Good Talk

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Fearless. Innovative. Connected. UC Riverside. Bold hearts. Brilliant minds. Howdy everybody. Welcome to the newest episode of the Dungeons & Randomness podcast. As you can tell, I am not the voice that generally graces your ears at the start of these episodes. Do not worry. This episode is the same crew you know and love. I'm just here to let you all know that Jason is feeling pretty under the weather right now. He has been feeling that way for a few weeks. He actually mentioned it at the end of that Firebrand session that came before this. Pneumonia is no joke and unfortunately Jason isn't great at taking care of himself.

That's where the cast and I come in. And we're doing our best to force him to get some bed rest and just try to relax. Unfortunately that may mean that we won't have an episode this coming Monday or the Monday following that. Because our DM can't play sessions while he's coughing his lungs out. Even though he did try. Fortunately we do have a Patreon filled to the brim with lots and lots of bonus content if you feel like you miss us far too much. We will still try to get episodes out to you guys but if we do miss a week, now you know why. Thank you for indulging me and listening to my voice even though we all hate change.

Jason will be back as soon as he's feeling better but you'll get to hear past Jason right after these messages. Let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason, I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table, starting with Karen. Say something for yourself, Karen. Hi, I'm Karen. And I play Dauphine. I guess, oh my god. Guys, if you don't normally listen to the behind the scenes, you might want to listen to this one. Because apparently we have a lot of stuff to work out, all of us as a group. I'll see you for therapy next month.

I would just take the state for the record that I love my job and I love my husband and I love my child. And that's it. Okay. That's it. And Michael. Hey, I'm Michael and I'm back. I play Takkar, the Barbarian Bard Minotaur, who's somewhere. We're gonna get to it. We're gonna get to him and his clickety-clack dinkle-dangles. And Mandy. Hi guys! Mandy and I play Lee Argent, the human fighter who does not have clickety-clacks. Mandy currently teaches a sex ed class at the Y. This is very informative. Keep your dingle-dinklies clean so you don't have the dingleberries.

Oh my god. Again, not related. No, it's not. I just... That's enough. Mandy was asking us questions about testicles and the lack of knowledge is stunning. Yeah, they're weird, but like... I don't like the end, Jason. Okay, okay. I'll just like see you in the health class. I... Okay, here's the thing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, I still have a general knowledge. It's not alien. I'm really good at sleeping through class. Just saying. I was. So, you know. I like that she just... It's like, "I'm never gonna need to know this." It's like French. When is that gonna come up?

And Alex. Hi, I'm Alex. I play Tobin, the tiefling monk. I'd like to say that I have... I'm completely comfortable with everything that happened. I love Peaches and Cream. I'm a huge fan of the song. I prefer if we didn't refer to testicles as "Dingle Dangle Kick Flax." Yeah, I feel like there's a little... Yeah, a little respect on that. Put some respect on the name, okay? Put some respect on the sack. Like, let's... Yeah. Life is one half into sack. And I let that marinate with everybody for a little bit. But don't marinate. You're clicking the box. But don't marinate your sack.

How are you just like, "Oh, man..." Okay. All I could think about was half the time I'm just sleeping. Like, that's what I got out of that. I'm down. So, Theriathon. Man, I'm glad we didn't do this thing that we just did during Theriathon. A live mic in front of this crowd. Man, I don't know how you guys kept it together. Liabilities. Didn't want them to take us down. The end of the last session, we kind of... We kind of left things a little bit open. But I want to bring Tuck back into things. So, do you guys want to go to sleep for the night? Yes. I think so.

Or at least retire for the evening. What was the last thing we did? The last thing you guys did were... Well, one, you were talking about the Githzerai situation. And then the option of doubling your money, thanks to Mandi drawing a card, was on the table. So then you started thinking about, "Well, maybe a heist is the thing to do." But it's a little meta. But then also there's a thing that happened on Olara that we saw across the ocean. Yeah, yeah. It's big. It's a bigger thing. It's big. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Big column of light. Big stuff with gods. By the way, we're going to be answering all your questions about the gods and living in Theria this month, because you guys have a lot of questions.

And rightfully so. That's fair. That's fair. Okay, I remember. And then there's something about my notes that says there's a big dog jumped onto the ship. Oh, yes. Luna. Yeah. Who the hell drew that? That's me. That's Mandi. That's Mandi's dog. Lee. Not my problem. Okay. Yeah, that's not my dog at all. So let's do this. It's evening. Things are winding down. This was the ninth of Rangway. And let's say the clock ticks over to the tenth. It's after midnight. Somewhere in there. You're going to spot a naked minotaur off the side of the ship on the docks, moving slowly, but totally conscious and moving.

Not running. But kind of if you had to put a term to it, maybe walk of shame, though I don't know if he feels shame about it. It's more just like, well, this is where I live. Dingle dangles in the breeze. And it's evening time, right? So it's like things are winding down. Oh, yes. No, yeah. Evening wise, yes. So I guess Tobin would see this and he would just have like this huge sigh of relief. Like, "Whew. Hey." And he'll try to walk down the little plank to meet Tuck on the docks. Where the hell have you been? Out. Tobin gives him like a kind of a once over scan look at him.

Look at his face. Do I notice anything different about him besides the fact that he's just butt naked right here? He looks like he's been out for a while. Like, just like, like he might need a shower type of thing. Like maybe he ran through bushes or like little brambles stuck in the fur type of thing. Like he doesn't look bruised or beat up. Just like, it's like, man, you had a day. Like, I don't know what you did. But by the way, Mandy's correct. It is now the thirteenth. I, uh, that's my bad. Thirteenth of Renway. Yep, yep, yep. I forgot about the weekend.

That lost weekend. The weekend at Renway. Tuscany. Tobin will, I guess, just kind of put a hand on Tuck's shoulder, his arm, because he's very tall. And say, hey, hey, hey, it looks like you could use a nap or a big long sleep for like a day. Yeah, I think I need to go rest. Okay. I'll try not to make this a thing, but it sometimes happens. Hey, you know what? You look good and you look good doing it. And I kind of just like, you know, scan him up and down. And now I wouldn't be surprised if you got some letters from, you know, some people trying to cash in on this fortune, this bounty.

No, it's itchy. Okay. Try and guide him back onto the ship. Michael. Yes. Could you do me a favor? Sure. On a scale of one to ten. No! Uh oh. Ten being its dragon on the plank on the way up to the ship. That's unhealthy and dangerous for his health. Yes. No, I agree. There's splinters. And one being. You'd have to trim back fur to see it. What's Tuck packin'? I want you. Here's the thing. I want you to give me a d10 plus three because you're a minotaur and not to stereotype, but you know. Evolution would dictate that the strongest minotaurs would survive. Oh, yeah. Jesus Christ.

Okay. So no, just like my health points. Haha! Tuck's not tuckin' it back, if you know what I'm saying. So, uh, Tuck's got. There's a proud gate as he struts back onto the ship. I would be too. Um, so that's that's a man who can come and go as he pleases. Oh my God. Just got to take the bull by the horns, you know. Well, I mean, this bull's got three, so. Fuck, he could steer the ship with that. Um, let's, let's. I'll go twelve for everybody. Let's. Broke the meter. So Delphine and Lee, not about the other thing, but like Tuck being back, like, what's the, like.

How are they feeling? Was it like, oh no, he's gone or it's like, I'm sure he'll show up. Like, who's going to hurt Tuck or is it like. Oh, no, like, he could just sprint forever in a direction. Like, how are you feeling? I feel like Delphine wasn't too worried. Like, he wasn't chased out of town or anything like that. I think the biggest concern was like, oh, maybe he might not be able to find his way back. Like a lost, like a lost puppy, you know, like. But now he's back. She's like, all right, shit, like, let's fucking do shit now. Yeah, Lee was feeling the same thing.

