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

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Previously for Group B, after an exasperatingly long trek through the divide and a tense conversation with Tamara and Grayson White, the group decided to part ways with them and allow them to continue on their travels. Where they will go and what they'll do is anyone's guess, but the group decided to focus on their endeavors for now. And after days on the road, they finally reached the town of Dern Hollow. And that's where we pick things up today. Let's do that thing and go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason. I'm the dungeon master. Going around the table, start with Karen.

Hi, I'm Karen and I play Callie the druid elf. And Valerie. Hello, I'm Valerie and I play Elena the human fighter. And Ian. Hey, I'm Ian. I play Cauldron Halec, the half-elf blizzard wizard, normally, but in this heat I'm more of a puddle wizard. That's a sad wizard. Mm-hmm. Just droopy and melty. And Jameson. Hey, this is Jameson. I play Larg the half-orc paladin. And Alex. Hey, I'm Alex and I play Braelyn the halfling bard, also melting. And Jamie. Hi there, I'm Jamie. I play Tatyana the human rogue, also melting. How Southern California, guys? Melting. [laughter] Apparently it's hailing fire.

Yeah, everyone thought there would be a big earthquake and it would shake off in California breaking into the weather. No, it's just gonna melt into the Pacific Ocean. At least the Pacific Ocean will be cold. It's refreshing. We're all gonna eat by sharks. It'll be fine. We're stung by stingrays. This is depressing, guys. Aw, jeez. Well, I could perk you guys up. Oh, wait, I have one more thing. I have to say something, Jason. Oh, okay. You messed up your intro and I'm really upset about it. [laughter] You said... I know what I said! Let's do that thing and go around the table.

My god. And it really threw me for a loop, okay? 'Cause you're supposed to say, "Let's do that thing where we go around the table." Okay. Oh, no. I will not take criticism from someone sitting in a pile of their own wet pants. I will not. That makes it sound like two Peter Pan. [laughter] Well, we don't know who's to say. Listen to them behind the scenes. The answer may surprise you. [laughter] I'm sorry, Valerie. I'll correct it next time, I swear. Thank you. Okay. It's too much. It's gotta be the same thing every time, okay? [laughter] Or Valcamp finish. [laughter] Wet pants. [laughter] You guys are no longer in the forest.

No longer in the divide. We did it! [laughter] You've reached the lovely town of Durnahallow. Home to the stars. I'm sorry. I'm with James. I'm sorry. I almost called you James. I mean, I've been called worse. Yes. Before. Can you describe Durnahallow? 'Cause I forgot what time we got there, and I don't remember exactly. Sure. I was just about to anyway, so this works out fantastically. Now, normally, the town of Durnahallow is a bit on the small side in terms of population. It's got quite a boom since the, I'd say two, two and a half years ago, some were in there.

They had a huge reconstruction effort after their main source of income burned down. There's been a bit of a boom for business, and transportation rolls through there a lot, so there's a lot of tourism and all that. Right now, as you walk in, you're noticing a swell of people, way more than you would expect in a town like Durnahallow, which is kind of a pass-through town, right? It's kind of a last chance for gas type of thing. Because the only, the nearest town to the west would be Aubrey, and then to the east would be Donhurst. Building-wise, again, there has been a major reconstruction effort.

So if you haven't been to Durnahallow in a while, a lot of the ratty, old-looking shops and houses and stuff like that have been renovated. A lot of this stuff is new. There was a huge effort from Overdale and Winterhaven to help this town out after the war. So walking into town, it's actually fairly modern-looking. Again, a little on the small side, and some of the people are still... Mid-century, mid-century modern? What are we talking here? Surprisingly Greek. It's weird. But a couple of the people, you got a couple of the old-timey Durnahallow folks sitting on their front porch, straw hat, kind of a go-back-the-way-you-can look about them.

But that is not predominantly what the rest of the town looks like. It's a city on the move. It's very cosmopolitan. And what time of day is it? This is floating around noon, little afternoon, something like that. Oh, okay. So we came at a normal time for once. Yeah, this is peak hours. 17th of Yesty, by the way. Oh yeah. So, you are not in any immediate danger, so congratulations. I feel like it's been years. Thanks! Are we getting any stink-eye from those old Durnahallowites on their porch? There's a couple of you, probably. Larg, probably more than anybody else.

Even the people who aren't native Durnahallowians would probably give Larg kind of a second glance, like a "Oh, we're gonna get trouble from that guy" type of thing. Yeah, Larg is waving to everybody. He's so happy to be out of the woods in the city. He's just like "Hi, hey there." Also, imagine the sight of you rolling into town. The woods have not been kind to you. The defied kick the shit out of you guys, and you look it. You look every stretch of that road between Donhurst and Durnahallow. So, kind of realize that a bath might be in order. I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask if there was a guard or somebody nearby that I could maybe poke in the back of the knee with my finger very quickly.

Well, it's funny you should mention that, because rolling into town, there's a boy who looks to be around 11, 12, something like that. Just maybe pre-purity, that type of thing. And this kid's got a helmet on that's a little too big for him, and he's carrying a spear. That's so cute. Kill him! Get him! He has a weapon! Wait a minute, wait a minute. He's got a knife! I would like to suplex this child. And he's gonna hold up a hand as you guys are rolling into town. Hold on, stop! Like his voice cracks a little bit. I laugh audibly. He's going to narrow his eyes at Braelyn.

Great start, guys. Great start. He's gonna kinda hold out his spear. He's using his spear, and it's about half the size of a regular, like a full, something a fighter would use, something like that. It's about half that size. And he's using it kind of as a pointer, and he's gonna hold it eye level at Braelyn. What's so funny? He's gonna put his hands up. No, no, nothing, nothing. I laugh when I get nervous. It's a very dangerous weapon. And I'm gonna look to Cauldin and kinda use my head to wave him over to like, "Hey, talk to this kid." We halt, and Cauldin says, "Greetings, we're travelers from the East.

Have we come to Durn Hollow at a good time?" He is going to... he's gonna look you over. And he's gonna look at Larg. 'Cause I imagine Larg towers over this kid, too. Reckon so. We're not gonna get any trouble from him, right? And he's gonna point at Larg, using his spear. Larg turns and looks behind himself like, "Uh, who came in?" Braelyn will step forward. "No, no, no, no, no. He's the big guy over here. He's fine." He's a very calm, very kind-natured gentleman. I even drew a funny face on the back of his helmet, and he hasn't beat me up, so it's totally cool.

Completely fine. Larg will put on his helmet backwards and do a silly salute. So he's gonna start waving you into town. "All right, you can pass through." Thank you very much. Yeah, as you guys are kind of filtering in, he's going to give a smile to the ladies of the party. And each one that passes by, "Ma'am? Ma'am?" Like, each one. As you tip his fedora. Cauldron, as everyone's passing by, he'll ask, like, "Thank you for letting us into your town. Would you mind pointing us in the direction? Could you tell us where the local tavern is?" He is going to point toward the center of town.

"Well, there's two. You got your pick of the litter." And what are their names? "You got the Honest Harlot, and that's a little more toward the east. And you got Cherry Blossom Heaven." This kid's voice is just in and out. And you can tell every once in a while, he's like, "Mm-mm-mm!" Like, he's trying to level it out, and it's just not happening. Like the kid from The Simpsons? Yeah, like he's trying to be authoritative, so it's just, yeah. And called an old smile and said, "And which one do you prefer? Which one would you recommend?" "Well, we've had some trouble at Haven, so I would say Honest Harlot's been here the longest." "Ah, a Durn Hollow standard.

Excellent." "Is there anywhere where you could send or receive messages as well?" "Oh, sure. There's a post office in the center of town." "Excellent. Thank you. And one more thing. And called an old, can I like pull out a copper or something? I know we're deal chiefly in gold, but could I like pull out some currency that's not a bunch of money?" So I like pull out a copper and sort of like kneel down a little bit and hand it out to him and say, "Also, we're looking for a group of people that have come from Donhurst. Have you seen anyone like that pass through here in town?

A group, perhaps?" "Ugh. Yeah." "It doesn't sound like they enjoyed their stay here. Are they still here?" "Yeah, there's a bunch of them still in town. They're fine enough. It's just really tough to do a security check for that many people." "Oh, I imagine. You have to pat them down with just your eyes. Am I right?" "Yeah, at the mention of patting down, there's a look on this kid's face where you can almost see him go, 'Damn, why didn't I think of that?' as the ladies were passing by, probably." "Oh, no." "Like, damn it. That would have been genius." "Caldan will put the copper in his hand and give him a wink and say, 'That's a little tip for you, kid.

Thanks very much. Now, kick rocks, kid.'" "Good lord. So, formally, you are now in Durnhollow. What is the chief thing you want to get going here or do? What's number one with a bullet on your list?" "I think Brelyn would look to Lark and say, 'We all heard the conversation, so he would look to him and be like, 'Hey, your people could be here.'" "Yeah, he's probably craning his neck trying to look around and see if there's somebody he recognizes." "Do me a favor. Give me a perception check. Eight." "Oh, yeah. He turns his helmet around so he can see." "You see the drawing." "So, even with an eight, check this out.

