Hey, guys. What are you guys doing on the weekend
of May 12th? May 10th through 12th. What are
you guys doing on those days? I know what I'm
doing. I'm going to be sick. Unfortunately, so,
so ill. Because I'm coming down with a case of
mountain mania. Mountain mania. Burke Mountain
Resort in Vermont. 10th through 12th May. Be
there or be square. Because we're going to be
there. We're not going to be square. We're going
to be round. And we're going to... We're going
to run a live show. It's going to be awesome.
There's going to be magic. There's going to be
D &D. I might run a table. I don't know. I'm
thinking about it. It's going to be a good time.
Be there and hang out with us. And then say hi.
Seriously. Say hi to Siobhan. She's putting it
all together. Right? She's awesome. Anyway, see
you there. I hope. Thought I might talk about
the kings of coin that oversee the city. Let's
start with Grand Master Amos Nier, the first
king of coin and a man of no small presence.
The Grand Master oversees the trade of wine and
anything else related to the jelly flower. As
the king of Norway's top export, he's a man of
great, great wealth and power. Of course, the
jelly flower was only discovered 16 years ago.
Before that time, the Grand Master dealt wholly
in wine trade without the benefit of the magical
pink petal flora we all know and love today.
He lives a rich life and is in it with a large
family. He and his wife, Madame Torea Nier, have
five children, with their heir being the well
-known and somewhat troublesome prince, Osra
Nier. The Grand Master has also been known to
be remarkably close to his staff. Marie Serene,
his head of service, rarely ever leaves his side.
And his chef, Fyodor Popov of Arnakek, is a master
of the art who was sought out by the Grand Master
himself. These two in particular are so close
to the Grand Mesa that he retains them in his
palace each year during the first day of the
march, the annual meeting of the Kings of Coin.
Though most of the Grand Mesa's family are strictly
sent away, it seems Amos Nier understands that
there is just no replacement for good food and
good service. Just goes to show, the old sin
to sin is true. When it comes to throwing a party,
nothing to discourage Grand Mesa Amos Nier. Ooh,
love it when I end on the note. Love it. You
know, we comment on this every time you happen
to add on it. But no matter what, you don't hear
it. It gets edited to sound. It gets edited to
sound the way it sounds. Just know that sound
is good for us. It's good for you this time.
It doesn't always happen that way. Let's do a
murder mystery, they said. It'll be easy, they
said. 12 NPCs, they said. I said. I bet it would
be a lot easier if it was all like written down
in one cohesive area. Well, okay. So yeah. All
right. My notes last time were a little rough.
Uh, I also was, I was, so we, we had last session
and I was straight like feverish. Um, I could
not read during it. I am actually shocked when
I heard it, that it sounded as like, uh, uh,
not legible. What's the word audible. There we
go. That makes sense as audible as it did because
man, I was out of it. Um, but you know what,
you know what? I'm really excited because yeah,
there's 12 NPCs. Yeah. That's crazy. But we're
going into a murder mystery. This is my absolute
shit. My favorite genre. I love Agatha Christie.
I love Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. I love this
shit so much. Put it on a t -shirt. Put it on
a t -shirt. That is my absolute shit. Dude, I
am so stoked. And this time around, I think my
notes are a little cleaner. I think I'm ready
to go. And what's so fun about these is it's
not really up to me. Like you guys are going
to be our detectives. I hope. should you be able
to get yourself in that situation. I'm not holding
your hands. You guys got to get in there. You
got to fight for it. But I'm going to give you
a reason to fight. All right. Get ready, folks.
Just you wait. This arc is going to last longer
than San Satyan. Oh, gosh. With 12 NPCs? Maybe.
Blanch cast Switchbolt. This blows up everybody.
It'll miss. Maybe. It always misses. How you
guys doing? Doing great. Ready to play? It's
been two weeks since we've played, right? Yes.
It has been. Yeah, I had to go into a writer's
depression for a week after the last one. David
had to recover from both a mental and physical
illness. We hung out last night, though, to kind
of like get back into the swing of things. Oh,
we did. Had a cigar outside. Well, half outside,
then the other half inside because it was still
cold. It was very cold. It was very cold outside.
I mean, if there was no wind, it would have been
fine. Yeah. But it was a nice night. It was a
great time to hang out. Get us ready for the
game. Get us ready. Yeah, it was lovely. It was
lovely. Man, so much cool stuff going on. Another
cool thing going on, actually, this coming weekend,
Stephen, as far as he didn't mention this, we,
Stephen and I, Jeremy, unfortunately, got bogged
down with both editing this show and a number
of other life things. Real life. Real life happened.
Real life happens a lot. I got very, very, very
lucky that I was able to skip out because it's
the one slow weekend ever here. So we are heading
down to Connecticut, right? Yes. Yes, to meet
physically, in person, Dee and Rochelle. I am
stoked. This is so cool. Yeah, I can't wait.
We're going to finally meet up with Rochelle,
sound pukey girl, who makes all our maps for
us. A little note on that later on. We have an
amazing man tonight. And yes, her DM and friend
and our friend as well now, D, Daniel, is going
to be there. So we're going to hang out. It'll
be wonderful. And then a couple weeks later at
Mountain Mania. Oh, we're dropping it. What?
Rochelle is going to be there with us. Oh, shit.
So we're having like, yeah, it's going to be
a wild month. So crazy. I'm very excited. Mountain
Mania is just going to be really cool. It's amazing
to have something like Mountain Mania so close
to home for us because we live up in the boonies.
Yeah. You know, most of these gaming conventions
and things like that, we've got to travel down
to Boston or Providence or whatever. Who wants
to go to Boston ever? Nobody. Nobody. They come
here all the time for a reason. But Burke Mountain
in Vermont? I'm going there, man. Fuck yeah.
That's where I'm going to hang out and play games.
We're going to do a live show. Yes, we're going
to record a live show. So you'll be hearing that
probably end of May, beginning April, right?
I don't know. We've had issues with saying specific
dates in the past. Let's not shoot ourselves
in the foot this time. Several weeks from now.
But yes, if you want to, you're around this area
and you want to come by and be there live when
our party journeys to the tundras of Arnikek.