Like, if he comes back, he comes back. If he doesn't, oh no. How sad. Because actually she is cold blooded. She's like, if he is stupid enough to get lost, you know, good riddance. But he'll find his way back because he's a giant thing and somebody will steer him our way, whatever. But then with the things going on, she's she got more and more worried, just like, where is the fucker? He needs to be here now so we can go, kind of thing. Well, it's it's got to feel nice to know that even though he was nude, he's never unarmed. So like, it's not like he's, you know, like he's got some kind of defense.

I'm just doing it now to get the reaction out of Karen. This is worse than any of the Roland flirting. OK, OK. This is why the goth chick at the brothel just, you know, there was no problem. Yeah. All this, you know what? This is got to be part of the arc, right? Like it's part of the character arc. Like I'm getting things now. Like it's like, oh, Jesus, we all should have saw this coming. So like we, you know. I want to do I want to do a thing. I need one of you to give me a flat D20 roll, please. You know what, Michael, I think it should be you. You're you're coming back at it.

Yeah, why not? How about that? Eight. Eight is fine. Eight is great. We're going to pocket that eight and come back to it. So you're all going to settle down and you're going to get some sleep and you're going to wake up the next day to this large dog working at passers by just big like it's throaty and yelpy at the same time. This dog is going to vocalize a lot, just just that shit like off to the side right next to Lee's ear, right next to it. And then every once in a while, she's going to run and jump and just push all her weight down on Lee. Just like boom right in the fucking face, like over and over again until you get up.

And Lee, I mean, she already wakes up early because she's getting up there and doesn't sleep well. And also thinks that she was worried. So but she will wake up to this dog breath and just stare at it. And then just like she's still waking up, just like, what the fuck is going on? Like, why is there and just shove it away, just like get the fuck away from me, mangy beast. That will do nothing. So this dog, you're going to push it away. And now you're playing. You didn't know it, but now you're playing. You've engaged. So this dog is just going to like it looks like it's smiling perpetually.

Vacant stare, smiling, loves you unconditionally. This is this is the next four hours of your life. So it's either play or feed it. Oh, God. And so she will just shoulder her way up, get up and what's the name of the cute one that that runs around, does things for Karen? Adelbert. She will just be like, Adelbert, get your ass here. She's you know, he will like it's not like it's. I don't know. We talk to employees, Mandy. You guys are going to run out of employees. God, like it's like turnaround time on this. Yeah, I'll just ask Jonas if he's got any friends.

Just go with you some more. Oh, yeah, that's what you need is like a Jonas. Every time you're looking around, like, you know, you have a crew, but they're invisible like they're like. So, yeah, Adelbert, what Adelbert will come over there like a little like, oh, no, like just like he's like it's like I'm late all of a sudden I'm being yelled at. What is it? What is this motherfucking dog doing here and why is it not leaving me alone? What? Well, I it's quite cute. It seems to have taken a liking to you. She just kind of stares at him, unamused. Just get rid of it.

How? Take it. I don't care. Get it away from me. And it's probably like loving on her. And she's just standing there like. Yeah, as you're standing there and not like if you're if you got like your arms folded, not looking at it, it freaks this dog out. Not looking at it. Makes it question its own reality. Like it's like, am I real? Oh, God. So it's going to stand up and it's almost as tall as Lee. So it's going to just place its arms right on your shoulder like it's giving you a big old hug and it's big, big dumb head is just going to be ramming into you over and over again.

And it can do this all day. But Lee is unamused and just staring at Adabert like, fix this now. And like as you're mean mugging him, it's like like just this tongue is just like all over your face. It's like, oh, like it's it's it's very tough to keep a keep a straight face. So Adabert's like, let me. OK, I'll find a bone and just trying to like lure it away because Adabert's going to go to reach for for this pooch and try to pull. And this dog is going to aggressively pull the other way, like twofold. So whatever Adabert's putting into it muscle wise, this dog easily compensates and just leans in to Lee.

I want to say I love my dog. It's just cheese. This is all true. Everything about this is true. Just just just sigh of, oh. What do you feed the cat? Go get some and maybe it'll leave me alone. Yeah. OK, OK. Give me give me a moment. He's going to let go of the dog because it's that's that's a lost cause. So he's going to take off and go find Delphine and Gilbert. Take some of Gilbert's food, I guess. How much would you say Gilbert eats in a day? He's a dire cat. So probably a couple of pounds of food. Easy. Sure. He's also a big, fat, dire cat, too. Yeah, I feel like he never kind of never really stops eating.

It's yeah, he's just kind of a razor. Like there's just always food in his body. He's that well taken care of. It's like, I'll just come back in a few minutes and get some. It's also one of those cats that like takes like a mouthful and then brings it somewhere else to eat it and then comes back and grabs another mouthful and then goes somewhere else to eat it. So there's just cat food crumbs everywhere. Right. My dog literally does that. It is so like like. All right. Here's the food. I'll turn around, take a few steps and go into the living room and then it'll be like, why is there dog food on my floor?

And then he'll run by and just eat it up. And I'm like, oh, my God. I walk away and there's really the other part is he'll go and leave it, but he'll leave it in two places, go back to the first place to eat it, then go. Just eat your food at the food bowl, please. No dice. Yes, I failed that D20 roll. So. What would Delphine object to? To the taking of some of this food? Would she care? I feel like if he just took like a bowl, that's fine. Also, I don't feel like the food is kept like in her quarters. So like, would she even know? I mean, I don't know. Like.

Where would it be kept if not in her quarters, if this cat's always eating, someone got to visit your quarters five or six times a day to just refill the trough. But I also feel like the cat has like free reign of the ship, too. So like, what if there's like just like a bowl in the kitchen that's just constantly getting refilled? There's satellite bowls? A network of? It's part of Adelbert's rounds in the morning. He just goes around with a giant bag of kibble and just fills every single one. Yes, that's fair. And one morning he missed one of the bowls and Gilbert would not stop following him around until he figured out which bowl he missed.

Wow. I love how much of a session is us finding out what doesn't work properly on this ship. And it's usually people. It's not the ship. The ship's fine. So we got a we got a little meet up here going on. I imagine there's the big team meeting. What do you guys want to do here? Because you're running out of time. The gifts are I got to be dealt with. There's a big ass column of light coming off off the coast. Talks back. Featuring pants. Featuring pants. And the time has just got to be free, you know. It's a bad meeting. Oh, God. So, yeah. What do you guys want to do here?

I'll hand the MC duties over to Karen because she runs team meetings in real life and fantasy. Can't get away from it. Cool. I didn't have my spreadsheets prepared for this. Didn't do a PowerPoint presentation. So, I mean, first things first, I would like to recognize that Tuck is back. I got food in my hand and I'm like, I'm Tuck. That's me. I mean, definitely, definitely be like, what were you doing yesterday? I just really want to know. I don't really care. I just really want to know. You see, you know how I get angry sometimes and like, really angry? Sometimes.

There's like, I don't know if it's a time thing, but it's the opposite. And I have all these emotions and I get upset and angry and sad and I don't really remember much, but it happens sometimes after I haven't, you know, I've had like an episode of being really, really angry. And then, and so then I would just go and then find a place to relax in the best way I can. All right. That was a really great non-answer. Thank you. Tobin, what about the being naked part? Is that part of it too? It felt really itchy. Okay. So normally when you do this, because I've never seen you do this, but when you do this, pants are optional.

Pants? Like I said, I go, instead of being really, really angry, it's everything else. And I think it's because maybe I'm not angry enough. Or maybe I'm too, or I have too many anger. I don't know. I just know that when it happens, it's all just wrong. Sure. I mean, yeah, I get that. You know, sometimes I think pants are wrong too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's fine. And he just leans against the wall again. No, no, please. He's like, oh, Tobin gets it. Tobin gets it. And he's just like, no, no, please pants. Pants next time as the dog licks her. Tobin sees this. Yeah, I got a point of order here, boss.

Raises his hand. As you're in the captain's quarters, this small room, it's just like the deepest breaths and the breath doesn't stink. But you can feel the humidity rise in the room because it's just, it doesn't stop. This dog has three coats on and it is warm outside and it is never cool enough in this room. So Tobin says, yeah, I got I got something, boss. Point of order here. I didn't know we were allowed to have pets. Even if it's a dog. Our boss literally has a cat. Well, I mean, that's the boss. I'm not going to say, hey, you can't. You have a pet. That's not how it works.

