Road Trip: Part 2

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Um, I think they mean us. Oh, s***. Um... [clears throat] With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold. Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Only on Peacock. Uh, howdy everyone. Welcome to DNR. Uh, let's go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Uh, go around the table and let's start with Brian. Hey folks, my name is Brian and I play Rekus, the Mole Ruin Priest. And... Danielle. Hey guys, I'm Danielle, I play Trixie, the Drow Rogue. And Eric. Hey, I'm Eric Tyson Spindler something.

Uh, I play, uh, Galphyr, Gnome Warlock. Uh, and James. Hi, I'm James, I play Dagon Arkanscape, the Eladrin Psion. And Alanna. Hello, my name's Alanna, I play an elf named Baranath. Um, let's see here. Uh, the last time we sat down to play, uh, the party split up a bit. And, uh, Baranath and Valis headed to Whitehedge to deliver some bad news. While the rest of the party kind of stayed in Brightport and, uh, they're getting ready for this big meet with the other houses. Let's pick up really early the next morning. We're talking like crack of dawn. Uh, and let's start in Brightport.

Uh, so I imagine you guys got some sleep, you, you, you, it's, it's, it's, this would be your third day in the house technically. Uh, once again, David, uh, and the staff have prepared a nice breakfast, like it's, it's, it's kind of a banquet like every morning. These, these guys take care of your every needs, everything's- It's Christmas every morning! It's, it's just a really nice way to start your day, every single day. Now, uh, before we get started formally, is there anything you guys want to do or say to each other or, or anything before I advance the story?

Um, are we going to be chatting with David upstairs before we move on or, or what's up? Um, this'll, this'll be a thing- Dalford's still, still basically downstairs, um, in Theramax, former Theramax office, just going through his stuff constantly. Okay, so that's kind of an obsession thing. Yeah, I grabbed some bacon and some Sunny D and went back downstairs. Sunny D! I prefer purple stuff, that's just me. Hey, don't be racist. Wait, wait, wait. Um, it's a grape drink. Um, so, uh, so yeah, this is a, this is a thing where he's, he, he obviously has something he wants to talk about.

There's, there's a situation brewing, so he's kind of waiting for the entire group to gather. Um, so if you're going to come upstairs and grab something to eat, then, then he's going to want to speak to everyone who's there, obviously, except for Braneth and Valus. Cool, okay. If you all have a moment, we have a bit of a situation. The word is out, and it would appear that both Silverclaw and Hammerhand know that Theramax is no longer in charge of House Darksepane. Uh, they've requested a, an informal gathering for later today. I'm feeling ready. I think that, I think we need, the sooner we meet with them, the better.

Uh, we'll, we'll steadily start losing our advantage the longer we wait. Now, this would have no bearing on trade negotiations or, or anything to do with the structure of the city. This is just, I think this is more of a meet and greet situation. I was going to say, uh, you said that they know Theramax's not in power. Do they know what happened to him, or do they know he's just not in power anymore? I'm guessing that's why they called the meeting. They, they, they're not fond of surprises, as you can imagine. Well, luckily we, we don't have to kind of cultivate any type of story for them.

You know, what has happened here in the way that it's transpired is probably going to be the way we're going to tell them. Uh, the second bit of this news is they would like to hold the meeting here. Whoa. You know, David, there's one thing we really need to know, and I'm concerned about the, uh, the fact that Theramax seemed to have, I mean, he had his fingers in many pies, but, uh, we fought that squad of, of non-sentient war forged, and he obviously, I mean, we know now that him and Carter and the war in the east were linked. Did any of the other two houses in Brightport, do we know anything about, do they have any other ties to Overwatch and to what's happening in the east?

Or was Theramax, from what we can gather, the only one that was dabbling in, in eastern politics? That would be pure speculation on my part. I, I honestly wouldn't know any of the inner workings of either of the other two houses, but the nature of their agreement seems to indicate that it was just Theramax and Carter. Okay. We need to find out more information about that as time goes on. I can look into that. I'm looking into a few other things for you, but, uh, I'm still waiting on word from Durran Hollow, um, that'll probably be a few days, but I don't see why there'd be a reason we, we wouldn't get a fresh batch of initiates.

Like, you could tell he was, he was going to say the word "slaves," and then he kind of looks at Rheekus and, uh, initiates, like, just kind of corrects himself on the fly. Interns? Um, while you're all speaking, there's, uh, there's, there's four, uh, servants walking by. Each one of them are holding one half of a split pig, and they're kind of holding it in this, this burlap cradle they've created for it, and they're walking towards the basement with it. So I take it you're starting to set up for this meeting here? Oh, uh, no, that's for the dragon.

Oh, I see. Okay. It'd look delicious. I like bacon. I just assumed it was, like, a candied ham. I didn't realize it was just a raw, you know, like... I thought split pig was, like, the name of the recipe. No, no, no, that was literally a split pig, like, down the middle. Oh, okay. Maybe we should serve them something different than raw pig. Those little fancy sandwiches. I'll look at Dave and just go, uh, is there any reason that we should be nervous about them coming? Do, is, do you, in your opinion, is there anything that we should expect from them? Just judging from past history of dealing with them, is there anything that we should prepare for in the off chance it would happen?

Whoa, I mean, have we even agreed to holding the meeting here? That is a humongous risk on our part. I mean, how many other times in the history of Brightport have the other houses been invited beyond their walls? What, what would you like to do? We're trying to make a good first impression and not being open to them is probably not the top thing that we should be doing. Well, yeah, displaying all of our weaknesses to them and the, uh, uh, you know, the numbers of our manpower and, you know, might not be the best thing to do. Who says we're going to give them a full tour of the house?

They're just coming to meet with us and we can, they're coming into our house and we can control the situation. David, what do you recommend if, if they will not negotiate a neutral spot for the meeting? I mean, considering it, they have forced our hand into having it later today. Where in the house could we have it that would allow us the most, I don't want to say deception, but, uh, you know, give us the best front for them? Well, honestly, we can hold it in the parlor. There's no reason why we couldn't hold a small gathering there. Um, there's no reason why they would need a tour of the house.

It's happened before. Members of houses have been invited into a neutral meeting or, uh, there, there have been meetings here in, in house Darkspane, although it was years ago, but it's happened. Okay. It's a shame that the elf is not back and the door isn't finished. It'd be nice to hold that meeting in the dragon's quarters, but the parlor it is. Um, David, is there any chance we can get, I don't know, like a kind of an RSVP kind of thing where we know how many people are coming? Because while we could probably be accommodating for any amount of people having 50 people from each house come is probably going to be a little bit much.

Do you know if it's just going to be like the hierarchy of both houses coming or it's going to be one person and then a handful of like bodyguards or something like that? My conversations with the stewards of both houses led me to believe that it was only going to be Oolanda and Norhorn, the leaders of Silverclaw and Hammerhand. Um, they may bring a couple of bodyguards, but there's no reason why they can't stand outside. Um, I'll look over at Galford and just say, while I agree that we should be a little bit uncomfortable with just letting them come in if we at least post us, or at least a few of the people that we have around the house at certain areas to just kind of make sure they don't go wandering off by themselves.

I feel confident in the fact that if, as long as the numbers aren't drastic that we should be comfortable enough to host them here at the house. Well, if David is sure that it's only going to be the leaders of the other two houses, that's exactly who we need to be speaking to. And if this is a small informal meeting only in the parlor, we can work this to our advantage. So why don't we start making the parlor more hospitable for our incoming guests? Trixie, Dagon, would that be okay with you? That seems fine. I don't like the fact that our house is not in order yet.

Is there any way that we can have it anywhere else or do we have to have it here? It would be a sign of good faith to have it here. That's what was requested. We can hold it somewhere else if you'd like, a local tavern perhaps, but I think mostly they want to investigate what happened here. So are we going to walk them through the broken part of our house? Let them see the damage we caused or are we going to walk them around the back in hopes that they don't realize we destroyed the front of this building just to get in? Well, to be fair, most of the front of the building was already destroyed.

I mean, I'll look over at Trixie and just say I think we all kind of feel a little, you know, naked with the idea of letting them roam through the house freely and tour through it freely, but I would feel a little bit more skeptical if we go into a neutral area that maybe while it's the neutral, we might not know what's around and the surroundings. This way, if they have other agendas that they want to accomplish, we don't have to worry about them trying to jump attack us or anything like that, and as long as we're with them, they see what we see. Okay, I can agree with that.

Well, I think a show of good faith is probably advantageous. There's going to be quite a few revelations at this meeting, so the more informal it is, the more direct it is with the leaders of the other houses, probably the quicker we can get our point across. And we need to let them know that it's not the house that's been destroyed, it's been Thermac that's been destroyed, and there's good reasons why. And welcoming them into the parlor, even if it is a small party, I think we can work that to our advantage. So then you'd like me to set up the meeting for later this afternoon?

Yes, please. Alright, I'll get right on it. Everyone else? That's fine. I always get uncomfortable whenever Riekus uses the word naked. Plus 10 Intimidate! Because I always feel like he is naked when he says it. Yeah, at least put on pants this morning. I'm drinking my Sunny D out of a big chalice or a big flagon. It says pimp on the side. So, you guys got your breakfast, everything's pretty much set up for later this afternoon. Is there anything anyone wants to do before I move over to Whitehedge? I'm going to head back downstairs because Galford is just poring over Thermac's journals and I'm going to look for some more information about the other two leaders of the houses while I'm down there.

Galford seems to be, he comes upstairs, does a few things, and he heads back downstairs and hits the books. There's a lot of information that Thermac's left on these shelves and the books and the library. Riekus is just going to go get his gear and stuff on, go up to whatever room he's in, get his gear and stuff on, and just walk around the grounds. Maybe talk to a few of the brainless patrons that we've hired to stand around and look like they're guarding the place. Yeah, those guys are just barely doing their job. They're standing there, they look intimidating, and that's pretty much it.

That's the range of their reliability right now. How's it going, Bob? There's a couple of useful guys out there, but a lot of them are pretty much just drunks that you hired to stand up and make it look like you guys are repping for a house. So, okay, Galford has pretty much been poring over these books since he found them, right? Basically, yeah. Okay, so what we're going to do is, every once in a while you're going to stumble across a little nugget, and I'm going to go ahead and share that with you. Right now it looks like the last communication that... they had monthly communications with each other, it seemed, that Theramax would interact with Carter through letters, and they would send each other something back and forth.

And it's been a little bit since they communicated, but it hasn't been an extraneous long time. But that's the last thing that you found out through these journals. Okay. I'm going to, yeah, Dagon's heading downstairs to... he's going to follow Galford down. Alright, I'm just basically reading... I'm not even going to look up, I'm just reading journals, poring over stuff. So Dagon's going to just approach him and be like, "So, do you think we're ready for this? This meeting seems pretty important." I'm not even really looking up or sort of acknowledging him.

We have all the information and resources that we can get for now. We have a pretty good position. I mean, I'm confident that we can at least placate them today for the transition period. Hmm. Alright. Look, I know what you're doing here. I know that you're attempting to manipulate the other party members here. I'm not entirely sure what you're up to, but just so you know, if you try that on me, it's not going to work, and it's going to end very badly for you. Alright, I can see that you're considerably more perceptive than the other people in this house.

I'm kind of pointing upstairs. So I'm going to level with you. All I can say right now is I really need to have a front row seat for whenever there's some type of big world-changing events. I've traveled with a lot of other groups of adventurers in my time. This particular group, this particular collection of misfits we have here has accomplished more in the few short weeks we've been together than I've seen in a hundred years. Some other powers are at work here, and some other something else is at play. So I really need to be around for whatever is going to happen next.

So between you and me, this group has a certain quality, certain people that can help me with my problems. Yes. So here's what I gather. What you're saying is that either you're being controlled by someone, or you've made a deal that's gone very bad, and you think that they'll either help you fix it, or you can manipulate them some way into fixing it. The Eladrin have owned gnomes like you before, and you're not as deceptive as you think. Well, I've met Eladrin like you before, and they were just as arrogant and condescending. So, hearing this Dagon, he just gets instantly angry, and his eyes just start glowing this pale blue.

He's lunging at Galford now for even mentioning an Eladrin, and the fact that he's mentioned that he's seen one. And he's picking up Galford by the neck, and he yells at him. He says, "Where have you met other Eladrin? When?" Now, am I rolling anything here, or am I... I mean, I'm just basically kicking my feet. Well, are you trying to escape? I mean, okay, I'm moderately struggling. So, 50, 60 years ago. Let me go! And I'm just gonna try and roll a... what do we got here? Maybe an Athletics or Acrobatics, something like that? It'll be Athletics. Athletics?

Okay. So, D20 plus 3... 14. Okay. I'm still getting choked. So, I'm still telling him, though, like, it was 50 years ago, 60 years ago, I met an Eladrin. So, what does this roll get him? I think you're still choking me. So, I'm gonna drop... or Dagon's gonna drop Galford, and he's gonna gather himself, and his eyes look back to normal, and he'll almost look ashamed, but also, you know, just sort of darting his eyes around, playing that through his head. He's not sure what to think of that. Okay, well, I'm picking myself up off the floor, and obviously I'm not too pleased that I got kind of chokeslammed into the bookcase, but... alright.

