Thankless Tasks

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[clattering] [clattering] 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] Did... 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. Howdy everybody out there. Welcome to Arc 4, episode 3 of the Dungeons & Randomness podcast. We have a brand new group for you called Firebrand. Their job is to clean up Brightport as law enforcement, if you can believe that.

How are they going to accomplish this? Well, I am not completely sure, to be honest. But we're all going to find out together. Before we begin here today, I just wanted to thank everybody out there who contributed to the GoFundMe for a new PC. Mine has been experiencing issues for a while, and it got to the point where sessions were crashing, the tabletop we use crashed, I was losing recordings, I was... a lot of stuff was happening. And I can't thank you all enough for contributing. I'm almost to my goal and I have just about every part I need. So thank you all so much.

I am going to leave a link in the description if you want to toss a couple of shekels my way for that. But please don't feel obligated. Again, thank you all. I really appreciate it. We're going to get ready and get to a new episode after this break. And we're going to get ready and get to a new episode right after this break. And some words from our sponsors. Don't go anywhere. 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. And when I go around the table and call on you, could you do me a favor and tell me a fun fact that no one knows about?

Let's start with Rob. Hi Rob. Rob, you're the worst icebreaker. Just like... I know. Just like totally open. No guidance. No guidance. Just tell me. Okay. You've been on the show since the beginning. What is something that no one out there knows about you? Gosh, I don't know. Give me anything. Give me toe size. Give me... Hey, why is that the first thing that you said? Look, inquiring minds want to know. Look, I'm transitioning to full Tarantino for this arc. Oh god. Is it too late to retire? Dude, I don't know. What's your favorite book? Anything. I'm currently reading the first novel of The Expanse.

It's pretty cool. Next. Wow. Well, okay. Cool thing about that is we set the bar really low, so whoever's next, it's gonna be great. Zack, what's a fun fact? No one knows about you. What's up? My name is Zack, and you know what? I like to scream in my car when I'm alone. Anyone else? That's... yes. I don't get to drive very often. Just let's all stress. The thing in my car, I've never screamed. Well, it's the same thing, really. Especially, yeah. It's kinda nice. Especially if you need a Antarctic release. Yeah, there you go. I completely agree, Zack. Uh, Celts. Mmm.

Hi, I'm Kelsey. I... Uh... Jeez. I just thought of something, but I immediately forgot it. What's your favorite animal? Oh no, we can't... no, that's not... that's like the book question. Why? It's hard. It's not hard? It is hard. There are a lot of really quick... Okay, what's the animal... okay, here's the fun. What's the animal that popped into your head the second I asked the question? There's like three different ones. Okay, let's just... Okay, how... like, I like spiders a lot, and I like cats a lot, and I like orcas. And... Okay, I won't go any more specific than that, but we can make it.

That's totally fine. Here's the thing. I feel like I could have asked you all for your social security numbers, and I would have gotten less stress than if... Oh yeah, that's 999. [Laughter] Uh, Jamie. Hi there. I'm Jamie Bones, and I know all of the words to Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back." Oof. See? That's what I'm looking for, guys. Classy. I'm just not as cool as Jamie, I'm sorry. Well, a few of us are. None of us are. Maybe Zach. No, I'm... Uh, Bree. Does your anaconda don't? [Laughter] I really like the Nicki Minaj one. Um, hi. I'm Brianna, and I'm on GMT, so this is kind of worse for me than everyone else here.

But, when I was in the fifth grade, I was obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster, and would watch the livestream on our school computers for hours at a time, and no one ever stopped me. Wait, what livestream? Of the Loch Ness. Of Loch Ness. Oh, so there's just water? Yes. There's just water? Water. And I watched it for hours. Wow, what a non-believer. But did you see that ripple? I just thought of a good one now. Go! I'd be the one to figure it out. I'd be the one to see it and be like, "Yeah, there it was. I saved everyone by telling them about the Loch Ness Monster." So, welcome to Arc 4.

We're going to kick things off in the city of Brightport. There's been some upheaval, because we're zipping ahead quite a ways. About six months after the wrap-up to Arc 3. And as you know, or may not know, there was a pretty public death in Brightport of one of the most public and powerful citizens, Lorne Graves, the Black Hand. Now, obviously this has caused a bit of upheaval. There are power vacuums galore, there's all kinds of uncertainty. The three houses of Brightport have been scrambling to try and reclaim what they lost while she had been vacuuming up all of this influence.

And that's not making everyone happy, obviously. One person who was specifically unhappy was Captain Stephen Warwick, who was the captain of the guard in Brightport and has been for years. He gained a reputation for being the last honest man in the city. Completely unflappable. And just could not be corrupted, no matter what was offered. And he's been threatened quite a few times with all kinds of things. But through it all, he's kind of stuck with things and has managed to make it to his 40s. He ran for mayor two months ago, and actually won. And part of this platform was being the one person in the city who understood what it would take to clean the place up.

And there's a lot of people who, after the Black Hand nonsense, they're on board for some major changes. At least, that's what they're saying. And that's where you guys come in. Because assembling a task force for something like this is a bit more difficult than you would think. Because you can't just get regular town guardsmen off the street and bring them in. Because what Stephen wants to do is give a small group, a SWAT team, if you will, unprecedented power. And with that power, he's hoping that you'll be able to go places and do things that regular town guards people just can't do.

And this is quite an experiment. He's putting his neck out on the line. And through a lengthy interview process, five people were selected. And this evening, you are all getting together for the first time and going to the mayor's house to kind of have a dinner. This is more of a getting to know you thing. Really getting you to understand what your job is going to be and what's laying ahead of you. So, who do you think is the most punctual out of the group? Not punctual. You say Paxton is? I'd say Paxton was there 15 minutes before he wanted us to be. Paxton seems like the type.

That is the best answer. In real life, that is my motto. I live with two people who would miss trailers for movies every time. Get fucked. I love you, but I had to lie to you, Paxton. It's like, yeah, the movie starts at three. It starts at three thirty, but if we don't leave- We have to lie to your wife. Excuse me. Look, the point is lies were told. I'll own up to a lot of stuff. I wear dumb shoes that I will fall and die in, but I am on time. Fuck you. So we're starting in the month of Ringway, which is the beginning of winter, actually. It's a crisp night out here in Brightport.

I'd say it's a good 33 degrees Fahrenheit to all of our people who live everywhere else in the world. That's cold in Celsius now. It is the seventh. And if you were to knock, there's there's there's this iron, this wrought iron knocker on Mayor Weryk's door. And if you were to knock on that, there'd be there'd be this lovely butler that would let you in. Butler's a strong term because I most butlers are are dressed very fancy and they're they're clearly servants. This this person's dressed much more casually and he's going to answer the door. Hello, can I help you?

Real quick, am I by myself, Jason? I would say you're the first one to arrive, let's say. All righty. Then Paxton is going to kind of hold his hand out and say, "Paxton Warren, nice to meet you." Edison Abrams, it's an absolute pleasure. You expected this evening. You're actually quite early. Am I? I think Mr. Weryk will very much appreciate that. I thought I was on time. Sorry. A little saunter on in. So he's going to he's going to welcome you in and offered to take your coat if... Give me a little breakdown. What does Paxton look like? What's Paxton wearing?

Paxton? Well, first off, Jason, were we given uniforms prior to this? Oh, not yet. Okay. Then he is wearing kind of this standardized god of civilization kind of garb over plate mail. He's about 6'3". He has a working man's build kind of lithe, but he looks around in his prime, maybe if you had to guess, around getting to 30. He has a crew cut hair. He has nothing, no accessories at all. Looks like he just got out of like a hairdresser. Like he has a crew cut to the nines, light brown, light brown eyes as well. And he has this this tan skin like he's been working in the docks for a while.

And this hardened look that's betrayed by a softer features in his face. And he's just he's just looking ahead, determined. If if all the members of this outfit are as straight laced as you, I don't see where we'll encounter any problems. So me neither. That's good. I'm excited to meet them. I'd say a few moments later, a pair of sisters would arrive. And if they were to knock on the door, obviously, Abrams would let them in, welcome them, offer to take their their codes and everything. Could you tell me what Bo and Genevieve are wearing? What they look like?

Bo, as soon as the door is opened, is beaming from ear to ear. Very excited to be there and will sort of rushedly enter the room. They're wearing chainmail that looks freshly polished. Obviously putting a lot of effort into looking professional in their appearance. And long, dark hair that goes down to about her hips. And she is bearing a long axe halberd and sort of doting over this smaller, lighter horned being. And that would be Genevieve, who also goes by Gwen. Sorry, I think I said Genevieve. I'm sorry. You're fine. Gwenvieve. She is a very, very small, very, very light skinned tiefling girl.

By the looks of things, she has almost bright pink skin, like quite bright and curled horns that are smaller than her sisters. But the exact same bright green eyes. She is exactly four feet tall and 50 pounds. So clearly maybe half sister. And she has bright purple hair that is clearly magically dyed from one of the shops in town. And she is wearing a black leather outfit with purple layers, including a hood. She'll let Abrams take that. And she's wearing a necklace with two coins on it. Abrams would welcome you both in, take your stuff. And then there's this foyer.

So there's a couple of couches and Paxton would already be there, obviously. And he'd offer to get you something to drink while dinner's wrapping up. He'd offer you an alcoholic beverage first. And then, you know, if you don't want that. Beau will politely decline the alcohol and just ask for a glass of water. I'll take a glass of water, please. That would be wonderful. Abrams will give you a smile. Absolutely. And you? Do you have whiskey? I do, yes. And a second water for her as well. I'm going to go down a limb and say Paxton didn't get any alcohol. No, he politely declined.

But when Gwenaveed says that, Paxton is going to say, "Alcohol for the little one? Curious." He's going to stand up and he's going to walk over and hold out his hand and say, "Paxton warned." Gwen is going to straighten up a little bit when you call her "little one." But she's not unaware of her size, but clearly trying to compensate a little bit. Yeah, whiskey. Gwen. And she's going to take your hand and give it a firm shake. Well, whiskey for you then. And your name? Beau's going to walk over and give a nice, firm, armed handshake with her other hand on your shoulder.

Beau Lothius, it's wonderful to meet you. And Paxton just has this look of like, impressedness, I should say. He's just going to ask, "Are you of the Claw?" Unofficially, but I am hoping to one day yes. Wow. Impressive. I too worship a god. I don't know if you worship the same, but I hail the god of civilization. Gwen's going to snicker a little bit and kind of remove herself from the conversation. And she's going to start looking at all the cool stuff in the room. And they can go on about gods. Ah, a wonderful god indeed. I am with the god of justice, however.

Seems befitting of our current engagement. What a courageous ideal. I was lucky to have someone like you on our side. Beau's going to sort of lean in closer and give a shoulder pat over to Paxton. I can sense us being great friends already. I too, friend. I too. The last two members of this party are going to arrive at the door about the same time. Not together, but just coincidentally. Abrams would let them in and offer to take any extra coat jackets, weapons if you brought weapons. Probably insist on putting those away in the closet, something like that.

There have been attempts on Weryx's life before. But start with Kelsey. Could you describe Calypso? Yeah, so Calypso is around 5'6" currently though they're wearing heeled boots. So probably a little bit shorter than that. Dark skin, freckles, kind of shoulder length, like bouncy curls. They're definitely a little bit on the larger size. And lightly pointed ears and bright amber eyes. And currently they're not in a performance scar, but still probably pretty nice and a little bit flashy clothing. They're not too ostentatious or anything. Not stage gear, but just a little bit of a shimmer here and there.

