much herbs, potions, magic, text, things like that. So anything arcane, they had their fingers in those pies.

Very, very standoffish with the other houses. Through this, you found out that the leaders of the other house are Ulanda the Blade, which is a drow woman that runs House Silverclaw, and Norhorn Hammerhand, which would be the son of the guy who previously ran House Hammerhand. Is there anything else that you guys would like to try and glean from these? Is there anything specifically you're looking for now? - Were the other houses aware of his relationship with Carter or was this totally secretive? Like he wasn't suspicious that, you know, he didn't have to force his move.

Like let's say Silverclaw and Hammerhand found out about some of his shit. So the reason why he was ascending to the Blood Mage and doing all this now is 'cause he was rushing, 'cause they found out about him? Or is this, he's still sticking to the plan? - This was very much on the hush-hush. This was very, like he was not ready to make a play that big yet, but Carter's entire plan, and he's in the process of doing that, is to fan his troops both north and then east. Carter has plans on taking over Theria as a whole, like the entire man land. Like he wants the whole thing.

He wants to be king. Like not just king of the Overwatch, he wants to be the king, that's it. And that's, Carter has no contact with any city, basically, other than the Overwatch. He'll speak through like Hands of the King, something like that. They'll drop off messages or something, but like he doesn't really leave the city that often. But these two wrote letters back and forth, like really secret courier type stuff. None of the other houses knew about it, but the Warforged army could have only been done, like this is a big, huge collaborative effort, because Warforged, there have only been two batches of Warforged created ever.

And that was when Uminero was part of Theria, when they were on the ground, they were just a city on the ground. They originally created Warforged to protect the city. That didn't turn out so well, because they kind of used them for sport, like the old leadership of Uminero kind of used them for sport. And like this would have been the batch that Ironhide came from. - Right. - And then the secondary patch was the ones that have no free will. These are the ones that are straight from the Overwatch. That could have only been done by a couple of people, and Theramak was right at the top of that list, though no one can prove it.

It's one of those deals. So the other houses suspected him of having something to do with that, but it was nothing that affected Brightport, so they kind of crossed him off the list. You know, if it was something that would have benefited him right there, then that would have, it's like, oh wow, you're a major suspect, but it's on the other side of the continent, so. (somber music) He definitely took out Onakol. After your break-in, there's journal entries after your break-in, where it appears as though he's going partially insane. He is so livid at the fact that you guys could not only walk in off the street and cause that much damage, that his own initiates couldn't protect the place.

Like, it called everything into question. You guys weren't intimidated by the big, spooky house or the fact that it was dark magic, necromancy, warlocks, blood magic, none of that. You guys walked in and you caused a lot of trouble for him. The dragon getting loose was a big PR thing that he had to deal with 'cause the dragon smashed half of, well, they called it the dregs, which is the lower half of the city. A lot of poor housing and shitty little shops and a crappy bar, something like that, but that's the only reason there wasn't a bigger fallout was it didn't get loose in the upper port, the upper tiers of the city where the richer people live.

That's the only reason. He wanted to make you suffer on a level that it would be incomparable. And he had no ties to Onakol anyway, so he found out where you were sent and went there with the sole purpose of sending probably the largest message anyone has ever sent. Afterwards, he was gonna let it leak that it was him and that no one should ever fuck with the house again, that kind of thing. - Now, taking out Onakol wasn't a specific calculated like political move or war move kind of thing. It was more to do with that he was starting to lose it. House Darksean's getting kind of top heavy and he wanted to send the message to us and as a by-product intimidate the rest of the east.

But it wasn't like he was colluding with Carter to be like, okay, well you fucking take out Onakol and you can have Onakol and then eventually you can have human euro and we'll split it down the middle until eventually they fight each other, I think. - Yeah, that was not something they plan out together. Carter had no knowledge of that. That was him completely acting on his own, just maybe overreaching. - Okay, so what we originally suspected was it was huge overkill and he was starting to go a little bonkers. - Maybe, yeah. - Okay. - Okay, and then the assumption that Darksean was getting pretty top heavy was one of the reasons why we could walk in there and do what we were doing 'cause his initiates weren't getting the things that they needed to really support the house 'cause he was grabbing all the power for himself.

