Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

In an icy wasteland, a carriage brings an orc  criminal to a giant fortified prison. Then   he meets his cellmates, the bard Edgin and the  barbarian Holga. Edgin's friendly and warns him to   behave, but the orc still attempts to make a pass  at Holga, who responds by breaking his knees and   smashing his face. The following day, Edgin and  Holga are brought before the Absolution Council   for an appeal for their pardon. Edgin begins by  telling his backstory to give context for why   they're there. Years ago, Edgin was a member of  the Harpers Faction, a group of spies that fought   against evil pro-bono. By day he'd eavesdrop  on mercenaries, stop bandits in their tracks,   and bring Thayan Red Wizards to justice. By night  he’d come home to his wife Zia and their daughter   Kira. Zia didn’t mind the fact they were poor  because she thought Edgin was making the world   a better place. One night, Edgin came home to find  Red Wizards riding away. When he rushed inside,   he discovered Zia was dying, and with her last  strength she told him she hid Kira in the wall.   That day, Edgin’s devotion to the oath died  as well. It was hard for Edgin to raise Kira   alone and he kept going to the tavern to get drunk  until one day he met Holga, who was banished from   her tribe for falling in love with an outsider.  Holga took pity on the baby and accepted to help   Edgin raise her, but they never became a couple,  they had a relationship based on mutual respect.   They tried to live honestly, but surviving was  getting hard, so Edgin and Holga resorted to   thievery. They started by robbing jewelry shops,  and when they put their hands on a necklace that   let you become invisible, they gifted it to  a now older Kira so she could stay safe. Kira   started to come to the robberies with them, and  eventually they recruited new team members like   sorcerer Simon and rogue Forge. This allowed them  to hit bigger treasures, but they still had rules:   they never harmed anyone, and they only stole  from the rich. Things changed when they met   a wizard named Sofina, who requested their help  to rob Korin’s Keep, a Harper stronghold filled   with riches. While Edgin refused at first, Forge  convinced him when he told Edgin that the Keep   contained the Tablet of Reawakening, which he  could use to bring Zia back to life. Since this   place was more dangerous than usual, Edgin told  Kira to stay home, ignoring her pleas for him not   to go if the threat was that big. He didn’t tell  her about the tablet just in case the plan wasn’t   successful. The team easily broke into Korin’s  Keep and Sofina immediately grabbed a weird   glowing horn. Edgin grabbed the tablet, but this  triggered a trap that made all the guards appear.   Sofina breaks the rules and knocks down all the  guards before using a spell to stop time, which   traps both Holga and Edgin. Before the others  run away, Edgin throws the tablet at Forge and   asks him to keep Kira safe. As Edgin finishes the  story, the last Council member finally shows up,   who turns out to be a bird-like creature. Edgin  and Holga don’t hesitate and jump on him to break   through the window, using the creature’s wings to  escape safely, ignoring the fact the Council was   ready to approve their pardon. Now free, the duo  returns to their home, finding it’s been empty for   a while. After retrieving Edgin’s lute, they go to  the tavern to discuss how to find Kira, and thanks   to a flyer they learn that Forge is now Lord  of Neverwinter. After a long riding trip, they   make it to Neverwinter, which is preparing for  the annual Highsun Games. At the lord’s castle,   they reunite with Kira, who is more excited to see  Holga than her own father because she thinks Edgin   abandoned her for selfish reasons. Then they  reunite with Forge, who explains he used the   riches stolen from Korin’s Keep to make himself  the Lord of Neverwinter and Sofina’s working with   him as his advisor. Edgin then learns that Forge  has been telling Kira that he was arrested for   stealing riches and not because of the Tablet  of Reawakening, and to make matters worse,   there are wanted posters for their heads,  proving they weren’t just released legally.   Hurt over being lied to, Kira runs out of the  room, and Forge announces he won’t give them   Kira or the tablet. Edgin and Holga attempt to  attack Forge, but Sofina uses her magic to trap   them on the floor, revealing that she and Forge  had been working together to betray the rest   of the team back during their last heist. Forge  orders his guards to imprison the duo, but Sofina   changes the orders to execution behind his back.  The duo is taken to an alley for their deaths,   but Holga lifts a tile from the floor and uses it  to fight off the guards. Her barbarian skills make   it an easy battle for her, and soon all the men  are unconscious. Then she steals an axe from them   before escaping with Edgin. Meanwhile Forge tells  Kira that Holga and Edgin abandoned her again   after getting the tablet. Moments later, Holga and  Edgin agree they must rescue Kira and the tablet   from Forge, and for that they’ll need a team.  