They have a violin case with them. Would the butler want that handed over? I don't think that's a deadly weapon. I think that's totally cool. They'll keep it with them. And they stay them pronouns. Uh, G.O.L.O. Behind Calypso saunters up this... What's the tall cap for elf height? Are elves extra tall in Tharia? Are they a little shorter than humans? I mean, they usually run if you're going towards the higher end, like 6'5", 6'6", somewhere in there. He's like a good solid 6'2", 6'3"ish. Just blank head to toe and moves with this almost cartoonish level of "own the room" swagger that he may or may not merit.

Right now, outdoors in the winter, he's in this heavy, deep navy blue cloak. Basically all the clothing you can see is just giant navy blue cloak, giant... not giant, but big brimmed navy blue hat. And then just like this mane of black, as volumized as fantasy haircare allows, billowing out behind him. And he comes to this... He's like a doorman? Edison Abrams, he said? Yep. And... Hey, what's going on? I was invited. Jell-o-fane. Wow. Okay. So I'm picturing a bit of "She's All That" meets "White Snake"? I don't necessarily have enough "She's All That" to fully assemble your reference, but the source material was like, if Jon Bon Jovi and Steven Tyler could have had a baby and that baby was now in his prime...

What a different world we'd live in. Yeah, yeah. Well, you'd have Jell-o-fane is one that you'd have. So, okay. There'd probably be the slightest pause. And... yes, quite. May I take your cloak? Oh, of course. And he pulls off, he kind of whips his cloak off with a flourish and lays it over his outstretched arms and then takes like palms the top of his hat and places that on the pile. So now you can see under it. And he's like in form-fitting navy trousers with like a green stripe down the side and this like vibrant green silk shirt. And once he... and you know, like big tall like calf-high boots or something and he lays down the cloak and the hat on the guy's hands.

He shakes his hair out a little bit, reaches over to the topmost button of his silk shirt now that he's in... now that he's like indoors out of the wind and just kind of like snaps and unbuttons it. And opens up his shirt just a little more and he goes, "Yeah, that's better." And just walks on in with like one thumb in the top of his pants and like just swaggering forward, full motion. I feel like I'm going to catch something just listening to him. I love it. After a few moments, I would imagine you have all been given a little bit of time to mingle.

You've all been offered drinks. You know, just it's a very... it's a warm establishment. Not massive. Not like a mansion by any means. This looks like pretty much what you'd expect the home of a public servant to look like. Not ostentatious in the least. Like it's very... not... I wouldn't say humble, especially for Brightport, but definitely... This is not the home of someone taking from the top, let's say. But work is going to walk in the room eventually. And this is a man who is 42 or so, like he looks wise. But he looks... there are places where he looks much older.

He's got the silver wings going. He's got some lines around his eyes. You could definitely see a couple of pronounced scars right around the collarbone neck area that look to go deeper. The guy looks like he is not to be fucked with, I guess, if that were an easy way to put it. Definitely someone who's been around the block a few times, but very warm, welcoming smile. Good evening, everyone. I'm glad you could meet me tonight. As am I. It's an honor to be here. And he's gonna walk down the line shaking hands with everybody. I'm told that you were the best of the applicants that we had.

I was hoping that we would get more volunteers, but... well, what you're attempting to do isn't easy. So I'm going to take it as if you all understand what you're volunteering for. And there'd probably be a pause or something. Come on, let's go eat dinner and I'll fill you in and get to know you all better. Yeah, Giulo kind of follows along and presuming he's directed to a particular seat. He has this lazy body language about everything he does. He just kind of flops into it and tucks one heel up onto the seat of the chair with his butt, one leg up, one leg stretched out on the floor.

Polarizingly, Bo is very attentive and is probably very stiff with their posture and is going to grab that second water and hand it to Gwen as they walk in to get dinner. Gwen kind of hangs behind Bo and is sitting up straighter, especially when Steven said they were the best. She was like, hell yeah, and sat up a little straighter. But then her eyes kind of move over to Giulo and she kind of leans into Bo and is like, are we really the best they got? When Calypso saw Giulo, there's definitely a little raise of an eyebrow and a little bit of a smile and then when that phrase "the best" came along, they absolutely kind of lanced in this direction.

They kind of seem a little bit late because they'll take everything in, maybe a little bit shy at the moment, but they're going to follow along and they'd be very curious and excited to be here. Let's not judge a book. Just saying. Let's not judge a book. Everybody's good at something. There is this elongated dinner table and everyone would have room to take a seat and there'd be some nice fixings out here. There is a roasted boar and there's just these creamy mashed potatoes. It's just buttery and you could tell they used heavy whipping cream and just there's no lumps whatsoever.

It's delicious. There's these fresh made rolls. There's this just corn on the cob. Everything's just hot, steamy, ready for you guys to eat. As Abrams offers to dish things up and you have things ready to go, Steven is going to kind of jump straight in. So help me to get to know you better. Please tell me a little bit about yourselves. Let's start with you. And he's going to zero in in Giolo. The way he points, it's accusatory. Somebody wasn't told who was showing up. The camera flicks over to Giolo and he's like mid drink on his goblet or whatever. He hurriedly kind of swallows and sets it back down.

And he's like, you want me to stand for this or just go? Alright, it's cool. I'm Giolo Fain. I'm sorry, you're all very fit. You're all very good looking. It's good company tonight. Thank you. So, yeah, I'm a warlock as of recently. It wasn't like a, you know, it hasn't been a long term. But, you know, the God of Luck was like, you know, help me out of a jam. And so I have been trying to, you know, do my part, right? Help the world out with what I have been blessed with and encouraged to use for the common good. When I get to know me better, just, you know, squeeze on over, have a seat.

We'll talk. Oh boy. Okay, so I need to paint a picture and I'm going to be blunt about this, but I need you to understand why I'm being blunt. Stephen is very much a man of rules and structure, right? He's, you know, he gets the same haircut every month. He's very, like he is, he is, you know, so he's going to give you a look like a dad in the 50s slowly finding out his son is gay. And it has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with like, oh God, like everything, everything you said, you are a hippie. You, everything you just said, it's deeply disappointing, but okay.

So in response to that stare down, Gielo's like, I can do this thing called Eldritch Blast. You know what I mean? It's just like pick a target. I'll show you. I can do it. He's going to hold out his hands. Please don't shoot anything at my house. I would very much appreciate you didn't do that. Alright, we can save the fireworks for later, but you just ask anytime. And he does like a little finger gun at him. He's going to point at Paxton. I very much enjoy your haircut. Please tell me, tell me some more about you. Well. *Laughter* So like the tape was kind of awkward now because they kind of had a stare down and um, well, my name of course is Paxton.

I should start with that. I'm just, I'm quite the local from Brightport. Okay. I have a mother, father. I spend most of my time on the docks helping people out. I, um, Jason does, um, the goddess civilization have a temple in Brightport? Um, there are, it's probably not a solo dedicated temple. It's probably more of a, uh, there are temples that kind of serve multiple gods. So there'd be more like a section like the Walmart of churches. Ah, okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Okay. Um, then Paxton says, I usually spend most of my time serving the god of civilization. I love studying the laws of Brightport.

Um, a fun day for me is sitting down, lighting a wick on the candle and just really getting into the politics of it all. It's just amazing. And, uh, all that happenstance and I'll just say it, debauchery, excuse my language, uh, with Lauren, I think her name was a couple months ago. And that was a big red flag to us at the temple. So I thought I'd help out. So I volunteered. Here I am. It's exciting. I like him a lot. Now when you said, um, you're not in a bed with demons, are you with that warlock stuff? Are you? I just, I, I just thought I'd throw it out there.

It's nothing like that. Is it? Strictly, strictly gods, man. One gods specifically. The luck god, right? I'm if anything like I'm, I'm the demon. I'm work, I'm, I'm figuring it out. You know, I'm working my way back into the, and he, and he does like, he does like faux like over-exaggerated praying hands. As he said, as he says this, he goes, I'm working my way back into the good graces. You know what I'm saying? A man about redemption. I like it. Yes. Well, um, all of that is good to hear. Let's, let's, let's move on. You there. He's going to point to Calypso.

Calypso, um, yep. We'll put down their wine glass. Probably they were taking a sip and just smile and... Well, um, I'm Calypso Lovelace. I don't know how many of you might know me by my more public name, uh, Mariposa. I know I'm new here, but I figured I should put that out there just in case anyone was going to ask. Are you perhaps a violinist? Oh yes. That's what I do pretty much. And they will like, like lift up the, the violin case that they, that was like down next to them on the floor. Um, let's... Get out. That's you? You've heard of me. I've heard such decadence.

Oh, great performances. I'm a fan. Sorry. Continue. Thank you. That really means a lot to hear. Um, well, like I said, I'm still pretty new here, but in between performances, I definitely have plenty of time and I wanted to do something that mattered. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. I, well, I don't just play the violin. I do a little bit of magic with the song as well. So I think I'll be able to help out in that way, hopefully. And I'm looking forward to see what we're going to be able to get done here. But back to the violin thing though, like what's your style?

Cause I dance. Just saying, I, uh, and he like, he like raises his eyebrows, like does a little flick of his eyebrows real quick as, as he says that. And, uh, he says, you see, do something like upbeat or something a little more, a little more, uh, like sensual. I don't like the way you said that. Yeah, no, that the way you punch the word sensual, like, uh, Stephen's eyes are just going to wince. Like he's having like a stabbing pain in the center of his forehead. Gio is a sex worker. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So Colusso is going to kind of like squint a little bit at Gio.

Like I'm knowing with what we talked about when we've made our characters before. I think I remember seeing you before, after one of my performances, you, uh, came up to me. I think that might've been you. I mean, I get around. Yes, I can see that, but I mean, I play a variety of things that generally not so much the sensual, at least for a public performing. That's not quite my style. We'll have to see if you have anything that gets my hips moving. Uh. Like, Colusso very carefully does not make an expression. Like, it's true. Gio looks at you. Yeah. They will take another sip of their wine.

And I think that's pretty much everything at least up front. Um, he's going to cast his eyes over. I'm told that you two are related. I feel like Guinevere first would look over to Bo because they're kind of the, like, reason they're here. Yeah, Bo is going to jokingly sort of gesture towards her horns and say, "Well, what gave it away?" Yes, we are related. Hello, I am Bo Lothius. This is my younger sister Gwen. Guinevere. Guinevere. And she'll gesture over to Guinevere. Well, okay. I'm good at getting into places other people can't get into. Climbing stuff, breaking locks, you know.

Not to steal. And she's going to kind of like gesture over to Steven. Oh yeah, he's definitely, like his eyes are going to start narrowing and narrowing as you speak. Paxton's also frowning. Not to steal. Look, I like Brightport and I don't think it has to be such a shithole. And so Bo said that they were going to sign up for this and then Mom said I had to. So now I'm here. And I just kind of want to make Brightport better a little bit. If I can. We were both born and raised in Brightport and we've seen the city at its best and worst. And I think we can make it a little better.

He's still making eye contact kind of unblinkingly at Gwen. So Whiskey. Yeah, I'll have another. Thanks for asking. Okay, he's about to ask a question and you chime in with that and just... Alright, let's get into... Wait, let's just get this out of the way. I'm 23. I'm half halfling. Okay. That wasn't my concern. What was your concern? Look, you're not in trouble. I'm trying to get to know you as a person, character, and someone who asks for liquor. When you're meeting someone about a job, it's an eyebrow raiser. I just wanted to know a little bit more about you, that's all.

There's no reason to get so defensive. I feel like I'm doing better than him. If she's gonna straight up point at Jell-O. I'm not drunk. This is just who I am. To be fair, the bar hasn't really been set that high. And on the topic of Whiskey, there is merit to loosening the tongues of the party. How can you get to know us if you only get to know these four over here in their so straight lace that they're gonna pop? Just let them unwind a little bit. Get to know more than you think. Happens to me every night. Well, I feel pretty in control right now. I understand this intimate though.

