Cuttlefish Sweepstakes | Ep. 3 | The Doctor Is In
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Welcome to Legends of Avantras. And we're back. It's day three of the 43rd

Grand Fling-Flel Prime Material Plane Championship brought to you by Everwood's Emporium. And boy, oh boy, things are really heating up as we enter the semifinals. Yes, it is. Or is that yes, they are? Unclear. It's another beautiful day in Goodberry Square. I'm Tank Hammerfall, and coming up are the Thri-Creen Dream Team versus the pubescent, freakish Samurai Tortles. The team that wins today will be...

The team that wins today will be facing off tomorrow against the Grung Hoppertunity Seekers. You know, these team names have really gotten out of hand ever since the mighty Trunks came onto the scene. You can say that again. Any other thoughts before the king's whistle sounds, Verret?

Yes. For years I've sat here with you watching game after game of Flamefell and all this time we've been saying the sponsor of this championship is Everwood's Emporium. But to be honest, I don't think once in all that time have we ever described what it is they offer.

That is an outstanding point, Ferret. Let's take a minute before the game to describe Everwood's products and services in graphic detail. To begin, I'd like to start by recommending my absolute favorite item, the... Hey! Wait a minute, you can't be in here. This is the announcer's box. Yeah, get out of here. What are you doing? Stop this right now! This is preposterous! I see that you know your judo well. Get your hands off of me! I'm not about to... Ladies and gentlemen, help! We're being...

This might be your best one. They just keep getting better. Welcome to Cuddlefish Sweepstakes. Cuddle what? Sweepstakes what? That's right, Merit. I'm told that today is...

more than three dozen strange souls will be vying to survive in a deadly competition for the entertainment of the very clientele that so kindly requested our presence. Yikes! Finally some good fucking entertainment for once. Yes, I'll take a double shot of red spider whiskey and a bowl of lemon wedges on the side, thank you. Verit, these people are betting their very lives for a chance at godhood. They could die at any moment. The prize may be grand, but at what cost?

I'm not here to pass judgment. Let's call them as we seize them. Fair enough. Well, coming up next is whatever nightmarish slaughterama the powerful organizers of this gauntlet of death have planned for our brave contestants. Brought to you, uh, stay tuned, folks. This is Cuddlefish Sweet Things. Enjoy! Bravo! I see you know your judo well enough.

That's probably the best meme on the internet.

The five of you reassemble in the dormitory. For the four? Oh, yes. The four of you reassemble in the dormitory. Jean-Claude, you are shocked and horrified to see that Felpip is not among the few returning back to the dormitory space. You see Glitzy there. You see the walrus. You see Babar. Familiar faces. But Felpip is absent.

Well, I say, I say, I say, it seems we're one man down. Where is, uh, is Fennel Pimp on his way? He's on his way, all right. To hell. Wow. How can you say that? Because when he joined me back to back in the middle of that arena, I told him I would see him there, one way or another.

Well, I mean, think of all the times we spent together! Those three days in prison! I do. I hold them fondly, and I'm sure he is dancing on the corpses of the damned in one of the nine hells. Well, it looks like everybody else made it. Is that the case? Yes. We're more or less in one piece.

Nothing of value was lost. How did you survive? Well, that is a trying, trying story for another time. You may be covered in a tremendous amount of bruises, magical scrapes and scratches, maybe blood coming down, trickling from your ears. You also had a fight.

in an arena, an arena that slowly shrank over time, having this deadly light and only this increasingly small area to survive in. Only four people of the original people, 10, that went in there survived the onslaught. And you can look over and see the pale faces of the shocked faces of the people who are

were fighting with you and then finally managed to escape with you as the four of you cuddled in the final zone before the rest were all either destroyed, basically disintegrated by the red light or killed during the combat itself to fight for that limited space. Well, it was a terrible experience. So horrible I couldn't possibly bring it to words. I'm sure you understand. Did you?

Kill the man! Yes, yes I did. Well, allegedly. Unfortunately I hadn't realized the game hadn't started yet. So... That was awkward at the time. Poor Velpip. I tried my best. It's alright. He died doing what he loved.

Well, not quite. There weren't any woods or teenagers. There was no one to lure. There were no souls to feed to the great cloven one. No horned king? So he more or less just died. Not just died, he was disintegrated and his soul was slurped through the air into that horrible treasure chest.

That's a good point. What's the point of any of it? We have to wonder if the souls of the damned are not trapped in there forever. They probably are.

The chest still hovers, almost slowly rotating in the air, just above at the very top of the dormitory. You are free agents in this dormitory, in this space, to sleep, to get food, to enjoy the few amenities that exist within this space. You've noticed that even conflict is not something that the

showrunners seem to care about. But the few attempts of folks trying to get up to that chest by flight or teleportation or any form of deception have been immediately put down. At this time, the chest simply just rotates, crackling with

nefarious energy. And this is what we've come to understand is the prize? This is the prize. At the end of each game, the chest will open and you can see spirits getting pulled into it. The lives, the very souls of the other creatures who have perished in these games. I'm gonna go eat 32 egg salad sandwiches in his honor.

You would eat that many. I didn't know they were letting D-rate super villains into this competition.

You turn and you hear this voice. I am presuming that you are also perhaps getting some food and have a plate of whatever Dr. Poison would be most interested in-- A plate of poison! --in consuming. What does Dr. Poison look like as the group turns to hear this strange voice? Dr. Poison is wearing a comical doctor's outfit straight out of

Spirit Halloween! With big rubber gloves! Do you have one of the classic masks, or is it just a smaller mask on you, like a surgeon's mask on your head? Do you have a cap? One of those giant metal discs at the top. Maybe a stethoscope? I look like Dr. Doofenshmirtz! But a sneak man!

And I make my supervillain layer underneath the jungle temple themed mini golf course. Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are? I think I'm superior supervillain around these parts. Spit it out! You fucking loser! The walrus feels threatened.

There's only room for one villain related to animal-themed crime around here. Too bad. But you are correct. And it will be me, Dr. Poison. What do you think, guys? Let's kill this guy right now. We certainly could. His accent is annoying. Nice try. I think...

I saw that little fucking freak of nature try to steal my thing with the snakes while I was also taking a shit and dead snakes, which actually was set up in the life-searching. The foreshadowing was real. That's definitely what happened. Little did you know, I sabotaged him. I poisoned his lunch.

So he would be an idiot and get killed by six fireballs. Oh, we heard about that. Rest in piss. It was mostly friendly fire.

"Well, I'm gonna go drown my sorrows in egg salad!" And I'm gonna go to the cafeteria. Clearly moved by the death of Felpip, Walrus makes his exit. The little freak microwave salad! What a freak of nature! I know that we don't know each other very well yet, but yeah, that was pretty weird.

I admire your bloodlust. Thank you. And I admire, I must say, even though the walrus threatens me based on our turf, I like his bloodshed and it was he who partially killed the freak of nature.

It's true, there were lots of magics flying around in the last competition, but you must know the walrus did his best to try to save Felpid, more than any of us did. The little freak got hit by all of it. Or I name it, Dr. Poinsett.

Well, if only you had been there, a real genuine doctor. You could have saved him. I could have saved him from life. Anyway, do you want any egg salad? No. Good luck with the next competition.

Dr. Poison starts to make his way back towards the food table, and you can see that there are a few others. They actually get out of his way a little intimidated from what they witnessed, his abilities being what they are. Though they were among the survivors in the previous competition's room with Dr. Poison, they very clearly understand

know that he's no one to be trifled with. Is there anything else that you want to do before you rest, before you sleep, before you, thinking on the next day's potential challenge, whatever that may be? - What do you think? Could we, uh... - Oh, I see, you mean the doctor? - Yes!