Maybe even catch a little hint of old enemy turned
ally mesmerize. Hang out at Mountain Mania because
it's coming. Still a bad name. Stop it. Throw
eggs at Jeremy for there. Throw all the eggs.
You guys want to do a murder mystery? You guys
want to do a murder mystery? Yeah, I'm ready
to solve some murder. Hell yeah. And by the way.
This arc, I'm putting these maps out and putting
this data out on the Discord, perhaps on the
Instagram, if Stephen's willing to get involved
in that. Yeah, of course. I want you guys, listeners,
to try to solve this too. I think it's going
to be a really fun one. So if you want to get
in there, anyone who solves it and sends us the
name and you get it right before everything comes
out, I'll send you a button in the mail. Get
your own button. Can we do that? Yeah, of course
we can do that. I want to know what that envelope
looks like. I imagine it just being totally empty
just with a button. That's precisely my plan.
That is awesome. Yeah, full David style. That's
just fine. Maybe I'll throw a sticker in there
when you're not looking. Don't let me see, though,
because that'd be bad. All right. Now give me
a moment to open Sirenscape, because I forgot.
Too excited. We don't plug Sirenscape enough.
Sirenscape, you guys rule. This is seriously
like my favorite DMing tool ever. And if you
want music, you want sound effects, you want
all the shit, get Sirenscape. Sometimes it'll
blow your ears up with all the effects at once.
It's hilarious. Is that a selling point? Just
open on a heartbeat. Faded on Jules' eyes looking
in at this scene. Seeing a body, the body of
Melo Ara, son of king of the jeweler's trade,
Samira Ara, the sort of overseer of this policing
force, a silent verse, who is behind you shaking
with rage, tears filling her eyes. You look at
this body who is dressed to look like you, Jules.
Why? Why you? You just hear Chester beside you.
Holy shit, Jules. Is that supposed to be? You?
What? What? Blanche's eyes are taking in the
blood letter symbol written in blood on the back
wall. So obvious, so clear, a message. But how?
This place is locked down. How did a blood letter
assassin? Some revolutionary with a, you know,
some dangerous cause. How did they get in here?
How did this even happen? All these thoughts
swirling in this moment, and then you find yourselves
being pulled, yanked rudely away. That's enough.
That's enough. We need to lock this down. Harlan
Burnshadow, the duergar, sort of head of the
silent verse, the captain, is pulling you away,
trying to close the door. Ooh. You hear Samira,
no, no. I want him to explain to me, gesturing
towards you, Jules, what have his revolutionaries
done to my son? What have you done? Madam, madam,
look around. This universe needs to control the
situation. We will get our answers, I swear it.
Look. She sort of spins around and you all do
and you see that the hallway is now full of people.
Everyone here. Everyone that's here in this manor
stands behind you. All looking in. I'm going
to activate a little something here. Blanche.
We talked about this between sessions. I think
there's a fun way to sort of make sure you guys
get all the info you need and the listeners also
get the info they need. Because this is a lot
of stuff I'm dropping at you. I don't want you
to think about last week. I want to be able to
keep this info coming fast and loose. And I want
to be able to update it. And I want it to make
sense. This is a little silly, but I think it's
pretty fun. I think it's awesome. You have these
glasses you got from It's Mindel Prado. The eyes
of minute seeing. I like to think that one of
your lenses has the ability to sort of zoom up,
zoom out, kind of like having a single sort of
detective glass. How do I not know this? Magnifying
glass? Damn it! Magnifying glass in your hand
or sort of like right in front of your eye that
you can kind of control. But the other lens you
have found is something entirely different, something
that you've attuned to over the last few weeks.
For this is not just a, these spectacles are
not just eyes of my new seeing. They're also
something called eyes of memory display. You
see, Itzman would use these to look upon like
all the different people he'd meet with, you
know, potential clients or investors, and he
could pull up any information that he has in
his mind sort of right to the forefront, displayed
right on the screen. What? That's crazy. Man,
so convenient. So convenient. For this format.
Perhaps you spin around to look at the crowd
that's built around you and you see little bits
of information popping on your little screen.
You've got pen and paper. Get it out now. Here's
the suspects. Amos Nier, king of jelly and wine
trade, owner of this palace, leader of the kings
of coin. Asra Nier, son of Amos Nier, big fan
of Diva Luma. You're going to have to slow way
down so I can actually write this down. You're
going to listen back, right? Sure. I don't need
it right now. Well, no, because we're doing two
episodes tonight. You're right. I'm not going
to need this information or anything for the
next two and a half hours. All slowed down. What
do you need now? You need Azra again? Yeah. Azra,
A -Z -R -A. A -Z -R -A -N -I -R. Son of Amos
Nier. Big Diva Luma fan. That's all you've seen
so far of this guy. It's all stuff that you know
that you've seen, so it's not like you're getting
new intel. So you see the head of the house and
the prince. You look over to see Samira Ara still
beside herself with rage, fury, and loss. The
king of the jeweler's trade, overseer of the
silent verse policing force. You look over into
the room again to see the corpse on the ground
dressed as jewels. Mello Ara, Samira's son. In
the crowd is the king of the tavern -keeping
trade, the jolly orc named Margus Ruba. And beside
them is their daughter, Xenia Ruba, sort of gothic
half -orc, a big jewels fan from what you've
heard. There is, of course, De Piero Montelio,
king of the fishing trade, the seventh most recent
king of coin. Lord of Meletoran, the Golden Bay
Tortles. What was the Meletoran? That's just
what the people of Zinda call Golden Bay. Golden
Bay is a turtle. They refer to their area as
the Golden Bay. It's not... what is known as
elsewhere. A lot of folk refer to it as Mélétoran.
And of course, besides de Pierrot, is Ledoux
Lemoyne, his financial advisor, brought to this
meeting in the role of banner bearer in Jean
Franklin's stead, in case the young prince didn't
show. Just what you would know, actually, Blanche,
Ledoux is de Pierrot's ward. He'd sort of found
him when he was much younger and saw that Ledoux
had this Absolutely brilliant mind for numbers.
