Turn the Page - Part 1

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

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We're revealing a lot of our art now, so you can totally see that. It's super cool. And you get character art from all the different groups. Let's see. Follow us on Twitter. Is that following? You follow people on Twitter? Yeah. Follow us on Twitter at dnrpodcast. And yeah. Enjoy the episode. Let's see the other thing where we go on the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, starting with Mac. Hi, I'm Mac. I play Kaluna Volgher, the Wildling Shaman. And Bree. Hello, my name's Brianna Richardson, and I play Judzia Grace, the Human Warlock.

And Kat. Hi, I'm Kat Charlie, and I play C, the Changeling Thief. And Jasper. Hey, I'm Jasper. I play Merrick Eltharid, Human Cleric. And my sparring partner. Hey, I'm Izzy, and I play Una, the Half-Elf Paladin. OK. Last time on the show, if you don't remember what happened, I don't blame you. We were all pretty much sleeping and playing D&D last time. So long story short, you guys beat the living shit out of Cecil in the middle of the Twin Foxes bar, and you drug his lifeless body away. So we're going to open up today with asking you guys, what exactly is the plan for Cecil?

He's kind of giving you an indication that he does not intend on-- he doesn't intend on stopping his influence within Esther Holt, and he didn't appreciate the way you approached him. Both you and Bree earlier in the day. So what would you like to do with him? Is he in the basement? I'm picking things up. You've left the bar. So Merrick has him draped over his shoulder, and you guys are just lugging him through the streets of Esther Holt. So what exactly is your plan? Do you want to take him back to the house? Do you want to drop him off with the mayor? Do you want to just maybe try and throw him in the dungeon?

What would you like to do with him? So first thing, Merrick wanted to do this sort of with confidence as a posture as well, sort of for the thugs and whoever might see. But he just grabbed him through him over his shoulder and then walked out the tavern and was probably just going to go straight back to the house unless somebody stopped him and said, hey, we have another plan. So that's his idea. He's just going to be high tailing it that way. Yeah, I would join him and bring him-- Cecil back to the house for sure. Is there any reason to go to the mayor or anything else?

I mean, I feel like-- She seems pretty incompetent, you know? Yeah, I mean, at best, she's not really-- she doesn't really know what to do. She's not making the best decisions. I'm not sure what we would do if we threw him in a chair in front of her and said, what do you want to do about Cecil? She's stupid enough that she deputized us, so we probably shouldn't give anything to her. That's probably true. This bitch gave us power. I mean, I say, we didn't have a huge fight with him. He didn't hurt anybody or anything like that. So we could just-- we've got our home base.

We've got House Grace or whatever. And that's basically our prison or our cell or our-- it's not like we're going to do something horrible to him necessarily. But let's sit him in a chair and tie him up and be like, all right, dude. OK, I do want to say this. While you've been deputized and everything, the city doesn't know that you have a fucking dungeon. No one's been in Darmok's house beyond you. They don't know that you have your own holding cell, essentially. So that is not something that the city is made aware of. So we built some stocks, and we just put them in them in front of our house.

Yeah, I mean, this is a card we keep close to our chest, right? We have an entire house that we use as our home base. And maybe we're just taking him in, sitting him in the parlor, waiting for him to wake up and have a chat with him. But we do have other techniques that we could use. Yeah, but also, the mayor never told us that she had originally hired Silverclaw. Oh, absolutely not. I'm not saying that everyone's on the up and up here. I'm just letting you know that even Craig doesn't know that you're squatting on top. I don't think anybody knows the full depth of what Darmok was doing except you guys.

I think everyone's just got a general, yeah, that guy's bad news. You guys know what he's been doing. We should put out a pamphlet. Don't trust blood mages. I thought you meant for the Darmok tour. Just open the house to the public. It's a fucking windshield mystery house. It's free on Wednesdays. To students and people over 65. Kids 10 and under. Which are hard to find in Daria. Because most of them were murdered by Darmok. Orphans get in free. In Esterhold, there's this huge orphanage. There's a lot of orphans in Esterhold. They get funneled there. That's another story.

That's fine. Because Darmok killed their parents. Well, Darmok's one of the leading causes. The other is just being attacked on the road by beasts and bandits. The Overwatch were-- whew. There was a lot of missing parents thanks to the Overwatch. So yeah, lots of orphans. Let's have an orphan army, guys. What? Can we? Let's find a way. There's a small one in Durnhollow. --a wave of fatherless, motherless bastards. Just throw them at a dragon like, fuck it. Wow. Training ground. What I want to say is I've been watching a lot of Young Justice. I'm sure we can-- Yes. [LAUGHTER] The hedge maids could be like an X-Men training.

Yeah. Just a thousand young Robins. So the question is, honestly, for everybody, is what do we want to find out from Cecil? What do we want to tell Cecil? How do we want to play this? Do we want to do a scare street type of thing and then let him back out? I mean, at this point, he's an asshole. And he's a jerk. And he's whatever, a crime boss, middleman or whatever. But what are we going to do here? What's our exit strategy? I think we need to get as much dirt from him as we can regarding the mayor and the Great Lakes and Serif. We should, instead of just letting him go free-- I was thinking we should make an example of him.

But I don't want to do this Overwatch style and just start murdering people. So maybe we should, I don't know, make him do public works projects or something, or be our new Jeffrey or something. [GROANING] [LAUGHTER] Something where he's legitimately employed. He'll be being paid for it. It's like a legitimate helping the community sort of thing. [LAUGHTER] Even more like where this is going. How about he be the house whore? [LAUGHTER] Wow. Merrick could teach cooking classes for criminals in the area and try to-- [LAUGHTER] You want criminals to be working with large sharp knives.

Well, that's why you start with just fire. Yeah, that's a lot of trust thing. You'd have Cecil cooking your food. I just want to-- OK. OK, so they could do public work stuff, like build a playground for orphans. The first thing you can do is patch up that bar we just destroyed. [LAUGHTER] Well, we could take him into the dungeon. I think the dungeon's an intimidating place. We're not going to hurt this guy right now. I mean, we have no reason to hurt him. We have every reason to get him to change his ways. We have every reason to threaten him with something else if he goes astray or if he doesn't do what we want to do.

We don't have any reason to just sit there and torture him. But we can intimidate him by having him wake up, because he's unconscious right now, tied to a chair in the dungeon like we did with Marish. And-- Can we have him hanging upside down, tied to the chair? That's-- He just wakes up, he's like, oh, shit. That's phase two. He mouths off the first time, gets knocked unconscious again, wakes up upside down, hanging from a hook. We can go this in levels, Cecil. It's fine. Welcome to level one. If you survive, you will progress. I hear the devil singing in my head from T-Torama. [LAUGHTER] So what do you think?

Should we throw him in the dungeon? You know, be gentle, but tie him up, and wake his ass up and tell him-- or see what we can get out of him and tell him to last chance, dude. Yeah, I mean, if he doesn't comply, we have many implements down there. I mean, just the sight of those implements. He's kind of a pussy. It'll be fine. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah. OK, yeah, let's do that. Let's do it. OK, so how-- OK, so you're just tying him up in the basement. And we're calling it the basement, not the dungeon, I guess. Like, that sounds more politically correct.

Yep. It will look like a dungeon to him, but we know it's a basement. Right. Just hide the pool table. Like, he's just younger. So OK, tying him up, is this a thing where he's standing? Is he sitting? How do you want to do this? Like, is he just chained up? Is he tied up with rope? I really want to paint a picture here. You know, like, in those cartoons of people in dungeons where they're, like, hanging by their arms, kind of? Like, they're standing, but their arms are chained hell or far above there. We should do that. OK. So-- And then I tickle him. [LAUGHTER] Level one.

Here comes the tickle monster. Raulus just comes in. [LAUGHTER] With a giant feather. Six foot feather duster. I am really not opposed to this idea as level one. And then it just gets worse from there, Cecil. That would be kind of funny, just have him gruffly say, here comes the tickling monster. Just, like, really-- thank you for my new ringtone, by the way. Appreciate that. Oh my god. I'm crying. [LAUGHTER] OK, yeah, let's chain him up. Again, I don't want to hurt him right now. I really want to scare him a little bit straight, if possible. And then see where this goes.

I don't want it to be a bad scene here. But I do want to intimidate him enough that he wakes up. Maybe chained from the ceiling. Both of his wrists are chained separately, but they all sort of go to one loop in the ceiling or something like that. He's kind of hanging. That is the one thing you have in this. You have chain options, let me tell you. This dude's got every rig you can think of. Like, yeah, that's-- He's got like an ace hardware. You can choose your gauge of chain as a plastic metal one. Yeah, dude, it's terrible. Yeah, let's chain him up. Let's make sure that there's-- I mean, we're being super careful.

There's no way he can get out of these things. He's-- This definitely isn't a thing like Marish, either, where this guy could do a lot of damage if we were to get out. He's much more likely to just try and slip away or maybe stab someone in the neck or something. But yeah, it's not like Marish, where, man, that guy could kick all our asses in the right circumstance. Cecil is much more of a manipulator. Right. So, OK, Cecil, unconscious, chained up in your basement, very much out. Is the entire party there? I think it will be. Yeah, I assume. Merrick as well.

Nobody wants to miss out on this. Yeah, this is too good. This is like-- this is Therian TV. Is Bree down here? Yeah, I was just going to say, Bree's going to kind of saunter downstairs, but very much kind of arms folded, because where she failed to take care of this, you guys kind of worked as a team and got it done. And it's kind of a sore spot for her, you can tell. So yeah, she's just kind of going to saunter downstairs and very much kind of in the background, not really interacting with Cecil or trying to do anything, just kind of observing. Are you going to try and wake him up or just kind of like chain him up for the night and let him go and go get some sleep?

Yeah, pour a bucket of water on him. While he's still asleep, can I go through his pockets? You sure can. Do you want me to roll a check for something? There's really no reason to roll a check. He's not going to put up any fight, and you don't care if he knows. So there's no reason to roll a thievery check. You are going to find 150 gold pieces. So that's just free money for you. Can we put everything on a table that's next to him so that he knows that we've-- A rummage through his shit? Yeah. Love it. Sure. You sure, sure can. So yeah, you're going to take that out in his little gold pouch and everything.

The gold pouch is the one that says bad motherfucker on it, so he knows it's his. This guy thinks highly of himself. He considers himself kind of a real player in Esterhole. So that's one of the things that he took such offense to is when Marish moved into town. And then Silverclaw is-- they're muscling in on his territory and doing it better than him. So you're going to find a small knife. So just putting that on the table. And you're also going to find a note. Those are the three major possessions that he would have on his person. Is the note sealed? It is not sealed.

It's just kind of folded over. Can I read it? You sure can. The note is actually from Silverclaw, and more specifically from Seraph. And the note is a warning. It's telling Cecil to pack up and just pack his shit and leave, or his new initiates are going to come and take care of him. And that's all the note says. It doesn't go into detail about who that would be. Well, guys, we got to go find these new initiates. They sound dangerous. Yeah, we should go take care of them. So wait, real quick, I just had an idea. So Cecil's got an ego, and it would be easily bruised, right?

Probably, yeah. I know Bree's hanging out in the background. Let's bring her up front before we bring him unconscious and let her be right up front, because he was threatening her earlier on. You see what I mean? First thing, first person. I'm just saying, let's humiliate him so much. It's like he was threatening her earlier. We came and got him. Next thing he does, when he opens his eyes, he sees her. Is that how you're pitching it to her? I'm just asking. It's like-- That's a good point. We should pitch it to her like, hey, want to try this again? Yeah, why don't you do the honors?

Everyone makes mistakes. Here's another chance. Yeah, I don't even-- I think just not even acknowledging any reason for it, but I mean, hell, I'll do it. Merrick will just be like, hey, why don't you do the honors and just point. OK, she's going to-- she's kind of unfold her arms and just walk to the front of the party, walk up to Cecil. Now, what is the end goal here? Just wake him up and just start-- Get him token, I think. OK. Yeah, we don't know everything he knows. We're not in a hurry. We've got all day, Cecil. Bree's going to kind of look around and there-- there's a bucket of something.