That's not how business works. Come on, Lee. Come on. And he kind of goes like, come on, you're smart. You know that. But, you know, if you get a dog, can I get a bird or something? You could have this dog. No, I don't want the dog. No, no. If you want a pet, you can have a dog. No, you chose wisely. I got to say it's a beautiful dog, but that's just not my style. Birds and lizards. That's more my thing. I did not choose this. Just dog is like, love eyes. And she's just like, huh? You're going to hear a loud crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch as Luna eats all of Gilbert's food.

It's all gone and then flips the bowl over and then wanders up to Lee and just and it sits down right in front of Lee, like gazing up at her. What are we doing now? Like, just like. So then looks at that, then back to the captain. You know what? Redacted. I don't want a pet. Doming's going to like open one of the windows in her room. I feel like there's like a couple big windows in the back or something. And she's going to be like, listen, if you want to take care of it, I don't care. As long as it's like not going to take up significant room on the ship.

Do whatever you want. I mean, boss, if you don't want me to have it, I can also get rid of it. Just like glare at the dog. I mean, it's up to you if you don't want it. You don't have to. You don't have to have a dog. Like, I thought that the dog was here because it was your dog. And she just closes her eyes and then looks at the dog trying to get the willpower to maybe throw the dog outside. But just like. I mean, whatever you want to spend your money on, you know. And she'll just close her eyes just like, oh, no, I don't need this right now. Why? Could you imagine being a sucker enough to spend money on that?

That's just. Don't tell that because I don't talk about how much money I spent on this cat behind me. She's being so cute right now. Look at that. Yeah, that's because she's like, I'm done being a terrible fucking monster. She was like laying on her back upside down earlier. Yeah, I finished. She's like, I haven't finished being a fucking torment. This is OK. I can't rest now. I already shit on the floor. Yeah, I shit on the floor earlier. Maybe tomorrow. Throw up or something. I'm just not seeing these ridiculous dog pictures. And it made me. I'm trying to capture the essence until I can upload real photos and artwork.

That's the derp one. I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's such a derp. I want to know. I want to know how the Luna Gilbert reaction or like a situation. Do they just don't care about each other? Oh, I didn't want to take over the scene. It's coming. Oh, OK. Great. I'm waiting. Yeah, I think it would point to the to the ivory dagger that he got. He says, oh, by the way, I was walking. I don't know if I told you, I was walking in the city yesterday and I almost got I don't want to say assaulted, but I almost got, you know, jumped by some gets right. Probably about our deal, but they know what's going on.

And then I met some of those dudes I suggested earlier that we hire if we're going to use them for stuff. Ray and his boys, very top caliber, top shelf gentleman. I'll add that in there. But also somebody threw this at me. He's going to have dagger on his hand and just spinning it, spinning it around. There's another one that threw at me. Kind of goes into his pack and he pulls up the ebony dagger and he spins that around as well on his other hand. Yeah. Needless to say, my backpack was destroyed. So I have to buy a new one. Do they charge that to the company for hazards or is that is that not covered?

Anyways, puts the daggers away. There's a lot of heat on us. I'm not used to this much heat. We kind of need to deal with this Gisarae thing. Also, and he'll look at Lee. I mean, we promised we'd find a way to get word to your wife. So, you know, I part of the crew, I'm down to do that as well. It's just that there's a lot of things on the docket and I'm not used to having this many responsibilities and or work. So it's a little overwhelming for me. So, you know, Captain, if you don't mind giving us a priority list that way, you know, I don't feel as stressed out.

I think that would help. I'm just going to give Tobin a look when he says I don't really work that much. He didn't say that. I mean, he did. But like, not in those words. What he said, if you boil it down. Yes. Correct. God, I don't even know where to go from there. I mean, yeah, she's going to like look at over look to Lee afterward and just ask her like what we should definitely find a way to get in contact with your family. And then like back to Tobin, do you because you're the expert of this area here, do you know someplace we could start with like a message?

I mean, you're our guide for this continent. And Jason Craig, my wrong his message been removed from the Therian spell this. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I believe altered. I think so. Is there a range on it now? Which one is message? 25 words or less to any creature on the same plane of existence. Let me see something real quick. Okay. If it's not, if it's changed, then that changes my answer. Massage. That's how you spell that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Message is one hundred and twenty feet. That's that's base. I didn't do that. I know. I think it's sending to me. Sending is what you're thinking of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me see. Hold on a sec. Sorry. Sorry. No, you're fine. You're going to I can do all of these stuff. Sorry. You can do any setting. It's a cleric spell. Oh, that's right. Let me let me look into that just to make sure. But yeah. Yeah, let me look at the component looking at the official. Oh, is it one of those ones that cost component money to do it? I'd probably. Well, we better have. I mean, you just got paid plenty of money. You're good. Boss has money. No, but the possible you're basically using the services. I'm pretty sure she's going to charge you.

You have to be familiar with the creature. Oh, sending is removed. That sounds like me. OK, that makes sense. I hope it's there. From the new list. Yeah, the any removed anything. It's on that list. Yeah, line 67. Tobin will say, well, I mean, I remember hearing stories about these structures. I don't know what you'd call them. But they could be powered by very powerful magic guys. Not nice. I don't do that. And you could go from one of these things to another. I don't know where it is exactly here, but I've heard, you know, people take expeditions to go look for it.

I don't know if it's active. Like, I know you need someone that's, you know, pretty heavy on juice magically. And but it's worth a shot. I'm not sure where it connects to. I mean, anywhere could be closer and he kind of thinks about it. Well, actually, no, because then it could be farther also. But anyways, that's probably our best bet. Besides taking the boat and going back and just dropping all of our potential fortune here. Jason, how widespread is the knowledge that the gates are open now? It's getting there. Like, they're so out of the way that it's probably still at rumor stage.

You know what I mean? So it's one of those things where if you give me, give me a wisdom check, like a streetwise thing, we'll see if we can. Wisdom check. It'd probably be like a 16 or 17. You'd know a little something. A little something something. Ah, damn it. Oof! We're at two. I know. Gates, what? I never heard of that. So I think we will just be listening to this. It sounds like it's the only option other than taking a boat back that would take, what, two months? Three months? A while. Boss, can... Will you be okay with me? I want to check with my contacts at the brothel and maybe they'll have some information.

I really just need to hear something. Something went down on the continent and it could have hit directly on them. It could be anywhere else, but not knowing is going to kill me. Yeah, we can look into it. I can, I could also do something. You wouldn't be able to interact with them at all or... I can, I can, is Scrying removed? I don't know. Scrying isn't a list in front of me. I probably should have left. Scrying isn't a list. Scrying isn't a list of good things you can do. It's good things? Okay. I can, I can scry on them so we can at least see if they're okay or not.

That, that would be amazing. Yes. How would, do you need anything? Sure do. Do you need to hold hands or? We're going to have to make a trip into town to visit some, probably the jewelers, I think. They might have something. Do you think some of the jewelers' Gitz arrives? They were elf? Yeah, they're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not. Because here's the thing, everything's pretty much neutral there. There are people who sell goods for both sides, but they don't own shops. Gotcha, gotcha. They come into town and set up shop and they leave. Right. It's like a little cart or something, or they just work with retailers already.

So if you have a weaponsmith or someone who just sells general goods, it's like, look, we'll stock both. We can't refuse either. It's just, but it has to be equal. Like you can't give the lion folk a one wall and then dedicate a tiny corner to the Gitz arrive. You can't, like, it's all got to be neutral no matter what you feel. Gotcha. Okay. So while you're talking, every time Lee isn't speaking and someone else starts to speak, Luna's just going to go, like, like over you almost. And then finally, Karen, can I get a dexterity save, please? Oh, this is my good one.

