Pox

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

[clink] [clink] Pickaxe. Coming to Apple TV+ on August 9th. You're the Marine? Yeah, you're the ex-con. Yeah, I did time, but you don't gotta cast aspersions at me. From the director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity comes a new film. It's your first job? I know what I'm doing. I'm a little late for a crit change. Starring Matt Damon. Everybody in New England is after us. And Casey Affleck. Go, go, go, go, go! What are you doing? Taking notes. Taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. The Instigators, rated R. Streaming August 9th on Apple TV+. This summer, during the biggest sporting event of the year, Peacock turns to two broadcasting legends for the Olympics coverage you can't find anywhere else.

Um, I think they mean us. Oh, s***. Um... [clears throat] With an incredible duo sure to take home the comedy gold. Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson. New episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Only on Peacock. Ark 2, episode 5 of the DNR podcast is brought to you by the lovely folks over at patreon.com/dandr Those are the amazing people who help us keep the lights on and do this for you guys every single week. And if you stick around to the end of the show, we're going to play a clip from some of our most recent Patreon content. So thank you everyone there that supports us.

Previously on Group C, the small group of Elorath, Abilene, Ephany and Clara met a wilder named Kaluna and together they decided to head south to the town of Fairbay. It was there that Kaluna told the group they could find Merrick, a perfect complement to their new adventuring party. And after a slightly rocky journey south, they made it to Merrick's restaurant, the Pounce and Claw, where they had a lovely meal and eventually decided to meet up the next morning and set out for adventure. Let's do that thing! Where we go around the table and introduce ourselves.

I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, starting with Jasper. Hey, this is Jasper. I play Merrick, Ethelred, Human Cleric. And Zach. What's up, I'm Zach and I play Iplan Bates, the Human Fighter. And Jane. Hi, I'm Jane. I play Ephany, the Gnome Bard. And Bree. Hi, I'm Brianna. I play Clara, the Half-Drow Fighter. And Elisa. Hey, I'm Lisa and I play Elorath, the Beastinger, the Halfling Barbarian. And Mack. Hi, I'm Mack and I play Kaluna, Volgares, the Wilding Druid. How's about we pick things up on the 7th, so bright and early the next morning.

Gorgeous, gorgeous little day in Fair Bay. Tiny town's kind of waking up. People are setting up vendors, things like that. Few people are heading out to go hunting. Usually that's a really early morning thing. I would imagine the group's getting its stuff together. It didn't seem like you were going to be staying in town too much longer, so this might even be a thing where you guys are gathering to leave. But I would definitely figure that you guys had met up pretty early in the morning. Yep. Yeah. Avalanche up bright and early. Yeah, we're probably staying at the B&B Inn that we stayed at.

Oh, the Brackenstein. Yeah, Brackenstein. So, I don't know. What would Merrick... So, Merrick's got a little hideaway in his restaurant. And he probably would have... If everybody was sort of breaking up and finding places to stay, he would have said, "Okay, well I'm going to get my stuff together and I'll meet you guys in the morning." Kai. Kai. So, I'd say Clay has a little spread out, like a Pteran continental breakfast type of thing. Like some muffins, something from the local bakery. Just like, "Oh, if you like it, stock up on the way out of town." That type of thing.

Like a nice little cross promotional thing. What would be the first order of day for everybody? You're up, you're getting your stuff together, you're getting a little breakfast. Where's the compass pointing? Where are you going? A good question. Because if... Oh, sorry to interrupt. The mission, last time seemed to be, it's like, "Okay, you know what? There's adventure on the horizon, but we need the right team. Now the team is assembled, the crew is here. What's the definition of adventure? Where are we going?" We've assembled the Avengers, but there's nothing to fight.

What do we avenge? So, just to set the stage a little bit for everything, I figured that there's this continental breakfasty thing happening. Merrick's going to eventually walk in pretty early, like bright and early. So, probably meeting people as they're getting their breakfast together anyway. So, he'll be there pretty early. But when he comes in, he's going to be, unlike whatever he was yesterday, with an apron with grease on it or whatever he was wearing, he's decked out in adventure gear. He's ready to go. Like backpack, belt loops, bat belt type stuff, ready to go.

Just a Japanese RPG, just belts. All the way. Belts and buckles. The belts are very more important than any of the rest of the armor. Like, he's got those loops on his belt, though. And somehow it's still skimpy. Well, he has no pants on. It's just lots of pants. Oh. So, Lulu, gotcha. She's actually got skinny jeans made out of belts. So, for the people at home, what kind of armor does Merrick wear? So, he has historically had a chainmail. That is, he has a few plates here and there, sort of as just, you know, extra tidbits of protection. But for the most part, it's chainmail and he's got some leather straps and all sorts of things like that.

And he wears this, which he has not worn in a long time. So, you can imagine this scene if it happened in his little atticy cubbyhole thing. He pulls his white tabard out and puts it over and it's like this golden sun and white and blue and all kind of stuff. So, he's putting on his fancy stuff. Mmm. Dang. That's it. A montage of him shaking it out of a trunk, just mod-swallowing. Yeah, there's like a tear in his eye and he's just like, "This is beautiful." It's glowing. It actually literally glows as he picks it up from his love of adventuring. That'll be good for hiding.

Well, just for a minute. Just for a second. But he's like, he's kind of going, he's like, "Okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this." And he's just going to, he's going to come like they're about to go into a dungeon. Well, so with this, okay, I got to ask then. So, Merrick was recruited last night. Yeah. Now, if I were the last person to join a party like this, and I knew that they traveled miles and miles and miles, days of travel to come get me, I would figure that there's a purpose. There's just a reason. It's like, okay, here we go. We're going to Vegas.

Like, something. Yeah. But has this been explained to Merrick at all yet? And if not, would Merrick be the first one to go, "Question." Yeah. That's okay. So, that's it. So, the scene is, because it wasn't mentioned sort of at dinner, really, it was in the back of Merrick's mind. He was waiting for anybody on the planet to come to him and say, "Hey, do you want to get out of this whole restaurant thing and like, go back out and like fight some stuff?" So, as soon as that came up, he's just like, "Yes, whatever. I'm on board. Yes, let's go. Let's do it." So, I don't think it was actually talked about.

I think everybody was just excited to like, get to sleep and wake up the next day and go for it. So, he's going to walk in and he's going to lift his hand up to Clay. Like, "Hey, what's up?" You know, like they're local business buddies, right? Right. And he's going to come over to everybody and he's going to be like, "Okay, let's go. Let's do this. All right, getting some breakfast." And he's going to come up right up next to Kaluna. He's just completely cheery. And he's probably been up for like three hours, like waiting for this. And he's going to nudge Kaluna, like with his elbow, like, "Hey, hey, buddy." He's going to go, "So, where are we going?

Where are we headed? What's the..." You know, he's going to do like finger guns. He's going to be like, "What's the, you know, the goal?" Kaluna, I imagine Kaluna is just like, even as he's saying hi, they're like shoving food in their mouth. So, around a muffin, they're going to go, "Umm..." And they'll look at everyone else, just sort of like, "Did not think this through, did we?" So, he's going to look around at everybody else and be like, "Okay, yeah. All right." He's going to assume that Kaluna is just eating. "Okay, you know, thanks again. You don't understand.

You're kind of saving me in a lot of ways. I think I was kind of going nuts, kind of stuck in one place. So, I really appreciate you having me on board and really excited for what's next. So, what is next? What...you know, you swung by here to pick me up and I'm ready, you know. What do you need me to do? What are we going to go for?" I feel like Clara, she's just going to town on a piece of bread or something, like ripping it with her teeth in the way that fantasy people tend to do. And they look like badasses. That's what she's doing. And her little mask thing is just unhooked on one side.

So, there's just a piece of fabric hanging from one side of her mask. And she'll just kind of shrug and look over at Alarath and then the rest of the group. It's like, "We've basically only gotten to step one thus far. We haven't really figured anything else out, direction-wise." Wait, so step one is? You. Uh, me. Uh... Avalon's kind of sitting somewhere near them, eating as well. And he's eating more of a...kind of like someone who's been taught how to eat better and sometimes they forget. Kind of like that. And he's just going to say to Merrick, "To be honest, you were a surprise.

We didn't know you existed until we were brought here by Kaluna. I'm surprised you joined us. We only know what to do next." Well, we haven't checked in with Liara lately. We could always go do that. So, you're in an adventuring party and you don't know what to adventure. And, okay. Alright, he's gathering all this and digesting. And he probably looks a little bit disappointed because he figured there was a goal. When he gets disappointed, Avalon kind of reaches up a little bit and he says, "We have ideas. We have ideas on where to go." Okay. Isn't that right?

He kind of looks around. Clara's probably going to look surprised that they even have ideas. Kaluna's going to duck their head and just sort of like, "Mm-hmm, food. Food's interesting." But she'll look to Avalon expectantly like, "Yeah, tell me about these ideas." Shit. Avalon is going to be, he's going to look around to see that he's on his own on this one. He's going to... Gave the group way too much credit. He's going to say, "Well, I feel like some of us here feel like we can go elsewhere and provide help in ways other can't. Does that make sense to you, Merrick?" Yeah, that's good.

That's good. I mean, that's a start and that's... It sounds simple, I know, but... No, no, no. That's the goal, right? It's make people happy, make people better and help whatever injustices are out there, right? And he's basically trying to help Avalon. He's justifying whatever you're saying. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That makes sense. Yeah, right. Like, go do good things. That's what I've always wanted to do and we have. And he's going to point at Kaluna, who's probably eating another muffin. And like, yeah, I mean, this is what we do and this is perfect. This is what I wanted.

This is what I wanted. And you know what? It's good to have a clean slate. It's good. It's actually perfect. Okay, so what are your ideas? Clara will look over to Alarath. You mentioned Liara. Do you mean THE Liara? Yeah, we used to work for her and stuff. We went to the Overdale before it was back to Overdale, when it was still Overwatch. And she was like, "Oh, can you go help us hang out in Winterhaven and help out with this?" And then, you know, the whole dragon attack and orcs. And so, like, it might not be a bad thing to go check in and be like, "Hey, do you need some help?" Well, we are a little bit far away from Overdale right now.