It's respectable. But it's something to be said for being too loose. And he's going to be staring at you. Oh god! I just realized! Jell-O meets his gaze and just like pops a grape into his mouth. He sees what we can get him. Well, let's get into the task at hand, shall we? You all knew what you volunteered for, and I'm just going to come out and say it. The city needs a win. We need to figure out a way to do something that's never been done here before. That's maintain order over a long period of time. I specifically wanted people selected that had very little in the way of city guard experience, came from diverse backgrounds.

I wanted people with different skills and different ways of thinking to come together. I think that's going to be our best shot. And that's why I didn't select people who are already city guards here. I could have had my pick of the litter, but I think we need to go a different way with this. You're all familiar with the city and its problems, I'm sure. So, in your words, what's Brightport's biggest problem? And when you say that, Paxson, he just kind of leans back and he has this little pouch in his tunic and he pulls out these little glasses and he's like, "Well, where do we start?" First of all, I believe these houses have way too much power and control.

We need to give some of the power back to the people. And he goes on for a while. Basically, the gist of it is he thinks the working man needs to be back in charge of Brightport and the houses need to be knocked down a peg. That's where he's coming from. I like the cut of your jib. I completely agree. For, well, almost as long as the city's been founded, the position of mayor has been relatively ceremonial. There's not much power to be given or taken away, to be honest. But I believe that by focusing all of our attention, all of our funds, and funneling them through these three houses, no matter how well their intentions may be, I feel as though that that's completely taken away the identity of the working person.

That's one of the reasons Lauren had such a grip on the lower portions of the city. You understand my plight. That's my whole argument. It should be the citizens of Brightport that benefit from its government. Yes, generally when you have this many people turning towards crime, there's a reason for it. And unless you solve that underlying reason, it's not going to fix anything. Well, they don't have many options, do they? Exactly. Well, all that being said, there are going to be many people that you encounter that aren't going to see it that way. And, well, there are people who have gotten very comfortable in Brightport that you are going to make uncomfortable.

As a matter of fact, that's going to be your job. She's gonna smile. *laughs* I have an assignment for you tonight. Think of it as an advanced interview. I'd like to send a message to a local club, and I think that this would be a lovely introduction to the city. I haven't done singing Telegram for several years, but I do understand- *laughs* Oh my god! God. That was a joke! Paxton takes a sip of water in silence. You all need to lighten up. Gwen was laughing as hard as I was. How come you were laughing in character? How did you just have that right off the cuff?

That was good. Did the- does our handler loosen up once I tell him that it was actually a joke? No. No, decidedly no. But we're still in the getting to know you- maybe you'll grow on him. I don't know. Um, he's probably gonna clear his throat. I was thinking about something a bit more direct. When you leave this room, you are going to be given some provisions and new uniforms. If things go well tonight, you'll be given a full briefing in the morning, but you're going to be tasked with shutting down an illegal gambling ring, and it's been quite a problem for a while.

Now, obviously this isn't massive city-wide, but I think it's the perfect stepping stone. It'll introduce you to the town at large, and it'll be a good opportunity to see how well you work together with some lower stakes. You'll be heading to the Wilderbrand Club. It's just above the docks, actually, on the north side. And, honestly, it's a perfectly lovely place, I've been told, to get a drink after work, but in the back rooms, there have been illegal gambling. Well, we can't have that. We've had people being shaken down, and percentages on debts that they can't pay off, and then they end up indebted to thugs.

And you can see how that goes. Absolutely. Sounds like degeneracy to me. I'm going to see how well you handle this. You can take them down in any manner you see fit, and I would appreciate if you arrest as many as possible, but how you handle the rest of it is completely up to you. Now, I'd like to tell you that there are no wrong answers, but you will be graded, obviously. Everything you do will have a grade attached to it, and as this job stretches out, decisions are going to get tougher and tougher. There's no real right answer. You'll figure that out if you haven't already.

Do you have any questions for me? Alright, I'm about to toss Rob a lowball here, but it's a real thing that Gwen would ask. Wait, do we get handcuffs? Well, then I imagine everyone turning to him. You see? Oh man, thanks Bree, I literally can't tell which joke to use. I imagine that's what G-Yolo's just staring at his hands, like, "There are too many options." It was a real question, because if we're going to arrest people, we're going to be screwed. Yeah, no, after that, that beat, and when G-Yolo does the same thing. Yeah, when you ask that, G-Yolo goes, "Don't worry about me, I'm cool.

I brought my own." No, it's a fair question. What kind of equipment are you providing us with? Well, you'll obviously each be given a pair of shackles, and any equipment that you don't have, that you do need, can be requisitioned. I actually have a crafter friend, Tinkers. He's working on a few things for me now. Tinkers? Tinkers. Is she a kitten? If this, being tonight, goes well, then we can see about getting you a few toys to play with. Something to make your job a bit more interesting. And everyone turns to Joel? Yep! This time, he just looks at all of you and goes, "What?" I'll just smile a little bit, because it's clear that, um, oh gosh, what's his name?

I'm sorry. Steven? Yeah, sorry, yeah, G-Yolo's name is written right in front of me, so I can just rethought the picture. Hearing AIDS and Rudin's done is a much different brain thing, but it's obvious that that was not intended at all, but it just keeps happening. Oh, he hates it. Absolutely hates it. So, he's going to start to stand up, kind of like, you know, take his dinner napkin off, wipe out his shirt. Alright, I'm not going to eat up any more of your time. When you get back, do me a favor and check in with me. Let me know how everything goes, and I expect to see you bright and early tomorrow, no matter what.

Alright? Yes, sir. We will not disappoint. Aye, Captain. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we really appreciate this opportunity, and also thank you for the dinner. It was lovely. It was absolutely my pleasure. I've never been any good at cooking, but I get lots of help from Abrams. Oh, no, I imagined them in the kitchen together. Who are they? Okay. My God, stop it. Stop with the shipping. I just need a love story in 2020, okay? I know this. There are two people who shared a scene together. Give them a- Shit, I just imagined them cooking, and like, there's something about two grown men in one small kitchen that's- I will break out the hose.

I'll do it. I- friendship! Any two adults in a small kitchen are going to like, have a food fight, and like, there's gonna be a montage. It's adorable. Shenanigans. That is disgusting. You don't throw food. That's not how you treat food. I mean, I'm just picturing like, like the pottery wheel scene in Ghost. Like a pin. Honestly, if there was any sexual tension, it was between Warwick and Paxton, let's be honest. I like the color of that guy's jib. He says a lot of good stuff. You two said that to each other many times. That guy knows what he's talking about.

You say "in bed" to one another. It's really weird pillow talk. Give each other a fond slap in the butt good game. Slap 'em good. Good ideals. Excellent morals. Oh my god. So if you pack up your stuff and leave, you're going to be given some gear here. Anything that you didn't have on your character when you came in that is on your character sheet, obviously you're going to get. You're each going to get a set of shackles. You're each going to be given a uniform, which is this beautiful, kind of a stark white number for the most part with these brilliant black.

And red accent pieces. It's something it says something basically it's when you see it, it's like, oh, that's different. You are you're obviously all wearing it, but it's not the traditional uniform of the town guard. So this is basically it's up to you to drive it into people's heads what they should think or feel when they see that. Does that make sense? Yes. Should we all like stand outside waiting in line for the guest bathroom to change? Three questions. Okay. Number one, do they actually fit because Gwen is four foot tall and 50 pounds? Well they knew who was coming when they came.

So do they fit our standard of armor as well? Is Gwen's like light armor and Paxton's heavy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The colors match, but they're different textures. Yes. That's not all like, like heavy armor. I mean, it fits your what you'd be wearing. It's just, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. I was just checking because I didn't want to like have to deal with negatives all night or something. No, no, that would be silly. Why would they? Okay. No one's going to hire you to do a difficult job and then impede your fucking progress to do it on night one. So Cookie, get out there.

Knee cap. So I man, I guess what would be, what would be the move here? What do you guys want to do? So I guess like after we all get changed and stuff, we should maybe have a group chat. I guess. So anyone have an idea as to a strategy or I guess we don't really know a lot about the situation going in. I actually, Jason, I wanted to ask, could we roll to see if any of us do know about the situation going in? We all live in Brightport. Yeah, I think, I think a nice wisdom save would be, or wisdom check, sorry, would be good for everybody. Just a flat wisdom check.

Okay, so that's zero. Cool. Just a flat wisdom check. Just give me, give me a little something. Just. Holy. Oh no. People do not tell Paxton about gambling. Nope. So I know the most and it's an elaborate. You guys are squares. No, no. This kind of fits though. Like the criminal and then the hooker know the most about the crime world. I know they probably use the back door for the illegal stuff. I know I use the back door if they ask nicely. Ah, come on. That was easy. So should we maybe at least maybe one or two of us could forego the uniform for at first to sort of scout things out?

It's an option. I know you're all thinking that's going to be me, but I, I'm not subtle. Oh, we noticed. Don't worry. I mean, if we're supposed to be these cool new guys and she's going to gesture to the uniform, like shouldn't we just go in and like round them up? Isn't that how that works? Right? I agree. We were supposed to make as many arrests as possible. I say we go in with a firm fist. But we, do we even know how many there are? What if we're outnumbered? Or they have escape routes or something? Well, even if we're outnumbered, most of them are just, you know, normal civilians that will be, you know, law abiding once the enforcers come and break down the party, I believe.

Hopefully. That is, that's actually a good point is some of these people are just there to try and make a little money or forget about how shitty their lives are for five minutes. So maybe we should go undercover to see who's running it. Cause that's really the one doing the bad shit, right? To catch the bigger fish. Just walk in there, the arms blazing at the people that are actually in charge of all this are probably the ones that are going to make it out before we even see them. Get a little intel, go for the ones at the top. And he looks over, he kind of reflexively looks over at Guinevive as he says that.

Yeah. I mean, she's going to look like kind of weirdly uncomfortable. Like she didn't expect to be put in any position of power this quickly. Like to make any choices or anything. She's not used to that. And she'll just be like, I guess like that's better than arresting a bunch of people who are mostly innocent. Right? Mostly. Mostly. I do think it would probably be most effective if we were to get the bigger fish, though I'm not sure I would be the one to go in and be subtle. Well, if we truly needed to, I believe I could be up to the task. What do I do? Just walk in and ask?

Calypso, that character looks at tasks. What happened? Like, they're like, they just do him like a once over and like a cop before you or a cop. Listen, all you do is all I have to do is walk in and ask, who's in charge? Where do I gamble illegally? Easy. One marijuana cigarette for you. Maybe we could have Paxton in as a red herring, so to speak. Oh, like a distraction while Fireball here gets a look at the real prize. Sorry, who? Who's Fireball? He just gives a little finger gun in Gwynnaveve's direction. Is that racist? I feel like it would have been more racist if he did it towards Bo.

G.O.L.O. means it as a term of endearment, right? Like, he's like, he's giving people nicknames already. A short little ball of energy. Yeah. You got pep. I'm better at sneaking than I am at pretending anything, so... Yeah, if you could go in and distract some people, I could probably figure out where they're hiding at least, where the back room is, and who's in charge before we go in and lay siege. I can take care of the more people-oriented aspect if that works for everyone. I think that's more my realm, at least. We could try that. I'll help you a second option, if needed.

The backup. Yes. Jamie, you're coming in a little low. Am I? I think so. Tiny, tiny, tiny bit soft. Nothing huge. It's all good. Easily fixed. Gwenivive and I go in then, and at what point do... I mean, if you two want to do the subtle stuff while I just put the charm on the room, that works. I can just stride through, do my thing. I'd want to get out of the uniform to do that. Oh, no, no, yeah, we'd be doing this part out of the uniform, so that could work, but you probably need to come in a little bit after us, maybe? Yeah, yeah, different parties, different parties.