- That's a major problem. Reading through these journals you get the impression of a guy whose quest for power was, there was no secondary objective. It was I'm gonna learn everything I can learn and get as powerful as I can get and he had no plans to share that with anyone else. Problem is that left no one else who can help him when things started turning south. - Okay, if there had been some members of House Darksean alive, that would have been an interesting leveraging piece that, if he had shared some of his books and his knowledge, it would have helped Darksean have a stronger base, but I mean, there's nobody left alive for us to kind of leverage that against and say, "Oh, help us out and we'll let you read more shit "in the library," kind of thing.

- Right, right. - Yeah. - That's a shame. They would have told it helped us. We killed everybody. - That's the drawback to killing everybody. - You know what's funny? The light bulb just burnt out in the room I'm in, so now I'm in complete darkness. It was kind of, it was very dark, fainty, it was awesome. - What about anything within the house? I mean, we found a secret passage to his quarters, like his kinda... - This place is riddled with secret passage. Again, very Addams Family, very... Everything's very cloak and dagger in here. You found his treasure room, that's the big thing.

Like, he had a collection, he's talking about artifacts that he's collected from years. People would go out on jobs or missions or something, or people would pay tribute and it's like, "Oh, I know..." His idea was just to artifact and catalog all this stuff and keep it aside. That's kind of what he saw Dagon as. This, so... You know how rare a Sion is in Theria? And one, first of all, an Aladrin Sion is, wow, 'cause that's a double whammy. One, there are no Aladrin left that anyone knows of. No one's seen Aladrin in years and years and years and years, decades.

And then to find one that's a Sion is like, oh wow. - Trophy. - And then, right, exactly. The idea was just to find out if there was a way to take advantage of your power, and if not, just keep you prisoner, like until such time that you can be of use. - Now, is this stuff we got from the journal? Or is this... - Yes. - Okay. Yeah, this is all entries in the journals and stuff. - All right. - And this is something, I mean, you own these now. I mean, he's not coming back for 'em. So if there's something specific that you wanna research, it could take time, but you could probably find it.

You're looking at probably over two decades worth of journal entries, daily journal entries. This is a lot. - Why does he have Amara here? - Amara was exactly what you thought she was the first time. She is a big, like a guard dog, like an incredibly oppressive guard dog. The problem was the moment she escaped, she became kind of a liability. But Theramax saw her as, at the very least, a source of power. Because Dragon's Blood in Blood Mage spells is some really good shit, as you guys found out. Like he can pull off some total body transformation stuff.

- Yeah. Okay. Oh gosh, I need a drink. - I mean, this is like pants-shittingly unbelievable revelations we've found out. This is big stuff. - Okay. Are we gonna converse a little bit? Dagon, do you need to know more in the text? - Dagon's just sort of frantically flipping through pages, looking for more answers and just furious to find out that he's a trophy, a plaything for Theramax. So you can probably just see him stewing in his own anger. - Okay. - I'm gonna kind of push back from one of the, sort of the desk and kind of close one of the books just in disbelief and I'm kind of pulling on my hair, my sweet faux hoc.

And just like, do you guys have any idea what we've discovered, the leverage that we have that, I mean, the amount of, this is unbelievable. I mean, we're gonna be meeting with the remaining houses at Brightport and we needed some type of leverage. We certainly have it. I mean, what he was involved in affects the entire world. - It's gonna be very interesting to, you know, to see, like discover what this means for Carter. - We have so much power. I mean, we have so much influence right now. It's, this is, we're gonna have to position ourselves in a really specific way when we talk to the other houses because-- - We have to be really careful.

- Yeah, we have to create ourselves to be very valuable. - The things we do next are gonna affect the entire Eastern side of the continent. This is incredible. - David is going to pop back into the room. - Hey David. - Hello. I trust you're finding everything that you need? - Yes, thank you. - I hate to bother you with this on the first day. We've run into a bit of a situation. - A shipment of herbs coming back from Whitehead. I don't know if you're familiar with the town. Valis is gonna kind of perk his eyes up. Like he's gonna look up from the desk. I don't know how to tell you this, but the entire shipment was destroyed or stolen.

I'm not entirely sure what. I know the caravan was attacked and I don't believe there are any survivors. - Oh. - Now that as an isolated incident isn't so much a problem. I will tell you the things we get from Whitehead are quite valuable within the city. And if this is something that's going to reoccur, that could be trouble for us. I would send some initiates, but well, you murdered them all. No offense. - Yeah. - Is there any sort of evidence from what has actually gotten back to the house? Is there any sort of clues or is there anything that's remaining that points to a sign of what could have happened?

