12 February 2019

The dads begin to debate which kid they should go for first. Henry jumps in, suggesting the group go after his kids. Darryl agrees, knowing that they have to figure out things with the blood pact before they can rescue Grant. Ron and Glenn are certain that Terry Junior and Nick are holding up just fine, so they’re comfortable waiting. With that settled, the dads decide to head to Neverwinter to rescue Lark and Sparrow.

Glenn, unfortunately, passes out immediately after Henry lands a dad joke.

Noting that they’re all struggling with health, the dads all agree that they need to rest up in an inn before heading out on their trip. Unfortunately, they acknowledge that none of them have any currency that will work over here. Ron and Glenn stand in the street while Henry and Darryl decide to go check out some screaming. Glenn regains consciousness, but something has changed him when he wakes - like something came loose.

While Glenn has a strange revelation, Henry and Darryl immerse themselves in the screaming crowd to figure out what’s going on. People are kicking what appears to be nothing – yet the voice pleads for them to stop. Darryl immediately believes this is a sport and asks to play. Henry gets roped into the conversation, and it turns out that the two individuals are beating a fairy dragon. The thing that they’re kicking decloaks, revealing a blue, scaly dragon. He has three bracelets – one around each wrist and his ankle. The dragon begs Henry and Darryl to intervene.

Darryl attempts to stop them, but fails miserably – so Henry steps in. Their intimidation goes absolutely nowhere. The dragon cries about his kids, causing Henry to react with druid magic, casting Thunderwave on the crowd. The condoms blast off of Henry’s hands when he casts. This successfully scatters the crowd.

Now freed from torment, the fairy dragon thanks them both. The dragon and Darryl struggle to shake hands. When introductions are taken care of, Gartok enlists the help of the Doodlers to find his children. Henry gives a tentative agreement, so long as their quests align well enough for it to make sense.

They all agree to go to the Whispy Woods Inn, bringing an invisible Gartok along with them. When Henry walks in and immediately is unsure if they should stay there. Gartok rates the inn four celestial bodies out of five. It’s inside the inn that the dads realize they don’t exactly know how money works here, but that they should probably figure something out if they’re going to stay the night.

Darryl suggests Ron handle getting them a room. Ron accepts this quest, heading straight to the bar. Before approaching, Ron tries to get a sense for how lonely the barkeep is. All he sees is his own misery reflected back at him. He stumbles through an awkward conversation to offer to make her a drink – adding in that he used to make all his dad’s drinks. Darryl sees Ron floundering, so he slides Ron one of his Pale Ales. Accidentally, they stumble into a business transaction. Ron very much struggles to get the bottle cap off the Pale Ale, so Darryl steps into help.

Darryl’s beer is deemed “pretty bloody good” for the Forgotten Realms. The barkeep asks how much Darryl has to sell. The dads pull a quick dad huddle to come up with a story, in which Henry refers to them as “brew bros.” Ron tells the barkeep that, tomorrow, 15 barrels of Pale Ale are coming in from Waterdeep. The barkeep is elated, asking for the price. After conferring in a dad huddle, the dads decide to sell the beer at 8 a barrel – calling it the Darryl Barrel Special.

The barkeep agrees to give them an advance of three silver and a room.

Deal settled, the dads tuck in for the night. With only two beds in the room they must decide who sleeps with who. Darryl and Henry sleep in the same bed, Ron sleeps in the bathtub, and Glenn gets the bed to himself. Gartok reveals that Neverwinter is to the north, and his children should be on the road between Phandalin and Neverwinter. Unfortunately, the dads are going to need to sneak out in the morning before they have to hand off these beer barrels they sold.

The people of Phandalin believe the dads hail from Waterdeep.

While sleeping, all the dads share a dream. They’re standing on the lip of a great crater. They see a figure wearing a purple robe standing at the bottom, pointing at the sky and at them. When the figure speaks, it’s horrible and yet familiar – the dads wake up before they hear what the figure said. Ron comments that the figure was wearing the same bright purple bathrobe his father used to wear. Henry comments that they all dreamed about Ron’s dad.

The dads prepare to break out of the inn at dawn, spotting a single guard walking the perimeter of the tavern. There is some debate over Gartok’s name, where he gets called Bartok and Cartok.

After Henry makes his dad joke, Glenn realizes that he is a dad and that dad jokes will be part of his life. He takes half damage from dad jokes going forward, which is a good thing, because Ron immediately makes another dad joke.

Darryl begins to try to bribe the guard patrolling around the tavern. The dads scale down the tavern, and as they start to argue with the guard, Darryl lets it slip that they have a dragon with them. He immediately freaks out, so Glenn jumps in to knock him out. The bleary-eyed drunks don’t seem to give a shit about Glenn knocking him out. When they loot his body, they take four silver in addition to their three silver. They take his weapons and his boots.

The dads arrive at the van, and Gartok is stunned by the Beast. Once inside, they begin to cover Gartok’s quest. Gartok maintains that he has no idea why his children ran away from him. Ron asks what Gartok’s favorite things about his children are. His children are Reese, Sylvan, and Drakon. Gartok, essentially, likes that they listen to him. Gartok begins to explain how his children ran away, but then started to backtrack when he realizes that he’s perhaps said too much.