First they go looking for Simon, who is performing   silly magic tricks for entertainment, but these  tricks are actually a diversion while he casts a   spell to steal the audience’s gold and trinkets.  When Simon sees his old friends, the shock makes   him fail the spell and the audience catches on  the trap. Furious, they try to attack Simon,   who tries to defend himself with magic. He isn’t a  very good sorcerer though and his spells go wrong:   first he sends the people up to the ceiling, then  he ends up flying through the window himself.   Luckily Holga is ready outside to catch him.  The trio runs away and Simon accepts to help,   but he points out that his magic isn’t enough to  stop Sofina. To get inside they’ll need a druid,   and Simon knows one. Later, the trio arrives to  see a druid about to get killed. Suddenly a horse   goes crazy and transforms into an owlbear,  revealing she’s Simon’s friend. The creature   quickly beats up all the soldiers and saves the  other girl before taking her normal form named   Doric and escaping on an actual horse. The trio  later meets Doric at her home in the elven woods   and learns Doric doesn’t trust humans because her  own family abandoned her for being a tiefling.   However she hates Forge more because he’s been  destroying the forest and killing her people,   so she agrees to help. Meanwhile in her private  quarters, Sofina reveals she’s an evil Red Wizard   and speaks to her master, the lich Szass Tam.  He entrusts her with their ultimate plan, for   which Sofina has been manipulating Forge to bring  back the games. Afterward, Sofina joins Forge as   he meets with other lords to discuss plans for  the Highsun Games. The castle has a vault where   they’ll be keeping all the riches from the bets  and the door's protected by an ancient seal that   nobody can break through. Suddenly Sofina detects  a presence and points at a bug, who turns out to   be Doric using her shapeshifting abilities  to spy. The guards immediately go after her,   but Doric changes into multiple animals to escape:  first a mouse that sneaks through the corridors,   then a bird that flies out of the castle. While  dodging arrows, she crashes into a flag and falls,   but she lands as a cat and becomes a deer to  run faster and successfully escape from Sofina’s   attacks. Later Doric tells the group about Sofina  being evil and the seal on the vault. Simon can’t   break such a seal unless he were to possess the  Helmet of Disjunction, which is said to have gone   missing ages ago. However Holga says her people  fought the Cult of the Dragon, so they may know   where it went. Meanwhile Sofina hires an assassin  to hunt down the team, she also orders him to kill   all the guards that let Doric escape. Sometime  later, the group stops at Holga’s old home so   that she may collect some stuff, including her  walking stick. Holga is heartbroken to see her   ex-husband has moved on to another barbarian  woman, but he’s still friendly toward her and   wishes her happiness. In the evening, the team  arrives at a graveyard full of bodies that fought   in the Evermoors long ago. With Simon’s magic, the  bodies are only able to stay alive for up to five   questions. The team begins digging, and each body  tells them a piece of a story about the battle   they died in, always saying someone else took the  helmet. After going through multiple bodies, they   finally learn that the Helmet was passed on to  Xenk from Thay, where the Red Wizards come from.   Edgin doesn’t trust Thayans since they killed Zia,  but the others have heard of Xenk’s stories as a   paladin and convince Edgin to ask for his help. A  few days later, the team finds Xenk in the middle   of more heroics: he uses his kindness to calm  down a sea creature and rescue the baby that   it had swallowed. They have a meeting with him and  tell him about Sofina, so Xenk explains the entire   history of the Red Wizards. Szass Tam had used  the horn they stole to stage an unholy coup and   unleashed a spell that consumed the souls of all  who beheld it, enslaving them to its will. With   this army of the undead, Szass Tam conquered Thay,  but for now his powers can’t cross the borders, so   Xenk suspects Sofina is trying to help him expand  his territory. Xenk only agrees to give the team   the helmet when Edgin swears to distribute Forge’s  wealth among the people of Neverwinter. Next the   team travels to the Bowels of the Underdark, where  the helmet is hidden. While crossing the woods,   Xenk talks about how he witnessed the unholy power  of Szass Tam and how it corrupted good people to   be slaves to evil, which is why he moved away from  the way of the Red Wizards and used his skills for   good. Xenk just managed to escape the Red Wizards’  spell, which is why he bears a mark on his   