Yes. Fantastic. Woo! Fourteen. Thank God. Minus three. Negative three. Jesus. So, um, good job. So, eventually, after all the food is eaten and the bowls have been flipped over and she drinks water out of a dish loudly for a good five minutes straight. Luna's going to spot Gilbert, get bored and leap at Gilbert. Now, you don't get the sense that she's trying to hurt Gilbert, but she is trying to put Gilbert in her mouth. What the next step is, I don't think she has planned, but definitely wants to do that. So you're going to dodge out of the way of of Luna leaping at Gilbert and Gilbert taking his massive dire cat claws and using you as a grip to leap out of this window.

And Luna is going to stand on top of Delphine and like shove her big dumb head out the window and then just kind of sit back down on Delphine. Wow. Oh, my God. I was a gremlin in the picture, too. Um. Now, I want you to look at those eyes in that picture. And you tell me if those eyes are ever thinking more than three seconds ahead of the actions that they're taking currently. Because they're not. They are not. Uh, Delphine is going to push Luna off of her and look to Lee. Like, we should get like a leash or something. Um, I don't want to hold Gilbert up in this room all the time because, you know, he was here first.

This is his ship or whatever. But that is probably going to keep happening. And we need to establish, I think, boundaries. And Lee was frozen for a bit just because like, this had no... She has no experience with dogs. So she's just like, what is going on? And just she'll... Boss, I'm so sorry. I'm helping her up. And we'll just grab the dog by... Is that a scruff you get or is that a cat thing? They do. No, no. Okay. Grab the dog by the scruff and just be like, motherfucking dog, get over here. And we'll just hold on to with an iron grip the rest of the time, even if it goes...

No, no, no, no. Because you're engaging. So she's just looking up like... Like big smile, big dumb smile on her face. It's like, yay. Like to think this is when it dawns on Tuck and he goes and leans over at Toby and said, when did Lee get a dog? He'll look at him. Oh man. You know what? Yesterday was a really weird day. I don't know. It was very strange. But yeah, I think she bought it in the town. I don't know. She bought it yesterday, I guess. And then it got delivered to the boat because it just jumped on the boat randomly yesterday. This is not my dog. Holding the dog as it seizes lovingly at her.

Just like... Tuck tries to get close to the dog to see what happens, if there's any reaction between him and if the dog has any reaction. Luna would absolutely just start sniffing Tuck. There's lots of... Pardon. There's lots of nooks and crannies because like the fur has smells. So it's just nose deep everywhere. And then she tried to lick your face and that would be it. Then it's back to Lee. But basically it's like, bro nod, you're cool. Seems like a chill dog comes back and says, "Next to Toby." And then Tuck will actually lean back to Toby and say, "Hey, did you know if the other boat had the passenger we were talking about?" Oh.

I was kind of out of it the other day so I didn't check. Yeah, I think I needed to talk to the guy. Toby remembers suddenly, "Oh shit." Like I was supposed to talk to him. You know what? I'll put a hand on it. I'll get someone to handle that. Don't worry about that. That'll be taken care of. I just have my back. Of course, man. Come on. Then I'll just look. I'll give him like a pound and then I will look back at Lee with the dog and address what she said earlier. Well, it can't be our dog. We're not the ones holding it. We should just be holding this dog. Just kind of give up on life and just sit down and just holding this dog like, "Ugh." It goes so much quicker that way if you just give up.

It's so, it's just easier. You're going to get a knock on the door from the outside and Adelbert's going to poke us at it. Miss Delphine? Yes, Adelbert? You have a visitor. Should I show them in or tell them to wait? Who is it? He's going to like slide in and just kind of like- Ask for that. He didn't want to be rude to the person out there, but he didn't want to overstep and just become part of the- Oh shit. All right. Yes, no, they're here. It looks like one of the Gisserai people. It looks like a messenger. It didn't come armed or anything like that. I checked for weapons.

Delphine cracks his knuckles and stands that attention immediately. The hero's breathing kind of gets a little more shallow. So it's just a messenger? This is not a general or something like that? No, it didn't look armed at all. It said he had a message for the crew of the Brutus. So I figured it was okay. He sort of just walked on the ship, by the way. I didn't invite him. Interesting how that happened when we have drills about security on the ship. Right? Do we? And I looked around at the crew. Right? Do we have something in place for this? I thought Lee was in charge of security.

Oh! I look at Tobin and look at Lee. Somebody's too busy petting dogs today to take care of us. Lee, is that what we're worried about now? Lee has given in and is petting the dog like, you know, the evil... You two are my security asshole. I can't beat security everywhere all the time, Lee. Okay, okay. It's fine. We will hash it out afterwards. Maybe our guest doesn't need to hear us. Are you amongst ourselves? No, no arguing. Window's wide open, by the way. We're arguing. This is a discussion. We're having a great time. Tobin's gonna look to Adelbert. Just let him in.

It's fine. Tobin has ivory in his hand like he's clutching it. Oban is still eating. Before Adelbert leaves, he's gonna lean down and like pet, pet, and then just go away. So he's gonna open the door kind of wide and let this messenger in. Dressed very, very crisp, very prim and proper. And he's going to walk into the room and sort of look around and then look down at the dog. And then look at Delphine. I take it you're the captain? Yes, I am. You are? My name isn't important. I was sent to deliver a message. I don't wish to have this be abrasive, but your time is up.

I was sent to tell you to meet the group outside of town like you agreed and discuss your leaving. Or, at the very least, getting rid of your weapons. Personally, it's none of my business. I'm just the messenger. But kind of like Snidely saying that? See, I don't recall agreeing to any of that because frankly I wasn't there. It's kind of rude to have a conversation without the person in charge, right? Well, if you wish, I could tell them to come here. And the way he's... he's just kind of... he's kind of giving you a look like you wouldn't like that. It's vaguely threatening.

It's kind of... it comes off as protection money almost. Like, it's very... Delphine's going to shake her head, like, "No, that's not really necessary." I just want to make sure that your boss knows that anything that was agreed upon before, we're going to have to talk about again because, as I said, the boss wasn't there. So while sometimes my associates can speak for me, this is not a subject that they were authorized to do so for. So what message should I return? Just like very, just very shitty customer service. Just kind of like, "Not my problem." Where was the meetup site again?

It's about two miles south of town. Is that within the borders, Jason? It's within the neutral zone, yeah. Okay, okay. It's outside of town. And what time were they looking at? One hour from now. That doesn't really work for me. Oh my god. He's being a bitch! Somebody be a bitch! No, he is! He's... Look, guess where I could be snide? They're very... I'm just matching the energy here. That's fine. That's good. Yeah, I have some things that I actually need to take care of first thing this morning. So I can meet them in about three hours. And then we can kind of discuss it because I understand that you, like my associates, are not authorized to speak for your superior.

So just let them know that in three hours time we can meet up at the designated meetup spot. And then we can discuss further. He's gonna pull out at you. And he's going to, he's going to like, just like dust off the front of his jacket, smooth out the thing, and then sit down. And kind of like, "Okay." Since he's being such a bitch, well he's gonna kick it before he sits down. Wow. Okay, let's do that. Okay. I'm gonna have him do a dexterity save then. And um... He's gonna like somersault away. Wow. He's actually gonna spin the chair around and sit on it backwards like a cool kid.

Ahhh. So that's a 20. He's going to... Man, you just want to dump this guy's books, but like he, like he smooths out his jacket, you go to kick it, and he'll just like boom, like grab the side of the chair and smooth it back in. You should watch those big clumsy feet of yours. And he's going to like dead on look at Delphine. You're not from around here, and I'm going to do you a favor. I would take this negotiation, and he's gonna do like little air quotes much more seriously. Whatever you and your crew have going on. This is your highest priority. And then he's going to start to stand up, and he's going to knock on Delphine's desk.

