Quoth The Raven

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

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Because the Githzerai in our world really aren't Githzerai. They're a bit different. So that'll be next month, and we're going to take your questions on our Discord, and you guys vote on them, we'll answer the top 20. Without further ado, let me get out of your way so you can hear a couple of words from the sponsors of this week's episode. And ready for that, we'll get ready for a brand new Firebrand. Don't go anywhere, we'll be right back. Ooooooooh, let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason. I'm the Dungeon Master.

Go on around the table. Start with Zach. What's up, my name is Zach, and I play Pax and Warren, the human cleric on group Firebrand. And Jamie. Hello, I am Jamie. I play Bo Lothius, the tiefling paladin. And Kelsey. I'm Kelsey, and I play Calypso Lovelace, the half-elf bard. And Robert. Hey, I'm Rob. I'm playing Giolo Fane, the elf warlock. And last but certainly not least, Bree. Hi, I'm Brianna Marie, and I play Gwen Lothius, the half halfling, half tiefling steel soul. Phew. So we're gonna take things down a little bit today. Just a little bit. For probably about five minutes.

And then we're gonna slowly ratchet everything up. Real frog in a pot of boiling water, but slow. Like real fast. Like let's just... we're gonna raise it again. When you said that, I just imagine the title card pops up, "The gang starts at Domino's Club." Yeah. So. It is dawn. On the 28th of Rangway. It is a very crisp morning. And as the sun kind of creeps up into the sky, and that amber glow is just filling the city, you're gonna see the still smoldering buildings downtown. It got so bad over the night that it was just raining ash in most of the city. And it covered the entire downtown portion.

And it even kind of swept uptown a bit. So as it kind of catches the light, it almost looks like cherry blossoms coming down into the streets, kind of getting blown around in that crisp, cool wind. Most of the bodies have been carted off the streets and are receiving some sort of medical attention. You guys have been working with the town guard and just general citizens to clean up in the aftermath of this huge kerfuffle. Let's call it lightly a kerfuffle. The final tally is the injuries are in the thousands. And that's things as minor as a sprained ankle getting trounced or trampled over to broken bones, to pierced lungs, stuff like that.

Some people got injured really bad. Some people were pushed off of tall objects. Some people were just caught in that wall of humanity in between you guys putting up defenses with shields, and just people pushing and crushing. And yeah, the deaths are in the hundreds so far. One third of the lower quarter of Brightport burned throughout the night. These are residential areas, mostly some businesses. It was not pretty. And for the most part, these fires are put out. The newest issue of the Brightport Observer has come out as it is early morning. And it reads, "This is just the beginning," says Paxton Warren.

Paxton says houses are corrupt in Brightport, holding the people back. But are some members of Firebrand on the take? Working with Graddick from House Dragonkeep, you have to wonder if you have a mixed agenda on your hands. I would imagine by this point, you guys are exhausted, and there's just enough time to kind of finally sit back and catch your breath. So let's say you're back at headquarters. And this is the first time as a group, you haven't been in rescue mode, right? There's been no casual, casual conversation. There may have been some interactions.

Kelsey, I believe you said during cleanup, there would have been something Calypso would do? Yeah, so would Paxton have been helping out with that? With just cleaning in general? The cleanup and helping the injured, etc. He'd definitely be around. He'd be doing what he could, you know, wherever he's tasked to be. But he'd definitely be around. He was back turned to you and suspecting. Oh, no, where's this going? I'm not a rogue, I'm a bard. So you're going to bonk him in the head with a guitar, yes! Yeah, exactly. Son, if I kill you, you'll be facing me and there will be a guitar in your hand.

And what does Paxton like, well, he's wearing his uniform, right? Like that's what we had. He's like his little firebrand. He's wearing like, you know, I think he has medium armor. Nice and shiny with his firebrand attire on. A little Paxton usual. Yeah, okay. Also, does he have any, just out of curiosity, does his armor have anything to do with being a priest of Arathas and stuff? Does he have any like, symbol on his... Oh yeah, he probably has like a nice symbol right on his shoulder, like a jersey number or something, right on the top. He has his giant World of Warcraft vultures.

Yeah, so at some point, Clips is probably just going to like touch him gently on the arm and kind of like pull him aside a little bit. I don't know if you have what you're wearing underneath your armor, if you have any other clothes, but you should probably change if you're going to stay around here and continue helping out. When you say that, he's going to look around and he's going to say, "Are you sure?" This is how people recognize me. This is called the Paxton usual, if you didn't know. The Paxton usual? People kind of know it as me, the attire.

Yes, that's... "Are you sure?" I just feel so naked without it, Calypso. Right now... And Calypso kind of like pauses and they're trying to think of a way to work this. When you pause, he's going to say, "It's already been a bad day, I'm already feeling vulnerable and I want to feel naked, you know? My armor, it's like a part of me, it's like an ensemble, you know? It makes me feel like big, you know?" He's like, "I'm looking around." Right now, when people look at you in that armor, they don't think of you as someone that helps as a priest or enforcer or anything else.

You right now in that armor are a symbol of this and they gesture to be destroyed city around them. And when people see you in this, this is what they're going to be reminded of. When you point to the chaos and the debris, Paxton's going to put a slight hand on his chest, he's taken aback, he's going to say, "I'm Calypso, I'm wounded. I tried to stop this as much as anyone else, I just spoke from my heart, things got out of hand. But I assure you, I understand things look bad for me in this armor, but a part of Arathas' teaching is redemption, believing in the people and the message.

Things got a little awry today, but believe in the symbol. I shouldn't take it off, I should wear it proudly, shouldn't I?" He's going to look around to all the people that have been injured and the people that are still trying to clean up things and he's going to say, "Things may be a little hot right now, maybe I should stash it somewhere, do you have a cot of even at your house? Can you take my armor?" He's like, he doesn't know what to do because he thinks he's in the, he doesn't think he's wrong or a bad guy, so it's kind of... He feels bad, he understands where you're coming from, he understands your concerns, so if you say he should take off his armor, he's going to trust what you say.

So when he, that first part of it, Excalpus is just kind of squinting at him, basically doing the equivalent of an insight check, because at this point they don't know whether Paxton is really this dense and naive, or if he's actually evil. If you're giving him a look, he's going to say, "I'm just asking because I can't leave the armor at home, I got things at home, I got an uncle who's real strict, so I just..." I imagine there's locations where we have supplies and stuff set up, so if he put it amongst the rest of the guard stuff, no one's going to steal it or anything. Are you sure?

It's just real special to me, I just want to make sure no one takes it, you know? That's all. Look, it doesn't really matter that much, it was just a thought, but... We'll talk more about this stuff later with the group. I understand, I'll take it off right now and we'll just hang on to it, keep it bundled up, and store it somewhere safe. But I understand your concern, absolutely. There's one more thing, and I went back and forth on this. Stephen Werk was obviously trampled, right? And... yeah... In the middle of something like that... Obviously, the injuries he would have sustained were terrible, but there's a good chance that if someone amped up like that, and maybe looking to do some damage, recognized the mayor of the city is on the ground in front of them...

They might decide to hurt the situation more. Finish the job, as it were. Yeah, um... I'm going to need one of you to roll for me to see basically what the fate of our mayor is. Do I have a volunteer for that? Yeah, sure, whatever. Oh, okay. The dice roll. So, here's what I need you to do. I need you to give me a d20, and we're going to put a negative modifier on this. A negative 5. Oh, that's a plus. Okay, hold on. Minus. And depending on the roll, that's what's going to be happening to our mayor here. There's a chance that they're injured but in stable condition, they may be injured but in critical condition, or they may have not made it out at all.

So if I can get that from you, please? Oof. As low as possible. Okay. Oh no. Oof. Yikes. Negatives aren't good. No, that is a crit 1. Jesus. Okay, with a crit 1, they may not have- I liked him. We're going to have to find a new Dilf, guys. Well, at least we can't- Daddy won't be mad at us because, well- You're going to have to find a new Dilf, I've got big Richard. So, you guys probably didn't find the body until almost, almost dawn. And when you did, it was very apparent that it wasn't just the injuries that he sustained during that big final push. People probably hauled him off and finished the job as it were, and it was messy.

Yick. Yeah, with a crit 1, there was probably some sort of, maybe not a note, but definitely a message sent to the greater city at large that the Iron Knuckle boys had something to do with this. Straight up, just murked them. Oh no. They saw an opportunity, took it, and that's that. You know, as sick as it sounds, I'd actually prefer that over one of the rioters just being so angry. Yeah, yeah. I actually prefer the Knuckle boys doing it, at least, than if it's already a bad person. An errant of a criminal element and not someone caught up in the moment.