Well, it seems like I struck a nerve there. You know, come to think of it, it's pretty rare to meet an Eladrin these days, and, you know, you're the first one I've seen in a long time, so where did the rest of them go? I've been looking for them. Look, I need to find them, and that's all you need to know. Alright, okay, the last one I saw was on a transport in the east 50, 60 years ago. I don't remember where we were exactly. I was wearing a cloak with a jeweled, like a brooch on it, that I recovered during some other fruitless adventure, and this hooded man grabbed me and wanted to know where I got it.

He pulled back his hood, he was obviously an Eladrin, he ripped the brooch right off my cloak and jumped out of the transport. When I realized what he was, I chased after him, thinking that he might be able to help me with my problems. He pushed me down, just tossed me in the dirt, and went on his way. So, I mean, considering this guy's attitude, if you want to find Eladrin, I'll bet he's still alive. Well, you can help me find him. The others in this group are so young and naive, and I find them infuriating. But it seems like the two of us are at least getting a little closer to what we're looking for by following them, by staying with this group.

I have a proposition that maybe we assist each other a little bit, but we'll keep our individual quests or individual problems between us. What do you say? So while you guys are speaking here, you remember how there's kind of secret passages and bookshelves that switch around and all kinds of stuff. So this little panel out of the wall kind of slides, kind of makes that grindy stone on stone sound and kind of slides to the left. And Grattik comes stumbling out of it. He's just kind of like coated in spider webs and dirt and just coughing the entire time.

Just brushing himself off. You know, you could at least get an inspector in here. You got a real spider problem. Am I interrupting something between you two? No. I was just leaving. Big on waiting. Grattik here is, you know Grattik, he's helping House Starkesbane with some business developments that the others don't need to know about. I believe he can also help find your Aladrin fellow that I spoke of. You recognize that he's an asset, even if the others don't, right? I do. Alright. So I'm going to tell Galford basically the story of the Aladrin guy that I ran into.

Grattik. And try and let him know that Grattik, or that Dagon's trying to find him and that it would be advantageous to, between one gnome to another, it would be advantageous for us to help out the Aladrin. So... And Dagon, you can hear this. Like I'm not whispering in his ear. You can hear me kind of trying to negotiate something. Dagon's going to approach Grattik and kneel down to his level and look him right in the eyes. If you provide me with some actual useful information, I will do all I can to ensure that your standing in this house becomes a little more permanent.

And I'll even guarantee your safety while you are in my presence. Do you agree? Hmm. You know, I am in a bit of trouble right now and I could use some protection. I'm going to say yeah. Here's the thing. I kind of got to make a trip out west pretty soon. Like next two, three days. Probably be for like a week and a half, two weeks tops, something like that. These elves, get this, this is so great. These elves come into my shop last night, drop a sack full of money on me to go fix some big robot thing, something. I don't know. I told them I'd take a look at it.

Thousands. Thousands of gold. Can you believe it? Anyway, heat's kind of bad in Brightport right now. I figured I'd let things cool off and take a trip west. Heading out near Odessy anyway. I could take a look around to see if anybody knows anything. I'd appreciate that. And he sticks his little hand out to shake you. Not you, but your hand. Grattic has amazing strength and he's just going to... And he will shake you. Grattic has Parkinson's. Dagon will extend his hand to shake and say, "Do not cross me gnome. Gelford already knows the consequences of what would happen.

Be mindful." Grattic kind of shifts his eyesight over to Gelford real quick. I'm just kind of, I'm widening my eyes and sort of like kind of nodding without, you know, nodding my chin like, "Yeah, yeah." Fair enough. No problem. Any shakes on it. Grattic. Could you do me a favor while I'm gone? I need you to keep an eye on Tessia. She's upset. Our lives are in mortal danger, blah, blah, blah. Just if you can keep an eye on her, make sure no one murders her while I'm away. It would be a real help. Absolutely. She could even move into the house if she needs to.

We can do that. I'm not welcome in the house, though. But Tessie is welcome in the house. Of course. That's a little insulting. I'm going to be honest. I'm going to try not to be hurt. You've got a reputation, Grattic. Grattic, don't push your luck. I mean, her son is here and he's a rather large tiefling, so your arrangement is improving by the day here. So I think Dagon's been most gracious in offering you some protection. And I'm still kind of like, "Wink, wink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just go with it." Ah, okay. Before I forget, your friend, Baby Talk. Have you ever heard of a group called The Collectors?

Can I do a history check? Sure. Okay. Maybe I have. Eight. I don't know that. Morgan Freeman might know them. Maybe I do, or does it matter at this point? Well, yeah, you go ahead. You can roll a history check, too. Go ahead. Fifteen. Oh, you probably will, then. You have to roll really low not to. Oh, you know all. Yes! Okay, so, Dagon knows that The Collectors are... It's this huge network of people, and it's this real underground society. They exist in a lot of the major cities. What they do is they collect dead bodies and perform experiments on them. They specifically enjoy collecting rarer types of corpses.

So you find a dead Razorclaw shifter who was a zombie in the city? Holy shit, score! Like, that's a big deal. So, yeah, that's what they're into. So, Dagon would have known all about this, and so just "yes" would have been your answer. I'd take back the "no," then. Yeah. So, I have pretty good reason to believe that they took your friend. And I don't have any ties in that community. I have no idea where they'd be hanging out. And I don't know if you'd want to go find them if I did. I can keep digging if you want, but it may be best that she's just gone, and they're gone, and we don't have anything to do with them.

Do you think they're going to pose any threat to us, or are they just going to make a fantastic museum with their specimens? Well, I mean, they do all kinds of stuff with bodies. I don't really know what they'd want with her, but... I mean, she was a zombie when you killed her, right? Yeah, that's true. So, eh, I mean, maybe they just wanted to see what they could do with a dead body. Well, you know, keep the feelers out there. If you hear anything about any side shows involving Razorclaw zombie shifters, maybe let us know and we'll put it back on our radar.

But as much as I'd like her to have a proper burial, we've got a lot of things on our plate right now, and Gratic's going to be helping Dagon. He's going to be a busy man. Yeah, no problem. I'll keep my eye to the ground. And Dagon... oh, Dagon. Gratic's going to start motioning towards the steps, like he's going to start trying to go out the front door. Like he's just motioning like he's going to walk back up the basement steps. Okay, I'm stopping. Gratic, Gratic, the meeting with the other houses is going to be later today, and they're coming here. And Ricus and Trixie are still upstairs, and they're not as...

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Olanda's coming here. Yeah, she's coming here. And he just kind of scuttles back into the passage and disappears back into the dark. Gratic, one last thing. One last thing. If you hear anything else about the other two houses having any involvement with the Overwatch, let me know right away. Let me know right away. Other than that, you might not want to be here when Olanda gets here. Olanda, she's not a temp for sprint. She's... Olanda would be more... Oh, Olanda? No, it's Olanda. Olanda. Olanda. It's a little more exotic. I know people named Olanda.

I mean, Yolanda is... Yolanda's another one. Yolanda, Shaniqua, it's... I picture someone with really long press-on fingernails. "What you doing?" Like, "No, that's not..." Can she please talk like that anyways? You need new voices, buddy. That was fantastic. So yeah, Gratic's just gonna nod his head and then disappear back down that corridor. How's about we check in near White Hedge? Olanda, you sounded far away there for a while. I'm here. There we go. Okay. So, Baranath and Valis just kind of made camp near that little Knoll territory. Like, after they got done that fight, they're both pretty beat up.

They're both pretty trounced. So they just kind of made camp and rested there for the night. They only got a little bit more to go before they're in White Hedge, but they just figured, "You know what? Let's just cut our losses for the evening and camp out." The next day, though, crack of dawn. They're up, and now you guys got some light on your side. Valis is kind of scrounging around the camp looking for anything that would have been useful. Yeah, I definitely want to loot. Okay. That's something we didn't get to do at the end of last year. Yeah! These Knolls pretty much lived off the land, but they did have a great collection of traveler's belongings.

It looks like they've been at this for a while, where they'll just attack someone on the road and just skin them alive and bring them back. That's another thing you're finding. It appears what they do, after they dry skin and stretch it and stuff, they'll stitch it together and make things out of it. Eww. You're finding makeshift tents made of human skin and really fucked up stuff. Oh, please tell me I didn't sleep in that tent. No, no, no, no, no. I need a bath. I really, really need a bath. Nothing insulates like human skin, though. I'm telling you, it would have been the warmest, comfiest night of sleep you've ever had.

Oh. No, no, no. You guys got your own gear. Yeah, that is definitely... it may not have been the best night of sleep you've ever had, I'm gonna be honest. Mmm. So, yeah, there's chests of stuff. There's little clutches of belongings all over the camp, scattered. Alright, let me at it. One of the things Valus finds in this chest, and he motions you over, not a word spoken, just "Oh, you're gonna wanna see this, come here." Lying in the chest is a bunch of used, kind of like, rusty weapons, things like that, like daggers and blades and things. And then, kind of sitting on top of it, it really stands out, is this pearl white bow.

That definitely appears to be elven in nature, like it's got these, like, crystalline light blue carvings all in it, like this gorgeous etched thing. And it doesn't appear to have, like, a bowstring or anything like that, and he's just kind of pointing down towards it. Okay, um... oh god, I really wanted a bow. I'm gonna go and just have a closer look and run my fingers over the etchings, and I have understand languages, is there anything, like, are the etchings, is anything written on it? Um, it's not a language or anything, it's just more patterns.

It's more like these swirling patterns, it almost looks like waves. Like it flares out on both ends, like it's this big long bow, and it kind of flares out on both ends, it looks like two tidal waves, like on either side. And as soon as you touch this thing, a bowstring made of water materializes. Oh my goodness, okay, so, um, okay, so I have a bow, and the string's made of water? The string's made of water, but it's solid, like when you run your hand over it and touch it, as soon as you touch the bowstring, like an arrow made of water materializes instantly.

It doesn't use actual arrows, it materializes its own. Oh, okay, um, I'm gonna pick up this bow, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, can I try shooting it, just like a bush or something? Sure! I have a bow! What would I do, just ranged basic attack? Ranged basic attack against the nearest bush. Haha, alright. Oh, this is really cool. I was gonna say, I hope you crit the bush. Poor bush. That's what she said. Hahahaha! Womp womp womp womp womp. I unmuted just for that. Yeah, yeah, I figured you would. I'm disappointed I didn't think of that. Oh goodness, this is really cool!

Oh my goodness. So you draw this thing back and it's effortless, like it just feels like it was made for you, and you let this arrow loose, and it kinda goes wide, it misses the bush, but it looks awesome doing it. And the arrow just kind of like, plunks into the ground, and it, like, it's this, it's liquid, but it's ultra sharp, it just penetrates the ground, and then after a couple seconds it just kind of like, turns into regular water and splash, like, just water. So I don't actually need arrows for this. Nope. It makes its own. Like, it materializes, awwww.

This is so sexy. Phallus is like, you may want to get a little more practice with that. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah, I'll work on my aim. I'm gonna do a little girly squeak. Hahahaha! So, now, we were here to kind of get back our stuff, right? So do we find that stuff? You do find that stuff. That is in another chest, which is just packed to the brim with different herbs, a lot of which would come right here from Whitehaven, basically. It's just stuff that you can't get a little further up north. Okay, so from Whitehedge. Yeah, mostly, like the surrounding area, that kind of stuff.

Okay, alright. Okay, so mission accomplished, we got our stuff. You do got your stuff. Do you want to continue to Whitehedge now? Okay, I've looted everything I can loot? Yep. Cool. Yeah, so, I'm gonna look at Phallus and say, "Hey, can you help me with this trunk?" And I guess we'll bring it back to our wagon. Hopefully our wagon hasn't been, like, jacked. Oh, no, no, no. Like, he would have pulled the wagon a little closer, too. Okay, alright. Yeah, this would have been... You can't just leave that on the road. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else to do, so I guess we might as well go.

Okay. Phallus is gonna help you load that up, and how's about we advance time a little bit? And we could do the meeting of the houses here in Brightport. How's that sound, guys? Alright. Cool. Um, the... I'm imagining you are all pretty much ready for this. You're gathered in the parlor type of area, that living room type of space. And you guys have decorated a little bit. You've kind of made the house your own. I mean, it's not as creepy and awful. Like, there's still painting, and there's a lot of construction going on, especially in the downstairs area. That's the thing, we pulled the decorator, is not creepy.