A lot of people, because DePiro has made a huge
sort of wave in the Zinda region by becoming
the seventh king of coin and kind of taking over
the fishing trade. And what people don't realize
is he had a secret weapon behind him. And that
weapon is Ledoux Lemoyne, his financial advisor.
Brilliant. But kind of an asshole. Maybe a hot
asshole, though. I don't know. Reminds me of
somebody. Hey. True. There is Diva Luma, who's
been with you guys in the billiards room for
the last hour or so. A battle diva graduate of
the Elucidarium. It's a barred college here in
Zinda. She's a popular luminary adventurer and
a performer across all worlds. Pretty well -known
name. There is Fyodor Popov, the personal chef
to Amos Nier, a human from Arnikhek. So it kind
of stands out. Very, very large, large, pale
man with big, bushy mutton chops. Then there
is Larissa Reen, the head of service for Amos
Near. Can you spell the last name? R -I -N. See,
a young woman with a... Which is what? The head
of service. So basically just head butler, kind
of like the Grand Master's right hand. She seems
to be, like, right by his side. Even kind of
looks similar with the wheelhead. They both have
sort of shaved heads as if she's shaved hers
to kind of copy his. And lastly, as you're looking
around, there is, of course, Harlan Burnshadow,
captain of the Silent Verse, a duergar from Rotham.
You know that the Silent Verse works for Samira
Ara. They're supposed to work for all the Kings
of Coin, but they're overseen by one of them.
All right, I will organize that mess of notes
later. Hell yeah. That's a lot of suspects, David.
A lot of suspects. And immediately as you turn
around to look at them and take these names in,
I mean, the whole hall is evolving into chaos.
Just what is the meaning of? Whoa, is that Mello?
Oh, my God. No, no, this cannot be. This cannot
be. Oh, dear. Oh, that sweet boy. Oh. I don't
understand. Everyone starts speaking at once.
Suddenly you just see Dwargar start rushing the
hall. Some appearing out of invisibility. Actually,
just apparently everyone. It's these black leather
armor with gold sort of filigrees. You see that
Harlan Burnshout is not the only Dwargar, and
you start to understand how they've been hiding
so well. These Dwargar, a number of them coming
from invisibility, are just surrounding everyone.
Harlan's just looking at them, nodding them,
just like, Log it down! Log everything down!
Before we get pushed away or anything. Yeah.
I want to try to see, maybe this is stupid. Yeah.
I don't know. I'm interested. I want to see if
I think the body was dressed as Jules before
or after being murdered. You saw it for a moment.
Give me an investigation check. You saw it for
long enough to kind of think this through. I
probably wasn't within one foot, was I? No. If
you can get back in there, though, you might
be able to get another check to see when you're
close up. Okay. As she's making this investigation
check, Samara, you know I was locked in that
room. You can trust me. Let me help you figure
this out. Let me help you solve this. She's just
seething. Fifteen. Fifteen. With that, I will
say, you remember one thing starkly. The shirt
and cloak that was covering it did have holes.
The body was dressed as jewels before being stabbed
to death. Interesting. Chaos all around. Duergar
kind of trying to rush people out, just like,
everyone's returning to their rooms. Bring them
to their rooms right now. We're locking this
down. We need to investigate. Search every room,
every person. We need to... And suddenly Harlan
sort of stops, and he looks over. Now I'm going
to tell you a little bit about the scene you're
standing in. You are on the second floor at the
end of the hallway. And there's kind of a branching
sort of opening part of the hall where on one
end is what looked to be Grand Messer Amos Nears
room. It's like the most ornate doorway here.
And on the other side, from that, there are two
doors. One belonging to Mello, or the other,
you don't know whose it is. Beside that, there
is another door. Basically right in front of
those two doors, right beside them, staying next
to you. And this door is closed. You're not really
sure what Harlan stopped for, and then you kind
of hear something, like a sliding sound from
behind that door. The bathroom. Oi! Who's in
there? Oi! Starts pounding on it. Come out now!
Come out! Harlan's occupied? He's turned to try
to knock on that door. I'm trying to decide if
I need to get closer. It's a tricky thing. Right
now is a really sensitive time. Sure. You're
trying to make a point that you should be allowed
to investigate. Right. Yeah, so I don't really
want to... Put myself in a bad grace. It's up
to you, because if you can't get in a good grace,
this might be your chance. But then again, everyone's
watching, and there's duergar all through this
place. You realize the silent purser actually
looked like they were a dwarven clan, a dark
dwarf clan. How about this? How many duergar
do I see right now? Let's at least gather some
info. Currently, there are six. Six, including
Harlan? No, Harlan. Six more apart from Harlan.
Okay. It all seemed like they rushed in from
outside. You know, some of them. Like I said,
some came from invisible, some didn't. Looks
like they must alternate that. If you know anything
about Duergar, they can't always turn invisible,
but they can do it like once a day. Well, how
about this? What does Blanche know about Duergar?
Give me a roll. Like, how do you spell it? History.
You want to spell it? Give me a history check.
Okay. I'll give you the spelling, but I'm probably
even saying it wrong. In which case, message
Steven. Yell at him. 17. Duergar. D -U -E -R
-G -A -R, probably. D -U -E -R -G -A -R. They
are dark dwarves from the world of Rotham exclusively.
Rotham is a subterranean world. In the deepest
depths of it, you'll find races like the Duergar.
They are generally very isolationist. They generally
keep to their own clans. It's super weird they're
here because this is a tropical, sunny world.
And they do not like the sun. You remember seeing
Harlan grimacing in pain when you first met him
just an hour ago outside. He does not handle
the sunlight well, but inside in the shadows
here, he's at his full sort of peak. But for
them to be here, it's very odd. There's definitely
a story there that I'll make up when it comes.
Harlan is like, pounds the door again. There'll
be another sort of skittering sound inside. Just
break it down. Break it down. They start like
coming at the door, smashing against it, smashing
it. What are you guys doing in this moment? It's
like this door's coming down. Maybe this is the
killer. Maybe it's all settled right here, right
now. Who's missing from the, who's missing? Who
isn't in the crowd though? Ledoux's not there.
Oh, he is. Wait, he is? Oh, oh, Jean's not there.