Right, who regretted it. They were upset with the houses, and Wurick was opposed to the houses, so I was like, the rioters, I don't know that they would want to harm somebody with the same cause, you know what I mean? But it makes sense if it was the... And here's the thing, you guys know that because you're on the inside track. That's what I thought, I was worried. And I mean, if you ask anybody in any city, you could ask 100 different people and have 100 different takes on the current political... it's up to interpretation. But yeah, no, that is the situation.

I want to jump back to, it is Dawn. You guys have that information now, you did find him, you're going to give him a proper burial, but that was probably one of the last things you did before you just... it's like, I need... we need a break. So it's probably take the body back to base and have people start prepping it for a proper burial along with the hundreds of other burials we're going to have to do. And this is the first time you guys are probably all in a room. Some of you probably collapse onto furniture, some of you just resting against walls, and this is the first time you're all able to have a moment of quiet just assess the situation and look each other in the eye.

What... I don't think I have to ask what the mood in the room is, but like what is everyone feeling? I think Gwen is devastated. She's trying to hide it, but she's not super good at hiding her emotions and she really cared about the captain. He was the one who brought her back and now he's gone and there's nothing she can do in return. I imagine she asked at one point like, "Can he become like me?" and they were like, "No, he's into my pieces" or whatever. So she's probably secluded herself into the corner and is kind of doing a lot of wrapping her arms around herself and squeezing and trying to stay present in the moment, but mostly just kind of hiding.

I think Bo would be keeping herself busy, whether it be sort of cleaning the muck and blood off of herself or working on the arrangements for the mass funeral that we're about to have because you said hundreds. I know that there were thousands injured, but it was hundreds that had died, right? Yeah. So I'm going to assume that they're going to need some form of assistance coming up with mass grave sites or I don't even know what the city is preparing to do for all of the amount of bodies that need to be taken care of, but Bo would want to be keeping herself busy and be useful at this point to just sort of keep themselves distracted.

I think Paxton, as soon as we got into the room and we were kind of secluded from the others that's not this group, he's going to get unusually quiet and kind of do that thing where you mutter to yourself and kind of like you're figuring out a calculation, like you're trying to figure out what went wrong. You're trying to replay what happened, but you're talking to yourself. He's pacing all over. He's just pacing all over the room. He's not really... Yeah, he's doing the thing where you have your hands on your hips and you're really trying to figure something out and he's just quiet.

I think Calypso is probably sitting on a couch or a chair and just they're taking care of their violin, like just kind of focused on like doing the maintenance on it and making sure all the dust and stuff that would have gotten on it throughout the ride is all cleaned off and tuning in and everything, but they're just pretty, like no emotions showing. And like focused on that while just sort of digesting and processing everything. So G.O.L.O. pipes up. Alright, I'll rip the bandage off. We should quit. We should quit. We should go somewhere where what we try to do is more likely to turn out good than to fall apart and do more harm than good.

This whole thing that happened recently here, this was a mess and we barreled in and tried to contain it. Sure. And then it just escalated. So maybe I'm not objecting to doing good. There's a lot of ways to do good and this one seems to have done a lot of bad. So what if we quit? Gwen's eyes are gonna snap right to Beau. Because... Yeah. I feel like after the events, the city's at its most vulnerable now. It needs us now more than ever. Without Warwick, it could go into complete chaos. No, no, no. It needs someone. I would say our particular history, at least in the short term, doing this thing, is not necessarily us.

Who would you suggest? I don't know. But I mean, we can go do good somewhere else. Somewhere that's less of a powder keg. Somewhere where we'll actually accomplish something that'll help people. Paxton is going to stop pacing. He's going to just kind of clasp his hands together and he's going to say, "Alright. Okay. Okay. Jolo, I understand things are not going well for us, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we give up. We have to consider that the city is in a very vulnerable state overall and I don't know about any of you, but I truly do love the city of Brightport and things are bad right now.

As a cleric, I'm only going to say this once, and I'm very sorry, he's going to look all around, I fucked up. Bad. Yeah, it was bad. I think back to it and when I got on my soapbox, I just let loose and it was a little too much. There's too many eyes in front of me and I said too much and I pointed fingers at things I shouldn't have. The people weren't ready to hear it in that fashion. I understand that now and he has beads of sweat that's very uncharacteristic. Usually you can hold it together because of his high wisdom, but now he's just cracking. So he's saying, "To be honest, I had a lot of respect for work.

I wanted to be like him. He was a stand-up guy and to see the way the city treated him, someone who wanted to do right, I just feel like we can't let him down anymore. I can't do it." I looked at him in his eyes and I told him I would not let him down and then I saw him get trampled in the street. I gotta do better. I went to the city to try. I can Giolo, I understand. Bo, I understand. Calypso, I understand. Gwen, I understand. I made a lot of mistakes, but I've been trying to keep a straight face, trying to fix everything, but I don't know what to do. Sometimes you guys don't know the truth.

I can't even hear my God sometimes. I try to communicate. I try to ask for guidance, but I can't hear anything right now. So I don't know what to do. And your little chat with the reporter after, was that stage fright as well? The guy came up to me and he wanted to know what happened. If I told him, he's going to pull out the newspaper from today. What was the first line from that again? This is just the beginning. He's going to read that out loud. I said that to him and I was trying to fix things. Imagine if I didn't say anything to him at all. He would have painted me as a thug or a villain, but now I have a chance to clear my name in some sort of capacity.

But I was just talking to people. I don't know what to say besides that. I don't know anything about politics. I write in law books for fun. That's a hobby. So I'm just trying. That's all I can do. And I'm sorry I've swept a lot of you all up into things I've said. But just like you, Calypso, when you scream at people in the streets to calm down, I'm just trying to fix things as well. In my own way. Maybe it's not the right way, but that's all I can try. Maybe we can fix things. I don't know how you all feel, but I can't give up yet. The problem is, the problem that we're dealing with is one where we're all poorly qualified to solve it.

There are powerful people who have experience managing the city, managing expectations, keeping people, I don't know, giving them realistic expectations about how a city works and how it's going to treat them. It's got to be a good word for that. But we're not qualified to fix the thing that's wrong here. So if we're going to insist on being a part of it, maybe we need to apprentice ourselves to people who are better cut out for it. People who are real good at this stuff. Get some guidance. I don't want to say get deputized in that, literally. Get some direction from people who can see the big picture.

If we're going to stay. I would still be very okay. There's a lot of continent out there. And doing good is good, right? That's a simple way to put it. I feel like it's a bit early to be talking about apprenticing under another branch of the guard or something. We don't even know who's in charge of us right now. I think we were kind of Warwick's pet project, weren't we? Yeah, what about that? That's a great point. Without Warwick, we're rudderless. We have no ties to the Brightport government, to be honest with you. We're kind of alienated. Speaking for myself, I know that I love this city too much to leave it in the state that it's in.

And I feel for you Paxton, because there's no way you could have known what your words would do to the crowds or that they would rise up in the manner that they did. But I will say in the future, do not attach my name to yours. Because though we share some ideals, it's true. I can and will speak for myself. Yeah, Paxton's gonna nod. He's gonna say, "Absolutely, such as you're right. I didn't mean to speak for the whole of Firebrand when I said the things that I've said. I didn't know it would get to this point. I thought I was... It went from a light distraction into something completely different.

Here we are now, but a lesson learned is a lesson learned. I apologize to all of you for sweeping you into this. Let me get a perception check from everybody. Oh my gosh, I'm so unperceptive. I always forget until I look in here. Hey, there have been lower rolls tonight already. Don't worry. I think maybe Bo needs glasses or something. That's what I'm gonna go with. Maybe that's Bo's arc. Like it's like, I need to see an optometrist. Calypso, Gwen. So delivered with the morning paper. Obviously there are a couple of papers in Brightport. The other one was a little more focused on the actual damage and not so much the, you know, not so much getting out in front with like the big scoop, so to speak, like a hot take, but more just like, wow, yesterday sucked.

Here's what happened. Like it's much more of a almost a, you know, a bland PBS way of telling everybody what happened. But there's going to be some mail for the crew. There's going to be one letter made out to Calypso. And there's going to be a smaller envelope, wax sealed with this this black bird stamp. And those, those are just sitting on on the table, just kind of collected with everything else. Is the bird stamp one addressed to someone specific? Just for Iobran. Okay. Does Calypso like recognize the, like, is there like a return address? I don't know.

It's... I don't know how this fantasy mail works. 101 secret hideout drive. Yeah, it's on 123 Madup Street. It's, uh, so you probably go by like the wax seal. And this is, this is like a family wax seal, like Calypso would recognize this. Okay, that like their eyes kind of like whined in a bit and they're just like... I forgot something good was going to happen. Yeah. I figured, I figured I'd get that bitter pill out of the way and then just like, hey, there's hope for the future. Like, you know, there's stuff. Guys, we got a castle. You get a lollipop after your shot.