- The only information we've been able to gather so far is that the people in the wagon were torn to shreds. - Not your typical everyday folks say. - Yes, this doesn't appear to be the work of bandits. - Are these caravans typically escorted by members of House Stark's vein or are they typically done alone with the understanding that nobody's really gonna bother them? - Well, normally we would send a pack of initiates out for such precious cargo, but it was decided that these particular shipments would be better guarded if they hid in plain sight, a very low profile type of delivery.

Unfortunately, that didn't work out. - Has word of this attack and that the contents were belonging to Darkspane, has that gotten out into the city? Do you think people know about this? - I'm the first to hear about it, I'm sure. No one knew about this shipment beyond me and a select few, most of which are dead now, by the way. - Did you mention, I'm sorry, did you had you mentioned what was actually on the shipment? - Well, there are herbs that we get from White Hedge that we can't get from anywhere else in the world and that's kind of our business, to be honest.

I can brief you on the whole thing later, if you like. - Okay. - That would be appreciated. - It probably warrants some investigation at some point. - That does, it warrants investigation, but I'm just worried that if we leave, we need to make sure that our valuables are kept safe here. So we're kind of stuck, we're trapped between a rock and a hard place right now and I don't feel comfortable splitting us up to go handle this now, so. - With the revelations we just found in Theramax personal files, I think a missing shipment of herbs is probably the least of our worries, let alone the entire eastern side of the continent.

We may want to expedite our meeting with the other houses because concealing Theramax death any longer is gonna be difficult and there are no other initiates of darkspane in the city to even maintain the illusion that it's business as usual. Plus two, I think people in power probably need to know what was happening here and how we found ourselves a part of it. - I'll look over at Galford and say, while I agree with you that obviously the revelations that we found through reading these journal entries are very important, I would also find that while this is a big deal, we are also now officially in charge of a house and at some point we will have to address this and while comparatively towards the idea of these revelations being a huge deal, we also have to realize that small things are gonna start being a big deal for us too now that we're managing a house.

- And how's it gonna look to the other houses if we can't handle our own supply chain? - However, the other houses don't know that that particular shipment belonged to darkspane. - They don't know yet. - They don't know yet. But I'm also looking at the fact that if we're making this a permanent residence and we're eventually gonna get people to come live here, we're gonna get recruits, we're gonna start building up this house as a prominent house at Brightport, we're gonna have to start taking care of these little things too. So I'll look over at David and I'll say, you had mentioned earlier about the idea when I mentioned to you that we need more people around the house.

Do you have, is there contacts you might have of maybe a group of individuals that might be able to come protect the house or maybe we could meet with and possibly talk to them about handling some of our smaller business until we're able to officially handle the smaller business? - I have my people looking into it right now. Again, by tomorrow I can start funneling people in and training them. I'm still not entirely sure what you're looking for, just able bodied men and women or is there a specific race? - I'll kinda bite my lip a little bit and go, there's, I'm a mole ruined priest and I know it might be a little outside of the realm, but if you would be able to find some people like me, I know they would listen to me, but I know that they would definitely be able to handle the tasks that we give them.

It's definitely a hard task and obviously you-- - Not that it's hard, it just takes money. I know of a slave ring inside of Durn Hollow, but that's going to take time to transport them. - David, what's our financial situation like? - Yeah, that would be something to ask too. - Well, it took some doing to bribe the guards. What you did did rouse quite a bit of suspicion. I could go over all of your finances where we're not short on cash, if that's what you mean. - Yes, I do agree with Riekis' suggestion that bringing in or purchasing slaves may help with the manpower disadvantage.

I mean, at least to give us some time to potentially investigate the loss of the shipment or at least to prop us up until we can have a meeting with the other houses. It's gonna be so difficult to keep the new management secret for the rest of Brightport for very much longer. - You know, if we let it leak that we're letting the dragon roam around the bottom of the house, that could buy you a lot of time. - How so? - Well, it did a good job of keeping out any unwanted ne'er-do-wells for quite some time. It's after we chained it up that we had more interest.