The door smashes open. Oh, fuck. And you just
hear, it's, it's, ah. It's not what it looks
like. Um, ah. You look into this now -opened
bathroom door and see Jean Franklin is standing
up against the sort of back wall, hands raised,
and down at his feet, a bloody silver knife.
Of course. Awesome. Of course. A spread of blood
across the floor, and he's just standing, sort
of paralyzed. Ah, ah. There's just this moment,
this frozen moment, as Harlan sort of steps back,
almost shocked. It was that easy. And the silence
is broken only by Samira Ara as she looks into
the room and says, Kill him. Hands go to weapons.
What do you do? No. No, it wasn't him. Harland
is kind of frozen in place. He doesn't know what
to do. He looks to you like he wants something.
He stares into Harland's eyes. It was not him.
How do you know? How? What? What the hell? I
don't understand. Oh, he's just shocked. Johns,
it really is. It wasn't me. What wasn't me? What
happened? I've been... What are you waiting for?
Kill him! He means it. He's got no idea what's
going on. I was going to make a stupid joke,
but... It just felt too mean to John Franklin.
Don't do it, Jones! Don't make a joke, Jones!
He's willing with his eyes. He just looks...
He's too focused on himself to know what the
hell's going on. Damn it! His, like, green skin's
gone wholly pale. He's just looking around for,
like, any kind of help. His eyes fall on you,
Blanche. Sir? Sir, it wasn't me. I didn't...
What happened? What happened? Holland, we clearly
need to de -escalate the situation. Let's take
Jean and leave this area. No, no, no, no. You...
You're not a part of this. This is all business.
I... I'm the only one you can trust, Harlan.
And as she says that, she looks to Samira. You
know that's true. Samira's just frozen in rage.
Madam, listen. Let's take the turtle downstairs,
right? We're in the basement. We have the cell
down there. We've used it before. Just lock him
away. We'll put guard on there. He won't go nowhere.
And we can look into this. We can research. We
can investigate. We can figure it out. But I
need to know. I need to know for your son. Madam,
please. That we got the right guy. We'll interrogate
him. We'll figure it out. We can't be rash. Not
here. His eyes sort of glance over to Amos near,
who just looks furious. This and his house. And
you. I guess he spins on you, Blanche, as two
guards come over and start like ushering, ah,
hey, easy. Start pulling John away down the hall.
The pair goes, hey, easy with my son. Just a
whole chaos sort of devolving a little bit down
the hall. But Harlan's turned to you now. Why
should I trust you? Because of my capabilities,
and you locked me away while the killer did this.
You know where I was, and maybe I could have
stopped it. You're right. You're right. You might
not know this, but we had eyes posting on you
the whole time. There was a man outside, the
billiard room window, invisible like, just watching.
The four of you that were in there, we know you're
in the clear, but I need something more. My young
lord was murdered. I need to know who did it
and why. Prove to me that you can be helpful
to me here and I'll give you what resources I
can. You can meet with the main suspect. You
can hear your young lord's side of the story.
I'll even give you a detailed map of the palace.
I can give you whatever you need. Just prove
to me. Slowly, not threateningly, Blanche pulls
out her sword, takes a knee in front of Harlan,
in front of DePiero, in front of everybody. And
she says, I swear on my title, on my life, in
front of you, my Lord, and everyone here, that
I will help you catch this killer on my honor.
I think Samira. Almost storms up to you. Your
honor? What does your honor matter when - No!
Madam, please. She's a warrior. She speaks true.
You catch, like, a glint of something very similar
in Harlan's eyes. Some connection. He nods. And
you. I can trust you, Mr. LaRoche. Lance, do
you trust me? With everything I've got. Well,
Harlan, there you go. Nothing I can say that's
going to make you trust me anymore. And I'm with
him. I'm a sidekick, kind of, sort of. So, yeah,
like, me too, all right? Just a, fine. I'll take
what help I can get. I think he just turns back.
All right, you lot stay here with me for a minute.
The rest of you, and he spins around, all of
you, go into your rooms now. I mean it. Guard
posting every door. You're locked down. Until
we come to you, investigate, tear your rooms
apart, hear your side of the story. You're not
going anywhere. I think you hear, like, the Grandmaster.
This is outrageous. I will not be demanded of
in my own home. You serve the kings of corn.
Coin. Kings of corn. Kings of corn. Nope, we're
keeping it. Dark Dwarf, we serve Samira Ora.
As per your assignment, Grandmaster. Her son,
the young Lord Mello, has just been murdered.
You want to fire me or arrest me, you may do
so tomorrow. But today, you will do as I fucking
say. I think the game almost steps back. Fine.
Fine. But despite your lockdown, I'm sending
a missive to Sturgeman. By dawn, you'll be replaced
by a real investigator. sort of moves over to
his room, slams the door. You're like more sort
of grumbles as most of the guests begin to shuffle
off towards their own rooms, sort of Duergar's
pushing them. A few of them sort of remain in
place. I think Diva Luma steps forward. You ever
thought the same, Harlan? I set myself up in
the salon on the first floor. Could have put
my face on for the show tonight. Madam Diva,
Prince Mello's been murdered. There will be no
show. You're funny. Have you met the Grand Messer?
Do you really think a little murder is going
to stop his... fun? Macabre as it is, you might
have to get used to it. Fine. I don't care. It's
over in the salon. Just don't you leave. We'll
have a guard there. Theodore pop off. The chef
walks over. In this case, I would be happiest
in kitchen. I have work to do as well, after
all. So... All right. Yeah, yeah. And Larissa
read in the head of service. If I am to be held
captive, I will do so in the chambers of the
Grand Messer. So I may attend to him if needed.
Fine. All right. Yeah. Go where you want. Just
stay there. Fucking. All right. Everyone sort
of gets up. Big Samira. That doesn't sound like
a good idea. Everyone go into your own rooms
where you can each get murdered one by one. There's
guards at the doors. The doors. I don't know.