Ahhh. Now, if there's nothing further, I'll deliver your message back to my superior officer. I hope he does that with his glasses. Yeah. [Laughter] I think she'll just let him walk away like that. Okay. That's fine. I will not be intimidated. [Laughter] I will not let my anger make me say anything foolish. I don't have to have the last word. But I kind of want the last word. Yeah, you do. [Laughter] Ah, so he's... Well, no, maybe he won't. What are you going to do? I was going to say, if he's leaving... He is leaving. When he's halfway out the door, she's like, "I'll see you in two hours." Mmm.

There'll be like a... Okay, so he's closing the door, then there's a hesitation, and it's just going to slide the rest of the way closed. Like... [Sigh] Mmm. We died, guys. I'm so sorry. Oh, I hope we get to at least stab him. Yeah, one of them's going to go down for sure. Could you repeat what you said in chat? Me? Oh. Yeah, I was ready to say, "Let's propose a deal." But there's such ginormous cunts. Fuck them. I had a proposal be like, "Come on, guys. Let's..." No, I... Mmm-mmm. Nope. Cunts. So we're shifting the balance, is what I'm hearing. I mean, I just... [Sigh] I feel like if, uh, after he leaves, Delphine's just going to look at them and just...

You know, I get it. Like, they're a pretty big time here, but we run a business, I'm running a business. I cannot let people intimidate me into doing what they want, because then my business would never get off the ground. Just so everyone's clear on, like, the attitude. Uh, can I get an insight check from everybody? Okie dokie. You too? Yeah, he even took. [Laughter] Fourteen. Oh. Fourteen. Ok. Lee and Tobin, fourteen. And... wow. Wait. Yeah, ok. Jesus. Yep, wow. Yep. Zero is my modifier. Hey, but eleven's not bad, though, zero. No! That's good. And it's only that because of Jack of all Trades.

Otherwise it'd be negative. [Laughter] I have one more than you, but I have a plus nine, so let's... Yeah. Jesus. Nice. We'll just say Delphine's partially blinded by anger. So, there's a few things to take in here. One, these guys are ginormous cunts. Like, the way they carry themselves. They... it's very much, "We're better than you and know it," in a completely different way than the Eladrin. The Eladrin can be a bit high and mighty and snooty and stuff like that. These guys walk into a room and they... they're the hottest shit. Like, they are... like, this continent belongs to them, no matter how many other people are on it.

The fact that they sent a messenger with no weaponry, talking to you like that, in a small room, and expected him to come back... Pure balls. Like, they don't sweat you guys at all. Hey, but when he knocked his hand on my desk, did he have a giant ring too? I picture light jewelry, like something... not like a fucking Super Bowl ring, or your class ring or something like that, but just very much like... Like, it made a satisfying, like, clink-clink sound. Because that's the worst. He... it was a pinky ring. If it was a thumb ring, we would have had a problem.

Yeah, well... That's how high up in the order, you know, that's where they... where the ring... It's like, the thumb ring is like... you own, like, a really fancy meat restaurant in, like, a small town, but you charge exuberant prices. It's like, why would you do that? Just like Waku. Waku! [laughter] So these guys are pushing it, but they don't see themselves... Like, to them, it's an inevitability. Like, you're gonna do what they say. And the fact that you're... you're raising this much of a stink... Mm. I know it tells them that we're not gonna do what they want us to do.

Which we're not. So... It's a little foreshadowing for them. How's the rest of the crew, like, feeling about this? Like, how's security feeling? [laughter] How's it going, Alex? Calvin's mortified right now. [laughter] You can hear him, like, Tina Belcher from Bosberg. [laughter] We hear a weird noise. He looks to the captain and says... Nice way, nice job handling the messenger. But, you know, I have... I don't want to say harassed. I mean, I'm gonna say it. I got harassed by a few of their goons over the last 24 to 48 hours. I mean, you were having the time of your life, which is fantastic.

I'm happy for you and everything. These guys... they are the real deal. They... if they wanted to, one of them... One could come here and punch a hole in shit. [laughter] If he really wanted to. And when I say hole, I don't mean like, you know, like a window hole. I'm talking about, like, the size of two tucks. [laughter] And now they won't because they have some sort of weird, you know, obligation to rules within Westport. Thank the gods. Because if they didn't, I'm sure I already would have my head separated from my body. But yeah, not looking forward to this meeting.

Just my two cents. [laughter] Boss, should we tell the lion folk? I mean, if we can get them to ambush them during the meeting, that would put us in good graces with the lion folk because they get to take out a "whatever he was" general thing. And we get out of this, you know, meeting with this bunch of dicks. Actually, I don't know why I'm bringing this up. There was a few guys I met, I think I talked about them earlier, Ray, and he's got some goons with him. They were more than willing to rob these Githrai in this big heist. And it probably happened last night, but either way, if they're still around, we could probably hire them as muscle/human shields.

I feel like it probably didn't happen, though, like if the messenger was that snooty. I mean, these guys carry themselves with a certain degree of superiority, so think about it. If you got robbed and you were them, would you want to let anyone know? True. Are you really thinking about it like, "Would I want anyone to know?" [laughter] Totally going off on a tangent. And I mean, I know we're looking not to make too many expenditures, but I'm saying we just keep Ray and his goons on retainer. We could use him as extra kind of beefy muscle when we need it, like situations like now.

Because I'm gonna say it, okay? Me and Tuck, we're great. But we're only two guys. And then Alex is digging into his brain and he's gonna pull this quote from Star Wars Episode I. "We can fight battles for you, but we can't win wars for you." Firstly, how dare you bring anything in from Episode I? Because that's Qui-Gon Jinn, he was a goddamn genius. I know, but you're on thin ice. [laughter] I love you, but... No, we're not gonna do this right now. We're not gonna have Star Wars debate. [laughter] I'm not falling for it. I'm not falling for this. Absolutely.

I mean, we already wasted 20 minutes on falls, so... I know, yeah. No. Which is still more productive than Episode I. [laughter] I mean, that's bad. I agree with that for sure, honey. [laughter] Uh, Dovion's gonna look at Tobin. How much was Rey and his boys... Uh, looking for? Or do you know what their growing rate is? I mean, they were, from what I can tell, just looking for dudes to help them on the heist. If they're those kind of criminals, I would say they're not super cheap, but they wouldn't be in the... high-end range, especially if we told them they're on retainer and they're getting a consistent paycheck for a certain amount of time and a certain amount of work.

I didn't say any of this, by the way. I'm just... I'm workshopping here. This isn't something that I, you know, I didn't make any offers, you know. I'm not making arrangements. I follow the rules. My job is to stand here, look good, flex a little bit, and sometimes punch people like we did that one time. Or punch birds, and he'll look to Lee and give her a smile. [Laughter] Ignore that, 'cause... stupid chickens. [Laughter] That was fun. So they wanted to rob these Githzerai? Yeah. So I'm saying we could probably convince them, "Hey, we need some extra muscle.

We're gonna fight some Githzerai in case things get hairy. We need you guys there. We'll pay you X amount." "If you like the work, we can pay you more. You know, just keep on doing work for us." But if they need our help, why are we paying them? Because we need more muscle. I feel like... we could kinda kill two birds with one stone here, right? Like, they need help robbing these Githzerai. We need to take care of these Githzerais so they're not harassing us. It's two different groups, you know. Are they two different groups? Yeah, one was a caravan of Githzerai.

There's a whole continent of them. That's not how it was presented to me? That's fair. But it was a month ago. I just figured I would refresh. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. And Tobin would clarify. I mean, they're not going after this particular group, but I'm just saying they probably don't like Githzerai in general. Okay. It's just an idea. Or we can walk just the four of us going into this meeting and probably die. I'm not okay with that, but if you pay me to do it, I'm gonna do it. I feel like if we turn down the Githzerai's offer, which we're going to do, we're kind of picking a side, right?

We're saying we don't want to do it with the Githzerai. We're dealing with the lionfolk. So, I mean, we could go talk to Ray and see if we can do like a give and take thing. Like, they come to us with our meeting and then we go help them with their thing. Tobin instantly has this pit of regret as he thinks about robbing from the Githzerai. Yeah, that works too. Yeah. But you don't want to do it. He'll cautiously look up. Well, I mean, technically a long time ago I might have stolen something from them. I mean, can you really steal something that's intangible?