Not creepy. Okay. Yeah. When he asked, "What theme are you guys going for?" Not rams heads all over, and waterbeds filled with blood. Ew. Something in a knoll. We would like human skin. The first to arrive from the other houses, there's a knock on the door. Would you like the servants to answer for you, or would you... Is this something more personal? You guys want to do it yourselves? I wouldn't mind answering the door. Okay. Okay, so Trixie's gonna go ahead and answer the door. This stout dwarf, big, big black beard is standing there, and he's kind of flanked by a couple of humans.

And he looks up, "Ah, drow. I didn't expect that." And he kind of sticks his hand out towards you. "Norhorn Hammerhand." I reach my hand out and say, "Trixie," and just shake his hand. I take it you're the one running the show now? Not necessarily. Would you like to come in? Sure. He's gonna stroll in. You want my men to wait outside, or stay in here? We would like your men to stay outside. You can bring in one if you'd like. That's quite alright. I don't need them. He kind of waves them away, and they're gonna go stand outside. Not an ounce of fear in this guy for you guys.

He does not give a shit. He's a dwarf, so dwarfs tend to think they can beat up everyone in the goddamn world. So he walks in. Imagine you're all prison. I would imagine, yeah. And he's looking around the place, just kind of eyeballing everything. It's not as creepy as I remember. I'd like to roll a history check on him, just to see if I can remember any great exploits he's had. Sure. Twenty. Twenty. This guy isn't famous beyond Brightport, really. He's never been in any famous battles. The history books don't sing songs about him or anything like that. He has a reputation for being honorable, and that's kind of the Hammerhand thing.

That's the entire point. In a city of thieves, these guys are the guys who will protect you and do it honestly. So that's pretty much all you know about him, though. No famous exploits. Just kind of plunking away. Him and his dad started the house, and then he took over not so long ago. His dad's name was Grufgar. He took over not that long ago, and he's just doing the same thing his dad was. Cool. I take it he's the type of person that's wearing his personality right out there, that we're not going to necessarily need a perception check on him or anything, right?

Yeah, Hammerhand's not the type of house... David would have briefed you on the houses, and Hammerhand's definitely the house that we're coming to murder you. You'll get a letter in the mail, it's like, "Oh, we're coming to murder you tomorrow at five. So make some time and just pencil us in and we'll be there." We'll be there to kill you. Yes, they're not sneaking in. They will beat down your door and kill you all, if that's what they were trying to do. And if not for the laws of Brightport, they probably would have done that to both houses already. So, yeah.

There is that law that says you can't make an open act of aggression against any other house. That's... yeah. Or local businesses, things like that. There are rules in place. They're just loosely obeyed. There are more guidelines. Right, more guidelines. Okay. Is Trixie leading him into the parlor, or where are we going from there? Yeah, it's pretty much off the front door, like you guys are there. So you can see this little guy scoping out your situation. So, which one of you am I speaking to? Who's running this? Who has the dragon? So, I'll stand up and just say, "Noren Hammerhands, welcome to House Dragonkeep.

I see you've met Trixie, and I'd also like to introduce another member of the house. This is Rikas, and I'll motion towards Rikas. My name is Galford Gardrez, and I find myself in a new situation here, which we're going to be talking about today. So, he kind of shakes your hand. "Um, yoo! Well, I guess you need something lifted. You're moving, decorating, things like that. That makes perfect sense." I'll just kind of walk up to him and just grab his hand without even saying anything, and just start shaking it and look at him and go, "You really know how to make first impressions, don't you?" "Um, I imagine you're giving him a little squeeze while you're shaking the hand?" Yeah, kind of like, he, like, I'm really strong too, squeeze.

"Um, give me an athletics check." Excellent. I like athletics checks. "Oh my gosh." I break his hand in half. "14." I gently shake his hand. You tickle his palm. So, he can feel you're giving him a bit of a squeeze, and he's going to do the same thing right back. "Oh, shit, he rolled a 27." He's going to feel you're going to, "Oh, okay," and just start squeezing your hand right back. So, there's kind of a mutual, like, just kind of a mutual show of strength. Like, he's a tough little fuck. Dwarves are tough. I'm going to see this type of exchange going on and just say, you know, "Norhan, can we offer you a flagon of ale, some refreshments, something?" "This is an interesting, a very interesting turn of events for Brightport, so why don't we make ourselves comfortable?" "It's Norhorn, and sure, I'd be happy to.

You have ale?" "I believe we do. I'm going to kind of look over at David and be kind of like, 'Do we have ale?'" Yeah, he just nods his head, "Yep." He would have known. I mean, the guy's a dwarf. Like, that's kind of what they do. So, they've got the house stocked with liquor. And I'll look over at Rekis and be like, "Rekis, why don't you have a drink as well?" This handshake is still going on. This is going on way too long now. It's Carl Weathers and Arnold Schwarzenegger from Spider-Man. You son of a bitch. Yes! That's, "Splam!" And it's just like forearms in the shot.

That's all it is. I'll break the handshake as... Do I need to roll something to break the handshake? No, no, no, no. I'll break the handshake and just kind of nod, I guess, accordingly and walk towards where the ale is. He does the same thing. He breaks it and just kind of like, "Alright!" It's like a mutual respect thing. It's like, "Okay, alright. I like this guy." And David's serving up ale and he's... There's another... They have roasted boar and stuff all set up. They've got this nice little spread. Now, normally it would be like a cheese and crackers type of thing, but these are the heads of these houses, so you're trying to make a good first impression.

Your food budget, by the way, in this house must be extravagant. Where is Dagon during this? And how do Eladrin feel about dwarves? Eladrin... History-wise. I don't know personally how Dagon's gonna feel, but history-wise, Eladrin looked down on all races who aren't Eladrin. Even elves. Elves are like hillbillies. Elves are like the unrefined cousins of the Eladrin. Dwarves are mucky dirt dwellers who scrabble around in caves. Gnomes are like half-breeds. Eladrin feel about gnomes the same way we feel about dogs. It's like, "Oh boy, come here!" You love your dog, but it's a dog.

I'm just saying, they're lesser than you, but it's like, "Oh, come here boy!" That kind of thing. Dogs are cats. Dagon's not gonna go out of his way to get to know anybody. He's not necessarily gonna be condescending or an ass to anyone. I mean, he's been on his own for almost a hundred years and he's not very social. He's known pretty great loss. I mean, he can't afford really to write people off like that. But he's not gonna come up and introduce himself. He's just gonna sort of nod his head and just say, "Welcome to House Dragon's Keep." So I'll say, I'll be like, "Where are my manners as well?" Another one of our compatriots, Dagon.

This is Norhorn Hammerhands. He's gonna look at Dagon and his eyes are gonna go wide. That's an Eladrin. Yes. Where have you been? That's not really any of your business, I don't think. But thanks for noticing. Sorry, I haven't seen one of your kind in decades, so I was just curious. I see. Well, for all intents and purposes, I'm probably the only one you will ever see. And let's just leave it at that. Again, welcome to the house. Thank you. So, who am I talking to today? Who's running this? All of us, I suppose. We traveled as a group of equals and fell into control of this house by standing together.

So, we'll speak together. But I suppose I could answer a lot of your questions. I've been going through a lot of the former owner's documentation, I guess, about how things happened here before we took control. I'm flashing my eyes over at Riekus, seeing if Riekus is gonna be like, "Don't talk to me." I'm like, "Don't talk to him." There's a knock at the door. Who's gonna answer this? I'll go get it again. Okay. I'll stand up to you and follow Trixie. I like how Trixie's the gorgeous one. Yeah, just like, "I got this." Well, that's why I stood up, too. I'm more or less skeptical.

I want to see everyone as they walk through the door before they have a chance to see anyone else. I don't want to be blindsided. I'm standing up because Hammerhand's a racist, so... Well, he's a dwarf. Yeah, he's kinda racist. But the thing about dwarves is they wear their racism right on their skin. They're not sneaky about it. They're just like, "Ah, you're an idiot. You know, you're a mule. You know, I mean, you're dumb. You lift things." They're Scottish. Yeah, kinda Scottish. They're vaguely Scottish. Roddy Roddy Piper. "You know you're inferior. I don't have to tell this guy, right?" Elbow's like, "Ah, he knows." They're that kind of racist where it's a fun racism.

If it's not dwarven, it's crap. You're first, folks. Jason Massey supports fun racism. Well, okay, it's fun in that, okay, Carter's a racist, but he's into genocide. Dwarves are racist, but they're just like, "Ah, you're inferior." Whatever. They're not trying to wipe you off the face of the earth. They just look down on you. I mean, they'll still work with you. They just... eh. If you earned his respect, he'd probably be okay. If you slammed down a bunch of drinks and told a great story, he'd be like, "You're alright." But then you'd be one of the good ones.

That's what they would call you. He wouldn't change his mind about mules or mole. It would just be like, "Ah, you're one of the good ones. You're a credit to your race, son." Like that kind of thing. Thanks, Paul. Some awful 50 shit someone would say. You just need to get drunk together and then... yeah. Oh yeah, that would be great. Standing at the door this time is this pretty tall drow woman. And she's got long white hair and just really pale skin. And cold black eyes. Just no pupil. Just black. And she's kind of standing there and definitely not expecting a drow to open the door.

And she's kind of taken aback by that. "I wasn't expecting another drow." "Neither was I, but you're welcome to come in." She reaches out her hand to shake yours. I shake hers back and nod. And she kind of gives this acknowledging, like, "Alright, okay, this might not be so bad." Again, she's got two... How can I describe these guys? Sleazy might be the best way. Just... lots of layers. It looks like they have weapons tucked in every orifice and layer of their body. Like, it looks like they would have poisons and daggers and all kinds of awful things all over them.

Should my men wait outside? If you could please ask them to wait outside. We're not having anyone but the heads of the households inside right now. Not a problem. I'll have them mingle with the others. And she waves them away. Very dismissive. Who exactly is running this? Who am I speaking to today? There's no one person running it. We work as a group. So, okay, at this point, both of these individuals look incredibly confused by that. Because in Brightport there is one person in charge, there's one person that holds the dragon, and that's it. It's a hierarchy.

It's... So, you're gonna have to pick... both of them are just looking at you like confused dogs right now. Like, tilting their head like, "I don't understand. What are you saying? What are you saying to me?" "You're saying English, but I don't know." I mean, the way I see it, our whole party is not here, so we can't choose one person to run the household until we are all here to make that decision. Who are we missing? I just look over at Ricus. I'll walk up and extend my hand and say, "My name is Ricus. We are actually... we had just started. We have food in the parlor.

Norhorn is already here, and I know you probably sound... you sound a little confused, you looked a little confused. But I'm sure once we get done talking in the parlor, a lot of things are gonna get cleared up for you." At this point, they both acknowledge each other's presence in the most... You like when two bitter exes meet each other at a social function and they have to be like just... "Olanda... Norhorn..." Just very, very cordial, right on the brink of a fistfight. Right on the brink. Dwarves and drow don't tend to get along anyway because what drow do is live underground.

What dwarves do is dig underground. So it'll happen often where they'll be digging and digging and then they'll just pop into, let's say, a drow settlement or city. And the way dwarves are, it's like, "Oh, well this is all mine now. We dug here, so it's mine." Right? And then the drow pretty much escaped underground to not be a part of anything that's going on in the surface world. So it's bad enough they live with monsters. They live with horrible subterranean beasts all the time. And then it's... you basically have people digging and on top of that it's like, "Oh, Jesus Christ, now we have to deal with this?" They're more or less interested in how this came to be.

And of the two, Ulanda is much less cordial. Like, much less. Bordering on insensitive or curt. Just... So can we get this on with and get on with our day? I have some things to do. I just want to roll a perception check just on her in general. If that's cool. Sure. Eleven. She has hair. She's a drow. Yeah. That's for sure. My rules aren't helping here. Yeah, I mean, to you she looks pretty standard drow. Kind of tall, slender, real pale skin. I mean, nothing really stands out about her. Not an eleven. Okay. No scars, no weaknesses, I don't know. Okay. No special, like, pendants or things you could tell me with an eleven?

Okay, so I take it I've still got the gold dragon, right? Oh yeah, that's... Oh yeah. Okay. So I'm just gonna say, "Welcome to House Dragonkeep. Thank you both for coming." And then I'll just, you know, slowly pull out the gold dragon and just set it on the table in front of me. Norhone's gonna start laughing at you real quick. Just like big guffaw, like, "Bwah!" Just like big dwarven guffaw. "You got stones, boy, I'll tell you that. You're just whipping out the dragon in front of Oolanda here?" Well... Oolanda's just gonna cut him a look like, "You fucker." Just basically calling her a thief, which she is, but I mean, you know.

So I'll just say, it's... that is funny that you say that, Norhone, because at one point our group, you know, had a brush with this gold dragon, but I don't think we ever imagined that we would be in possession of it, so I take it that the two of you want to know what has happened to Theramak and the former House Darkseane? Oolanda's just gonna, like, just stare at the dragon for a few seconds. Dagon, you wanna roll a perception check for me, please? Sure. Twenty-two. Okay. It looks very much to you like this woman is counting all the ways she could try and murder everyone in this room and take that dragon.