Lark is going to see, speckled in the crowd, one or two faces that he recognizes. There are definitely people from Donhurst in this town." "We found him!" "Yeah!" "Yeah, so as soon as he sees one face, he's going to do almost like a jump start and go, 'Oh!' and he's going to go heading off toward that person." "I'll follow. Brelyn will follow for sure." "So, a short..." "It's hard to lose Lark in a crowd though." "It is, yeah. He stands out." "So, even a short conversation with this person. I would imagine first, Lark may not be an institution in Donhurst, but you probably recognize a guy like that around town, right?

I mean, Lark wasn't necessarily cloistered away. He didn't just hang out at the church, right?" "Right." "So, I would imagine these people would probably recognize Lark and just, at the very least, it would be, 'Oh, okay, there are other survivors. That's awesome.' That type of thing." "He's shaking people's hands if they let him and being really excited to see them and asking them questions and almost talking too fast for himself a little bit." "Right. Here's a funny thing about racism. In a pinch, in a bad enough situation, racism doesn't matter as much.

Like, say your entire city gets devoured by a demon." "Off chance." "Right. Just seeing another survivor from that town or city, even if it's not someone you'd necessarily normally get along with or appreciate seeing, would be like, 'Oh, okay, not everyone died. Awesome.' That type of thing. So, I think even people who would normally be a little put off by Lark or maybe just not quite understanding of him, I think they would be excited to see Lark." "Oh, yeah. He would also immediately start telling people that they got rid of the demon. That there's no more demons.

There's no more monsters." "Let me ask you a question. Are you telling this as a story? Is it like a gather around? I can tell you what happened in Donhurst. Or is it just as you're seeing each person and you're kind of pinballing through town, just kind of like, 'Oh, the demon's dead. Don't worry about it.'" "Yeah, more like as he's trying to find out information, he's also spreading that information." "Do me a favor. Give me a performance check." "Boy." "Wait, wait, wait. Let me help him. Let me help him." "Help me." "Can I assist him? I know I can't roll for it, but I want to at least give him advantage because I am trained in performance." "All right." "I envision it like Ghostbusters 2 when they have Louis Tully as their lawyer and Bill Murray's on the stand.

It's like, 'I'm feeding him stuff.' I say this and they're like, 'Oh my God.'" "Hey, 18!" "So I would imagine at first it's a couple of people, right? And then as word gets around, it's like, 'Oh, Bob, come over here. Come over here.' So after a while, you've got a good 16, 18 people, something like that around you." "Okay." "And let me ask a question before we continue. Is the underlying message 'It's safe to go back' or would you quickly follow up the demon's dead with, 'Oh, but there's another problem.'" "I think the instinct would be good news.

He really wants to give people good news. So it's like, 'Hey, the reason you're all gone is that's been solved.'" "Right." "But I don't know if he would want to tell people that it's still not safe, but I guess he would try to be careful to not imply that it's safe still. I don't know. It's a weird line to not cross." "Okay. So the big, basically the big problem, the reason people were driven out is taken care of, but you might want to give it some time." "But he's not telling anyone they can go home again." "Right. Okay. As Larg is telling the story and Braelyn's assisting and stuff like that, I'm guessing the rest of the party is present?" "Yeah, I think we're, I mean, this is kind of like happening out in the streets, right?" "Yeah." "So I picture this is like a town square type of thing, and there are people, there are vendors and stuff like that, and there are people just kind of like mingling and moving around." "As Larg's telling the story, he's going to see a familiar face in Ellen." "Yay!" "Yeah, so he's pretty much going to just like trail off mid-sentence and kind of turn around and is she in the crowd or is she kind of off in the distance?" "I would say she's off in the crowd talking to somebody, so she hasn't necessarily noticed Larg yet." "Yeah, so I guess he'd kind of trail off mid-sentence and then like look around real quick at everybody around and be like, 'Excuse me, excuse me, sorry, I'll be right back,' and he'll start kind of pushing his way off toward her." "Okay.

I would say it probably wouldn't take too long if she has any kind of peripheral vision, she would probably notice Larg at a certain point." "It'd be a lot of, pardon me, pardon me, off in the distance." "Right. There's probably a look of shock that comes over her face first. And then relief, followed by her probably trying to hug Larg if Larg's okay with that." "So what he would basically do is as he'd finally get through the crowd, he would kind of just almost stand at attention and do whatever a salute would be in the Church of Arathis, but that would probably break into a hug at some point." "You know, like the end of a movie where the music swells." "I can't believe you're safe.

How did you get here?" "Oh, it's a really, really long story, but I met some people and they helped me when I came back. Nobody was there and we had to fight demons and there were these monsters and I didn't know, but I knew that you got everybody out, so I was just trying to find you. And I don't know, I knew you were here. I knew you would be here." "You went to Donhurst?" "Well, yeah, I mean, when I came out of the woods, I thought, you know, I came home, but everybody was gone." So there's probably- this is a lot to take in. The last couple of weeks have not been great.

So at the mention of other people, she would probably start looking around. I'm guessing the party followed Larg? "Oh, yeah, he kind of remember himself. Oh, yeah, so and sort of gesture to the rest of the group and be like, this is this is Braylon and this is Kaldin and Callie and Elena. And this is Tatiana. And they were in Donhurst when I got there. And they helped. They helped us get rid of the demons." She would go right down the line shaking everybody's hand. "I'm very pleased to see that everyone's all right. I'm actually quite shocked. You said you got rid of the demon.

It's gone." He nods like really excitedly and like in kind of points at Kaldin. "You did it." "I mean, he didn't do it himself." "That's true. It was not a solo effort. It was all of us." She would at this point realize that there's a lot to talk about here. "I'm sorry, where are my manners? Can I buy you all a drink? You look like you've been through quite an ordeal." "Yes, you can." He would kind of be like, "Um, yeah, yeah, yeah." And he would look around at where everybody else wanted to go. She would probably go to the Honest Harlot with you guys.

And you could tell she's a little... it's... probably not used to an establishment like this. It's different than the church. "I mean, it could be church to some people." And they would show you to a table and they would bring you drinks and stuff. "Tell us about the Honest Harlot. Tell us what's up." So this is a beautiful two-story building. It has a very open floor plan when you walk in, right? There's this lovely balcony that surrounds the first floor bar on the second floor. There are basically whatever you are into, there's someone for you at the Honest Harlot.

And you are almost besieged by drinks and music and women, men, whatever you're into, they're here. It's in Durnhollow, probably the most eclectic grouping of different races. And you are greeted the second you walk in. There are probably two or three people there to greet you. They're basically asking you, "What are you here for? If it's drinks, then there's this bar section and then there's people mingling throughout that. There's this kind of busy lounge area. There are stairs that lead up to rooms and it's all... do they have Warforged?" Sadly, no.

But yeah, it is a bustling, busy place. You can kind of hear the music before you even enter the place. But there are big groups of people in a VIP area telling stories and laughing uproariously. And there's more intimate booth-like areas where there are two or three people kind of canoodling. And then there's an area like you are being brought to, just a regular big table at a bar type thing and people are bringing you beverages. So quick question, actually. How does Ellen look? Does she look like she's been through some shit or does she look more or less the way he remembers her?

Well, her appearance hasn't changed, but much like you guys, looks like this has been an ordeal. It doesn't look like she's gotten much sleep. A lot of the people from Don Hurst either look a bit disheveled or just worried. And their home has been ripped away. Their history is gone. And they don't know if they'll ever be able to go back. And that's probably why all those people started rallying around you because you're basically giving them hope. It's like, "Oh, the demon's been taken care of." And some of them are taking that to mean it's like, "Oh, we can either go back now or we can go back soon." Alright.

Yeah, so probably even as they're walking, Larg is beginning to fill her in on everything. He's going to start with what his original mission would have been, which would have been to find that creature out in the woods. And he's kind of basically just talking her ear off as they're making their way to the table. Okay, and I would imagine she's doing the same. Just kind of filling you in on the chapters that you might be missing, where obviously things started getting bad in the city leading up to that. People disappearing and rumors of things happening in the mines.

And then it getting so bad that there's no communication between the church and the guard and everyone's just worried people don't leave their houses at night. And she starts ferrying people, just shepherding people out of the city at one point. And she basically downloads information to you that there's at least 1000 maybe more that made it out. Some people left before she was even willing to go. She wanted to make sure and people were leaving and getting out. And then the people who refused to leave and just like, "Oh, this is a storm will weather it." They weren't so lucky.