Do me a favor, everyone roll a perception check as she goes to the corner and there is a bucket of liquid. Seven. 33. 26. OK. Let me see here. Fee, Merrick, Kaluna, and Una. As she picks this bucket up and brings it towards Cecil, you're going to pick up the aroma of human waste. Does she pick that up? Yes. Yeah, she would. Unless you don't have a nose and you get anywhere near this bucket, you are definitely going to pick that up, which apparently Jatzia does not have a nose. That is not something. Maybe let's not splash him with possibly diseased excrement.

Are you going to stop her from doing that? No, I'm not. It would be funny. Yeah, somebody should stop her. Yeah. I feel like that's the worst way to wake up. This is group three from experience. It's really not that great. OK. Una's going to put her hand out, not touch the bucket or breathe or get anywhere near the smell. But just put her hand out like, hey, you do realize that is shit and piss, right? Yeah. I'm sorry, we're worried about his comfort now. You know he threatened to beat the shit out of me, right? OK. There's beating the shit out of him in return for that, and then there's pouring waste on him.

One is a little bit more honorable than the other. I'm sorry, he's chained up in our basement. Are we really worried about-- look, I figure he can get a shower. That's-- it's better than hitting him to wake him up, right? No. When is he going to get a shower? Well, we can always use that as leverage. We're going to be interrogating him for the next few hours? We have to be in his room? I don't know, I think it'll be funny. Go, do it. Oh my god. We could always tell him we can give him a shower and a glass of water. Because some of it's going to get in his mouth.

Fine. Like, she's-- she's just going to try and hand the bucket over to Una. Then fine, here, just take it. I'll just wake him up another way. I'm not going to take the bucket. But she's going to-- she's going to look away from you, just like, fine. And she's going to look towards Essel. And then after a couple of seconds, she's going to look back at Una. It's like, you're not going to take the bucket, are you? Was I holding the bucket? No. No, I'm not fucking touching that. How-- how-- how-- I don't even know what that is. I was going to say, how heavy is the bucket?

Because I could telekinetic grasp on it. And then no one would have to touch it. That's great. We're talking like 10 pounds of your invoice. Yeah, I'll use telekinetic grasp and take it and put it over by the wall. That's something I never thought would happen on this show, where I have to give a measurement for how much waste is in a bucket. And 10 pounds is a lot. Well, like, it's liquid, too. And it's been-- it's been down. Defending yourself this way, or? It's not a defense. It's a large bucket, and it's been down here for a while. And there's still a lot of-- It's not like poop gains weight over time.

But it's not just poop, firstly. And I'm saying-- I'm very much against all of that. This is really your standard human waste bucket, you guys. This is not anything special. This is just standard. This is your run of the mill, bare bones-- Grapes. Meat. Meat and potatoes. Fee, can you-- can you-- can you move it over to the same table that has his stuff on it, so that it's somewhat close by? Yeah. OK. OK, so let's leave it there for later. We can keep it close. Just clarifying here, we're going to keep it close. Relatively close. Yeah, this has kind of been shaken up a bit now, and it's-- Ugh, it's-- Ugh, it's-- Ugh, Jesus Christ.

Just put it back in the corner. There's a stink. Just put it back in the corner. OK, this has already started off. I feel like we should have got rid of the poop bucket by now. We've been down here enough times. Well, it's one of those things that, like-- No one notices the poop bucket until someone brings it up. It's only two days old. Ooh. [LAUGHTER] Bree is just going to-- kind of in frustration, is just going to walk over to Cecil and backhand him. So let's roll an athletics check. OK, so that's a 15. So that's a fairly decent-- just kind of a backhand across Cecil's face.

And at first, his head's just kind of going to lull to the side aggressively. And then slowly but surely, he's going to kind of start to stir and get his shit together. And he's going to look around the room and just blink heavily, like really, really tight-- like really tight-eyed, and then just kind of really wide-eyed back and forth. And he's going to start to try and move his arms and realize he can't. He can't move. He's shackled. And he's going to look up and see that he's shackled and can't escape. And then he's going to survey the party. You can kind of see it come over his face, that it's like, ah, shit.

This is not good. So OK, you're going to have Bree essentially try and do what? Like, what's the first goal here? Just get him to start talking. Yeah. Just think, you need to tell us literally every single thing you know. Keeping secrets is bad for your health. Yeah, I think bad move is the first thing we should be saying to him. Yeah. Bad move. You're done fucked, sir. Yeah. Bree's going to reach down and take out one of her daggers and just kind of pretend to clean her fingernails with it. Oh, Christ. She's like a caricature of a torturer. That's the thing. She doesn't know how to torture anyone.

She's never done it before. That's not-- she's just trying-- She's had an experience. --of being tortured. But she's not particularly intimidating right now. That's not her thing. Like, if she-- OK, let's continue. Sorry. Right. So we don't need to argue. Let's see here. Let's see, what is her intimidate? I forget exactly what it is. I think it's a plus 9. It's like a plus 9. Yeah, it's a plus 9. OK. Just too high. Yeah, that's-- actually, we should adjust that because that's a holdover from when she had psionic powers. I would say it's more like a plus 3 right now.

That's just because she's holding a knife. Well, Phee has a plus 9 and he's not trained. Yeah, but I mean, I would rationalize that with A, you're really skilled with weaponry. And I would say that you have an intimidating air about you, and you can shape shift and shit. So I don't know. There's nothing about Bree that would be intimidating unless-- she does the glowy thing and can punch a hole through a wall or something. Actually, I have a plus 12 if I haven't trained it. Again-- I have a plus 6 and I'm untrained. But plus 3, I mean, she does look like a child, so that's fine.

Right. She has the body of a 14-year-old girl, essentially. Oh. Don't make me feel like a boss. Luna, you're creepy. I'm exaggerating, but I mean, yeah, that's like-- she's very Ellen Page-ish, very, very waifish. So she's going to take out this dagger and just kind of pretend to clean her nails. And then just motion forward a little bit. OK. Let's try this again. The last time we spoke, you threatened me, if I'm not mistaken. So my friends here want me to talk to you again. We think you should tell us every single thing you know about Esther Holt and everything you're doing in the city.

And she is going to-- god, this is terrible. Let's give it a plus 2 just because he's chained up and has nowhere to go. That's an 11. OK. [INHALES] I don't know why we expected this to go any better than it did last time. Cecil is going to look Bree dead in her eyes and spit at her face. Throw the poop on him. That's-- This is a good moment for the poop. [LAUGHTER] I wish you would have said that in the corner. Oh, but do it slow. Nice and slow all over his head. Real slow. Yeah, we could do that. If you're-- I'll hold his pants open so it gets in there. [LAUGHTER] Someone else pooped your pants.

That is a terrible-- [LAUGHTER] We are adults. You should be shitting yourself, but because you're not, we helped you out. Having a bad day, Cecil? We just gave you the loner shit. That is-- is that something you're suggesting in canon, like Una would-- Yeah, like in canon, Una's like, now for the shit bucket. If she wants any help, like maybe like the suggestion of holding his pants open, Kaluna is not bothered by the poop, so she'll help. Just turn his head to the side so something gets in his ear. Just wipes him on his face. Simba. [LAUGHTER] I don't know what it means.

It just sounded cool. I want to paint a picture, and I don't. But here we go. Everyone roll Perception, please. Can I purposefully not roll Perception? I just feel-- I feel like we're higher brow than this, but at the same time, I want to do the mental-- I want to do the mental picture thing. Yes, I only got a nine. Even with a nine, you're picking up some of this. So there's a sloshing sound from this bucket as Bree aggressively wipes spit off of her face and just infuriated. She's going to reach back and grab at this bucket. And when she jerks it forward, two things are going to happen.

One, you're going to hear a liquidy sloshing type of noise, something unmistakable as there is a mixture of liquids and solids in this bucket. I'm not going to go into any further detail. There is also an unmistakable aroma, kind of wafting about the room when you aggress-- it's an anti-air freshener, essentially, that she is aggressively jerking forward. And she's using the momentum of her jerk forward as just tossing it towards-- The whole bucket. --the whole fucking bucket, just all of it. Just as a big fuck you. Just grab the bucket, throw it at Cecil.

So it's going to hit him square in the face/chest area. 10 pounds. That's going to hurt. And it's going to do a bit of damage. So let's do-- Was it on fire? What's it-- No, but it is a heavy bucket being thrown at you. That would have been a good idea, though. Like, his face is just kind of out there. There's nothing he could do to block this. So that's-- wow. Wow. That's going to do seven damage. Sting in the eyes. It's psychic damage. It's-- [LAUGHTER] It didn't hurt him, but it hurt his soul. So you know what? Let's say that he awoke with 10 health. Oh my god.

So let's-- Guys, we almost killed him with shit. We almost knocked him out. I'm going to need my hands on that to heal. Is he-- will he take ongoing excrement damage on every round? Ongoing shame damage. Shame. So seven damage, and he is-- OK, Cecil looks-- [LAUGHTER] Let me describe. OK, so first, Brie kind of tries to threaten him, spits in her face as a sign of defiance, figuring you're going to hit him with something or cut him like she's holding a knife. It's like, fuck you. You're not-- no. I run this town. You're not going to intimidate me. Brie, in an act of pure raw frustration, grabs a bucket full of piss and shit and throws it at him, bucket and all.

It hits him in the fucking chin and chest and dunks all of this all over, just mostly lower body. And at first, it's, ow, shit, that hurt. What the fuck did you just throw at me? It takes a second, because at first, it's just the kind of sting of it hitting him. And then it's, you just threw urine, and you-- what the fuck is wrong with you? He's going to have a look that crosses his face that is-- he is mortified. That's, A, you hit him with this, and B, it's a huge sign of disrespect that you think so little of him, you won't even punch him or cut him.

You just threw-- you just threw waste at him. And Brie is going to walk forward with her knife out, with her dagger out. OK. I'm not actually going to touch you anymore, but that does not mean I can't cut you. So you had really better start talking now. And let's try and intimidate check one more time. Come on, Brie. I think she gets more pluses for that. There's got to be some serious pluses for this. I would say that would bring it up to a plus 7, just because-- yeah. Poop. 12. Oh, come on. This poor girl, she cannot catch a break. Can someone assist? Yeah.

Well, it's a little late now, but yeah. Next time. At this point, someone may just want to step in, and like-- Can I roll an intermediate check? You sure can. OK, is this a thing where you're doing it in the background behind her, or you're stepping into-- Oh, I'm going to go behind her. That would be a goal. Yeah, I don't want to step it in and hurt her feelings. I'm going to do it behind her. Let's see what's intimidating. You could mime something. OK, OK. Just reach down my crotch and just squeeze, as if it's like, this is what's going to-- no. No. What's intimidating?

I don't think you've ever had to think so long about what would be intimidating. I don't know. It's just like, I don't want to do something that's vocal, because it has to be like silence that Bree just thinks it's her. Why don't you just run your finger across your throat? That's a good one. Just catch on. Oh, actually, I'm going to mime plucking my eye out. Oh, wow, crit miss. Wow. Wow. You accidentally put yourself in the eye. That's still an 18. I mean, that's still quite-- Yeah. Can we add anything else onto this? Can anybody else just-- Is this a thing where the entire party is-- Yeah, I'm thinking like-- We're all miming.

Everyone's miming. He swings his Morningstar up. He kind of cocks it like a sawed off shotgun. So just roll to assist. Even Valis will kind of like, oh, this is silly. Valis feels bad for her. It's like, this is sad. This is not-- Dude, but if we make her think she's doing a great job, then she's going to want to intimidate. Right. All right. So Valis is not helping. I'm not helping either. Jess is not helping. Oh, fuck. Merrick is not helping. Hold on. We can get you a house. Who is? So far. We're all just literally miming horrible shit. We all look ridiculous in that part and stuff.