I get it. Maybe Bow and Paxton can come in and just have a drink in the corner in case things go south. We'll be reinforcement just in case, you know, we need to do an instant raid. Do you know what you can do, know what I mean? Just make sure not to leave our eyeline. I'd hate to lose you. So do we want Gwenivive going just into the crowd there? Do we want to like, you know, like give you a little lift onto the roof, get you able to look around the layout? Well, I can get onto the roof myself, thank you. He raises his hands like it didn't mean any harm.

That's what I'm good at. That's my thing. Yeah, I think, and she'll take out her purple cloak and kind of wrap it around and be able to cover most of the uniform with that. Like she doesn't even really need to change out of the uniform so much. I'm pretty good at getting lost in a crowd and yeah, I'll just go in and start looking around. And you guys funnel in behind me. Sounds good. I guess Beau and I will be last and we'll kind of saunter on in when we think everyone is good to go. Sounds like a plan. Alright, and she's going to put her hand out and she's getting ready for like a go team.

Like a... We're doing a circle here. Teamwork's important. Get your hands in. Get out the shark. Beau too, man. Hand is in. Yep. Let's go. Jolo, come on. Come on. Oh yeah, he's in. He's in. Yeah! Absolutely. Go team! Worship civilization. Oh. Very inspiring. That reminds me of the Beau Burnham thing. Like, don't worry, this is a prayer for all faves. Alright, so yeah, Gwen is going to kind of...she's gonna have to probably sneak. So you're climbing up on the building. I wasn't...okay, so how populated is the building? Because if there's a lot of people in there, she can probably get lost among the crowd and then just find...

Oh, it's a popular club. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I don't think she needs to really go to the roof unless the entrance to the gambling area turns out not to be connected to the main room. It's definitely connected to the main room. Okay. So yeah, she'd probably just go in and her big thing is to just lay low enough that no one thinks that she's a child who snuck into a bar. Because she probably gets that a lot. So I picture you're in the corner here, you're, you know, so bartender might ask you, you know, I picture there's some bards like just like rocking out in the corner so you get that...

Is that what I get? Yeah, that's what you get. Somehow they make that noise with... Beatboxing is a thing you can do with a mouse. Yeah, they all do it, but they're really loud. They're dwarves, you see? Yeah, they get right next to you. I really wish they wouldn't... Why are all these songs about Ibiza? What's going on here? So we got you, we got you a little drink, you're kind of like you're sticking to yourself. Give me a perception check. Kind of scope things out. Did someone card you? Sorry. Well, like, there are halflings. It's just like, she's a tiefling.

That's when it's like, are you a child? Because... Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That's seven. So you guys are not on fire role wise yet. We paid for those stat rolls at the beginning. Yeah, that's okay. So that's seven. You're gonna look around and it's gonna take you a while, probably like five or ten minutes, but you are going to notice that a very scruffy looking figure is going to head to a door that is kind of just off to the side. It doesn't look like it's too used and they are going to go through it and then not come back. Like it's not a bathroom or anything like that.

You know that. So if you were to guess, that's probably where your gambling is. Sweet. Gwen is going to try to sneak in there. So the door is not locked. Can I get a stealth check, please? I'd love to. 16. 16 is not bad. Nice. So here's what's going to happen. This is interesting. So you are going to walk in and no one's going to notice yet. But here's what you're going to see. There are several people in here that are running the games. And if you were to look around, you'd see someone watching the back door on the outside. You'd see someone running some sort of dice game in the center of the room.

And then you'd see some real hard looking individuals that appear to be maybe in charge of extra security. Like they're just there for a presence. And they're all clearly taking orders from a man in the corner. And if they were to discover you, at least discover you're there to arrest them, that's not good. Alright, so Gwen is going to take stock and do a mental layout. The person who's running everything, is he noteworthy in any way, physically, so that she could tell the others "oh, it's the redhead" or something like that? I mean, the guy's wearing... he's the one wearing something a bit different.

Like he's got this sleeveless vest combination he's been working on, but it looks like the sleeves have been ripped off. He has... well, he has... man, fuck all you vest wearing listeners. If you ripped the sleeves off, yes. I mean, maybe they're trying to make a statement about arm shackles, I don't know. But a very kind of burly, burly chested person, like he stands out. Okay, then. Long beard. Alright, I think Gwen will... wait, how many bystanders are there? As far as like how many people are gambling and like... There's like two or three in here now.

I'm gonna have to ask you to roll another stealth to get out of here. Okay. Oh, Jesus, that's way better. 26 is great, you're fine, you can slip in and out. That's like my thing, that's all I got. You got a plus 8 at level 2, that's what you got. Robes, baby! I am. So, you tell the team, I'm guessing. Yes. What's the team thing? Well, alright, I say we go in and we get the big guy. Should we maybe have one or two people go in from the back entrance to block escapes? Smart. That's a possibility, yes. We can try a pantser attack and try to attack simultaneously.

See, now you're thinking like a SWAT team. Can't you just like take all their souls or something? Just go look at Giolo. I think that's only if he did the warlock thing where he's in a bed with demons, not the gods. Don't the gods need souls? I don't know. Alright. Yeah, Giolo's response to that is, "No, that's the other kind of warlock. I'm not that one." Oh, I was right. Alright. Well then, I guess we'll have to do this the hard way. Does taking people's souls count as an arrest? It seems. You're trying to give us a hug. I mean, now we're just in questions for philosophers.

So are you currently high or is this just all the time? He's just chronically laid back, right? His whole thing is getting people to relax. He's high off existence. The Danny Gava dance thing is really coming in. I'm just saying, called it. I mean, if you want to get together later, we'll snort something. We'll start talking about dreams and go back into past lives and stuff like that. I'm all in. Oh, I got a table for that. The past lives table? I got a table for a lot of things. We know, we know, James. So many tables. I mean, I've heard some of the most insightful things I've ever heard from people under substances.

Don't knock it. Jimmy once asked if maps were the wrong way. That is not what I said. I'm not getting into this again. What if the maps are all upside down? That's not what I said. Is this in character or? I talked about the layers of time and space. So like, that was pretty fun. All right. So both of these, so one of these doors is being watched. Did the other door exist or is that just the map? That's a window. What are the doors? The one that Bandit 1 is standing next to is a door. And then the one I'm standing next to. Oh, the others, the other two are windows.

So this up here is, that's a door. Okay. We should take care of Bandit 1 before we even like start the raid. Because he's outside. Okay. Still taking down, make him sleep. Really, we're lying heavily on our warlock here. Poor guy. So who's that? Okay. The barn can do that too. The barn did not take that spell. Okay. Let me, let me ask a question. Who's going in the back out? I think we should have a frontline person in both groups party. Probably. Both should be in one group, Paxton should be in the other. Yeah. I'll stay here just because I'm already here. I exist on the map already.

Which direction would Calypso, Doolum, everyone else go? Calypso will probably also go through the main crowd because they can blend in pretty well and not raise any alarms yet. If that. Then Jello, do you want to go around the back? I'm, I'm good. Try in the back alley. I can see if I can, I can, I mean, we gotta be ready to throw some shots if charm person fails on this bandit. But if it does, I can just tell him to go home for an hour. Right? Like. Or offer to go home with him. Oh. You'll be up there later. Tell him to go home and get ready and never show up.

So, and like, he's just on Reddit all the time. I mean, if we wrap this up quickly enough, you could still come meet him later and probably get paid for it. Can you roll for the attractiveness of this bandit? On a scale of one to 10. He's a two. Look. He's got a good sense of humor though. We'll give him that. And it's like, it's paid for a service. So where am I going? Paxson, you want to go with Jolo and Bo can stay with us? We'll do that. All right. How do I put myself on the map? It's not working. I got you. Oh, thank you, dog. I feel like, actually it's kind of cool.

So like, you could stop people from leaving. By the way, Calypso is absolutely like not impressed with the parts. I can't wait for you to complete the set. I just want the set completed because they're all your works. It's gonna be like your canvas. I've written down everything you said when you were introducing. So now I have a much better idea. You have all the freedom in the world you want. I'm gonna draw a sexy lady dwarf. That's what we'll be. I'm Paxson now. Damn those titties though. Okay. Oh, they have tits for real. Nice. Oh goodness. Wow. Oh my god. That's just from Dragon's Crown?

Yeah. King's Crown. Okay. So should we, do you want me to just see if I can pull a little charm person on this guy? See if it goes through? Yeah. How do you approach? I mean, so I'm picturing, I got to get within 30 feet for the spell. So I do just, I do just kind of basically until I hit that like 30 feet range of my spell mark, I just carry on like a fake conversation with Paxson about like if he's super naive, maybe he thinks I have like sincere inquiries about his God, but I'm actually like just going through the motions to be inconspicuous for a few moments.

No, he thinks you're into it. He's like, well, you see the thing about God of civilization, we really worship law itself rather than actual religion. It's quite a beautiful thing. Oh yeah. I mean, without the law, we don't have a life at all. Really. It's chaos, my friend. Chaos. Oh, and then as the moment he gets within 30 feet, he does like, so he's in the uniform, right? He didn't, he didn't get out of his, like, I'm the enforcer uniform at this point. And so he's in it, but he added his hat, right? He didn't leave his hat at home. So he's got this big wide brimmed hat over the top of his uniform.

He's got it kind of pulled down over his eyes. And the moment he's in range for that spell, he reaches out and points his like long spindly fingers at this dude in like dramatic warlock fashion. And, and basically says the verbal component of his spell, which is, Hey there. And when we roll it, he needs to, so I need to target him. I just want to clarify, you did wink when you said that, right? Cause I heard you wink, which was weird. So the reason I said he's wearing the hat is because he didn't want this guy to know that he's being like, when the charm wears off, they know they're charmed.

So he doesn't want this guy to know I'm being charmed by Giolo fame for later. So he's just, he's just a sexy, mysterious stranger in a hat pulled down over his eyes. Right? Like he doesn't want to be in all of my dreams. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That guy in your dreams. He needs to make a wisdom saving throw against what I've just done to him with, with my zip zaps. Wisdom saves. What I've just done was just the best way of saying that. 16. Okay. I think, I think he beats it. Oh yeah. Three plus that's going to be, yeah, yeah. He beats it. It's a 13. So I would presume I can tell immediately that this is not flown.

I think it'd be like, he's going to listen to this conversation and let you get a close one to get out of here. Like, what are you doing? Like you're not supposed to be back here. Okay. So the moment, the moment Giolo, like, is it's very clear that hasn't worked and he, he just looks over at Pax and he goes, I missed, civilized him. Well, um, that's really good. I heard him say, uh, excuse me, you're under arrest. That's not what I wanted from you. Like he was offering like, Hey, would you like some under arrest? When it finally matters. I was like through that immediately.

Wow. He goes, you try to charm him. He said, oh, this guy needs to be arrested. I really, I can not use turns of phrase with you. Very little. Nothing goes over my head. He's going to look at you like, fine. And he's going to grab his weapon. Jesus. Oh, sorry. Take the, Oh God. I guess you take the first one. Um, so, uh, Jesus, 17. Let's do that. Uh, can I get an initiative roll for Paxton please? You got it. Sadly, we're going to do best. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're both going to go first before this guy could make your move. Go ahead. Uh, so Giolo, uh, yeah. When, when Giolo says what he says, he doesn't even really like, I pictured being like, I missed, civilize him.

And then like Paxton starts talking and Giolo just presumes he was understood and takes the shot. Right? Like he, he does an Elbridge blast immediately. Boo with. Tanda's going to miss. Okay. And then, um, uh, understanding that he is the backliner, Giolo takes two steps back. I've done all I can do. I am so sorry. I did forget spells. Jesus. Hey, while you're doing spells for Zach, can I run to the restroom? Go ahead. I'm going to need you. Well, I get like three cantrips and three first levels, so I know exactly what I want if that helps. Fucking hit me. Let's do it.