But for whatever reason, maybe just because this is an informal gathering or whatever, she's just kind of, like, standing there. But you can see, like, her muscles tense a bit when Galford kind of just places it down in front of her. It's like, "Here's that thing you wanted!" and just puts it right in front of her on a coffee table. Like, it's a goddamn... like, it's just a conversation piece. Dagon's gonna tell Galford to put the dragon away. I don't trust this woman. I'll say, Dagon, I'm sure it's alright, but if it'll make you feel better, why don't you hang on to it?

I think we've all already displayed that our group is in control of the house, and I'll just, you know, pick it up and I'll hand it over to Dagon. Okay. I'll tuck it away. Ulanda watches you put it away. I watch her watching me put it away. So do you wanna tell us how you came in possession of all of this and she's waving around to the house? Well, I have one question actually for the two of you is, what were your impressions of Theramak? What was your relationship with Theramak before this all happened? They both pipe up in unison and say he was scum, and then they both just look at each other and just sneer.

Then I'm sure you're gonna be happy to hear that he is deceased. Very much so. And our group is responsible for that, and it's going to benefit Brightport, I think, very much. The four of you killed Theramak? Yes we did, but I'm getting ahead of myself. What had happened to us, and I'm gonna look around at Rikus and Trixie just to see if they're wanting me to continue telling our story, or if they have any other kind of concerns before we get started. I'll just give Galford a nod. A shirring nod. Go on. What had happened to us is we were a group of adventurers, and we fell afoul of House Darkspane as so many groups of adventurers I'm sure have over the years, or within the walls of this city.

And instead of ending our lives, Theramak sent us to Annakal. And I'm sure the two of you know what happens to prisoners in Annakal. He hated us very much for what we were responsible for. You can probably remember back a little while that House Darkspane was damaged, there was a battle, there was a dragon. We were in the city during that time, and that was how we drew his ire, was during that turn of events. Lanna's gonna pipe up. Wait, you were the group we sent in? Yes, I guess since you mentioned that, we were contracted to penetrate House Darkspane and try and remove the gold dragon.

You were paid, correct? We were paid very well, Ullanda. Then the way I see it, you owe me a gold dragon. Well, the original arrangement didn't... basically the terms of our original arrangements never came to fruition. And right now we're in control of the house and the gold dragon, so please let me finish our story, because there's more at stake here for Brightport than just power struggles between the houses. May I continue? She nods her head, but you can see her jaws clenched. She's pissed. That's the only way to put that. Alright, since we're being open here, yes, we were contracted to remove the gold dragon from House Darkspane, and it went poorly.

We were naive, and while powerful, as you can see, it went poorly, and Brightport suffered for it. And we drew the wrath of Thermac, and he packed us up and sent us to Onakol. We fought in the slave arenas there and were nearly tortured and starved, saw many people die. It's not particularly excellent living conditions for a new group of adventurers trying to make their way in this world. But our small little story didn't end there, because as I'm sure the two of you have probably seen, Thermac was steadily heading down the road to a terrible madness.

Can any of you speak to that? Norhorn kind of pipes up. I haven't spoken to him in years. I know some of what he was doing in the city. Pretty recluse towards the end. Yes, his lust for power and arcane magics for control of the city was making him even more of a recluse. Basically, House Darkspane had become very top-heavy. He was grabbing all of the power for himself, the knowledge for himself. Making deals and contracts that would have large ramifications. We believe, and I've read a number of his journals now, that he was descending into some type of violent madness.

Because what he did was he traveled to Onakol to punish us for the great insult of breaking into his house and causing so much damage. At this point we were still a small group of adventurers. Now, he casts some type of horrendous spell on Onakol. How much do the two of you know about that city? Ulanda pipes up. I know it was a place Grattic sent people. I'm guessing that's what he did with you? That's correct. He kind of gives this "hmm" like "good" kind of just that sound. Like "hmm" like that thing. So I'll look over at Norhorn and be like "Norhorn, are you familiar with Onakol?

How many people lived there? What the economics of the city was like?" I have never been. I know of it. Alright, it's a slave city and right now they're all dead. Every citizen, every higher person of the slave masters, every one of the slaves, hundreds, maybe thousands of people are right now all dead. Because of Thermac. But they're not dead. Essentially he went there to punish us for infiltrating his house, cast some sort of spell so that we would suffer greatly and in the process transformed every living person in the city into ghouls. A highly contagious and terrible affliction, destroying and eating the flesh of others and it's spread with such rapidity that the entire city fell overnight.

Both of them look really concerned. Norhorn kind of pipes up. "You understand we don't know you and I have no reason to trust you. Is there any proof at all that you can give us?" Well, we did have unfortunately one of our party was afflicted with the disease and died of it. Transformed into a ghoul and we had to kill her ourselves. Her body was in this house but has since been stolen we believe by a group called the Collectors. That would provide some proof. However, you can imagine what a plague like this would do to a city like Brightport. Something that spread that quickly, you can imagine what it would do to this city.

We don't have a whole lot of time in the sense that when we escaped on a call fighting our way through the city, we managed to get over the walls. We are now in the largest other population center in the continent. We hope to find and provide you with some more proof. In the meantime, you must believe me that this horde could be heading for Brightport. Let's say that we believe you. What do you expect us to do about it? Well, essentially the agreement between the three houses is a power struggle but it's held up for so long now and Brightport has prospered.

Economically the three houses do well, there is less bloodshed and there is a delicate balance. We believe that needs to remain. Certainly, I'm sure the two of you could attempt to destroy us and then the struggle would continue and the two remaining houses, I don't see any love lost between the two of you. Brightport doesn't need any more infighting. But what Brightport could do is first off protect itself from an army of ghouls that could wipe us out overnight and secondly Brightport could expand. If we are able to take back that city in the east, and by me I mean the houses temporarily united under some type of agreement could take back this desert city, destroy all remnants of this horrible disease and the monsters there within, we would now control the second potentially largest trade hub in the eastern continents.

There is an empty city there full of riches once it has been, I guess once the pests have been exterminated I should say. That would provide you with the proof, it would give you some, hopefully some confidence in our intentions for maintaining the integrity of the three house system. It would eliminate the threat and it could double the strength of all three houses. It's a humongous undertaking but why not take the fight to this plague until it, before it ends up on our doorstep essentially. Both of them appear to be thinking about this and Ulanda chimes in, "I see one problem with your plan.

Who exactly are you bringing to the fight? I'm looking around and all I see are servants." Well what you're looking at is a group of adventurers that killed Thermac and all of his most powerful mages in open battle and you're also looking at the house that controls the white dragon. And by controls I mean it is loyal to this house and its abilities are available to us in defense, or offense. I would have thought you'd have murdered that too. So you intend to bring this dragon with us in battle? I think the logistics of the military strategy we're going to have to work out but we don't have as much time.

If we can come to an agreement that the three houses would form some type of alliance in order to protect us from the ghoul threat and then take back and hold the desert city, that would be a wonderful starting point. If the dragon needs to be some type of offensive advantage we can discuss that. However I can assure you that while we may appear to be small and in transition that the group of adventurers in this room are quite powerful. I would have to discuss this with my men but if what you're saying is true then it is a threat and we do need to suss this out.

I'll speak up a little bit and just look at both of them and just say, to put it simply, you don't have any reason not to trust us. We don't have our own private agenda, we don't have anything that we're trying to accomplish against you. We just want to make sure everything is right again and we want to clean up what Theramak left. So you don't have any reason not to trust us and I feel like once we take care of this we can help Brightport in the long run and help rebuild Brightport and make it even a more thriving city. Uh, Nuhruun's gonna speak up.

How many people did you say were in this city? From what I can gather there may have been thousands. And you said all of them were turned into ghouls? All of them minus the ones that we destroyed ourselves single handedly through battle and fire. Baranar's weird. How do we expect to combat that kind of number? Well I think with the strength of Hammerhand and the cunning of Silverclaw and some of our skills and abilities we can come up with some type of a plan. The city like I say is a walled city which could give us an advantage if the ghouls have not escaped yet.

If they have and are marching towards us the plague will spread much quicker but if they are still contained within the city we may be able to have a more surgical removal of the problem. I'll have to speak with my people about this but I... if what you say is true then this is a real problem. I also want you to imagine what would happen in the east after the threat is eliminated. The structure of Brightport and the strength of the houses would double. There would be a walled city in the desert, a gigantic trade hub controlled once again by the balance of the three houses.

It would be advantageous for us to have two strongholds in the east and I know this transition is very strange to not see Thermak within the walls of these houses but his insanity and lust for power were going to destroy more population centers than just on a call. So it's lucky that we've fallen into this position. Ulanda's going to speak up. When would you plan on making such an attack? Well, as soon as we can. The sooner that we can develop a plan and raise a force... I don't believe that we'll need a tremendous amount of numbers to do this but more strategy and speed.

While there isn't a way for us to demonstrate our abilities in this room, having us on your side will help both of your houses. Give me the day to think it over. I can meet with you here again tomorrow if you wish. Rikas, Trixie, Dagon, Thermak's blight needs to be wiped completely from this continent. Do you agree that we need to rescue Hanakal to correct the horrible atrocity that he committed? Rikas will speak up and just scan the entire room while he's talking and just say "I hold the principle that if I'm a part of something that goes wrong, that I need to be the one that fixes it." Onakal may not have been our fault directly, but that was a city before we got there and it deserves to be a city again.

I feel like as long as we all can work together, it will end up not only being the purpose of accomplishing rebuilding Onakal, but it will also build trust among all of us. Ulanda's going to look to Trixie and you can vouch for everything this gnome is saying? That is correct. Alright then. I'll meet back here tomorrow and we'll go over a plan. There is the matter of one other thing that troubles us about Thermak's regime. What's that? I wanted to tell you the specifics of his death. Thermak was attempting to ascend to some other type of magical plane. He was into arcane blood magic and terrible necromantic abilities.

He was gathering his power in order to transform himself into some horrendous creature, which I'm sure many innocents would have suffered with his new powers. We literally stumbled upon his coming out party in this house. He was attempting to complete his transformation while we came back for our revenge after escaping Onakal. That was how the battle happened with Thermak in the room in the basement that contains our dragon defense. Now, I don't think any of you are a stranger to what is happening in the East with the Overwatch. Both of them just shake their heads, acknowledging that they are out.

What about it? It hasn't affected us very much on this side of the continent. I put it down as some type of a brush war that they would work out their differences over there, that it was no threat. When we fought Thermak, he unleashed a grouping of non-sentient, war-forged fighters that were obviously... There was no doubt that he acquired these from the Overwatch. Both of them looked tremendously concerned at that. Norhorn speaks up. Do you have any proof on this? This I most definitely have proof. And if you want some assurance that I'm telling the truth and are most concerned for the well-being of Brightport and our three houses...

Thermak's personal journals detail an intimate relationship with King Zann and Carter. That Thermak's plans for seizing power and Carter's ambition and genocide in the East were linked. And there was no doubt that eventually Carter's military aggression was going to reach Brightport. Right now, where we sit, we could have an army of ghouls marching across the desert to wipe us out, and the plannings of a mad king to send in a war-forged army to capture this particular trade hub. The next coming weeks and months are very important for the entire continent.

And while it's hard to believe that a small group of adventurers has been hurtled directly into these events... We need to act now for our own betterment and for every living soul on this continent. Could we see these journals? Trixie, Bricus, would you allow me to show the proof? I'm going to grimace a little bit and give him a look. Is there something else we could show them? We don't have any war-forged that we killed in the basement somewhere. Actually, yeah. Do we have remains of the war-forged as well? I would rather show the remains of the war-forged than give away books that they could possibly use against us.

I'm not saying this out loud. I don't trust these assholes. I don't trust you guys. We're just going to show you some pieces of metal and pretend like they weren't ours. I'll excuse myself from the table and walk downstairs and grab scraps and stuff and then bring it back. I think if there's a spot open on the table, I'll just kind of gently toss the scraps and stuff on the table and just be like, "There's your proof." Yeah, this would be like you're lugging up a torso or something. You're tossing junk on the table. That's kind of all the proof they would need in terms of, "You said there were war-forged.

Well, here's one. This is a big deal." Yeah, this is a huge deal. Both of them are just kind of staring at each other like, "Ah, shit. This isn't good." That lends credence to everything you were saying. Now, the journals would cinch it, but if you're not going to show them that, then yeah, that's totally fine. I think if they have any questions why we won't show them the journals, it's that we don't understand them yet and we would hate for something that could be highly dangerous to fall into the hands of someone that also has not had time to go over them yet.

The other thing too is that we can certainly put it as a diplomacy role and say that Theramax personal journals also outline some of the inner dealings of the house and the day-to-day stuff that we may not necessarily want to reveal. They could understand that and we'd like to go through it first to ensure that we can separate out what should be common knowledge for all of Brightport. Do you want me to kind of roll diplomacy on that or something? Please do. Okay. That's kind of how I would put it to them and be like, you know, you don't really need to see the, you know, like our grocery list.