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. It just looks like a bunch of clowns. All right. So this is not-- yeah, this-- no. Fuck. OK. So Cecil is just irate that this is happening. I'm going to fucking kill you. Every one of you are dead. Do you hear me? And then he does this thing with his mouth where he has to go, pfft, because his face is kind of coated in urine. So every once in a while, he has to kind of blow the liquid away from his mouth. He is irate, infuriated. Everyone do me a favor. Roll perception. 18. 17. 32. 31. 14. Jasper got a natural 20. Oh, yeah. Crit. 19 for Valus. Eight for-- Jesus Christ.

Great. God. OK. Valus, Kaluna, Una, Merrick, and Vy are all going to hear the sound of a distant horn. You are not entirely sure what direction it's coming from or where it's being blown. You can-- it's distinct, though. It's such a distinct noise. I would like everyone to roll a history check, please. 27. And for everyone who heard it or just-- 21. Everyone who heard it. So 9. 9. Oh-hoo. What's Valus's history? Let's set that up. Ha-ha. What's his history? 3. Ah. Not a bookish type, that Valus. Really? What time he spent in the library? You'd think he'd be like-- Well, he'll read-- He's just carving his name in the desk.

Just trying to look down Jadzia's shirt. But-- Yeah. OK. Well, this kind of makes sense. Kaluna and Fi. Kaluna and Fi are both going to recognize the horn as being tied to Strahd. And they're also both going to know Fi-- oh, Kaluna a bit more so. Fi would know that Strahd is the legendary dragon, the horn. The thing about Strahd is that it's been so long since anyone's seen him that tales of him have kind of passed into legend. It's a thing that only some people believe in, really. The tales have been so exaggerated, or at least people would hope that something like that would be exaggerated to the point where-- yeah, OK, whatever.

That's fine. OK, big dragon, scary. We get it. Now Kaluna, being tied to nature, maybe this resonates a bit more with her. But the tales of this dragon burning down everything in sight really resonate with her. And she would-- hearing this horn would perk her up right away. It's like, oh, shit. She would know instantly, big fucking dragon, scary. That's not good. That's not a good noise. She would also register that with Strahd is free, at least for the next year. That's-- completely off the chain can do whatever he wants. And if the horn is real, then it's a fair bet that the dragon is real, too.

OK, so in Elvin, Kaluna's going to curse just a lot. Just like, oh, fucking shit. That's a fucking dragon. Yeah, how long would it take for him to do the burny thing? And would that be big enough for her to notice? You just heard the horn. So right now, all you're hearing-- now, the horn is enchanted. So that is kind of a call out into-- so you would hear the horn very clearly. You would have no idea-- this is miles away in White Wolf Valley-- you would have no idea where the horn would be originating from or what you're indoors. Like, it kind of masks all that.

But the horn is distinct. You would hear that. And you would associate that with Strahd. That's the only thing that you'd know. Does it look like Thassil recognized it? You could tell he heard the horn. His ears are filled with shit. You could tell he heard the horn, but he's not making any connection. It's just like, OK, someone's sounding a horn. And that's it. That's not-- he's not telling the horn that to, oh, shit. This is the-- OK, imagine living during World War II and you hear an air raid siren. That's-- everyone's like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. Like, that should be the panic in people's eyes, but only if you recognize that as being tied to Strahd.

Since I speak Elven, can I hear Kaluna swearing? Or is she doing it so quietly that-- No, it would be loud. OK, hearing her say, oh, fuck, a fucking dragon or whatnot, can Una run outside because, yeah. I don't know that it could be miles away. It's just like-- Now, Bree would speak some Elvish too. It's like, this is a dragon. Right. Bree would speak some Elvish too, so that would definitely be something she's picking up on. It's like the normally fairly calm Kaluna is all of a sudden just openly cursing in front of everyone. Who else speaks Elven here?

Me. OK, so Fi would know too. Valis wouldn't. Does Jadci speak any Elvish? Draconic. Draconic, that's right. That's helpful. Come with us. It's come up so often. Good choice. It may. Do dragons speak primordial? They actually speak Draconic. Shockingly. The thing is-- Brain explode, yeah. Yeah, that's-- yeah. The speaking Draconic as a mortal, it actually comes more in handy speaking to other Dragonborn. Or in a pinch, I suppose, Kobolds. They speak Draconic slang. It's more of a bastardized-- it's like the Ebonics of Dragonborn. It's so-- I kind of imagine that it would be like in Finding Nemo when she was speaking to the whale. [LAUGHTER] Can-- I was going to say, can Fi take out his sword?

Sharp, pointy metal-- I was trying to think of its actual name. Quartzgale. Oh, Quartzgale. Quartzgale, yes. Yeah, can he take out that but still with the she-thumb and smack Cecil in the side of the knee with it and just shout at him, speak now and speak quickly. You sure can. Roll an Intimidate check. I dig it. I don't have time for this shit. 20. That's a bit more intimidating. There you go. That's what we're looking for. So you're going to hit him in the knee, and he's just-- oh! Just like he's still mad. But at this point, it's kind of getting to the point where it's like, OK, you're holding all the cards.

After a second, he's going to try and shake his leg to get the feeling back into it. And he's just going to kind of-- you can see it register in his face like he's resigned to the fact that he's this fuck. It's the same kind of look you saw Marish get after a few-- it's like, I'm not getting out of this. This is bad. And if I don't play this right, these people could murder me. And no one would ever find me. What do you want to know? I want to know everything you know and speak quickly and clearly. Silverclaw's trying to drive me out. They want me to pack my things and go.

I don't intend on leaving. I know the mayor brought them in, and it's not going according to her plan. And I know that you have some delusion of actually cleaning the place up. What else do you know about the mayor? What's to know? She's a fucking moron. She brought in a new criminal element to clean up the old criminal element. And she's too stupid to realize that as soon as they saw that there's a chance to make some gold, that they just stick around. Does she have anything that can be used against her other than the criminals she brought in? And you can kind of see him do that thing where you look up, you're kind of thinking, the only thing I know of is she brought in a new captain and a guard.

But that's more to clean up the place. Now she's doubling down on being sanctimonious. What do you know on Seraph? He's in the town. Do you know anything about where he might be hiding? Again, you can kind of see him thinking. I had the note delivered to me, and he's looking down at the table. Like, obviously, you ran his pockets. You read the note. He knows. But I honestly don't think that you're going to find him unless he wants to be found. There's one thing the people at Silverclaw are good at, it's hiding. I've had my best men on it now for three days, and none of us can make heads or tails of where they're actually held up.

Do you know where the Greyclicks hide themselves? Oh, they're not hidden. You can find them on the west end. They're usually just walking around in the streets, to be honest. They want to be seen. Especially after whatever you did to Marish. Actually, what did you do to Marish? Are you really sure you want to know the answer to that question? If he was in a similar situation, yes. Do you know who else, apart from us, wanted to speak to Marish? I would guess Silverclaw. You would guess correctly. Now, there's a note on that table addressed to you from Silverclaw.

So I've got you to contend with. I've got Silverclaw and the Greyclicks, not to mention the mayor. Is there any other players that I don't know about? There might be, but you just best hope he doesn't take any interest in this town. Also, Cecil, we're not the ones chained to a ceiling. So questions, really? How do you want to play this? Because the way I see it, you either kill me, and maybe someone takes my place. Maybe my boys come looking for me, depending on how much I actually paid them. I forget. I doubt it, but we can always deliver your dead carcass to them, save them the trouble.

The other option is you let me go, and perhaps we can try and work together. We've done that before, Cecil. Well, cards on the table, I actually thought that you'd be dead by now. So now that I see that you're competent enough to stay alive, maybe we can work out something a bit more long term. Keep going? How's about we get rid of all the other players, including the mayor? We just kill her. We just get rid of her. I don't even care if one of you takes over. I really don't. As long as you leave me and mine alone, let me have my little chunk of the city, we go our separate ways.

It's a hell of a lot better than having Silverclaw run the entire thing, I assure you. He is pitching a hell of a deal, considering he's tied up, covered in piss. Oh, the guy's confident. This is the stupidest fucking thing. There's no way it's happening. No, it's not. You fucking idiot. Can we all just laugh? Like, can we all literally, in game, just start laughing? Totally. Because Josiah is going to. Yeah, we can all laugh and smirk. And then, Maric will suggest that everybody-- like, let's go talk about it, and just leave him in the basement for a little while.

He's going to start jerking at his chains. Like, that is infuriating to this guy. He's looking at himself as like, I'm a player. I'm a powerful player in this city, and I'm offering you quite the deal. And you laugh at him. That is infuriating to him. Like, he wants to punch you in the face. Like, that is his knee-jerk reaction, just like start jerking at his chains, even though he knows he can't get out. It's just like, man, fuck you. Like, that is-- Rude. I am not one to be trifled with. Can someone knock him out? Also in character. No, no, no. Let's not knock him out.

Let's leave him by himself, completely conscious. I might shoot you with that. Can Fi, using his telekinetic grasp, just pick up the bucket and put it over his head? I knew you were going to say that. That is so awful. I'm so pleased. Bravo. Do we come back? He's going to be coated in vomit as well. All over his face because it had nowhere to go. Yeah, we can do that. That's horrifying. But yeah, we can do that. OK, so that's gross and done. Group three. Merrick will suggest taking everybody upstairs and making everybody something to eat and cleaning up a bit.

Is everyone hungry? Let's go be civilized. Ken, he tends to settle, even though you can't see him. And he says, think about what you actually have to offer us. And he's just going to slam the door on his way out. We're still on the other side like, what drama queen? We have to open this door with me? OK, this horn. Yeah, can we run outside and check that shit out? Sure. Tell me what's going on. I can run an ice brie check. So OK, let's see here. Jadzia, Valis, who didn't pick up on the actual meaning of-- Nothing breathing either. Yeah, no breathing either. I didn't hear the horn.

So Jadzia, Valis, Bree are all going to pick up on the fact that you guys are a bit panicked, a bit spooked. And the second you heard it, everything picked up a bit. You're like, OK, let's wrap this up because we have bigger shit to deal with. And you're running outside. Now, Una doesn't know anything about Strahd or anything, what that would be tied to. Or maybe doesn't know that that horn would be tied to that. So-- Yeah, I just heard Kaluna say dragon. It's like, dragon, thing to kill? Yeah. Like a dog hearing, like, bacon? It's like, what, what, what?

What? And Merrick doesn't understand what she said, but he does know Kaluna enough to at least be like, what's going on? Oh, yeah, you could totally pick up on body language. And the fact that everyone's running out of the house. So dead giveaway that something's up. So along the way, I'm guessing someone is going to fill-- who had the highest-- Kaluna and Fi would have the highest chance of just relaying what they know. Yeah, Kaluna would be sort of shouting it like, dragon, big dragon, fire, death, bad. Now can I roll a history check? Yes. I didn't have much to work with.

Well, Jatzia would-- I mean, having that information to go on, it's like, what? OK, well, let's see. What dragon, fire-- oh, shit. So she could kind of reverse engineer enough to know that she's probably talking about Strahd, if that's the case. Then you guys could all be very fucked. OK, so the second she realizes it's Strahd, she's going to grab Valus's arm and pull him back the fucking side. Yeah, Kaluna never would have actually gone outside. She would have been sort of leaning out the door like, oh, fuck, is he up there? So Valus is completely clueless in the situation.

Like, what? He's-- OK, you're all running to something. It's like, oh, good, we could go beat this problem up. Awesome. So he's not-- he's going to kind of like-- you're jerking him back inside before you even leave that. What's the problem? We're not fighting this. Fighting what? If it is what I think it is, we can't win against it. And then she's going to kind of explain what she knows about Strahd. After a second, a moment of recognition is going to hit Valus's face. Like, he's heard-- you know, he's heard stories like, but that can't be real. There are a lot of things that shouldn't be real that are.

We have to hide. There's no fighting this. We have to get the rest of them, and we have to hide somewhere. Valus is going to turn to Una. Paladin, if this is real, I hate to say it, but I don't think we can kill it. Not by ourselves. Do I even know what Strahd is? I would explain it loudly enough for you to hear Strahd. Whether or not you've ever heard stories is too worth check. Una's most likely going to hear Legendary Dragon and probably stop listening after that. God damn it. She's going to look at Valus and just go, are you fucking kidding me? This is glorious.