She would also tell you that the people in Durnhollow are the last to make it out of Donhurst. There are some people who didn't make it out of the Divide, sadly. The large majority of people are heading to Winterhaven and they basically started booking it for for a while now. There's some people who caught wagons that way. There's some people who just kept walking. Some people who kind of stalled out in Aubrey and they're waiting to recoup and move forward. But Winterhaven is the largest city that can kind of take in all these refugees. Small towns like Durnhollow just do not have the space for all those people.

So it's more a pit stop for them where they can rest, get food and beverages, rations and move on. OK, how long have they been here in Durnhollow? Most of the people who are left have been here for either a week or less. And she very much paints a picture of the people who are going through the Divide were not prepared to make that journey. Some people didn't even have shoes, like they weren't- it was rough going and that's probably why she just looks so exhausted. And she would probably ask at a certain point, "How was your trip to the Divide?" He'll kind of exchange a glance with the rest of the group.

He'll check a glance with everybody else real quick and be like, "Oh, it was alright." Braille looks at Lard, "Are you fucking kidding me? Alright, it was terrible! It was awful! Ugh! Tell him about the girl! The wolf girl!" He's like, "Alright, I want to tell you about the rest of what happened and you should know that it's not really safe to go back there yet, but first there's something else that's really important that we want to tell you about. So we met a werewolf in the woods? I don't know if you met any werewolves in the Divide?" There's kind of a look of shock, like of the words she thought.

It's like, "Oh, we met a werewolf." Probably wasn't- No, I don't think we did. Okay, yeah, so it was this girl named Tamara and she didn't have any memory when we met her. I didn't, you know, but turns out she was a werewolf and she's from Aubrey and we didn't really know what to do, but we decided that we were going to bring her back here and let people in Aubrey know because they didn't know she was a werewolf and it was very complicated. It's a long story. But she left with the vampire and I told them that I would tell you about it. He kind of looks like he confused himself in the middle of his story.

She's going to pause for just a moment. Grayson? Yeah, yeah, it was Grayson. She's going to reach into her possessions here and she's going to pull out a letter. There was a Grayson who was looking for a woman named Tamara. He came through town about a week ago, a little less. They came back through last night. Okay, yeah, he's a vampire and she's a werewolf and nobody in Aubrey knows that. So what we all decided and he kind of indicates everybody else is that, you know, we're not going to stop him from trying to go back there, but we should probably tell somebody in Aubrey, like, you know, the church or the authorities or somebody.

Well, they didn't tell me where they were going. I was actually quite surprised that they approached me, but they handed me this letter and she's going to put it on the table. It's just the sealed letter. And they asked me to deliver it to the leadership of the church in Aubrey. Okay. He kind of looks over to the group. He's like, that's not what we talked about. Oh, was it not? Can we clarify? Yeah, I don't remember. That is different than what we said was going to happen, right? You guys essentially said, "Avoid towns. Scoot." They were going back. I thought they were going back to Aubrey to like gather things or something.

And then they were going to, at least what they said is they were going to go and go in the woods. Is that correct? Something like that. Plans could have changed. Okay, but they came to Durn Hollow. Okay. Okay. Got it. They at least were in Durn Hollow last night. Because you said it's a letter. Is it like in an envelope and like sealed? Yep. Oh, shit. Well, Kalden reaches over the table and opens it. What does the letter say? Yeah. They're not here. What's on the letter? Wow. Okay. Kalden legitimately says, "Wow." Ellen's going to kind of look a little taken aback.

Like, "What the hell are you doing?" Almost. Yeah, like just looks at Ellen like, "I'm sorry." "You said new friends." Yeah. You're hanging out with the wrong people. Don't embarrass me. Yeah. He picks it up and he opens it and he says, "They didn't say where they were going next, you said? You didn't happen to see any general direction." Again, she's still a bit flustered that you opened it. No. I'm sorry. I didn't. I wasn't really paying attention. I've had some responsibilities in town. I understand. And I want you to know that these people, though they might have good intentions, are very desperate, which makes them dangerous.

And then Kalden reads the letter, I guess, aloud. Yeah. Aloud. Okay. The entire time you're reading this aloud, Ellen is going to look at Larg like, "Are you shitting me? Like, this is happening. Okay." He's kind of pleading with his eyes. He's like, "I didn't know he was going to do that. I'm sorry." And it's more just like, "That is a gross invasion of privacy." Like that type of thing. Like, it's like... So, okay. You know how opening someone else's mail is a felony in the real world? Yeah. Is it a felony here? Well, no. There's kind of an honor system because there is a post office.

There's a post system. And essentially, this is the only form of communication for some people. There's no Twitter. There's no internet. There's no email. So these letters sometimes are the only correspondence you will get with another person. So, to have that interfered with in any way is like a "wow." That is... It's a ballsy play. Well, that's the point of a wax seal, right? Is to make sure nobody else reads the mail before it gets to the next room. Cauldin will gauge the room. He sees that this has got a reaction. And he'll take a pause, hold the letter close to his chest and be like, "Oh, don't worry.

We'll reseal it. I'm headed to the post office." It'll be as if it was never open. And then he reads the letter out loud. Good Lord. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. So this letter is to an Angus White in Aubrey. And it essentially reads thusly. I'm very sorry. The moment we both feared has arrived. We're going to be leaving town for a while. I don't know when I'll be able to return. I hope that you'll be in better health when I get back. If I don't see you again, I love you very much, your son, Grayson. And Cauldin will put the letter down in the center of the table again, folding it up neatly.

And he'll say, "Well, it doesn't give any indication where they're going, if they're going to be near Aubrey or moving on to some other town, but..." Father White. Is that the name of Father White? It'll turn to Braylon, Father White in Aubrey. Do you remember? Braylon will scratch his head. I'm probably the worst person to ask, even though we probably met the guy. I think you gave him the orb. I'm bad with names. I'm not gonna lie. Braylon and I share this in common. We are terrible with names. But I will try to recall if I need to, Jason. You had an intimate conversation with him.

Okay, then I remember him. And I'll remember the orb. I was like, "Ah! Yeah, yeah, I know the guy. Yeah, I gave him the thing. The actoronus thing. He didn't seem sick to me. Father White? Or...? Yeah, Father did. Father White. I mean, I don't know his first name. I wonder... well, it expresses here in this letter that the day came that they both feared. I don't know if that means Grayson and Tamara or Grayson and his father, but it may be that it wasn't only Grayson and Tamara that knew that they were a vampire and a werewolf in the town of Aubrey. Yeah, sounds like it.

So he lied to us then. I don't know what we can do with this information other than just let this letter go exactly where it was headed. I don't think there's any point in hunting them down. Us hunting them down at all. No, I got no beef with Grayson other than the fact that he's an asshole. So Largo kind of looked apologetically to Ellen and said, "Well, the plan was that I was going to vouch for them to you and if you were going to Aubrey, if you agreed, then maybe you would vouch for them to the leadership in Aubrey. But it sounds like they already know the leadership in Aubrey, so..." He just kind of throws his hands and said, "I don't know what to do now." And I think I would lead Ellen to just...

Call in Hanser the letter and he's like, "Do you have intentions to head to Aubrey with any more of these refugees? What is your plan if you don't mind me asking now that you have survivors here in Durnhollow?" Well, I wanted to make sure that everyone that was heading out of Donhurst and made it to Durnhollow knew what the situation was and eventually get everyone to Winterhaven. Was there anyone else on the road? Oh, well, we were the last ones to leave Donhurst. We know that. Oh, Brandon's gonna look at Lorck. But, uh, there. We're not the... We weren't the only ones in there.

Oh, yeah, so that reminds me. It's not safe to go back. Don't go back there. [Laughter] And she's got to look a little puzzled, like, "Well, besides the cleanup effort, what's..." Well, yeah, so we got rid of all the demons and the flesh monsters, but the place is riddled with bandits now. Like, they chased us out and, uh, I don't know, they were following these guys and, I don't know, they're probably still there. Brandon looks at Lorck. "Why did you say chasing us? That makes us look like it's our fault." [Laughter] Ellen's first impressions of you guys might not be so bad.

It's not very good. I understand. Well, he didn't say, "Well, when I got back there, I met these people. They were looting the city." [Laughter] Yeah, no, no proof. There's no proof. No proof. They were just, like, letting me stand outside the hall. Does Ellen recognize Tatiana's nice armor? I, you know what, I was thinking about that, and it's like, "You know, I've seen that in the window." Everyone's like, "You know what, I'm gonna roll a d20." Here we go. It's couture, honey. It's couture. No. It's so dirty, you can't even recognize it. Oh, yeah, good, yeah.

I threw you under the bus, but you went between the wheels, so it's okay. [Laughter] That's that uncanny dodge. Yes! So, Kalden will look at her puzzled face and start to fill her in, just sort of like, "We were on our way to Donhurst. There was a group called the Fang that were trying to infiltrate the city. We didn't want the people of Donhurst to be hurt or in danger, so we rode to warn them." Which is when we found out what happened and where we met Larg. The Fang pursuing us came into Donhurst and we escaped them. We don't know if they're still there.