Yeah. It's a big ass shot though. I don't think they're probably going to like, like put it like, they're not going to open it like yet, especially because the ominous one addressed to Fire Prince. It's like, okay, this is something to look at later. We can deal with this other stuff now. But they were not expecting this. So that's... Who's opening the other envelope? Excellent question. I'll open her up. Okay. I'll rip that sucker open. Let's do it. The last time I opened an envelope, it went pretty okay for me. So maybe a little horrifying, but you know. Yeah.

Well, if there's anthrax in there, you're probably the one that will survive it. Oh, man. What happens if there's anthrax, Jason? Well, then we go to... We go to something I call Tentacle Jamie. Oh, jeez. Okay, Jamie, you're going to get an email from Elle. It's going to be uncomfortable. But she's going to want details. Just let her down gentle. Oh, God. She's not going to ask for gentle? Elle's a monster fucker. Anyway, continue. Wow. I like that there's no... She's self-identified. I mean, she's not on the show. Like, I like that there's no privacy at all. She is, though.

We've said it on the show, though. No, she... Yeah. She totally... She knows what she is. She really liked Venom. Let's... Good for her. Hey, Venom's a Chad. There is a little folded piece of paper in this envelope, and it's kind of... The handwriting is almost scrawled on there. It's very not childlike, but almost aggressive. And it just says, "Meet me in the alley behind your headquarters at midnight." Ominous. That's not... Okay, so there's one more line. "I think I can help you." Not like, "And bring no friends." Like, it's, you know... I was about to say, like, "Giolo, I think one of your clients maybe sent this to the wrong..." If I had a silver piece for every time someone's made me that offer.

Oh, man. Business or pleasure, right? Oh, sit right port. It's all allies. If we had someone's, we'd have that poop app. Oh, yeah, we would. So whoever it is wants us to meet them tonight. Yes. Okay. Question out of game. The Iron Knuckle boys are still planning their drug thing tonight, right? I don't think we're in any shape to handle that. Can we just agree? It's not only... Well, it was a shipment, so I don't know that they can fast track that. But we didn't have really any info, so... Well, that was kind of the original plan, was to get info. Yeah. And then we kind of took a left turn.

Exactly. So it could have already happened, but it could still be happening tonight. I think we've... That's postponed. So the seal with the bird on it, like, I... I don't know what that could be. They're like, "Any other identifying stuff? That's it?" That's it? It's not a recognizable bird? It's, I mean, it's a wax seal. Like a flamingo? It's definitely not a flamingo. It's more like a... It's decorative. Like a raven? Is it like a raven? It could be. But... Wait a minute! This mail's from Club Penguin. Is it bigger than a bread box? Is it? It's from Club Penguin! Yeah, it's not...

I'm sorry for talking over you. No flightless birds. Definitely not that. It's... I mean, emu's won a war in Australia, so like... I know, but they're not very... They're not indigenous to this area. Of the problems Brightport has, emu control is not one of them. Well, Beau will just flip this letter around so that everyone can see and say, "It looks like another restless night." I'm intrigued. Someone seems to want to throw us a bone. Might as well show up. I'm not sure how much they could help us, though. This handwriting's atrocious. It could be on purpose, so they could be identified by their handwriting.

Right. It could be code, because no one would read this. That's not how code works. So I... Scratching his head? [Laughter] So... I mean, either they actually do have something for us, or they're going to try and kill us. And... I mean, at this point, especially if we're just right outside headquarters, where we can get back up if needed. What about the other letter? Who got another letter? This one's addressed to Calypso. You want to see if it's a private matter, or...? Yeah, they'll go ahead and open it and... Is that... I need to ask, is that just like... God, is it like a family member doing well?

Does someone have a baby? Can we get some good news? Is it like that kind of inquiry? I'm more meant for Giollo. Oh, sorry. Why would he be interested? Oh, why am I asking about the envelope? Yeah. Oh, just, I don't know. We need leads. We need tips. That's fair. If you get one cryptic message, there could be two. That's fair. Yeah, I don't know. There's mail. It came to headquarters. I assume it's business mail. Oh, that's true. Yeah, you don't want to use the company's postage to get your private mail. That's just gauche. Mail time. Do you know how much wax stamps cost? [Laughter] [Laughter] But yeah, so like when like, you're like, brings that, they'll go ahead and, you know, open it up and like, first like skim through to make sure it's like, there's something horrible like, that like, else happens.

Well, okay. This is one of those... This is one of those letters. It starts out with like, "We regret to inform you." Which is like, oh, come on. Did I apply for a college that I don't remember? Do I like, what, what, what? But it's going to begin, "We regret to inform you that your great uncle, Rodolfo, has passed away." And I don't know if Calypso even knows of a great uncle, Rodolfo. How do you not? Oh, Rodolfo? Oh, man. I, okay, legit in real life, I had a great uncle die. I had never heard of this person. And they left me tens of thousands of dollars. I never got to see that money.

But it was left to me. And, uh, my family's fantastic. But the important thing is, like, that does happen. Like, it's like, oh shit, do I have to stay in a haunted mansion or something? Like, it's like, I didn't, no, it was just money. *laughter* Do we have to stay in a haunted mansion? Well, it does go on. And it says that, although this is obviously a heartbreaking time for you and your family, we have been requested to pass on your great uncle's estate to you, Calypso, and in the hills overlooking Brightport. There's a castle called Heartsong Keep, which is this beautiful, old, kind of Gothic looking, huge manor estate.

It's a castle technically, but it's not for military purposes. It's for modern living. Your great uncle may have had privacy issues. And he may have been in a bit of an agoraphobe. Ooh, sounds like it could be haunted. It's un-, who's to say? But... It goes on to say? It goes on to say that, as a music lover yourself, you might appreciate the fact that there's a great many instruments collected on the grounds, and there's basically a whole museum of different things. As a matter of fact, it was not uncommon for music to play 24/7 in the castle in every room, just in case he decided to take a walk through.

Ooh, that sounds real spooky. How many ghosts do you need to play all those instruments? *laughter* Just sayin'. How many zombified musicians did that take? No, no, ghosts. We're going with ghosts. This time ghosts? Standard haunting. Are we going more Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion, or like... I mean, either or. I didn't particularly like that movie, but I'd go for it. Are we going for like 13 ghosts? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll go with 13 ghosts. Alright, but only if you keep in the backstories for each ghost, because that's the only thing that makes that movie good, and they took it out.

Well, we're gonna have intricate backstories for each ghost, but I'm never going to go into them on the show. Oh, damn. Yes. Can it go on the DVD extras? Yes. Cool. The day we release a DVD is the day it looks like- *laughter* I was waiting for the stipulation that we had to stay overnight. I was waiting... Anyway, sorry I walked all over your moment. Kelsey, have at it. I propose Patrick Swayze Ghost. Ooh, a classic. Yeah. Yeah, so Calypso is just kind of like staring at this, because at first they're like- I was like, okay, this is sort of like a scam. Like, it just sounds so stupid.

It's like, okay, relative you never heard of died. It's like, uh huh, sure. But then it's like, okay, wait, this gets too detailed? And then just kind of like... I wonder if that's a thing in Tharia, where it's like, oh, your great uncle died, we just need you to deposit 2500 gold to cover the transfer costs, and we will wire the money from Fairbay right away. Yeah, and then there's just like, they just like, brow kind of like, furrowed as they're trying to think, okay, which side of the family is this, the elf side or the human side? And like looking- They've never heard of this person, but they actually glance down at their violin, which is kind of like an heirloom of sorts, and it is a pretty nice piece that has some butterfly etchings and stuff in it.

So they just kind of like glance at that and like, is this like connected? And then they just kind of like shake their head and look up at Shirloans. It's nothing that pertains to any of this. Thankfully, I don't really know what to make of it. Unexpected inheritance from someone I've never heard of, apparently. I'll have to look more into it after we deal with things. A lot has happened today. So what's the inheritance though? What are you getting? It's the new Firebrand headquarters! Weeeee! Yeah, and there's- The fact that they don't want to tell us is- Well, no, there's like hesitating on saying it, because it's like this, like, especially after everything has happened, it's like, this does not feel like real.

Like, I just like, like, and then I fall asleep, like, like this is just- Everyone's standing around you looking expectantly. Yeah, and then they're just like- Waiting for the news. And then they like glance down, like double checking the letters, like, okay, no, I did it in this read. That's actually what it says. And then they look back at the group and just, have you ever heard of Heartsong Keep? Why, that's a good question, everyone. Give me a history check. History. Heh heh, hell yeah. Holy shit! Okay, way to come back, Jamie. I may be blind, but I know my history.