And she's going to just sprint outside and look into the sky like, oh please, oh please, oh please. God damn it, Una. Bree's going to be terrified. Bree has a huge fear of dragons, as you found out before. And you tell her that she was scared of the black dragon you guys faced, of Kaothorn. And he was a runt compared to Strahd. So this is like saying, it's like, yeah, you have a real big fear of dogs. And it's like, here's a dog that's like 20 feet tall. That's what you're-- it's like, oh shit, that's terrifying. Clifford, the big red dog. The big red dog, yes.

The big red menace. Fear Clifford. Fear Clifford, hashtag. Hashtag fear Clifford to everyone. She is not going to follow Una out. It's more like looking down like, oh god, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. This can't be real. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Una, please roll a perception check. Come on, perception. Don't let me down here. 20. The time it took you to-- from the moment you've heard the horn to get outside has been a few minutes. Una feels like, OK, Una's looking out, just like scanning, like all over the sky. Just like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Just like looking everywhere.

And in the far distance, she thinks she can make out the silhouette of something huge. Something winged, something red, like in the far distance. And it's traveling away. But it's just kind of catching the glimpse of something, like seeing an airplane really, really far in the distance. And it just like-- and it looks like it's descending. If I sprint up to the roof, can I get a better view? If you want to try and climb the-- yeah, if you want to try and run upstairs and then climb out onto the roof. Yeah. Darmok's house is big enough that you might be able to catch-- you might be able to kind of see over the city skyline a little bit.

Yeah, I want to do that for sure. They're just like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Like sprinting up the stairs. She's going to follow her. OK. Jotzia is not. OK, so climbing out onto this-- so kind of climbing out, there is kind of a section where you could get out onto the roof. It's a little cumbersome, a little tough. Really wasn't built for that. Roll an athletic checks for me, both of you. Athletics. Athletics, yes. 26. OK, yeah. 19 to 26, you're fine. I was about to say, that would suck if you fell off the roof. So climbing out onto the roof, you can definitely see over the city skyline a bit.

Darmox House is fucking huge. The problem is the tree line and mountainous regions are kind of in the way. But every once in a while, you will absolutely-- actually, roll a perception check for me, both of you. 30. Crip 20. Oh, fuck yeah. 26 and 30, very nice. You are going to see in the far off distance the outline of a huge red dragon. And what it looks to be doing is dive bombing back and forth. And one of the times it descends, you're going to see it-- just catch a glimpse before the tree line cuts it off. It looks like it's about to breathe fire. And you're going to see just a touch of it just kind of come out, and then it's just going to be completely obscured by trees again.

There is a great distance between you and this. And if it weren't so absolutely huge, you wouldn't even be able to see it from where you are. But the fact that it's that big, you're kind of catching the speck in the distance doing stuff. You can't really tell if it's-- what it's fighting or if it's just causing random destruction. But what you are kidding is that it is large enough to be seen from miles away. OK, question. So you know when we killed Kaelhorn? Yes. I took the horns, and I got a drinking horn and a war horn made. Yes, you did. Would the fact that it's made from the used to be skull of a dragon have any sort of like-- Connection to another dragon?

Yeah. Oh, cool. Sounds great. Let's call it the fuck over. Could-- Could he push her off the roof? Yeah, could I make an acrobatic check if she tries to put it up to her lips? That was just a question. I'm not-- I'm not-- Right. I just wanted to know. Totally unrelated. Totally unrelated. You are definitely on the right track. Yeah, you are-- OK, what I will tell you is that age plays a part, not only age, but kind of the measure of a dragon. So Kaelhorn had been alive a long time. Yes, there would definitely be something that Strahd might pick up on and maybe head in your direction.

OK, I'm just going to turn to Fae and just be like, look, we can probably summon it kind of with Kaelhorn's horn. We should totally take this thing down. Fae is just going to slap Oona around the face. Yes, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, he's going to slap her with his metal arm. Wow. Whoa. That got dark. And just say-- With his pimp hand. And just say, are you out of your fucking mind, Oona? Strahd is death. You will bring this whole town to ruin if you summon him anywhere near here. You should be thanking your god that he has not come anywhere near this town.

Would it be obvious that he has gone towards the Overwatch? That general direction, yes. That would be in the direction of the Overwatch and the Evergreen and that general. But because it's so far away, you can't tell. It's not something you could pinpoint. OK. Count your blessings that he is heading further west. And if you dare touch that horn, you will regret it. Oona's going to touch her cheek like, what the fuck, man? Just kind of surprised that he fucking slapped her. And she's going to be like, OK, not now, obviously, and not here. But it looks like he's attacking the general area where our friends and colleagues are.

If we can lure him away somewhere where we can actually get him weakened or vulnerable somehow, we could kill Strahd. That is also the general direction of the Overwatch, the people we are fighting. I don't think he's distinguishing very much between our friends and our foes. Just like you are not distinguishing between our lives and our deaths. You may have some kind of sick want to die in glory. But how do you think Jadzia, Breanna, Kaluna, Maric, and everybody else, everybody in this town, do you think they wish to die? Do you think we can lure him into the mountains and do what nobody has ever done?

He is not legend for no reason, Oona. He defies everyone. He is not somebody to be taken down by a handful of people who have adventured. That is all we are. We are adventurers. We are trying to clean up a town. We are not saving the world. Don't pretend that I have the monopoly of bravery. OK? We have the chance here to be even more legendary than that dragon. If your motivation is reward, unfathomable riches. If your motivation is life, OK, maybe this isn't the best bet. But can you imagine? I'm not saying we alone handle it, but a force of some other people.

We could do this. We could kill him. We could kill a legend. This is not something that should be imposed upon the group. If you wish to go and fight Strahd, be my guest. But do not drag our lives into it. Oona's going to take the war horn off of her belt and just hand it to Fi and say, look, I'm not going to leave the group. I'm not going to put you in danger. You hold onto this. And when we as a group decide, then we can go. I'm not going to leave you, and I'm not going to put you guys at risk if you don't want to be. I'm not that crazy. But come on. Thank you.

Yes, we should discuss this with the group. I think the sights have been seen now. Should we join everybody else? Yeah. Let's go. I'm just getting Strahd ready in case. Is that a way? No, bad. All right, so Fi and Oona, I'm guessing, have rejoined the party. Brie is going to run up to them right away. Did you see it? Yes. It is magnificent. Oona's eyes are all lit up. She's super fucking excited. Brie is going to kind of look at her like, are you fucking nuts? What do you mean magnificent? You mean big? Deadly. Huge. It's huge. It's deadly. And it's attacking something further west by the look of it.

Wait, you mean it's outside the Overwatch? Potentially. We do not know its exact location due to the mountains and various landscape between us. But it is possible that that is what it is attacking. Brie, it could be burning down the Evergreen. It could be killing our friends. It could be killing the Overwatch. But we don't know. Killing the Evergreen, Kalloon is going to immediately be like, oh, fuck. Just that sort of look on her face. The look of fear is going to be replaced in Brie's eyes. And it's much more a look of determination. We have to do something then.

We got to go try to kill it. Are you crazy? You have already died once. It could be attacking the army. This is our only shot at taking down the Overwatch. And I'm trying to forget the fact that all of my friends are there. But I mean, we could have just gathered tens of thousands of people to their deaths. We have to do something. With our history check, do we know who had the horn? You would know that it would be the leader of the Dragonborn. So if Strahd is there, that means the Dragonborn leader summoned it there. He was on our side. I don't think just because it's summoned, it's bound to anyone.

I think the legendary dragon-- I don't think so either. But if he summoned it, that meant all was lost. They would not summon that monster for no reason. And you emotionally blackmailing Brie to go and fight that monster just because you want to fight it is disgusting. I'm not emotionally blackmailing. I legitimately worry about the people who that monster is killing. And you came in here with a smile on your face and said it was magnificent. Just because it's killing things doesn't mean it's not magnificent. If we kill it, we are legends forever. I don't want to be a legend.

I want to be alive. If Strahd is out there, those people were dead or they're hiding. That's the only two options. It's too late. Brie's going to turn to Jadzia. Look, I don't even know what we could do against it. I'm not going to lie to you. This will probably lead to-- we're all probably going to die. But I can't stand here and do nothing. My best friend is there. You can't just ask me to stand here and know that she's being attacked and do nothing. Unless you wish to die yourself, all you can do is pray to the gods. Yeah, well, I'm not too religious, so-- Neither am I.

Brie's going to get ready and start walking towards the door to leave. Fuck. Who's going to look back at Fi and Jadzia, kind of like a wounded puppy eyes, like, I don't want to go after her, but I don't want her to walk off on her own kind of look and follow Brie out. Is anyone else going to join the two of them, I guess is my question. Kaluna will sort of curse and sort of look between Merrick and the door, and she'll follow. We're not splitting the party right now, right? I hope not. Because if we all need to go back and get my horn-- I thought this was more of just like a-- No, no, no.

--we'll talk ourselves down somewhere else. Like, let's go get a coffee or something. That's what I was hoping it was, was you're bringing Brie back. Yeah, that's why you didn't say anything to begin with. No one's left yet. OK, good. Let's all-- Brie is very much trying to find a horse. She is very much of the mindset that something has to be done. We have to go do something, or at least find out how bad things are. So she's going to kind of just walk out into the street and just kind of almost frantically look for something with four legs and fast. That's what she's looking for.

OK. Unu will grab her and stop her and say, OK, don't be an idiot. As much as I want to kill this thing, we are not going to do it by just running towards it and punching it. And I know your first instinct is to go and take care of the people you love. But that's not going to help them at all. And you'll probably just die as well. If we're going to do anything about this, we need to think this through. I don't think we have a lot of time to think. Better think fast then. We don't even know what the situation is there. They called that thing in. Most of the army could be gone.

Do you have any idea what this is like for me at all? Yeah. I have a general sense. But running off and checking on them is not going to do anything. I have a war horn taken from Kaolu. It may be able to distract Strahd or bring him towards us. I don't want to use it in the middle of Esterhold. But their best hope and our best attempt at killing him is getting him away from those armies and bringing him somewhere isolated where he's vulnerable. So we ride out to somewhere where there's no people and we try it? He needs a little bit more thought than that.

But sure, yeah. I should have never let Liara talk me into staying here. I should have just followed her and-- And died. Um, OK. So Bree's looking around while she's more like looking in the sky. It's like, why the fuck did I ever let her-- and then you say and died. And she just kind of snaps a look at Una, just aggravated beyond. You're not any use to anybody dead. Yeah, I know I'm not used to anybody at all, alive or dead. I have been fighting the Overwatch for years. I've lived in a damn forest for years. And the second that we had the chance to take the fight to them and end this, I'm completely useless.

My friends could be dying right now. Uh, OK. And I'm just going to be like, you know what? Fuck you. You are useless. Why the hell are you even here? You should just go live in a fucking cottage somewhere. Stop this petty little girl attitude that can't get what she wants. Just fuck off and go live somewhere alone. And don't drag anybody down with your shitty little attitude about losing all your fucking powers. Bria's going to stop talking and take this in. And there's-- Oh god, I hope I didn't go too far. Do me a favor, roll Perception. Oh, fuck. 32. There's a look of hurt that kind of crosses her eyes first.

And that is replaced with rage really quickly. 21, she is going to jerk forward and slam both of her palms into Una's chest and just try and shove her back as hard as she can. So that 21 is going to be against Una's fortitude. Yeah, that'll hit. OK. So this is going to knock you back a couple of spaces. This is her putting all of her body weight, which isn't very considerable, to be honest. Like, Una's wearing full plate, and she's just kind of like, try and shove you back as hard as she can. So while it does jostle you back, it's not going to knock you down or anything.

OK, is it going to do damage? Not so much. No, you're wearing full plate armor. This is just her pushing with her palms. OK. Una's going to step up the two steps back towards her. And this is going to get all up in her face. She's like, you want to go? You want to fucking do this? You're pathetic. Oh, god. Oh, fuck. I'm trying so hard. Brie is going to try and punch Una in the face. And this is-- after she shoves you back, this is more like, just get the fuck away from me. And Una does not catch the hint and just charges back forward and gets right back up in her face.

