The Wizard, Richard

## Description

The Resistance is reunited under the miraculous Baby King, but the Dragon Friends' work is far from done. There are many questions and only so many Dragon Friends and time is ticking away.

## Synopsis

Janos Meer announces to the Resistence the arrival of the Baby King, ostensibly the child of Eleanor and Lothario but actually Bobby Pancakes wearing a diaper. The regular members of the Resistence are impressed and begin to recruit in the name of the Baby King. Behind the scenes, Janos announces that now that the civil war in the Resistance is over, they now need to assault Strahd himself, and the Dragon Friends are some of his best people.

Janos announces that he's debriefed Lothario and Eleanor and they had obtained some useful intelligence. First, Strahd is not actually living in the grand palace; he returned to Barovia some time ago; he controls Waterdeep by manipulating the Masked Lords of the city. Lecroix Pamplemousse is using something in the Red Houses in Daggerford to extract the "essence" from people and ship it North, where it is apparently going to Icewind Dale. Janos suggests that the Friends can now choose which one they want to investigate. After some discussion and Baston's suggestions, they decide that whatever is being made at Icewind Dale must be important to Strahd and destroying it would weaken him. So they will return to Daggerford, hijack a shipment of essence from a Red House and masquerade as the wagoneers in order to find what is happening in Icewind Dale.

Janos points out that returning to Daggerford will be difficult as Strahd has locked down a lot of travel, and Bobson Dugnutt suggests that they could masquerade as Adjudicators, and he drugged a group of Adjudicators after learning they planning to travel out of the city to an inn named either *The Withered Dick* or *The Wizard Dick*, from where they can be kicked up to be taken to Daggerford. Philge decides to open one of the crates that the Adjudicators were going to deliver, and finds it apparently full of torture instruments; but Bobby Pancakes realizes there is a hidden compartment below them. Banknote decides to open the compartment on the basis that he should be able to repair it later, and finds food, alcohol, and party supplies and a wand; and Banknote's ring reacts to it, informing him that it is a Wand of Dancing Lights that spells out a message, but he doesn't know how to activate it. Banknote is able to reassemble the crate while Baston is struck by how bizarre it is to hide the party supplies under the torture implements.

Baston asks if they may be quizzed when the package is delivered, and Bobson replies that it seems that the Adjudicators were just told to leave it in a barn behind the inn, not to meet with other Adjudicators in the process. But when the wagon actually arrives, they discover that there are actually Adjudicators wanting to recieve the delivery. Bobby attempts to talk to the Adjudicator, and when he mentions that they have brought torture implements, the Adjudicator directs them to the barn. He tells Gibbs to enter the barn first, and the rest to bring the crate in, where "it is needed".

The Friends enter the darkened barn with the crate, and as they step inside, a number of lanterns are lit and abruptly someone shouts a command word, causing the Wand of Dancing Lights spell to blow the crate open, showering the barn in confetti and streamers and projecting the message "HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIBBS". Joyful Adjudicators burst out from around the bar, gleefully cheering, and Brandon - the Adjudicator who met them at the gate - joyfully slaps Philge's shoulders. Baston, blatantly trolling at this point, starts shouting for a speech from "Gibbs". Although nervous about it, and Philge manages to improvise a convincing speech.

Lionshield steps forward, as "Juves", and invites the Adjudicators to play a "birthday game". He calling over the other Friends, and then tells everyone else to kneel down at the opposite wall and close their eyes (but forgets to mention Bobson). Thanks to a ridiculous Persuasion roll, the other Adjudicators actually do this. Lionshield mentions for the other Friends to back away as he pulls out his alchemical crossbow, claiming to have enchanted it to say the words "I'm using Repeating Shot" any time it is fired. This causes some confusion as he appears to have made the in-game item make an out-of-character declaration of a spell being used. Baston attempts to calm down the situation by making a farting noise and announcing that the game is to identify who farted when nobody could see. As he and Philge attempt to restart the party, the ominous figure of Adjudicator Captain Mannocks walks into the barn.

## Cast

### Dragon Friends

* Philge
* Bobby Pancakes, the Baby King
* Baston
* Lionshield Banknote
* Flappy, Philge's familiar and sardonic hype.. hawk

### NPCs

* Lothario Windswept III
* Eleanor Grundle

## Trivia

* The sixth episode recorded by remote multicasting due to Australia, as with many countries, adopting a national Shelter In Place policy due to the pandemic of COVID-19. This means that there is no studio audience on the episode.

## Quotes

* "We think it best to pull the thread of the wee-wee machine."
* "It's perfect. So I knocked them out with some drugs I had."
* "Everybody's a body if you hit them hard enough."
* "Hello. My name is Juves and I'm very human. You can see that I have classic human traits like my love for chocolate and also my hatred of, errm, peanuts."