Right. Have you thought about maybe sending her a raven or something? Oh, I guess I could send that because I am one. So, yes. Like, she's gonna have bacon in one hand. Oh yeah, that's a thing. Clara's going to do a very polite facepalm. This is her senseiing. We were just gonna travel across the entire continent. To check in. That seems simpler. I'm gonna be honest with you. I've kind of kept to myself and kind of put my head down trying to make this whole pouncing claw thing work. And you know, it's going really great and everything. I mean, as you know. But I kind of haven't really been keeping up with the news, so I don't even know what's been happening in the Rustath area, to be honest.

So, I don't know. North, south, east, or west, kinda. Well, Clara's just gonna sit up a little bit more. If we want to make a name for ourselves as adventurers, as good ones who know what the fuck they're doing, then the first thing we need to do is establish a brand. Or a name, at least. Do you know anyone here who needs help? Here in Fairbay? Yeah. No, I mean, we're all just getting over the fair. I mean, everybody's been kind of okay. I mean, there's always somebody who needs help, but I don't know of anything that's that big of a deal. Jason, would there be anything that Merrick would know from a streetwise sort of point of view?

You guys are still kind of in this, in the lobby portion of Brecken's Hearth, right? Yeah. Well, Clay Brecken, the proprietor, would eventually kind of overhear this and speak up. Excuse me, folks. 'Sup? He would kind of approach. I know it's incredibly rude to eavesdrop, and that was not my intention, but I couldn't help but overhear you might be looking for a little work. Yeah, money might not be the worst place to start, right? He's going to look around at everybody. Money's good. Kaluna looks in their empty wallet and nods. Clara's going to sit up a little bit straighter and more professional.

Like, she's a little bit embarrassed that she was caught not acting like a professional. Like, she swore, and she doesn't want people to hear her swearing. But... Did you have something in mind? Well, it's nothing too glamorous. It's just a delivery run up to... And he's going to pull back for just a minute. It's to Lockford. And to be quite honest, there's not a lot of people around here who would like to take that job. They've been getting a lot of their supplies, apparently, from Donhurst and Whitehedge, but they've been branching out. I guess deliveries have been a little late, so if you'd like to make a little run and just take some supplies up north, that'd be pretty helpful.

I'm sure we can get a payment together. As soon as he says to Lockford, Kaluna's just going to let their head drop onto the table. Just like... Just done. We just came from there. You were just in Lockford and came to Fair Bay. Yeah. We were... Okay. So, like, remember when we were talking about Bree last night? Yeah. So, she... I was with a group of people, and she sent us there to go look at the werewolf thing. And then we killed all the werewolves that we could find. And then... So, we were just there checking on it to be like, "Hey, how are you doing now that there are less werewolves than there were before when people were, like, dying?" And stuff.

And so then we ran into Kaluna, and she was... Or they were like, "Oh, we have a friend!" And that's why we're here. She's gonna kind of do, like, a little dance. Kaluna will lift their head off the table just enough to say, "We're visiting family," and then drop their head back down. Aw. Merrick's just for color for this. He's gonna be... He's gonna put his hand on Kaluna's back and just sort of do, like, circles. Like, rubs. Like, "It's okay. It's okay." Kaluna will, like, reach up and pat his arm. Just sort of like, "Thank you." I feel like Clara would stand up and just be like, "Well, we all have to start somewhere." And then she's going to look to Brecken.

Yep. Well, Clay. Clay. So, she's gonna look over to him and be like, "We'll take the job." And offer her hand. Oh, he'll shake it vigorously. Well, that's fantastic. I really appreciate that. It's only about 40 or 50 pounds of goods. It's nothing too heavy. I'll go get everything together and get a payment for you lovely folks. Thanks, Clay. Merrick's gonna... He's gonna milk the little bit of a, like, "I know. We're buddies." Right. He'll be like, "Thanks, Clay. Thanks. This is great. Thanks for hooking us up." Yeah. Clay will nod and it's like, "Uh-huh. Yeah." Like, I don't know how close Clay and Merrick would be because Merrick strikes me as like a loner.

Oh, yeah. No, he's exaggerating their closeness at this point. So, yeah, Clay will disappear and start getting some stuff together. And unless there's anything you guys want to do, I'd say after 15, 20 minutes, everything would be ready to go for you guys. Because they've had this. They've had the shipment ready to go. Just no one wanted to take it up. Let's do it. Are these like backpacks? Like what kind of... I would say mostly it's going to be... Because adventurers have backpacks anyway. Mostly this would have been... They'd break it down for you. So kind of evenly distribute it amongst the group.

So it's not just like, "And you carry 50 pounds of crap." It's a lot of herbs and dried meats and things like that. Just little things. And it's very much just... Not just rations, but little things that a small town would need. Like special order stuff. Cool. Okay. Cool. Perfect. Clara is basically thinking like, "Okay, this is how we get ourselves established as people who get shit done. So eventually this will lead to fighting and doing cool things. But right now we're going to carry meat. Let's go." That's the thing. If that's something you were trying to get by to the people of Fairbay, that's exactly why they wouldn't want to go to Lockford.

Because it's been two years, right? For anybody who might be listening to this and you might be new to the show, Lockford used to have a terrible werewolf infestation. And the Silverglade is still a point of interest that a lot of people will avoid because it's still full of deadly stuff. But the town itself got overrun about two and a half years ago, and they've been rebuilding ever since. And the town's population has been, you know, it's like an eighth of what it used to be. And they're still... Everyone's just kind of waiting for the day. It's like, "Yeah, yeah, that's all going to go south again." So we just kind of avoid that area.

Jeez. Yeah, it's pretty rough. No faith. I worked really hard in that forest, okay? I know. We got to deliver meat. It's up to us now. Herbs too. Come on. And herbs. What is meat without a little seasoning? So Clay would also hand you a small pouch with that lovely little ching ching sound. He's like, "Well, this is all we could get together right now. It's 50 gold. I know it's not a lot, but maybe the people in Lockford might have more work. I hear they're still... And he's trying to find a nice way to put it. Rebuilding? I'm sure they have plenty of need for able-bodied folks such as yourselves." You know, 50 will do, right, everybody?

I mean, this is good, especially if this will look good on our portfolio, right? So this is... Our portfolio will take share. Clara will take the bag and do a little salute and a little half bounce. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Thank you for doing us a favor. Hold on one moment. He's going to get together a secondary pouch just full of baked goods, breads that he'll keep for a few days, and some more muffins just for the road. It's just like, "This is the least we can do. Thanks. Thanks for getting out there." Aww! His balloon is bouncing. Oh, yeah! Bread!

Clara is trying to stay professional, but her eyes kind of light up. Merrick will take that and be like, "I got this. I got this." And he'll put it delicately in his pack and be the arbiter of dinner and food and snacks. Not the decider. I don't mean that. I just mean this. The decider! You don't get snacks right now. I'll tell you when you eat. No, please let me carry this. He's actually going to say, "Hey, listen, Clay, thanks for the opportunity." He's going to actually go in for a hug. Okay, well, the people of Fair Bay are pretty friendly. I think in another town that might not fly as much.

But yeah, Clay would hug. Totally. Kaluna's going to slowly inch over like, "Can we get in on a hug? Can we get away with this?" Merrick's going to get out of the way and be like, "Yeah, go for it." And so Clay doesn't have a choice. And he would hug Kaluna. Kaluna's fucking delighted. As soon as the hug's done, they're going to turn around and just beam at Merrick because Kaluna doesn't usually get hugs. I can't imagine why. So are they on the way out? Is everybody heading out onto the...let's just get on the road? Feels like it, right? I think for Merrick at least.

That's cool. Before he does, though, he's going to say to Clay, as everybody's walking out the door, he's going to say, "Oh, Clay, one more thing. Could you keep an eye on the pouncing claw for me? I kind of leave it in the hands of some good people. Just keep an eye on it. Do you mind?" Yeah, sure. Normally, I don't have the money to eat at your fine establishment very often, but I would be happy to stop by every once in a while and check up on things. Oh, yeah. Tell them that it's...just make a tab. Make a tab. We'll work it out later. Don't you worry about it.

Oh, that's incredibly generous of you. And we should have done this a long time ago, Clay. I'm sorry. It's been a long time since I've been here and barely spoken a word to you. But anyway, we got to hit the road. Okay. Bye. Thank you again. And he's just going to walk out. So you guys are leaving the town of Fair Bay and hitting the open road, right? Yep. Woo! Back from whence we came. Who would like to do me a favor and roll a flat D20 to see how the first few days of travel are going to go? Not it. You know what? I never do it. I'll do it, boys. Hey! Hey! That's fine.

Good enough. Good enough to be expected. So, first things first. The weather is actually in your favor. It's cooling down a little bit. It rained in the area not that long ago, so it's kind of dropped the temperature just a bit. Again, we're just starting out in spring, so it's usually not this warm, but for whatever reason it's just been a little muggy, a little humid. I would say the first two days of your journey are going to be pretty uneventful, right? It's just your standard you wake up in the morning, you march till you just can't march anymore, which is right around that 10 to 12 hour mark.

You sort of take breaks when you can, grab water. And I would say after the third day, so let's say it is midway through the ninth or the tenth of yesterdays, so I would like everyone to do me a favor. Yeah, give me a perception check just as the group. I want to see something. Nope. Yay, Clara. I'd like to take that one, please. Thank you. The daytime is really bright. This is a problem. Yeah, it's better at night. I'd say it's somewhere in the area of like, you know, three in the afternoon, something like I get like two, three in the afternoon. So you guys are heading north to Lockford.

Now, this is a journey that in total, it takes the better part of a week, about five to six days, depending on how quickly you move. Right. In the warm sun, I would say that Efni, Merrick, Kaluna, and Aveline. As you're traveling down the road on the left hand side, it kind of kind of rolls off into like a slight ditch. Right. And for several feet now, you've been kind of picking up picking up a smell. And it's it's a pretty foul one. It's nothing pleasant, right? It's just kind of hit you like a rotting meat smell. And then you're going to hear the buzzing of insects.

These are always good signs. Yeah, the math is adding up pretty quick. Now, what's interesting is normally that indicates wildlife, some sort of animal or something that's died near the road. And of course, you know, the birds pick at it and insects get to it and then eventually something comes by and eats it or something. But Efni, Merrick, and Kaluna are going to spot a figure wearing wearing a lot of layers like brown leather, like like like a duster type of thing and like a big floppy hat and a bunch of stuff like that. And this this figure is is in that ditch, sort of rolled, rolled away about, I'd say about 10 to 15 feet off the side of the road on the left.