And Brie is going to clench her fist. It's shaking. She is so upset right now. And she is going to get ready and try and throw a punch at Una's face. So this is going to 22. That would be versus Una's AC, I would imagine. Yeah, that's not going to hit. That's not going to hit at all. I mean, it might hit, but it's not going to make a difference. Right. So she's just going to-- this is more like out of frustration. Just try and hit you in the face. And it's probably just going to catch your armor or something like that. And it's probably going to hurt her way more than it would hurt you.

And she's just going to recoil her fist and just absolute impotent rage, can't do anything in this situation. So after she throws this punch, she's just going to start yelling at Una. How the hell would you know what this is like? You've never been anything less but awesome on the battlefield and intimidating. You have no fucking idea what it's like to have the one thing that made you powerful and made people look at you like you actually know what you're doing stripped away from you, to go from everyone in the room looking to you for answers, guidance, leadership, to have that stripped away, and then have everyone in the room look at you like you're a liability.

Oh, god. This is so sad. I'm trying to make her angry. It's not working. OK. I'm just going to scoff and just be like, bitch, bitch, wine, wine. Stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself. It's pathetic. You've let everyone down. The only thing good about you was your powers, and you don't have those anymore. You're worthless. Just leave. Oh, god, please. Tears are beginning to stream down Bree's face. Backfiring so hard. Go ahead and roll a perception check for me, please. Oh, fuck. 18. She is-- her eyes are clenched really, really tight. And you can see that she's trying really hard not to cry.

She wants to be more angry than hurt, but it's a combination of her realizing that her friends are in danger. She can't do anything about it. And the one person she's sharing a connection with is, instead of being supportive, antagonizing her. OK. OK. I'm just going to see this and just say, you are worthless. Just like your sisters. Just like your mother. Just like your father. Bree's eyes are going to snap open, and you're going to see where her pupils are gone. Yes. Completely black. And she is going to hurl her fist at Una's chest. This could get nasty really quickly. [LAUGHTER] Worth it.

Haven't had to do this in a while. Where is it? Where is it? There it is. There's my baby. [LAUGHTER] It's like somebody getting in their really nice car after they've been abroad for a long time. They're just like, oh, yes. Oh, that's the stuff. Hold on a second. She is going to use force punch. Well, she's trying to punch you, but yeah. That is a hit. Yep. That was almost a crit. That was almost a crit. She is fucking pissed. 26 damage to Una. Whew. Una is going to be launched backward into this public square and fly through an apple cart. Six spaces. So she is going to fly backward three spaces, plow through this cart, and then another three spaces beyond it.

And Brie is just going to stand there with her hand outstretched, glowing. And a look of shock is going to kind of cross her face like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Can Kaluna speak up now? Sure. She's going to sort of-- she'll watch, and then just a second of stunned silence. You never did that before. She's going to look at Kaluna. Her eyes still jet black. Oh, they're black-eyed buddies. And she's just kind of-- her mouth is like a gape. Like, oh shit. Like, firstly, yay, I got my powers back. Fuck, I just launched Una 30 feet that way. She's going to double time it over to where Una's laying.

Una just be laying in the middle of the apples, just beaming like an idiot. Chomping on an apple. Bruises all over your face. Several teeth lodged in the apple when she-- [LAUGHTER] Oops. Bree-- so she's just-- she's going to be hovering around you. And her hand's like shaking, like kind of like, I am so sorry. She's just kind of like kind of leaned down and kind of like-- like kind of touch your chest like, I am so sorry. Are you OK? That was awesome. You know I didn't mean any of that, right? Wait, wait, wait. You said that just to get under my skin? Una's going to look like super sheepish and then like really quick, like lean up, kiss her on the cheek, like, and just like back up.

So the color's going to return to her eyes, and the glowings kind of kind of stop with her hands. And she's going to sit down. She's going to kind of like sit down for a second. So in the midst of this field of apples now that she's kind of-- Have to pay for so many crushed apples. I guess you can make applesauce? It's OK, Kolloona's loaded. We got it. She got that apple money. She got that apple money. Is there like a stripper? Merrick would love to have a lot of the apples. He could make some really nice stuff for the-- maybe some preserves or something.

We're going to need them. We're hiding in a basement. I didn't know I could do that anymore. I mean, I just-- I saw that-- You know, I spent a long time kind of wishing that something would take the powers away. And the second I lost them, I needed them so badly that I just spent the rest of the time wishing I could give anything to have them back. So thank you, Una. Hopefully now you can control them a little bit better. I mean, they turned off once. Maybe you can learn how to do that. I'm really sorry for what I said. Like, really sorry. She's going to lean over and kind of drape her arms around Una's shoulders.

And then kind of lean back and kind of like give a quick kiss to Una's lips. It hurt, but I think I needed that. Let's just go. Yeah. I mean, I know we're hot, but people in the marketplace might not want to see this. She's going to kind of smile at that for a second and then realize, like, oh, yeah, we're in the middle. This is in public. And a crowd has started to gather. First and foremost, the owner of this apple cart, she is none too pleased with the fact that you just ruined her livelihood. Through the fucking sky chat. [LAUGHTER] Well, they can't see.

They can't see the dragon. Like, they can't-- that was something they're not looking out for. People care more about lesbians than dragons. [LAUGHTER] It wasn't so much the fact that they're lesbians. It's that one just punched the other 30 feet and threw a fucking apple cart. Like, that's more the attention grabber. That shit's hot, don't lie. [LAUGHTER] Oh, god. Kaluna will walk up to the lady who-- I assume she would be able to connect. This is the lady who owns the apple cart. Yeah. Yeah. She'll just sort of be like, how much is it for all the apples?

Seriously, Merrick would actually really appreciate Kaluna bringing a bit more full of apples. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, Kaluna likes apples, so why not? The worries of her people. [LAUGHTER] Hey, hey, she practices ultimate cannibalism. She grows stuff on herself and eats it. It's fine, guys. It's called autocannibalism. [LAUGHTER] And people eat all of the nature. [LAUGHTER] But yeah, she'll bite all of the apples. Oh, OK. So yeah, this lady kind of-- OK, so approaching the situation, like, the fuck? Like, that's kind of the opening-- what the fuck? Like, firstly, it's like, wow, you just punched that woman 30 feet.

That's impressive. Secondly, what the fuck? Seriously, that's my entire livelihood. That's how I earn a living. And then after you offer to pay and you're paying for all the apples, she calms right down. She probably wouldn't have sold all of them anyway, but yeah, she calms right down. It's like, OK, do you need me to help you? Do you need me to help you move them? Do you need me to get somebody to help load them up for you? That would be really helpful all of a sudden. Oh, lord. So Coluno will go about getting the apples back to the mansion while they do whatever they're doing.

OK. Yeah, I guess just walk back to the mansion. OK, so meanwhile, while all this is going on, so we got Merrick, Valis, Jadzia, and Fi. Yep. What? Fi would go over to Jadzia and pull out the horn and say, there is potential for this to distract. Call over. I'm not sure which would be more appropriate. But there's potential for this to summon the dragon, or at least summon his attention our way. Study it. See what you can find out about it. And keep it away from Una. And he's going to look from Jadzia to Valis, as he says, and keep it away from Una. Ew, but Jadzia will just nod.

And I assume she has some sort of bag that she'll just tuck that into. But we're the ones who made it. So there's not really much we can do to research how he's going to react to it. Well, it wasn't us. It was Artemis. Artemis. Yeah. But it's new. So it's not like I can go read a book. That's kind of my thing. That's true. I can't really go read a book about how this is going to work. I'm sure there have been other dragon horned war horns. Right. It may be less about what this horn can do, so much as what can be done with dragons. So how can dragons be contacted or called or killed or anything like that.

Or avoided. Or avoided. Or as a listening horn. As a listening horn. Old timey listen. Let's let that explain. Valis is going to witness this exchange between Fi and Jadzia. You're not actually considering calling it, are you? Of course not. I'm not that stupid. But Una-- Is. Yes. For lack of a better word. Is is a good word. So we'll keep it away from her. What if that dragon comes towards this town? I don't think there is a lot that we can do. Potentially we could use the horn to distract it away, but I'm not going to be the one to do that. The people outside. Let's do this.

Roll a perception check for me. Can we just point out that Jadzia is the least perceptive person in the party? Six. Six. Is Jadzia outside? Oh, no. No. You said everyone, I thought. Everyone outside. You said everyone. I don't-- I think I added that caveat, but it's OK. If I didn't, I meant to. You fucked up. Fool. Just admit it. I was in pain, didn't you? I just heard everyone. You might have said it. I don't fucking know. I think I did. I don't know. It's a good thing we record all these. So 17. OK. Kaluna. Una's definitely going to see. Here's where things get interesting, guys.

Oh, no. Here's where we get fucked. We all get set on fire. Did you hear that little chuckle when I said fucked? That little, heh heh heh. That's not how I laugh. That was my best impersonation. That was OK. The chortle. Sounded about right. That's more of my giddy, I know something you don't know. Yeah, I'm aware. Because whenever I hear that, it's like, I will fuck. Everyone outside. So Kaluna, Bree, and Una. Una's going to notice this first. The sky overhead is going to go dark. Of course. Fuck shit. And Strahd, it would appear, has very quickly flown in an easterly direction.

And he is going to pass clean over Esther Holt in a low trajectory. So low, as a matter of fact, that I would like you-- actually, you know what, I'll do it for you. Roll a bladder check. Right, that dragon fear is a thing. 24 versus all of your fortitudes. That'll do it. Everyone outside, right? Everyone outside. This is going to be a strong enough gust in his wake. He is that low. He is going to kind of just buzz Esther Holt. And he is so massive that in his wake, it is going to be like if you were to stand on a runway and a jet lands in front of you, like the wake turbulence would be enough to rip you off of the runway.

Like it is going to jerk you clean down the street. This is enough to knock all of you prone and drag you about 45 feet. So let's see. Bree, Una, Kaluna, all jerk down the street, along with many passers by, many civilians, are going to just be like, this is a monumental thing. This is like a small natural disaster that's just occurred. It just shifted everybody in the city down the street a bit. That's all. It's the only damage it's done yet. What about the apples? Apples everywhere. Apples everywhere. Like this is like a ninja has like those marbles that people trip on and shit.

It's like apples everywhere. That's like city cast apples. To find all those apples. Damn you, Strahd. Strahd is going to round-- he's going to kind of use his wings, flap once. Una is also going to notice that this dragon appears to be riddled with a ballistifier. Like ballistas, if you don't know, fire these huge-- essentially like picture small trees with points on the end of them. That's how big these things are. And they appear to be all in his wings. Like this dragon has taken some damage. And he is going to flap these wings, and another gust is going to be created.

And down, like way down the street, you can see it, a house is going to crumble under the weight of the gust of just the force of him flapping his wings. He has just demolished a small house. OK, can I get up and sprint back to the house? Yes, you can. Would-- Everybody in the house would have heard this, by the way. This is not a secret. Yeah. He is going to be standing by the door with eyes open, just like, get the fuck in here. Bree is going to definitely follow Una, just kind of like, oh shit, oh shit, like let's get the fuck off the streets. Kaluna is going to grab any apples she sees along the way, but she's definitely running inside.

Those are my apples, damn it. I paid good money for those. Are we inside-ish, or are we close enough to the house? Yes, I would say, yeah, you have run into the house. Are you closing the door behind you, or are you just like, is this a thing where you just run in, like shut the curtains, everything. We're just going to run in and be like, he's here. We need to get him away from this town before he kills everyone. He's just going to look at her, go, I thought you wanted to summon him a minute ago. Not here. The snark is strong with this one. The dragon fucking bearing down the city, he's like, I'm going to be sassy. #fearsnark.

So when he was flying over, did he pass, or is he hovering now? It sounded like he was passing. Well, the last thing that the group outside would have seen is him flap his wings, demolish a house, and go rocket up into the air a bit. They didn't really get to see what direction he was heading in, or if he's just hovering around the city, or what he's trying to do. Could someone with a better perception check than me go check the window? Sure. Let's do that. 20. 20. It would appear as though Strahd is traveling-- it looks as though he's looking for a spot to land.