Yeah. That's 20. That should do it. 20 should do it. Norwin's just kind of looking at the Warforged. How do you think that ties to anything here? Do they have plans on invading Brightport? I believe they do. One thing that I had read was that Carter had made promises to Theramax. That he may be able to have his revenge on Uminyiro, that he would be able to hold his power, that Carter would expand his reach across the continent. I mean, some of these are the wild writings of a madman and other of them are direct correspondence between the two of them. I'd like to show these things to you, but you can understand that it's still only in the early days of us taking control of the workings of this house.

And we want to continue the business that Dark Spain did. I think both of your houses have benefited from purchasing potions, wares, and the economic things that we did. That's going to continue in the day to day. I believe we have time, as Carter is immensely occupied in the East from what the reports have said, but the ghouls cannot wait. If they stumble into this city it will be a massacre. So you're saying we have a zombie army and a Warforged army to fend off? And potentially control over two of the strongest cities in the East, and a unified Brightport, a dragon, and no longer a madman living within these walls?

A long silence between these two. Ulanda's going to pipe up and say, "What I said stands. Again, I have to talk to my people, but tomorrow I can come back and we can try and work out some sort of plan." Norhorn is still looking at this Warforged torso. Hammerhand's here if you need us. Just let us know what the plan is so we can work together on this. We'll put aside our petty squabblings for now, and I guess we'll be going to own a call. Excellent. It looks like, at least in the meantime, Brightport is united, and no matter what happens, Brightport is going to war.

And I'll stand up and extend my hand and look over at Riekus and Trixie to make sure they're okay with everything I said. Because you know I got your back. Yeah, that's why I gave the dragon to you, buddy. I'm the loudest asshole in the world. Hold on a second. Okay, thank you loudest asshole in the world. Now I know you exist. It's just Justin running around in circles in the room going vroom vroom vroom. Feel the wrath of my air conditioner. That hasn't happened. Well, that's January. Yeah, I guess that's why that wouldn't happen for a while. Yeah, they're both going to reach out and shake your little hand.

And Ulanda is just going to kind of excuse herself. I have things to take care of. Excuse me. And she's going to get ready and take off. Norhorn is going to look to Galford. There's a sensitive matter I'd like to discuss with you all. In the interest of a partnership between our two houses, garnering some trust, there's a matter we can't take care of directly. But we would be in your debt if you might be able to take care of it for us. Are you familiar with a half-elf in the city named Bellamon Rimcorn? The name seems familiar, but I'm sure a history check will tell us more.

Anybody want to... Trixie! You want me to do this? OK, hold on. Yeah, do a history check. You haven't had a roll yet. I have not. I have a plus three for history. If you crit, it means you slap with him. Five. I did not. I walked away. He is a half-elf. Yeah, the name doesn't sound familiar to you guys. He's not a puppy. Relatively sure he's not a puppy. Well, up until last week he was an initiate in Hammerhand. He didn't have the stomach for it. He was never going to make it, so he washed out. We got rid of him. The problem is he is privy to a bit of information that's a black eye on our house.

Are you familiar with our business policy? Yes, Hammerhand is known to uphold the honour of their clients and the requests of their clients once they've been hired. That's the cornerstone of the entire thing. In this city, it's all that matters. People will understand that we're honest, we're going to fulfill the contract, we're going to protect people outside and inside the walls, whatever we're hired to do. The problem is one of our new initiates decided to extort a client just outside of Brightport. Once we found out about it, we dealt with him. The problem is Bellarmine found out about it and has threatened to go to the council.

If the council gets wind about it, it'll be a minor slap on the wrist. Fine, but word will get out that we can't be trusted. My father started this house decades ago and we've built a reputation in the city. We're one of the only honest establishments here. If word gets out that even an initiate extorted a client for extra money, this could be extremely bad for us. You understand why that would be a concern? I can see that your reputation is everything in this situation. I'd like to roll insight on him too. Sure. God, my dice suck. That totally sounds on the level to you.

Okay, I should have had a proper breakfast instead of just Sunny D and bacon. Just a goblet of Sunny D. You'd be more insightful. With a curly straw. And a balanced breakfast. I picture Galford as a high chair and he's eating Cheerios. Little feet sticking out the end of the chair, just wobbling up the air. I like how there are other- Stuck to his face and in his hair. There are totally other people in the room and you keep swinging at these dice rolls anyway. I like that you keep taking a stab at it though. If you could convince him not to go to the council over this, it would be an extremely helpful thing.

In exchange we could- Well I notice you're a little understaffed and I saw Ulanda eyeballing your dragon. Maybe we could spare a few soldiers to stand front and maybe persuade her not to attack. By convince him, do you mean convince him with our weapons or our words? Sadly I don't think you'll be able to convince him with words. If you can all the better. But he's supposed to testify tomorrow. The man's a known scumbag, that's one of the reasons we expelled him from the house. He hangs out in a bar called Safe Haven. If you could take care of this for us it would be extremely helpful.

I'm going to need to speak with the other members of House Dragonkeep just briefly here. But your offer is extremely intriguing. You're not lying when you say that we could use the assistance of some members of your house to give us some more manpower. I'll excuse myself in the corner for a moment. Have another Flagon of Veil. I was already going to do that but thank you. (Laughter) Rikas, what do you think? We need Hammerhand, we need these people. The entire time Rikas was talking, Rikas stared off into the distance thinking about the entire thing. I took his thing of ale and just chugged it down really quick and put the cup back down on the table and look up at Galford and give him a weird look and say, "Why do we have to do this?" They have somebody like David within the house.

I don't understand why they can't just explain to everybody in the city and explain the situation to the council themselves and just say, "They disobeyed what we asked them to do and we want to just remove any trace and completely disown them." I don't understand why we have to be the ones to take care of them if it's their problem. Oh, Rikas. Reputation is everything and it doesn't change the fact that an initiate of Hammerhand directly extorted one of their customers. In all of the years of them being in place, actually having word get out of that type of a dishonest dealing, it could be hugely damaging.

We need Hammerhand to be focused if we're going to be doing anything about Anakal. And also too, what are we going to do? Are we going to have our house guarded by drunks while we're marching on Anakal? Honestly, you saw Ulanda. I have no doubt that she has less than honest intentions for us and our control of this house. She acknowledges that Anakal is a problem, but we are directly in her crosshairs. We need to make good with Hammerhand. Now what if we could take this individual and turn them over alive? Do you think that that would placate Rikas? I think the problem is that he's not giving us any other reason to do this.

He wants this person taken care of, but he's not telling us why we should do it. If he could give us a good reason why we should do it and nobody else, I have no problem finding this person and taking care of it as a gesture of goodwill towards Hammerhand. Why has he not asked anyone else? And why has he waited so long if the trial is tomorrow? Well, that's a good point. I think we can ask him a little more about how this transpired, but I'm sure that he's on the level. I'm not doubting his truthfulness. I'm just wondering why he waited so long. Why did he decide to just let this way here until, I mean, how did he know we were going to come along and fix his problem?

And if so, where did everyone else fail if he asked anyone else? Alright, you know, this smell, I don't want this to smell of our arrangement with Gradic, like we need to do someone else's dirty work for them. However, time is dire and an agreement with Hammerhand and some help from their individuals would be huge for us. Excuse me a moment, and I'm going to run over to Norhorn and just say... He's going to nod and acknowledge you. Okay. How long have you known about this incident and the trial and the extortion? Has this come to light fairly soon? Why haven't you done something about this a while ago?

Why us? Why do you need us to do this? To be honest, I'm in quite of a spot. The extortion incident happened only a couple of weeks ago. Bellarmine was taken out of the house last week. He had threatened something about going to the council, but it really didn't trouble us that much until the council recognized he had an actual complaint. Once they decided that there would be an emergency session tomorrow, then it was also ruled if we touched this individual in any way, shape or form, then, well, there would be a much steeper penalty than a slap on the wrist.

If we could turn him over to Hammerhand alive without the town guard of the council being aware of it at all, would that be satisfactory or do you need him to disappear without a trace? That's very a direct question, but we're both businessmen here. No, I appreciate it to be honest. You can't deliver him to us because, again, we can't lay a finger on him. No matter how much of a scumbag he is in the community, we can't touch him. He has a formal complaint with the council. If you could convince him to not partake at all in the hearing, maybe reinforce the idea that it would be bad for his health if he did.

That would be most helpful. Although, I'm pretty sure he's hired local enforcers to guard him until tomorrow. He's no doubt ready for someone to come after him. I see. I'm not even going to insult you by asking why you didn't hire one of Ulanda's assassins to remove him. I think we both know that wouldn't be a good idea for Hammerhand. Well, let me speak to my compatriots one more time, but I think we're nearing an agreement. Delphus really smiles at that. I'm going to run my gnome little legs over back to my friends. Notice that I'm using their first names.

Riekas Trixie, we need to do this. It just came to light recently within the last, you know, it's been hours, essentially. The city has got wind that he has an actual complaint and essentially has very damaging information that he has to act on this now and that Hammerhand is completely barred from having any involvement with him or touching him. We need to convince this gentleman not to testify. Whether we do that with words or whether we do that with weapons, it's a great opportunity for us. They would be huge in our debt, provide some protection for our house, and we could get on to larger things, which is trying to take back on a call.

Riekas was just going to kind of sigh and look at Galford and go, explain to me what sort of logic goes about killing someone that... I never said we had to kill him. I never said we had to kill him. I said we have to convince him and the two of you can decide his fate. Let's just say that. The two of you can decide his fate whether he lives, dies, talks, or joins our house as an honored member. But we need to take this deal now. Riekas, we'll just go talk to him. If he decides to fight, then we were just defending ourselves. Riekas, it seems to me like there's not going to be any way to convince Galford to shut up about this.

We do need help from Hammerhand, and since he's jumped on the Hammerhand bandwagon full force, there's nothing we're going to be able to do to sway him. At least if we... if you and I can be the ones that handle where he goes after we make him decide to not talk, at least that's better than what Galford would do if we weren't there to baby him. Exactly. I mean, you could make... Galford, shut up. Riekas, come on. Fine. We'll do it. Ah, excellent. Excellent. So we'll tell Norhorn, yes, we'll take the deal. We will... we'll convince him one way or another not to testify, and we would be most gracious for some assistance from Hammerhand.

That's... that's fantastic. And he holds out his hand to shake yours. So I'll shake it and look around to the rest of the group and just say, we'll get started today. He's going to put a little bit too much vigor in his handshake, and he's going to... like, he's so happy, he's just like, oh, that's great. And he's just squeezing the shit out of Galford's hand. He's like, lifting me right off the ground. Ah, sorry, I forgot you're so wee. And this is coming from a dwarf. This is like, he's only like a few inches taller than you. This isn't... He called you wee.

So Galford will collect his... himself and just be like, no offense taken, a great deal struck. We'll be speaking again soon. And he's going to get ready to motion towards the door, then turn around and grab the pitcher of ale and walk out the door with it. Nice. That took a little longer than I thought it was going to, but it's good. We got it. We got it in the books. I'm glad. Now let's get it ready for something awkward in White Hedge. You knew this was coming. I know, I know. Valus and Baraneth arrive in White Hedge. This is pretty early in the morning still.

So, canonically, this would take place before the meeting in Brightport. This is a... so White Hedge is this peaceful little burg. Really not a major city or anything, just kind of, they get by, they trade with the larger cities that have stuff they can't get, otherwise they live off the land, kind of... kind of reminiscent of Aubrey. It's not necessarily a place that you are trying to get to, it's more a stop along the way type of thing. They're positioned between two larger cities, so it's more or less like there's an inn, there's a shop, there's a bar, that kind of thing.

That's it. What would you like to do upon first getting there? Is there something, I mean, do you just want to go right for it and try and find Kadine's mom? Yeah, I think we should... I could feel physically uncomfortable about what I have to do. And I really need to get this over with. There's been kind of a silence, too, between you and Valis as you're riding into town, like you both know why you're there, you both know what you have to do, but it's this knot in your stomach you just want to get it over with, it just gets some kind of closure. From what Kadine and Cil told me, their mother was a bartender.

I'm not exactly sure what the bar's name here is in town, but it's not a very large one. We should be able to find it. Yeah, I suppose it shouldn't be too hard to find her. I mean, how many bars would a town like this have? So make a perception roll there, Brenneth. Alright, my perception is... plus ten. Twenty. Hey! Looking around town, it's not a very big town, you can pretty much stand in the middle of it and see everything. You see a shop called the Silver Mace, you see a bar called the Succulent Pig, and an inn called Ridley's Rest. Okay. So the Succulent Pig is probably your best bet.

Uh... yeah. Now, it should also be noted that while looking around town you can see that there's kind of a mixture of humans and a couple of elves and a dwarf or two maybe scattered in. It appears like a lot of these people are either adventurers or out and about trying to get to some place. Like these people are preparing to go somewhere. So around town it doesn't look like they have lots of tieflings roaming around. An elf will be able to wander around and no problem. A tiefling may be a bit, especially a tiefling who's 6'9 and lumbering behind you.