And he'll like do a picture day hand and... fist under chin. Picture day hand! That paints such a picture. Shit. Okay. That's good. That's good stuff. Um, I'm sorry. You've stolen from the Githzerai before? Is it stealing if they give it to you and then you leave and don't give them anything in return? Yeah, that's stealing. Yes. Yeah. Alright. I feel like this is something maybe you should have disclosed before we traveled months over the sea to get here. I mean, it wasn't on the resume, so... Look, if it's what you want to do, I will be along with it obviously.

You're paying me really good money. It's a good chance for me to kind of get over my fear of these guys and, you know, we have a business to conduct. I'm sorry, you have a business to conduct. And if they're standing in the way of you making money, that's the way of me getting a paycheck. I'll protect you. We got this. Thank you, Tuck. And he'll look up at him and pat him on the back. Do I want to steal from the Githzerai? Absolutely not. I'd rather just not do anything with them. I'd rather do our business deals with the lion folk that we have set up. But we have, I mean, they want us to stop and they want us to leave and I don't want to do that.

So I'm open to suggestions because you're worried about going into this meeting and dying because what it seems like you're saying is that they're going to annihilate us because there are only four of us. So I... What's interesting here is they never threatened violence in the form of a meeting. It was like, hey, you're going to do it and that's it. Which makes me think you've jumped way ahead to go fuck yourself and then fight. Like, they want us to leave. They do. And I don't want to leave. Okay. So I'm just like, I'm it's interesting tact. That there's only that he's worried because we're going to go to this meeting and tell him to fuck off basically.

And that there's only four of us and that we're going to die. Because of his impression of the Githzerai. Yeah. Just keep that in mind. He could be very dramatic. And he is the expert. After it's been said four or five times, I just want to make sure that's like, I never said that. Just, you know, sometimes... I know you didn't say that. I know. I think we will have been sitting like, first she's bitter because she has a dog. And second... How could you be bitter with a dog? Look at that dirt face that's staring at her. She's trying to look badass, Jason. It's impossible.

I know. She's bitter about that. Also because the chair thing didn't work and he was such a cunt. But she will... So she's been kind of stewing on that, but she's just like this. Sigh. We could also, I suppose, make a deal with them if... If it would make things easier. Perhaps they would be amenable to leaving us alone if we were to offer something that would... Kind of assuage things. We are. I would like to go see my family. I would like to bring them here since I do not know what's going on. You can scry and you can tell me that they're fine, but... I don't know if something is going to come later and get them, even if they're good.

I would like to bring them somewhere safe. So I would like to see those gates and if we find them, we could trade them the location. We could give them contacts on Oara. I mean, that is more than us selling weapons to the Lion Folk. That is... It should be way more. That's something we could offer for them to just give us free reign in Westport. Vok's actually going to do something weird. He's going to actually stand up and say, "I did a job in Brightport with my master back in the day and met people similar to the Githrae that we met today." "They never followed through with their words.

I don't trust them. I trust Lion Folk more. Their anger is raw. I can believe that. This guy, I don't trust." And then... He's been backstabbed. So he understands that. That attitude he's seeing the same. And we just, you know, Nod's like, "Yeah, I understand that, but if what Tobin says is correct and they could blow holes into us, I also would like to avoid that." And he did say they have some weird role-following code. Yeah, okay. So if I'm being completely honest, some of the stories might be a little bit, you know, enhanced. It wasn't all of them that could punch holes in the boats.

There was a number of them. Depending on who's there when we have this meeting, you know, it could be guys like, you know, Messenger guy over here who was just in here, or it could be guys like the General that we met. Lee, remember that guy? Yeah, he was also a cunt. Yeah, but he's a cunt because he can back it up. The Messenger guy didn't seem like much. So if it's the General, it could be a sticky situation for sure if he decides that he doesn't like what we're saying. If it's a bunch of guys like Messenger, then, I mean, that's an easy, you know, tell them to go fuck themselves and then we just walk out of there.

I hate this. What's your decision, boss? Should we go in? We don't even know where any of the gates are. That's true. Yeah, they might know. That's another thing. I don't know where it is. Here's the thing that you have two hours to do whatever you're going to do. That's not a lot of time. First things first, we gotta scry. Right? That's the first order of business. And we just, she hesitates because she really wants it, but she's also thinking, no, no, we should take care of this first. That can wait. Me seeing how they are doesn't do anything if I can't bring them here right now.

Let's handle this first. Actually, first things first is, I'm not trying to be selfish here, but we should go visit Roland. Tobin, wait, Roland? You mean Roland? Roland. You mean Roland. Because I actually have something for Tuck to pick up. It swivels. And while we're there, we might be able to pick up some information. Right? Because they deal with a lot of people so they may have heard a few things. I think we should go there first. Tobin nods in agreement. And then from there, we'll figure it out. I mean, that's fair. That's our slogan. We'll figure it out when we get there.

So you head into town, you head over to Roland and Welfs and... Sorry to interrupt, can I do something before we leave? A poll? Sure. I wait for the group to, as we're preparing our packs, I assume we go to our quarters of their own thing. I walk into the middle of the kitchen and I just go, "Jonas!" And then I wait five seconds and I turn around. Like it's gonna be dead silent. Yeah? Hey man, I got another job for you. This is a really easy one, actually. Okay. I need you to go to the harbor master, the shipwright, or whoever the guy is in charge of the docks.

Ask him if he's heard of... what was the name? He's gonna try to remember what... if Tuck gave him a name for his master. I don't remember. You're gonna ask the harbor master if he's seen a guy named Sidious. Ask him, or tell him that the tiefling guy is asking around because I asked him before and I forgot to go back and get the information from him. But I'm gonna write this name down, hand him the paper, and if he has information on this guy, get it from him and come back to me. And I'm gonna give him... hang on, I just got paid so I'm gonna give him a little more, huh?

I'll give him ten gold up front. You're getting paid tomorrow too, if we live. I give him ten gold up front and I say, "And there's twenty waiting for you if I like the information I hear. If I don't like the information I hear, you only get five." And it has to be true. Oh. So he's like, "Okay, I'll lie?" Yeah. So a hand is going to snake out from a vent. Stop it! And he's just gonna like, gimp right there. Okay, I go up to the vent and I'm like, "Is that a tight fit in there? Are you alright in there?" Nah, it's pretty roomy. I got him all over. It's fine.

And he's gonna like, the hand's just gonna like snake and then just like, put the little vent down. And I meet up with the rest of the party as I'm walking up the steps from the lower deck to the upper deck. I'm like, "Why do we have vents on a boat? What the hell?" I imagine that when the boat was getting fixed, Jonas was giving him tips to be like, "Put a vent here, put a hole here." Oh yeah, the Valku wants a system of vents here. Yeah, but I don't know why. I'm gonna be dead serious. Those vents were not on the ship when you first got the ship. Absolutely not.

They were not there. The day Jonas is caught is the day I cry. Dude, he's our secret asset. Dead. As soon as you find out. You hear that discord? He's dead. So, you're gonna head on over to Roland and Welsh. It's a bit of a walk. And you're gonna get there and you're gonna see this dwarf who's like, kind of wearing this leather apron. And his hands are just coated in soot right now. And he's trying to move stuff and look for him, like paperwork stuff in the office. And he's just grumbling, just like... He's just like, "Ugh." This is the guy we haven't met yet.

This is the guy you haven't met yet. The Rolf. What's his name? The W-W-Welf. Welf. I'm just gonna call him Rolf. Oh my gosh. That's a Muppet. Oh, it is! He's playing piano. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love Roland. So you give a little knock on the door, let it, you know, just, otherwise, yeah, okay. No, just barge into people's offices. That's rude. Yeah, that's fair. That would be rude. You're right. Oh, uh, what do you need? Um, is Roland here? He around? He's gonna, he's gonna kind of hold his head like he's got this headache. And the second he's like, "What do you need?" He's like, "I'm sorry.