So he is flying in a southerly direction, and you're going to see him descend quickly. And then you're going to hear this tremendous thud as he slams into the ground and jogs forward. So you've lost sight of him, but you know he's landed. And is he moving, or is he just chilling? Right now, it looks as though you can't really hear him, but you can't hear or see him. It looks as though he just landed. It does appear as though he landed outside of the city. Like outside the city, he's not going to attack it, or-- Just outside the city. OK. Like where there aren't buildings to stop him from landing.

Right. OK. Well, it's been nice playing with all of you. Guys, we need to do this. Just so you know, I have two characters. We can knock this down. Dude, his wings had a plus 10 to knock you over when he wasn't fighting. We can't win against him. We need to go get someone to help. I mean, well, not us personally, but we can go to the temple. We can-- I'm sure if we make some sort of announcement, like literally everyone who can possibly fight. I like the sound of cannon fodder. Fucking come. What if-- I have tons of orphans. We found another dragon, and we had the two dragons fight.

I like that idea. What if we nuked the nuke? It's a nuke. What if we get bigger jaws? Actually-- What if it was bigger jaws? Oh, now we have to go over to the black eye. Actually, at this point-- I mean, Valis. Yeah, at this point, Valis would have to speak up. Like, he wouldn't want to, but you saw it. Yeah? It's-- How large would you say it is? Big. The biggest thing you've ever seen in your life. I somehow doubt that. I may know of another dragon we could use. Bigger than Strahd. I would guess. Again, he's almost like, yeah. Like, just not-- Where? My mom's house. [LAUGHTER] Merrick puts his hands on his face and just shaking them back and forth.

Where is this going? Can I borrow your dragon, mom? I won't damage this to the dragon. Only until 10 o'clock. There was a dent in it. Last time you crashed it in the street. You fell off. You hurt yourself. I was so worried about you. You said I could take the dragon out. Yeah, it's the dragon. Mom, my friends. I can't go to prom on a cobalt. [LAUGHTER] He's going to see the room kind of react. Look, it's a long story. I wouldn't be the one to control it. But I do know where we could find one. And I'm going to guess that it's larger than Strahd. How quickly can we get there?

It's in Brightport. How far is Brightport from-- Brightport? Brightport. Wait, wait, wait. Joy-Z. Accident sounds like. Brightport. It's in Holboken. Well, once he says Brightport, that's halfway across the mainland from where you are. Oh, shit. That is a trek. The gates? We know of the gates. We know of them. Of them, but-- Would that even be faster? Because where's the nearest gate? The one you know of is in the Evergreen, which is halfway across the mainland. We are literally between the two subway stations. There's got to be one in Esterhorn, right? Wait, wait, wait.

If Strahd would hear the dragon horn that Oona had, wouldn't Amara be able to hear it? Yeah, but Strahd is closer. You're guessing a lot. Like I'm saying, this is all theory. This is all-- it's like, in theory, this could-- you have no idea what it's going to do. It could drive him into a rage. It could make him passive. It could just get his attention. It's like, yeah, you called me? Like, you have no idea what this is going to do. Would a nature check help? Wait, so Brie showed us the gate in the Evergreen, right? Yes. Let's ask her if she knows of any that are in Esterhorn.

That is totally a thing you could do. Yeah, sure. OK. Oona's going to turn to Brie and say, those gates, are there any here? You mean like in town? I don't know. That's more Finway's thing. He's been researching it for the better part of years. I don't even know if it works. I've managed to activate it a few times. The group that you were working with in Winterhaven, they kind of tossed something into it. It came back. But we have no idea what was going on on the other side or where it would take us. Wait, what book? Sorry, I'm looking at the Skype chat. Oh, sorry.

What book? Fee found several books whenever he found his little Fee dungeon. One of them was about the gates. I think so. I remember something being said about the gates. It's true. Holy shit, awesome. Hey, can I speed read real fast? Time to shine. Jedzia, go. Well, Fee hasn't told us that he found that book. I assume I grabbed all the books. Yeah, Jedzia actually-- it was mentioned last time with Jedzia as well, I think. Yeah, OK. So history, Arcana? Well, here's the thing. Remember how I specifically asked you which book you were reading? You didn't at the beginning of this episode, though.

Because there wasn't time for you to read. Never mind. That's right. Yeah. Because this episode started out right after the fight. There wasn't a night of sleep. So you have not even cracked this book open, which means that it would take a while for you to glean any knowledge from it. I can speed read. Just flip to see if there's anything that says "Esterhole" at all. At least crack it open. Yeah, I can. I just check-- Oh, you can totally. There may be maps. Yeah. Figure out if there's one here, and then we can figure out how they work. Yeah, exactly. Go ahead and roll an Arcana check.

Please, guys. 24. 24. So Jadzi is going to basically have to sit down and start reading. And it's going to take time. You can thumb through this. This is a big tome. So as she's sitting there reading, like, minutes pass-- Everyone, roll a Perception check, please. Oh, no. 36. Oh, that's a crit. That's a natural 20. Nice. 21. Let's see. Let's roll one for Phallus. Six. Stay the course. 19 for Bree. So let's see. Bree, Fee, Una, Marek, and Kaluna-- oh, and Jadzia-- are all going to hear a noise. And it sounds-- what it sounds like, firstly, is a dragon roaring, and then it just kind of stomping around.

And then everything goes silent for a few seconds. And then about an eighth of a mile away, you would say, you're going to hear a tremendous crash. We have to get safe. We have to do something. I mean, if nothing else, we might not be able to protect the entire city all of a sudden, but we've got to save ourselves so we can at least be able to do something later. Would I be able to roll a Nature check or something to be able to see maybe what it seems to be he's doing? Like, maybe he's taking a nap or something. That's not really a Nature check. That would have to be a looking outside type of thing.

I don't want to look outside. [LAUGHTER] Una's going to look at Fi and say, give me the horn right now. What are you going to do with it? I'm going to get it away from the city. He's going to look over at Jadzia and Valus. Valus is going to look like that's insane. That's a really stupid thing. I don't think you could run fast enough. Yeah, I mean-- You have horses. If we have to get out of the city to get the dragon-- to have Strahd follow, it can't just be outside-- just outside the city where he just landed. It's got to be so far away that it's going to get him away from everything.

So it's going to-- it's got to be fast. It's got to be a long, far distance. This isn't run outside the gates type thing. The time that it takes us to find out about these gates, he's going to have burned down the entire city. This is the only thing that will buy us a few minutes so that we can find out about the gates. You guys can go to Brightport and get the dragon. If there even is a gate, right? This is just-- I mean, it may be absolutely nothing we can do except for run on foot to Brightport. Do you have a better plan? Just sit and get burned down?

People are going to die if we don't do anything. We might die if we don't do anything. In the middle of Una's speech, there's going to be another crash. This time, it sounds like it's coming from the opposite direction, like on the other side. It just-- it's just a quick crash. Like, it sounds like someone threw something, and it caused a tremendous amount of damage, and then it's over. All right, Merrick's going to go up to the window and do the shootout type thing, where it's back against the wall and then look out the window, try to see whatever he can see.

Is there anything possible from there? Roll a perception check, please. 19. Merrick sees no dragon. But after a few seconds, what he does see is a ballista awkwardly being flung into the city and crashing into a building. So this is a third one. Oh. OK. What you're gathering is that Strahd is single-handedly ripping the ballistas out of his wings and then flagrantly tossing them aside. They just happen to be hitting buildings in the city that's huge. OK. What is the population of the city? It's in the upper tens of thousands. This is a pretty big city. They've got to have a safe room or something.

A bank? Yeah. What, the temple? Maybe the temple? Well, the temple would be a pretty safe bet. The room that has the angels in it would be a pretty safe bet, actually. Yeah. The thing is, they're not really prepared for a large-scale dragon attack. That's not something that's been a problem in Theria for a very long time. So the Overwatch, the reason they were ready to repel is because they're absolutely crazy and paranoid. Carter's insane when it comes to the longer things went on with group one and they didn't come back, the more he got ready for something huge.

They just happened to be ready to fend off Strahd. OK. Una, I think you're right. I think we have to-- this could be the destruction of an entire city and a bunch of people. And even if we try to get everybody in the temple, if we try to get everybody into a safe-- we don't have long before this could be destroyed. The temple is probably a very safe bet. If you can get some civilians to hide there, as many as we can, children especially-- Orphans. I might be able to buy us a few minutes. Oh, the poor little orphans. Oh, no. Give me the horn, V. Jadzia has the horn.

Jadzia's not paying attention. She's trying to find the bait. Una's going to look at Valus because she knows that Valus will know where Jadzia has the horn. Jadzia's just going to take off the pack and throw it on the table. Whoever the fuck wants this, I don't care. I'm trying to read. Jason, logistically, what would it take for-- just imagine natural disaster, right? Hurricane or something like that in the real world. What would it take for Marek to rally the troops, maybe run to the temple and get Craig? What would it take to try to do something to save somebody while others are trying to do something else?

Oh, I'd just probably have you do some flat T20 checks, things like that. If you're just trying to get people off the streets, you're just-- so that's not hard at all. Because people are probably cowering, honestly. This is probably a thing as soon as he passes over the city. Fuck that, and they're going to do exactly like you guys did and get inside. The problem is, if Strahd wanted to, he could just burn the city down. There's nothing-- it's like the old World War II drills. They had kids practicing class, like, hide under your desks and then kiss your ass goodbye, because that is not going to stop anything.

That's fucking like, if you're nuked, hide under your desk. Yeah, duck and cover. My mom was actually telling me that she remembers doing those drills in school. And they'd be like, cover the back of your neck. And it's like, in case the radiation can't make it through. Right, because hand skin is a very good radiation deterrent. I remember doing those drills. They told us to cover our head. Yeah. You did nuke drills? Or for tornado tornadoes and stuff. Probably because I was in Florida at the time. Maybe it was tornadoes. They told us to cover our heads. Yeah, we did those too.

We did earthquake drills in California. We did earthquake-- not earthquake, tornado drills and drive-by drills. Oh yeah, drive-by drills. Dude, somebody in Portland when I was going to school told me that their school had meth lab explosion drills. Nice. I love it. So this dragon problem. So listen, so here's the urgency of the situation, at least from Merrick's point of view. We don't know exactly what's going on with Strahd right this second. Like, we know that Strahd could destroy the city if he wanted to. I mean, I think that's relatively obvious. Even if we try to save people's lives, we're probably going to save a few people out of thousands and thousands and thousands whenever there won't be any city to get back to anyway.

So is it worth trying to figure out what's going on with Strahd? I mean, I don't mean just walk up to Strahd and be like, hey, what's up? Thumbs up. But at the same time, what's going on? Is Strahd throwing this stuff into the city for a reason, or is Strahd distracted? I mean, should we do a little reconnaissance? My guess is he's probably wounded from Overwatch and super pissed. So it's probably like, I'm going to get these things out of my fucking wings, and then I'm going to burn everything I see. Yeah, I was just thinking, like in the chat, just maybe warn people not to try and fight the dragon.

Because right now, he's not paying attention to anything. But if you start trying to get him out of there, he'll probably burn everything. Yeah, it's sort of like, do we call attention and then sort of piss him off or not call attention, maybe still have some destruction and a few people dead, but at least we didn't rouse him. I would not attack him in the city. No, I mean like the guards and stuff, maybe they're getting ready to be like, there's a dragon. Let's get rid of the dragon. Maybe tell them don't do that. I feel like the Esther Holt guards are like pussies.

Right. Start general experience with them. There are a lot of, well, the ones on the take. Right. There are some good-- the Esther Holt guard is more-- it's not really a military force. It's much more a just trying to keep the peace, trying to beat cops, essentially. That's what they are. There's a new captain of the guard. There is. I don't know if he's going to be going out to fist fight a dragon, but you know. So while you guys are talking, after a while, your door is going to start to get pounded down. Good. What it sounds like is someone slamming against the door and it not opening like they thought it was going to.