We don't know if they've set up some kind of camp. I assume they're still after us. The other thing that they were after is this. First Kalden looks around, just to make sure the coast is clear a little bit, that there's no one. Or that everyone's just sort of in revelry, not paying too much attention. Everyone's kind of involved in their own shtick here. And Kalden will take the bell out of his pack and put it on the table and just sort of unwrap a corner of it to show her what it is, but then keep it tightly covered. But he leaves it resting there on the table.

So, the next thing that we do is, Ellen is going to look at this, then at Kalden, then at the bell, then at Larg. Who are these people? Well, that's Kalden, that's Braelyn, that's Callie. I do have good news. I sent word to Winterhaven quite a bit ago, and I am sure that they are assembling a small army, at least a battalion, to go take care of everything in Donhurst. So, hopefully we'll get some word soon and things can return to normal. Well, that's good, because now when they come here, we can tell them and they can go clean the fang, right? And she would nod along.

Can I ask what exactly your plan is from here? Well, I think in the immediate future we need some baths and some rest. Maybe after that we can all reconvene and talk about it. I need to send some word as well. Is there anyone in this town that can send messages via magical means? Any hedge wizard or court wizard or anyone who practices like that? She's going to shake her head. Not that I know of. Ah. Just the postal service then, and he'll tap the letter that he opened up. And he'll look to the group and say, "What do you say? We get some rest and discuss what happens next?" Right a little nod.

Yeah. Sounds good. You know, since we're here in a bar, we could play a little game, now that we have a chance to catch our breath. I assume that we have had drinks this whole time, correct? Yeah, I would imagine so, yeah. Tatiana is going to say, "Fine, but if we're going to stick around and I can't shower, I'm going to need something stronger." Oh yes, it is a drinking game. We're all going to need something. Mm-hmm. Bralyn laughs like that. Um, Helen is going to stand up at that point. Oh, no. Would you join us? Oh, are you sure? I wouldn't be imposing. No, no, of course not.

Besides, I can tell you all the stories. I got a lot of good stories. I don't know, man. She might be a narc. All laugh. Law and order, man. Law and order. You're the first person that Larg recognizes. This is reuniting. This is great. We should celebrate a little bit. Yeah, you're like literally one of the first wins we've had. Larg looks a little bit embarrassed, like you're drinking with his mom. Laughing. I mean, it's up to you, Larg. No, no, yeah. If it's okay with you, you know. It's fine with me. I can stay for a couple of hours. I need to get back to people after that, but...

Excellent. Cauldron like holds up his hand for like a waiter to bring drinks. He like pockets the bell and puts it back in. And he's like, "We'll need your strongest but cheapest drinks for everyone around the table." At that, wait, at that, Tatiana is going to stand up and pull out her pouch of gold and throw it in the middle of the table. Braelyn's not. His jaw hits the table. Yeah, Kaldin's eyes just go wide. He's speechless. And she's going to say, "I definitely want the strongest but not the cheapest." Yeah. Oh boy, howdy. Okay. Before we get too intoxicated, I just, like I know you said everyone's kind of doing their thing, but like, can I do a perception check to like just, does anyone just keep looking at us?