If we let it leak that we have let it loose again, then again, it could buy you some time. It should only take me a week, maybe less, to get to funnel in slaves from Durnholm. - Does anyone have any objections? It seems brilliant. I mean, I can speak from personal experience that fear of a dragon is a pretty good deterrent. - Yeah, I can imagine that, you know, we're not really gonna wanna mess with us if we know that we've let the, you know, such a powerful creature off her leash. - May I make a suggestion? If my understanding is that you're looking to change the entire structure of this house.

- That's correct. - Perhaps a name change is in order. - That's a good suggestion. - If you're sending a message to the city that you're a new house, founded on a new structure and new beliefs, then you might want to scrap the old name. You can take some time and think about this. It's just a suggestion. - I could suggest a name for, you know, our new friend downstairs. - I know of some gnome words that have a catchy ring to them, but let's hear what the elf has to say. - How do you feel about renaming it house dragon keep? - I like it. When are we gonna let the city know about a name change?

- Well, if you planned on telling the other houses that there are max dead, I would start with them. - I think when we have our meeting between our three houses, I think that would be a good time. - Excellent. If we're able to succeed a little bit of, I mean, a little bit of leverage with the other houses where they're at least willing to listen to the, I don't know, the nature of the transition and these revelations about Carter and there Mac, that that might be a good time to, they may be more open to a name change than a philosophy change as opposed to just wanting to squash us as some type of interim placeholders.

I like house dragon keep. I mean, house dragon murder, house dragon rend. - I think house dragon keep is a very good name. - David's just kind of looking, I think that sends the wrong message. - When Riek has had his guts hanging out at the hands of the dragon, it seemed appropriate, but yeah, that's maybe harder to swallow. - We gotta make sure that we do well calculated and smooth transitions. Otherwise we are gonna get screwed over more or less by the other houses if they smell blood. - I think we're wise to put ourselves in a position where we come across as powerful and peaceful.

I want the other houses to look at this transition and this new management as an advantage to all of us. - Exactly, we have a strong negotiation point too. - Exactly. - Looking at all the things that have happened to us and the revelations about there Mac. And from what we've heard, no one really had any, there will be no love loss for there Mac's death. If anything, negotiating this new world and continuing the stream of money without a lot of rocking the economic situation, we may be able to accomplish a lot of things. Again, I can't even believe that we're in this position.

I can't even believe that we're alive sometimes. So this is fantastic. - Getting back to the issue of our incoming shipment being sabotaged, I don't think it's unreasonable that we take a little bit of time to investigate this. White hedge isn't that far away. - I just feel like I don't want us to end up leaving the house and coming back and having to deal with the almost worse situation than when we got here. - Well, hopefully the kind of the weapon of mass destruction we would have roaming around in the basement and the knowledge that it's once again free and security has increased would help to deter any moves against the house.

David, can we assure that, I mean, our new and very brief leadership will remain intact if we venture off the property? - I assure you I'll do everything in my power to make sure things are as secure as possible in your absence. I will send word right away and have some of the staff pick up some slaves from Durin Hollow and time willing, we can have someone guarding the upstairs. In the meantime, I can hire some local bar patrons if you like, someone who's hard up for some cash. - Can I roll insight on his whole statement? - Sure. - Okay, 25. - He seems like he wants to help.

- Okay, cool. - When he keeps saying slaves from Durin Hollow, Regis is gonna kind of, he's gonna kind of grit his teeth a little bit and kind of look away a little bit, almost, I don't know, a mixture of embarrassed and kind of ashamed. - So the guy's incredibly attentive and he's going to, he's gonna pick up on that. If there's another direction you'd like me to go, please, I'm all ears, I'm here to help. No, no, no, the slaves I think will be fine for now. That's an excellent start. And I'll kind of look over at Regis like, you know, moving my hand forward, like, you know, later, later.

- Regis will take a deep sigh and then just say, I support the decision obviously because I brought it up, but if we can do one favor and not mention them as slaves, that would be something I would really appreciate. - I mean, we can afford to pay them. - No, it's, let me explain. - Well, slaves are like, you pay for them. If you're talking about setting them free-- - I'm talking about the term slaves. - Like, right. - I'm talking about taking them out of the position where they are no longer slaves, where we can buy them out of slavery, liberate them and offer them hired positions here.

