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.