Please, go right ahead. Give me a perception check. Cool. Callie doesn't notice anything. Callie's drunk already. I'm there. she just is a fox on the table this is a very busy place and I would say as soon as the sack of gold hits the table a couple of people are going to know you're holding out on us there's gonna be a lovely drow woman who walks up behind Braylin and puts her hands on his shoulders and kind of leans down and whispers in his ear my name's sespa is there anything I could do to make your stay a little more comfortable yes please don't touch me sespa thank you she's gonna look at her he's gonna look at her with a smile she's going to she's going to kind of lift her hands up like what I did not expect that to be the response Wow you holding down the whole thing honey nothing getting in he's still smiling he just had it just says it like in a very like I've been talked like to like that before so right yeah wait let's pack up not that phrase okay like when someone tries to like do little you kind of but not really okay yeah please don't touch me Alex excuse me excuse me they would be so honored that's true that's true so yeah she'll she'll probably back off a little bit after that just kind of just the drinks then I guess right yes that that seems to be all you're here for um strongest when you say strongest do you want the strongest or do you want like shelf under that strongest well would I be able to roll to see if Tatiana has had it before because I think that would be a determining factor you know what give me d20 oh are you thinking what I'm thinking is that what you're I mean okay Tatiana you're in the driver's seat with this I mean she would if she had had it before and I rolled a 19 everybody she would probably insist on the one that she had had and if that happens to be the strongest one there then that's what it is I mean not it would how much is it though well there's a few different things you guys are in a fantastic area for this there has been a war both figuratively and literally between the dwarves and the orcs for many many years now now in in recent years orcish brewing has brought us such illustrious classics as skull splitter the dwarves countered with a beverage called blackout that's almost turpentine the orcs recently have launched a counter-offensive is it just called you're gonna have a bad time is it just an orc walks in the room and punches you it's called cave-in now this is actually translated from orcish but it's actually clever wordplay for the orcs because it's kind of a fuck you to dwarves who live in caves and stuff like that and it's also referring to everything that's going on in your head complete cave-in this is almost poison so I'm going by Constitution I will not be partaking in this alcoholic beverage now well here's the thing how would Tatiana pitch this because I'm going to say that Tatiana being has how she traveled in certain circles probably at the very least cave-in would be on her periphery god how much is it okay per shot huh you're talking 10 gold per shot okay most people don't need more than one shot see that see I'm trying to be economic about it because if you only get one shot of this one thing versus like three shots of another thing I'm trying to save us money here right yeah and and cauldron will be like it's a drinking game so we need something we can keep drinking oh well then she wouldn't get that one she would get the the sissy one well you could always order a shot of that if say someone really lost true true yes so probably blackout something like that something something strong but not I'm dying tonight strong right 100 proof not pure ethanol the moonshine of the orcish community is what you're wait one thing about this is a science um you cannot have pure ethanol it's actually not possible because the water molecules are so tightly holding on that you literally can't get all the water out of it challenge accepted flex flex those muscles from the finals you destroyed and dominated on yes there you go also we're so drinking at Dragon Con I know that's happening yeah so what's the drinking game so the drinks come called in like looks at it sniffs it makes some impromptu ice cubes in his hand and like essentially this puts them in the in his cup yeah he'll do it for anyone who wants it like and he makes sure everyone has a cup and he's like okay the game that the game that we're playing is called two truths and a lie everyone we go around here in around our table and you tell two truths about yourself can be anything about yourself that's true whether it's something about your past or something about you now or just anything about you that's true and then you tell one lie and everyone at the table has to try and guess it and if we guess correctly then whoever has told the lie will drink if everyone is fooled then everyone else drinks and I'll go first just to show you how it's done and he says I have white hair I have blue eyes and one of my parents was a dragon now try and guess the lie and I look shocked leans over to lark I can actually believe all three of those yeah I thought his hair was white it looks white right am I wrong am I have seen the wrong white it's definitely white so you're not a dragon correct and so if that's the consensus if everyone has come up with with that if every or you think that that that would be a lie so you wouldn't drink and I and I would and called and does he takes a drink he takes like a little sip and that's how the game is played lard you guessed correctly maybe you should go next he looks really nervous he kind of keeps glancing over at Helen and dead his drink okay trust me the more we play the easier it gets he looks more nervous I imagine she would be a bit uncomfortable to not just because like she doesn't know 85% of the people at the table right that's what will make this fun for you Ellen okay okay okay so I am 20 years old I have never drank liquor before and I once won a pie eating contest and have a blueberry crown oh brother will look at him I don't think you drank before he looks nervous yeah called an old nod what about the rest of you what do you think Kelly Elena Ellen I think Ellen would be racking over it is like have I seen you drink he's long looking at her just with eyes just going please no and she would probably she'd probably speak up eventually I don't believe I've ever seen you drink no at to Ellen Tatiana will nod and agree with the rest of the group that's gotta be it then yeah wait so we're guessing the lie yes so we're saying that lark has drunk before are we saying that he hasn't I don't I don't really get this game can we can you explain it again so you tell two truths about yourself and one lie and then we try and guess what the lie is I did it wrong haha whoops yeah I think we all did it wrong yeah everybody like wait a minute do this wrong congratulations log you win we'll take a drink so then we all drink yeah and then you all that looks at Elena like do you get it now wait wait this is out of character now what just happened wait did we all just take a drink yeah why because I've I've messed like I got it wrong yeah well you have to guess the lie Elena what do you think it is so the lie one of the choices again right Elena's drinking everyone Cali I'm guessing I'm guessing this game is gonna go on for a while I do want to get I do want to get to Cali actually cuz I think you could do a good one ah I love you yeah okay so guys I don't know if you know this about Cali her Christmas not very high so she's gonna be real awkward about this whole thing and so she's gonna say I have two siblings brother and a sister my sister and I are twins and I have thrown a drink in someone's face and when she says that last one because I was just like interpreting this because her deceptions like really bad to you she were gonna see her eyes like kind of flick a little bit oh like she's got a tail yeah hmm Colin's gonna think and like study her face a little bit really just gonna blurt out you have a twin yeah I don't I don't think you have a twin you're you're too unique on your own to have a physical copy of you here in Faria I'm gonna say that's the lie I think Ellen would be hanging back just like I'm gonna piggyback on what everyone else is saying cuz I don't know Kelly Ellen what do you think you've known us how do we shake out okay well you open other people's mail and apparently you were looting a city and one of you has just been hiding the fact that they're a millionaire totally trustworthy but yes you think of all think of all the other cool surprises we'll have this is first meeting this is like the first 30 minutes it's been a long trek through the forest right so yes you'd probably say twin Tatiana's gonna right away call out the last one because of the twitch yeah larger with that he'll agree with the drink the drink one I'm afraid to ask about Elena Elena still very confused about this game just pick one she's gonna oh you know she's gonna do she's gonna be like she's gonna like look concerned at Cali are you okay like your I like made this funny movement I just want to make sure that you're not like like are you good yeah I'm fine maybe from the concussion we should we're in the bar drinking we should have like immediately gone to the hospital now let's put some alcohol on that let me sleep here which one would which one would Elena shoes um a B or C right the twin thing the sister and brother thing and the drinking thing Elena is going to choose the drinking thing there we go so what is it Kelly I have never thrown a drink in someone's face on my bucket list actually well it looks in his cup very hesitantly there is no time like the present and he'll gesture over to Braylon's face here open your mouth so you can catch it he just he just looks up is that what so I'm guessing this drinking game goes on for a while and you kind of you know as as the evening goes on you get a bit more relaxed eventually Ellen would excuse herself just because I don't think she's the type to get hammered in a bar but definitely wants to wants to be nice to large friends and and and relax a little bit but she would excuse herself after about an hour and a half maybe two hours every once in a while someone will come over from the bar to one make sure that you have a steady stream of drinks to make sure that any of you aren't interested in other services provided at the bar so they probably wouldn't approach Braylon again good but they would approach large Cali Elena calvin Tatiana you know I would first person approach him you just kind of like shake his head no and you know boy contact oh he knows the strip club rules very good we are ship club rules real things unwritten but yes they exist oh no no touching just touching don't look him in the eye if you don't want to come over yep okay that's good I never look at people in the ice perfect you're set you're good you're good to go on a strip club cleared for start clubs yeah you know we're going to a strip club at Dragon Con no what no no we did accidentally ways took us past a strip club for some reason me Jasper and Bree they took us to I believe it was called what was it called I believe was called peaches or something like that it was it was just yeah that sounds like Georgia no way if they had like an event that is drat like a Dragon Con themed strip club I you know what I bet you a hundred percent they do because in San Francisco near the Convention Center there's a strip club and they advertise when they have like big tech functions and it's like bring it yeah bring your dream force ID and get 15% off or something like that you know whatever whatever it is I and you know you speed my bus route going home so when I go home from work I would see it like damn this they're really trying well here's the creepiest thing this was in the middle of nowhere they that there were no lights there were no nothing but the strip club so I started getting but how's their buffet we didn't go in I was I started getting a dust till dawn vibe like I wouldn't make it out like that so yeah yes vampires in Georgia where the hell were we oh yeah so I'm guessing that as the evening starts winding down you guys gotta be exhausted and filthy I'm guessing rooms are in order yeah Brandon wants to go buy his room and get like the biggest one you can and see how much it costs I so this uh this this there are different packages if you're just getting a room by yourself that's obviously the cheapest option yeah that's that's the route I want to go yeah if you want company it depends on how long you want the company for and all that but yeah so it would probably be right around that five golden night sweet spot somewhere in there Berlin breathes into his teeth he looks at the stage and back to the innkeeper and asks how much would it cost let's say if I were to give you my services as a musician well now this sounds like this sounds like a town or city enterprises it does oh I have a problem Oh costs to to play costs you perform is I believe 25 gold for a week yes okay I'm saying like maybe two nights maximum the second night's optional well okay here's just for the convenience of all this let's let's back up I'm guessing you guys are staying in town for a while one to recoup from the road usually when people stay in towns and cities it's for a good like a like a good five to seven days just to kind of you know if you've been on a journey like you guys have there's no pressing matter to attend to in the moment there's you know you know things are being taken care of so am I right in assuming that I don't have any problem with us taking some time here yeah yeah Lars got people here and yeah if Calvin's arm oh that's nothing we can get him a new one oh I mean there might be I don't know with it we can yeah but we can still like take some time I mean it's not growing back it did once but it wasn't yours there's always yeah there's there's there's other options okay well let's