- That's an entirely new concept that would be very hard for the, I think the city of Brightport to handle right now and the surrounding areas that the new owners of House Darkspane are changing the name and freeing slaves. Maybe we should take this one step at a time and purchase these slaves, treat them with the utmost dignity and respect, welcome their assistance with the intention of liberating them later. - Regis will look over at Galford as he finishes his sentence and say, "I promised myself that we would be doing change here. And unless you plan on killing me right now, we're gonna make sure these people that we hire are free." - Oh, Regis, I know you wanna be the savior, but there's a way that the world works and we can change things.

We certainly have the ammunition to and Galford's gonna kind of slap his hand down on one of the big books. But if we do too much at once, we're inviting disaster. So why don't we take the advice of David and let him start putting things into place and we can decide if some of us or all of us are going to deal with the problem in Whiteheadge and let's prepare for our meeting with the other houses. - And you're saying all this out loud, right? Valis is gonna chime in, "I can go investigate Whiteheadge. I was going there anyway." - Great, that's an excellent idea.

Valis can go. I mean, we have a lot of things to do here and Valis is, she's familiar with the area. I think Valis should go. - Okay, that's fine. Can we put this away for the night? I'm exhausted of all of this reading about Thermac. - So you just wanna find a room and plunk down and go to bed? - I wanna, well, is anyone interested in having a discussion with our new friend Dagon here? - I think if we all got some sleep, we might be able to better discuss things with him. I mean, we've all been through a lot today. - Our Aladrin friend seems pretty focused on consuming information from these books.

Why don't we retire for the evening and leave him to his research? Is that fair, Dagon? - Dagon's just gonna exit the room and head for the library. - And we have our answer. - Okay. - I don't mean to cape-swish, walk away, but just after the discussion of the people that we're gonna go get from Durnhollow, Rheekus is also gonna kind of find a private area to sit down and just relax. - I call top bunk. - So there's tons of bedrooms up here. There's, I mean, there's an initiate's quarters, but some of the higher ups, some of the people who had rungs below Thermac, Thermac obviously had the master bedroom, this big plush, like I imagine lots of purple and red and stuff like that.

And there are other like decently sized rooms. And then there's like a room with like triple bunk beds and stuff like really like they crammed them in here. Like they had a lot of people in here at one point. - I picture- - There are enough rooms for all of you to pretty much split up and have one for yourselves. - Okay. - I picture Thermac having a water bed filled with blood. - Ew. (laughing) - That's horrible. - I would like a like a king size bed 'cause I'm a gnome and that would feel so awesome. - It's just an ocean. - I'd just be lying on my back, like staring at my toes like, yeah, fuck yeah.

(laughing) - The end of the bed still like four feet away. (laughing) - One of the bits, so you guys are all kind of filing, like it's kind of like a camping trip at a cabin or something, you're all just kind of like looking around and like, oh, I call this room. - Valis is following Baranath. Like it doesn't look like he has any plans to not sleep in the same room that she is sleeping in. - Stop giggling at me. (laughing) - Baranath's got a boyfriend. - Human fever. - Shut up. - Rheekus will, as a minor action, put in earplugs. (laughing) - You guys are making me blush in front of him, stop it.

(laughing) - And Valis kissing the tree. - I'm gonna find a room that's not gonna, like the least creepy room, the least creepy bedroom is the one that I'm gonna go in. - Okay, that would be the one with the severed Rams head. (laughing) And the chastity belt made entirely of barbed wire. (laughing) - It's an everlast. - Valis is like, that won't stop me. - Yeah, is this something that the party's noticing where it's like you would figure at some point like he would break off and go find his own place? 'Cause all of these are like single, not single beds, but like it's a single bed in the room.

Like these are, like this isn't like there's two doubles or something like that, unless you guys are sleeping in one of the initiates rooms where it's just bunk beds all over the place and stuff. - Rheekus is by himself. - Right. - Yeah, Galvra doesn't care, he wants his own room. - Okay. - So I guess this goes largely unnoticed that Valis is just going to, his large frame is just kind of lumbering behind her in the hallway and he has no plans of splitting off from her, like gonna follow her into the room and not thinking anything of it. Like it's not, it's like, well, this is happening.