Now, now my head candidate is Bow is secretly like 63, but like just, just has a great skincare regimen. You know what? Yeah, Bow. So, okay, Bow is going to know a little bit about this place where Heartsong Keep was originally going to be like this big music academy. Rodolfo Granger actually opened this place as a music academy and there was some falling out with their prize student, and ever since then, he just collected old, what he deemed to be valuable musical heirlooms and hoarded them in this place. And it's, it's kind of rumored that you could hear music playing at night if you were close enough up in the hills, like if you were hiking or something like that, but no one has seen that person in probably two decades.

He's Willy Wonka. The Willy Wonka of music. Bow would say that. Bow would say, I've heard of that before, the Heartsong Keep. It was supposed to be a music academy. Really? That's... Huh. I hadn't heard of it. I mean, I'm still fairly new here and I didn't know that I was connected to Rodolfo is the name. Mm hmm. That does sound familiar. The melody must run in your veins. Okay, Calypso gives Bow a look at that and is like, okay, that's just like, that's a bit creepy to just pull out. Because of the music. I know it's just... I need to actually look into this and see if it's really real or not, but...

Oh, it's definitely a real place. I don't think it's too far out of Brightport. Not to keep itself. The realness of what the letter says, which is that apparently I have inherited it. Like, the estate didn't... I'm not the kind to impose, but I'm totally going to impose right now. We don't have any appointments till midnight. Just saying. I do percussion. Party at Calypso's place. Calypso, that's amazing. It's a bit more than a there and back sort of trip. I guess we don't want to miss the midnight thing. I mean, I can confirm the reliability of this and if it actually is true, then we can go investigate it?

Wow. Okay. Plot twist. Firebrand becomes a band. Firebrand! We've already got the name, right? There we go. Yes. Just ditch one letter and you guys are gold. Let's go. No one will recognize you. They're burning their way across the continent. Paxton is going to turn towards Calypso excitedly. He's going to say, "Calypso, do you know what this means?" What does it mean, Paxton? "Finally, a respectful place to store my armor." Amazing. Aww. You're the best. Where do you live, Paxton? I live in a tiny apartment with my uncle Zadok. He's a priest who abrades me constantly for things I do wrong.

So he's going to be real pissed off about this. Paxton? Yes. What part of the city is that? Oh, it's in the... See, he's a priest, but he doesn't make much money, so it's in the lower s... Ooh, it's in the lower sakes. Do we need to do a roll? Uh oh. I did not go home yet. He's a priest, though. Let's play homicide roulette. Oh, no. Well, a third of downtown burned down. He's just a lowly priest. You can leave him alone. He's been through enough. I don't know what that fire really cares about. One or two burnt down, three plus. Well, here's what we're going to do.

Give me a flat d20. As long as it's not a six or below, you're fine. Oh, he's fine. Hey! Fine! 15. You're good. Nice, nice, nice. So he's alive to yell at you. Yeah. That's the best case scenario. But, um, I think for now, if you don't want to check it out just yet, you want to stay in the city, make sure you're where we, uh, you know, I don't think it's going anywhere, so, you know, whenever you want to check it out, Klips, it's on your time. Us just disappearing right now. Probably isn't us here. Right. You don't want to get distracted. I understand. Okay, but I'm going to say what we're all thinking, and that's that this would be a super cool Firebrand headquarters.

No pressure, but it would be a super cool Firebrand headquarters. And if we had a nice place like that, we could entertain powerful people, solve big problems, you know what I'm saying? Dream big, Klips. Dream big. I don't think turning us into a fourth house is exactly what you're just talking about. Lay low. No, no, but I mean, we're not going to like become like the fourth house of Brightport. I mean, that sounds high pressure. No, we're just going to like invite people over and if they see fit to, uh, uh, you know, feel positive toward us after a little evening with the Giolo treatment, you know, maybe we get some favors that can make the world a better place.

Uh huh. I think you may be getting a little bit ahead of yourself. It's probably know this place. Klips. So practically run down and better off selling it. Klips. So that's my specialty. I think we should all get some sleep. Yeah, let's um, again, it's dawn, but you guys are crashing. Yeah, I mean, so, man, are you guys going to sleep in your own houses or just like crashing on racks in the headquarters here? Giolo would sleep in the headquarters. Probably just it's it you know it's like, like the fireman thing where it's like just in case something else is on fire later just let's let's you know, so, as long as there's a place to like, sleep up.

Yeah, I feel like that's. Yeah, definitely. And they're, they're separate rooms. It's not like you guys are all in cots in the back or something like that. So, have both when checked on their mom. No, during the thing we kept asking like is it anywhere near. Not even close. If at this point Jason were like, Oh, and your shop burned down. I think we'd be allowed to hit him. Yeah. That being said, I told Brie to get ready Jamie I should tell you to. Oh, your mom's gonna have opinions. So, upper class lady. Oh, but that nice Paxton boy was so sweet. He's all over the news he's dangerous.

I don't want you hanging out with that boy anymore. Do you know how many people got injured that kind of bit what was out your sister. So, let's crash, give everybody a long rest. Does anyone want to do anything while you're sleeping. Great. I think, when is going to try to sneak out into the city. Yeah. For any particular reason, like, Oh, he wants to go look into the iron knuckle boys. Okay. You take them on by herself right now, but she wants to figure some shit out. Okay. If it's possible to get that long rest and still have time before the group would reconvene Gio low may attempt to make a house call on gradic again.

Okay. Just as a yeah like hey let's know that like you might like like go buy some fresh fruit and and have a little like sit and chat, you know, keep up, keep up this relationship that's that's potentially a pathway to, you know, more resources. Okay, so let's do this in order here. Is this a thing where Gwen is going to sleep first or just wait till everybody's just it is it one of those things where it's just keeping keeping her up. Yeah, I think that she would wait until she's pretty sure everyone else is asleep, and then, like I said, try to like sneak out because if both caught her.

I think she, you know, well, again, these are separate rooms, so like this might even be a thing where you can get out a window Gwen small suggest, this one of her defining features Yes. Do me a favor, give me, give me a stealth check with advantage, because I imagine, I'll do it twice. Oh good. Good thing. And I'll take that. Please, instead of the eight. And there isn't it's with advantages I imagine when people crash, it's just like holy shit like it's just boom. Yeah, you're out. So, all right. It's early morning in the city of brightport. And you're heading downtown.

You're gonna. Oh, and she did not wear her firebrand outfit. I would hope. This is, um, it's gonna be a bit of a sad walk, obviously you got people, you know, burned out of house and home there are people lined up to try to kind of rally and figure out what they're going to do, there are a lot of businesses downtown that are handing out free food and drink and stuff like that just trying to give. Just in the in the interim just figure out it's like, okay, wow, what do we do like that type of thing. And after quite a quite a bit of walking. When it's going to get to the portion of the docks downtown, where you guys were.

Well basically where this whole thing kicked off right like you were, you were in the area you were looking for some information here you were going to spy on them what's the plan. I don't think she had one. Oh, fantastic. When she gets there she's probably just going to keep an eye out and see if she notices anything, see if she recognizes anyone within that organization, and if she does she would trail them. Boy I almost hope this doesn't work, because man, that's, I'm getting, I'm getting a real Mary Jane and the Spider Man video game recently those missions, like, I do not like them, like, worst case it's going to be one of the miles missions where like rhinos chasing you through the cargo bays and shit.

She's gonna try not to get noticed, like, obviously, yeah, she's not suicidal, she's just fucking pissed. Right. Okay, so this is a stakeout, essentially. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to roll a few things on this side. And we're looking for higher roles, but the I'm rolling three times. The higher the roles. The bigger, the thing that's going to happen. So, let me let me do a thing here. One. Oh god 16. Okay. Six, and two. Okay, so you are going to spot two individuals, and they do look familiar look like you remember when you were down on the docks the other day like you remember, like, you remember seeing these people but they didn't stick out so much.

So it's not the furry guy it's. No, no, no, no, it's no that guy sticks out. I thought you said dicks out. Dick is out. Dick's out. Um, you got mad that we call them a furry my goodness. So, these guys are heading down the block. And I need you to give me a perception check please. Shit, bye shit, five. I dare say you might have to get a little closer if you want to hear what they are saying. Okay, to these two look familiar though. We're still on the street though right still in the street so let's say worst case scenario. You knock a bunch of oranges over and whoa, and like you take off.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah stealth. Give me a stealth. Oh, thank God. It was almost the one we all saw it. 19 plus five. Yeah, you're going to get really close to these two, and they stop. One of them's one of them's eating, and they they stop. Take time to swallow their food. Look, no one's gonna get involved tonight, everyone's so goddamn busy dealing with what happened, it's just, we're wide open. It's fine. At 2am, we get all the stuff on the ship. We take it off, and we're good to go. So, tell everyone, and meet me back here at like one to get ready. Alright.

