Could You Cast Friends on Me

## Description

An aasimar, a halfling, and a handsome man walk into a bar...

## Synopsis

Baston, Bobby Pancakes, and Lionshield Banknote ride into Daggerford on a cart, finding the Dragonback Tavern destroyed (by themselves, previously), but Philge waiting in the ruins with her newly summoned Hawk familiar Flappy. Philge verbally roasts all three of them for betraying her, and Baston hands her Janos Meer's note. It states that the resistance is struggling without Greatheart Banknote's help, and his two lieutenants who were supposed to take over have disappeared - but that one of them, Lothario, may be being held against his will in Daggerford, and that he needs them to rescue him and return him to Waterdeep. Lionshield Banknote suggests that he could disguise himself as Lothario and return to take command of part of his father's army, and then urinates on the note to see if it contains any invisible ink. It doesn't, but Banknote self-consciously realizes that four people are sneaking up on the building.

Banknote calls out to them, and the Captain of the Guard outside calls back to demand Lionshield's ID number. Bobby dives into hiding. Banknote claims that he is "Jean Valjean" and correctly guesses his ID number, and Pamplemousse shouts that he is supposed to be reporting to the Red House. Banknote claims that he is on the way there, and the guard outside shouts that Pamplemousse has declared a curfew in the city and he will only be permitted to walk through the town if accompanied by an escort. Philge tries to claim that she is his escort, and casts *Friends* on the guards (with Banknote suggesting she could cast it on him after her earlier comment to him), but horribly fails to convince them, so Bobby stabs one of the guards in the back and kills him. Baston uses a Flurry of Blows on another guard and takes them down. The Captain of the Guard nicks Philge with his shortsword; in response, she smashes him into paste with her warhammer and the remaining guard, Jeremy, surrenders.

Baston ties up Jeremy and asks if he knows the location of a prisoner named "Lothario" (while Bobby incidentally stabs him in the legs), and Jeremy replies that Pamplemousse keeps political prisoners in Daggerford Castle. Lionshield heals his stab wound, but Bobby stabs him again so they can steal the guards' uniforms, masquerade as guards and return Jeremy to the Castle as having been injured on duty.

After walking through the town is disguise, they meet Two Guards at the Castle.who initially refuse to let them in. Philge casts *Friends* again and attempts to convince them that the wounded guard has a secret message for Pamplemousse, which will be lost if he dies. The guards agree and give her directions to take him to the infirmary, but warns her that the doctor is "in the Red Room" and has been summoned to the city "for the projects" and will not return until morning.

Once inside, the Friends - who are familiar with the castle, having lived in it before - instead to head down to the dungeons, where they find Lothario Windswept in one of the cells. Bobby picks the lock on the cell door and after frantically preventing Lothario from bursting into song, Baston decides to look in a crate which was stored in one of the other cells, finding that it contains the corpse of a white-haired woman. Bobby accidentally opens a second crate, revealing it to also contain a corpse, before Pamplemousse LeCroix appears at the top of the dungeon stairs, shortly flanked by the two guards who have realized they have been mind controlled after the *Friends* spell expired - and the corpses beginning to rise from the crates.

## Cast

### Dragon Friends

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

### NPCs

* Lothario Windswept, operatic revolutionary lieutenant

### Places

* Daggerford
* The ruined Dragonback Tavern
* Daggerford Castle

## Trivia

* Philge has learned to read, and is now a level 7 Barbarian/level 1 Barbarian/Wizard. In lieu of an ability score increase, she has taken the sorcerer version of the feat Magic Initiate, granting her two cantrips - *friends* and another yet to be revealed - and the first level spell *find familiar*.
* What was refused to read: "Friends, I'm doing what I can to keeb the resistance together, put the truth is we're hurting without Greatheart. The blan was always for one of Greatheart's two lieutenants to take over after he left put they've poth gone to ground and the factions they controlled won't work together without their inbut. I have good reason to pelieve that one of those lieutenants is in Daggerford, held against his will. His name is Lothario and if any of you can free him and get him on the first horse pack to Waterdeeb, well, that would pe really good. If he lives, there's a chance to pring the noples pack to this fight."
* This was the final *Dragon Friends* episode (and one of the last shows) performed in the Giant Dwarf Theatre before it closed down. The Dragon Friends moved to the Vanguard.