My lady, Samira, please. I beg of you. Just go
to your room as well. I will come to you with
every update, every bit of information, but you
need time. You need time. This is a sensitive
time for you. This is not your home. She sort
of takes a wheezing, shaking. Fine. Just see
it done soon so we can get my Mello somewhere
decent. She moves into, you see she moves into
the room actually right beside Mello, the one
that you're staying here right now. So you're
staying in front of Mello's door, in front of
her door, by a bathroom door. Sort of. closes
it, and you are left in the hall with the captain
of the silent verse, your new ally. Blanche pulls
out a notepad and a cigarette. All right, let's
solve this. It calls for a music change. Oh my
gosh. Harlan, what do you know? All right. Oh,
I know little. I came up here. As you saw me
downstairs in the billiards room, I was asked
to come up. I did. And I came upon this. No one
else was in the hall when I came. So I came running
back downstairs, called in the guard. God, who
could have done it? Was Mello a fan of Jules
LaRoche? Mello? I don't think so, no. I've never
mentioned him. He's not really a music kid. Could
he have brought this costume in his... In his
bags and his luggage with him? It could have.
We haven't, we didn't search the princes. Only
ones we searched were, well, just that Ledoux
fella. We got him before you came along and yeah,
he was fine. He was in the clear. Just that stupid
banner or whatever. Sorry. He made a big deal
of it. Sorry, it was weird. Wait, why did he
say Ledoux was in the clear? He's saying the
only one they searched was Ledoux. Everyone else
worked here or... Gotcha. Yeah, you guys were...
Your group would have been searched probably.
You were downstairs in the billiards room until
that all happened. Ledoux was dealt with earlier
in the day. They came early. That's why he wasn't
in the room with you. Did you get a good look
at that knife? We can look now. Let's go take
a look, see if we can see maybe where it came
from. All right. Hey, before I forget, because
David's going to forget. Here's a map of the
whole man. I won't do it like that, but I think
you guys get a chance to take a look at the knife
and maybe he calls for someone to go like, hey,
to my office, security office, grab the map.
Might be helpful to look at. They run over and
I just want to give you guys access to this because
it's awesome. And I really want to gush for a
second before I forget to gush because holy shit.
I'm pretty excited for this one. What's the big
twist going on in this adventure, guys? You know
what's not a big twist? The fact that fucking
Michelle out did herself again. Oh my goodness.
I can't wait. Oh dude. Okay. First of all, let's
go to the first floor of the manor. It is huge.
It's still loading, but I can see this. Wow.
This gigantic man. So we'll look kind of describe
as we go where, where certain things are. Um,
we'll kind of like when you go to certain rooms,
we'll just describe their placement in the manor.
It's going to be on Instagram. It's going to
be on discord. Check this thing out. It's incredible.
You can see the billiards room downstairs. You
can see where you guys would have been shuffled
in from the front of the Great Hall, down the
hallway, into the billiards room. You would have
been waiting there, the four of you, for about
an hour. And then you would have gone upstairs.
Hold on, hold on. I'm on the other side of the
map. Okay, the billiards room was where we were
locked up. Yes. Okay, so I see the study of the
library. Okay, so the bathroom there, a couple
doors down, that's where Jean was. Gotcha. Holy
mackinoli. Let's go to the second floor where
you're at now. I have some information down.
Hopefully nothing that's going to, I think it's
all stuff you know. Oh, it's got rooms on it.
Okay. Let me hide some information. Okay. Yeah.
So you're looking at this. You see, let's zoom
over to the hallway you're at now. As you can
see, all the rooms are labeled. A number of the
guests are staying on the eastern side of this
wing. There are, Azra has his own bedroom here.
There's a couple empty rooms, probably for the
King of Coin and Air that did not show. Margus
Ruba and Xenia Ruba's rooms are here. We also
have rooms called the Pink Room just down the
hallway. This is Harlan's sort of office where
he's setting up. He's sleeping, but he's also
kind of overseeing things. Where you stand now
at the very edge of sort of western wing, you
have to the south. The master suite belonged
to Amos Nier, where he's now locked up with Larissa.
And you have, to the north end of that, Mello's
room, the crime scene. Beside that, Samira's
room. I think there's actually a note on the
map that this was supposed to be Xenia's room.
Usually the Kings of Coin will get the actual
larger suites, but Samira had them rearranged
just to be able to be closer to her son. So she
took the smaller room so she could be right beside
Mello. You also see just south of that, there
is a small bathroom. This is where Jean was hiding
out, where the knife was found on the floor right
in front of him. What the hell is happening there?
Jeez, yeah. So, like you said, we're going to
post these both on social media and on the Discord.
Probably beneficial to at least have the map
up so you can take a peek at it if you want to
while listening. Oh, hell yeah. You know, a little
pro tip. Or come back afterwards. And yeah, yeah.
We'll try to find a way to follow those movements
as we go. I won't show you the other rooms yet,
other floors yet. When you go to the other floors,
we'll pop them up. I don't want to go too crazy
with this. Sure. Yeah, seriously. Incredible
map. Unbelievable. This is a dream come true
for me to run a murder mystery. And Rochelle
made it possible with this unbelievably cool
sort of setting. Yeah. I can do so much with
this. And I've used this map a lot in crafting
this. Keep locations on the map in mind that
might be important. Wow. Yeah. Incredibly detailed.
Really cool. Custom freaking huge manor map.
Yeah. Thank you, Rochelle. This thing is incredible.
It's so amazing. It's so amazing. Oh, my gosh.
Without further delay, though, can I use my eyes
of minute seeing to investigate this knife? Okay.
So you step into the bathroom. You go to investigate
the knife. Give me an investigation check with
advantage. 16. Okay, you reach down. 16. Two
things come to your attention, basically. You
see there is a sliding pattern of blood, I think
I mentioned before, that seems to slide across
the floor to where the knife is. As if the knife
was thrown across the floor? As if the knife
was slid maybe perhaps beneath the doorway. You're
looking at the door and there's enough of a gap
that perhaps it could have been like pushed underneath
and slid in there. The blood pattern looks like
it could corroborate that, but perhaps Jaune's
story will help clear that up. The knife itself
is not a weapon of murder. It looks to be a small
silver paring knife, as if used for some kind
of meal or snack. She'll point this out to Harlan.
You see, Harlan, it looks like the knife was
slid under the door. You don't say. Oh, shit.