You guys are again heading heading north to Lockford. And that is definitely where these these buzzing insects are coming from. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that's where that smell is coming from, too. Now, what's interesting about this is that there doesn't there's no blood near the road or anything like that, which isn't crazy uncommon. But this figure seems to be clutching something. And from your vantage point, it looks like they're clutching like a tiny chest. Oh, before, if anyone looks interested, Kaluna is going to sort of like hold out an arm, like hold up, hold up and we're going to get spicy.

Gonna use Druidcraft to create a harmless sensory effect where that presumably corpse is just like a gust of wind or something just to make sure that it's not alive and won't wake up. OK, so gust of wind is what you're going with. Yeah, just like a little. Yeah, so you're going to see the little the brim of this big floppy hat, just like just do that for just a second. And and you're going to see these the flies just kind of part just like and come right back to where they were. And this body's not going to move. Kaluna will look back at everyone else and just sort of shrug.

Well, should we check it out? Should we I mean, we're not on horses or anything, so it's just we're just walking, right? Yeah. You want a couple of us to check it out, make sure everybody else keeps us safe. Keep your eyes on the road. I'll go with you. OK. Ty. Yeah, Kaluna is just going to stand back and keep their eyes peeled. Aleras is going to get out her flail before they go over there. Yeah, I mean, this is this is just a little, you know, let's be super careful because, you know, open road, right? Right. Is it is it a particularly messy ditch or is it just kind of like a you know, is it like rainy or anything weird or.

Well, you remember you remember I said it rained in the area and these dishes tend to they tend to collect water a bit. So it does it's not like knee deep or anything, but it's it's it's you guys are wearing boots. So it's almost ankle deep in spots, kind of squishy, muddy type of thing, which isn't I'll be honest, it is not helping with the insects. Oh, that's great. That's nice. All right. Well, Merrick's just going to kind of like, ah, fuck it. He's going to whatever it takes to sort of slosh through whatever he needs to to to get close enough. He's going to be pretty careful.

He's going to he's going to sort of sidestep up to where this body is. He's going to use the he's going to use his mace to like kind of poke a little bit and just make sure it makes sense that, you know, he's going to be stirring. Yeah, exactly. So you just kind of jostling it with your. Yeah, just a little bit. Just I think the assumptions there, like it's probably not good. But yeah, you're going to hear a lot of rustling of fabric. It really does. The closer you get to this, first of all, that smell. Yeah, well, this is going to be this is going to be like like hand on the mouth like, oh, yeah, this is this is the kind of thing you approach it with, like a cloth over your mouth.

Just like I was thinking like his tab or like maybe he'd lift it up and go, whoa, whoa. Right. And as you poke it like you're going to it as you poke this person, you're going to the again, hats going to kind of like fall to the side just a little bit. You're going to hear like a lot of layers like this, like like a lot like that leather on leather, like kind of like it's it's it's it's kind of bending and conforming. And again, insects. Yeah. Is so there's take a take a closer look at this little chest. How big is it? Is like a bread box big or picture about the size of a toaster, something like that.

This is a small this is a metallic chest that this person has, no pun intended, a death grip on it like this, like like very tightly. So I think, yeah, so he's just going to take the initiative and just be like, oh, fuck it. And and basically with the mace just kind of dislodge hands and arms away, he's going to kind of push it so that, you know, somebody else can check it out a little bit. Tell her I'll grab it. You're pushing it towards her. Yeah, that's kind of the point is just like, here you go. Take it. And as he's doing that, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I was gonna say she don't care. She'll just smile. And he's just going to kind of push the corpse over. He's going to he's going to be like, I this is going to be a horror movie, but fine. And he's just going to try to turn the corpse over to see if he can get any other info about like what kind of person this is or just anything about what happened here. Series of events. I'm just trying to make make sure. So Merrick's going to poke at this chest until Elrath can just grab it. And then, yeah, OK, OK, a few things to note. One, as Elrath is grabbing this chest, there's two handles on the side.

And that's that's kind of where this this this this person had the like just tightly, you know, just death grip. Right. And part of that's due to rigor mortis. Part of that is probably due to this being an important thing to this person. As Elrath grabs it, does Elrath wear gloves? Oh, she wears leather armor, so if gloves are a part of the armor set, then probably. But otherwise, no, I don't think she would, because I think leather would get in the way of her gripping her weapon. Right. That's usually it's an it's an optional thing, but most people don't.

OK. Yeah, no, she's just going to barehand grab that thing from that dead guy. OK, so as Elrath grabs this, there's there's there's kind of a slimy texture to the handles here. And Elrath, do me a favor and roll an investigation check for me. Ooh, and Joe. Sure. Oh, wow. Nicely done. Oh, you know, that's a negative one. Negative. This feels great. What? This is normal, right? I think Elrath would just instantly just like, oh, yeah, it's probably because it's wet. It's wet or whatever. Like, not think too much about it. She don't care. So Elrath has his chest now.

It does. Even with that. OK, there is a lock on this chest. That's all Elrath would know about any of this situation at this point. And you said Merrick was trying to get a better look at the body, just kind of like poke it. Just like, yeah, maybe lift up the hat, that type of thing. Right. So Merrick's thought is just like, let's get this chest and yeah, like Elrath grab it and he's going to like poke at the corpse just to see if he can get any sort of sense of what happened here in order to just get out of the ditch. Right. So he's just like, whatever I can grab here from a from a looking at the corpse point of view and then I'm out.

Right. Do me a favor and an investigation check. All right. Here we go. And a crit. You know everything. That's 22. That's the opposite of the thing that just happened. Merrick mind melds with the corpse and knows everything about the corpse's life. I happen to write a book on this person. So first of all, this looks to be a tiefling man. Looking, here's the thing, looking over the body from the back, there doesn't seem to be any puncture wounds. It doesn't look like any like just just like I said, leather duster, that type of thing. No armor. So you would it's not like this person was it's not like this person was assaulted.

It doesn't look like and then just died in the stitch because one, that chest would probably be gone. Oh, right. And two, this would it just doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't look like foul play. However, as Merrick is inspecting this body, that smell is getting really strong. One more thing, as I would say, like as Merrick is messing around, probably using the mace as a pokey tool, just kind of a let's just lifting up this hat. This tiefling is covered head to toe, like, you know, gloves. Well, not I'm sorry, not gloves, gloves, but like on the outside of his hands are covered.

Everything on the inside was just sort of exposed, like picture like almost a wrist tape, like bandaging from from, you know, yeah. And then long coat and stuff. The face is pretty much uncovered, except for the the collar is kind of like up. But as Merrick is pulling layers away to look at this, this tiefling, this tiefling is covered in boils. Oh. And one side of this tiefling's face is kind of just the skin is just sort of peeled away and it's kind of pulled kind of gelatinous on the ground next to the body, just coated in maggots. Nice. OK, great. This is all I needed to know.

And is there is there anything else that I could tell about maybe this person's occupation or anything, any sense of the kind of person they were or anything like that? Well, I'd say based on that investigation rule, one, this doesn't look like a person who's had a particularly hard life, right? Probably just based on the clothing, probably probably belong to like the the private sector type of thing, maybe even a position in office, something like that. Does it look like this guy's dug a lot of ditches or or necessarily was an adventurer? Just just no armor, no nothing like that.

All pretty fine leathers. If you like, you could you could roll a medicine check based on what you found out through the investigation. Oh, that would be fantastic. Let me do that. Oh, seven. With a seven, you'd know that this this guy definitely has something. Thanks. Well, OK, here's the thing. Here's what I can do for you guys. You can tell he's dead. He's got a bad case of dead guy. There is something wrong, something unusual. Well, OK, if it wasn't stabbing, bludgeoning, no arrow wounds, nothing like that, nothing, nothing unnatural beyond whatever this person had took took him out, which means you're probably the first people to encounter this body or maybe you're the only people who approached it.

Maybe other people saw it and just like, keep going, keep going. Let me tell you how diseases are classified. Oh, no, no. Yeah. Diseases have five classifications. Very low level threat now as you go up, you know, two, three, four, you get into the much more severe. A lot of things can be cured with with herbs and stuff like that. Level one and two, you know, you take you take a little something and it'll get better. Three, the herbs you might need, if there are any to be found, are it's getting kind of rare and you're going to have to take multiple applications of it to feel better.

When you get to a fourth level disease, that's almost a death sentence. You're going to need a high level cleric, you're going to need someone with some real experience in the world who can help heal you. A fifth level disease is pandemic level. Like we're talking that is a world ender. That is something that if left unchecked could kill everyone. Where are we here? With a seven check, you would say that it's definitely Merrick's best guess looking at this would be that we're we're probably looking at a level like a stage three somewhere in there. It's not great.

That's not great. Good one. OK, not great. So very, very quickly, Merrick is going to what? So you asked why I was wearing gloves. Yeah. Oh, great. So here's so Merrick, just in all of that, this this was like split second type stuff, like a couple of seconds, you know, pushing the thing over, looking at the face and be like, oh, boils. Did it have to be boiled? And and and kind of making an assessment real quick on level of disease. He's going to immediately start back and away like, OK, all right, let's get out. Go, go, go, go, go. And he's actually going to look back at Elrath and kind of avoid Elrath and let's go.

We got to get out. We got to get out. Come on. He's clearly not trying to, like, help her get up or anything like that. He's avoiding touching to the point where if they get at the top of the ditch, he's going to try to get sort of between Elrath and everybody else. Oh, what? Not like like angrily and like, no, no, she's she wouldn't have seen that. So she's like, what? Yeah, you probably should put the chest down now. OK, just put it down. She just drops it. Yeah. Is there, Jason, is there any way that if someone got close to the edge of the ditch, they could kind of look over and see the grossness of what's going on here?

Or do you need to be pretty close? I mean, not now, like in the beginning, like you uncovered him a bit like you. That's what I want to do is and stuff. Yeah, I kind of want to show people, like, come check this out. And really, like as as as only as close as possibly needed to kind of say, come on, everybody, come over here. Just stay there for just a second, just for a second, stay with the chest. And he's going to point and be like, this is not good. So we see the gross, nasty boils and shit? I was like, can you see? He's like he's like kind of like motioning with his mace or whatever.

Check it. Check out the face. Can Kaluna make a guess at what the fuck this is? Um, Kaluna could run a medicine check. Go ahead. I don't know how much. Hey, that's a 19. Oh, boy. So there are a multitude of illnesses in the world. Tell me more. Well, I mean, again, I I would say Kaluna's Kaluna's best guess at this situation, based on the evidence that the skin falling off, the the boils, all that stuff. It looks like slough fever, which it got its name because in the later stages of the disease, your skin sloughs off. It just kind of starts to fall off. It disintegrates almost and becomes like this gelatinous, almost like a putty type of thing.