So it's not something where. - I can see Rob like just reaching for the Kleenex and the Vaseline right now. (laughing) (clapping) - Yes. - He's just like that would mean Rob would have to listen to groups here. (laughing) - Fly, zip, walk away. - Oh. - Rob, sweetie, I'm so sweet. - I hope he hears this, I love Rob. - He's not gonna listen to this. - I know. - Tyler will, Tyler, when you hear this, I hope you fuck with Rob, buddy. - Tyler will. Tyler will. The guy who gets made fun of for not participating will listen to this. - Yes, Tyler doesn't get enough credit around here.

- He doesn't really. - He doesn't give a shit. - I like, Tyler's listening to this at work and I appreciate you, Tyler. Is Baranath going to react in any way that would be like, if this is off-putting or like, hey, you're still here, that kind of thing. (laughing) - I mean, this is kind of weird, but I did not have any intention of spending the night alone tonight. - Hey, Brad, wanna share a room? - Oh, that's hot. - I'm not what I intended. - Some of that elf drought action. - Trying to save her from the big demon, I'm so sorry. - That's also what he calls it.

- That big hammer of the demon coming to the theaters, do you? - It's been a pretty serious talky episode. We gotta get all of our shit jokes out like all at once in the end. - Yeah, it's like fireworks, yeah. - Come on, Baranath, wrap this up. - I am going to find a room with a very large comfortable bed. I'm gonna turn around and kind of look awkwardly at Valis and say, please don't take this the wrong way and I don't wanna give you the wrong idea. I would feel safer if I weren't sleeping alone tonight. - He kind of holds his hand up and say no more. I planned on sleeping in here anyway.

I'll take the corner, it's fine. - No, no, I don't want you to feel like you have to sleep on the floor. We can trust each other, right? - Of course, I wouldn't. And he's kind of fumbling awkwardly, which is not something Valis does often. He's very direct and blunt and this is like almost a hamana hamana, like just kind of like. - I'm gonna, I'm just gonna reach and just kind of take his hand and kind of just smile and say, it's okay, it's fine. - Maybe it's your first time. - I'll be gentle. - I shall encase my genitals in the bear trap. (laughing) - Ruining this beautiful moment there.

Just. - There's a demon sleeping with my wife. (laughing) I can't separate the two. - Valis, I feel like we've kind of dragged you into this whole big mess. I don't want you to feel like you have to stay if you don't want to. - I want to stay, it's, I'm incredibly distracted. - What's distracting you right now? Oh gosh, yeah, you got your own shit to do and we've dragged you into this whole house and all this political crap and all this fighting. - Are, you remember what happened to Nona Call? Specifically with Katie and Sylvia. - You know how sorry I am about that.

You know that I never wanted to do that. - And he just kind of holds his hand up, like just, it's fine. Before your group arrived, they were constantly assaulted by the guards. I ended up breaking one of their arms when I felt that they couldn't defend themselves. From that day forth, I told them that I would protect them until they got out of the city. I couldn't do that. - Oh shit. - Their mother lives in White Hedge and the least that I can do is to inform her that they will never be coming home. I've never had someone's death affect me like that before.

It's all I can think about. - Oh God. There's something I've been meaning to ask you for a really long time. - Yes? - Why, why did you not just kill me when you had the chance? - To be honest, you remind me of someone. - I need to tell you something. You know it was us, right? We killed-- - And he just, I'm sorry, he just kind of narrowed his eyes at you. - It was us. We were in the arena with them. We killed Katie and Zyl. - You weren't given anything? - Not given much of a choice. Neither were they. - Well, it doesn't change how my heart is breaking for them and their mother right now.

- I'm going to have to speak to the gnome at some point. I know he has one of their daggers. - He does, yeah. I was planning on giving that to their mother if she's still alive. - Okay. I think he would do that for you. Despite his attitude towards yourself, and I'm sorry for that, he's not the monster that he appears to be most of the time. - To be honest, if you weren't standing there in the same room, I probably would have cracked his skull open once or twice already. - I'm, for now, I am thankful that you have not. - We should get some sleep. - Yeah. - In the morning, I'll head out and I'll see what happened in White Hedge.

- Okay. Thank you for everything. - Um, none of us would be alive if it weren't for you. - Well, I wouldn't be alive if not for you, so we're even. - Okay. We're even. Oh, I'm so tired. (laughing) - Um, is there anything you guys want to do before we wrap up? - Everybody want to unmute now? (laughing) Sorry, it was killing me. - I was laughing until it got serious and now I want to cry. (laughing)