All right. Do you agree? I can't say nothing
yet, but it looks possible. Maybe your boy was
set up. Maybe. Who did Jon leave with when we
split? He was going up with Depiero at the time.
Why is he here? This is nowhere near his room.
Yeah. His room, if you look at the map, his room's
on the eastern wing of the third floor. That's
what I'm saying. Somebody put him there. Something
weird's going on. Something weird's going on.
And this paring knife, does this match with the
knives that Theodore uses here in the palace?
Oof. Fyodor. I can't keep any of them straight.
That's fine. Honestly, it's funnier. So, um,
no, it's not the kind he'd use. More like something
we'd serve with. Wait. I think. Right. You might
want to check out the crime scene. Your answer's
right there. Might be right there. We'll head
into the Red Room. That's the bedroom next to
you. Mello's room is the crime scene. Why'd you
say it like that? Oh, I thought the red room
was like... It would make sense, wouldn't it?
Yeah. I thought that was the murder room. Oh,
no. Now I see. Murder scene. Did you say that
really weird? What? I don't know. It sounded...
I don't know. It's my way of being like... Okay.
He realized something. He's like, eh. Oh, okay.
Because from my end, it sounded like somebody
was in your ear. I mean, put it this way. Maybe
you don't trust Harlan all the way, too. Right,
yeah. He's one of the suspects. Absolutely. He
says he... I mean, think about it. The last person
to see the body was him. He came running down.
That's true. He could have killed him and came
running down immediately. Yeah. You hear this
might thrash you. There's anyone. Anyone could
be it. It could be Jules. It could be Chester.
It's me. And speaking of Chester, actually, I
think he's going to sort of be like, hey, Jules,
look, you know I'm not good with the dead body
thing, right? So maybe I'll do some Chesterin.
If we're allowed free access, I can pick up some
rumours. Do what you do best. All right. I'll
be back. He kind of saunters him. We'll see you
up to it. It's fine. He's with me. All right.
He's quite capable with a bow as well. I hope
he's not killing somebody. So that's not helpful.
Chester has this ability we talked about before
to pick up rumors sort of passively. He's going
to go do that. Maybe he can give you some information
if he's sort of doing his own thing. So he's
walking away. You go to the bedroom. You push
open the door again. Harlan sort of takes a step
back and gives you access. After that, you know,
the blood spatter thing, he seems like he's a
little more, okay, I want to see what these guys
can do. And so you step into the room. So how
are these, are these eyes of minute seeing going
to work as far as like, I want to investigate
this room using the eyes of minute seeing? Or
do I have to investigate like an item? I'll let
you guys get the room with him. Okay. That's
kind of fun. You can go through and see what
you pick up. You're sort of scanning around low
and careful. Just an 11. Okay. Maybe there's
not a lot here to see, but I will give you the
main sort of bulk, the main things that stand
out to you that even when the 11 you pick up
on pretty clearly. And actually, your passive
would get a plus five. So you'd go for your passive
investigation plus five as your minimum, if you...
Oh, wow. That's... I mean, my passive investigation
is 14. Holy... You have a 19 all the time with
those eyes, as long as you're within one foot.
Yeah, apparently. That's incredible. Your passive
what? Passive investigation. Investigation. Yeah.
That's crazy. It is intelligence -based. Yeah,
so you are Sherlock Holmes. Right. Blanche Holmes.
You move in this room. You're looking around.
And like I said, perhaps you don't see a lot
of small details to pick up on, but there's a
lot that you can sort of put together just from
a quick sort of moving around. First of all,
there's a blood letter symbol written in Mello's
blood. As you take that in, especially with a
19, it was drawn by fingers, probably wearing
a glove. Would you say the symbol is called?
The blood letter symbol? The blood letter. It's
like the sort of circle with a bunch of... sort
of triangles pushing inwards. It's basically
supposed to be the open sort of mouth of a leech.
Their whole thing is to drain the sort of bad
blood from the sort of upper epsilons of Zinda
society. So that's, you know, drain the blood.
Leech. I don't know. It's cool. All right. You
see, do you want all the stuff or do you want
it? Hold on. I want to ask a question about that
first. Okay. Yeah. I'm not trying to get specifics.
I like this. I'm trying to get something more
like small creature, medium creature, large creature
based on the placement of the drawing. This is
good shit. Okay. You know, like if an ogre was
in here, then the blood letter symbol would be
drawn like eight feet up. Stephen just put on
his cap. I'm so excited. Maybe if a duergar drew
the symbol, are they small creatures or are they
medium -sized creatures? I like this a lot. The
symbol seems to be drawn. at a medium -sized
level. Duergar are medium -sized, but I will
say it looks, you think, a little tall for Harlan.
You'd have to be reaching up a bit to do it.
So it's something to think about. Not hugely
tall. It's definitely possible, but it seems
like it would be more comfortable for someone
non -Harlan. All right, Harlan, it's not you.
Whoa, whoa, Siri. How'd you know? He's just amazed
already. Is there anybody who I can think maybe?
wouldn't have drawn at this level? Like, are
there any small or large creatures here? The
only one that you think of Harlan being maybe
a little small for it, the only one that might
be a little tall for it is Fyodor Popov. He'd
be like sort of crouching down a little bit.
He's very tall. Sure. He's the upper end of what
medium is allowed to be. What's it written in?
It's just a simple blood. It's blood. Blood on
what looks like maybe a gloved hand. You don't
see no prints or anything on it. Okay. You see
that. And we can just deduce that it's Mello's
blood? Yes. I think you can see a small trail
of drops from the body over to that. So it clearly
looks like that is his blood. One thing that's
interesting, a curtain is sort of blowing in
a breeze, but only one. You see there's one opened
window here along the east wall. I think noticing
that Harlan says. I know what you're thinking,
but no one got out that window. We would have
seen if someone tried climbing out, running out.
We got people around enough. We would catch a
full person running away. For sure. Well, if
he was invisible. You think it's one of my guys?
No, I didn't say that. Lots of people can cast
invisibility, huh? You have to stop and think,
like, it's not a bad thought, though. I'll make
sure everyone should have eyes on everyone else's
position. I'll make sure nobody was out of position.