So three cantrips, guidance, sacred flame. Do we have told the dead? Yeah. Then I'll take that instead of sacred flame. So guidance, told the dead, and? I'm thinking. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I thought you said you were like, you were ready to roll. Resistance as last one. Guidance, told the dead. Um, uh, resistance you said? Yes. Is that all? For cantrips, yes, but spells, I get three of those. Um, I would like bless, cure wounds, and healing word. Okay. And for my move, I'm just gonna, gonna rush up to him. I'm going to say, please comply, sir, and I'm going to attack with my mace.

Let's comply! I love him so much. We make a great duo. I love this game. Yeah, man, I hear you loud and clear. Yeah, I picked up what you were picking down. After I shot. I'm going to target him and just take an attack with my mace. Let's do it. Oh, Jesus. 19 will hit. Atta boy, Paxson. Let's see. Damage. Ooh! Six damage. Sir, please. Oh my god, anything else? That'll be it. Alright, before I go any further, uh, let's see. At what point do people inside notice that there's something happening? Uh... We make sure to make our attack right as they're yelling "Yahtzee!" or whatever they're pointing at.

Not Yahtzee! Most dangerous gambling addiction known to man. Just a bunch of hardened thugs in there. Yahtzee! Or Nazi, because Yahtzee might be copyright. We don't know. Yahtzee! I misheard, because I thought that Kelsey was just Nazi. I thought you said Nazi. I meant it like N-O-T. Oh, like not? Sorry. Yeah, you can't. That sounds too much like the other thing. I'm really sorry. It's a German game. In some clubhouse games on the Nintendo Switch, they call it "Yaht Dice." YAHT DICE! I want to get that game by the way. Yaht Dice. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's see here. Jesus. So, as a bit of a minor action here, he's going to reach his hand back and, with the hilt of his sword, kind of knock on this door and start screaming. And then he's going to try to attack Paxton with his scimitar. So, let's see how that goes. Nine is going to miss. Sir, you just assaulted an officer. Oh, God. So, the rest of these bandits are going to roll, and I would say, with that... I mean, the club music is pretty loud, Jason. I know. I don't want to be a dick, but I feel like these bandits are going to move before... They look like they're having fun in there.

There's a lot of dwarves beef boxing. I'm not sure if anyone heard. I think this might be something you have to roll for. Did you say "beef boxing"? Beef boxing? I said there are a lot of dwarves boxing. What would beef boxing be? I don't know, but now I wonder. Is it because he's standing in the freezer and he's punching the... Oh, yeah, that's beef boxing. That's correct. Jesus. Okay. It's just what a dwarf would do for sure. Um... I'm going to say, once one of these bandits in here moves, that's when I believe you guys would be able to go, "Okay!" and then go in.

Okay. That's how... Is there someone listening at the door? I mean, I assumed we were. Yeah, I think all of us were kind of like, paid attention. Definitely trying to make sure nobody comes out of this door. Yeah. You three give me a wisdom check. And if it's above 12, you'll hear the stuff that's going on. Perception? Go with perception. Fine, fine, fine. One second. My perception is just flat, baby. Oh, yeah. Eleven. So, Calypso, what's going on? Yeah. Can you tell us in your lovely voice? Thug number two... Maybe. ...is going to move out this door and then move right here and attack Paxton.

Because this is a problem. So... Do you need to roll? Oh, shit. Okay, so he's going to make two melee attacks with advantage because he has pack tactics. So that might be bad. We'll see, though. I don't know. So, here he goes, swinging with his mace. Fourteen is going to miss. And one more time... Hup! 21 is going to hit. Oh, God. Minimum damage. Three. So, you're doing great. It's two counts of assault. Bandit captain is going to wait. I'm going to have him just kind of wait here. He's listening. It's like, "Did I take care of him? I'm sure I took care of him." I sent out my two best thugs.

I'm sure it's great. Bandit number three. Oh, my God. All these bandits and thugs and you guys. We didn't roll initiative yet. Well, do it now. Okay. We went outside technically, but yeah. We just rolled perception and then you went to the next turn and I wasn't sure what was happening. Well, I was waiting for something to happen in the room that you could hear, but like, fuck it. Let's say you keep the door open. We're in here. We're part of things. Alright, there we go. Let's say Calypso just before bandit three, what would you do? Oh, okay. Um, hmm. Our roll's matched up with our perception.

That's nice. Aww. Okay. Let me see. What can I do? Um, is each square five feet? Yes. Cool. I'm trying to figure out what... Hmm. So you're in the middle of this club. Yeah. Also like... You're in the middle of the... Yeah. Okay. So what I would like to do is I would like to delay my turn to laughter, Bo, just cause I don't want to get out in front of the person that can actually take hits. But, um, like in like, Fission, since like I was the one that got the like higher perception thing, I think it makes sense that like Calypso kind of like goes over and like, we need to go in there now kind of thing.

Sure. I think so. Okay. You're in the middle of this club. It's kind of loud out there. There's lots of, you know, there's lots of civilians and stuff, but, um, they're just enjoying their drinks, having a good time. And then you are going to hear this door being kicked in from the outside and just like, Hey, you're going to hear like muffled noises. So, you know, something's up. Um, and I like to think, I like to think canonically, like Calypso just assumes Bo heard that. It's like waiting for Bo, just watching Bo. It's like, you can open that door. We're going to do it.

We're going to do it. And you just wait. And like after like a certain point, it's like casually kind of walks over there and like gives her a nudge. Bandit number three is going to fire an arrow at Paxton. And five, two is going to miss. You're doing great. You're doing fine. As Paxton dodged, he says, that's a long rage assault. I see you. You're going on the list. Jeez, man. I don't know. Like, uh, God, I don't think they'd all leave. So I think, uh, yeah. Gwen, what would Gwen do? Gwen's going to be stupid probably. Um, so Gwen is going to come inside, I think.

And like, I'm not sure. Like she's not sneaking. Um, you know what? No. God damn it. That's a one for everybody at home. Yeah. That was, that was me deciding something. Um, and she's gonna already have her rapier out. She's going to say, all right, if you're just here to gamble, it's time to leave. And then she's going to go after Bandit two. I think at this point, like there's a lot of like, oh, like the people are scattering. Once, once, once arrows start flying and shit, it's like, oh God, let me get out of here. Right. And she's, she took off her cloak before they went in, by the way, cause she, she understands branding's important.

Hashtag Justin. All right. Um, so I, I once again chose a fighter character, so I'm pretty sure I just hit dude. Right? Like dude. Well, I mean, there's a little bit more to you. You're a rogue. Yeah. So I get to hit dude, but like sneaky. Um, okay, cool. So I will hit this dude. Hit him. 17. 17. You will hit that dude. All right. 10 damage. 10 damage. Holy shit. And I'm going to take a bonus action to disengage. Do that. That's one of the only things I know that I can do is a rogue. I'm sure he's not going to follow up. No, no, no. Well played. Oh, by the way, um, so we're supposed to arrest people, not kill them.

And I don't know how to not kill someone with a rapier. So like, do I get to call it and like, then you don't do full damage? Here's how I'm going to work for this campaign. Okay. I am always going to assume that you're doing non-lethal damage unless something spectacular happens that you can't control. Oh, like if we get like a crit? Um, even with spells for the most part. Depends on the spell. I guess it depends on the spell. Yes. Like if you're eviscerating somebody and it's like putting on lethally, it's like, no. That's why I crit on the other fall. I don't think I'm going to die.

But you know, not with the death part. Yeah, yeah. I don't kill him. Disintegrate. I think the bandit captain is going to jump in here. Take a start. And let's see. Oh, I forgot he delayed his option too. Yeah. It's going to be fun for poor Gweny. You know what? Let's move up to Gweny. And let's target Gweny. Glad she rolled to do the dumbest thing. Multi-attack makes three melee attacks. Oh my gosh. Three? Okay. Well, bye everybody. Now, these aren't with advantage or anything like that. They're just three attacks. Three little mini attacks. Uh, Jesus. Okay. Two with a scimitar, one with a dagger.

One. That's a hit. Seven damage. I might die. Crit miss. Oh my god. Get stumbled! Thumbel effect! Oh my. He's going to fall prone. Well, we'll take those. So he's going to slip as he comes in with the second one. Here's the thing. He does get one more attack with his dagger. I guess he could try, like after he falls, he could try and stab at you or something? Disadvantage though, I think. Yeah, that's with disadvantage. So let's do daggers. Here we go. Eleven's going to miss. Ow! I know! Shit. I like to think that the reason Bo wasn't very perceptive as to what was going on in the room is that she was giving herself a little pep-top before going into this room.

You are powerful. You are prepared. You are going to kick ass when you bash this door in. And then they see Calypso sort of come up like, "Are we going to go in?" And then Gwen just pushes past Bo into the room. And Bo's going to be like, "Oh shit! What the fuck?" And is going to bust into this room. Uh, here. And, oh shoot. Do I want to attack this captain guy while he's all prone and shit? Or do I want to lay on hands my little sister? I've never used it before. I think I'm gonna. Put your hands on me, sis. Uh, yeah. I'm gonna bust in here and see this captain on the floor.

And I am gonna quickly put my arm onto Gwen's shoulder and say, "You got this, sis?" And do lay on hands. How do I make this happen? Because I don't see. It's so different from Tatiana. You just tell me how much you're healing for. I suppose. Did you get an allotted pool? I get an allotted pool. That's interesting. Where would you find that number if you had an allotted pool? So you get five times your paladin level. So you have ten. Ten whole hit points. Oh. I can pass out however you feel. Okay, I'll give you five of those hit points. And then I have five of them still.

Thank you. That was more than half of my health. Right? Like he hit hard. I mean, he's the captain, I suppose. Yeah, that makes sense. But if he had hit me all three times, I'd be dead. Right? Fuck. Not a fan of that. Is that it? Well, that counts as my action, right? I don't have any second actions. Yeah, I think so. Fandom number two is going to fire an arrow here at Bow. Oh, you wanna jump in? Sorry. They did say after Bow. They said that. I'm so sorry. Let's have you jump in. It'd be really cool if you just fucked up that second bandit. 'Cause I already started, so if you could just finish.

Then we only have to worry about the captain and that other dude. Yeah, I guess that makes no sense. I can hold my other thing. You can do whatever you wanna do. I mean, the attack that I was gonna do doesn't really... So you're the only one still out in this club. Yeah, I'm sorry. And the dwarves are just like... Yeah, so I think... So they have their violin out and was about to play a certain something and then Lay on Hands happened so they're going to switch over and... Actually, I think... Oh, that's not how that works. I think what they're going to do is look over at the bandit captain and just really, like, just complete disdain at him being on the floor and the captain's just mockery.

So let's see how... That's hot. That's so hot. Oh, that's a failure. You're certainly gonna roll an eight. I'm gonna do psychic damage and I don't have a thing to add the disadvantage part, but the next... Hold on. If you hit that little magnifying glass, it should... It doesn't... It doesn't hit the thing. Well then hold on a second. I'll fix that. As soon as I find it... Vicious mockery. There we go. Spell coding affects the thing. There. Okay. There we go. Boom. Lovely. Alright, so anything else? Nope, that's it. Alright, bandit number two. Now bandit number two, I'm gonna move on up here to Bow and try and stab Bow.