That's not how you talk to customers. I'm not usually the one out here doing this." Roland's meeting a client right now. It's... Potentially someone who needs something custom made. It happens three, four times a week. Do you want to leave a message or something? Um, no. I mean, we were just here to pick up, um, I don't know if you knew who I was. I'm Delphine. And... Do you want to like pause for a second to see if there's like a reaction? Uh, there's gonna be a moment he's like, "Ohhhhh." No! Okay. Nope, I get it. I've heard a lot about you. Um... He told him everything.

He's got holes in every area code. It's um, it's fun. No, uh, he's gonna... Um, and he's definitely gonna be like, "Oh, I'm really sorry for snapping. It wasn't, uh, wasn't anything you did." Um, yeah, I mean, he should be back in a few hours. It's not like it's going to take all day. Did you do anything I can do? Um, well, we were just here to pick up, um, the axe that was out front. Oh! It was part of a business arrangement we had. Oh, okay. Um... I'm sure there's paperwork around here for it somewhere. Uh, alright. I trust you. Um, just, just look, be careful.

This thing is, um, one of a kind. It's not, um, not to be taken lightly. Okay. Do you have instructions for it? Oh, like he's just... Um, uh... Or did he just kind of give me a general lowdown on it? Would that be sufficient? Absolutely. This long bit is the handle, and then there's a sharp bit that kind of fans out, and you use that to kind of cut in a slashing motion. You just, what you do is you put your hips into it. You're just kind of, oh, like it really comes, it's not about the arms. It's, you let gravity do the work. Uh, this thing's about 12 pounds, weighs as much as a mall hammer.

It's a big, big thing. Um, uh, boy, there's so much to it. There's a big, thick instruction manual, uh, somewhere. But, uh, if you give me, if you just give me till, till Roland gets back, I, he's the one who does the organization, he'll have it, okay? And he's gonna heft this big ass fucking axe. He's gonna climb up on a little, um, ladder, and then just kind of like hand it over to Delphine. And this thing weighs 12 pounds. It's big. It's a big boy. It's a great axe. Oh, God. Like he said 12 pounds, but I don't think she was ready for what 12 pounds actually weighs.

And I mean, you don't like 12 pounds isn't a lot. It's just like, if you're used to holding a sword or something like that, you're talking like two, three, maybe four pounds, depending on how well it's constructed. A 12 pound axe is unwieldy because it's all weighted at the end. So like you're, it's, it's, yeah, it's meant to cut people in half. She's gonna like slowly turn to Tuck and kind of just deposit that in his hands. Oh, that makes much more sense. Yeah. Yep. Should have, should have saw that one. I don't think we really have time to wait around for Roland.

Um, but... If you want me to send him your way in when he gets in. And he's gonna kind of like, like give you one of those like just kind of like a... Uh, no, that's not really necessary. I'm sure we'll meet up. I think we could probably do dinner or something. All right. Well, um, uh, nice meeting you. And he's gonna hold out his hand. Yeah. Is she gonna shake his hand too? He's so cute. He's like so cute in my mind. Yeah, he's a nice... He's rambling about like, yeah, it was just like the cutest thing. He's the epitome of like, okay, Roland's the front man. And like, Welf's the dude like he's got like this disheveled blondish like strawberry blondish beard and like he's just like, oh, uh, like he's just he's just like, the office is kryptonite to him.

Like he doesn't know how anything's filed. He doesn't know where anything is. But back, back near the forge, like the guy's a god. Like he's like a ballerina, graceful, all that. But like, yeah. Is this you, Jason? Like this is like, this is the organization. This is you. It's not not me. No, that's not me. Oh, before, before we like turn to leave, she's just gonna like, real quickly, because I feel like, she doesn't really like know a lot about the paperwork. So and I'm not trying to stereotype or anything, right? Like, I feel like maybe he doesn't know too much about like...

I'll put it this way. He's the type of guy who, if he were doing taxes, he would just put everything in notepad and then just kind of like have someone else look at it and then make sure that they don't go to prison. That's pretty much how he would do it. Excuse me, I need to throw something across the room. Not based on anybody. It's just like... No, it's not true for anything. Hypothetically. I feel like also like Roland's the type of person that's like, pays attention to everything, right? Like, oh, I heard that. Kind of a details guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think she's gonna ask him, hey, do you know anything about like portals or something around on this continent? Like, just kind of like throw it out there. Like, trap like that you can travel through. Uh, you mean close to town? I mean, just on the continent somewhere. We heard the story that there might be like these portals that you can like travel from continent to continent through. And I was just curious if you'd heard that like... Yeah, people have been talking about that for ages. But I don't know where it is. But I always heard there in dungeons, caves, crypts, that type of thing just out of the way.

Okay. Okay, well, thanks for the axe. No problem. Please just flip that sign to closed on your way out so I can get some work done. Okay. You get the distinct impression he's been in here for 10 minutes and he's like, out, done. Like he's just going to go back into the shop and hit things with a hammer for a while. Like one customer down, I am good to go. I gave away an axe and, uh, oh boy, we're down an axe. I'm super pertinent to the story. But what is the organization in the office? Like, what does it look like? So, uh, there are... so filing cabinets haven't been invented yet.

But what, what you have are these, uh, these tabs that are infused with magic, so they glow. And they're color coded. So like everything, it's like, okay, here's inbound orders, outbound orders. We keep company records for everything for the last five years up front. And then we have a storage system in the back for longtime customers that haven't been around in a while. Like, it's immaculate. Like it's, and now there's like little like sooty handprints all over stuff. And that'll, that'll be, that'll be dealt with later. But like, you know. It's like, man, I don't go back in your office and clean stuff.

So don't come up here and dirty shit. Just come on. Like, just... Cool. So we got a, we got an axe. This thing, this, oh my God, the weight of it. It's just like, Tuck's gonna get this and it's, it's, it's like, you want to try it out, right? You know, I'm going to wear this out of the store type of thing. Like you want to fucking like, it's gorgeous. So the second Tuck is really like getting comfortable with it. Like fucking, it's going to be like a joke that kind of goes up his arms. Like it, like kind of a tingle. Like if you were to touch the wrong end of a car battery at the wrong time, it's like, Oh, like just, whoa, okay.

The axe's name is Asurage. It is a legendary plus three axe. This thing, oh, this thing will put a hole in something. That's for sure. I'm just going to slide this into your inventory and you can take a look at it yourself. There's a lot it comes with. It's a lot of responsibility. For Tuck. Yes. Smart move. Smartest move anyone has ever made. So where to next? Cause that probably ate up a good 40, 45 minutes somewhere in there. Should we go get more information, boss? I can ask my brothel friend or we could just go directly. Don't forget. It's probably going to take you around 30, 35 minutes to get there.

Is the brothel on the way? Yeah, is the brothel on the way, Jason? Well, we're getting maps done right now, but it depends on your definition of on the way. Like it's southerly, yes, but it's out. It's, you'd have to kind of dedicate a walk. So like the amount of time it would take us to get there would eat up all the time we would have. Not all of it, but you'd have to hustle. You get there all sweaty to the meeting. Sends the wrong message. I think we have like two options. We either go look for Tobin's friends if we are expecting a fight or the line folk, or we go for information, hope to make a deal, or we just go in as is.

Might be too late to hire the guys. Yeah, that ship sailed the minute we got off our ship. Yeah, let's see if you can find them. Yeah, that's true. They're not going to be in the same spot where I saw them last time. Although, Ray's boys, they seem like they frequent back alleys at least 90% of their day. That was, that's an easy assumption. The trick is to keep people dumber than you. So you look like a stellar leader. Yeah, Ray is, Ray seemed like a pretty smart guy. So I don't know if he would fall for what we were trying to do. His boys might, but I don't want to steal from Ray.

Mutual respect in the industry. For the industry? It's a small town, people talk. I say, I mean, I say we go to the meeting. I don't think we can afford to go to the brothel and get info and show up to this meeting and look like chumps. Because appearance is very important to these guys. So we have the appearance of a united front, you know, a strong united front. And I think that that's worth more than the information we can potentially get from, or potentially not get from the brothel. That's true. We can always get the information later if we make a deal.