And so Kaluna's going to step back. Just would Kaluna know anything about like transmission? Like, obviously, I imagine touching it is bad, but. Yeah, it's there's a lot of different ways. It can be it can be ingested, obviously. Things like water, food, anything that comes in contact and you're putting it in. It could also like a simple eye rub, something like that. It's obviously in later stages like that, it is highly recommended you don't touch someone with that. Like it's just like, yeah, that's it's the less contact, the better. Is anybody telling her this?

Right. I think Kaluna would just be sort of like processing and then they would frantically look between Merrick and Elarath and go, did you touch it? I'll grab the chest. Motherfuck. What? Do you know what this is? Well, stay away from Elarath. This is slough fever. Do I what do I roll to see if I know what that is? Medicine check, basically, or survival. I'll give you survival to. Oh, good. I'm higher in survival. Here we go. Nope. Is that bad? Well, Kaluna is going to like pull out their javelin to use to point just so they can stand as far away as possible.

If you look down there, that's what happens. And they're going to sort of gesture at the face, you know, where shit has sort of come off of the face. She's going to look at her hands and just like try to frantically like, pulling the goo on the ground. Just don't touch anything. Don't touch your face. When she's flinging it out, Elan's going to get in between the fling and Efni. Oh, it's just going to be like towards the ground, just, you know, just like the jester. Could Efni use prestidigitation on Elarath's hands, just try to clean her hands off for her?

Sure. She will do that. I have a bit of news. Okay. Okay. Some diseases are classified one thing in the early stages and then something else in the later stages. Slough fever is that particular case. In the early stages, it can be treatable. It's not as contagious, right? So you're dealing with like if you get it in its original form, it's like a level three. It's pretty damn serious. But, you know, the problem is with someone who's just died and they are in, you know, just late stage, like they died of that disease. That's like a level four. Good. Great. Fantastic.

Now, the good news is, and the kaluna would know this, is that not everyone who is exposed to something like this is necessarily going to catch the disease. It's all based on the body's ability to fight that type of thing off. So the bad news is Elarath won't know for a while. Incubation periods are fun. Would kaluna know of anything to help? Like to help fight it off? I think we're beyond that. I think we're beyond airborne. Okay. Are there any theory and cures that were created by a kindergarten teacher that have no scientific reasons for working but made millions of dollars anyway?

Oh, sure. There's a guy named Artemis who... Oh my God. Fuck. So, okay, with stuff like this, like, okay, if you got a bad case of like the sniffles, that type of thing, there's all kinds... You could go to pretty much any town or city in Theria and they've got your basic common everyday herbs and remedies and things like that. Like, I mean, everything from hangovers to like, yeah, man, my allergies are really acting up. Can we do something about that? The problem is, like, it's like getting bitten by a snake. The rarer the snake, the odds are that like, it's like, we don't have anti-venom for that.

Where the fuck did you find a rattler? You know, that type of thing. So I can't tell you for sure who might have something like that. Best bet is start checking towns and cities. And I mean, obviously, first, fingers crossed, Elarath doesn't catch this. Well, Jason, I don't know if you knew this, but Kaluna is pretty good at gathering plants. So would they know, like, would there be something in the area that could help? Or could they say, let's hurry up and drop this shit off and then book it in this direction? Here's the deal. One, it's entirely based on, I would say this, you had a medicine check to figure out what it was.

I'm going to give you one more chance to roll a medicine check to see if you would know the best region and best things to help with some sort of cure. Oh, boy. Well. OK. That's not bad. OK, so what I would say is that Kaluna would know of, obviously, there are spells and things like that. So if you could find a cleric, that's your best bet. Now, herbs are amazing and they can, that's a natural remedy. If you can't find a cleric, that's your next best bet. So the specific herbs that you're going to need for this, unfortunately, are mountainous and kind of grow where it's colder.

So you're probably going to have to venture the... Let me see. Oh, boy. OK. Well, OK. I don't want to be the guy to give this bad news. So there's a couple of things you could do. The Hazen Mountains would probably be your best bet. Which either means trekking through Bandit's Rest or going through Dragon's Reach. So those both sound bad. The other thing you could do is check towns and cities to find a cleric and maybe they could help you out. Yeah, let's shoot for cleric. Right. And that's assuming, that is assuming that Elareth catches this. Well, here's the thing.

It's not like we have anything else to do except for drop some stuff off at Lockford. So here's what I'm thinking. Elareth, you might be contagious. You might not. OK. Basically, you need to quarantine yourself off a little bit. We're not going to leave you behind. You're everybody's friend. But you might kill everybody. So we have to kind of think of it that way. So let's get to Lockford as quick as we can. Avoid Elareth. Let's see if we can find a cleric in Lockford. And honestly, while we're there, let's drop off this stuff and let's get some horses. Let's get something else to be able to get on the road if we need to get further.

We'll just take it a step at a time. OK. Can somebody get that stuff for the people out of my bag? I'm not going to move, but I don't want to touch it. And if they need their stuff, then you should get it out now. And it is where I get worse. Let me I tell you what, I'm the only other person who's come close to this corpse. Let me I'll hold my breath like, yes, I don't. I'm going to come behind and get and just open up your pack. Take everything out. And that was like standing so still, like she's holding her breath and everything. She's like, she's so. Oh, no.

Yeah. So Merrick has put his like thrown his mace to the ground and like like that's got to be cleaned. Like we got to burn that and sterilize that shit. No, not burn it to the ground, but I mean, like sterilize it over a fire. And he's going to take care of it that way. Nobody else could possibly that way. It contains it right. It's just between the two of them, just in case he would have come into any contact with anything. So he's going to get everything out of the pack. That would be for people in Lockford and then just move away from Ella. She's just going to keep looking at the ground.

OK. I'll be in back. You know what? Maybe you should be in front so we can keep an eye on you. But if it's but then like if I if I breathe, I don't I don't know how you get it. Like it's mostly through touching. So OK, don't touch us. She's going to be honest. But what if I sneeze and like the wind blows it back at you? I'll try to sneeze on myself. OK, that's perfect. Cover your cover your mouth with your elbow. You know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. The restaurant's need. OK. Let's go. Let's take care of this. And I honestly feel like if something bad happens, we can well at least be in a place where we can grab some horses, maybe find a cleric and then move on if we have to.

Continuing on your journey. Oh, one more question. Are you taking the box with you? Oh, shit. I dropped it. So somebody could actually run and I can check on it. See if that reveals anything. You sure can. Nope. Yeah. Efni is going to pick up anything, anything magically charged coming off of this, off of this little chest. Unless anybody else wants to do something with it. If Kaluna is going to try to go towards it to push it back in the ditch. Oh no, Kaluna still has their like javelin and they're going to like sort of move and they're going to sort of like use it as a lever to tip it back in.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, if this happened and we can get something out of it, let's try to get something out of this. And he's going to ask Kaluna to like he's going with his hand, like back up, back up, back up, back up. And he's going to look at him like he's crazy, but we'll back up. He's going to I got this. He's going to pick up his mace again. And he's going to basically do like a golf club, like and try to just bust it open just to see if there's anything away from everybody. Right. Like just see if he can crack this thing open to see what's inside.

Surprise. It's more boils. Yeah, it's vials of sloth fever. Yeah. I don't like that. Do me a favor. Roll a plain old attack. Attack? Yep. Just just a regular old melee attack with your weapon. Good old melee attack. That sounds great. So Maric's going to come down on this thing and crunch, kind of crunch the side. Remember I said it's metallic and it just kind of bends and contorts and this lock is going to pop. It doesn't look like it was meant to take a ton of damage and it's going to pop open just a little bit. Just get. But the light's going to be pretty much shut.

What would Maric like to do? Well, with his mace, because, you know, his mace, just for a little little color here, his mace is not just a round ball with a few spikes on it. It's like it's it's a beautiful representation, like an abstract, weird representation of the sun. So he's got all these little sun rays coming off all of it. So he's going to use one of them as a little lever. He's going to stick it between if he can find a little little area between the lid and the rest of it. He's going to kind of just twist the mace to open it up like an oyster shell, if you've ever done something like that.

You're going to shuck the chest. I'm going to shuck the chest, which is the name of this episode. So this lid is going to pop open and sort of hang back off the side of it and almost tip over. Inside are 10 of these little cloth packages, little burlap packages, just closed off and twined. These little tiny things wrapped up and it looks like they've been shaken a lot, like jostled, but they're they're all just sort of in the chest. All right. Fine. Merrick's going to get as close as he can. And what would it take to undo one of these parcels without touching it?

Could he could he could he definitely do something with one of the points of his mace or with a dagger? You could cut one open. All right, let's do it. OK. Oh, no, why? OK, so Merrick is going to bend down and he's going to ever so gently try not to touch any of this stuff. And he's going to cut at that twine that's that's holding this little this little burlap sack together and it's going to unfurl immediately. This is a light cloth, right? And it's going to open up immediately. And there's going to be this this powdery substance. And a breeze is going to pick up just as you do that and just blow some of it, just just a little bit of it around.

Like just to show you, it's like, oh, this is light, this is really light, like lightweight, like but most of it's going to still be sitting there. What's that? Is it Yaro? Actually, it's well, OK, if who would like to do who hasn't rolled here? Would someone else like to give me like a medicine check or investigation, something like that? I will walk up and kind of appear and he'll give it a medicine check, kind of like see what see what it is. OK, that's all right. I can't believe this is the shit we got for a 14. Oh, God. Well, the best Avalon can say is it's it's it's some sort of it's a blending of herbs of some sort.

It's definitely Yaro is is whiter. Blood roots got a red tinge. This is bluish. Blue, it's like a bluish powder. And yeah, it's got a blue tint. All right. Can so I don't want to keep doing this over and over and over, but since Merrick opened it up to could he do a medicine check on this or. All right. I don't know, Mary, kind of looks like blue powder to me. Yeah, it's pretty blue, but I have more information because I just rolled a 23. There's a substance called Oranash. Now, this is a this is as rarity goes, it's it's it's it's a little up there. It's not it's OK.