Okay. Yeah. He may draw a couple of eyes his way. We're somewhat conspicuous. A little bit, yeah. Making your way to the Succulent Pig. Buraneth opens the door and kind of steps in and Valus kind of blocks the doorway behind her and lumbers in. And a middle-aged man with dark hair greets you to... well, he greets Buraneth first. It's like, "Oh, hi! How are ya? Is there anything I can get?" And he kind of pans back to see Valus in the doorway and the sun's kind of like... so it's just kind of his silhouette in the doorway is what this guy sees from behind the bar.

Ahh... is there anything I can get for you two? Like his demeanor kind of changes. He's a little bit more defensive. Hi. I would appreciate your help. We're looking for someone and I'm gonna kind of look at Valus and in such a way, like, who are we looking for? Oh, her name is Valerie. She apparently tended bar here. And the guy's gonna... "Oh! Oh no, she stopped working here a few weeks ago. She took over the Silver Mace. Trevor died and left her everything. I guess they were really close." So, yeah, yeah, she runs the local shop. Oh, um, who's Trevor? Oh, uh, Trevor ran the Silver Mace up until, well, about a month ago he took ill and we all kind of knew what was happening.

But she stood by him. I guess they were really close. They must have been really close friends because he didn't really have a whole lot of friends in town. Um, can I roll insight? Sure. 27. Um, nothing about that story seemed like he's trying to lie to you or anything. That's pretty much all he knows about the situation. I guess I'm trying to just gleam like they said, you know, we all knew what was happening and whatnot. I don't quite get what that means. He was an older guy. Trevor was an older guy and he just, he was succumbing to old age slash, he had a few, he had a few, he had a few different ailments so they just, I mean, there was very little they could do for him after a while.

Okay. Alright. Um, okay, so we can find Valerie at the Silver Mace then. Um, sir, is this your tavern? Uh, oh, yeah, sorry, that's so rude of me not to introduce myself. Patrick. Oh, okay, I'll shake his hand and say thank you, thank you very much for helping us out. Um, I guess we can go find Valerie. Do you guys know Valerie? Uh, no, um, no we don't. Um, uh, um. He's kind of looking at you like, okay, that's a little weird, you don't know her but you're looking for her. I, uh, we're, uh, we, we have something, uh, that, um, um, to, to give back to her. Um, it's complicated.

Oh, um, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. Um, Silver Mace is right around the corner, you can't miss it. Um, I'm gonna look at Valus and, and kinda, kinda take a deep breath and say, okay, um, I'm, I'm not gonna ever be more ready for this. Uh, he kinda nods his head and opens the door to the bar. Okay. Walking. Uh, is it weird that I'm nervous for this for some reason? That's, that's really weird. I just, I've got this lump, like, in, like, in my throat, like in my chest and, oh my gosh, okay. Um, opening, so Valus opens the door to the Silver Mace and steps on through.

Uh, there are no customers in there currently and there is, uh, there is a dark haired woman standing, um, she appears to be a little older. Uh, she's standing behind the counter. Uh, and, hi, uh, welcome to the Silver Mace, you're my first customer today. Um, uh, is, is it worth a, a perception roll? Um, you can. Okay. Ah, 13. I'm a little bit stressed out so I'm not perceiving very much right now. Um, this, I mean, it's a pretty standard shop. You got, uh, you got blades and blunt instruments kind of hung up around the place and, um, they don't trade too much in real, real specialty items.

It's your basic adventure stuff. Uh, nothing, nothing too exotic. Um. Is there anything you guys are looking for specifically? Um, I'm looking to purchase a dagger. Oh, um, for throwing or, uh, and then she kind of makes the motion for like stabbing. Uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mimic whatever her stabbing motion is. Yeah. Uh, yeah, sure. Uh, I, I have a pretty wide selection of daggers actually. My, it's funny you should mention that. My, my daughters kind of use daggers so we stock a whole bunch of them. And I felt like that, like a punch in the gut. Yeah. Um, playing along, uh, um.

Valis, Valis is gonna, while she turns around to like get, get daggers, Valis is kind of placing his hand on your shoulder and like he, giving you a look like, "What the fuck are you doing?" Like, "What are we doing?" Like, "I thought we were..." I'm, I'm gonna kind of look at him and give him a look like, "Just shut up and just go with it." Um. Uh. I would like to, I would like to purchase something similar to, um, maybe you could show me something that your daughter would like. Uh, well, they kind of use custom jobs. I, I mean, I, I can show you something similar.

Um, hold on one second. I, I think I have something similar to what Katie uses. Hold on. Um, and, and, and she pulls out like a, like a variety of different blades. Like these are real, like ranging from like short sword to dagger. Uh, like something like this. And, and she's holding up something that looks fairly similar to, to Katie's dagger, but not, um, not, it's not identical. Like the grip's a bit different. The blade's a little like, uh, like a little thicker. Okay. Um. Uh, how much can I, can I purchase the stagger for? Uh, well, I mean, it would need sharpening.

I can, I can sharpen it for you today, but I would say 400 and you can have it. Okay. Um, I'll, uh, I'll, I'll kind of turn it over in my hand. Um, and, uh, and say, "Yeah, that'll be, that'll be fine. Um, I'd like to buy this." Fantastic. Uh, do you want it wrapped or, or anything after I sharpen it? Uh, no, no, that's fine. Um, I'll just take it as it is. Okay. Um, how much gold do you have on you actually? 3000. Okay, cool. Okay. So, uh, you're going to give her 400 gold. Okay. Uh, okay. Uh, if you give me about 20 minutes, I can have her all sharpened up for you.

Um, you know what? Maybe I could, uh, oh God, I don't want to wait around here 20 minutes. Um, uh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so she's gonna, she's gonna, okay. So she's gonna take this dagger and kind of disappear into the back. Um, if you just, if you want to just walk around the shop or just take a look at anything you like, I'll be just as quick as I can. Sure. Sure. Uh, and then you hear like a grinding wheel going and, and, uh, she's sharpening up this blade. Uh, Valus is quite distraught. Uh, he's, he's, he's kind of like, like lean down, kind of almost crouch and whisper, "What exactly are we doing?" Um, I, I, I don't know that I can do this.

I'm, she's so lovely and, and she's talking about Katie. Like she's, like she's still around. I, I don't know that I can do this. I'm, you're going to have to take the lead on this. Uh, and, and he puts his hand on your shoulder and I, I, it was wrong of me to let you take the lead on this to begin with. This was, this was something I had to do. I'm sorry. I'm, I can, I can't even, I can't even talk. Um, Valus is going to kind of approach the counter and, and call out Valerie's name. Uh, and, and, and she's gonna scurry back. Was, was there something else that you needed?

I, I, I'm moving as quickly as I can. And Valus has the dagger unwrapped just sitting on the counter with his hand over it. And the expression on her face instantly changes. Oh, God. Where did you get that? I'm, I'm afraid both of your daughters died in Onakol. And there's, um, there's a stool behind the counter and she seems to kind of lose the strength in her legs and she kind of stumbles back and just like, if the stool wasn't there, she just would have fell down. Oh, man. Um, okay. Yeah, she's like, you can see tears welling up in her eyes and it, they had been captured in some form or another and sold into slavery weeks ago.

I protected them the best I could, but they ended up dying in combat. Um, oh, God. It's like a stab in my heart. As soon as I hear those words. Val, like Valor, just full tears streaming down her face at this point. Like she can't, she can't seem to speak. I just saw them last month. And she can't, she can't quite, like she's choking on the sentence. She can't, she can't quite finish it. I'm, I'm truly sorry for your loss. As soon as we escaped the city, I, I wanted to come here. I, you should know. I, I've lost loved ones too and I, I understand how much it hurts to not know if they're gone for good.

I, I don't have anyone left. And she's, she's like, she's just shaking and doing that thing where you're crying, but it's not open sobs. It's like your body's almost shut down. Like due to shock. I. And then she, she, she, she looks up and she. You, you have to tell my daughter. She's the only one I have left now. Valis, Valis is kind of, kind of, kind of confused by that. Like maybe, maybe she's just going crazy. I'm, I'm looking at him and I'm looking at her. I thought you only had two daughters. They never mentioned another sister in, in On A Call. I, I barely know her to be honest.

She, she lives out West. You have to get word to her. I, she, she wouldn't want to see me, but she was close with her sisters and she would want to know. Okay. The last I heard she was living in Winter Haven. Her name's Brianna. If you can please find her and just, just let her know what happened. I would be deeply in your debt. I am ready to promise this woman anything right now. She's going to come around the counter and kind of throw her arms around Valis. Which he's not prepared for at all. He's, he's like she's sobbing into him at this point and he's just kind of got like, he's kind of got his arms outstretched like I didn't touch her.

I didn't like what, what is she doing? Like, and, and she, like, she's just like squeezing him real tight and, and he's just kind of like very slowly, very slowly kind of like gently patting her. And he kind of bends down into her ear and is like, I'm truly sorry. How about we take a trip back to Brightport? And let me get a deep breath and a drink. So it should be mentioned by this point that Brianna's last name is Ebelmare. Mal, Malekus is going to kill me. I, yeah. Wow, this is, this is interesting. I don't know how this is going to work out. See, I thought I had found the Easter egg on the site, but it wasn't that.

And I told you what it was. Yeah, because I figured I'd already found it. It was like, you know, the cornice likes pizza. I'm like, oh, that's the Easter egg. Like, you know, and I just, I accepted it. Whatever like dumb fact I found. Like we purposefully, like me and Jake purposefully separated the two. Like we separated Brianna from, and most people don't even look at the top. They don't even notice. Like it's not even a thing. So, yeah. Yeah. So that would be the Easter egg on the site. Is everyone listening? Somebody talk, somebody talk, somebody talk. Yeah, dude, that was weird.

I got legitimately nervous. Like we were breaking news to a real person. I got like, I just, I want, I want to like comfort her. I want to talk to her, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm so racked with guilt. I just want to vomit. In character. Right. Yeah, no, I just, I want to, but I, but I feel like anything I say to console her would be a complete lie. Galford, I'm trying to replace your dagger. That's what all that shit was about. Okay. Okay. I was, I was trying to get around to it because I'm too nervous to get to the point. And also I'm trying to replace the dagger because I told him I would bring it back or I wouldn't.

You thought you were going for something like, oh, we're looking for something that looks like this. Like it's like, oh wow, that's such a cruel way to do it. No, no, no, no, no, no. I would never do that. Good God. Meanwhile, back in Brightport. Meanwhile, super friends. Yes. Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom. Let's, let's go to Brightport guys. Cause you will probably get into a fight in a second. Okay. Which will be the first time anyone's hit anything, all goddamn session and years late about six hours. And like in game time it feels I know, but for us it just seems like, all right.

So if you guys would like to position your characters somewhere in here. All right. Can we make it canon that we did lock up the gold dragon down in the basement with Amara? I, yeah, I would imagine David is kind of honor bound to keep an eye on stuff. Okay, cool. That's cool. In case you get knocked out by some thug and he just grabs the gold dragon. It's like I'm the leader of Dagon gets to like pick pocketed like in two seconds. We just lose the whole house. We can flush back down into the sewers. Like Aranath comes back. She's like, what the fuck? Like I was only gone for two days.

What have you been doing? Yeah, we're back in the sewers now. Oh shit, it's Ben Kingsley. Yeah, that's who you're going to fight against. Okay, so you find Bellamon, the guy you're looking for, behind Safe Haven, which is a bar in Brightport, which is an ironic name because it's a pretty shitty bar and everyone kind of knows that's where known felons hang out, which also makes it easy to find, like if you can't go to Hammerhand, let's say you can't afford Hammerhand because honest help comes, you know, that's expensive. Assholes you can hire cheap because you could pretty much go into any bar in Brightport and it's like, I need five who can stab and five dudes will get up and come help you, which is what Bellamon did.

He basically walked into the bar. I need five who can stab and make sure I don't get stabbed. Okay, and he's kind of trying to wait it out till his hearing tomorrow. So that's where you're going to encounter this guy. It doesn't take, he's right where Norhorn said he would be. How would you like to handle this situation? Well, he doesn't know that we're affiliated with Dark Spain/Dragonkeep, so why don't we just call him out on his shit and just say, Hey, look, there's the guy that got kicked out of Hammerhand for being too much of a pussy or something and just...

So diplomacy is what you get. Yeah, I can see how you would say that while he's standing behind all of us. Oh, yeah, that's like I'm looking at the lineup now. It's like Dagon Trixie, Ricus, then behind him, it's... The shit talker. Oh, yeah. So as soon as you approach this group, one of the thugs is going to kind of step forward, like, Ah, it's close enough, asshole. And he's talking to Dagon. I want to hear Dagon's reaction. Step out of my way. I'm not here to talk to you. I'm sorry, what are you going to do if I don't? And he just kind of shoves you in the chest.