When they begin to go, Darryl slips Gartok one of his Charleston Chews. Henry immediately asks if he can have one of Darryl’s chews, but Darryl chooses to ignore him by turning up the static radio as much as he can.

The drive reveals just how strange this new realm is, but, overall, the drive is uneventful.

Henry spots an outcropping that could very well hide a cave. When the dads reach the cave entrance, Gartok reveals that he can’t actually go get his kids. Nor can he explain why he can’t go get his kids. The leather bracelets on his arms appear to be doing something to him. When Henry inspects the bracelets, there are some sort of rune etchings on the three bracelets.

Ron suggests taking off the bracelet, but Gartok very clearly can’t communicate to reject the idea or endorse it. When Ron removes it, it kills Gartok’s only son. Gartok immediately begins crying. While sobbing, he asks the dads to just leave him in the car while they go to get the kids.

Ron decides to put on the bracelet and as soon as he does, Gartok demands that Ron kill himself. Ron is compelled to do it. Ron immediately pulls out his very sharp business cards and starts to drag it across his neck. Darryl tackles Ron and the bracelet falls off. Glenn tries to mellow Gartok off, threatening Gartok to remove the other two bracelets if Gartok does not remain cool.

Ron thanks Gartok, saying that he didn’t know he wanted to live until he wanted to die – and now he has no fear of death. Before they leave, Darryl gives Gartok a Charleston Chew. Gartok crushes it. With his sunglasses on, Darryl pulls Henry aside to ask him not to tell anyone about the Charleston Chews. Darryl asks Henry to hold the bag, asking Henry to only give him one when he thinks Darryl’s done something his dad would be proud of him for.

The dads leave the van behind and head into the cave, encountering a door with smaller doors inside. Glenn immediately spots that the door is trapped. Glenn opens the small door, revealing another chamber that’s likely trapped. Darryl uses a flashlight from his emergency kit to investigate the room ahead of them. To trip the pressure plate, Darryl throws a football sized rock. It lands successfully, but the pressure plate only goes down a little bit. Eventually, the door clicks open.

Glenn realizes that the traps are all intended to keep adults out. They’ve stumbled on a kid’s hideout!

As they move deeper into the hideout, they hear two young female voices. They’re clearly distressed about the death of their brother. Glenn calls a dad huddle to figure out what the story is they’re going to say to the two girls. Henry is very nervous that he’s going to break down and tell the truth to these two kids. Glenn tries to hype Henry up by reminding him that Ron killed Gartok’s kid – not Henry.

The story they land on is that they heard some kids crying and they decided to stop in and see if they’re alright.

Immediately, the dads struggle to converse with the two girls. They demand to know who killed their brother. Henry lies and says Gartok took off the bracelets. The two remaining kids insist that the dads need to kill Gartok. Ron attempts to persuade them to let the dads help, and to figure out what happened between the girls and their dad.

The girls reveal that the Gartok enslaved them. He had them do a lot of hard labor, be cruel to people, hurt his enemies, and flirt with ladies at the bar. Ron tries to soothe the peace but ends up revealing way more about himself and helps no one. The girls reveal that they came upon a creature in a purple cloak who allowed them to draw from a Deck of Many Things. They drew a card that allowed them to change one thing from their past. They changed it so Gartok put the bracelets on himself.

Henry is in favor of killing Gartok.

Darryl tries to find out more about dragon culture and what the kids will do when they grow up. Darryl believes that, perhaps, this was typical teenage rebellion against their father. Darryl proposes changing the runes on the bracelets to something else – which would require Gartok willingly doing it.

During this debate, Ron accidentally reveals that the dads killed Drakon. Thankfully, the girls don’t catch on.

The dads feel very torn on how to handle this situation, debating back and forth what the right path is. Darryl suggests putting two dad values on the bracelets and leaving them on Gartok. They start brainstorming different values to put on the bracelets. They settle on the Golden Rule and respect their kids’ boundaries.

Darryl from the future appears just as they’ve settled on the values to put on the bracelets. He helps them close the loophole in the Golden Rule, saying that even if you don’t love yourself you have to treat your kids and the ones they love well. He also says to remove “within a certain boundary” for the respect value. Additionally, Future Darryl advises them to add the clause: “These bracelets cannot be removed by anyone other than these four dads.”

Glenn and Darryl attempt to convince Gartok to add their clauses to the bracelets, one with persuasion and the other with intimidation. Gartok gives in, etching the new clauses on them. Then the dads force the bracelets on him.

The dads take Gartok to his kids, asking the kids to come out and meet them. Sylvan and Reese emerge, and before they can kill Gartok, Henry informs them about the changes to the bracelets. Henry also comes clean about accidentally killing Drakon. Henry immediately cracks under pressure and throws Ron under the bus, but Darryl steps in and claims to be Ron.

Gartok steps up and admits that he killed Drakon the moment he put the bracelet on him. He has a heartfelt, honest moment with his two remaining kids. They say if they ever see Gartok or the dads again, they’re going to kill them.

From there, the dads begin their journey to Neverwinter. When they arrive at the drawbridge of Neverwinter, they see that the former flag has been overshadowed by a giant illustration of the Doodler.