And the one guy's gonna take off. The guy who was talking is going to continue down the street and walk into a large, like a large building it looks like maybe like a warehouse or something like that. I, you know what, everyone's got their camera off and I feel like everyone's judging you right now it's like don't do it. Okay, she's gonna cut her losses, and she learned that she learned the time, which seems to align well to her purpose. If that's her, I don't know what her purpose is, she doesn't know what her purpose is yet. So she's going to go back.

Okay, maybe. She might knock on Calypso's door. Okay. Okay. Yeah, after just kind of a dick move right now. Yeah, it's gonna be like a few seconds that kind of like, what's this sleepwear look like? What's the jammy situation? Well, I don't know if any of us are, I don't know what the like, I don't think you packed for this generic jammy situation they have. It's a sleeping cap and a long gown. Yeah, unfortunately I can't do a cool nightgown situation so yeah it's probably just you know, whatever like, just whatever's under their armor. I don't know. I don't know if they tell you all what YOLO wears to sleep.

No, you don't. It's the same thing. Ah, where to sleep. Hell naturale. Yeah, and then just like after like a minute and like open the door looking like, like, they're like forcing themselves to be alert, but also still like they just woke up and are like groggy just kind of like, blank, focus on Gwen. Is everything okay? What? And then they kind of focus on Gwen again it's like, wait, you are in sleepwear what's happening? I want to imagine just because for Flavor, at first you looked forward and thought Noah was there. And then you had to go, Oh. Gwen is not going to look incredibly confident at the moment but she's trying to stand her ground and she will look up to Clipso and say, Do you still want to go after the Iron Knuckle boys?

And then after, they are like waking up more especially when they hear that and then they just like, give like a sharp like nod and then they like open up the door further. And after that, I think, just to keep people from having to wait I think Gwen would say everything that she just learned to Clipso, and then ask them, should we tell everyone, or just Bo? Because it didn't seem like anyone really gave a fuck earlier about going after them again. So what's the, yeah the character, what's like the timetable then? It's eight o'clock. That's how. Yeah, I know I'm just trying to think, okay like how much time do we have before that and then the midnight day.

That's when my alarm goes off and I'm an asshole I apologize. Some of us are professionals. So this is like, maybe 10, 11am something like that. So we can still get some nappy naps in. There's pure confidence that Bo's gonna go by the way. Yeah, and Clipso will take Gwen at her word on that like they're not going to question it. They probably have a brief thought that's like, I wonder how Bo's gonna react to Gwen doing this. They're not gonna say it. Spoiler alert, poorly. I definitely feel like, I mean taking Paxton is obviously a risk even if he would come.

Do you think just the three of us could deal with it or? They didn't say how many people were going to be there. I don't know if we should lay low and watch what happens, or if we should just go in and try to kill them. I don't know. I don't make plans. And the one time I tried it did not go well and she's going to kind of flash her claws for a second, and then they're going to retract back in. Yeah Clipso kind of winces a little bit remembering that. Yeah, I mean I would want to say let's try and observe first to make sure there's not going to be a huge crowd and we'd be massively outnumbered.

After, yeah, our last few plans haven't exactly worked out so I'm not quite sure. If you think, I mean if we're going to be bringing Bo in whether or not we should probably, I mean she might have some helpful input. Yeah. Do you should. She's like stumbling she doesn't. Should we go wake her up to should we talk about this or should we wait until it's time to go into the back alley and deal with that and then right after we have to put her hands down on a table like I don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah no Clipsos like right there just like trying to like think through it just like, this is a lot.

How well does she deal with being interrupted sleeping. Hey Jamie. She do as poorly as you do, because that's true. We won't even be able to wake her up. At her house they have 97 alarms and they don't wake up for a single fucking one. I'm a heavy sleeper. Okay. That is. That's true. Yeah, I would say Bo probably has a hard time getting up, especially when they're exhausted. Though they are a morning person so it's like, take that as you will. So, roll to attack Bo. Yeah, it's even worse once you wake up morning person up you're usually just up. Yeah, yeah. It was already morning.

A little bit earlier, not before she would have to anyways. Okay, how about 10 o'clock tonight, we, the three of us, get together and talk about this more. And maybe Paxton, maybe Jolo, I just, if anyone says we shouldn't fucking do it. I agree we should do something. Thank you. And she'd leave at that unless there was anything else you wanted to say. Good, good job good thinking on going out there and get more stuff. She'll kind of have a small smile and be like, why do you think so? Bo's gonna fucking kill me. Well, if you need any healing, you know where to find me.

Rob! Yes. Let's, let's fast forward in time a little bit everyone finally get some rest. I gave you guys a long rest in the combat tracker, hopefully there's no combat, but, well, who knows now. So, Jolo's gonna wake up, and he's gonna walk uptown. And I guess what not. So, if, what are, this is House Dragonkeep right? Yeah. Do they have like house colors? Oh, I, okay, here's where my brain went, I thought you were asking what color their house was so you can find it on the block and I'm like, my brain just fucking scattered. No, don't, don't. Heraldry. Yeah, no, it was like a blue and a white I believe we went with.

Okay, so, so Jolo, like as much as, as much as his wardrobe allows will kind of lean into that color scheme, not just like on the nose like wearing the Dragonkeep jersey or you know whatever. Yeah, you don't want to wear the band t-shirt to the concert. Yeah, but he'll, like, he'll, he'll, he'll do his best to, to adjust his palette to like, like give a little more of that vibe. He, he thinks about these things, I guess is what I'm putting out is that he, you know, he, he, he wants to, he wants to have the perfect date with Graddick, so to speak. Why did you put that in the audience's head?

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't think of a better way to do it, but like, but you know, like when you, when you think, when you're trying to like, when you're dating someone and you like, you think about the little things, right? Because you want things, you just want them to be perfect. Gosh, you just want it to be great. Tessie is in trouble. She's been working too much. Gonna lose her man. I mean, he's also going to go buy some like, like fresh fruit. Okay. Yeah. Is it like suggestive fruit? Bananas aren't just, what do you like? Is it like what? He comes with a platter of bananas in there.

I didn't know if it was like a weird edible arrangement thing that Jello's got going on. That's like, is that his move? Like. No, no, he just, he just, he gets, he gets something like seasonally appropriate and make sure to buy it from one of the nicer vendors. So it's not like bruised or anything like, you know, like, yeah, rich people free. Right. Rich people free. Graddick's like, sorry, maybe he just does all the little things for me. So yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna knock on this door and they're, they're, they're gonna let you in and there's like the seating area kind of foyer type of thing.

And Graddick's gonna be there and Tessie. Tessie walks in shortly after and not that you'd like, Jello's never met Tessie. So like this, this would, but like Tessie is kind of wearing this very formal dress. And it's, it, it basically covers up all of her body down to her hands. Like there's a, there's kind of a tight neckline to it. And it's, it's, it's almost like this double breasted thing. Like she was attacked months ago and it left some pretty nasty scars. Like she almost died. So like, yeah, she, she, yeah, kind of self-conscious about it now. Uh, Jello as a, as a trained like person to person entertainer, I would say that, that like he doesn't even begin to let that kind of thing face him.

Right. Like that is his whole thing. You probably just think it's kind of like upper crust stuffiness like other, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's not necessarily, you know, on owner's sleeve. It's just, yeah. Uh, it's, I guess house nobles are, are an occasion for bowing and things like that. I, not in this city. I was trying to think it's like, would anyone? No, no, not really. I mean, like there'd be, um, maybe like a little gift exchange. Like what you're doing or something like that, especially if you're asking for a favor, but like in bright part, we dap up nobles.

Oh my God. Can we adopt that? That's like the, that's, that's like the fist bump for bards. Like we just, uh, what's her, what's her title? I guess. See, that's tricky. I'm asking all the wrong questions. No, no, no, no. It's just, everything's kind of in flux recently, but like she, she honestly, she would just, it's like, Oh, just call me Tessie. It's fine. Um, Gratix told me a lot about you and everything. The, the, the horrible events of yesterday, that type of thing. So there'd be that kind of, you know, get it out of the way. And it's like, Oh, could you bring some tea in that type of thing?

And other than that, like the floor is open basically. Okay. Yeah. He's very much like, Oh, like, Oh, lady Tessie, a pleasure to finally meet you. Please come share some fruit with us. Like I, I, uh, I just wanted to thank. Great. Gratix is her husband at this point, right? They're, they're married, married, right? They are married. Okay. They're not just like live in couple. Okay. Uh, you know, uh, um, and he just goes on and he says, I thought your husband gave this like such an inspired talk, uh, out there as the, uh, as we attempted to, uh, calm the, calm the riot happening earlier.