First of all, this is a drug, plain and simple. This is it's actually a powerful pain suppressor. And what it's used by a lot is if adventuring parties or something like that, bandits use it a lot. If they don't have a cleric or someone who could help them, it's it's it's used in the place of a healer. And what it does is it essentially it's it's it's a powerful narcotic that just kind of makes you forget you're in pain. So it doesn't actually do any healing at all. It's just oh, no, no, it will not fix the problem. But in small doses, it just kind of you can get normal, right?

You're just kind of it'll numb or dull pain or something like that. The problem is its potency is pretty damn strong and everything is rated right again, just like diseases. Drugs are rated in a few different categories. Potency, addiction level, rarity. The addiction level of Oranash is an eight out of 10, which means you can get hooked real easy on this stuff. And it's that's why no reputable dealer will touch this. It's it's people who use it. Does that way old boy had a death grip on it? OK, for the death. Here's the thing. For 10 packages of this stuff.

This person paid a lot. OK. All right. Well, shit. So Merrick's going to look up at Avalon and explain all of that, right? Like this is Oranash. And yeah, this is heavy duty shit. This is painkiller type stuff. This is the kind of thing you take a little bit of and you're hooked. Thing is, it's going to say it, but it's it would bring a lot of a lot of dough. Honestly, if we could. Oh, really? Pass this on to somebody. And I'm not saying we should become dealers and that's not my thing, but it'd be a waste to let this stay here. Whenever there might be places that could truly use this, you know, maybe maybe some clerics or something like that for some, you know.

You know, treating some pain and stuff like that. Clara's going to put up her hand and say, if this person was using it, it's probably infected. We can't let anyone else use this. Yeah, but it was in the in the in the. It was tied up by yarn. Yeah, but it was in the chest. And who knows? Right. Like, do you want to take that chance? Now, I guess not. OK, let's get Elarath to a cleric. So we should dispose of this then. Yeah, I'll I'll throw it in the ditch. I'll just chuck it in. Miracle uses mace because it's the thing that the reason he's using the mace is because it's it's already infected itself.

It needs to be clean. So he's just using that as the so nobody else has to get around that kind of stuff. So it was like a golf club swing or just kind of pushing it over. No, it's just pushing it over the edge. But if it's possible, Merrick is going to try to grab one of these. I will tell you what, I'll let you get one shot at this. Yeah. So I kind of kind of had a feeling. Give me a sleight of hand check. I got out of feeling. What? That's a nine. That's not bad. Does a nine beat everyone's passive perception? Yes. Man, I think so. That sounds about right. My passive perception is a nine.

So that will beat that. OK. Pretty sure. Is that the just the perception just listed on our front page? Yeah. No, I see that, too. And she's she's worried about being infected. So let me ask a question. OK, so you had this conversation. There's obviously there's obviously some concern and some worry about that. What would the reaction be to seeing Merrick grab one of these? No, just literally just come on. And we just go, no, no. He'll I mean, he wasn't trying to be he's not like an addict. He was just trying to not let all of this go to waste. Right. Like he just mentioned.

Right. I don't want to. So he'll he'll look sheepish, a little shame. He'll just fucking toss it in the ditch for fun. Oh, no. Does anyone want to know the going market rate for four package? Is it like a thousand gold or something? Yeah, I'm telling you. We could have been billionaires. Once I'm telling you, I mean, but we only wouldn't have started a plague. The cost of our souls. I've already had some money. So what's a terrible paladin? Paladin. Oh, wait, you're terrible. That's even worse. Cleric. You wait, wait, wait. No, we just ruined a million dollar business because if people got sick from the shit and we took like cure diseases.

You know, that's what people think the American government's doing with AIDS, right? Like, you know. Yeah, absolutely. But I'm just I'm just saying not that I think any of us would have been morally OK with it. Absolutely not. No. OK, so what? Here's a question just for role playing purposes. What would it take to know what the going rate was? Well, I mean, there's a difference between knowing what a thing is and knowing its value. I would say it's probably I'd probably say give me an intelligence or wisdom. I'd say it's just knowledge. Right. That's not like putting pieces together.

That's just like somebody told him one time or something. Yeah. Intelligence. Like that could be that could be intelligence. There's no streetwise type of thing, really. Yeah. So, OK, give me who hasn't rolled it. Clara, do me a favor. Give me an intelligence check. The last Clara had heard about something like this. One of those packages would probably be worth somewhere in the area of about 850 to 900 gold. Geez. Right? I'm OK with not causing a plague, though. Yeah. The problem is there's no way of knowing. I also wouldn't pick up crack cocaine from an alley and try to sell it in real life.

This is like finding Percocet and wanting to get it to the people who would administer it the best. You found it next to someone who has the only case of Blake plague that has existed in the 20th century clutched in their hands. Maybe. It causes a wrinkle. Fine. Merrick is going to sullenly. Yeah. Jason, here's a question for you. Was there any of the filth inside of the box, though? You know what I mean? Like inside. I mean, that looked fairly clean. I'm saying he's still dying from the plague. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. No, I want to argue in roleplay.

We can. No, no, no, no. Ellen doesn't care about money. So this is inconsequential. All right. So everything's getting dumped back in the ditch. Yeah. You guys are continuing on your way swiftly. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get to look for it. And let's see if we can. I mean, let's get straight there. And I think first order of business is to get Ella Rath to a cleric. And once that's starting to be taken care of to like finish this this drop off. Is there like a role we need to make to see if like anything's happening in the interim, like between the body and Lockford?

How do you mean? Like whether or not. Oh, like a twenty twenty. Oh, yeah. Or like a progression of disease or something. Oh, never you mind. I'll ask you for a role soon enough. Oh, awesome. I do. I love you. And I would never forget. I mean, you could forget. No, that would be doing you a disservice. You could forget that I have an STD. Oh, man. OK. I would say the rest of your day beyond that is pretty uneventful, right? You guys are making camp. You're you're you're you're settling down for the evening. Now, today, today's been a trying day. And it's a weird one, because if you go out and you get jumped by wildlife or there's a bear or wolves or something like that, or even bandits or slavers or something, you kind of know how to react to that.

Like either you know, everyone lived and you get to fight another day and things have gone relatively well, or you maybe lost a person or two or more. And that's that's terrible. But either way, you kind of know how to feel. Right. This is strange because it's kind of a waiting game. You don't exactly know what's going on. You kind of saw the end result, but you're not exactly sure how long it would take to get to that or if it's going to affect Elorath at all or if it's just going to affect Elorath. How would everyone be feeling in camp that night? Oh, all this disease shit has gone way over Aveline's head.

It's in the realm of magic where he's like, ah, all the X's look like zeros. This is weird. I never he's not he's never dealt with a disease before, so he has no idea. He just saw the end result, so he doesn't know how he gets to there. So he's very worried. Pointedly, Clara usually takes off her little mask as soon as the sun goes down. She didn't. Yeah, she's going to leave that shit on. Nah, take the Japanese route. Yeah, but when they do sit down for camp, she'll sit down close to Elorath, like not not like comically far away or anything, just like about a foot away wherever Elorath sits down.

And she's just going to be looking at the fire and ask, you feeling all right? Um, I don't know. I don't feel too different. Just real gross. And she's going to kind of like mimic like shake trying to shake it off still like from her hands. Just I guess I'm OK. I don't I don't I don't know. Jason, help me out here, because I'm not sure how it works lore wise in Tharia. In the books, there are two different types of halfling. There's like the little spry ones and then a little sturdy ones. I know that, like canonically, Elorath is the little sturdy one. Is there a name for those type of halflings in our world?

Or is it that they're just halflings? They just turned out different? Yeah, they're just halflings that I would imagine it's just kind of like, like it's not like, oh, you came from the mountains, so you're this. It's just more like, well, you're pretty. Yeah. You know, you're... Right. You're just a tough halfling. You're not a different type of halfling. No, it's not a sub race or anything. It's just like... I just wanted to make sure before I said something. She's going to nod and just say, well, look, you're you're very sturdy. You're strong. You got this.

She'll kind of give like a half hearted half smile. Like, thanks. Try to get some sleep, OK? OK. And she's like, she's like, OK. And she's still got her hands like out, like she's just in disbelief. Like, what the fuck? All I did was touch a goddamn chest. Out of character. You washed your hands, right? Like you took a flask. OK, just checking. Yeah, no, but she's just like, she's scared right now because she's like, I just touched a box and now I could die? My skin could fall off? And it's it's a weird thing because I imagine that's something that you've done a thousand times, be it in town cities, like on the road.

It's happened, but it only takes once. Yeah. OK, look, I was avoiding this, but now that it's nighttime and you guys are settling in. Elrath, here's how this is going to work. You are the first person on the show to be dealing with these new mechanics. It is brand new fifth edition stuff. This is not from the books. This is all homebrew. So what I'm going to ask you to do is roll a Constitution check for me. OK. Now, I can't tell you what I can't tell you the difficulty check and I can't tell you if you've succeeded or failed, but you'll find out in time.

Great. Well, I have a zero modifier in my constitution, so let me see if I have any. If it helps, I have stout resilience, which means I have resistance against poison. He just laughed. Would you say that this is a saving throw? It is. OK, so I could also it's a con saving throw then. It's a con saving throw. I'm sorry. I had to check the exact wording that I had. Like, it's important, but yes. OK, good. Well, then I actually have a plus two modifier on that. Hey! Eight is not great. But I mean. It's not a one. So I sadly I can't tell you whether this succeeds or fails, but I can tell you that you'll know within the next week.

Oh, good. So would anyone else like to do anything before we continue on? If we have a campfire, Maric is going to use this opportunity to basically do a sterilization on his mace. Right. Just kind of burn it. Yeah, just put all the metal bits, whatever it takes to just feel like it's like sterilized, like done. Kaluna will do the same with their javelin. I know someone's going to try and talk shit about wood and shit, but that's fucking how you get wood. Never mind. Never mind. I'm aborting that. I'm aborting that sentence. OK. Be careful. I found it's best not to call out the audience preemptively.

Yeah, I didn't know I was going to say that's how you get wood hard. Oh, my God. You mean with a little heat? Oh, my God. A little bit of pandemic. A little disease. I would say a couple more days are going to pass. And it's been beyond that one incident. It's been pretty, pretty quiet. The standard adventuring life out on the road. You know, people pass by, you're passing by them, you're heading in opposite directions, or someone on horseback with something urgent probably flies by. But after a couple more days, it is the 12th of Yes Day. A lot of people in this group are going to see a familiar sight.