forehead. Meanwhile Sofina’s assassin continues to  follow them in secret. The team goes down a hole   in the forest to reach the Underdark city. There  are a bunch of rochnons around, but the team gets   ignored because these monsters only eat smart  people. Next they must cross a chasm through a   dwarvish bridge filled with traps. Xenk knows how  to avoid them, but a distracted Simon accidentally   triggers a mechanism that causes the bridge to  collapse. Holga looks in her bag for some rope and   Simon finally notices her walking stick that she  stole from a wizard years ago. It turns out that   it’s actually a Hither-Thither Staff, which opens  portals across 500 yards. The team safely crosses   the chasm and reaches a statue that Xenk activates  to free the helmet. At that moment, they’re   ambushed by Sofina’s assassins. Xenk uses his  amazing skills to quickly knock out the henchmen   before going hand-to-hand with the leader, using  his glowing sword against the enemy’s flaming one.   Xenk defeats him as well, but it’s all pointless:  since they’re undead, the Thayans just keep coming   back. The team tries to run away only to find the  way blocked by a very fat dragon, who immediately   chases them and devours the Thayans. The dragon  causes destruction all around them and the team   must run while dodging falling debris. Simon  activates a portal and sends them to a platform,   but the dragon tilts it down and sends Edgin  toward its mouth. Luckily Xenk cuts in and   stabs the dragon in the head. Unfortunately the  dragon isn’t dead and chases them again until   they’re trapped in a small cave that is filling  with salt water. This gives Edgin an idea: they   hide underwater and he makes Holga provoke the  dragon until it breathes electricity, then Simon   uses a flame to create an explosion that blows up  the cave, allowing the team to escape by swimming.   After making it to the shore, Xenk bids the others  farewell and returns home. Simon attempts to take   control of the Helmet and finds himself meeting  his ancestor, who doubts Simon’s capabilities and   doesn’t allow him to attune with it. Simon keeps  trying for hours but continues to get rejected,   which brings down the team’s morale. Simon and  Doric want to leave, so Edgin finally opens up to   them. He explains that the Red Wizards had killed  his wife because he had stolen from them when   he got tired of working pro-bono and admits he’s  failed everyone, but that’s also why he can’t quit   now. Touched by this, the team decides to rejoin  him. Afterward, Holga comes up with a plan to use   the staff instead of the helmet to get inside the  castle. First they buy a framed painting and hide   a portal underneath the canvas. Then Edgin hides  underneath a pile of leaves on the road and waits   for a carriage of Forge’s treasures to pass by  to stick the painting to it. Simon opens another   portal nearby and Holga pushes the wood of the  carriage through the painting, allowing Doric   to get inside and bring the painting in. The frame  almost falls in the process and Simon gets dragged   out too, but Doric uses her tail for leverage  and picks him up. Then they use the portal to   re-close the carriage, and Doric puts the canvas  back into place before escaping by transforming   into a bug. Sometime later, the team makes it to  Neverwinter for the start of the Highsun Games,   which consists of five groups going through very  dangerous challenges. Forge opens the ceremony and   urges the crowd not to leave after the games are  over because there’ll be a gift for everyone. The   guards store the painting with the other riches,  but it falls to the floor, so when the team opens   a portal in private they discover they can’t use  it. Doric begins using a knife to try to carve a   hole for a bug to go through while Edgin gives  Simon a pep talk, reminding him he works best   when he’s under pressure and that he should try  the helmet again. Simon then creates an illusion   of a singing Edgin to distract the castle  guards, however Simon’s foot gets stuck and   the illusion starts to fail, causing the guards  to chase them. While Edgin and Simon run inside,   Holga stays behind to fight the guards with both  her ax and anything she can find in the room,   quickly knocking them all out. Simon reaches the  sealed door and puts on the helmet, finding his   ancestor again, who keeps insulting him. This time  Simon gets angry because there’s something more   urgent than his own pride and punches his  ancestor, which finally allows him to attune   with the helmet and open the vault. Using his new  confidence in himself, he knocks out more guards,   then he and Holga enter the vault, only to find  it empty. Meanwhile Doric manages to make the hole   and sneaks through in the shape of a worm, finding  all the riches hidden under the arena. There are   a bunch of guards taking them away to a ship,  revealing Forge’s plan is to escape with all the   bet money and he doesn’t know about Sofina’s real  