I think he's just, he's got some wonderful ideas for the lower city. Uh, I wanted to come by and thank him for his, his contribution to calming things down. You know, she, she's, she's, she's going to be taking all this in and obviously everything that happened yesterday was terrible, but at the very least, cooler heads prevailed at the end. And like things didn't get any worse. Like, I think that's, that's probably going to be the tagline for this entire thing. It's like, it could have been worse. Um, so yeah, she's, she's going to take all that in. I was very happy to hear that the crowd could be talked down.

I am truly sorry it came to that though. I'm guessing there's something we could do with relief efforts. Oh, wow. Okay. I wish I had, uh, I had coordinated more. I, uh, I, I'm here on, I guess, a few different topics, right? Like, uh, I mean, I think, I think as far as relief efforts, when I think Greta had this, had this great idea of, of this, um, I guess you've, you've told her about the center you had pictured before, right? Uh, yeah. Um, well, there's plenty of room for it now with, uh, the, uh, yeah, like the kind of, uh, kind of, kind of like when he pitched it, he didn't think that there'd be that much destruction downtown.

Uh, Giolo tries to like, kind of slide into that awkward, like slow down of his speech and just be like, it's a terrible situation, but it comes with an opportunity, right? Like, you know, we have to act now of, of, of all times with, with the way the lower quarter looks right now. There's a chance to rebuild, uh, something, something that serves those people down there better that, that, uh, that makes them feel like they belong. Right? I completely agree. I've already sent word to the South for lumber shipment and we could probably begin something formal as soon as next week.

That's amazing. That's wonderful to hear. I'm, uh, I, uh, look forward to, uh, bringing that back to Firebrand and sharing that with my allies. So that's, I mean, I think, uh, on the subject of, of a contribution you could make, you're, you're already doing it. Uh, no doubt that's gonna, that's gonna be a great boon for the, um, rebuilding effort. I, uh, I mean, I'll, I'll be honest. There's, there's maybe let's, let's call it three other things, right? Um, number one, I just wanted to come here and listen. Uh, I come from a different life than, uh, than a higher, higher society.

You know, I, uh, I'm an escort and, uh, uh, this whole Firebrand thing has been kind of a journey. What with the, uh, you know, the warlock power situation, that's a long story, maybe better for another time. Anyway, I'm capable of serving in that regard. And, uh, so thing number one, like I said, come here, listen, get a better idea of how you see Brightport, right? Cause you're going to have perspective that I can't possibly have, and we've got big problems right now. And if I know how a family as powerful and influential and successful as yours sees this picture, um, I can do more good that way in my position.

She'd be taking a, you know, taking a sip of tea while you're, while you're saying that and, um, she, she would chime in. That's, that's good to hear. Uh, honestly, neither of us were born into this life either. It's been, it's been quite an adjustment. And to be honest, we're still figuring out all the little social pitfalls. We've tried to use the house's resources to change what little we could, but it's been a little slower going than we'd like. What, uh, what's, what's holding you back most right now? Time, mostly, um, that just doesn't seem to be enough time in the week to get to every request that shows up at our door.

As you can imagine, being one of three large houses, there are quite, quite a few needy people who request things like shipments and just for all goods, resources. And we can only fulfill so much of that. We've instituted a program where ex-convicts have been hired on by us personally, and they've become merchants, travelers, adventurers, and it's been pretty successful. But there's only so much we can do personally. So I'm very interested in what you have to pitch. The center Greta was talking about, I think is a fantastic start. Yeah, I see a forgive me for saying so maybe this is a little personal, but, but I see what kind of brought the two of you together.

You've got hearts for rehabilitation, right? You've got, you've got a deep caring for less fortunate people. And also coming from, you know, not lifelong high society backgrounds, you, you bring a skill set from outside that maybe those people who were here the whole time don't have and can't recognize. It's, it's a beautiful thing. Graddick's gonna look genuinely uncomfortable. It's just like, yeah, just, just kind of like, let's, let's, let's move on with this part of the conversation. And Tessie is going to kind of reach over and squeeze his hand. Graddick's much more caring than he probably lets on.

And to be honest, he's quite the cunning linguist when he wants to be. Can you give me an insight check, please? I mean, Rob got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's, it's, it's... They are not one for public displays of affection, but that was clearly double entendre and like they're going to kind of share a glance at each other. Graddick's almost like, "This is a business meeting. Stop the, you know, like that type of thing." Can I not have to make an insight check on the basis of being a prostitute? I think, I think this is so in Giollo's wheelhouse that it's fine.

Yeah, yeah. Giollo, Giollo adds with a, with a sly grin, "I'm fond of many kinds of linguists." And then they orgy'd. No. Look, I'm changing the subject. I was sorry to hear about Warwick. We never, we never got along. It might surprise you, but I never wanted the guy dead, so... No, it's, it's tragic. And everything, everything would seem to indicate that the Iron Knuckle boys took advantage of the chaos. That actually, to kill him, and that actually kind of is a great segue into my second point here. Because how much, how much of, of group Firebrand's mission or operation are you privy to?

Is this, I don't know, I don't know how the kind of paths of information go around, go around Brightport. I don't, let me know. Again, another sip of tea. I try to stay plugged in as much as I can. My understanding was this was a personal project from Steven, and this was going to be more of a smaller ground level team. Yeah, yeah, kind of a precision operations kind of thing. So, so the thing that we're working on right now is the drugs, right? There's a drug problem in the lower quarter. And as, if you're comfortable confiding in me, what, anything you might know about what's going on down there with regard to the drugs and what, maybe anything that might, you know, help us have a, have the upper hand in tackling that problem, right?

It's the source of a lot of misery. Ah, well, lower docks, just a cesspool right now. No one goes there. Guards won't touch it. The last, last few spots on the docks probably bring in tons of illegal goods over the course of a year. The more comfy they get, the worse the stuff that comes in. So it doesn't shock me that there's something going down soon. But I would warn you before you get involved because what happened to Warwick was not an isolated thing. They, they, they will kill you if they get the chance. I got the indication, you know, Firebrand was assembled to be specialists who, who put their lives on the line in that regard.

It's a, at times it's a frightening job, but I'm surrounded by very bold allies in Calypso and Gwen and Beau and Paxton. We've got, we've, we've, we've had some hurdles to start, right? But, um, I think they're all just, they have such strong wills, right? To get this, get this figured out, fix the problems. We just need to get our feet under us again. I'll tell you what. Give me two days. I'll get a few ideas together and see what resources I can give you immediately. Just try not to do anything too ambitious until then. I don't know if I'm about to tell you something that you already know or not, but we may not have two days until a major shipment of drugs comes through Brightport.

And that's not me saying I need you to give me resources sooner. I that's so presumptuous, right? I can't, you know, um, I just, just know that what you're contributing, if it's two days from now is something to solve the larger problem, right? The ongoing problem rather than this incident. Um, I mean, I'm, I'm going to be out on the streets of Brightport tonight, you know, trying to stop what, you know, people are suffering, right? It's, it's a bad time to be in the lower quarter of Brightport and with that kind of suffering, I think, I think they've got the perfect situation to, um, just get a lot of people hooked in kind of a kind of a longterm way.

People who might otherwise not think about, uh, taking up that path. I assure you I'll move as fast as I can. That, that promises more than I, than I ever hoped for. I, uh, I mean, I came here, I came here just with a hope to say thanks and, uh, continue the relationship. You know, I think, I think you have a wonderful vision. I want to be a part of that vision. Uh, and I want, uh, Firebrand as much as, as much as we're capable. I don't know how much, uh, concern there is about us showing partiality to any given house, but, um, as much as we can, I'd like us to be a part of that vision.

She's gonna stand up as kind of like, okay, well, we're gonna go get started. Thank you. You know, that type of thing. And she's going to reach out for, um, for Giolo's hand. I really do appreciate you coming here and please know that maybe more than anyone in this city, I want to help. Giolo, was it? Giolo Fane. Again, a pleasure to, uh, to finally get acquainted with you. We'll speak very soon. I promise. Giolo will nod and, uh, um, give, uh, give Gratic a handshake as well. Uh, and just, you know, give him a very, also just a, it's good to see you again.

I'll, uh, I'll take my leave. All right. Schmoozed. It's what he does. It's what he does. We still got a little bit more talking to do in this episode. So let's say, you know, Giolo does that. It's early evening. It's, you know, things are kind of settling things up, uh, while people are still up during the day. You guys are going to be up at, you know, pretty late tonight. At what point do you guys approach Bo? You said it was going to be later in the evening, couple hours before the meetup? Yeah, I think we said like 10. Okay. Hi Bo. Sup. We, we like, like knock on her door and like two of us like already like ready to go.

Well, if it's late evening, I suppose Bo has slept through most of the day and would probably be up, um, just in their quarters, preparing to go out for this meeting that they have. Trying to decide whether or not to wear their Firebrand emblems or not. What you guys have is an image problem. Right. Exactly. Do you wear, do you wear the uniform when you go to do like vigil, like vengeful vigilantism? But Bo will just open the door and say, what's up? Okay, before I start, promise you won't be mad. I will not make that promise. What did you do? She will push the door open the rest of the way and like get Calypso to come inside as well and then close the door.