Well, I don't want to get in trouble for it. I mean, it seems like the wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead. That was pretty good. That was actually very funny. Glitzy, will you back me up on this? Back you up on what? Sorry. Kill Dr. Poison. Oh, I don't want to go anywhere close to him. Poison and bombs don't mix. They don't?

Here's the thing, the walrus. You like to fear me. Numbers are dwindling. It will not be long before we are forced to turn on each other. But until then, we might be able to find him useful. Or what we could do is just turn on him now. I like that idea. I thought you were against mixing bombs and poison. Yeah, in a friendly manner, for sure. I think...

The time may present itself where we can proverbial, proverbially use him as a human shield. Oh god, it looks like a bunch of chickens were just delivered to our homestead. What? A hatch in the ceiling opens up and all of a sudden, 15 chicken. 15 buffaloes. Honestly, I told you not to come to work.

Let's take a minute and get some chicken wings. You awaken, having enjoyed a long rest. The dormitories are quieter. There are far, far, far fewer people and still the same number of beds.

effectively enough beds for perhaps four or five hundred and now there are but forty people remaining. You're starting to realize that you're getting more and more familiar with the faces of the few people who have this rare chance of surviving the cuttlefish, the sweepstakes. Um, Dr. Poison being one of them. Uh,

As you awaken, you enjoy breakfast and you realize very quickly you're being corralled into groups. And sticking close to those that you know most of all, the four of you find yourselves sort of partnered, already teamed up with Dr. Poison and five others as you are grouped into teams of ten.

I need to access the battle mount. Oh. Ooh. That's gonna be rough. I'm sorry. I'm gonna take another round. My apologies. Teens of eight. It won't be hard for me. I kid, mostly. I kid, somewhat. Sike! Oh, and I don't have... I found three of the bottle caps, but I don't have...

For some reason I don't have two more bottle caps for the other folks. I can grab some, but I don't know where the others went that we had previously. No. They've got to be on the table, right? Wait, so what is Dr. Poison exactly? I mean, is he on T, but what, like... Artificer. Artificer, okay. I'm not the worst class. I don't know what a Dr. Doofenshmirtz is. I'm a mad scientist trope. Is that a platypus? Yeah. Oh, I don't like this, Derek.

Except, I mean, I have a lab coat. Is this like Rope Tug? No, we played Tug of War. Oh, really? Yeah. We played Tug of War and Fortnite last session. Can we battle map it, Andy? Just show what the folks with Darian's doing here.

So you can see there's four squares, three squares, two squares, and then an indeterminate number of squares. And then infinity squares. One square and then an indeterminate number of squares. Infinity squares. So we'll see how this shakes out here.

Avoid. This will be like the start, yeah, and then there's a dotted line up out over here, so we'll try to be sliding around. All right, I would like everyone to note that I'm just shuffling these. Oh god. Oh yeah. I love shuffling. We're gonna go over under a little bit. Just shuffling these. Pat and Go-Go.

I say, I say, I was eloquence the whole time. I was also not an elephant. That old elephant was dealing with whispers and shadows. Certainly not me, a proud soldier. I have always been an eloquence. If you think differently, you've not been paying attention.

Speaking of TV tropes, a bit of a retcon. A retcon-- oh, I'm gonna look up types of TV tropes for retcons. A retroactive canon, I say, I say. That's okay. Don't worry about it. If we don't-- Record a strike back from the record. Oh, dang. Interesting. This is like the glass one. All right, you can figure out movement, I'm sure, very confident. I love Mr. Beast. Let's just put them on the lines. That's the way to do this.

Sure. Oh, and we had a long rest, so I can't-- We did. This is not a touchscreen.

Yeah, don't-- Smear chicken all over your screen. I'll say, I'll say! ♪ I'll say, I'll say ♪ ♪ Bring me the load ♪ ♪ Bring me the load ♪ ♪ Home alone ♪ Jesus. That's so fucking gross. ♪ Too many whiskey sours on a nice summer day ♪ ♪ Smearing chicken ♪ Those are the smear lines. Oh, fuck.

Hold on, hold on, let me-- They're fine. Slightly, slightly. And in case you need this, that's there. All right, you guys all need to start putting yourselves one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight in one of these eight positions. And in addition to the five of you, there are three-- I'm still the walrus!

Dr. Poison will-- Should we roll for a position? I want to be third from the end. Which end? End closest to Andy. Okay. Right there? This is the third position from the end. One, two, three, four, five, six. I'll put an NPC here.

I'll be far away from that blubbering idiot, the walrus. Do you get it? Blubbering idiot. I'll fucking kill you!

You were spending all session eating fried chicken. Oh, yeah. I don't know where the... Well, this is delicious. I'll say, I'll say, it's 13 herbs and spices. It tastes better because of my sit. Well, I'll say, I'll say, it's Rob's Rob. This can be you, Dr. Poison. I'm just signing off to you. Oh, Dr. Poison. Rose Gold.

Who are we missing that doesn't have a... Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude. Far away from that idiot, the world. You can be a red chickeny fish thing. Oh, okay. It's a little bit of a tight squeeze here. A red chickeny fish. Yep. It's good enough. Yeah, it's good enough, exactly. All right. Oh, the wall. They're pissing! You fucking frayed down there!

mechanically. That's right, they have my favorite trope, the enemies to lovers, between the walrus and a dark wolf. There can be only one mini golf course. Super villain later. I'll show you, lovers. You better not survive or I'm going to fuck you.

Standard movement rules, this is a grand 5 feet for each square, and each one of these is sort of like a... There's like a moat that goes across and these bridges that very very clearly are magical in some way, and that's true for all of these spaces. These lines are poisonous moats? The lines I put together are the moats, yeah. Is it relevant how you have, like some of these are going this way, some of these are coming horizontally?

No, this is just so that you can't go around, right? You're gonna have to go through each of these. He means the orientation of the note card. It doesn't matter. When you flip them over, you'll see that they have words on them. And we must cross these bridges. You must cross the bridges. It would be extremely obvious to you that attempting to go through would mean falling to your death.

and that would be true at each one of their moat thresholds, and there's an obvious finish line. This is a fight. This is a fight! Can I fly over the moat? You would guess that you could not fly. Well, fuck. You've got the worst race for this, John. Well, welcome back, Jean-Claude Elephante.

It was me all along. I was just wearing one of them giant chicken suits. I was fighting Peter Griffin down in... And soon it's ten minutes too long. Peter Griffin's in Fortnite right now. Oh, freaking sweet Lois. It's science on the tail. Lois, look, I'm in Fortnite now. That reminds me... He's full for no reason. It reminds me of the time that...

You're all lit up and you realize that at any moment this energy shield directly in front of you is going to drop and you're going to have to make it from one end to the other in order to survive. But the nature of the actual competition still eludes you. Why? What the hell? Yeah, yeah.

You can hear announcers for the first time. What? What is this game exactly? I'm not sure exactly what these portals, bridges, what is the nature of the game? I'm being told that there will be challenges within each pocket that we'll have to cross in order to get from one threshold to the other and that they're going to be quite challenging.

Oh, okay. Well, does that mean that they all just have to make it across in order to get through the third? No, it's just the first four will get across the finish line. Everyone else is going to die. Oh. Well, that's very serious. Half of them are going to die? Yes, half exactly. Holy shit! Oh my god! I need everyone to roll for initiative. I say we break Dr. Poison's legs. Okay.

Oh my god, this is not a chocolate screen. I might twist this. I'm gonna use three dreads. Thank you. Oh shit. I'm twisting. It's 'cause I used the wrong guy. All right, 20 to 30. Nice.