Eh? 13 will miss, huh? That'll bring us back to Geolo. Stab Bow sounds like a new exercise routine. Stab Bow. I'd go that lesson. I feel like that would take off like stripper poles. It's, by the way, Jason, it's a harder G. It's not G-O-LOW. It's G-O-LOW. G-O-LOW. Gotcha. - Gotcha. - All right, that's, you know what, you're working really hard to bother me, and it worked. (both laugh) Just don't, just don't like... Just don't like slop it across your teeth like that. - Giolla. - I'll be honest, every time I say it, I'm basically rolling the dice as to whether it's gonna sound right or not.

I feel comfortable saying your name. (Iris laughs) - G, like the letter G. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Emphasis on the middle syllable if it helps. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola, Giola, Giola. Like Ricolo, yeah. - Sisunofe. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. - Giola. (both laugh) - Okay, so... Okay, what I'm gonna do first is, I'm gonna use my bonus action, and Giola kinda mutters to himself, "Let's see if you feel lucky after I'm done with you." 'Cause you know, look God, and now his magic words are all luck-based, 'cause that's gotta play the part.

- That's how it works, trust me. - Yeah. - Brandon? - Yeah, yeah. Bonus action. - That's how it looks with our doors. - I'm gonna use Hex, and that hits automatically. That is my second Packed Magic spell. And then I'm gonna Eldritch Blast. And oh, I get to pick an ability to give him disadvantage on checks. Let's... If they're gonna do anything, it's probably athletics, right? So strength checks. - Okay. - So it's a Hex against strength. And then we Eldritch Blast. So I click that guy, and I miss again! What's the deal? It's... Rough start, rough start. - It's a new outfit.

- Yeah, yeah. That's the end of my turn. It's got the Hex. - Jesus, okay. Bandit number one's gonna swing at Paxton with a plus two. - The bandits are all together in the initiative. That's cute. - They're all rolling nines. Like that's what's happening. - They all suck. - I'm pretty little with our AC and the fact that none of them are rolling above a 10. - Gwen! - All right, who should Gwen hit? Who pissed her off more? See, I wanna finish off bandit number two, but she's really pissed off at this bandit captain who is currently on the ground and has... - Still trying to stab her.

- Yeah, still trying to stab me too, which is a dick move. - You could sneak attack now, I think. - I think so, yeah. - Yeah, because someone's next to you. - We have friends now. I didn't even try to argue for it before because you guys were behind the door. I wasn't gonna try to be a shithead about it. I could finish off bandit number two though, but he's not hitting anyone. You know what, bandit captain. She's pissed off. I'm just checking my things to make sure that I'm doing everything right 'cause I'm still new with this, I'm sorry. Okay, yeah, so once per turn, you can deal an extra 1D6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack, so okay.

So first I'll try to hit him. Oh wait, I have advantage. Sorry. - To you? - Because he's prone. - Because he's prone. - Oh, prone, yes, okay, give me another attack. - Oh, that's still bad. - Oh my God. Nine and 11, both of those are a miss. - No. - Oh. Well, bye. - I'm gonna take my phone and actually shift back. Oh wait, could I shift you instead? - Well, if you're disengaging, you can go anywhere you want. - Okay, I was just checking 'cause I placed it down and I was raised with the whole, like if you took your hand off the piece, then you're done and I win.

- Do I look like an asshole? Okay then. - So Bo is a little agitated with this bandit number two and is going to try to attack non-lethally, but will always use non-lethal force when making an arrest and is going to say, put your weapons down and this can end peacefully and is going to attack. - Damn. - Jesus, 21 will hit. - Okay. - That will knock out bandit number two. - I'm so glad I said non-lethal force. - Again, I'll always assume. - Yes, I know, I know. - I promise I'll let you know when I'm trying to kill them. (laughs) - Maybe we should reverse it, you know?

This is lethal damage. - That's my plan in the future. - And then Bo points their halberd over at thug number one and says, drop 'em. That's it. - Calypso. (sighs) Yeah, you know, I was gonna hit one person, but whatever. So Calypso is going to do a nice little trill on their violin and a bunch of golden light is gonna kind of come out of it, almost like little moats of light and kind of settle over everything in an area. And I'm specifically targeting, oh, I was already targeting bandit captain. And I'm gonna cast fairy fire. Let's see. - Holy hell. - Oh, fuck.

- That's a crit. - That's a crit for mind. - Wait, roll a D six, roll a D six. Oh wait, no, that's not. - No, no, no, no, no. The bandit captain crit. - Oh, I thought that was an attack. - Nope, that's a save. So a bunch of really pretty light like descends over everything in this, like a 20 foot radius and all of the eyes, anything that's an area, except for the bandit captain lights up 'cause on the ground, he manages somehow to like roll around and dodge out of the way of those. (laughs) Okay, a little bit more impressive than before. I'll give him that.

- Spay to the bandit captain. Bandit captain's gonna stand up and oh God, he's the asshole with three attacks, I forgot. Okay, he is going to try and stab at Gwyn. - I really wish he wouldn't. - Yep, that's a miss. He rolls with disadvantage. He's gonna try and stab Gwyn again. That's a miss and he's got this dagger he's gonna try and stab her with. That is also gonna miss, holy shit. - These nines and sixes are just haunting them. - Yeah. - Damn. - And he dropped an 18 on the first one, so that worked out. - Yeah, thank you for that. That was a vicious mockery, right?

I appreciate it. I'm glad you hurt his emotions. - Meanwhile, outside, we got thug number two, who's gonna take a swing at Paxton, gets advantage and he has multi-attacks. So two mace swings, 19 and a 20. So we're gonna do quick damage, six. So nothing amazing. And he gets one more, we're not gonna roll the table and 10 is gonna miss. My God, these guys are not having a great night. Even when they crit. - This damage is a lot at this point. - It is, but I mean like. - Again, that's half my health. - That's fair. Paxton, what do you think? - More than half of Paxton's health.

- Yes, yes. So is there any way I could move to the other side of bandit one where I'm blocking the door in the way of the door or am I blocked off from that? - I think you're blocked off from that just because it's a narrow alleyway. - Fortunate, okay, then I will- - I don't want you to take opportunity attack. - No, you know what? I'm going to toll the dead bandit number one. Something like that, but 17 is gonna save regardless. So as a bonus action, I just want to healing word myself. - Okay. - Okay, go ahead and heal. - Two hit points. - I get an extra plus three because of my life domain.

- Very nice. - Yeah. - You need those. - Yeah. - Yay. - Mission accurate. - Oh God, thug number one. - He was told to drop his weapons, so I don't know why you're pausing. I feel like Beau was quite clear about expectations. - Thug number two, I'm sorry, thug number one. Yeah, thug number one is gonna move right up here. Target Gwen. - Bitch, I was talking to you. - Not a fan. - He's not, he's not. (laughing) He doesn't take direction. - What is trying so hard to like get out of the line of fire? - Yeah. 16 is gonna hit, five damage and one more. - Oh yikes. (laughing) - 20 will hit, three damage.

Wow, look at these rolls, they are terrible. - I should not be standing right now, shut up. Gwen's gonna shift over here because I'm so fucking sick of advantage against me. She's going to try to attack the captain guy. Oh, oh, oh. - Oof. - Oh. - Oof. - You critically hit yourself with the same attack you fumbled with, receiving all negative conditions and effects of the attack. - Why? I'm gonna die. - What, are you still gonna roll? - I thought crit was automatically the highest damage. - That's four, you roll double the dice. - All right, damage critical. Oh shit, I did it to the captain, I'm sorry.

Minus 12 from him, give me 12, which is almost my hit points. I think I'm dead. - I think that would kill you outright. - Ugh. - How would this happen? Is my, like in the heat of combat, I'm guessing like you go to stab and just either slip or, how does it curl back around to you and then the stomach and how? - Yeah, it almost seems like it's like a dodging through the crowd, trip on something, fall on your own knife kind of thing. - Yeah. - Ugh. - So this bandit captain's gonna stop dead. Just, obviously this is pretty shocking, but I feel like everybody in the room, there's gonna be this weird split second where everybody stops because where you guys are, to speak, you know, in a meta-fession, you're using non-lethal damage, right?

You're trying to either knock them out or just put them into submission where you can handcuff 'em. They're kind of doing the same, they're not trying to kill anyone, it's more, you know, get off our turf or try and scare you off. This is way beyond their pay grade, they're not murderers. So when going down like this, it's gonna be, everyone's gonna look at each other, they're gonna look to the bandit captain, the bandit captain's gonna like back off because Gwen is the closest to the bandit captain, I feel. And he's gonna almost like put up his hands like he's surrendering, but it's more like, I didn't do that, you're not gonna pin this on me.

And he's gonna look to everybody else in the room. And there's gonna be this unspoken eye contact where everyone's waiting for your group to make a move. It's like, are we still fighting or like, are you gonna take care of this and we'll take care of our own stuff and just get out of your way? What would be the reaction? - I think pretty automatically for Beau, she's gonna pay no mind to these bandits and is going to yell out, "Gwennie!" And run over to her sister kneeling down and sort of put Gwennie into her lap, touching her face on both cheeks. And you see this light glowing from her hand.

Come on, Gwennie, wake up. Wake up, Gwennie, come on. And I suppose seeing that this isn't working is going to sort of look around the room at the party and say, "I'm not powerful enough." - Has the Paxon and Giolo in the alley, have the people fighting us in the alley kind of also kind of frozen? Have they gotten the cue somehow? - I feel like it's like the wave where it would take a few seconds, but they're gonna hear the fighting stop and there'd probably be a looking behind their back, like, "Did everyone die?" Or is it like, "What's happening?" Because the lack of sound would be an indicator here and I feel like they would almost stop.

It'd almost be like, they hold a finger up to you. It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, something's gone wrong." Back inside, I think Calypso is just frozen, just standing, just staring. And then they kind of look at Bo and I can't feel her. Not much of a healer, but I don't... What I can do, I can't... There's nothing there to... And then they're kind of looking up at the bandits and just don't also kind of in that situation of what they're very much in shock. - I think this bandit captain's gonna continue to back up. There's this big jam up by that door in the back, obviously.

And I think they would all start kind of like inching to the door. There's this jam up and the bandit captain's like, "Get out, go, run." Like that type of thing. And unless Paxton or Giullo stop them, they're going to just start getting out of that alley. Like run, basically. - Right, right. So you're saying they go out past us while we're trying- - They were probably like, yeah, Paxton is trying to get in. - They probably like, left. Yes, so there'd probably be, I imagine there's this jam up by the door, a lot of congestion, and they're trying to push past, just like, "Go, you can get in.

"We're out of your way. "Don't chase us." And they're just gonna take off 'cause, yeah. - Paxton, at first, not knowing what's going on, he's going to kind of put his hands up at first, like, "Hey, where are you going?" Then he kind of, he sees Bo in the back, then he sees a body, and he just lets them go, and he pushes past. - Yeah, Giullo's kind of confused, too, and goes kind of pushing into the room behind Paxton, and when he gets in, he looks over, and he's like, "Oh, okay, that's a lot of blood. "That's, oh, what happened?" - And I picture there's, like, old wooden floorboards, this kind of, like, well-worn tavern type of floor, and there's these little gaps where the blood pool and catch and sort of create a pattern.

So, like, there's this pool of blood, and then it's traveling a little faster, like it's on a, like a race car track type of thing. - Paxton will just say, he has this very great expression on his face, he's just gonna say, "Oh, no, no. "Bo, I'm sorry, excuse me." And he's going to try to saunter past Bo and put his hands hovering over Gwyn's body and try to cast Spare the Dying, just in case, followed by a heal spell that probably won't work. He's gonna pull out his medicine pouch, his medicine pack, and just try to bandage her up the best he can, try to stop the bleeding.