Well, I guess everyone, even Merrick's been here. But cresting over the hill, you are going to see the tiny town of Lockford. Now, depending on the last time you were here, it's probably a little more bustling than it was. The town of Lockford, again, has had some struggles. Now, they do get people coming in and out, but it is very much a stop along the way. People heading from Whitehead to Fair Bay, they'll have to go through Lockford, but it is very much like, "Go, go, go, go, go." Like a lot of people don't want to stay there. If they don't have to stay the night, they like to push through.

People will prefer to camp outside of town. That's like one of the only towns or cities on this continent that people are like, "You know what? Let's avoid it. Let's just keep going." "I'd rather sleep in the wilderness." That's how bad the reputation of Lockford is. Now, a lot of you guys have been here very recently, so a lot of this isn't news. Tarrant Domere, Tiefling, is the sheriff of the town, currently, trying to get the place back on track. Trying to shake that old stigma, trying to get the reputation of Lockford back. It's like, "Hey, it's a nice town." A lot of the buildings have been rebuilt.

A couple years back, all the doors and windows gone, boarded up, everything was in shambles, things were torn down, blood everywhere. So, over the last couple years, things have been cleaned up and rebuilt. One of the big things you'll notice in the town of Lockford, there's no children. No children in the town of Lockford. They're all in the attic. No, it's not a very sexy place. I don't know how to take what you just said. Not a lot of whoopee going on is what I'm saying. Oh, I thought you meant because of the lack of children, it's not very sexy. Because children make places sexy.

Wow. I'm just going to isolate that for future blackmail. Oh no. So, a lot of the families with kids, or the orphans, who were left over, they left. A lot of them headed west. A few of them headed to small towns nearby, like Whitehedge and Aldmore. But, yeah, no children in the town of Lockford. It's something a lot of people don't notice right away, but after a while, it's like, "I don't hear any kids playing." Or anything like that. Long story short, you guys are going to get to the town of Lockford. And I'm guessing the...well, actually, you know what?

Now that things have happened on the road, what would be the first thing you guys are checking out? Looking for clerics. Yeah. Ah. I'm just going to go ahead and say that. Yeah. Quick question, though. What information do we have? I'm assuming we have information from Clay about who we're supposed to deliver all of this stuff to. Oh, yeah. What is that? What is that meant to be? Well, remember how I said a lot of this is herbs and stuff like that? Yep. Well, there's a little shop in Lockford called Homegrown. And it's the local herb shop. There's actually, again, this town is very much trying to get back.

So you basically got your butcher, you got an inn, which doesn't see a lot of patrons. And then you got a couple of hunters, things like that. And then you got this one shop, Homegrown, which is a combination herbalist and a general goods store, that type of thing. I'm thinking that we might be able to kill two birds with one stone so we could start looking for clerics. Or we could drop this stuff off and start asking. Like, hey, where's the best place to, you know, try to find somebody to help with that? Unless there's like a really obvious place. Well, that's true.

Okay. The herbalist might actually know where we could find one or have some of those mountain herbs or whatever. Yeah. I'm just thinking it might be a good place to start so we don't bring attention to like, hey, by the way, is there anybody here who can fix a really bad disease on the street? Yeah. It sounds like you guys are going to make your delivery because that's pretty much where you're headed anyway. And maybe ask questions while you're there. Sure. Yeah. Feels right. So Homegrown is a tiny shop right off the side of Main Street here. If you're heading into town, it'll be on your right.

So the town of Lockfort used to have this little waist high wall, which is pretty easily vaulted. They've since built it up a bit. I'm going to be honest with you guys. It's not a big enough wall to really keep nasty, nasty things out if they really want to get in. But it does make people feel a little more secure. It's more for the town's sense of security than anything, you know? It's like having a tiny yappy dog. You know they can't do anything, but you feel better that they'll at least let you know that something's happening. You're about to be murdered.

You're about to be murdered. Yeah, it'll let you know. So this wall is about like seven and a half, eight feet tall, something like that. So, I mean, the really agile people of the world could climb it and you know a werewolf can get over it if they really want to do. But it does make you feel a little more safe and secure. So there is a front gate to town, which is open. And, you know, if you're walking in right off Main Street, like about two, three hundred yards into town, you turn and there's Homegrown. And walking in, you would meet Jordana Keirgan.

But to people in Lockford, she's called Jordana the Blind. And if you walk up to the counter and you have a it's incredibly evident. She has some very milky eyes like her. Her pupils are basically gone. If you look very, very closely, you can see. But it's almost like she has really thick cataracts, like something like that. She is very blind. Not very old either. Looks to be in her late 20s, early 30s. Aww. Would any of us have been here before? Because I feel like if someone knows her, they should open the dialogue. It's one of those things if you're unless you need general goods or something or herbs.

Probably, probably not. Otherwise, she doesn't get out too much. This is like her. That sounds fake, but OK. But yeah, Kaluna will step up. I feel like they feel like in their element here, even though it's not quite their home, it's like close enough that they're like, "Yeah, we got this." Right. So as you walk in, there'd be a little chime. And after after the appropriate amount of seconds, like a few seconds go by, she would kind of call out from behind the counter. "Can I help you folks with anything today?" "We've got a delivery." And they'll thunk down their entire pack and start digging to get the stuff out.

Right. And O'Shea's lunch. "Are you the folks from Donhurst? I don't mean to be rude, but it's been quite a while." "No, we're from Fair Bay. That sounds unfortunate." Just like as they're like taking stuff out and putting it on the counter, just, "That sounds bad." "That's tough shit for you." Basically. Yeah. And as you're putting things on the counter, she'll kind of like touch each item, like, okay, kind of taking inventory. It's like, good, good. Like checking things off and like a mental list. And as she's going through, "Well, just the same. Thank you.

Every delivery counts for quite a bit. I hope you didn't have any trouble along the way." Kaluna will definitely like have a little pause, putting up, "No, nothing big." Just die. See weird stuff in ditches. I mean, I think, yeah, Merrick would also start taking stuff out of packs and, you know, like trying to get everybody like, "Yeah, yeah, let's get our stuff out here." And putting things on the counter. And he'll say, "One other thing, though, we are looking for someone who maybe knows a little bit about disease and maybe some healing." "Are there any maybe people that you might have come across or that you're familiar with in Lockford that could help us?" In Lockford.

I have a lot of specialists here, to be honest. Okay, well, be more specific. What do you... And there's almost an air of like you're wasting her time. Not quite that rude, but just like cut to the chase. Why are we being so vague? Oh, no, I mean, just it's, you know, if we were to have come across maybe something that maybe would have been infected with something not good, we just wanted to make sure everything was sort of cleaned up and all good. So I don't know if you know about slow fever. No big deal. But we just wanted to be able to talk to somebody about it.

So she's not looking you right in the eye, but she is... She can't. Well, no, but she's looking in your general direction. She's listening and her expression is going to change on a fucking dime the second slow fever comes out of your mouth. And she's going to look over the group, just kind of like just telling her head. Are one of you infected by slow fever? No, no, no, no, no, no, that's not it at all. We came across... Could you repeat that? No, absolutely not. That's not what's going on here. We came across something that seemed to hint upon slow fever.

It made us think and we just wanted to make sure that, you know, we just wanted to check in with somebody that may be a healer or something like that, just to make sure everything was okay. We're not having any sort of symptoms, nothing like that's happening. It's not like that. It's more like a runny tummy. Kaluna is giving Merrick the dirtiest look. Just like, oh. Consider it runny tummy. Kaluna is going to look extra disappointed. Just like, how dare you? Oh no. Oh boy. Crushed it. For those of you at home, I asked, I asked Eloraf to roll a constitution check for me.

Eloraf rolled a one. I imagine you burp a little and like a skull and crossbones comes out. Or everybody turns to look at Eloraf and there's like a hooded cloaked figure with a scythe behind. Her ear just falls off. No, no, nothing like that. Eloraf is going to... You ever been around somebody or been that person and whether you swallow wrong or something like that, you just instantly start coughing and not just like a, oh, pardon me. Like that desperate, I'm trying to get air into my lungs choking. Yes. That's what's going to start happening to Eloraf, but there's going to be a definite fluid.

There is a, there's a gooeyness to it. It is a liquid. It does not sound good. And this is going to go on for several seconds before Eloraf is going to be able to get her bearings again and stop. But it's going to be a very, by the time she's done, it's going to be very much like, like kind of gasping. Just like, okay, okay, I think I'm done. That type of thing. Hit. That's the end of it. Merrick is going to turn directly back to her and say, actually, we need help immediately. Kalu is going to facepalm, loudly. Same. It is a facepalm in unison. Jordan is going to reach out and start to run her hands along the counter and go back to the front door and lock it.

There's going to be some blinds next to the front door, and she's going to draw that. So the shop is going to get very dim very quickly, and there's going to be just the illumination of the sunlight coming in between the slats of the blinds. All right. I need you to all be very honest with me very quickly. Because if word gets out in this town that your friend is carrying something like that, I can't guarantee her safety. Now I'm going to do everything I can to help you. But if I for one second get the feeling that you are lying to me on any level, I will open this door and I will call for that sheriff and they will kill you.

Do you understand me? Yes, ma'am. Yes. Nodding weekly. See it but I did it. Colunel just sort of give a noise affirmative noise. I feel like Clara would step out, step forward at that point, and just kind of lay it all out. Here's what happened. There was a tiefling in the woods. He was already dead. My friend touched the chest he was holding. That is it. But we do think he had sloth fever. Colunel will pipe up. Think is a weak word, we're pretty sure. Yeah. His face was boiling. And kind of gone. Yep, yep. Yes. Evelyn folds his arms stoically. You ever talk to somebody and they're trying not to give you the worst news possible or jump to the worst conclusion, so they're getting ready to interject with, OK, that doesn't necessarily mean.

And then the more holes you fill in the story, the more details you give her. She's just like, shit, OK. The boils thing is what pushed it over. All right. I was going to say that maybe this individual died. Another way, but that does sound like the disease was in the later stages. How long ago was this exactly? How long ago was this exactly? Yeah. Like three days? Yeah, it would have been about three days by now. About three days ago. She's going to wander up to Elorath and sort of reach out and find Elorath's shoulders and then start to trace lines around Elorath's neck, feeling around the throat area, kind of just feeling... does that feel sensitive to you?

Probably a little. I'm imagining. Tiny, tiny bit. Yeah, after the choking. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that kind of hurts a little. All right. I'm going to be honest with you, folks. That cough didn't sound good, and I'd say you probably have another day or so before the real symptoms start kicking in. And it's going to make it a lot harder for you to fight or even travel eventually. Give me a moment. Let me see what I can do. And she's going to go back behind the counter again, kind of feeling her way back just to make sure that you guys didn't drop anything in front of her.