Yeah. And if everything works out okay, nobody gets punched. Honestly, showing up with a bunch of goons might send the wrong message to... Oh yeah, for sure. But I mean, we don't know. We don't know what they, to be honest, thinking about it, we don't know what they're after besides just telling us to get the hell out of here. So are you guys done stalling? Yeah. I've been here for three months. I just don't know what to say. I'll figure it out. You can do it, Karen. Jason. You have to do it, Karen. Oh my goodness. Fucking right! Fucking right! Oh my goodness. This will be fun.

That's your gold watch. Start a fight just to use it. Make Michael. I'm not taking this. Y'all picked on me for my weekend away, but Michael, was it worth it? Um, we'll see. Uh oh. Let's just say that. Let's say that battle axes have a double edge. Great axes. Sorry, this is a great axe. So two miles south of Westport, there's a large field and you're going to see a covered wagon. It looks pretty swanky. Like, it's nice. And as you approach, getting out of the wagon is going to be Master Armsman Berkthal. You've met. Well, Delphine hasn't, but she'll have the pleasure in a moment.

I'll tell her. I'll say, "Hey, that's the general." General Isimo. I need to paint a picture. He looks like he looks semi-similar to Raul, Julia in Street Fighter. Hell yeah. Oh my God. This motherfucker's got a swagger. Like, he's got the leather gloves on. He's going to like tug down on the wrists of them and just kind of like flex them. And he's going to get comfortable and stand as you guys approach. Did you look it up? How do you not know? Street Fighter. I forgot that was the actor's name. Oh, Rob. Yeah, I'm sorry. He was in Bison. So, as you guys approach, if you're going to see a couple of guys like Satellite, like, there's only four people here.

He only brought as many as you have. You don't see the messenger, though. Like, you don't, you know, he might be doing something else. And as you approach, he's absolutely at ease, relaxed. I heard you had a bit of a petulant fit earlier today with my messenger. I'm sorry. I hate you so much. This is the opposite of the flirting thing. I just get to be a massive prick. This is almost just as bad. Because I want to be so angry at you. I'm just going to needle you over and over again. Delphine's going to ignore that. She's going to put on her best customer service smile.

And she's going to say, I'm so sorry we haven't met before. My name is Delphine and I am the one in charge here. You are? He's going to reach out a hand. He's going to be civil. Master Armsman Bergdahl. You're the captain of your crew, but you are not in charge here. Okay. Motherfucker's coming out swinging like... Great. Um, okay. That's a comment you made. Are we having a caddy also? You started it. I did. You're going to bring out the inner Karen and it's going to happen. This isn't even my final form. So she's going to just like shake her head and be like, listen, I honestly, I'm just here to do some business.

And I don't know exactly word for word what was said between you and the rest of my crew the other day. But I'm just here to talk it out and then maybe we can come to some sort of agreement. I'll give you the gist. I politely informed your crew that your services will no longer be needed. We do not need you supplying anything to the Lion Folk. And furthermore, we would like it if you left the continent. Now, judging by how you treated our messenger today, I'm going to guess that you have a problem with that. Would I be correct in assuming? Well, I mean, do you you work for the Lion Folk then, right?

Because you're trying to give us orders about something that we had prepared with them. So that would be me assuming that you work for the Lion Folk. If you are trying to take control of the deal that I have going on with them. Correct? He's going to take a step forward. Madam, it would not behoove you to play dumb with me. Unless, of course, you're not playing. You know, I just tried to match the energy here. You were making it seem like you didn't know what was going on. So I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. You understand that we are at war, right?

And that we've done you a service by informing you as kindly as we could in the first place. You understand these facts? Did I know that you were at war with the Lion Folk? Yes, yes I did. I don't think that you guys have been very kind to me or my crew. We've caused you no physical harm. Words hurt. Madam, let's cut to it. I'm a very busy man. I'm a very busy woman. Are you going to take your weapons and leave the continent? I really don't see how that's any of your business, considering I don't have a deal with you. You know, client confidentiality. I just want to make sure that I'm doing right by my clients.

He's going to take a look over at Luna, who is hovering nearly. You know, there's really not much of a difference between people and that mangy dog of yours. Sometimes a dog forgets themselves and you need to bring them to heal. And I feel like that's the situation we have here, madam. And he's going to snap his finger. And two of these guys are going to go over to this carriage and bring a limp figure out with a sack over their head and drag this figure over next to Master Armsman. And he's going to reach over and just grab this bag and take it off. And it is rolling.

Now, so far, we've only broken his fingers. But he was in quite a lot of pain, so much so that he passed out. How much pain he endures is completely up to you. Tobin's going to look at Tuck. I assume we're really close to each other. I would imagine, yeah. And I'm going to say, Tuck, I feel like this is not going well. Am I getting any feeling at all? It's faint. Like, it's like, man, like at first it's like getting behind the wheel of a new car. You're checking the brakes out. It's like, oh, this stops a little sooner than the one I'm used to. And it's like, oh, the turns are a little tighter.

You're kind of checking out the weight and everything. But every once in a while, there'll be this like niggling in the back of your head. Like it's, yeah. As Berthold's talking, he's doing that thing where you take each individual finger off for your leather gloves and then just kind of pull them off. And he doesn't look upset or even like snide. It's the same kind of demeanor. Now, judging by the look on your face, I think we can actually begin negotiations. And that last bit of the negotiation, like that had 10 out of 10 snide. I just need to roll something really quickly.

Okay, that's fair. That is fair. Damn. That's a 19. That is a 19. What's a 19 mean, Karen? 19 means kind of, kind of really like Roland's. And it's kind of not a good, um, good move for them. Mm hmm. Would you be showing that on your face? I would not like, not as expressionful as I am actually being in real life. I feel like it's probably like a, like a jaw tick and like, probably like arms crossed over the chest and like a definite like Karen glare. Oh my. Would you be okay with rolling a charisma save to see how much that was picked up on? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. 21. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty icy. Pretty, pretty, you know. Yeah. You keep your shit together. Yeah. If Delphine was holding a pen, she would cap it at this point in time. Very anime. Okay. Good, good, good. Thank you. She is arms crossed and she's going to say, well, see, I'm not really interested in what you have to say to me anymore because before you told me that you hadn't done anything to us and I consider Roland to be part of us. So you really have done something to us and now you're a liar to me and I don't deal with liars. He's going to reach back and unsnap the buckles on this Cape and let that drop and start to kind of like flex his arms a bit.

Well, it appears as though this helpless merchant isn't the only one who needs some bones broken. I think that's a good time for us to stop for the day. No, not the combat! Not the combat! Oh, man. Fuck. Sorry. Oh, that was amazing. I mean, Delphine has no choice. I mean, no, that's that. There was no good faith. They had him before. They technically broke the rules. They broke the rules. They absolutely broke the rules. I was wrong. They don't give a fuck about the rules. All I can say is that's in our favor. If we live! The general is probably the scariest. The master at arms is probably the scariest guy.

We can't trust the combat, Delphine. Because he's like right in front of me and he's going to go right for me and I am, I'm not. He's going to fucking Sion punch you into the... My face? No! We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Thank you so much for sticking around. A reminder that we may not have an episode for you next week or the week after based on Jason's health. We're contacting his doctor and all that good stuff right now. If you would like to help pay for that doctor, you can support us through Patreon.com/dandr That's mostly a joke, don't worry.

Jason has insurance, but he only has that insurance because of the folks supporting us on our Patreon. And we thank you all so much. We have a ton of bonus stuff on there. So much content, including lots and lots of games. We just started hosting meetups again. So if you want to join us, we have a lot of stuff to do. Jason's going to be doing some gaming advice. Meanwhile, I'm probably going to be hosting movie nights. We're voting on the genres that we'll be watching now. And it should be a lot of fun. Thank you all so much for listening and we hope to see you next week.

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