Is initiative an ability check? It's dex. It'll be plus four. It's really a plus four initiative. Yeah, yeah. I'm just asking if it's an ability check. It's an ability check, yes. I'm going to use my reaction to bet Dr. Poison's luck and take a 1d4 away from him. This is savage already. Dr. Poison woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for explaining to me. Wow. Yes, it's an ability check. Oh, wow!

Wow! Minus four. Unreal! Oh no! I'm feeling a little molest-acy. Give me that molest-acy! 15 to 20. Oh, I got a 21. I got a 21. 17. 17. Oh shit. So Walrus and Jon bought both of you that bar. 17. I go first!

Roll off. Fuck! Roll off, for sure. Highest number on a d20. No twist. No twist, probably. No, just roll off, straight up. Oh, I go second! Woo! Fuck! Jean-Claude's in it, baby! I got a 15. Oh, you did. Is this the new initiative, or is this just like, you know-- This is the initiative that we're gonna race in.

Does that answer your question? Dr. Poison, what did you get? I got a neat! That's amazing. You knocked him down two full spots in the race. Well, I'd say it looks like Dr. Poison has been found guilty of being a bitch! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!

The day you made me go slightly to the moon. Aside from teleportation and flying, there are no rules to freeze your abilities, but I will note that it will require your action to engage one of the challenge squares. This means...

Sorry, can you say that one more time? Sorry. No teleportation, no flying. It takes an action to enter one of the challenge squares to attempt to cross. So you can't just dash. And, well, you can dash if you don't want to. You wouldn't have an action. That's what I'm saying. Well, you wouldn't have an action, but if you wanted to go over left or right, or if you wanted to stop and use your action to cast something to stop the others or something along those lines. However, there are no rules except for those mechanical things that you should be aware of. And top of the round, Glitzy, you are up.

I am going to go straight forward and use my action on the one in front of me. Okay, you reach it. Go ahead and flip it over and you can flip over the adjacent ones as well. Whoa, whoa, cool. Performance. Oh, you lucky duck. Intimidation.

And acrobatics. As you get closer, you get a sense that these are challenges that once you enter will have some sort of relevant skill or ability that you might be able to use. Do you continue to jump into performance? I will jump into intimidation. Okay. She reverts. Jumps over there. Jumps over there.

and you jump into the portal. All of a sudden, you turn around and you realize that the space that you're inside of is temporarily out of sync with the race. You have unlimited time in this domed space because turning around, you can see all the other competitors racing forward are frozen in time.

You look forward and you're inside of a room and right in front of you is a massive doorway and before it stands a massive, huge guard with this giant fuck you mace with all these spiked barbs on the side. Huge spiked pads for armor on all sides rippling with muscle and he's standing there. If you can scare me, you can go through.

I'm gonna look towards him and my eyes start to cross and look in different directions. That's what happens when I look up at Rich. He's the biggest man I know. And I'm gonna look up at him and I'm gonna say,

You may be big and strong and have a mace, but when you're melting, you're smaller than a fairy. And I'm gonna just like illuminate with fire. Go ahead and roll an intimidation check. Natural 20. 28. I used my luck to subtract one from the other. The guard reaches forward for a moment and then...

withers and wilts and that's pretty good. He steps to the side and he invites you to try to pass through the portal. - Thanks a bunch, friend, see ya near the sun! - And you just skip on the way through and you arrive on the adjacent square. If you still have movement left, you can use it at this point, but you've used your action to pass through the threshold. - I have one, two, three, four. I think I have maybe one space of movement left.

One, two, three, four, five. Now you're... See, you got here, right? Well, I didn't get onto performance, right? It was right in front? Yeah, you didn't enter the performance. You would still have, like... Yeah, I think you'd be out. Okay, yeah, I'll stay there. One, two, three, four and a half, five and a half seconds. Yeah. So crossing the other threshold, you look around and you realize that if you wanted to make a perception check to see what is the most immediate things in front of you, you'd be able to do that. I do. I'm not very perceptive, though, so I don't think...

Perception, you say? A sweet eight. - A sweet eight. You're just glad that you made it past that guard without a fight and blinking, John Claw. Go ahead and make a perception check for me.

14. 14. I would say that is not enough for you to perceive the challenges directly in front of you. You would have needed a 15 or higher, but you realize that Glissy has made it through her threshold as well, and that the two of you are, at this time, in the lead. Walrus, you're up.

Do I get a sense that I can teleport as long as it's within the realm of the game? Like I'm not cheating to like get ahead? Is it teleporting within this rectangle? You do not know if it's teleportation would be cheating to get to the challenge or if it would be teleporting cheating to get across the threshold without going through the challenge pit. You're not sure if you'd be punished for one or the other or both. That's a risky maneuver as we saw when we did the banana slits.

Oh, my God.

One, two, three, four! There's nothing stopping us from going to a portal that someone's already been through? Nothing's stopping you. Okay. I'm right up. I say intimidation! You jump, spending your action, and land, and directly in front of you is this huge doorway, and filling the frame of this doorway is this massive, muscly guard, breathing heavy. If you can scare me, I'll let you pass. Get the fuck out!

You're not gonna let me launch the Dr. Pigeon! I'm not gonna let you launch it! Let's make an intimidation attack. This is the greatest rivalry of all time forever. I'm twisting. Nothing will stop this. This is so good. I fucking love this rivalry. 27. That's enough. You passed immediately through. Yeah. Ooh!

Oh, so do I occupy the same space with each other? I'm sure it's fine. There's a chicken underneath the clucking moon. I'm sure it's fine. I would say if you land on the other side, you have to move. No, I can't. Okay, then you get displaced. I would say that you bump into Glitzy and bop to the side of where you are now. Okay, perfect. Make a perception check for me.

No one can receive-- Natural one. Okay, you all are shocked by that strange temporal displacement experience. You do not have a sense of what challenges lay before you. Babar, you're up. I'm going through the Intimidation Portal.

15, 20. Okay. You see the same thing. You jump through and for a moment you realize that Glitzy and the walrus are in front of you, already starting to make their next moves. You see Jean-Claude having just bopped out on his side. Looking behind you, you can see the others are all starting to race towards additional challenges. There's a door in front of you and in it, a massive, towering, monstrous creature covered in armor looking to crush you with its massive mace.

If you can scare me, I'll let you pass. I fear no man, mortal, construct, or god. And when I ascend, I will be back for revenge. Make an intimidation check. I got a 14. I'm going to twist it. Good call. Because I got a high plus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's gonna be a 25. 25 is enough. You are able to pass through when you ascend. And you are able to walk through the door and you find yourself landing magically on the other side, bopping to the right

of Glitzy, as you-- So all of this land is fair game? These lines are more just-- They were initially guidelines that I wanted to just make sure that you guys didn't try to go around the challenges. You just consider the outermost challenges as sort of the-- I see. Got it. Perceive? Yes. 18. Oh! Go ahead and put that ship nearest to you. Yeah, exactly right. Animal handling.

Medicine. Oh, jeez louise. Just for curiosity, would we have seen what this one is too? Since you all walked into the intimidation door? Uh, yes. Yes. Ooh, nature. That's what Dr. Poison is. Not good for Babar, let me tell you. Oh man, you think this is just every one of them? This is not a single repeat? Could be. Uh oh. Which means we're gonna have to just force our way through. This one's going to attempt to go through the nature door. Are you following those movement rules? It matters.

Every square matters. You're right. You're right. Where'd you start? You can't just come in here, Derek! One and a half, three. It's 20. 20. Okay. That was really good. Because it's 15. To get through, do we still have our movement after we leave the board? Yes. Well, I thought only the first four off the line survived. No, no, no. First one. Oh, through at the end. Oh. Then I'd be fucked. Um. I have a twist of thread. I'll lose it.