She knows the layout of her shop, but if you drop a bag or something in the middle of it, that's going to severely fuck her up. So she's going to feel her way to the back, and she's going to start feeling for very specific herbs in the back. Everything's kind of labeled. All right. I have half of what you need here. We're going to need some northern nettle, but that's probably going to be in the mountains up north. Now, I can tell you the best place to probably find that, but you have a choice to make here. Firstly, you cannot stay in this town. No offense, if you start coughing like that, these people have lost a lot, and that's just probably too much for them.

I know. I helped them get it back. And she's going to turn her head just a bit, like, go on. Like, remember how there were werewolves here? Yeah, you're welcome. Cough, penalty. Yeah, she's- her mouth's going to open just a little bit. I'm terribly sorry. I'm not trying to be curt with you. I'm more concerned for you. I didn't mean to be rude. I just don't feel good. I know. And trust me, I understand what you're going through, and I want to help. So I'm going to lay out your options for you, and it's going to be up to your group to decide what's best for you.

Did anyone else touch the body or any of the possessions? Merrick's going to just sort of raise his hand and say, like, I poked around, but it was with my mace. I didn't touch anything. Could you repeat that last line? Sorry. Yeah, I poked around with my mace, but I didn't touch anything. And no one else is showing symptoms? No, nobody. All right. I have enough ingredients for half of the remedy you're going to need. We're catching this in the early stages, but it's going to take you days to get to the mountains. And then I can only give you a pretty good idea of where this should be growing this time of year.

If you can get the other half, I'll give you my supply and directions on how to make the remedy, and you can take your chances. The best thing I could tell you to do beyond that is to try and find a cleric, which, no offense, but you're going to need someone who's really skilled. And that's probably going to be in a big city, so your choices are pretty much Don Hurst or Brightport. Either one of those is going to take you beyond a week, unless you're really hustling. How much time do you feel like she has? It all depends on the individual, but just staying alive isn't going to be pleasant.

From everything that I've heard, it is a very painful death. And the last few days with it, you're going to become incredibly infectious. How much time do we have before it's too late? At best, you're looking at about two weeks. Okay. All right. Tell us what to get and where to get it. She's going to write a few things down. Now, here is the decision placed before the group. If you have your map, Lockfort is situated in a very precarious spot. It's a stop along the way. So you can either take your chances in the mountains, and she is going to write down some places where this might grow.

Now, you're going to basically be stopping at the base of the mountains and then working your way up, hoping that the closest spot down is where this is going to be growing first. And then if not, you're just going to have to go process of elimination, work your way up the mountain. Now that is going to be slow and dangerous because you're either, again, going to have to go through Bandit's Rest or you're going to have to go through Dragon's Reach. Your other options are to go to a big city like Brightport or Donhurst. Now, each of these is... I could do the math for you if you'd like.

Yes, please. My first inclination is to say Donhurst because at least it's there by the mountains or closer to the mountains than Brightport, but Brightport might be closer in terms of writing. Right. My thing is, if we go to Brightport and we try to find a priest there, there's almost no way they're going to do something that taxing for free. My thing about a big city is if she's infectious by the time we get there. Oh, that too. I was going to say, don't you guys know somebody in Brightport? We may or may not. I don't actually remember if that was in the recap.

My middle is shit. We know people in Brightport. We've got a lot of connections. That doesn't mean we know anybody who can do a lot of healing. No, I know. I mean, everything's a gamble, right? But I can tell you that the gamble of trying to start climb the mountains while you're getting more and more ill doesn't sound like a smart move. No. Unless we're just super lucky. But what we can do is maybe get you to a big city and see if there's anything that can slow it down. And then while that's happening, maybe some of us can go try to find a different cure.

I don't know. But I think we need to get you someplace safe and someplace where it's not going to tax you too much. The problem is if we go on the mountain and she gets even more sick, there's going to be a point where we have to keep her around us, but she's going to be very infectious. Right. And leave her behind. Yeah, because I imagine the sicker she gets, the weaker she gets. Yep. That's not a very good start to an adventuring group. Jason. Yes. At the very least, with the 50 gold we got, could we get like a horse and cart? Just cart, not like carriage or anything.

Just like a halfling could sleep here. I would say the people of Lockford are pretty eager to please. Right. And Jordana might be able to hook you up with something, so I'd say yes. So we have that 50 gold from Clay that we could use to buy that so that traveling will be less of an issue and hopefully she can stay well longer if she's resting. So she won't have to be walking at least. Yeah. We could all just walk next to the... I doubt we have enough for fucking five horses, but we could at least get one. Right. Let me lay out your options and tell you how long it would take to get to places.

Now, if you took the mountain route, right? If you just wanted to go to the Hazon Mountains, initially it's going to take you six to seven and a half days, depending on weather and all that, to get from Lockford to head north into the mountains and start your journey. Now, you may get incredibly lucky and find what you need right away and start giving Elorath a cure. However, if it's a particularly bad time for this herb to grow, you might have a harder time finding it. That could add days to that. Nothing's for sure. Now, clerics do tend to be in bigger cities like Donhurst, Brightport, Winterhaven, and stuff like that.

To get to Donhurst, it's going to take you nine to eleven days. To get to Brightport, it's going to take you eight to nine days. Now, that isn't factoring in how hard you push a horse if you do get it and just try to, you know... Obviously, the less exertion Elorath gets, the better the chances, and she might be able to stave some of this off. It's all kind of about the body's ability to fight for itself, immune system-wise. So, best case scenario, you're going to get a couple of weeks out of this. And by the end of two weeks, it's going to get pretty nasty.

LINDSAY: Question. Would healing spells work on Elorath? Would they help her? So, this is a mechanics thing, and this is... it pretty much breaks down to this. For a level three or four disease, these are things that will help. Now, if you have a lesser restoration spell, something like that, there will be Constitution saves that I'm going to ask Elorath to make from time to time. That would give a plus two to those Constitution saves. A straight up heal will cure that illness. And then, of course, a Power Wheel heal will absolutely just eradicate the illness and it'll be fine.

So, cure wounds isn't a thing for this? No, it's not going to... That's a band-aid when you need a tourniquet. I'm pretty sure a disease is a wound. Fairly certain. It creates wounds. So, we need to find a pretty high level cleric that can just heal. And again, that's a big city thing. That's the difference between having a small town doctor that's like, "Oh yeah, I can give you a splint or I could do this," but you're going to need to go see a specialist for this. This is a big city throughout a trip. But if we could find a cleric and they could do heal, it would be pretty much a guarantee that it's taken care of.

It would eradicate what's going on. How likely are we to find a cleric like that in a city like Brightport? Oh, yeah. I mean, just because Brightport has a reputation doesn't mean there aren't good people in there. And even if you don't want to slap the "good" tag on a cleric, people charge money for all kinds of services. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. It's clear to me. I don't know if anybody else has any other ideas, but we could go to the mountains and do this all on our own and it could take five weeks. It could be a month before we find what we're looking for.

If we go to Brightport, we can definitely find somebody who can do it. And that's a guarantee that they could get rid of it. It's just a matter of whether we have the money for it and if we can find the right person. But it's all about getting you there as quickly as possible. Anybody else have any other ideas? I think we should do the city thing. I think we should try, like I suggested, try and get a cart so Elorath can rest as much as possible and we can get there as quickly as we can do. All right. So that's what Clara would ask next is just, can we get a cart and a horse?

Do you know anywhere we could go to get those things? Georgiana would probably have been listening while you guys are debating because obviously it's a big decision. Well, I could talk to someone for you. I have a favor or two to cash in, but it's not going to be the fastest horse. But at least you won't be walking the entire way. Thank you so much. Thank you. She's going to she's going to go to speak and then stop and she's going to reach her hand out again and put it on Elorath's shoulder. I'm really sorry about this. I wish there was more I could do right now.

No. It's okay. I hope I didn't get you sick. I'm sure I'll be fine. You people should probably get moving as quickly as you can. I'll arrange for someone to meet you at the front gate whenever you're ready. Have we gotten the half of the remedy already? I would say, yeah, she pulled her supply and given it to you just in case. Like, let's say the cleric thing falls through, but you're in a major city. They'll probably have a better source of herbs and such in the area. Okay. Is it like a bunch of herbs or what is it? Is it like a... It's a collection of herbs, things like road weed and things like that.

That's something that's more common and she has an larger supply. It's the same thing with it's same general rule of thumb as the doctor thing. The bigger the city, the more the greater the chances you're going to find something of a bit more rarity or if there's a market, especially in a city like Brightport, if there's a market for it, someone's selling it somewhere. Yeah. All right. Merrick's going to look her in the eyes and hold up the parcel, even though she can't see and say, this will be repaid. Trust me, don't worry about it. It's my good deed for the day.

It will come back around, no question. I think it's a pretty good time for us to stop. I know we're all waiting for you to say that. I know. I know. I don't want to end on that note, but God. You're going to be fine. We're going to take care of you. This is a doozy. I wasn't expecting a class four. She gets to take like a little cruise. I don't understand. You're going to take you to a farm upstate. There's going to be plenty of room for you to run around. It's going to be great. We're going to bundle you up in blankies and we're going to have some bikis that you can play around with and goats to scream at.

It'll be great. Meanwhile, in the bustling city of Winterhaven, far to the north, Aria Lethea and Theodore Pox have their collection of bags and trunks packed and are currently waiting by their front door for their transport to arrive. OK. I think that's everything. You know, if you were having second thoughts, we could always put everything back and cancel. Right after we just finished packing everything? I could do it. It's no problem if you're worried about wasting an afternoon. I could put everything back. I know this probably isn't the smartest thing.

I mean, how many times have we had this conversation in the past week? I understand your concerns. And if you really, really don't want to do this, then we won't. It's OK. And she kind of looks a bit like she's looking down and she doesn't look too thrilled about the idea. I think at that he would let out a sigh and he'd go to reach for Aria's hands. Look, I'm just worried. I know they're going to be here in a few minutes, and I guess I'm a little panicked about the whole thing. Yeah, no, I am too. I'm excited, but I'm also worried. I know things aren't the same anymore as well compared to the last time we were out and about.