- I feel like the first healing spell, that would stop the initial bleeding. It was just all this blood that, she's in between her getting stabbed and her going down. There's just so much blood loss, but the initial bleeding would stop, but she's still not getting up. - And Giolo, Giolo kinda chimes in, "That was supposed to fix it, right? "That's not fixing it, she's not up." - We need to get her somewhere else where there's people who can maybe help. Is it safe to move her yet? - Bo's gonna sort of look down towards the ground and furrow her brow. It doesn't matter, we have to go.

I don't care if it's safe or not, we have to get out of here. We need help. And she's gonna try to lift Gwyn off of the ground and carry her in her arms. - We just go back to the boss guy? We go, "You think he can do anything?" - If anyone knows someone who can, it's our best shot, unless you happen to know someone else more powerful and well-connected. - When you say that, Giolo looks up for a moment and goes, "Hello?" (laughing) - Not answering, all right? Look, I don't know how this all works yet. And so I'm not getting anything, we better go to that guy.

- The city's gotta have healers, let's go. - You're right, there's someone we can find that can help us out. - So let's cut out the part where you're just running to the city, I imagine. Like you're moving at a pretty brisk pace and it's gonna take you a while to get back to Steven's Mansion, townhouse, whatever you wanna call it. But if you arrive and just kind of pound on the door, Abrams would probably open it stiffly like he was before and then realization is gonna hit him and just usher you inside right away. Like, "Come on in, come on, come in." Is this the thing where you're coming into the house and just like yelling, like just like calling out?

- I think so. I think we'd probably be trying to get whoever's attention we could to get whatever assistance they can provide. Gwen'll, I mean, Bo will bust in and say, "There was an accident, Gwen was hurt." - So there'd probably be a couple of seconds 'cause obviously you're not expected, but after a few moments, Warwick is going to kind of storm into the room after like hearing that panic in your voice. And he's going to run over to Gwen. Is Gwen on the ground or are you still holding her? - Still holding her. - Okay, so he's going- - Sort of across her arms.

- Right, okay, so just carrying her in the threshold. Okay, so he's gonna run up to her and like examine her. Like there's a moment where it's like, "Oh, okay, is she just hurt or?" Right, so there's this checking and like he'll feel for a pulse and trying to see any signs of life. And there's a look in his eye that you haven't seen yet because he's a pretty reserved guy, but like there's this pained expression and he's gonna look up to Beau. How long ago was this? - Just moments, we ran right here. - And you're seeing the wheels turning, like he's running over options.

I don't have a healer on payroll who can take care of this for me. I don't know if we could find a volunteer in time is what I'm saying. I don't know if there's much we can do here. - Is there anything? - Is Beau gonna say something? - No, I don't think that was me. Oh, that was me, sorry. - Oh, sorry, okay. - There's nothing you can do. - No, he just sent us out there into that and... - They, every bit of intel I got was they were just, they were just minor characters, thugs. Like I don't understand how this happened. They assaulted you? - There was some fighting, yes, but it wasn't this, it was an accident.

- You could probably see in his eyes, like he wants to follow up on that. It's like, well, where are they? Like they need to be punished type of thing. But like Beau's standing there holding her, like there's just... - I was just gonna say, and as soon as he mentions that there's nothing he can do, Beau is gonna visibly sort of soften and just sort of check out for a few moments. So whatever conversation is happening right now, Beau is not hearing. - He's gonna run a hand through his hair, just very frustrated, just trying to think. And he is going to reach out to Beau and kind of grip her arm a bit.

Just kind of like, it's like, hey, sober up, look at me type of thing. You're not a child. So when I ask you this, I need you to really think about your answer. How much does this mean to you? - Beau's gonna sort of readjust Gwen and her arms so that she's closer and say, it's everything. - I think I have someone who might be able to help us. Just come with me. And he's going to leave kind of like, just let's go. And there's a carriage that is going to be at the ready, basically, but this is on the property. And frantically kind of holding open the doors, like, okay, everybody in, let's load her up type of thing.

And this thing would speed off. And about five minutes later, you would arrive at this older looking cottage, smoke billowing out of the fireplace chimney. And before this thing has already stopped, he's flinging open the door. It's like, let's go, come on. This might as well be like a modern day ambulance type of thing. Okay, come on, come on, come on. And he would be the first person through this door. He doesn't even knock. And you're going to see an older gentleman inside, kind of hunched over, human, and kind of like olive skin, darker complexion. And he is visibly startled at all of this.

And he's going to take this person aside, but very, very much prepping him for what's about to happen. Would you guys follow him in or are you waiting outside? Like kind of, like do manners apply basically? - Paxton would try to, you know, have some manners and wait outside. He would like kind of make it Bo's decision if she wants to go in with her sister. We just wait outside. Paxton is saying he's totally willing to wait outside. (gentle music) - Bo's going in. - Guess we're going in then. - There's going to be that frantic kind of whisper talking, you know, like when couples fight.

And this older man is going to shuffle up to you after, like he's wearing kind of baggy robes. This is like his sweatpants basically. He was not expecting company. Like baggy robes, kind of like a burlap-y material. It's not very fancy at all. And he's going to walk up to Bo, still holding Gwen. I'm told this person means a lot to you. - Yes. What can you do? - Well, I'm no healer, but there is a procedure that's quite experimental. If you're willing to chance it, I could give it a try. - What sort of experiment? - Come, bring her here. I'll show you when I can.

And walking through his, the living area is very, very ramshackle, very like it's, there's papers, straight lines, very ramshackle, very like it's, there's papers, strewn all over. And that's obviously not used very often, but there's this kind of lab area in the back and there'd be a wooden table. He's just going to sweep everything off of it. There's lots of little odds and ends and things, and that's going to clatter to the ground. Yeah, put it here. I was going to lay her down gently. - I've been working on something. It's, I need to stress that it's never been tested, but I might be able to bring her back with some strings.

- Bring her back how? No offense, don't seem like a man of the cloth. - No, I'm Uminiro, originally, archmage for sheer Alakan. And he'll kind of gesture, not to shake hands or anything, just, you know, there's no time for introductions, just that. But she's going to throw a little English on the word archmage, just like, hey, don't question me. Like, I know shit, like that type of thing. Like, it's like, let's cut through it. - I have a PhD. - She's only mostly dead, like very, you know, like, you know. - Yeah. - And while, I'm sorry, while he's talking, he's going to be rooting through papers and boxes and stacks of things.

And he's going to be clearly looking for something. - Oh, yeah, G-L-O, G-L-O kind of looks over at Calypso and says, I don't know that we have a hell of a lot of room to be picky. - No, I just, we should at least know what is going to happen. And they're also going to kind of like look at the commander, captain. I don't know what the right term is. - Mayor. - Mayor, okay, yeah. Sorry, I was thinking of like the, like the not police terms that we're under. - Right, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, like look at him, it's like, he's like, what is this connection? It's like, he was the one that thought of this.

Like what is happening? - Right. - So he's going to, while this guy's absentmindedly like fumbling through things, like he would approach to try and, to try and? - Switch some fears, maybe. - I can vouch for this man. He is, he's helped us immensely in the city from time to time. I mentioned an archmage friend and I've had him working on some things for you. This is much more accelerated than I thought we were going to be on track for, but he knows things, you can trust him. I know he seems a bit unorthodox. - So what is this experiment then? - I'm... - There's going to be this, this triumphant, nah, like the kind of almost, almost Skeletor-esque.

- Yeah, I was just gonna say. - And he's going to be holding up this, this metallic canister. There we are. And he is going to slam it down next to Gwen's body. All right, here's what's going to be happening. This, inside this canister, is something I've been working on for quite some time. It's a bit of a reverse engineered warforged technology. Same general principle, but it's much more elegant in design. It's not so clumsy, over-engineered. This is a living metal. It's been enchanted. It will bond with the first person it touches. It will link with her mind, essentially, and it will artificially keep her alive.

It's not indefinite, obviously. She won't be alive forever, but she should be able to live out the rest of her lifespan, you know, barring any unfortunate accidents. She's not invulnerable. - And it'll work even though she's... - Like, he's going to be kind of like pawing at the body. She's quite fresh. He's not talking about her like a person. It's like a subject, kind of. - Yeah, and just like looking at Bo, 'cause it's like, this is her choice. I mean, she's the person that can give consent here, so. - I will also say that he is prepping things. It's like, all right, let's get started type of thing.

Like, he is ready to go. I don't think he's waiting. So if Bo would have reservations or something like that. - I think Bo, while looking down at her little sister, just wants to ask, and it'll be Gwen, not some undead creature. - Oh, no, madam, this isn't common necromancy. I, I'm insulted that you would even insinuate, but this is going to be Gwen, you said? - Yes. - This is going to be her. Whoever she was when she was alive, it's gonna be her. It's fine. Just, it's fine. Again, almost impatient. Like just, it's like, just, oh my God, your questions. Like it's slowing everything down.

Like it's, yo. - All right, then do it. - All right, I'm going to need everyone to step back at least 10 paces. - Hesitantly, Bo will step back. (chuckles) - He is going to, he is going to attach something to this metal canister and then light it on fire. And he is going to, with all the hustle of an 80 year old man, kind of like, heh, heh, like he's got like a little old man jog across the room to where you guys are, and kind of turn into you guys avoiding, avoiding the, the area with his eyes. And you guys know what thermite is? So it's essentially, so it's essentially something that burns so hot, it just burns straight through metal, that type of thing.

So it's going to resemble that. Like big, big flash, kind of like a really intense sparkler. Very, very bright. - So when that happens, like if everyone's probably like watching this seriously and like, like very, you know, dour and like concern, and Giollo accidentally goes, "Bitchin'." (laughs) - Yeah, I wanted to ask, is Paxon in the room? 'Cause I said I was going to wait outside, but everyone went in. - I would imagine you would even eventually, right? - After like a minute, he was like, "Ah, hmm, I'm just going to let myself in." - You're not a vampire, it's fine.

- I just imagine you slowly inch like, you just kind of creaked open the door a little, kind of let himself in, but he's there now. - So you're going to see this, this kind of like, this big fireworks display in the room. Like it's going to burn bright and then stop. It's only like three or four seconds long. But if you're, if you're looking closely, this metal container's on its side, and what it did was burn through the container itself. And it is going to start to ooze out. This very, this very polished, silvery looking liquid is going to start to pour out onto the table, much like Gwen's blood did earlier with the floor, very similar in terms of, you know, texture.

And it is going to almost be attracted to her body. Like it's moving. It's not leaving a stain or residue. It is, it is like mercury almost. And it is going to touch Gwen's hand. And it is going to start to coat the outside. Not, not a thick coat. Like it's, it's kind of speckled, almost like a, like a honeycomb texture. It is going to go up her arm. And you can see it sort of burrow under the skin a bit. And it's going to coat her body for several seconds. And there's going to be this silence come over the room. And the Sarge Mage doesn't, he's not giving an impression where it's like, and that's it, like that type of thing.

Like he's, he's kind of waiting and looking with you guys. And at one point, he's going to lean over to Beau. I wonder how long this is going to take. Like he doesn't know. - Beau is just going to steady her stance and remain resolute. She's willing to wait as long as it will take. - In the awkward silence you hear. That's it. So you described what Gwen was wearing before. And this, a very interesting thing is about to happen. Almost like a det cord, there's going to be bits of Gwen's, the fabrics she's wearing, the clothing. It's just kind of like, just kind of burn off as electricity, electricity is going to kind of arc all over her body for just a split second.

And Gwen's eyes are going to like snap open and just go. And they're going to dart around kind of one moment. She was in a bar fighting and now suddenly she's here and they're going to, then they're going to lock on to Beau. Beau? - This archmage is going to light up and kind of throw his hands in the air. Yeah, yes. - Beau is going to run over to Gwen, Gwenny and like embrace her on this pedestal table thing. - Table, it's just a wooden table. It's just a work. Yeah, like think of a picnic bench almost like that type of surface. - And maybe with a little bit too much might that Gwen was not anticipating.