Good enough. This half-elf is able to pop out to the other side. Fucking half-elf. There's always half-elves. Unsure what exactly it was that they encounter. The next one, closest to Dr. Poison, is going to go 5, 10, 15, 20, and use his action to go into the one next to Acrobat. This guy? Yep.

My hands are very shaky, I don't know why, I apologize. What are we looking at? Religion. Religion. Sorry, I should have read it out. It pops in there and what happens inside the challenge is opaque to those watching from outside. You have no idea. But they don't succeed and they bop back and find themselves in front of religion. Same spot or one square back? Same spot.

When somebody goes in, is it like an instantaneous move? Yeah, it's like if you jump in, all of a sudden you just find yourself on the other side of this massive move. To us, it's immediate. Dr. Poison. There's only one that hasn't been revealed yet. Do you dare? I suppose I could dare. Go, go. Rock'em, fuck'em, rock'em, please.

Activate! And I'm going to use my special rocket boots to bonus action and move 15 feet. Okay. All right, so you didn't-- Is that teleportation or is this a-- Let me see. I just want to make sure that it's not like Misty Step or something. If it is teleport, I'm not going to do that.

Just in case. Oh fuck. Try it, you coward! Do we know if we can do it? We don't. We don't know. We haven't tried it yet. So you just try it. No. He's a beard. I am a beard. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, is it more chickens? Always. Chickens! There we go. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Just fire it back up. Yeah, fire it.

There you go. We did this for chicken. Well, it's all family. Teleport. It is a teleport. Okay. So do you want to try it or no? I'm gonna try it. Okay. You attempt to teleport 15 feet and all of a sudden you feel yourself locked in to place. You imagine that if you had tried that farther up the field that you would have been bopped back here to the start line.

You should have told him that, that would have been hilarious. That's good, I'll just walk you my sneaky legs. And I'm going to look at this guy and I'm gonna just go straight, I'm gonna say-- Oh, you wanna go to religion? I'm gonna go to religion. I'm saying, "Your mama don't dance." He would still see it though, right? So we know. Oh yeah. I'm going to religion.

You hop in and you realize that in this space, time is frozen for you. You have all the time in the world before returning to the heat of this race, before returning to the heat of battle. And you look up and you see that you're in almost a church-like space. There are empty pews all around you and you walk past many lit candles before you reach the center and there's something of an altar there at the foot.

the center, begging for an offering, and looking up at the stained glass in front of you, you see that there is a symbol. A symbol of a gear. Make a religion check for me. Hmm. I am a very, I may be a supervillain, but I am a godly man. Okay.

14. 14. That will be a 22. Nice. Oh, wow. 22 is just enough as you realize the gear item-- It's one of those scubs Derek likes to use. Reaching down, you realize that all one needs to do for the offering is put down any kind of simple tool or craftsmanship.

I've got plenty of those. I'll produce my... I'll produce my thing-longer. You call the thing-longerer out. Mechanically, it's going to be my fucking... I have a million tools as a fucking... Yeah. Uh...

They'll be thieves tools. Okay. You pop the thieves tools down. And... Nice.

You pop them down and all of a sudden the light illuminating through the stained glass window gets brighter and brighter and brighter until pop, bam, you find yourself on the other side of the threshold. 'Cause I went straight, I can move up a square. Very nice. We're scaring Mace. And I'll look over and I'll say, look what the cat dragged in. Five, 10, 15, 20 to acrobatics.

- I don't think that trim can stay in. - I'm gonna use a twist of thread. More than enough gets the other way and he also can use an additional space of movement. - Wow. - So he can pop forward like this. - Great. You find yourselves all along the line. And Galicia at the top of the round, you're up next. - I am going to...

Oh, I'm sorry, my apologies. Dr. Poison, make a perception check for me. Dr. Poison has poisonous eyes. Fuck. Stop rolling on the battle map! Oh, fuck. Now roll elsewhere. Is your total 15 or higher? It is a 19, I think it was a 15 here.

And yes, you can flip over these two closest to you. Wonderful. Just so that Klystia has all the information that she could want. Okay. Ooh. So what do we see there? Perception, deception. Fuck. How far away is the deception? Far. Probably not that far for you, but...

Can I make deception? 35, 30, it's more than 30. One and a half, three, four, five, yeah. Okay, I'll go to deception. You can barely make it. One and a half, three, four, five, six, yeah.

You jump in and all of a sudden you find yourself in this strange sort of hazy space. You realize you're in some kind of a ziggurat or temple, but in front of you is almost like a monstrous stone creature, like a sphinx almost. And it turns to you, its eyes flash and flare and glower down at you and it says, "If you can lie to me, I will let you pass."

Oh, look over there! Make an exception check. I'm gonna point and just... 20.

20. It looks at you and does not look to the side. Instead, its eyes grow brighter and brighter and brighter, and it looks at you and says, I understand that was a deception, which means that you have failed. And all of a sudden, this beam of light lays your skin off. You feel this steaming hot... Could I use a twist? I mean, yeah, you could have. No, no, I'll let you die. Okay. All of a sudden, you get hit.

and you ignite into flames. You feel this terrible experience that you are scorched, beamed, crushed away, evaporated and destroyed, and then reassembled behind the line of the first set of challenges. - Holy shit. - You're bopped all the way back to adjacent to the NPC on Mixed Religious. - So just straight back? - Straight back.

You are suddenly shoved back by the challenge and you find yourself one level back, but whole despite your terrifying experience. I was so ready to pull up my next character. But still whole despite your terrifying experience. Oh my god! John Claude, you have a movement and bonus action left. You still have the remainder of your turn if you want to do anything.

- No, I think that was the full of my movement, so I'm okay. - I'm concerned that I physically won't have enough to get through some of this.

I-- I can just twist until you succeed. If I-- Not if I only have plus one. It's like 20 something. You know what I mean? Can I perception check what this is and still potentially go to the deception one? Oh, well, yeah. Shouldn't the one next to deception be open? Yes, because-- Oh, yeah. --walk faster. Yes. Mace, you're crushing the head of a chicken. Oh!

Oh my god, that was made for John McClure! And everyone should know this about the game, I started with a high DC and it will steadily get reduced by one every round refreshed. So if they're like, okay, if we're all failing, die. Yeah, I thought that. That makes sense.

It's gonna go in the fucking chicken, I swear to God. No wonder I've been sick, okay? God, I'm getting hit by asbestos ceiling. Well, I'll see if I can't persuade the mighty guardian of this portal. Son of a bitch. Oh, fuck, it just makes me laser eyes. You're jumping into deception, or...? Persuasion, my good man. That's what I was born to do. Um...

You walk into what is very evidently a courtroom, and a judge stands honorably at the very top of the, there's no audience or anything, there isn't any defendant

nor are there any accused. There don't seem to be any jury members, just you and a judge, and you can walk up past the sort of hallowed wooden seats and passing the bar. You walk up, and the judge speaks down to you and says, "Tell me, why should I let you pass?"

Well, Your Honor, it seems you've found the great Jean-Claude Chanticleer on your docket. And you should let me pass because, well, you were employed by an evil cabal with many heads and not even a judge is above the law. And that means that come someday soon, or maybe not at all, you will need legal representation. And I am the best in the land. Take my card. Ha ha ha!

He starts to reach out, make a persuasion check. Oh shit, the beam just dropped! Take the beam to John Claw, the 24. 24 is enough, he takes the card.

That's very convincing. And he allows you to pass, he hits his gavel, and all of a sudden, blinking, you find yourself on the other side of the threshold with the remainder of your turn. I think I moved diagonally. You were here, right? Yeah. One. Oh.

Does it cost any movement to go from here to here? I think you get that one for free. I think you get bumped for free, right? Yeah, once you are adjacent to these two squares, you use your action and bop to the other side. Okay. So where did you start? I was outside of performance. Yeah.