If that's the case, none of mine would do with
it. Yeah, again, that's not what I'm saying.
All right, yeah, but yeah, invisible. Plenty
of people can do it. Maybe. Miserable? Maybe.
I'll give you that. I'll give you that. So if
I look out that window, if Blanche looks out
that window. Yeah. What's within, like, line
of sight? Like, is there another building within,
you know, 30, 60, 90 feet? There's a street.
If you look out, maybe about 100 feet out. You
know, let me check one thing. This is actually
very interesting. I need to look up something
that is kind of cool. Okay. About 100 feet. uh
out that way is like the end of sort of the courtyard
surrounding the manor and you see this kind of
a sort of thoroughfare moving through go ahead
and roll me a perception check here okay hold
on i'm just trying to picture the so 100 feet
out is still the grounds of this mansion i guess
it's actually in the middle of the city as opulent
as it says i think 100 feet seems like a lot
60 feet out Okay. It's like, it's just like,
it's just like a, you know, sort of garden. It's
kind of, it looks pretty open though. Open grassy.
This kind of hedges towards the edge and then
a sort of fence surrounding the entire state
where you see about 60 feet out. There's, there's
this sort of thoroughfare that moves between
the various manners beyond that one to be the
next manner for the next king of coin. So the,
so from, from the window to the fence is about
60 feet. Yeah. Yeah. A few of the kings of coin
live here in the city. Okay. What am I rolling
here? Um, I need you to roll a perception check.
I needed a big number. It's just a six. Nothing
unusual. Hmm. What do you make of this, Jules?
I'll just sit back and let you take this. You're
asking better questions than I'll ever think
to ask. Do you want to roll a perception as well?
Yeah, Jules steps over, looks out the window.
No. I got a dirty six. Not a perceptive party.
Two on the day. Yeah, nothing really stands out.
Just a sort of busy thoroughfare. I mean, what
about my passive perception? It's 14. Is it really
14? It's 14. Oh, you know what? Okay, that's
actually harder than I thought. I'll give you
something. Okay. I'll give you a little something
-something. As you look out, you think for a
moment, it looks like there's somebody kind of
standing. a little close to the fence. They kind
of look casual, like they're leaning up against
it, but they keep sort of glancing over towards
the manor like they're looking for something.
And as they're kind of watching, they sort of
stand up and begin to move away. How far? How
far are they away? They are 70 feet. Fuck. Never
mind. Never mind. They move to disappear in a
thoroughfare, but you get a feeling for a moment
like somebody was watching the manor from outside.
Looking for something. And then... I will tell
you right now, the time is approximately 1 .06.
That's specific. All right, 1 .10. Not really,
I'm just making numbers up. It's 1 .10. 1 .10
in the afternoon. That might be important later.
Shall we go on? You see on a table by the entrance
of this room, there's a silver platter with an
untouched fruit bowl and some empty space beside
it. And... As you look at that space, another
sort of question might be answered. For one thing,
the silver of the fruit bowl, I will just tell
you, matches the silver knife you see. And you
think that must be a paring knife for fruit,
for this platter. Likely came with that. So it
was delivered to the room at some point. You
also see, as an answer to the empty space, that
there is a bottle of wine, this full, sort of
thick rimmed bottle, spilled out on the floor,
along with two... wine glasses, it looks like.
They're both shattered. And finally, there's
the victim, who was stabbed repeatedly and savagely
with a small knife that matches the one that
you saw. That doesn't sound like this was planned.
I don't know. How old was Mello again? Mello
was 19. Two glasses of wine? Hmm. I will tell
you, the bottle on the ground is labeled... This
is me not knowing how to label drinks. Jelly
Black Classic Noir. Oh, it's jelly wine. It's
jelly wine. And in Zinda, that's a lot. Jelly
wine is super, super common. For 19 -year -olds?
Yeah. Honestly, it's a March of Vice, man. Very
European. Very European. Yeah, it looks like
a pretty, it's a sort of black label, very fancy
-looking bottle. Looks like some real top -shelf
stuff. How much of the wine is gone? Uh, the
bottle looks like it has fallen over. Oh, essentially
all just drained out into sort of like the carpet
and sort of leaking everywhere. Um, there's essentially
nothing left in the bottle and the glasses are
tinted with it. Like they were being used and
then they were smashed. Okay. Looks like they
just were dropped perhaps in the heat of a moment.
But as I said, there are two glasses, the old
detective cliche. You made it. You got there.
Got it. Thank you, buddy. No problem, buddy.
That's my best Chester. It's the best you're
going to get. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.
Okay. Is that all that Harlan has to show us?
That's all you see in the room as you kind of
take your first looks around. You don't see there's
anything else sort of minute and small. It looks
like just these broad details. There is, I'll
say, blood that moves to the wall to that one
point. You know, with a 19 passive, I think looking
at the trail of blood, it might move to the window,
but it also seems to move outwards towards the
hall. Oh, I see. And actually, as you look at
the windowsill, you see that there is, again,
like some fingerprints gloved. that must have
pushed the window open. But there is a bit of
a red stain on the window. Are those on the inside
or the outside? On the inside. But why? So you
said the trail of blood moves to the window.
Yes. There are bloody prints on the window. Someone
opened the window. But it also looks like there's
a trail of blood from there to the door. To the
door, as if someone left. And you know that someone
slid the knife outside in the hallway into the
bathroom door. So it could have made it. Tried
to make it look like somebody left through the
window, but they're actually still here. That
could be it. That could be it. Or they were communicating
or passing something off. To that, to whoever
was standing down there. Can I look, like, up
and down outside the window, like, to see if
somebody tried to hide something outside the
window? I like that a lot. You open the window,
you look down and up. Nothing up looks remarkable
at all. And even down, you look and you don't
see anything that stands out. There's going to
be a hedge lining the bottom of the house there,
sort of right up against the window just below
you. But as you're looking down at that, you
see the window down below this one, just below,
is also open. And you can hear from behind, it's
like, I don't understand. This is crazy madness.
It's Fyodor Popov. That must be the window into
the first floor kitchen. where he's been sent.