Does that hurt? - No, I mean, it's like, okay, well, I mean, look, you still feel feelings, you're you. It's all the same. - I was just, you know, big gaping tummy and then now it's metal and I'm not sure like, does it feel like I just did squats for the first time in a while? - It's a little sore, right? Like it's, you know, I think that is a good time for us to stop for the evening. What I'd like to do is really go into this with some detail the next time we sit down. - Oh my fucking God. - Oh, you get to tell them. - That was so good you guys. - Gwen and Beau get to tell their mom.

- That's good. - Oh my God. - Hey mom, I became RoboCop, I'll call you later. - It's like when you go home and you're like, I got a tattoo, but this time it's like, I got some enhancements. - Like when I had to show Girmi Marsha my pointed ears for the first time. - I kind of died but I got better. I got better. - In the city, do you guys live with your mom? 'Cause that would be pretty jarring just to come home a robot. - Yep. - She's not a robot. - It's, well, the parents. - The term we use is cyborg and- - It's really important. - Is there a name for this class?

- Oh yeah. - The thing I've been toying around with is bion. - Oh my God, I fucking love it. - We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere. This week we're going to be giving you 10 minutes of the behind the scenes audio for episode one of Arc4. If you listen to it and you like what you heard, there's another hour and a half of it over at our Patreon at patreon.com/dandr. - Hey man. - Hey, hey. - What's up? - Ah, I'm so fucking pumped. How you doing? - Doing good, man. - Did you get a different camera? - I did. Well, I'm using the one I usually use for DragonCon.

I started getting withdrawals, not messing with any tech stuff. So I rigged it up. So it's my webcam now. - Oh, nice. Okay. - It's the nicest fucking thing that's ever been in front of my face. - Don't tell your wife that. - Yeah, no, I mean, tech wise, tech wise. - No, it's just his new apartment. - Lindsay says you look like you're buying a green screen. - Oh, thank you. Yeah, no, it's a much nicer place. - It's a nice display, isn't it? - Yeah. - See, something about a nice bookshelf display. You're well lit and everything. - Oh, it's crazy, dude. - Contrasting colors, yellow shirt, purple background.

- I know, it's called power clashing. That's what I'm talking about. (laughing) Oh, I am so pumped for this, man. - Yeah, man, me and Jasper and Xavier have had a separate little chat group going just so we could annoy each other about it without annoying everybody else. - Have you guys been able to get a hold of Valerie and get her in on this? 'Cause I know she's super busy and I've talked to her about a couple of things. - Xavier's been talking to her more than the rest of us. According to him, she says she's ready. I haven't really talked to her too much directly.

- She did roll up her character and stuff and she seemed, she'll say she's not on top of it, but whenever I asked her about something, she's like, "Oh no, she's like-" - She's put thought into it. - Yeah, it's like, "No, no, you've done the work. Beyond playing the game, there's nothing you could do now." 'Cause, you know. - That's cool, yeah. I mean, she always comes equipped. She just likes to pretend like she's not. - I think it's all about setting low expectations. - Yeah, yeah, promise low, deliver high. - Oh man, how's shipping for you? What's going on?

I haven't had a chance to talk to you at all. Like, not about the comic, not about the arc, nothing. - Yeah, it's been busy, man. It's the holiday slide on top of all the 2020 shit. Like, October, Columbus day to New Year's is a shit show every year. We were just talking about it, me and Lindsay, but like, what are we gonna do about the holidays? I can't even think past election day. I don't know how to plan for the holidays this year. - Dude, I, we already talked, it's like, all right, we gotta do like a light Christmas thing 'cause we can't afford to do big Christmas this year.

Like, we gotta get our shit together. It's been a tough year. - Yeah, it's been really wild. But it's been like, part of the-- - Like, every hour scaled back again. Like, it's up and down. - Oh, God, really? - Yeah, it's up and down, dude, we don't know. - Well, good news is, if you guys ever need to expand the operations to a third person, it'd be more reliable employment for her than she's ever had, apparently. - We've honestly talked about it. It's like, I mean, could we? We could maybe do that, right? Like, it's really hard to slack off if you live in the same house.

We found that out the hard way. Like, it's very-- (laughs) - Can't keep checking Twitter all day. You're sitting next to your boss. - How's school and shit? Like, what's going on with that? - I mean, it's fine. Because things are ramping back, I don't know. I haven't been looking at like, state-to-state numbers, but Massachusetts has been slowly going back up, and of course, everybody and their fucking mothers in Salem right now, 'cause it's October. - Oh, yeah. - And that's where Lindsay works, so it's basically a super-spreader event. Like, the city of Salem canceled all of its city stuff.

- Okay. - Private businesses in Salem did not. So everybody's still there, and even if the private businesses is canceled, a bunch of rednecks would still be coming up from Alabama to go stand in front of the Witch Museum and take a picture. They'd be there anyway, you know? - Right. - And not be wearing masks and standing too close to people and stuff. So, like, having to work in Salem during all this is, we're back into like, May-level lockdown, is what it means, really, you know? - I could easily see this going on forever, 'cause we're so dumb, like, as a nation, you know?

- No, no, I mean, yeah. I don't know that we can pretend it'll be over next year, no matter who the president is, you know? - Honestly, though, if it gives us another year of this Jasper hair thing, like, I'm into it. - Is this, I'm not cutting my hair until this is over? - I'm at the stage now where I've gone through all of the levels of grief and all of that. And I've gone past it to the point now where I'm at the level of, hey, is this my new haircut? - It's just acceptance, like, you've just skipped. - That's kinda how I'm bearding, honestly. I put a mask on over my beard the other day and it was down to here below it.

I was like, that's actually, yeah, I don't mind that. That's not too bad. (laughs) - It bugs the hell out of me, man. Like, if I have a long Walmart trip, the recycled air in the beard, and then your beard's wet, and it's like, ugh, I don't like it. - Yeah, it pushes the hair of the beard into your mouth. - Ah, I don't like it. (laughs) - The worst. - Man's gotta have some law. - That's why I don't leave the house. I don't leave the house, I haven't worn anything but pajamas in two months, and I don't like having a beard over my mask, so I just stay home, I stay in the house.

- That's fair. - That's it. - Honestly, this is the most I've dressed up in months. This is topping tails for me, this is it. - I had to put jeans on to go apple picking last week, and I was like, this is terrible. I got bigger. (laughs) I was climbing trees and shit, 'cause all the trees were picked over. I was like, oh, there's some at the top of this tree. Guess I'll go. (laughs) - Wearing this denim prison. - Yeah, I mean, I guess I could've taken 'em off. It was a Wednesday afternoon, just pull my pants down and go climb a tree. - Honestly. - Any chance to pull your pants down?

- Yeah. - Yeah, you know. What's that? First excuse. (laughs) - All right. - How you been, Jasper, what's going on? - Oh man, you know me. Everything's always great with me. Can you hear me okay, by the way? I've got a new mic set up, and I gotta do some stuff. Nobody will be my friend, nobody will listen to me and test my mic out with me. I'll do it. Yeah, dude, you could've just hit me up at any point throughout the week. This is where I am. Right here, this is it, these four walls. That's why I gotta change the colors, 'cause that's the closest I get to going anywhere.

- So give me your, is it-- - I think it sounds a little bassy and muffled. - It's a little underwater, yeah. - Yeah, it's a little, yeah. You sound a little overproduced, if I can give it a term. - Ooh, how meant to be that. Is this better? Is this better? - It's getting better, yeah. - It's getting better, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you're doing, do more of that. - All right, how about, I'm just gonna keep talking. I'm gonna, four score and seven years ago-- - That's good, that's great. - Our fathers, fathers, our fathers. - Our fathers, our fathers, what do they do?

They did some shit. What have you done? No, before there was, it was so bassy, there's like a buzz behind it. - Ooh. - And you have a naturally soothing voice and we wanna kick the arc off with that to calm everybody down. - You want me to do the let's go around the table? I can do that. 'Cause it's gonna be not yours, it's gonna be mine. - No, you're running the show now. - Let's go around the table. Oh, my kids wanted me to tell you before we started anything that they figured out what your name should be. - Oh no. - 'Cause Jason's unacceptable because my name is Jason.

- That's fair. - They want you to be Jasper. - I'll be Jasper? Well, that doesn't make any sense. I'd be Jazz Mass. That's terrible. - Also acceptable. - That's, yeah. (laughing) - Oh no. Our first episode of the arc drops election night eve. - Ooh, okay. - Well, good, 'cause I'm gonna be super drunk. - I don't know what that means, but it's, I-- - Yeah, I'd rather listen to that than pay attention to anything else. - Yeah, wait, election night eve. That's a-- - That's Monday. - Hi, buddy. - Oh, you're right. - That's two, that's the second. - Why don't you get started drinking on Sunday?

- Yeah, that's, I think it should be an all week affair, honestly. - So, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna test my microphone situation one more time. - Dude. - I'm gonna continue to talk and I'm gonna do the eyeglass thing, better or worse. - Sure. - Better or worse. So, I'm gonna continue to ask if this is better, maybe better, maybe better, or is this better? Is this better or is this worse? Can you tell a difference at all? - It's getting a little worse now. I think it was better the way you were turning it before. - A little worse now. How about, does this feel a little bit better, a little bit nicer, fricative stops?

- Right now, very NPR. - Okay, excellent. - That's not good or bad. I'm just letting you know. - That's my character. - Soothing, it's soothing. - Great, thank you. You know what I was doing, audio geeking out, 'cause I'm not an audio geek, but I want to be, but I don't have any money to do that. So, I looked up ways to basically hack having a preamp. - I see you got your XLR connector there. You're not doing USB, baby. You got it going. - Oh no, but this has always been the case. - Right, but I'm saying like you, I've never got a good look at your setup. - Yeah, so this is it.

But I found a way to hack getting a preamp, so I don't have to have like a big Yamaha board with all kind of shit on it. Anyway, we can talk about it later. - Do you know how many, so okay. One of my favorite things is going on YouTube and looking at people who give, like start your own podcast tutorials and tell people to get $700 in equipment to have, fuck it. It's like, dude, I started with a rock band microphone. Just fucking like, look, get something that records audio, see if you're good at it and enjoy it. Then start spending a little money here and there.

And you could drop a hundred bucks and get a primo microphone these days. Yeti just put out a new one. I got the Hypercast. They're all a hundred dollars. They all sound fantastic. - So Anna has been doing stuff for her work where she's interviewing people. And of course during the pandemic, it's even worse with people being remote. So for her job, she actually now has three or four super nice mics and these Lume Cube things where you stick it on your laptop or on your computer and it has like a light on it. So she just basically mails those out to people.

So I get to test them out a little bit. - Nice. - Which is what I'm doing right now on NPR. - That's, I'm just gonna, it's like, let's do that thing where we go around the table. Oh, super super. - If it's gonna be real NPR, we should just do it this way. - Yeah, not even enthused a little bit. - Let's go around the table and introduce ourselves. - Um, starting with Xavier. - I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. - Val. - Hi. - My God. (laughing) - I got confused when I saw who was in the call. - Holy shit, you got the mics? We're rocking the mics? I thought your generation drank White Claw.

- Uh, I definitely do. My friend bought this for me because there was no White Claw left in the store. (laughing) - Mike's discount White Claw. - Yeah, but this was my original go-to drink before White Claw. - Yeah. - Thank you all so much for listening to the episode. We really hope you enjoyed it. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us and share this with your friends over on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, whatever you use, just spread the word. We really just thrive on that, to be honest. That's how we get new listeners is your word of mouth.

Thank you all so, so much, and we'll see you next week with a brand new episode and a brand new group.