So he moves two. One and a half, two and a half. He still has two and a half. So you can move, you know. Can I, if I move in between these portals, can I attempt to see what they are? Yes, you'll be able to see them without a perception check. Three and a half? And you can make a perception check to see one of the edge cases if you wanted to. Uh, Wal? Can I see the two in the middle and then make a perception check to also? Okay.

Insight. John Connor has to defend him, represent himself in the edge. If you want to make a perception check for one or the other, you may. Fucking where am I going with Arcana? How fucking far do I go to Insight? I'll try the one closest to you, Bilbar. Okay, make a perception check. That's you. You want to twist it?

I have no war chest. Steve, you're silly. The walrus.

Unless you have more. Well, I was thinking maybe I just move over here to see what this one is. Oh, sure. If you have enough movement, you have-- You can do one more. One more. Because you're three and a half and you're an Iroko Crow, so you can only go four and a half. Okay, okay. I would say you're just out of range to be able to see the nature of the challenge. I'll say. I'll say, damn it! That being the conclusion of your turn, go Walrus. You know where I'm going. One and a half, three.

Four, five, to deception! Ah! You find yourself in a strange ziggurat temple somewhere deep within some kind of a tomb and inside there's a stone creature, his eyes glow and looks at you and you hear her words, "lie to me." You've gotta let me out of here. My oldest friend Dr. Poison's out there. We gotta make it through! Your roommate's in the Guild of Villainous Intention!

And we got a safe throw to the end! He waltzes up to yours. Take an inspiration. Unbelievable. I'm convinced. I'm twisting? Yeah. Yeah. You got to.

Much better. Do you think 23's enough? It's gotta be, right? 21? I think that's one, right? I got 20 in that fail. But last round, 22 made it, so I think the DC's gotta be 21. I think it's 22. I'm gonna let 23. He said each round the DC goes down. So 22 made it last round, 21 had to make it this round. 23.

You may pass. And you find yourself-- I think there's a wolf behind my back! Son of a bitch! The statue would know that, being able to detect lies as it does, in order to make sure that you are good at deception, and you were, so you successfully get to the other side. So I have one more square, I'm just gonna walk up here and look at this one. And you are able to see inside there.

Oh, fuck athletics! I'm from the Walrus, he's a viking! Nooo! Bye bye. I wanna make it to Deception so bad, but I'm short. If I use dash, that is my action, I can't go through portal, correct? That's correct. Yeah, I gotta go through for persuasion. Uh, you can do Corvette, Chris, but... It's fine, it just would've been very funny for me to go through Deception. I had a really good idea.

What do you jump into? Persuasion. Persuasion. You find yourself walking into a courtroom. You've seen the inside of courtrooms before, but never as a lawyer or as a visitor, other than to have judgment be cast down upon you. It has a strange feeling being in this space, but walking up, you realize the judge is...

waiting for you and not someone to give you a sentence, but instead to hear you out. Why should I let you pass? His words echo through the room. I, Babar, have been here many times before and never before have I been allowed to speak. I have done many evil things, but I've done them

in the name of my family and my brother. Nothing, nothing will stop me from bringing him back from his tragic fling-fell accident. And I will not allow anyone to get in my way. Do you believe that makes me an evil man? I say not. He considers your words. Make a persuasion check.

Pouring out for Raybab. Well, I say that's exactly why I never put him on the stand. I'm twisting. Oh, I'm twisting again. Okay. I'm twisting again. Keep wetting your wrist. I got a bazillion, I got plus a bazillion here. Come on, one good roll. Much better. Nice. That's gonna be a 23. That's enough. Oh, nice. You pop Hector onto the other side and landing, find yourself blinking, staring at the walrus and Jean-Claude.

You do anything with your turn? One and a half, three, four. Yeah, I go five, six this way towards athletics. Oh! That's my turn, as I'm passing behind the walrus. One, 2.5, 3.5. I use my reaction to--

Twist bent his lip, so it's next. Really? No. Okay. Animal handling check. Whatever happens in there happens to that particular soul, but they do not succeed, and they flop back to the space just next to intimidation. The other one that did succeed on its way through

Was it acrobatics that I may need to go through? I think so, or religion. We'll make its way towards... 2024 Toyota. There's perception, deception, persuasion are the closest to him. Medicine's kind of far. Unfortunately, I think he's going to go for medicine because of his abilities. Two, three and a half? Yep, three and a half.

It's not going to be good enough. It's back. To performance. Yep. Brutal. And the other one is going to continue to try religion again. Makes it through. One, two. You're going to make it all the way up. Yeah, I'll just have him go up to... Deception or there's also perception. I think perception for that one. He's going to go up here? Yeah. Get right in front of Dr. Pitson. Poison, I should say. Dr. Poison, your turn.

I'm gonna look at him get in front of me. What?

Did you know that entropy is the poison of existence? What? What? You're the strut! Stop spitting all over me. Stop spitting on me. From my hand, there'll be a big doomsday device. I'm going to cast Vortex Warp. Oh my god. And I'm going to attempt to absolutely yeet him.

Back 90, as far as I possibly can. Basically the start line. The start line. Great. I'm going to try to beat him back to the start line. Okay. What do I have to do? Consigent saving throw. 16. 15. Space is twisted around him. Stop spitting on me!

Well, fuck! You suck, Dr. Poison! I'll get you, Dr. Poison! You are supposed to suck a poison wound. Yeah.

Nobody enjoyed that. I'll walk up here, and I can't get in. Correct. Oh, because you used your action to fucking up. I used my action. Would you more or less secure a closer spot? Yeah, which is pretty interesting. I got a closer spot. And so that is my turn. I don't think I can use my bonus action for no problem. Okay. That's incredible. I think the only guy who didn't go was this guy. No, he got zooped back. This guy didn't go, right? Yeah.

Yeah... No, that's the one that tried animal handling and it got bopped back. Oh, that is just the vortex warp guy? Is this vortex warp? Is that- I thought he was the one. No, he ran in front of me. So one of these guys- it has to be this guy. Oh, it's the guy who's on top of performance. He's gonna try to go to performance. He got Zoot back from going to medicine.

Last round. Oh, yeah. I thought that just happened, but that's okay. I should be doing a better job trying to miss him. I'm just a game master. It'll be him. He's going to try for performance again. I'm going to twist it. Remind us, chat. Oh, they're saying it's Vortex Warp Guy's turn. It's Vortex Warp Guy's turn? But how is he? He just moved in front of him. He just moved in front of him. That's why I thought it was this guy, because he just got warped back from the medicine check. Oh, yeah, he's the guy on the far right. Did he move at all?

I thought he failed last turn. Yeah, okay. Let's say it's that guy. Let's say it's intimidation guy. I'm gonna keep my roll and he can make it through. One and-- Where would you like to go? He's gonna try animal handling on his next turn. Okay. Can you move him one to the left? Yeah, you can. Yeah, absolutely. Playing optimally over here. Glitzy! I can't. Acrobatics, religion stuff. Glitzy will do acrobatics. Okay, so you can just go, you don't have to move at all. Get up here, Glitzy, we need you!

Acrobatics. I don't have any cool business cards. You suddenly pass through and again, time has frozen all around you. You turn around, you see the chaos. You see somebody being vortex warped, mid-warp. It's very chaotic and strange to see as Dr. Poison uses this deadly weapon.

You turn and you realize how unstable the hallway you're staring at is. As you stare down, there are a few lit torches. It's very dark. But you can see that the tiles that are in front of you to walk across are going to require very dexterous movement. Otherwise, the ceiling might collapse upon you at any time. All right, well, I guess it's time for some cartwheels. And I'm going to start cartwheeling across the platform.