## Quotes

* ".. is an inexplicable cart with three on it." ".. Why is the cart inexplicable?" "Because I didn't explain how you got it."
* "Me didn't expect to see you, Bobby. Me thought you turned into wolf, not a rat." "I just want to say I'm on Philge's side now. She rules."
* "Me drink to forget. Betrayal of friend." "I mean, I didn't really betray you, I was taken away by.." "No, well, I said *friends,* so..."
* "Jean Valjean!" "I literally asked for a number." "Which Jean Valjean famously **has**.." "Oh, yes, my number is.." "Tell you what!.. Shut up! This is a gimme. If you know the number of one of the most famous musicals, because if you do, this is a legitimate identification number in Daggerford for a guy called Jean Valjean." [He is referring to the character and ID number from *Les Miserables*.] "Ok, can I have a clue at all?" "It's five numbers." "It's five numbers. And all of them are one digit numbers?" (laughter) "All of them below ten." "No, 'cos you could fuck me on this. You could be like one of the numbers is eight thousand." "How can you not know anything about anything?" "Ok, so let me help you. Frisna..." "Five thousand, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes.." [This is the refrain from *Seasons of Love* from the musical *Rent*.] "Right, give us your five digit code." "Uh.. two.." "OH SHIT! Ok, he knows two." "And it occurs to me at this point we might be giving him too much information." "He knows it starts with two. So you've got four left." "Uhhh. Ok. I'm pretty sure it's 246 are the first three.." (Cheers) "Now here's the thing. I don't think the fourth one would be 8 because that's the same sequence right. We can also probably get rid of 2 4 and 6 because it hasn't doubled up, right." "This is exactly what the composers and lyricists thought." "Because I've read the book, it's not his number in the book." "Oh, it's just for rhyming?" "Ok, let me finish this Sudoku live on stage. Er. Err..err.. I think it'd be, let's go, zero." (Massive cheers) "If your mutant brain works this out, if your feeble synapses click together some simulacrum of intelligence.." "Ok, and we're pretty sure they're not going to repeat so I'm down to six numbers that are left, right?" "I hate this. I thought this was fun but I actually hate this." "So it's 1, 3, 5, 7, that's it, or 9 I guess. 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9." "Why did you give 9 I guess?" "Because they never do 9, it's too high." "**Enough time, citizen! What is your identification number?"** "2460... one?" [Massed cheers and ovation] ".. Did I do it?" "First of all a dice of inspiration but secondly it would not be possible for this to work on stage unless everyone else in the room knew that before we started." "Did we get mentalist'ed by Hing?" "Was the guard like, at all suspicious that it took five minutes?" "There's a lot of cheering in there."
* "Perhaps it would help you if you had an escort." "... Is that legal here?"
* "Are you angry?" "I guess I'm a little bit angry." "What are you angry about?" "I'm angry at all my friends for being late." "And you're taking it out on this guard, who was if anything excessively punctual?" "Rage works in mysterious ways."

## Table Talk

* The Dragon Friends audition to be the one to voice Philge's familiar: "Hewwo." "AAAGH!" "You wot?" "I don't know where my feet are!" "BLUUUE!" "A *hundred* percent."
* "Does that mean that Philge now has one sick glove?" "Yes, Philge has a Farrier's glove and.." "I knew you'd know what it was called, you.. pervert." "Um, a Farrier is a smith who shoes horses. I thought so. A farrier's glove?" "YEA I DIDN'T HAVE A SPECIAL HAWK ONE SO ME STOLE IT FROM THE HORSE GUY." "Also, I sound a lot more impressive if you don't **Google me on stage.**" (The thing he's talking is actually called, no kidding, a *Falconry Gauntlet*.)