And then someone is frantically clawing at your door handle. OK, open the door. Look them in. Craig Mason is going to stumble through the door with an expression on his face that doesn't match what's happening outside. Yes. Most people would be absolutely fucking terrified right now. Craig's face is sporting a mile long smile. And he is going to kind of like frantically almost creamer his way through the door and then slam his hands on Una's shoulders. Did you see that thing? It was just going to like beam and just I know, I know. OK, we need to get that thing out of here.

No collateral. And Craig kind of caught up in the moment. It's like he kind of forgets there's a city. We're like that thing. Let's fight that. And after a couple of seconds. Yeah, OK, OK, OK. Get the paladins, get the fastest horses we have, and start running in the opposite direction. I have a plan. All right. And he is going to streak out of the door and kind of double time it back down the street in the direction of the temple. Wow, that actually worked. OK. Oh, no, he wants to fight it. I expected him to be like, run away. Well, he only really grabbed the part.

It's like, get a bunch of guys. We're going towards the dragon. That's kind of where he stopped listening. OK, Jedzia threw down the pack, right? Yeah, Valus is going to kind of reach down and grab the horn. And gripping it, he's going to hand it over to Una. There's very much a look in his face like, you better fucking know what you're doing. I don't know what I'm doing. Pro tip, no fucking clue. Una is going to turn to Jedzia and be like, we need to get that big dragon. Because a handful of paladins are not going to be able to kill this thing. Jason, have I found anything yet?

I was just about to get to that. I did not forget about you. It was painful just sitting here like, nope, she's reading. She's reading. I can't-- I know. Read harder. Just staring super hard at the words. Get in my brain. Head vibrate. What Jedzia can get from this book is, first of all, this is not so much a textbook or a history book as it is a diary from Darmok himself. And this appears to be everything that Darmok would know about these gates. Which, as it turns out, is not super helpful in your immediate situation, but it does give some insight into what-- just certain basic things.

First of all, these gates are perhaps thousands of years old. The etchings around the border don't-- while it is presumed-- the etchings, the symbols that are in the borders around the gate, it is presumed that they are tied to locations in Theria. That is complete theory, and there have been three gates found so far that this book is chronicling. One of which is in the Evergreen. One of which is in Onakal. And one of which is on the fire aisles. So it's like the opposite of helpful? Again, not explicitly helpful in your immediate situation, like I said.

But it is also presumed that they are a means of conveyance, transportation. That is the reason, the purpose they were built. Again, complete theory, because no one knows exactly who the fuck built them. It is presumed that the elves, the oldest living race in Theria, built them. They are not taking credit for it. They don't seem to know what they are-- what they're originally designed for, who built it. They don't know. So that's not super helpful to you either. But again, more general information. You'd think at some point, Darmok would have just tied someone up and threw them through it.

I don't think he cares much about testing safely. Well, the thing is, he would have to have access to one. Just because he knows where one is doesn't mean he's going to be able to get to it. Or turn it on. Yeah, or activate it. OK, so this is not helpful. Shit, how are we going to get to Braveport? We're just going to have to go. We're going to have to try to get these people as safe as possible and then go. That's the only option. We have two directions to go in. One is out of Esterholt. If we're going to signal anything-- and it's not even a guarantee that it'll work to get Strahd interested or that he won't just come kill us and then go back to Esterholt and kill everybody else.

That's one direction we have to go, and the other one's Brightport. Maybe the same direction. Buying time to help save people? I mean, the city could be evacuated, or people could be put in places like the temple that are safe. Agreed. But fuck, without a gate, it's shitty. Jason, how long would it take us to get to Brightport if we were on horse? Well, let's see. If you were talking about riding through-- let's see, if you're talking about riding directly east and just riding through Heroes' March and then Fair Bay, Lockford, Whiteheadge, Brightport, you're looking at about a week's travel time.

And that's if you don't run into anything that would impede your progress. If you're heading north first and then going through Durnhollow, Donhurst, and then making your way down to Lockford, Whiteheadge, Brightport, you're looking at a little longer than a week. But it would-- OK. There's an area called the Silverglade. [LAUGHTER] It has a bit of a reputation for awful, awful things in it. Now, if you're heading directly east, you're going right through Lockford, and you're going to be passing close enough to the Silverglade that you may encounter something bad.

If someone would like to roll, perhaps, a history or nature check. This is where to see Kaluna and I met, by the way. Yes. Yeah. OK, well then, actually, I would have you just be able to relay to the party exactly what would be near the Silverglade that you might want to avoid. My buddies. Yeah. So I mean, are we talking about directions? Are we talking about this? I would imagine, let's say-- Yeah, I imagine that John Zia, when she realized it wasn't helpful, threw down the book, and she was like, we need to find another way. That's not going to work. OK.

And now we're talking about directions. If we make our way to Brightport, we have a couple of different directions. One's shorter, but maybe more dangerous. One's a little bit longer. But either way, they're dangerous. It's Theria. The Silverglade is going to be something we have to deal with, probably, if we make our way there, if we do this quickly. Do we have a map in the house to be looking at currently? That's a pretty common thing, yeah. So, OK, Fi would suggest going cross-country. So from Fair Bay, cutting straight across the wastes to Whitehead, potentially.

Question, Jason. Yes. Do we have to find a gate to teleport to it? How do you mean? Is it like fast travel, where if you have one fast travel location, you can only get to the other ones that you know about? I can't tell you that. It doesn't say that anywhere in the book? Well, this is pretty much pure raw speculation. He's never actually used one. Because I don't think you would, right? You just have to set it to the right thing and then step through it. I can't tell you. Because otherwise, what the fuck would the point be? That'd be like the stupid-- You asking again and again doesn't make me be able to tell you.

No, OK, that's fine. Because then we could get to the closest one, which might be the Evergreen. OK. There is a war going on right now. Yeah, there's that whole thing. Do gates do us any good right now at all? I mean, if we only know of three, I mean, sure, maybe we could get to Onakol. That would be the closest place if we got to the Evergreen and then went to Onakol. I think at that point, we'd be reaching at straws. Looking for a gate at this point would just be kind of ridiculous. Because it's a week the other way. Yeah, Valis would quickly tell you two things.

One, if you were suggesting going to Onakol, he would have some stories to tell you. Two, Fee is suggesting crossing the wastes. Valis would absolutely speak up and tell you that that could be-- without a guide, that could be suicide. OK, so you know how people plan out trips? So they could be like, OK, we're going to reach the Grand Canyon at noon. Can we just try to plan this so that we get to Lockford during the day and we drive straight through? You sure can. So why don't we just do that? Because then we're less likely to meet any baddies and we can just rush straight through.

If we run into any creatures, we agree to just run because we need to get that dragon. Can I ask a question? Mm-hmm. Why do you think it being daytime would-- I know that's not how werewolves work. I just think it's a little bit safer, the daytime in general. Easier perception checks and shit because it's not dark out. OK, OK, that makes sense. That makes sense. There's also more likely to be other people watching out from the town and stuff. OK. OK, are you guys going to evacuate the city? Yeah, we've just got to get people out. Or evacuate or secure, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, what's the plan? Are we going to try to distract Strahd from Esterholdt, like away from Esterholdt, at the same time as doing this? Are we doing a two-pronged sort of plan, get him away and get people out or safe? I feel like that's the best bet because if you try and get people out or safe while he's in the city, he'll probably be like, oh, snacks. Yeah. Meals on wheels. Meals on legs. Just numb. The orphans, oh, poppers. [LAUGHTER] Delicious. They are delicious, actually. That baby fat. Mwah. OK, so Una, Craig, and the rest of these paladins are going to ride towards Strahd.

No, what? Towards? Well, towards him in the sense that you're trying to get his attention and then-- No. No, no, no. We try and ride as far away as possible and then start blowing the horn. Ah. Because he's too fucking fast for us to ride anywhere near him. Well, then let me ask you a question, what direction? If you're leaving Esterholt, where would you be-- What's the least inhabited direction we can go? Odessia. I mean, between Esterholt and Odessia. Where is-- is Odessia that one city that used to be full of war forged? Yep. Yes. Now, I'm not saying that to be meta, and Una would know that.

But the area between Esterholt and Odessia is, well, desolate. That there's nothing alive there that you would care about hurting. Perfect. Yeah, so real mountainous region with kind of a jagged shoreline just to the east of that. So yeah, I guess that's what you'd be doing. Now, you would pretty much have to ride past Strad to get there. Um. Not like close enough to reach out and pat him on the ass, but I mean, like you'd-- You'd have to kind of pass him? Kind of pass him. OK, so just kind of go around him as much as possible. Yeah, yeah, totally. OK. OK. If you're going to go south from Esterholt, can we mobilize trying to get people out of Esterholt to the north?

Maybe going up towards-- Well, OK. Again, there are tens of thousands of people in the city. So the best you're going to be able to do is pretty much shout in the streets and try and give them a direction. That's the best you can do. They don't have internet, or there's no like telephone system? I don't think they'd be able to email. They're dragging a warning system. Yes. Do they have like town criers or something that we could, you know, be like, hey. Well, again-- Just grab a bunch of orphans and be like, hey, run around telling people this. No one's going to care to make that.

That's a good idea. That's a great idea. Yeah, nobody cares. Well, OK. The thing about a situation that-- OK, go ahead. OK. Literally, just get orphans to do it. That's it. That's all my plan is. Just outsource this to the orphans. Hey, they are the most expendable. They're children. They're small. They're not as noticeable. They run fast. Speaking of expendable, we have Cecil downstairs in the basement. And-- Oh, god, yeah. I forgot all about Cecil. But I'm thinking, how about this? I mean, it's a long shot. But does Cecil have a way of getting the word out? Or like could he, with his underground criminal activities, can he help?

No one has a way-- OK, I'm going to say this. No one has a way right now, like a town crier, none of that. No one's going to have a way that's better than you running out into the street and screaming. OK. All right. But we could at least recruit the orphans so we have more people screaming. You could. You absolutely could. But no one's going to-- We're trying to save the orphans. The biggest thing is, in a situation like this, no one's going to think you have a plan that's better than hiding or running and screaming. Like that-- like leave the city. Isn't that a plan?

That is a plan. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So everyone's kind of already on that. All right. So if nothing else, what we could do is run to the northern end of Esterhold with some confidence and sort of point at the door, right? Like go this way. And everybody would be like, OK, yeah, good idea. It sounds like a screaming plan. Yeah. Yeah, you'll totally get some people. And then, yeah, like it's kind of the lemming effect, where people see people following you, and they must know something, and that kind of thing, like maybe. OK. And the fact that the dragon's at the southern tip of the city, the northern-- Yeah, people are probably already feeling it.

Yeah, probably, yeah. Like there's probably thousands of people fleeing that way anyway, and then the people who aren't doing that are hiding. Damn it. OK. Una, you're going south. Yes. Would the gray cloaks potentially help against the dragon? They already would be in the streets trying to get people to some kind of safety. OK. Stand up guys. They are trying. Another question real quick. See, I've been thinking about Una going south, and everybody else going north, and trying to help everybody. But it sounds like North authority sounds like the plan that everybody's screaming into anyway, and the gray cloaks are already trying to help people do that regardless.

Are we helping, other than just running ourselves? Can we help? It's like trying to fill a fucking swimming pool with an eyedropper. You're really-- yeah. All right, so then are we better off trying to help Una? I mean, we have a paladin with other paladins, a paladin who can fucking fly. We have a changeling who can hit people in the knee pretty hard. No joking. There's more you can do. Among his skills? Yeah. We have the smartest blood mage there is with a demon attached to her leg. We have a tank. We have a fucking werewolf. Maybe we have nature come to life, like, in Kaluna.

Maybe we can help Una. It is a bit of a suicide mission. I'm just-- I don't think that's going to work out. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the thought is-- We can't fight Strahd. Yeah. Fee would be very much of the plan of, let's go get the other big dragon to fight this big dragon. OK. Yeah. And if everyone in town is kind of already taking care of themselves, maybe the best thing we can do is just go get that dragon really quick, as fast as we possibly can. But if we go get the dragon, it's going to be, what, two weeks? Maybe a week and a half? We get to fly the dragon back.