And I'm going to twist. And I'm going to twist. That's why we got him. And I'm going to twist. Brutal. That's okay. Keep going. Keep going. You got him. Bend him. You had the most starting off. I know. And I'm going to twist again. Oh. No, it doesn't work. She goes back. You're still in the first one, though, right? Yep. Well, the DC might be lower. I haven't rolled above seven. Are you out of twists? No. No, no, no. What? But what is it for? Acrobatics. I think you should keep twisting until...

I think the game wants my new character. Okay. I'll do one more twist. Come on, one more. 16 plus 7. Yay! The 23. Let's fucking go! You do a cartwheel, and you realize that the ceiling is collapsing on you. Thank you, Jack. You do another cartwheel. You realize the ceiling is just behind you. Indiana Jones-style, like a boulder, it's...

like that, but you maintain focus on your acrobatic ability and by the time you reach the other side of this hallway, you are nearly dodging the debris falling all around you, but you do succeed in bamfing back to the upside and back into the race. - You can more or less pick whatever one you want here. - And I can, what are those options? - Perception, deception, persuasion, medicine, and then animal handlings all the way at the end. - Perception, deception, persuasion, then medicine.

- Yeah, deception or persuasion, either one of those. - Either one, you can go right to deception. - Yeah, I'll go deception. - Okay. - Jean-Claude. - Are these lines like big, are these like moving barriers? - They represent barrier moats. If you were to try to go through, you feel like you'd either get sucked down or fall down into some horrible lava or something, it would be a nightmare.

I'm imagining like lasers. Instant death. Like a bunch of spy lasers coming across. You know, through the portals, instant death. Yeah. All right, real quick, we got Lover's Rose, Inky Mama, and Ripper Wild for a little twist. That is just enough for a distribution right here. Oh, distribution. A little refresh. I love a little refresh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chad. Thank you, Chad. Woo-hoo.

You're up. Well, I say, Babar, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, when you get in the courtroom, you got to stop admitting to your crimes! That's meta-knowledge. As I flip you off and catch your turn. And drawn on it, it says, it is a get-out-of-jail-free card that is written, I didn't do it. And I give you a bar of desperation. Thank you.

Is it D8 or D6? D8. He has one of those Monopoly-style illustrations of the bar, but he's being held up by an invisible hand, and he's like... I would actually like to go to the very end and see what the unrevealed square is. Oh, I'll say, I'll say, one, two, three. Oh, you're fishing for something here.

Investigation, I say. I say that's where you are. As a cross, it's an examination. No, in fact, I've never done the investigating. I've always left that to the detectives. Insight? I gotta figure out what's down here. I mean, here's the thing, though, right? Even if your plus isn't that high, if you spike a good roll, you might get... Yeah. That's investigation. Yeah, they're basically all ints.

Except for-- You may as well try. I'll try. Dr. Poynton. Investigation. You, feeling a little more hesitant, a little less confident, you jump through and into the space and land on your feet. You find yourself looking at a massive room. Oh, that's intimidation. What's the first one?

That's athletics. Arcana. Arcana, insight. Slap it on the big cam here and slide up a little bit. Yeah, we don't care about that stupid guy. Yeah, that guy who's dumb.

You pop into this space and you find yourself in a relatively small room, but one that is very busy with things. This feels like some sort of domiciles, a place where someone lives. There's bookshelves, there's a desk, there's a number of shelves with all kinds of jars and stuff on it. And on the opposite side, you can see that there's a

On any side, there are no doors that would get you out of the space. This seems to be in a totally enclosed space. And then looking up is when you hear it.

The ceiling starts to come down, massive and unyielding in its crushing. You realize you have almost no time at all to figure out how to stop this wall from coming down. I say, oh fuck! I whip out a notepad and written on it, you'll see clues with a number one and nothing's filled out. Incredible.

All the evidence is in front of me. I simply need to put it together and the case is solved! I'm in all attempts to investigate the room to find out how to-- You start putting the clues together like a good detective. I don't write anything. You're not writing, but your eyes are scanning, putting in pieces, make an investigation check. I love escape rooms. I say, I say, a great bachelor party activity.

I'll say you had twists. All twists. Cannibal Porpoise, thank you for the twist. Thank you! Starts the next chunk here. The next distribution chunk? The next distribution chunk. All right, got worse. Hey, you can go again. Do it one more time. One more time. One more time. I'm the big boy. The big boy. The white now? No, it's faded. It's not meant to be. Damn.

You get desperate as suddenly bookshelves start to crush and collapse. You see art on the wall, paintings get knocked off and fall to the floor. You start to realize that you're having to duck down as you start to look behind things, anything. Could there be a lever? Could there be a button? You pull the rug back, there's nothing, and you realize that time is out when you cramp

into a position where you no longer can search the room. - That moment I see on the bookshelf, the spine of a book that says secret recipes and I say, oh no! - Only your fingers can barely touch the binding as all of a sudden, Jean-Claude, you are crushed into nothingness. You feel the force of your body explode out, a very unpleasant experience to be crushed to death and then bam!

You are pushed back to, yeah, you're pushed back right next to John Clive. Yeah, yeah. Set back in your race to survive. What do you mean right here, perhaps? Just to give you a bit more option. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's fine. The walrus. Oh! Oh! I don't know what to do.

Indecisive as always! Get out of my head! I guess inside! One, two, three, action! You jump into the space and you find yourself in a tavern.

Looking around in the tavern, you can see that this is patronized by all sorts of characters. There are two scholarly gentlemen over at one table debating about something. You see the bartender. You see a hooded figure in the corner smoking a long pipe. You can barely see the shadowed face. You see the bards are all playing their instruments in one corner. There's all sorts of different people enjoying this tavern night.

And you realize that just a gut feeling, only one of them can show you to safety.

I have all the time in the world, I literally spent an hour doing that, like shaking my walrus mustache. Yeah, you look at each one of them, you watch all of them intently, they seem to pay you no mind, you seem to be standing at the door. No one leaves your party. It seems like it's almost on repeat, this night could be endless for all you care. And I attempt to determine who I think is the right one. Why don't you roll an insight check? I think I might. I hope the walrus makes it.

That's pretty damn good. Damn. Pretty damn good. Please, DC, be low enough. I mean, you can't be that unwise. It's gotta be 20. I have a 21. I have a 21. Yeah, you're fine. 21. You start to look around and you realize that if you ask any of these people

to take you through the tavern and to safety, that it would be the death of you. They'd pull a knife, there'd be some sort of violent outcome. Except for the one in the cloak. Seems like a trustworthy fellow.

You still got it, Wimble! And I run up to the guy in the cloak. And he reaches out his hand and you take it, confident that you're not gonna get shanked. And as you do, bam! All of a sudden, as soon as your hand touches him, you evaporate and find yourself on the other side of this threshold. Damn. I'm gonna go... If I end here, will I see both of these for free? Yeah. You would see those both for free. I'm gonna just...

If I can basically be in this little space here. Yeah, yeah. You're fried alive. You walk into the-- I should have made real gutters. That's on me. You're good. Survival and history. Let's get on that. Okay. Survival and history. Do you want a perception at leftmost tile? DC 15.

Oh no! I did a Dr. Piston! I don't-- I don't perceive. I don't perceive. I go directly for athletics. They can only be one. One and a half. Two athletics. One and a half, and you pop into athletics, and-- Let's see what I need if I need this. You stop yourself because for a moment you realize that you were at the top of a very, very, very tall drop. You were at the edge of a cliff.