You just hear him muttering to himself, kind
of moving further and further away, but it sounds
like he's just distressed. And if I listen for
a minute, you said he's moving away. I can't
hear anything he's saying. Yeah, I think he just
sounds like he's just kind of, this is, what
is going on? This is craziness, craziness. How
am I to cook now? How am I to make food for angry
bellies? I don't know what to do. And just kind
of moves farther away. It just seems, yeah. All
right. How much experience does Blanche have
with Jellywine? Ooh, I think you'd have quite
a bit. Okay. So she might know what it smells
like pretty well? Yes. Yeah. Okay. She turns
to Harlan. Harlan, I want to trust you as much
as you trust me. Will you humor me? Okay. This
is, uh, I'm scared, miss. She gets close. Massive
defense. I've got to want more. And looks directly
into his eyes with an intense stare. Open your
mouth. Okay. Blanche wants to see if she can
smell jelly wine on Harlan's breath and use the
eyes of minute seeing to see if there's any tint
on his teeth. Okay. All right. Smelling is perception.
Eyes is investigation. Go ahead and roll ball.
This is phenomenal. I love Detective Blanche.
I love Detective Blanche. Just a five on the
perception. Dirty 20 on investigation. Dirty
20 on investigation. There's no tint there. Now,
you might think that a lot of people would have
tint because a lot of people would be drinking.
Harlan, it seems, has not had a drop. Okay. He's
on duty. No drinking on the job, I can see. Well
done, Harlan. Like you met him. Salutes. I love
detective, but just a loose cannon, quirky, wild
and genius. I want a TV show of this. Any thoughts,
Jeremy? What say you, my dear Watson? So Samira
is in, she's in her room, which is adjacent to
this, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Can I pop open
Mello's closet? It looks like that both Mello
and Samira's room have closets there. They share
walls. I like this a lot. Open the closet. She
wants to kind of like investigate the walls to
see if there's any hidden passages or anything.
You see nothing like that. Okay. I'll just tell
you right now, there's no passages you see here.
And the blood trail corroborates that, that it
doesn't not seem to go anywhere near the closet.
Right. So it seems like, so if Blanche were to
leave the room, it seems like the blood trail
leads to the bath. and then she loses it there.
It moves slowly down the hallway and then just
kind of vanishes. It's like the blood stopped
dripping then. Right. So wherever it went after
moving past the bathroom, you don't know. Could
have gone right down to Grand Messer's room.
Could have gone down to the east wing where a
bunch of other rooms are. Upstairs, perhaps,
where a bunch of people are staying. Yeah. Downstairs,
anywhere. It feels like we're done with Mello's
room, with the murder scene, I think. Maybe.
Blanche looks at the ceiling. Nothing. Damn.
I want to do something here that's kind of fun
because you, to open up the curtain a little
bit, we just paused for like a half second and
something came up that was pretty interesting,
which was Steven mentioning that he wished he'd
seen the person because he wanted to cast message
on them if he had thought of it on the figure
that was outside in the street. Now, too late
for that. But because you mentioned that, I think
this is kind of fun. If Blanche is to hear about
this, which I'm sure you guys are sharing information
as you're looking, you would think that that
position on the street looking towards the house
would be a perfect spot to cast message to someone
on the inside. I think just the fact that message
came up, I want to give you that logical leap
because I think that's really cool. I think it's
really cool. Perhaps that figure... was supposed
to be contacting somebody. It's just a thought.
It's a possibility. But it sticks in your mind
like that might mean something. You know message.
You use message. That seems like the perfect
spot to casually linger, look towards a house,
and if you see a person, perhaps at a window,
cast message. Okay. Okay. That's great. So now,
I mean, we know that the Blood Letters are a
whatever organization. So we know that the murderer
is not working alone. So now it's like, is the
murderer the only blood letter that's in here?
Are there multiples? Is it a blood letter? I
mean, I suppose. Yeah. Right. But whether or
not it's a blood letter, they're probably not
working along. Now I'll give you, I want to,
I want to help you out here because Blanche is
very smart. And I want to at least like address
things that you might, Blanche would consider
as potential leads based on what you found. I'm
not going to be handholdy the whole time, but
I do want to help direct things because it's
a show. It's just more fun if I know you guys
have like objectives you can go look into. So
when you find a clue, when you investigate something,
when you realize something, I'll help to be like,
okay, you would know based on your experience
being this character in this world, you might
figure this, right? So you see that silver tray,
the fruit bowl, the knife, the wine, the glasses.
What comes to your mind is that wouldn't have
been here initially. They all came from the kitchen.
Somebody would have brought this up. Who would
deliver this? Would it be Fyodor Popov or perhaps
the head of service, Larissa Wren? Someone delivered
this. When? Did they see anything? You know,
that's one lead. You also have John Franklin
down in the basement, apparently like they found
a cell or something he's staying in. He's going
to be in a terrible mood, but you might want
to hear his side of the story. Yep, that too.
And of course, perhaps Chester's heard a little
thing or two downstairs as he's kind of been
listening in. So how do you want to proceed?
My first thought is one by one going to interrogate
everybody. Yeah, I think it might be good to
start in the kitchen. Because of the proximity
under the window and because of the fruit? Yeah,
because of the evidence in there. Harlan, I'd
like to speak to Fyodor, whoever. Popov. In the
kitchen. Fyodor. What? What him? You know what?
Doesn't matter. I'm not going to question your
methods, great detective. I'm just a lowly constable
in your story. It's nice to get some recognition
around here. Do you see this, people? All right,
follow me. And he begins to move down the hall,
and I imagine the two of you move in behind him.
Mm -hmm. You press away from this room, away
from the open bathroom door, the streaks of blood
run across the tile, away from the closed door
of Samira Ara, where she sobs, deep, throaty
sobs you can hear muffled behind the wood, and
away from the corpse of Melo Ara. A sweet boy
killed for what? Those eyes are closed now. Perhaps
Harlan reaches down and closes them before you
guys take off. And as you begin to move ahead
of him, he just looks back with one last sort
of sigh, sort of raises himself. Tears want to
well, and he doesn't let them. We'll find him.
I promise we'll find him. As he closes the door.
To the murder scene. And we'll call it there.