That's it. Can I roll for initiative? Yes, you can actually, you know what you can do? Because this guy is so, so sure that you're not here to start any trouble, you can do an attack roll if you want. I'd love to. OK, go ahead. Pick an attack. Just right now. Yeah, let's force punch this guy. Let's start it off with style. Oh, yeah, baby. This is what I know. It's like been holding in a fart for three episodes. I've been wanting to hear this all day. This is a D 20 plus 10. You're up 19. Where are you punching him? Like where on his body? Yeah, where on his body are you punching him?

Right in his face. OK, Dagon's fist is going to glow. He's going to throw a punch. It's going to go right through this guy's head. Yes. Dagon's fist is going, like there's such force coming off this guy's fist that it's like Superman gave this guy a fist bump, but in the face. So your fist is going to be lodged in his head and then the force from it, like after there's like a poof after you hit your target, his head is going to literally explode. He's talking shit two seconds later. He is headless and everyone shits their fucking pants and roll for initiative, everyone, please.

So everyone and sort. So you got thugs going first, then Galford, then another thug, then Dagon. I like to just sort of shake my hand of the head guts and oh, yeah, you got it. Just casually ask who's next. So the guy standing next to that guy, the thug standing next to it is like, holy shit. And just everyone whips out. Everyone whips out hackers and morning stars and just charges into combat. So street thug number two, seeing this, says, I got to put something in that guy to make sure he doesn't do that to me. He is going to shift forward and he's going to use his morning star.

So, OK, hold on a sec. D20 plus 14, 18 versus racing. I am 18 as well. OK, so that's OK. I'm sorry, I'm getting used to a couple of the new things the table's doing. I hear a cat. Sorry, that's Penny. That's cool. That's cool. 14 today, Gons. So you can actually shave that off your own health if you want by going up to the top of the screen there, hitting the minus and then just in a 14. Yeah, it's where your health bar is. Let's see. Thug number three is going to move forward and take a swing at Rick is with his morning star. That's 14. Sorry. Twenty three to Rick is that just barely hits me.

To D8 plus five, 17 to Rick is so you do the same thing. You can shave your own health off and thug number one, he's going to move forward to Trixie and do the same thing. No, you know what? He's going to use he's going to use his poison dagger. So he's going to take a stab at Trixie here. Twenty four against Stacey. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so what's going to happen here is that's two D8 plus six, which is 11 damage. So you can shave that off and then you're also going to take five ongoing poison damage every turn until save ends. Starting now or next turn? Next turn.

OK. Kjalford, your turn. Oh, oh, you know, it's been 10 years since you've been in a fight. So may I remind you about that rod of yours? Yes, I do have a rod. Roll a D100 and something random will happen. Any time you use an encounter or daily. Oh, OK. All right. Now I can move through player characters, but not through enemies, right? Right. You can you can move through player characters, but not enemies. Right. Now, would would this chest here, whatever be absurd, barrel, I guess, be obstructing terrain or can I hop over it for you? Well, I mean, you can you can climb over it.

That's fine. But if you couldn't shoot through it because you're a gnome and you're short. OK. But I could climb on top of it potentially, right? Sure. All right. OK, so I'm going to move on top of the barrel just to give Galford some height and I'm going to use a daily. So I'm just going to yell out, like, we have to end this quickly. Nobody can see this. And I'm going to use Web of Shadows on Bellarmine in there. Bellarmine, pardon me. And that's a D20 plus 10. OK, so you whip out this badass rod of yours. OK. And so we resolve this first and then the D100?

Yes. Resolve this first, then the D100. Then we're going to find out what crazy shit happens. OK, so 21 against reflex on both of those guys, on Bellarmine and the dude beside him. So I got to roll on both of them. Yeah. So Bellarmine, that does hit Bellarmine. Now roll for street thug number four. Twenty three. That hits him, too. So both of those guys. OK, so they're both immobilized and we'll do some damage here. 2d6 plus seven. Twelve damage. Twelve damage. That's why he can't run away, too. That's that's probably that's a really good plan, actually, because that's probably what this guy would do is run away.

Now, here comes the really important part, because this could either really help or really hurt. Roll a D100, please. OK. Is the very last die there? Yes. OK. 19. Hold on, let me consult the list. I now have AIDS. Caster switches genders. Galford is now a female. Shut up. Like you don't have AIDS. For all intents and purposes, Galford is now a female. Seriously? Seriously. Oh, my God. Don't don't anyone tell Thorel. I would expect you as a girlfriend. I would expect that you would speak in just a slightly higher voice when you speak is. Oh, no, no, I'm getting deeper, actually.

Because my sexual orientation is going to change just my gender. So essentially, I'm a lesbian gnome. That's all. Do I still have a dick or am I like I'm half a night? Did I just add a gender? No, no, you switched genders. Most females don't have dicks. So you should know. So, OK, naked have dicks. Finding out a lot about Atlanta today. So, OK, so Galford fires off this bad ass attack and it immobilizes both Bellarmine and this thug. And then this kind of pinkish red that this pinkish red blast comes from the comes from the rod and Galford's hair gets longer.

He grows breasts and he looks just generally much more feminine than he normally does, which I'm guessing is a shock to everyone. Just flat out everyone. No one should be not shocked right now. I is that the end of your turn? Would you like to do anything? I'd like to with both of my hands, cut my breasts and go, wow. I'm going to look over at Reekis and just like raise one of my eyebrows and just stare at him. Like somehow you did this, you asshole. OK. Did you guys notice I changed my portrait? I did. I see that. That is adorable and kind of sexy. Yeah. Street thug number four is going to struggle in vain to move his feet from the spot he's on and he can't.

So what he's going to do is just roll a saving throw to see if he's. Hey, he's free. So he's better than a war forge. We're finding that out. That'll be the end of his turn. Dagon, your turn. I just noticed that my force hammer is gone. Yeah, that was part of your leveling up. Oh, yeah. For some reason, it's for some reason with you have to ditch a move to look you're like a Pokemon. Yeah, I don't really understand that, but OK. Oh, I'm sorry. See, Pokemon can only learn four moves at a time, so you have to ditch a move to learn a new one. OK. All right. And the listeners out there need to tell us what Pokemon is James.

For someone who knows nothing about Pokemon. Actually, I watched the cartoon once. Anyway. Well, let's use the new one. It's called the ego whip against this guy here. OK, that's a ranged attack. Just let you know. Yeah. But so if you use that, he's going to get an attack against you. I did not know that. OK, if I do a melee basic attack, what what am I doing exactly? Because I don't know. We were just saying it's just like, you know, just trying to punch a guy. Yeah, it's basically like you're you're you're trying to punch him again, but it's not. Yeah. OK, well, then I might as well just use force punch again.

OK. So this asshole steps up in line and tries to do like he's trying to take you out before you can. Like he just maybe it's just fear or whatever, but he's just like, oh, fuck that. I got it. I got to kill this abomination. And you wind up and you're going to deliver another force punch. I'm going to try here to 20 plus 10, 30. That's a crit. Where do you punch him? Let's get this guy right in the abdomen. Or two to eight plus 10. So that's 16, 26. OK. Wow. So you punch this guy in the chest and again, your hand goes into his chest. And again, the shockwave after like after the punch lands and the shockwave, it acts very much like a rib spreader.

And his innards become outards and he's just going to kind of stumble back and slide against this wall and die. So Dagon is one bad motherfucker and should not be trifled with. And all the listeners should want to like it's like we're trying to decide on what art prints to do. There's a lot of images of Dagon murdering people that I would like to see drawn. Trixie. OK. I take my my five hit points after my after I do my action right. I take it now right at the beginning of your turn and then you will see. Silly. OK. So I am going to attack street that one right in front of me with disheartening strike.

OK. It's D 20 plus 15. 30. That was a crowd that no, I created his. No, no, no, no. Five. Yeah. So, yeah, that totally hits, though. Yeah. All right. So that's a one D four plus eight. That's not very good. You move called sand. I love that. Twelve damage. Gorgeous. So you're going to see you have a look on sand in the eyes. Does there have to be sand somewhere? Can I just make up sand? There's always dirt or sand or something. Maybe you carry a pouch of sand. Who knows? Just for such a good reason. I'm going to use this someday. I picture you having like a glass hourglass and you just break it and then stab someone with it.

I mean, that's sand in the eye. No, I'm going to stay where I'm at. I need to make a saving roll. Right. Oh, yes, you do. Flat D 20. Is it flat D 20? Nine. Not quite. Stupid. I didn't. I'm not the dice. I didn't. OK, so I have a question. Before I attempt to smash this guy right in the face, I have those iron armbands on that give me plus two to attack rolls. Do I add that to my bonus just passively or like when I roll it, it will automatically recognize that I get two to whatever it was initially going to be rolled? I believe that keeps track of that. OK, so I don't need to add it to my bonus.

I don't think so. Roll it and see if it isn't in the math and add it afterwards. OK, so regardless of the fact that I ask a question, I'm adding one to my I'm doing ruin of the final act, which is a daily and then half damage of it. Yes. If it misses. But I'm going to hit the guy in front of me. But plus one because I'm speedy. 16 to strength plus or strength versus fortitude. That's going to miss. Well, it does half damage at least. OK, so roll damage, sir. So that's still to 2D. That's why I wanted to hit because I wanted to show off 2D 10 plus 10 20. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 2D 10 plus.

No, you wrote 2D 20s. I did. Oh, yeah. Well, that sounds like a lot of damage. It's like, yeah. OK, whatever that you would have called a half of 21 is so 10. OK. OK, Bellamon is frozen to the crown and he struggles to move his feet and can't. And he's going to roll a saving throw. He is also freed. So how about that? Street talk number three is standing in front of Reekis and Galford. Actually, he's going to take a stab at Galford with his morning star. Actually, that's not a stab. That's more of a blunt instrument. You get what I'm saying. And 31 to your anything.

That'll hit. 17 damage. Shave that off yourself there. Street talk number one is going to try and hit Trixie in the face. 27. That'll hit. They can leave me alone. That's cool. 17 damage. Galford. Pretty Lady Galford. OK, so I'm going to kind of like look at the rod, like sort of look down at myself and be like, I can fix this. I can fix this. And I'm going to use my other daily shard of darkness on Bellamon. So, so much. 24 against fortitude. 24 will hit. OK. And that is the 3d10 plus seven. What? Oh, no, sorry, I screwed up. Hang on. I would say that doesn't sound right.

That sucked. I was like level one Galford. Because he's 27 damage. 20. OK, this guy is hit with describe what the shard of darkness looks like. Basically, it's like he gets enveloped in black kind of tendrils and smoke and then they close over him and then they shatter. Just ripping him up. That's enough to kill him. Excellent. This guy is dead and he is slumped against the wall. Just just the light fades from his eyes. Now roll a d100, please. All right. Let's turn him into a 37. 37, 37, 37, 37. Oh, OK. Shut your hole, Massey. I'm so sorry. Two things happen on this one.

This is a rare twofer. A naked man materializes on the battlefield. What? And he is very confused and scared. He does not know how he got there. He doesn't understand. And he's just going to kind of like, oh, and just kind of like run away. Just can it be Roswell? Now, you guys wouldn't know this, but there's a very special secondary thing that this does. A blast of light careens toward the sky from this rod. One random person in Theria has been resurrected from the dead. Oh, what? Random. This rod's powerful mojo. OK. All right. You're welcome, Jason. He's like, not going to bed tonight.

Gonna be writing some shit about that. Oh, I can do so much. I know, dude. Also, you do realize that me turning into a female solves all of Galford's problems and corrects like it fixes everything he's been worried about for 100 years. It does. Essentially, like basically I'm like, OK, fuck you guys. All my problems are fixed. So you just basically went and got a sex change operation to to avoid all the stuff you're hiding from. That's. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the listeners don't know my back story, but this is going to make it really interesting because now I can weave Galfina or whatever the hell we're going to call her.

Yeah, that's wow. You know, Galford is pretty is a kind of unisex name. So no, it isn't. No, I don't know. No, it is not even a little. But gal gal means woman. Yeah, but Galford is the name of the guy. You just guys can call me gal. You're now Guyford. Guyford. Guy farting. We'll kick it around. The listeners can help. That's just gummy buns. Oh, dude. So no. This is taken care of now, guys. Like this is done. Like you're you you have you fulfilled your end of the bargain. You can go back to Hammerhand and tell them about it. Let's go back to White Hedge. So did we finish that fight?

Yeah, they just they they. Well, I'm going to wrap that up real quick. Like that's those those those guys would have run off the second that got like, first of all, you're willing the power to change gender and conjure naked men like there's they don't want any of that. And explode people into like guys. And like as soon as the guy contracting them like these guys are just town drugs. They're like, fuck this. I did not sign up for that. So they're going to run into the back portion of the safe haven and just start striking unless you guys want to give chase.