Yeah, you fly the dragon back. So you'd be there in, like, 25 minutes. Yeah. OK. That's how long it took Strahd to get here. But we have to get there in a week, right? So it takes a week. All right. Strahd, hang tight. Just don't do anything until we're back in a week and a day. Well, the buying time is only to get the people in Esterhold safe and get them somewhere, like, into the woods, somewhere where the dragon is less likely to be like, that's a city. I'm going to fuck it up. That's the only reason for buying time. That and maybe letting you guys slip by a little bit.

The difference being, like, if we took him on right now, probably going to die. It's kind of like if Godzilla started attacking, we could go and get other Godzilla to help. Or we could go out there with an AK-47 and try to take care of them ourselves. One of those is going to get you killed, even if you're really trying hard. OK, good analogy. And I'm on board. You really painted a picture? Yeah, I got that. It's like, imagine a dragon. No, imagine another type of dragon type creature that actually destroys everyone. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's Godzilla versus Mothra, guys.

All right, let's fucking go get a dragon. All right. Una and the paladins are going to start to ride south while the rest of the party is going to split from her and head east. Can I tell people a thing right before I leave them all to die? Sure. Can we hug you? My last fucking words to my friends. Hide. Una is going to give Jadzi the biggest hug ever and just say, you are like a sister to me. So if you end up in Fair Bay, find the man who's like a brother to me, Arkadi. He'll help you if anything happens to me. Jadzi is going to nod. And while they're still hugging, she's going to say, try not to be brave.

Cute. OK, cool. So OK, Bree is going to start to follow Una. So as the party starts splitting, she's like, OK. And she's going to start to follow Una and try and head off with her and the paladins. So the rest of the party is going to just get ready and start heading east, right? Yeah, one last thing before we were to take off. I'm going to go down into the basement and just unshackle Cecil. Seriously. Bea was going to go down and do that. OK, let's go together and make sure that he doesn't try to pull a fast one on anybody. That way we can have each other's backs.

Just let him go and just make bigger fish to fry. Right, I think that's pretty much on everyone's-- like he would have been able to hear a lot of the shit going on outside. But just the mass panic, the crashing. I think the time for trying to hurt you is kind of back burnered. So if you unshackle him, there's going to be a look of recognition like, oh, you could have left me. Yeah, just tell him to get the fuck out. He is going to scamper clean out of the house, like just leave. Just almost trip going up the stairs. Don't worry, the dragon probably won't eat you right now.

And you probably won't catch fire either. All right. Una and these paladins are going to saddle up. Ria's not coming with me. Must you tell her that she is not going to-- OK, yeah, no. Una's going to look at her and be like, no, this is not-- this is suicide. This is glorious suicide. She's going to hold her hand up. Just stop. Stop it. That's not happening. You're not shoving me aside again. I'm coming with you. Like, I know you like me, but do you want to die with me? The way I see it, you are actively trying to do something to distract this dragon. You are actively going to try to get it to stop attacking my friends.

I'm following you and doing this. OK. Don't blame me if she dies, guys. Favorite NPC, not my fault. It's your fault. [LAUGHTER] Fuck. There'd be someone who wrote in, you could have knocked her out, like something. Like, there would have been someone. I don't know. But again, we're jumping to conclusions. I have a plan. It's going to be OK. I have a plan. Just don't die, please. I'll feel really bad if you die. Una, Bree, Craig, and about 14 paladins are going to saddle up here on horseback. I'm guessing Bree would pretty much ride with you. It's not like she way a time or-- Fatty.

You're going to kill my horse. Christ. What's up, saddlebags? [LAUGHTER] Do me a favor, Una. OK, let's do this. So riding down to the southern tip of Esterholt, the city is going to open up into this huge field. The field is going to start to kind of go down into this hill and then a road that leads to mountainsides and shoreline. Strahd is perched right in the center of all of that, just outside of town. And it would appear as though he is working on getting this last ballista bolt out of his wing. So it wouldn't appear as though he'd be paying you too much attention at the moment.

Yeah, we're trying to do this super fast and super not charging towards him, just sprinting around him. Right. Do me a favor, roll an athletics check. Really? For my horse? Just for your horse. This isn't like, oh, you fell off. This is just to see how quickly and confidently-- I'm not a horse. This is silly. 11. This is more about your control over the horse, not the fact that you're a horse. I know you're not a horse. Let's re-nature. OK, I would allow that too. You want to roll a nature check? How about intimidate? No, that's what I was about to say. You really want that?

I'd actually rather re-nature my horse. I don't want to better nature, but I do want to re-roll. I'll let you do it. Just-- OK, cool. Thank you. I'll take that-- 11. Oh, yes. [LAUGHTER] Faith's just like, fuck you, shit. It's a jacky roll too. Dungeoneering? Could dungeoneering be-- You're taking that 11. Is it a religious horse? Great. [LAUGHTER] In the name of God, let's go. Why don't I ride fucking Sleipnir? What-- what's-- what is my life? This is bullshit. I demand-- I demand an eight-legged horse. All right. That is a competent roll. You are going to start to make your way past the southern tip here of Esterhold.

It is going to open up into this field. You and Craig and the paladins are going to ride past Strahd. Meanwhile, Strahd, getting the last ballista out of his wing, it's going to be in his mouth, and he is just going to whip it. This one is going to fly wide, not even get near the city, and kind of smack into this mountainous region and tumble harmlessly away. Oh, God, please just fly away. That would be so nice. And after the last one is-- is out of his wings, he is going to spread both of his wings wide, and then kind of flap them back and start stomping around.

Almost like, OK, that's it. I'm fucking pissed. Just-- I'm-- I'm-- I'm ready. And as he's stomping around, he is going to catch sight of these-- this trail of horses leaving the city. And he is going to turn his entire body towards that streaking line of horses and just kind of tilt his head for a-- for a moment. And then he's going to flap his wings and rocket into the air. And hovering above this field-- Oh, shit, guys. --he is going to start to fly south. And he is going to fly clean over these horses with enough distance, aerially, that it's not-- it's not causing you any-- any-- any turbulence.

Like, he's not-- it's not going to knock you off. And he is going to start to fly south. And the-- the-- it's going to cast such an immense shadow, it's-- it's basically going to be nighttime for you for just a few seconds as he flies-- flies over. And it appears as though he would be heading in the direction of Odysseus. Perfect. You were of such little consequence to him that he didn't even attack. Cool. That's even better. That was a lot of planning down the drain. I mean, we'll still kill him. It's cool. Now come back. So are you-- are you-- OK, now let me ask a question.

Are you going to continue to ride towards the south? Or is that completely null and void now because there's no point? No, there's still a point. OK. Yeah, just-- just keep riding. Like, I mean, just-- just because he's not attacking doesn't mean I don't want to fight him. OK. So you, Bree, Craig, and these paladins are going to continue to ride south. Now, I think that's probably a good time for us to stop for the day. Uh-- With-- [LAUGHTER] I'm thinking-- I just realized something that we should have made a rendezvous point. I was going to say, Una, were you turning around to meet up with us?

Wouldn't it be way cooler to kill him while riding a dragon, like, in Una's little glory-filled mind? Like, wouldn't she want to ride a dragon? Uh-- I don't know. It's just like-- I mean, like, dude, I don't want to die. But it's like, OK, what's-- what's brave as fuck? Like, killing a dragon. While riding a dragon. You know what's super brave? Like, riding a dragon is glorious, but she's not really into the glory. It's more like bravery, you know? Dry and fly really high. People who are afraid of heights are going to be like, oh, what a brave chick. I know.

It just-- it doesn't occur to her that it's like, no. Like, I can-- like, I can just meet up with everyone and, you know, I don't know. I-- yeah. I kind of have to play it like a stupid idiot who's just, like, obsessed with bravery at this point. I like your tweet, Merrick. Wait, crap. We did not make up a random point. I assume it was bright point. Well, you know, I mean, the last thing that was said-- so just thinking logically, the last thing that was said to you was to check out Arkady and Fairbay. So I would-- I would imagine, you know, being clever at all, it would be, all right, that was the last thing that was said.

Let's go see if that might be a connecting point. Fairbay is the first place we're going before Lockhart. Yeah, exactly. And if we feel like we catch wind that, wait, Strahd left, hang on, we can either go back to Esterhold and go back to House Grace, or we could go to Fairbay and sort of take it easy-- not take it easy, but, you know, be out of harm's way in case Strahd comes back. Arkady sounds like our man in Fairbay. Right. We should probably still go to get tracking from Brightpoint. Yeah, I don't think that's changed. That's what I was thinking, too.

I'm so conflicted, and I'm always conflicted. I'm so emotionally hurt right now. I mean, it's-- See, that's how I know I've done my job correctly. Yeah, it's-- That's how I-- It's pretty much-- it's the end of a movie thing, and, you know, it's the end of the "Empire Strikes Backy" type-- Yeah, like it's two towers. It's kind of-- it's like, oh, man, this is-- I mean, it's not the same as splitting the party, I suppose. I mean, it is technically, but it's one person trying to go do something, and the rest of the party sort of not-- we didn't split it up.

For just a second there, I got the vibe-- the group 3 A and B split vibe for just a second. Yeah, during the briefing. Just half a second. I was like, oh, god, I'm getting flashbacks. No. No. I mean, we're all working to the same goal, just one. Yeah. But for a second, it didn't appear that way. It's like, no, I'm going to fight a dragon. Everyone's like, fuck that. Oh. OK. Oh, this next session, guys. Oh. Oh. Yeah, I might have to go play for a while. Oh, you guys-- Not like a while while, but probably not next week. Oh, that's not a while. But that's a problem, because I really want to play.

Yeah, me too. And I've got the same situation. I may have a move coming up too, so it's not just you canceling. But again, I have no idea. That's kind of in limbo right now. And I've also got-- I'm going to have to take some sort of paternity time. Yeah. You can't play the day after your son was born, like cut. [LAUGHTER] That's going to blow up some children. Yeah. That's what we done to celebrate last time. That's the Therian custom, blowing up children to celebrate a new birth. Shove a dinner roll in their mouths and be like, get over it. It's called the circle of life, guys.

No, yeah, I mean, that actually is reality that I want to make sure that I've mentioned to everybody since everybody's together. But yeah, we're down to like two or three weeks away from Anna having two little girls pop out of her. Girls. She's feeling the same way. She fucking hates it. Realized she seems so patient. Yeah, oh god. This was before. You didn't meet her before she was pregnant. It was the same thing. Yeah, so I mean, I don't know how long it's going to take for things to get back up to speed, but there's going to be two babies around that I can't leave her alone completely doing that stuff.

But she's fully on board with as soon as everything can get back into normalcy in some way. So it might be, I don't know, it might be a little bit a while. Iz, you want to play some Civ? Yeah, sure. Anybody else? I'm on pregnant duty. I'm good. I'm bad at Civ. I'm sure I have something to go put together, like a crib or some shit. [SPLAT] Your baby wants to sleep somewhere? Fuck that kid. Already making demands. Can you start giving into him now? You're just going to be doing that for 18 years. You're right, we should hold off. Just put some towels on the floor.

I hope we find them. Yeah, we're going to get some of those blue tissue paper things you get at the dentist when they put it around your-- just put it on the floor and it'll be fine. A couple of kennels. Just get a kennel and some newspaper. Yeah, a bottle of water. One of those gerbil water things. Yeah. I think it might help your pants. You know, we're actually thinking of just selling them. May not even be an issue. Dude, there's quite a market. I'm telling you, if you go to the right people, like-- We're in Brooklyn. --white kids go like that. Like they-- oh.

Well, we don't actually know because we don't know who the father is, so we'll see. Oh, well, I mean, you know, that's-- fingers crossed, right? I'm a crab shit, you know? Well, good night, everybody. Yeah, see you later, dude. I have to go do a DNA test. Yeah, I'm starting to do you guys. I'll see you later. All right, let me jump off the call. I guess I'll start a new one. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye, guys. Bye. Thanks for playing, everyone. Thank you. Bye.