say maximum two days of performing okay yeah well let's just let's say maybe they're gonna spot you and if you do well they'll call it even otherwise there may be a debt to collect how about that ah sounds like real life when you go to college and you owe people money it's during hollow baby sounds great comfortable so that's uh yeah that's you do not want to owe these people money so let's hope this goes well let's hope that's okay so here's what we're going here's what we're gonna do for the next week you're going to be in the town of durn hollow so it is currently the 17th of yes T so you guys are gonna hang out here for let's say seven days five of those days Braylon is going to be performing so you guys hang out you're in town you're doing other things and I'm gonna be asking you all what you're gonna be doing for this week in town but we'll start with Braylon so each night Braylon is going to be performing here and we're gonna take the total of of this and and see what the general response to Braylon performing so before we get to your actual performance what would Braylon be doing I would definitely practice before him he would whip out his journal and go to the very beginning of the journal where he has all his original his setlist that he used to have and used to perform and he would kind of go through a few of them and then there's the one that has more like historical events so like the folly of malkus and things like that that list it would write like the one that he got famous for that I wrote in the backstory a long time ago right okay you would start with that one he's like hey let's open up with this one that uh just get his setlist ready for the night he would try to remain as sober as possible so he doesn't have a hangover the next day other than that I don't think you'd do anything else besides just be focused on his music maybe they get a bath maybe okay so do you want some calden do you want like when we did the concert in a lock you want any like yeah I could use some like just a little magic stuff magic you would approach Cali and called in maybe large and be like you know if you guys got nothing to do I could use a little help with some some pumping up the crowd type of things if you got some cryo technics I got you Braylin flame things okay let me tell you there's a policy in in the honest harlot no smoking no fun nothing for this week here's what's gonna happen performing is pretty much like a lot of the city endeavors type of thing all I'm gonna ask you to do is what you do best I want you to roll a performance check this is the general vibe that people are getting from you are you are you doing your a-game do people like what you're doing that type of thing and then we'll move on from there cool can I pump myself up like like like this talking in the mirror and give myself bark inspiration traditionally no because this is a this is just your so okay I'll do one of two things for you here you're getting some assistance from other people right you're getting some some like so I will give you a choice okay you can either do the bardic inspiration or you can roll with advantage I'll roll with advantage keep all right here we go okay first one uh give it to me advantage who just get one so this you dropped a one to take a one is that possible I got to I saw them both yeah I saw one Wow holy shit mine good oh that's like a one in like a lot chance one in 400 I believe 400 I believe no cuz I think wouldn't it be 20 times 20 can we just get to the best of me yeah I'm sorry let's talk about how unlucky you are that's I wanted to the odds no okay uh wow that's a seven total that is not good so you get booed out of the place most nights you earn nothing from your bookings usually usually this is a you actually drive customers out of the honest harlot on most of the nights whatever whatever you're doing they are not picking up what you're putting down it is this is not great as a result I want you to roll a flat d20 and you're gonna roll on the complications table yay lucky 13 you have a fan I have a fan let it be that guard kid from the beginning a very big fan who wants you all to their selves no is it that drow is it that drow from before you will find out oh my god is this a single white female here's the other bit of bad news because you cost the bar so much money and you haven't technically paid for your room hmm at the end of the week the honest harlot is going to the management sespa is going to sit brailing down and say very bluntly you owe us 100 gold ha now let's discuss what everyone else is going to be doing for their week in Darren Hollow don't spend money don't metagame Tatiana wouldn't know now there's a ton of different town and city endeavors you could you could you could do little enterprises you can go do you could you could actually case the joint and try to rob people there's fighting there's there's gambling there's performing oh I mean you can't do worse than two ones carousing you can drink and try and make some contacts with people maybe there's training and crafting and research and scribing all kinds of different stuff would any of you guys be interested in any of that or is it just pretty much taking it easy throughout the week so much of that all of that I just there's stuff that I want to do but I don't know if any of it is any of that town stuff and I don't I could go next or I can go whenever go right ahead what would what would Calvin be doing throughout the week besides going to see brailing perform yeah oh yeah and he's he is his biggest fan like and he's there shooting like ice fireworks basically like off the stage which is not going so well drinks and like people with PTSD they're just like what the hell yeah but I think I want to do three things and the first thing I want to do is called and doesn't want to go to like send some letters basically all right he wants to send a letter and you said there was no one who does like magic sending or anything like that right nothing like that that's big city stuff and gotcha that makes sense tough but fair he'll go to the post office and he writes a letter to era love basically like giving an update about what's going on and to not send like don't send forces to Donhurst at the moment okay to go is like fast as as it can okay and the other letter I okay I want to I want to cross the streams a little bit but so you tell me if this is too much and we don't have to have it so cauldron also writes a letter to group of monster hunters that he knew in brightport or that he heard the name of a house called house dawn star and he writes them saying that there is a vampire and a werewolf somewhere on possibly somewhere on the outskirts of Aubrey and like this is a they're extremely dangerous and this is a bounty that he doesn't like he doesn't have any money for currently but could find reward for and the citizens of Aubrey would likely pay for as well and sends that off to brightport okay so two letters go into brightport so no payment is offered but it's more like but I bet someone would pay you for you know I mean well on the other thing he puts is like though he puts in details about this werewolf that it has these weird bone protrusions unlike anything he's ever heard of before so like even if even if this is an opportunity like this is dangerous but it's an opportunity to maybe learn something about like can't therapy or bring this person in to like study or or or find out something new about this and could be really beneficial to a monster hunter guild or whatever okay and this is being sent out let's say partway through the week so maybe the 20th 21st of yes D somewhere in there yeah the thing to air a love would go pretty fast or immediately but the one head the one to Donstar could be at any time just let's say the 18th then okay okay the 18th of yes D now I'll allow this on one condition I'm excited to hear it when I eventually get to play people from house Donstar I'm using an approximation of your voice from the strike oh they're probably gonna talk like this yes so do with that as you will okay excellent then I will get started on that cuz group C's head it's a bright port soon sorry can I interrupt because I wanted to send a letter to absolutely I just want to jump into that before we get into the the other stuff sure so large is actually gonna send a letter to bright port - he's gonna send it to and if he has to send multiple copies he will but he wants to send it to any guards or again like religious leadership or something like that and he's gonna describe a gnome who's probably gonna set up shop there is a letter and he's gonna suggest like hey so here's what we found out about him and we found a body and I can point you to where I buried it if you really want to know and if you if you send somebody in plain clothes he'll probably brag about it and and he's super dangerous and please get rid of him so that's the letters that he sends to bright bright port one gnome at a time one easy crazy decky we were both coming to the post office with bundles of letters were like oh hey letter buddies hey we're just selling everybody we met on the way here under the bus I would say the 18th let's let's say okay okay but waiting to do that since the minute he walked away on you filing that away sure but she's not going to sign it Tatiana she's going to sign it some other pseudonym maybe like from her childhood nickname of some sort I don't know gotcha anything specific in it not particularly specific no just to check in just like hey still doing fine right yes killed a demon banished being so safe out here another boring day all right anybody else got any letters to send all right so before we pick things up with Braylon's accrued debt you guys are stuck in town not stuck in town but you guys are relaxing in town for a week now when you set off in whatever direction you guys choose to set off in you're going to be missing a lot of these down-home comforts hot cooked meal that you don't have to roast over a fire you don't have to go hunting for anything a soft bed the hot water all the all these things that you just do not get on the road can I ask is there anything that anybody would like to do during the week to take advantage of that oh I've just like resupplying and stuff yeah I would imagine everybody I already assume everybody's like stocking up on rations and resupplying it's not like I'm missing arrows you're picking it up and stuff like that um I'm more meant like the like you know do you want to take advantage of any you know carousing gambling and fighting anything like that oh yes yes yes yeah I was like touch hands - yeah yes I actually had a question if what in our rules does my criminal criminal contact do yeah in in the book essentially like the thieves can't is a language twins teach each other and everyone speaks it and everything but like it's super secret I don't understand that so in in our world basically you do have some connections you have some connections to the seedier parts of the world so you might be able to spot some people in town that would be like like okay I like you have a certain look about you you you know you you know so let's say you were planning on committing a crime like while you're in town there's a lot of people in town there's a bit of a distraction maybe you'd like to try and rob a joint right yes you would probably get an advantage for that okay so that's sort of what that means is that I would just have an advantage okay then I think Tatiana sort of does want to like run like some small cons in town to try to make a little money so I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you an option here yeah so the way this essentially works is you basically are taking the week to plan some stuff out now that there now there are petty crimes all the way down to like I I stole from this vendor a couple of times a day it's a you know and then it added up to be this or you could target one of the more wealthy stores in town and go for a big score essentially and that this is this is completely up to you so the character makes a series of checks with one DC for all the checks is determined by the profits sought out for the crime so essentially if you're looking for little things it's gonna be a low DC it's gonna be right like it's it's like pickpocketing and things like that stuff that you probably be pretty good at because I mean well look at your interactions with the group right yeah uh all the way up to like a hard you know a hard DC but you could be walking away with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gold okay then I guess I suppose that would depend on like the information that she would get in the city as to like what is there anything like super valuable in town you know mm-hmm so on the weekend these two competing brothels really do everything in their power to undercut each other and snipe at each other spread rumors about each other all that stuff it is rumored that cherry blossom heaven on the weekend easily has a take of a thousand gold that you could steal that being said it's heavily guarded right on the other hand if you wanted something on the lower end of the scale there's there's a couple there's a there's a place called better than goods that's exactly what that deserves and that's a that's a relatively it's a smaller place mm-hmm so you could probably walk out of there with a good hundred gold if you're if you're successful okay I think she is going to take that information but we'll definitely do some like pickpocketing and I don't even know what it's called where it's like find the queen of cards oh like the three card money type stuff so yeah yeah basically she'll definitely be doing that but I do think she's going to take this information back to the group in case anybody would be interested in that information hmm there's one more bit of information which is a step below the cherry blossom heaven gig but there's rumor of a noble in town that