There's no. Yeah. I mean, well, should we let them? I mean, they're nobodies, though. Nobody. They can't really tell anyone about us, I guess. What about the half-elf? Oh, he's dead. He died. Oh, yes. Galford killed him. Or Galfina, whatever. OK. Apparently I was daydreaming. About sexy Galford. Yes. Well, you got me. Let's head back to White Hedge real quick. OK, so leaving the silver mace, I imagine you guys just spent some time talking to her, trying to console her, trying, you know, just comfort Valerie with the knowledge that at the very least you can get word out to her one remaining daughter.

What's happened and just try and get closure on this whole thing. So, Baraneth, what would you like to do here? What I mean, do you want to head back to town? Do you want what do you want to do? I need a drink. Oh, in game or OK. OK. So I guess we're I guess Valis and Baraneth are heading over to the succulent pig. So heading back in the bartender, Patrick greets you again. Oh, did you guys find Valerie? Is everything OK? I'm I'm going to kind of just like nod and I'm going straight to the bar. So the the bar's filled with like a few a few other patrons, just just real town locals.

Not really like toffs or anything. I are. So are you taking a seat like right up at the bar? Are you getting a table or what would you like to do? I am going right up to the bar. I'm just. OK. Yeah. What was the bartender's name? Patrick. Patrick. And he's there right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's. Yeah, I'm I'm just going to sit and and and ask him just anything, anything. Fill a glass with something. OK. Are you looking for something strong or. Oh, yes. Oh, OK. And he no problem. And he fills up a tall glass with some really stout ale, like some really strong stuff. And Valis is going to kind of come around to the side of you and sit down and just kind of looking at you concerned.

Do you want to talk about it at all? You know, that was that that was the biggest lie that I've ever told. What lie? That that woman. We went in there and we told her that two of her daughters are dead. And I sat there and I I didn't even have the guts to tell her that it was me, that it was my fault. What kind of a horrible person am I? And I'm just I'm chugging my beer right now. You know, that would have made her feel any better, right? You taking blame for something that you had no choice in. Wouldn't have brought back her daughters and it wouldn't have lessened her feeling of grief.

Well, I'm pretty sure it doesn't alleviate mine. And it certainly doesn't excuse it. It doesn't forgive it. Is this a thing where I live with it? Sorry, go ahead. Is this a thing where Baraneth is getting louder as she's talking? I'm getting I suppose so. OK, because like Valis is making a concerted effort to like lower his voice because there's people around and stuff. And OK, Baraneth isn't OK. So. All right. So give me some advice. How do you deal with this? How do you just kill people and not feel bad about it? How do you just kill people and know there are mothers who own little shops and they miss their daughters and they're never going to see them again?

I'm I'm just as bothered by this as you. I again, for some reason or another, I felt a connection to those two. And if I could bring them back, I would. I know you would. Are you going to drink or are you going to let me do this all by myself? I could drink something. Sure. Patrick, one for my friend here. And Valis just kind of gives Patrick because Patrick looks concerned at this point and and Valis just going to give him look like it's fine. Just yeah. One for me, I guess. That's that's cool. So. So Valis starts drinking with you. I'm going to raise my glass to Katie and Sylvia.

I'm sorry you died. And he kind of clinks your glass. Maybe we should just finish our drinks and be on our way back to town. You could take a nap in the back of the wagon. You try to tell me what to do. No, I just think that maybe we should be on our way back to Brightport soon. Oh, all right. Go through all this. Turn around and go home. Fine. That's fine. I'll probably be heading out to Winterhaven within a day or two. I need to prepare a few things, but I'll be taking off for the West. I'm going to kind of have a mildly more sober moment and and kind of look at him and say, wait, you're you're going to leave?

I, I have to find the girl that she was speaking of, Brianna. I, I think it's only right that she knows it's it's her mother's wish. I, I, I, yeah, of course. Of course. It I'm sorry, it just it never occurred to me that I, I would be coming back. I, I would invite you along, but it could be dangerous. Let's, could we not talk about this tonight? Can, can you just take me home? Sure. Someone across the bar is just going to shout, hey, could you keep it down a little bit? And Val, Val's going to look over and just kind of give him like the hand, like, yeah, I got it.

I got it. And he's going to try and escort Baranath back to the wagon. I've had a bit too much to drink to let this go. I'm going to look at Val and say, no, no, no, you do not speak for me. And I'm going to turn around to this guy and say, hey, if you've got a problem, you, you, you better not have a problem. The guy looks confused. Like, I just want you to keep it down. I, hey, buddy, you don't need to have your girl fight all your battles for you, OK? Just you could have just told me to shut up if that and. Hey, you don't talk to him like that. This guy, this guy could rip you apart with a bear trap on a chain and me, I could hit you.

Not very hard, but it might sting a little and I'm kind of going to stumble and shake my finger in his face. The bear trap on a chain thing is like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like the guy's like massive, massively confused. Is that a standard thing? So the guy just looks confused and he's. Hey, look, don't put your finger in my face, OK? All I asked you to do was be quiet. You come in, he's just screaming and you just shut up. OK, just back up and just get out of here. If that's where you go and just just be on your way. Do you want to start something?

Is that what you're doing? Now this is going to reach forward and try to like gingerly go, OK, let's let's let's let's go and just try and grab her by the shoulders lightly and just kind of like maybe try and steer back towards the door. Is he like picking me up or? No, no, it's not forceful. It's more like like what you do with a drunk person, just kind of like, OK, just kind of gently steer them, like try and make them feel like it's their idea. Like just. Yeah. OK, I'm I'm I'm persuasive at this point or like persuadable at this point. So I'm just going to I'm just going to cooperate.

OK. And I guess you guys are going to like make your way out of the out of the succulent pig and back to the wagon. How's about we go back to Brightport one more time? You guys have completed your task for for Hammerhand, and as a result, he sent over six guys to help guard the place. Now, these guys, unlike your drunks, would be much more efficient at keeping out riffraff. They would also they can also be trusted to do the job they were hired to do. Is there anything you'd like to do to wrap out the day before we before we kind of wrap things up real quick?

I'm going to be confused and exploring my new arrangements. Oh, yes. Get your hand out of your pants. That might be a good topic of conversation that, hey, you're you're a female now. How about that? Yeah. So Galper's pacing back and forth and just, you know, kind of stops and and looks at Rika's and just says, like, look, not a word out of you. I don't know how this happened, but I can I can fix it, you know, and I can get back to who I was before. And, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't know if I if I need to fix this. I mean, that nobody knows who I am now.

And I don't know what my I do. You think David could get me some clothes and. Oh, God, you know, Theramax, Reign of Terror never ends. And I just shake the the the rod. David's going to wander into the room and you're still wearing the same clothes, the same get up and everything. It's just now you're now you're a pretty lady. Like it's like that's the that's the only difference. Pretty nice. Is he a gnome lady? Yeah, he's a gnome lady. Oh, he's yeah. He just switched genders, not races. So he's still he's still a gnome, just a female gnome. All right. I'm glad to see everything worked out with the houses.

Oh, I'm I'm sorry. You're you have company over. I didn't mean to do this house business. David, it's me. It's it's Galford. The gnome of of the house. But there's been a magical accident. You didn't by chance use the rod from downstairs, did you? You mean this and I'll hold it up. He's going to kind of facepalm a little bit, just kind of like rub it. It's like, oh, that particular artifact was encased for a reason. I'm sure you figure that out by now. Yes, I have. Would you like me to research if there's some sort of cure? Yes, for now. In the meantime, I'm certainly no stranger to making the best of my situation.

And sometimes it's an advantage when people don't recognize you. But I don't know. Maybe I don't know who in this party is going to be able to give me some advice on how to conduct myself. I'll I'll add it to the list. And he kind of almost looks exhausted by this. Like every time he talks to you, there's a new item to be added to the list of like, could you research this? Could you look into this? Is there a fix for this? So he's more or less like, oh, all right, I'll add it to the list. Here's today's pile of mail. I haven't had time to give it to you until now.

I'm sorry. And he kind of throws down the stack on the coffee table type of thing in front of you. And he's going to walk away unless you have anything else to add. No, I'm I'm just going to kind of facepalm as well and be like, you know, at least one thing went right today. We you know, we killed that betraying snitch. No one saw us do it. And we have a relationship with Hammerhand. And it went perfect. It went well. Would you like to look through your stack of mail? Sure. Okay. As you would imagine, the houses of Brightport get bombarded all the time with with business proposals and people trying to worm their way into the good graces of each house and stuff.

So you see a lot of letters like that. Buried in the middle, though, is a very formal looking letter with a wax seal on the back that bears the emblem of the Overwatch. Oh my. So I'll hold it up and hand it to Dagon, I guess, and just say, do you want to do the honors or do you want to do the honors? I don't want to break a nail. You want to read this? He'll take it when he just can't help but laugh at you as he's doing it and then focus on the letter and and open it up. Inside is a letter from His Highness, Kings, and in Carter informing you that by the time you read this, he will already be journeying to Brightport.

The lack of communication between him and there Mac has become troubling enough that he wants to investigate himself. In the letter, he says that there are there are problems happening in the West that has forced him to expedite his plans, and he needs to speak to there Mac at once personally. So King Carter is on his way to Brightport as we speak. Alright. Perfect spot to end it. I think that's a good time to wrap things up for the night. Let everyone go get some sleep. We got started pretty damn late. So, yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Thanks, you guys. Yeah. Thank you guys for sitting down.

That was pretty wild. Like twist after twist. Well, I think there's some once we get it edited to because I mean, poor Jason has to do all the work, but there's some junk to pull out. But I think the meat of it is going to be good. Oh, yeah. The meat of it. I no longer have meat. There's a little bit less meat. Pull the meat of it out. And that'll now this went a little smoother than the call last night. So that's something the that one's going to be just a bear to edit. But yeah, so I'll get to work on this and hopefully have something done before I go to work tomorrow.

I'll see. I think Galford's already been spited. Oh, it's so awesome that that happened to him. Perfect. That's what you get when you can't keep your hands off your rod. It's good. It worries me, though. What else might happen if you keep using that thing? Well, every every time I use a daily, my dailies are pretty powerful, but every time I use a daily, that thing's going to pop off daily. I don't know what they're like. I want to know what happened to the naked man. We need to do like a side episode to see what happened. Yeah. There's so many questions about that.

Like, was he summoned from another place? What was he naked when that happened? Was it just coincidental? You got to do right up on the naked man. The naked man of Brightport. And then now someone someone random has been resurrected. It could be Katie, could be Sil, could be Duncan, could be anyone. I can have so much fun. It could be a nobody, I suppose. That wouldn't be exciting. No, but then it wouldn't be like, you know, Joss Whedon fucking our minds, you know, like, oh, if it was Duncan and then Dan had to play two characters. Oh, I could have a lot of fun with that, guys.

It could be or could be black teeth and he just starts raping and pillaging again. Oh, my gosh. It could be any it could be drunk. Would he be? Well, I guess he would come back as a human, though, right? Like he would. Well, whatever drugs was. Well, I mean, he was he was human before, but he could be the other grimness. Oh, shit. Could be. It could be. We could do so. So it could be Regus's friend that he had to kill it like in his backstory. Yeah. Well, I'll be thinking about this tomorrow night. Yeah. And don't don't worry about me trying to like expedite turning back into a dude.

I totally will roll with it. I'm happy being a chick and I change my name and whatever. I would like so much if you attached a voice to this. Like, I would say I'm going to work on that, too. I would love you forever. Just like, oh, my, I'm like, gala, gala, wise, maybe going to be my new name. Yeah, like that's one of the big things that will fundamentally change something about your character and the fact that it's permanent. It's like because you were asking the question, is this for the end of the encounter? It's like it's just kind of is just as a thing.

So, yeah, dude, it there's like if you could see this list, there's a lot of fun things on it, too. It's not it's not necessarily the naked man, the naked man, like the naked man is a perfect it's like naked man. And someone comes back from the dead, like complete anarchy. Yeah, the rod is supposed to. OK, so like he rolled a 19 there if he rolled a 19 again. The same thing would happen. So would he turn into a guy, though? He changed genders. Yeah, yeah. A third gender we don't know about, in theory. I just turned into a homaprodite. Yeah. Well, there you go.

There's there's your cure. Yeah, because that's the that's the reason it's numbered. I mean, there's a chance there's a one in one hundred chance that the same thing could happen. I mean, there's there's some crazy shit in here. I want to I want to tell you one or two of them just to have some fun and like give you an idea. But I think you pretty much have an idea after naked man resurrect people from the dead turn into a woman. Well, those were two fantastic ones. I mean, like I have so much to work with the woman thing and resurrecting anyone from the dead.

That was like there you go, Jason. There have fun with that. Like that was the listeners are going to shit their pants on like this episode goes live. You need to put a poll like who got resurrected, like random person like gnome with the pies, like, you know, like Duncan who got resurrected. Like, you know, the listeners will go crazy for that. Considering how hard it is now to resurrect. That's huge. That's insane. I'm not even at that level yet. Still, you got one more to go. If it was Ironheide's toaster children.