If you're picturing in Temple of Doom when they make it to the end of the minecart chase and the water is bursting on all sides and they have to hug the wall, you find yourself in that hugging wall cliff face scenario and you realize that the exit is

20, 30, maybe 40 feet over in that direction, but the only way that you're going to be able to get there is by ninja warrior hanging from one to the next and gripping. Hold out for as long as you need to grip that wall before you slide to a terrible plunging death. Well, this would normally be difficult, but I have a trunk that I can use as an extra hand grip. Ha!

All the way through the three points for you. It allows me to support an extra hundred of my own pound, which is a good amount. And I see this and I say to myself, I say out loud because I'm just doing my thing, doing my bed bar thing, I say, "The path is lit. The way is clear. "I only require the strength to follow it." And I do so. Cool. That's the least badass thing to say. Thank you.

Pretty good. That's like a 24. That comes in handy. No, I lied, 22. You're making huge stride, and you're able to... If 22... Oh, 22? Yeah, I got a 22. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Hang on to my inspiration. You make huge strides as you manage to finger hang your way all the way from the side that... I would like to see what the last portal is. Turn it.

Wow. Oh my god. Uh-oh! Sleight of hand, survival... Intelligence, wisdom, dex! ...history. That is my turn, I think. I'm just gonna position myself here, uh, 'cause I used one and a half, three, four, five, so I can go any way I need to. I think I'm good. That's my turn. Okay. And I still have my inspiration, thank god.

I think Jean-Claude may have saved my life. I'm pretty sure that this is Animal Handling Guy, so let's... Yeah, yeah, I'm doing one, two, three, and then I'm over. So Animal Handling Guy, he's gonna endeavor to get through Animal Handling. He fails, he gets popped back to Elimination. Sorry, my bad. Damn it! You hear some cursing. This guy's Performance. Performance.

He succeeds. He bouts forward. And then where would you like to go? Animal handling, medicine, persuasion, deception? Medicine. You just go straight forward. And then this guy will go after Dr. Poison. Okay. He's going to go after you. You do get to go first. My turn? Yep. I am going to... I'm just going to keep walking forward all the way to the end. Everyone has a lot of health.

That's fine. Oh, the tap in here. It's bad to be good. I'm going to go to the perception door. Perception door? Perception.

I love poison!

As much as you love poison, you know that you need to make it to the other end of this workshop before you escape, so long as you can perceive the correct tiles to walk on. I want action! And I want to perceive. Your eyeballs pop out of their sockets. Go ahead and roll a progression, though.

Never did one of those. You fuck! Never did one of those. 23. 23, you hop over here, and then looking, if this seems safe, hop over here, and by a few more hops and a few more steps, you are able to make it to the other threshold. That's it. And this one is going to run up and endeavor to religion. I'm gonna twist, makes it through. Glitzy!

Glitzy is gonna go up to, I think it's deception. Deception's right, yeah. This one's great. So what are the other ones? Just make sure. Deception, perception, persuasion is next to you. Perception, deception, persuasion, medicine. It'll be deception again. And you're already there. You're using your action to jump through and all of a sudden, poof, you find yourself in the same scenario that you recall. And the same statue looks at you and goes, back again.

Oh shit, I didn't mean to end up in here again. - Oh! - Make an exception check. - Whoa! - Another 20. - It's dropped, I think. - Oh, it's a dirty 20? - Yeah, dirty 20. - That succeeds. Oh, you got me, and all of a sudden you've gone flayed alive and burned into smithereens. You instead passed through the threshold. - And I'm gonna stand right in front of Arcana. - Ooh.

I will make my way back to persuasion. Okay. Because I ain't going through whatever that other one is. And then try again. And that's the judge one? Yep. You pop back and you find yourself standing in front of the same judge, the same court.

Oh, hey, Your Honor. This is unrelated. Just don't forget to call. Uh, 27. Just passing through. I won't. Go on. I don't know why you're back here. Just passing through. Just passing through. I'm just passing through. You bought through, and you were able to go through. Glitchy with that bombastic bad nature. You're going to need a little supporting in the courtroom. Take this. Just know that it does start my retainer.

I toss a bargain's fish in the form of a business card. Jean-Claude Chanticleer, lawyer in law, at your service. I'll put this in my fireproof wallet. I just stick it in my pocket. Enjoy a d8. Can you walk back up?

Give me speed to walk. I can't imagine. Would you start? I was like, oh, you were, yeah, you were like over here. Cause we, we bopped you on the side. No, that guy was here. I was here. So I went five, 10. You could probably move. You got it on the square. I mean, I'd be trying to go towards athletics. I think one more. You got it. You got it. Wait, wait, wait. He was, he, was he here? He was here.

This guy. That's me. That's Dr. Poison. That's Dr. Poison. He went to Arcana. No, don't go there. No, no, no. Stop. Just wait in the other room. Can I say that? I mean, either way, he's popping out here. I try to get Jean-Claude to stay here.

But it's up to you. Well, if I can get that sense from the wall. What is he trying to say? What could it mean? What exactly is he saying over there? You hear a very faint voice in the wall. It seems concerning. Do you pause and you hear this? It's a good question. Maybe I roll a...

Perception? Perception check? It's not a question of whether you hear it. You do hear it. It's a question of whether you heed his warning. The walrus I trust with my dear home life. I'll stop right here on this earth's web. You are as foolish as you look, miss.

Stupid chicken man. Well, that means not foolish at all, Dr. Pisson. It's pronounced poison. I'll say none in a language that I speak and I speak them all. You've done it now. And that's about six seconds. The walrus. I will action until you suffer some pain.

Do I get a-- did I see Vortex Warp go through these walls, like they're not like anti-magic walls? Yeah, the spell successfully warped him, but that's because I wasn't trying to use teleportation in an advantageous way so much as a disadvantageous way. Okay, so I will walk up to the survival door here.

But before I go through, I will turn and you will see my crown of never-melting ice start to glow with this blue magic and some snow will start to fall. And I will use-- Another snow globe. I will quicken-- Select some PTSD. I will use my sorcery points to quicken a spell. Sorcerers actually are incredible in this. Yep.

And as a bonus action, I'll take my hand up! Yeah. 'Cause they dashed the bonus action. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Real concord for our game. We still have an action to be able to go through the portal. Hey, pissin'! I killed the dinosaurs! I'll miss you, I said! It's the only thing that you hate! And the ice is gonna explode, and I wanna point it this way. It's 30 feet. It should get this guy to go basically this way.

And I wanna get these two guys, and they need to make a, I'm casting Rhyme's Binding Ice. It's a con save, DC 16. Oh, that's probably not good enough. No. 16 is enough, I believe. I'm gonna use my reactions. Oh! Oh!

Oh no! I automatically fail. I got a natural 19, so the other guy's fine. I got you, Elvis! So either way, we are going to take 3d8 cold damage, and for Dr. Pissin,

He is basically trapped in ice. His movement is zero until he uses an action to... Oh no! That's a clear hit. He uses action. Two turns. Holy shit. Or someone else could use their action, if anyone cared. Wow.

What could this have happened? Yeah, I was blocked. Well, I say in the kitchen room, we call that freezing. Eight, nine, ten, eleven. You take twelve damage, he takes six. I did twelve damage! No, no, no, not you. Dr. Poison. Dr. Poison takes twelve. Woo!

That's cold. Ice cold. What do the guards say in that movie when they, like the two guards, like, "It's another day!" I will use my action to go through the survival door. I don't think that was a bonus action. He quickened it. Oh, that's gross. Finally, a sorcerer pays off. Yay! My long rest didn't take effect. You find yourself suddenly in a frozen time

plane of existence. A strange, not room, you feel like you're actually on the top of the world because looking all around you is cold blue sky. You're on top of a mountain. You can see endless mountains escapes in all directions. You can see that you're well, well, well, well above the cloud line itself. There seems to be no vegetation. You realize that you're being hit with freezing cold. And the...

the sky starts to darken as all of a sudden you see the portal. It's but 100 feet in this direction. You need only to go from here to there, but the storm that blows in, the wind that hits you, you have to suddenly bundle and force yourself, push yourself to survive to get from one point to the other. Did you say freezing cold?