intentions. A guard finds Doric and knocks her   out, while Holga and Simon are captured by magical  tentacles that come out of the floor. Edgin sneaks   around the corridors and finds Kira to apologize  to her for being a bad father. However this turns   out to be Sofina using an illusion, and she uses  the tentacle magic to capture him as well. When   Forge comes in, he plans to execute them all, but  Edgin convinces him to allow them to compete in   the Games to die with dignity. Moments later,  the team finds themselves in the coliseum, and   Simon and Doric were given bracelets that block  their magic. The first event is a maze filled   with monsters, and soon the team finds themselves  running all over the place. The monsters go after   all the teams, using tricks like presenting an  illusion to corner a dwarf. Doric finds a sword   inside a chest, but when Holga opens another one,  it turns out to be a mimic that uses its tongue to   catch her leg. Luckily Doric cuts it off just in  time. Meanwhile Edgin gets ready to escape in his   boat with Kira and leaves Sofina in charge. Back  in the maze, Doric trips and gets her hand stuck   inside a gelatinous cube. Holga helps her get it  out, but the bracelet stays inside. Edgin gets   cornered by another monster, but the team walks  through the illusion and breaks him out. After   some more running, they manage to leave the maze,  where cages are waiting to take them to the next   challenge. Edgin points out they need to escape  and not advance, giving Doric an idea. She makes   them jump inside the gelatinous cube, and once  the first challenge ends, the cube is taken away.   Doric transforms into a snake to escape, then  pulls everyone out too. They run through a tunnel   and find the gear, plus some keys to free Simon  from the bracelet. After taking another tunnel,   the team makes it to the dock where they knock out  all the guards and find the boat with the riches   and the tablet. When Forge and Kira show up, they  use the tablet to prove their story. Kira finally   believes them, causing Forge to hold a knife to  her throat to make the others back away. While   Forge monologues like a dumb villain, Holga  grabs a potato and throws it at his face,   causing him to let Kira go. She joins the team as  they hop on the boat to get away, with Simon using   a spell to cause a wave of water to hit Forge.  Kira forgives Edgin as they reconcile. Meanwhile   Sofina is using the horn to kick off her plan:  she convinced Forge to do the games and make the   people stay for a gift so she could use them all  to make a new undead army. The team notices a dark   cloud forming over the city and agrees to come  to save the day. While Sofina begins releasing   the spell over the gambling lords, Edgin makes a  plan in which Simon opens a portal on the ship and   connects it to a giant balloon over the coliseum.  The riches begin falling through the portal,   and all the game attendants begin following  the balloon to grab some gold, saving them from   Sofina’s spell. Edgin asks Kira to hide with  her necklace, then the team confronts Sofina,   who attacks them with a fire spell. Simon protects  them with a shield then Doric transforms into an   owlbear to jump on Sofina, who pushes her away and  uses her magic to activate a dragon statue. The   team uses their various abilities to attack it,  but nothing can hurt stone. The dragon is about   to eat Edgin when Doric realizes she must attack  Sofina, which effectively disables the dragon   spell. Then Sofina catches Holga and Edgin in a  sphere before summoning a giant hand to go after   Doric, but a confident Simon summons his own hand  to fight back. Sofina still wins and destroys it   while the sphere crashes and cracks. The team  won’t give up and proceeds to overwhelm Sofina   with all kinds of attacks until she activates the  time-freezing spell. Sofina begins gloating about   her victory, but suddenly everyone moves because  this was their plan all along. When Sofina looks   to her side, she discovers an invisible Kira put  the bracelet on her wrist, blocking her magic.   Then Doric becomes an owlbear and gives Sofina a  good beating until she kills her. While the team   celebrates their victory, they find that Holga  was mortally wounded in the fight, and she dies.   Kira weeps over her, and Edgin realizes Holga was  the closest thing Kira had to a mom growing up,   so he decides to use the tablet to revive Holga.  While the team joins the celebrations, Forge tries   to run away with some gold, only to be captured by  Xenk. Later on, the original city lord reawakens   now that Sofina’s magic is gone and awards the  heroes medals for saving Neverwinter. Forge is   imprisoned and tries to make an appeal for his  pardon by telling his own tragic backstory,   but the Council doesn’t care for it. Desperate,  Forge finds the bird creature and attempts to fly   out too, but the Council made sure to move to seal  all windows, so Forge just charges into a wall.