And she'll look up at him and kind of smile a bit. I think we'll be OK. Well, we're definitely not going to be alone. And I mean, we don't even have to get close to the camp or anything. There's a lot we can do just from kind of being in the area and just seeing it. It's going to be OK. Well, were you going to try and talk to him? I know you don't... you're not fluent in Orcish yet, but I mean, maybe short sentences, something like that? Or are you just there to watch? I mean, if the opportunity arises, then yeah, but it depends, I guess, on if the negotiators need someone that can speak a bit or I mean, I can be there to help translate if they need it.

But it's really mainly to watch. I just want to see what it's like, what everything is like. You know almost nothing. You're sure there's nothing else you could pick up from books around here? Aria is going to kind of look to one of her bags, I assume it has a lot of books in it and these are books that have notes pretty much scrawled in and on every single page and stuffed with different bookmarks and everything. This is clearly pretty much completely exhaustive information. Yeah, I think that's gonna be it for here. I mean, it's been after this we can kind of see what other options might be.

I mean, Donhurst probably has a much better collection. So kind of chuckle a bit because that's probably an even worse option than what they're doing now. Oh yeah, he would, unless it's very clear that's a joke, he would kind of turn like a paler shade. Oh, the one next to the huge camp of orcs. Oh, good, good. That was a joke, sorry. Yeah, no, that would be really dumb. I mean, really, I wouldn't have suggested to do this unless it was going to be as safe as it possibly could be, which it is. I know, it's not going to be like the old days, hopefully. Yeah.

There's gonna be guards. And again, I would imagine he's still kind of holding Aria's hands, just kind of giving him a squeeze every once in a while. Yeah, she'll squeeze back. It's just that if things went bad, we're not really in a position to defend ourselves like before, you know? Yeah, well, I know, I'm, I know, it's, I mean, on the bright side we get to stay in the middle of the camp instead of guarding the outside of it. It's not like we really could, but. And she looks a bit forlorn almost like kind of like, not like super sad but kind of just like thinking about how things used to be just a bit kind of melancholy almost.

Look, I'm, I'm sure everything's gonna be great. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna head south for a couple weeks tops, and then boom right back to Winterhaven, everything's gonna be fine. Even if something were to go wrong, we're going to be in great hands and we've survived some pretty rough stuff. Yeah, for sure. She's gonna kind of like glance at the scar on his neck and then look away. We know how to survive some pretty tough stuff if it comes down to it. There's more than just being able to punch things with magic. Okay, slow down. Yep. This is the one stop here and make space for the bags on the carriage here because they're going to have a lot of, they're going to have a lot of stuff.

Well, because they're nervous. That's why just make the space. Aria, Theo. Hey, Malchus. Malchus will, I guess, yeah, step on into the house. Oh, look at that. I was right. Ariel kind of wince a bit. No, I'm sorry. It's been a long morning of preparations and I know you're just preparing. I wasn't sure how many books would be too much or it probably got a bit out of hand. Well, that's what porters are for, I guess. So, how are you all, are you two feeling? I know, I know there's been a bit of back and forth about this trip, feeling more confident this morning?

Aria's going to kind of glance towards Theo. I'd imagine that's the thing where they're glancing at each other. I see. Well, look, don't worry. We have plenty of guards coming along and everybody knows things are different now. You're not expected to take up fighting positions. You're doing this as civilians, research, helping the city in a peaceful way. I was just saying everything's going to be fine. It's just a diplomatic mission. I don't see what could possibly go wrong. Especially with the great malkus grimness on our side. Even if the orcs do attack, they won't stand a chance.

I haven't been put to the test in a while, but hopefully I haven't grown too fat on the public coffer. Theo's going to sort of reach out. Did you get a new cape? This may be one of a few new capes, yes. Did you get a new cape for this mission? I mean, it's not commemorative, but it... Are you trying to impress the orcs? I'm not trying to impress the orcs. I'm trying to radiate authority. You need to look good for that. I mean, I guess for our people at least, but I mean, you surely know that their fashion senses are a bit different from ours. Look, this is beside the point, okay?

You need to... You never know who is going to see you, no matter where you go. It's important to look authoritative. Mm-hmm. Should we bring the orcs new capes? I don't think they would appreciate that to the degree that some other cultures might. I guess you can keep that in mind for other diplomatic opportunities. Well, if they arise. So, um... I'm honestly kind of glad the two of you haven't, you know, backed out of this. It's, uh... I know I said I would try to be of more help to all of you after all that you did for me, but... Politics is more putting out fires than I expected.

Well, I mean, now that we're living here, you taking on that side of things, it's helping us in its own way. I know, but I wanted it to be more direct. I'm glad to have this opportunity. And not just for you, but, you know, looking for more direct ways to do more for Winterhaven than just stop the bad things, stop the inconveniences. I really want this place to be a great... what do I want to say? I want Theria to look to Winterhaven as a model city. And I can't work on that as much if it's all putting out fires like it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be in a position where I can do what I can, but...

Well, I had my visions of how it would go, and then I had reality, I guess. Well, I think it'll be nice to be out and doing something for all three of us. I mean, even if it's not in the face of danger, it's just a nice change of pace for a bit. Hmm. Well, certainly a little more excitement than any of us have been used to in the past months. Staying in the city, staying more sedentary. I'm fine with it. I mean, I'm not saying it's bad. It's just... Fresh air will be nice. Yeah. I'm not... I'm sorry, that came off wrong. I just... it's good to see the two of you together and happy, but...

And maybe this is just me projecting how I see things. I just... Because of what happened, Theo with... and he just kind of points to Theo's throat, and then Aria with... Well, with losing your powers. I just... I didn't want the two of you to lose ambition, I guess? Both of you came out of our adventures together having lost more than the rest of us did, I felt like. I didn't want that to defeat you. Either of you. Aria will nod. I can see that point of view, yeah. I mean, it's taken... getting used to for sure, but... Honestly, I think right now with what we're doing, this is what I would have wanted to do.

And maybe if I hadn't lost my abilities, that would have led me to go try and do something with them. But right now I'm happy. And she'll give Theo's hand a squeeze. Yeah, I mean, if it wasn't for you and the group, I'd probably still be hanging around in bars in Brightport. So, things worked out pretty well. At that, Malkus smiles and he goes, "I'm glad to hear it. And to be truthful, you two have pivoted very well, Aria. It seems like the studies are going well, even if we're expanding them a bit here. And Theo, how are the herbs?" Oh, it's good, actually.

I'm working on a couple of things here, but I'm a long ways away from selling them to a shop or anything. But yeah, it's going really well. Good. Happiness is far too scarce in theory, generally speaking. So I'm glad the two of you have been able to find it. And hey, don't worry about the city. I think things have been going really well. It's been pretty quiet, but that's a good thing. Right? That means you're getting good at the whole putting out fires thing. We haven't had a massive dragon attack in two years. And Theo's going to point and say, "Right? That?

We've been dragon free since 1263." (laughs) Certainly admirable statistics. We'll make sure to spread those around. As you said, it's nice that we haven't had as many fires to put out, but I'm restless. Not in a "go out and fight monsters again" kind of restless, but in a... I really want to figure out how to take Winterhaven to the next level. Well, who knows? Maybe you'll get some inspiration from the trip. Fingers crossed. As long as I've helped you with your mission here. For now, that'll be enough. Thank you. Really. It means a lot to have you help us.

Theo's going to reach down and pick up this one of the bags here. This is the one with the books. Are you going to kind of glance towards Malchus, kind of almost panic, just like, "You did say something about porters, right?" Yeah, let's... "Okay, they're ready. You can come on in. Take, I guess, absolutely all of this." (laughs) I'd say one of the larger guys is going to grab this heavy sack with a bit more ease than what Theo's lugging it up with. I have a very important question. Are we loading this up in a wagon? I mean, I would assume there's both wagons and carriages involved.

Malchus refuses to go anywhere, not in a carriage. I was going to ask, is the wagon or carriage familiar to anyone who might have listened to Arc 1? I mean, it's the classic carriage. It's both practical and a souvenir of different times. So I would say Malchus would not readily retire such a thing. Okay. Is it still monogrammed on this side? The monogram has been replaced with the Crest of Winterhaven. It is a business carriage now. (laughs) It's leased by the company. Ah, I gotcha. (laughs) Oh my god. And I would imagine with that, after everyone's piled in and packed up, I would imagine everyone starts riding south.

Boy, we hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, there's a few things you could do to help support us and keep this kind of stuff going. Reviews on iTunes are always super helpful. That kind of gets us in the public eye. It just really helps. You can visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/dungeonsandrandomness, all spelled out. You can hit us up on Twitter and @dandrpodcast. And of course, we are sponsored by the lovely people over at Patreon at patreon.com/dandr. Of course, we do not ask for something for nothing. There's tons of content over there, as we are trying to make sure that you never have a bored moment on a car ride, at work, out walking, whatever it is.

There's always a show or something to listen to. And one of the things we do is the character chat. Every single month we sit down with a member of the cast. Sometimes it's someone who used to be on the show. Most of the time it's a current person. We try and mix it up. And we just kind of talk to them about everything that's happened to their character so far. We take your questions. We just kind of have a relaxed chat about things. And here's a clip of me talking to Xavier about group two and their trip to Talor and how it had been going up until that point.

I think we could have done it in less time. Not necessarily sessions-wise. But it's a little bit of us taking every quest that came at us to do everything that was thrown at us. And I'm really happy we got to take those moments. But at the same time, that's the group two blues. We do talk a lot around the table about what's the best course of action. And once we've taken that course of action, what's the best game plan? There's like five different game plans. That's all news by now. But every time we play a session, I always saw our group being at the end of that mini-quest, sub-quest, or at the other end of the continent.

And we only left the building at the end of the session. Every time that happened, it was kind of like "aww". And it's nobody's fault really, except maybe a group thing. Well, you're all planners. You want to be thorough. And again, some of it has to be attributed to the werewolves/briar troll. You never want to have one of those knights. And I very much understand that. But at this point, I feel like we're not allowed to use that excuse anymore. It's been two years. We've just killed everything you throw our way. We can't be that cautious all the time. Right.

So if that sounds like something you might be interested in, swing on over to patreon.com/dandr. Every cent helps us keep the lights on and do what we're doing. It helps us pay bills, it helps us pay taxes, it helps us get new equipment. It helps us do things like Dragon Con, which by the way will be there. And you'll hear more about that really, really soon. So thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week with a brand new episode. Send us an email to dandrpodcast@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. Visit the forums, visit Discord, all that stuff. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us.

So thank you guys so much. Have a great week.