This must be really bad then. Okay. It's not bad. Jeez. So earlier, I just happened to be in the lower quarter again, and I just so happened to see some guys that I recognized, you know, like from from before the riot happened, and I followed them a little bit. Staying on the street. I didn't, I didn't follow them anywhere bad. And I heard when they're going to meet, and they're going to meet tonight. And I really want to kill them. And then just like dead stare at Bo. Yeah, Calypso is also like looking at Bo like kind of waiting. Can I partition, Jason, that Brianna should have to roll a deception roll?

Because that is a fucking lie. And I don't know how good she would be at lying and I don't know how good Bo would be at reading through her bullshit. I, I do believe that falls under the half truth rule when we don't do that. I will roll with disadvantage. Yeah, that's the younger sibling. Yeah. Oh, that's a three. Nailed it. You just so happened. I mean, look, no one was talking about it. He's dead and no one said anything about dealing with the people who killed him and I know there are bigger problems right now, but he saved my life and I couldn't save his and it really upset me.

And so, yeah, I, I left the building in search of someone. I don't know, but I, I didn't do anything stupid. Jesus Christ, Gwen, that is fucking stupid. The last time you went rogue like this, you fucking died. I went broke. And Stephen Weryk is the reason that I didn't stay dead. And now he is. And you're right, it was probably stupid, but I came back. I could have, I thought about staying and I didn't. I thought about going in there, slit in their fucking throats. But I knew that the last time we tried doing something that way, it went poorly. I recognized that.

So. And then she's going to gesture to the room. You need to stop going off by yourself like that. You're part of a team now. Do you know what that means? She's going to look down at the floor like. Pouting a little bit. It means that you need to put your own ego aside and work together. I knew you'd say no. I thought you'd say no. I'm not saying no. I'm just. God, you're just so dumb sometimes. She'll kind of smile at that and be like, that's why I have you. And then it's just big puppy dog eyes back up. That will be met with an eye roll. So when is this all supposed to happen?

They said 2am. So we could meet whoever it is and then we could go after them. But I don't know how many people are there. I told Calypso. I don't know. And I don't want to die. So. Have you told Paxton and Jolo? No, that's. We hadn't really. Thought through what. Bringing Paxton down there again is. Iffy. And we aren't sure about Jolo. Figured you might have better advice on. What we should do with this information. Well. We're not going alone. Dagger eyes over at Gwen. And. You never leave a soldier behind. So. We might as well inform them and they can make their own decisions.

OK. Fair enough. Should we talk about it before or after our mysterious meeting? We've got time. Might as well rope them in now. So. The gang gets together, I guess. I imagine it's one of those things where. You've all slept. You probably ate something and you're probably still getting. Bits of news. Kind of dribbling in throughout the day and stuff. And you all know that in a little while you're going to you're going to go talk to this person behind. Behind your headquarters. Are you just going to broach this topic? As a hey gang, you know what builds teamship?

Killing the guys that murdered your mentor. Let's go. Have you ever watched an anime? Well. Gwen is officially going to take down a drug king. Yeah. Gwen would leave it in those hands at that point. Wow. Yep. Fucking seriously. This is influenced by real life, maybe. Yeah. Could you could you order for me, Jamie? Could you? That I want to tell you something you promise you can't get mad has been uttered in this house. Did you order for me? Well, that, too. Yes. Well, I suppose if we're all getting together in like a group chitty chat, it's probably right before we're about to go meet this person.

Probably. But we'll just mention and and honestly, I don't want to say info dump, but all of the details of the event, she'll probably info dump and just sort of say. We have an opportunity to still finish Stephen Warwick's last command from us, which is to take down the Iron Knuckle boys. They still have the shipment coming in tonight. Gwen was able to get some intel info dump here. What are we thinking? And it's going to look specifically to Paxton and Giolo, because I already know where Gwen Eclipso stand. Well, Paxton. Yeah, he had a long, good sleep to really mull it over, think about it, and personally, he he's had too many run ins with the Iron Knuckle boys not to like to detest them.

So, like, you know, absolutely. He's he's going to be like. That was I was I was a risky win. That was courageous, though. And you got some good information. I'm proud of you, though. I'm proud. I took initiative. I didn't know everyone was feeling that way about the Iron Knuckle boys. I didn't bring it up because I thought it would be insensitive because, you know, Warwick just died. But I understand your hunger for revenge, so to speak. And she's going to like as he's complimenting her, she's just going to like, bro, she's just going to she feeds on compliments.

Though, crosses her arms. And she'll probably even like smile a bit, though, like. But I understand you want to look out for your sister, but she is an agent and she has skills. She put them to use. And now we have information. We could I'm totally on board. Whatever. You guys, what you decide, I understand now is a great time to strike since they're unawares and they have a plan set up at two a.m. Was it we the only thing I'm hesitant about is I don't know. Their firepower, so to speak, we could walk into something we're completely unprepared for. Aside from that, though, I have all the gumption in heart as as Gwyn does here, I, I, I do feel like they took some someone from me personally, the Iron Knuckle Boys, and I don't think it was called for in that sense.

So maybe, maybe we can just go an eye for an eye from this one and be OK with being blind. That's just how it is. I don't think we should just walk in there without any idea what we're up against. I mean, the chance that we would just be walking into a another mob and be wildly outnumbered. But it would be nice to at least do one thing successful. Right. I agree. And the thing about that is maybe if we go next time and back up our scout with the skills, we can get more accomplished if we're all together. I guess Giola will will pipe up for his turn here and he'll look at Gwyn and he'll say, I'm not saying this is a bad idea because it's the right thing to do.

Right. It's a good thing to do. But if we're going to do it, we need to make this the most unfair fight possible. Right. For those guys, because it didn't go super well when we when we didn't account for that. Yes. Yes. That has been mentioned several times now. Just what I'm saying is we just we get there, we take it all in and then we we figure out how to how to get them on the back foot before it even starts. I guess that's all I'm saying. And it's it's the right thing to do. The boss had a had a good vision and it's it's this whole thing was a good opportunity for me to.

I pulled my end of the deal, as it were, and I appreciate that you're all you're all really emphatic about trying to make this city a better place. It seems like seems like an uphill battle and sometimes even possibly a road to tragedy. But. Yeah, I'm in to try. Sure. If. We won't hold it against you if you want to leave Firebrand, you'll just. Want to make sure you don't feel as if you're. Stuck here. Just don't even ask what would you do without me? Really? I mean, come on, come on, see this thing, don't silly thing to say, don't say that. Stop it. In terms of fairness, we do still have the Firebrand armory at our disposal if we wanted to turn the tables of this potential encounter.

Just yes, we should. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Are we going back to blowing up the ship? I thought we had gone over that one before. I was slightly against that before, but I'm on I'm fine with it now. Let's just feel that has a lot more opportunities to go badly than go well. I mean, a lot of things have gone badly recently. Maybe we'll lean into that. I'm just add explosives that it makes all can go wrong. I'm not saying we should kill a bunch of innocent semi innocent people, but I am saying that we should keep our options open and go in well armed. Absolutely.

Now, Jason, do we actually have any access to the armory or is it like one meme on Twitter? I remember you saying we had like cool stuff that we could use. Oh, yeah, there's Yeah. And that was, I mean, here's the thing that was gonna be drip fed to you but who's gonna stop me? Oh my gosh, Spider-Man. Spider suit. I love being on a team with my real life sister. I just imagine like the meme of a key card, like some guy swiping the key card, you just can't get into the building anymore. You just has no idea why. Oh, we just been fired. So, the time comes. And I imagine there's this weird anticipation of like, okay, a mysterious note could be a weirdo could be an assailant could be someone with info maybe could be.

What if it was a pervert I got something good for you. Yes, the trench coat. We waited all day for that. Not again. So, the I shouldn't have to tell you, but the alley behind your, your headquarters is is dark. Especially recently there's, you know, there was just a lot of destruction some of the, some of the lamps and stuff have been broken, and you're gonna probably get tiptoe into this alley, kind of looking around trying to, you know, trying to see if maybe it's more than one person, maybe they lied or like you know, something like that. The note really didn't go into a lot of detail so you're kind of on, I imagine like everyone's got their, their little on edge drawn Yeah yeah yeah like it's a book man it's been a bad week like just like you're ready.

Paxton's like everyone behind me. And this is our guy. Oh man, get ready guys because we're just, we're going for it. So, as you, as you get toward the end of this alley there's like this. There's like a fence at the end of it here and there's, there's some garbage kind of strewn about. And from just above, you're going to hear a voice. Stop. Don't come any closer. Oh my god. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get yourself. Yeah, no, we're doing it. Let's fucking go come on. Oh my god. No. Yeah, Paxton's hands on his weapon. Where are you? Who the hell is that? So, everyone give me a perception check.