has way more cash than they're willing to keep track of and it if they were to have 200 gold-missing let's say right that might be something taught to get away with with a little help with firmer friends already I've already been told our money yeah yeah yeah I'd say it's like hey you need to settle up with us by the end of the day it's a hundred gold I'm sorry people just are not digging your stuff yeah he would view it if Tatiana browser the group he would like meet her in private be like okay here's the problem I owe these people money but whatever you're gonna do I'll help you I am your weapon for this mission but I need at least 50 gold whatever whatever it is that we're doing like even if you decide to give me a little more that's nice thank you but I just I'm not trying to be greedy it just me 50 look down at Braylin and just be like I totally get that it usually more works out like a percentage of whatever it is we can get because if we only get like 70 gold I can't guarantee 50 gold that's okay yeah he's literally ground kind of scratching his head that's that's fine mm-hmm okay we'll figure it out yeah make sense let me ask a question what Tatiana approached lark with this she would definitely approach Braylin first out of anybody in the group to gauge his reaction and she would probably even ask do you think we should pull in anybody else I'm like literally anybody but large love that guy but he's a narc he has a problem with this as we've seen okay so no lark what about everybody else well we need you know that's it not to rag on both of us but we're not the strongest people in the world so we'll need someone with muscle so maybe Elena if she's down but you know I got no what she's doing right now yeah I have no clue imagine her being like lookout or something that might not work but we need her for muscle right hmm you know what that is an excellent question think about this for just a moment what would it later be doing for the week and durn hollow I don't Elena doesn't strike me as a as a prostitute person doesn't necessarily strike me as a gambler or a drinker nope so I was thinking hmm something I rarely do I I was looking at the fighting oh yes but like I don't I don't want it to be just like yeah I want to fight some people like it's it's not like that for Elena um it's more like she hasn't had a chance to like really just sort of like use all the things that she's learned and and sort of focus on like technique and not just like trying to live so things sparring and training without it being a life-and-death situation right right here's the thing there are different types of fighting right yeah so there's there's more of the I mean it's called pit fighting but you're obviously not fighting to the death and a trained combatant usually has a better chance in these situations than someone just using brute force right right so it still might be up Elena's alley what like what are the types of people that would also like that that I would be going against I mean oh man people from all walks of life actually do the pit fighting thing they're bare-knuckle boxers there are trained swordsmen there are there are people just kind of cutting their teeth trying to look tough in town there I mean if Vernon the the kid outside of of Dernhollow if he were a little older he'd probably compete he might not do very well but he would try right and this is like a legal thing this isn't like like the like the what's it called like Fight Club type stuff no in most towns or cities this is usually a legal thing because it's it's it's kind of sanctioned and they're making sure that's like hey this isn't to the death the first time someone falls down or whatever we're done like that it's it's you right okay yeah cuz I I just I don't because Elena wouldn't really be into like nitty-gritty type that's not what she wants this right right so you want to give that a try sure all right so here's what we're gonna do you're gonna make a series of checks the DC is gonna be determined at random based on the quality of the opposition that the character runs into the challenge in pit fighting lies in the mystery of your opponents the character makes three checks strength well it's gonna be athletics acrobatics and insight the DC is going to be five plus 2d 10 generating a separate DC for each of the checks so essentially you're going to go ahead and roll athletics acrobatics and insight and then I'm going to roll three and we're going to see if you beat them or I can go first it's totally up to you I'll go first all right let's do it let's let's do let's do athletics first okay that is a 16 okay do you want to do all three of your rolls first or would you like to do one and one and one and one I think it'd be fun to do like one and one okay so here we go so your opponent 10 20 so you lost in the strength category here let's try for acrobatics not great cuz strength is my best one not great oh that is a seven versus a 15 cool okay okay you still got one more and that's your insight see I read about what happens when you lose all three okay that's a 22 check that out here we go 14 so you won one of your fights basically so all this is is boiling down all those skills your ability to read your opponent your your strength in combat your your ability to move in combat and and kind of taking all those things together so let's say throughout the week you had three fights you ended up winning one of those fights which means you're taking away 50 gold so didn't I also spend 50 gold yes so you basically walked away but some pride now if you were to lose all three matches then you roll in the complications table and you don't want to do that complications are never fun yeah you don't want to do that yeah Braylon's complications sound pretty fun it it could be very interesting so that is going to wrap you so basically you lost nothing that's true that's true so let's let's loop you back in here uh so Braylon and Tatiana knowing that Elena's been kind of duking it out and like you know like every other day something like that going to going to fight would they loop Elena in to the plan I mean your vote boss I mean you're right we do need I'm just worried that I'm worried that she's going to say that it's the wrong thing to do cuz I mean can we can we like paint it in a way where it looks like it's not the wrong thing to do that's true we could do that yeah Oh Oh Jason hmm these places that we're we're thinking of robbing mm-hmm do any of them happen to have like a really known douchebag running it oh if you're going after cherry blossom heaven yeah there's a dude named Titus Crane who okay how could I put it this guy's a fucking asshole um he is a male tiefling he has been known to both get his clients and the people working for him hooked on drugs to keep them coming back he is known for the the poor treatment of his workers some of them have been shipped in as slaves or at least rumored of the two establishments cherry blossom heaven has the clearly the worst record reputation especially compared to the honest harlot the honest harlot is an institution it's been in turn hollow for decades it's just yeah so this is wonderful news hmm for our means I'm going to relay that information to Braylin and Tatiana is just gonna say do you think that I mean that's that's reasonable cause right there we'd be doing a service to this yeah yeah you're right and she was in you know pro to this guy this is the one that the Rose ran away from right so it could be like a pro you know she was camp pro Rose for a while this could work right then Tatiana is gonna feel and look very triumphant and she's gonna look down at Braylin and just say all right I think we should loop her in and might I say we are some damn good citizens yeah we're doing a lot of good for this place yeah for real and she would go to grab Elena and try to bring her into our little criminal circle okay so I'm trying to think of how Tatiana definitely gonna be pushing the this guy's a scumbag and we're doing the right thing here oh gosh but I do I'm really I don't want to do this to you Alex but I do think that she would probably like every once in a while sort of like nudge him because he's just so great at performing no no he's not we all know he's not life has been a lie I guess he would you try and like mention like sometimes there are people who operate within the means of the law and they know how to bend rules and this guy is one of them based on what we heard and what Rose told us he's a worthless person and we would be doing the city a service and ourselves we'd be able to fund all of our future ventures to help more people okay but here's the thing if you're taking away his money that means he has to work harder to get that money back yeah or he closes down and everyone gets set free exactly that except he's generating income well maybe we still from his personal stash or something you know I mean I'm just just spitball in here this is there's no bad ideas when brainstorming called and told me that Tatiana is giving the biggest puppy eyes at Elena right now sorry I'm loving this this is amazing think of all the fights you could afford to do and like competitions and stuff if we were to succeed at this we could even help out large friends yeah yeah you know maybe get a little extra spread it around you know do some good but it's not our money it's not his either technically you know but once other people that work for him half those people are slaves by the way yeah something like that you guys like why can't we just like you know follow the rules because this guy follows the rules too but he's able to twist them that's I'm trying to say there are people who they have this uncanny ability them kind of just you know we've been and out they're not they're not you know stuck to them like you know big boy over there he's gonna point to where he thinks large is he's gonna point to like another room nearby and Tatiana is just gonna like sort of interject like a hype man and just get monster complete monster he's a monster okay what about if instead you guys instead of you guys stealing from him you know if there's a way that you can get him to give you the money yeah I mean you can give us the money by leaving a door unlocked and unknowingly come in and take it and I don't really appreciate the term stealing I I would prefer if you used administering justice Wow Elena's like barely taking you guys seriously if you guys can figure out a way like if you want to like make him a bet or something you know cuz then then we're twisting the rules but then when you're not doing anything if if you come up with a way to do it where we won't get arrested I will help thank you for your time we'll consider your application is just gonna be looking down it with like distaste like damn it let's come back to this cuz I'm I'm very interested the ever building heist I am so interested because this could go no matter what happens I'm invested let's let's let's hit up Cali uh what would Cali be doing for her week in lovely scenic during hollow so I definitely like I know you so we're like stocking up the supplies and so again but I just want to make a note that I'm getting like two extra outfits because one is destroyed in the middle of the fucking divide the other one is covered in poop I meant I mend it I mend it for you I think you wanted to excuse to buy new outfits yeah golden spends magical time like and Callie comes back she's like yeah and he's just like it looks good on you just like sure yeah ripped it like a Hulk Hogan t-shirt okay and then I guess because I can't imagine that during hollow has this great library books yeah I don't want any research anyways books BUK s books for researching yeah well let's see yeah it's here's the thing yeah it's okay I it's fine usually you'd want to do it in a library that would be better than during hollow but like the conclusion that I came to - yeah but there is something I did want to do on like the thing I want to spend two days crafting a level one scroll what what kind of scroll it's gonna be fog cloud wink wink guys might need that for you escapades yeah so I'll spend the 25 gold in two days working on that okay let me ask a question have Tatiana and Braylin approached Callie I think we would need to discuss that first okay that's okay yeah I actually had planned to do that before your whole thing happened I would say like we brainstorm again in like in one of our rooms and just have like we have the really rough sketches of everyone on the party like is out the string yeah yeah who is Pepe Silva picture to the side right Elena's out not into it right in the same pile it's called the lark pile and it's just larking Elena's picture um have we gotten wind that Callie did this but she got this cool thing so I think it would just be like one of those things where I feel like everyone would like check in and see what everyone's doing for the day and like on a couple of days Callie would just be like oh yeah I'm just gonna stay inside I'm gonna work on like some crafting some spells and stuff okay but we wouldn't know like specifics of what they did or anything I mean she'd tell you if you asked her like what she was gonna make a scroll of and she'd be like oh yeah like fog clouds probably a good thing to have up our hands or like up our sleeve if you know something came on it so our choices are called in our Cali mm-hmm I don't know if call them will do this plus people would realize that he's the guy who was at my show doing ice magic if they really know if these guys are like oh I suppose used in this heist or something I don't want to get him in implicated Cali's you know people could consider maybe a force of nature that some tree roots just came out of the ground and tied them up you never know true I'm just trying to figure out who would go for it the most because if we were to get one more I feel like Tatiana would be in mm-hmm again your call boss this is your