But why? But why? But why? Okay. That ain't bad. Okay, so basically, okay, you know what? I think someone's here. Perception. I thought I was a cleric. My god, yeah. Because I got that double proficiency bonus, the expertise. So there's this ledge about six or seven feet above this alley. And there is a figure perched on top of it. And just you kind of make out a silhouette. It looks like they they're wearing this long cloak, and they they kind of have this. It almost, it kind of resembles one of those like plague doctor masks. Like something like that. They are essentially dressed like a bird.

I assume you know about the shipment by now. No, it's great. You're gonna have to put on a straight face. This is happening. How long have you been waiting to do this? A while. Just a while. I'm gonna do a flat willpower. Sandpaper your vocal cords for this. Yeah, I mean, hell, I got bronchitis. This is hell. You know, you already caught Pax and he's like, how do you know about that? Gwen's gonna laugh. That's fair. That's fair. She hides it though. She's very small and has a hood. So like, That's only going to get you out of so many things. Every time I do something, I'm like, she's very small and has a hood.

Yeah. So I'm basically invisible. She doesn't wear gloves though. Clara wore the gloves. Also bright pink. Yeah, that's true. I guess Giollo will actually say something. He'll say, I usually present most of my theatricality in the bar in the bedroom. I feel like the alley is a weird place for this. Who do you think you are? That's not important right now. My question is, what are you going to do about it? Was that even, did he answer my question? The shipment. We plan to stop it. He kind of looks around. You're talking about blowing up the boat? Maybe? Thinking about it.

Probably not going to do that because we don't know how to handle explosives, but we were trying to figure that out. Yes. Clipsos just like done. Like the whole like the writing and the letter with the sudden name. I like that this bird man is now looking at us like we're the ones being unprofessional during this exchange. I mean. You guys just seem silly. Well, as people start piping up, giving away all of our plans and information, Bo's going to start to like tap people on the shoulder. Like we don't fucking know who this person is. That's a good point.

And I mean, we need to know who you are before we let you in on any government plans. You could be working for them for all we know. I know you mean well. But your reputation isn't exactly stellar at this point. Thanks. We hadn't noticed. At least we have one. I dude, he's really close. It's like how many people did I kill? How many people have you killed? Like just let's take the tally. We know he's killed a bunch of people. I mean, it's in the paper that you killed. Yeah, I'm just saying. Avian Flu kills a lot of people. What was the last question? I said you could.

I said, who are you? Because you could work for them for all we know. He's going to drop down. And kind of just walk forward. I'm not working with them. I want to help you. If you're going to do something about this tonight. I'll fight by your side. Again, very like po-face serious, like fucking absolutely serious. How tall is he? Like average human height or like what are we? With the costume it's a little tough to like it like right around like six two, six three. Okay, so it's not graphic. Does he look like he has muscle? Looks kind of lithe. Like not built like a brick house or anything like that, but like just looks like they work out.

Your mode of being. Why would you help us? Jason do it. Say the line Bart. No, no, no, no, no. I like okay. I'm do you say just like that? Just kind of like very curtly? A bit. Yes. Okay. It's been a day, you know? No. Hey, I get it. Like it's like, dude, I don't have time for this bullshit. We've got two hours before we have to deal with this. So like stop being coy. No, that's not going to happen. Probably anyone who's willing to dress up like a bird. Probably not going to stop being coy anytime soon. You've looked through. So the costume you dedicated like it's it's.

Does it have feathers? I'm just curious. Has it looked hand stitched? It definitely looks like money was spent. Well, it absolutely has feathers. Are you kidding? Yes. I guess crime fighting pays. Is it like a feather bow where it's like shedding occasionally? No, this looks actually like again, money was spent like this looks this looks fairly legit. Okay. So it's not like a child who like stitched. It's not like the first Spider-Man suit where it's just like, yeah, I'll wrestle Randy Savage. It's not that one. Party city costume. I live in this city, too. And there's a cancer.

Like he's going full fucking like absolutely serious. Never drop kayfabe. Never. No, never. No, totally in character. If you actually want to do something about this. Then let's do it. No one's looking over your shoulder. You can handle this problem any way you want. So what do you do then up front? Combat range? What's your area of expertise? I like okay. Oh, almost a parody of Batman. Almost. Almost. Just almost. I strike from the shadows. Just absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. Oh my god. Okay, okay, okay. Stealthy type. Interesting. Well, if we're going to do this, do you have any more information that might be useful?

I can get you into the warehouse completely undetected. How? At this point, he's going to get close and his beak is almost going to touch Bo's nose. Please, please say he just answers, "I am the Knight." Just at just... It's like a pull cord doll. Like it just says... His sidekick is the Pippin. Is there anything less? We're going to repel from the roof. It's completely unguarded. If you want to actually help the city. If you want to earn a notch for Firebrand. Then come with me tonight. Before they can flood the streets with that garbage. Bo's going to look around at everybody else.

Our ghouls do a line. I'm not going to lie to you. You're very impressive, sir. He has done nothing yet. Yeah, he jumped off a roof. That's pretty impressive. He did jump off a roof. And I'm assuming his cape did the cape thing. Of course it did. Yeah, a little superhero landing. Oh yeah. I think we can trust him. To be honest with you. Seems on the level. I was going to say that. I was just going to say, "seems on the level." I mean, can we inside check, I guess? Fuck yeah! He's 100% serious. He believes everything he is saying. No fucking way the Iron Knuckle boys have this guy on the payroll.

Like, he's not with them. Because they would use his ass. Yeah, he's wearing this big feathered cloak. So as he descends into the alley, it kind of covers up his form a little bit. It's comical. So, okay. This guy buys his hype. Whether or not he's good is completely up in the air. But it sounds like he wants to help. And he's serious. Hey, the guy has high charisma. I buy his hype. I like him. He's like the cut of his jib. Oh, Paxton is like grabbing... He's like feeling the material of his feather cloak. This is really heroic. Stop that! Just every once in a while, just...

He's got to knock his hands away. He's majestic. So do you have some sort of moniker? Obviously, no interest in giving us your actual name, but what should we refer to you as? He's going to get uncomfortably close to Calypso. Again, this fucking beak. It juts out. They just stare right like they do not react at all. Just complete no-sell. Call me the Raven. Absolutely the most gravelly, gravel voice. G.O.L.O. pipes up, "Okay, Calypso isn't particularly interested, but can you do that to me?" Do you have access to weapons? Yeah, let's give this guy weapons. Sounds like a great idea.

Did you say that? G.O.L.O., as if just looking for an excuse to be half as cool as this dude, G.O.L.O. Eldritch Blasts a random box. What? You already know what's coming. What? I thought it was like an "I am the weapon" reference. I mean, yeah. That's how I took it. Yeah. It's just like out of the blue. The Raven understands. I did consider... I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Excellent. That's on brand. It is definitely on brand. Bring whatever you have. We have minor access to some weapons and armor, but we're not sure if we can access that in two hours.

I'm not sure. He's going to look down for just a second. Bring everything you have access to. I'll bring my own weapons. He is going to spread his arms. Oh no. And this cloak, which also goes up to his face, is going to glow bright white for just a moment, and he's going to flap his wings and take off into the sky as it de-illuminates. Dope. I think it is Poe. I'm going to go with Poe. That's what I was thinking. He's the white raven. Also, Poe, Raven, that would be very funny for others. Oh yeah! It's like a better reason. So as he flies off, Giolo just kind of looks wistfully at him as he goes away and says, "I figured it out.

I know what I was put on this planet to do. I'm going to do him." And Paxton is right next to you, making the same face as you, and he's just saying, "I need his tailor." And meanwhile, all of the female and non-binary characters in the group are just like, so over it. I'm so tired. I'm back in the Brightport, baby. The new episode starts now. I think that's a good time for us to stop, guys. And the city. You know what? I appreciate the liberty after the whole ride. That was nice. Listen, if we can somehow make this a transition from fantasy cops into fantasy superheroes, I am down.

It might just go that way. You got no commissioner, guys! You're renegades, you rogues. We just all take on alter ego superheroes. We're renegades. Are Gordon dead? The city hates us. Why not transition now? The water's perfect. Not the heroes that Brightport deserve. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere. We really hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. This is a reminder. Please tell your friends about it. Tweet about it on social media. Share the episode. Let people know you're listening. It helps us reach a new audience of people.

It helps grow the show. And we just really appreciate it. Beyond that, we really hope you guys have a fantastic week. And we'll see you next time for a brand new episode of Dungeons & Rant. Until then, good luck with your games. Until then, good luck with your games.