operation I'm just here for the 25% I was promised I was gonna say I kind of just trailing off would you be okay Alex if I rolled for it to see who we asked sure sure okay I called in his odds and Callie's evens Cali it is I'm loving this so much hey Callie what's up girl well you know just doing me why don't you step into our office really quick mm-hmm we're sitting here and Braylin's huge room yeah that's a good point yeah I'm like a side table as like an interview desk no that's I told my bed the beds too big oh so I suppose we would just sort of give the same sort of pitch you know that this this opportunity has landed in our laps and this guy is a monster and he and I need money because I owe people money and they're gonna break my face the whole time gauging Callie's reaction as we're telling this story cuz like I don't want to give away too much if she's not into it I definitely feel like Callie is one of those people that definitely like takes everything in first so she's like really listening to what you guys are saying and like kind of thinking about it and at the end she's just gonna she's gonna like be like nodding her head a little bit and she'll say I am NOT opposed to helping you guys maybe as I would rather be included as maybe a distraction than an inside man oh sure that's totally doable yeah okay work we can work with that so I'm gonna ask anybody else does anybody else have any city type endeavors or anything like that that you would like to do before we get to this lark uh yeah a couple couple things but all pretty small okay first one was a question actually because he has the background of acolyte mm-hmm lard gets to stay at temples and religious buildings for free so I wanted to see if that was available so I didn't have to pay rent this week oh yeah just out of curiosity is it like a specific temple or is it just like yeah it's more of an omni like it's it's it's yeah so there's it's it's more like yeah like the Walmart of temples basically it's like yeah it's just like worship whoever you like so there's little alters to most of the gods there except for varkner and yeah so if lark yeah wanted to pray or something like that totally can okay yeah so he does that I imagine Ellen's probably staying there too so he's gonna take some time I don't want to burn a ton of time on it but he's gonna basically catch her up on the rest of what happened you know the the fighting off the demons and they found out it was mocks he's gonna make sure that he knew that she knows that and kind of get a sense for what her plan is for the next steps so the next step for her would basically be moving on to Aubrey okay making sure everyone you know made it there as safely as possible and then eventually move on to Winterhaven okay and is she leaving soon or I would say at the end of this week okay all right so that can wait and then the other thing he's gonna do is basically I don't know if there's a what do you call it like carousing type thing but it basically he's gonna set up like a booth for community service like he's just gonna set up like a like a like a Charlie Brown advice booth okay be like let me fix your fence build you a shack whatever oh okay so I don't know if that's necessarily like that that's like an odd jobs type thing you know I might add that to the list actually I'd say I kind of imagine it like if this is a montage of like Elena fighting and everybody planning a heist and everybody's doing their thing every now and then just cut to large just sitting at the booth waiting for somebody so are you doing this in the name of a wrath us type of thing oh sure yeah it's like hey you know we got throw this under religious service if you like sure yeah it's called a religious service yeah cuz religious service is free that's basically you just being you just being a good Arathis boy like going out there and like there's like a skeevy guy who comes who's like comes up and he's like who like totally misinterprets the thing he's like he's like looking around he's like is this you do anything here and yeah pretty much you'd be like yeah yeah yeah oh no no no no so here's what I'd like you to do so you are gonna get a benefit from this just just you know put in the work and get like it like you said like yeah what's like ah my cow escaped it's like I'm on it and you're you're just you know reading up rebuilding fences and helping people carry water all kinds of stuff so this is essentially the people from the temple noticing or you just just kind of speaking to people throughout the week so do me a favor and I would like you to roll a religion check for me beautiful that's a 15 so in town you're gonna earn one favor from the clergy essentially they're just like hey man you have been a real help to us around town we really really appreciate it there's a lot of people who kind of talk the talk but don't walk the walk so thank you very much now I'd like you to roll a charisma save for me charisma save yep charisma save Oh gorgeous you're fine the only so um churches can be sort of a political web so there are some people who might view your your your sudden interest in town is that's like we trying to do what's your aim what's your angle that type of thing but you've been perfectly pleasant with everybody in town and helped out so you've you've earned a favor excellent okay I'm gonna pocket that just in case I perhaps have a party member who needs me to pull some strings so let's see hey crime wait wait before we get into the heist thing okay and I think we could probably roll these both into maybe one thing but the mostly this week called in is like doing he's he's trying to like work on the on this magic that he's teaching himself he's like stalking the streets to find maybe like a stray cat or something like that God yeah like he's he's he's moving on to something bigger but he's also changing his technique because of the thing that he learned in the forest with Kali is that it's not so much about controlling all the all the water spout like localizing it into one thing so that's what he's trying to do and then the other thing is I he's like studying this Bell he's really trying to figure out what this Bell is about and how he can use it and how he can use it efficiently so that it's not summoning deep right okay so that I would say is more a research thing okay however oh I got a thing for research I think yeah well I mean like like a week-long research thing yeah if you wanted to spend the money and really go after it and all that let's back up to the other thing do me a favor roll an arcana check this is going to represent you practicing this magic on strays and all kinds of stuff and let's see how successful this is that's a 17 so there are let's say that every once in a while as you guys are walking through town you'll notice someone call for like mittens mittens where is that damn cat like and and just maybe just describing to people he's the little white cat with orange spots and like I haven't seen him and cut to Oh large is looking for people's missing he's like the service is like my cats gone missing and I don't know he's like I'll find it seen mittens like my six sons cat he's ever since he was born yeah and the night before Colton's just like in an alley like crying send your emails to da and ER podcast at gmail.com that's d and ER podcast at gmail.com and I will forward them to Ian or tweet it Valerie she loves it's up tell tell Valerie it's over we're done maybe we can roll this into one thing like you're strangling a cat well no I meant like the bell to like oh well okay yeah yeah this like pull the dead dead frozen counter is like will this help how can how can I help pressing the bell to it I made a thing it's magic clearly the forest is driven okay I'm Valerie back eval yes hello hi we're done I swear we're done with that okay are you guys ready to pull a fucking heist yes yes now this is on the scale so far and I might redo things so that there's an even higher tier like robbing a bank or something like that but right now you guys have the potential to earn the most that the crime activity can earn you you could walk away with a thousand gold oh my god I just need 50 I just need bit but you're aiming high I'm gonna claim a little more but yeah yeah I mean you know yeah that's right would you turn it down I'm just saying here's what's gonna happen we're gonna describe things so okay so I the way it sounds is you guys are in this establishment Cali is maybe causing some sort of distraction something like that meanwhile Tatiana and Braylin are breaking in to where they keep the money and you are trying to make out of this place with as much as you can that's the goal here's how this is gonna go are you are your are your are your rolling fingers ready Jamie okay so here's what we're gonna do you are going to be rolling three checks for me tonight now this is all this entire thing is you guys planning it out for a week you get your cork board and your yarn and your tied around here and you're like okay okay so if we you've been casing the joint so there is a stealth portion obviously you don't want to get spotted you don't want to get caught so you're gonna be rolling a stealth check for me okay then you're gonna be breaking out your thieves tools and you're gonna be rolling a check for me there and then you have your choice between investigation perception and deception do I get any sort of advancement because I have Cali and Braylin's help yes you do you're gonna be rolling all three of these checks with advantage because Braylin is assisting you every step of the way I'm also going to give you a plus two to add to any one of these roles but only one huh now here's the rub if things go south everyone involved in this heist could potentially get caught are you ready okay I think I'm ready for the plus two do I get to decide that after the roll yes you do also before we like we have our hands together and we're making the plan I'm gonna give her bardic inspiration before we say break you cannot use bardic inspiration here that is part of the advantage that is that that is what I'm assuming you're like you're bringing to the table like yourself are you ready now the DC here is very high because because you are the first of all these are mean motherfuckers you do not want to get caught Titus Crane is not a person you want to piss off but he's a very rich person you don't want to piss off so if you make out of here with some gold then yes so are you ready I believe that I am ready do is the the DC based on what I'm doing stealth these tools or it's all the same does it go up each time nope it's all the same it's flat across the board okay are you ready I'm ready does that nobody else wants to roll no it's on you your eyes cry bus this is your shtick this is you all right let's go I'm ready does anyone else want I mean yeah I'll roll I'm not involved but you know what the thing is though if you hand it up to somebody else and they roll poorly you'll never forgive it it'll always be in the back of your head okay I'm ready to handle any consequences that may or may not come my way here we go people assisting you here we go okay stealth do it with advantage that is a 19 that is one failed check now you're gonna use your thieves tools with advantage okay come on though that's got it that has to that'll succeed now here's the fun bit you have one success and one failure now depending on whether you succeed or fail your final check you either walk away with half of the gold or bad bad things happen so no pressure this is my lowest one - would you like to roll an investigation a perception or deception deception okay go ahead and roll that with advantage okay and I'm probably definitely going to use the plus two here because otherwise it's gone that's a 13 that's ah so one oh so okay would you like the good news or the bad news I am an optimist so give me the good news okay okay the good news is you and your team were not apprehended during this heist the bad news is that during the heist you barely escaped without getting caught you didn't have time to steal any gold and I would like you to roll a flat d20 for me because we're rolling on the crime complications table if they know your face in the midst of you guys planning this heist someone found out about what you were planning and they've been arrested on an unrelated crime Jackie Brown we're in Jackie Brown now I think that's a good time for us to stop we really hope you guys enjoyed today's episode there is a ton of stuff on our patreon we're trying to catch up before Dragon Con if you're going to Dragon Con please let us know send us an email we're trying to meet up with everybody and we'll be posting an itinerary and all that good stuff as the next month or so closes in around us for now at patreon.com slash d a n t r there are two brand new curse of Strahd episodes there's a lovely living in Theria getting ready to go up later this month I'm gonna be sitting down with Zach to do a character chat and of course there's lengthy behind the scenes probably about an hour long for each one of the episodes coming out this month we really hope you guys enjoy it don't forget on the 28th at I believe let's check the calendar I believe it's at yep 6 p.m.

Eastern the 28th 6 p.m. Eastern of July we're gonna be sitting down with all you guys on twitch and we're gonna be talking about the setting book in depth what we've done so far what we plan to do and take suggestions from you guys live on what we should try to put in there we really want to nail this we want to get it right and we want it to be something that you guys want to get your hands on and we're trying our best to please everybody so we hope to see you guys there again the 28th at 6 p.m. Eastern on our twitch channel thank you guys so much we really appreciate all the five-star reviews on iTunes and the support it it means the world to us seriously and we'll see you guys next week with another episode bye