Yes. I'm resistant to that! It seems to ignore your resistance as you realize-- I'm just gonna trudge forward. I'm wearing my resistances magically. Make a survival check. Oh, golden. Do we think that's golden? I don't know what your plus is. 17 plus...

I think if you get plus three, you're good. Five. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 22. I do think you're good. It's hard by the time you get to the end of that 100 feet. It's not good. You push through the other side, and you find yourself, bam, back into the warmth and the heat of the race. Adrenaline's still pumping as you were able to avoid freezing to death at the top of that strange mountain. One, two, three, four, five, six. Nice. Well done. I'm over the line. Thunk.

Oh, it's the Barstern. One, two and a half. I go for sleight of hand. Come on, we can do it! We're so close! Sleight of hand. You pop into a place and you realize that you're staring at the most complicated block that you could possibly imagine. It is on the front of a door. There is but one keyhole. All you would need to do is use the available thieves' tools to...

tinker all the tumblers in exactly the right order and then push the doors open. Knowing that this is not a trial, that Babar B. Babar can force his way through, he grabs the thieves' tools off of the table, sits down in front of this lock, takes a deep breath, and steadies his trunk as he goes to work.

- You feel like you have all the time in the world. Time is frozen around you. You actually can see the freezing Dr. Poison. You can see your other companions all running and racing forward. - I'm gonna use one twist of fate. I know, I'm gonna see what this ends up being. Oh, crushed it. I'm gonna use my inspiration on the 18, 'cause I only have a plus two, so I rolled a dirty 20, and that's gonna give me a 27.

So I'm going through. You tinker and you are able to hear a click.

and you pushed the door and you were almost amazed that you were able to do it, but it was through almost your determination. - I actually, after spending a long time on this, I feel some of the spools land into place and some of the different security pins land where they need to. And I realize I'm close, but I can't quite get there even though I think that everything's in shape. And I remember Jean-Claude's business card and I take it out of my pocket, I formed it into a shim and I bumped the rest of the lock by jamming it in there

- Pop it open. - That's how it's done. - As I get through. So two and a half, I pop it on the other side. Three and a half, four and a half, five and a half. I am just shy of crossing the finish line. That's my turn though. - Good turn. - Okay, what is this guy? He's going through not performance. What is the-- - This is intimidation. - Oh, intimidation. - Goes through it, runs up to animal handling. This guy, medicine. - Medicine.

Absolutely wrecks it, runs forward. Insight Arcana are the closest. Investigation's kind of close. Let's give him Investigation. So he'll move over there. And then it's Dr. Poison's turn. You are frozen. How does that work?

So for a minute, you have ice around your legs, and so your speed is zero unless you use your action to clear it. But I don't know if that would prevent you from, like, I guess I don't know if you're at one of the close enough to use your action to activate one of the doors. I don't know. I'm going to look at Glitzy, who gave me bad luck, and I'll say, you did this to me, you pesky pixie.

I'm a fairy, actually. Oh! My weakness, I hate being corrected. My second biggest weakness, that is... I look around nervously. Extrovert! I guess more things work like this.

- Oh no! - Shit. - Constitution saving throw, DC's only 16.

17. 17, that succeeds. That's my action. Jesus, this guy's evil. So you're still stuck. Yeah, you're frozen and I can't go anywhere. My bonus action. Oh no. I two weapon fighting. You have to use an attack action to use that.

Oh, well, I suppose every rose has its thorns. That's pretty good. That's it? My God. Jesus Christ. Perception. Wasn't in the card for him. Bop's back to religion.

All right, Glimpsy, top of the round. Yeah, I'm going to pop into Arcana. I know, I'm from the Feywild. I know a thing or two about magic. There's also investigation. No. Okay.

You find yourself. You're actioning. Time's frozen around you. You narrowly dodge this vortex warp blast, and you duck down, and suddenly you find yourself with all the time in the world, or so it seems, for right in front of you on a pedestal, there's a floating almost like orb, and you realize that it's going to require you to sort of stabilize its magical energies, or it could blow up at any second. As much as you like explosions, it would be unpleasant and almost certainly deadly. Oh, my God.

I've always wanted to complete a Rubik's Cube before. And I'm gonna start playing with it and see if I can-- - Just sit down. - Make our contact. - I'm gonna use my thing. - And you have inspiration, don't forget. - I know. I'm gonna use, I have a feature to roll an advantage on one thing. - Bending luck or something. - This is not touchscreen! Goddammit, I'm so old! - You feeling all right? - I'm using Tides of Chaos to-- - Just another screen. - To cover the chicken bits.

Here's another one. Please. You roll pretty well. I'm literally rolling ones and twos. Sometimes the dice decides. Sometimes I decide. So, did I give you another one? Very true. Whatever, just in case. This is for this one. There we go. 20.

- 20, you are sweating because it's getting unstable, so much so that it's actually hard to hold. It's moving by its own gravitic shifts. - It's just all these little green ones that keep going into the yellow. - It almost slips out of your hand a few times. You have to grab it and wrestle it back down, but you start to put together those symbols, those wards, and all of a sudden, click.

calms itself and it brightens and instead of being hit with an explosion, you are hit with illuminating light that when it dims, you are on the other side, back into the race. - Perfect, and then I'm gonna move straight up in front of Sledge Hand. - He's beating. - I'm gonna go, if I can,

Get away from me, foul! I say fuck yourself! You foul, foul! You stupid not a doctor! I say, I say, my second biggest weakness. I thought your second biggest weakness was pixies and being corrected. Oh, thank goodness you haven't discovered my first biggest weakness.

Does that make any sense? I don't even wanna know. I will tempt the athletics door. Okay, you pop in. You got this, Jean-Claude! We can do it! You suddenly find yourself, whoa, almost about to fall off. When you realize that there is a path requiring only your fingertips to cross. I roll it.

Okay. Oh! One more reroll, one more roll. I only have one left. Well you gotta do it. Oh man. You're gonna die. What did you get? You just gotta get through the unnatural one. A natural one and a seven. Three and a half. You just gotta get through this gate and like hopefully on the other side there'll be something better for ya. Like sleight of hand. Sleight of hand's gotta be decent. Sleight of hand's gotta be a little better.

Ooh, baby! Okay, okay. Okay. 21. Nailed it. Nice. Fucking go. You slip a few times, and there are a few times where you're hanging off of the edge, and you realize that it almost feels like your wings are weighted. You would not... Yeah. It's between every handhold instead of moving. I go...

There's a moment where you do actually slip and you drop like five feet and it takes a huge amount of effort for you to finally get back up and land. It's a double jumping advantage. Yeah, exactly. But you make it to the other side successfully. Oh, fuck.

I knew you could do it! And I'll just move. Well, thank you, Walrus. And I will also offer the Walrus a business card. No, no, no! I've already passed the line! I'll present to Odor Madus how the Walrus is all! I'll take it back. Who's the costumary? Blitzy! Blitzy! Please, have you taken another business card? Oh, thank you so much. I was able to use your business card to finally complete a rubric.

Oh, well, I've never had that before. Most people just tear them up, but that's excellent. Walrus. You are safe at the least. You are the walrus. Presumably I can still... You pass the finish line. You're being carried off by pyramids. Yeah, you're carried off by pyramids. There's a barrier. You have to move in. Oh!

I'm out. Chat's asking for Jean-Claude's business cards to be added to the merch.

I can take the shit out of that. A pack of woodpeckers! We should do John Claude Law Firm. You should do John Claude Law Firm notepad. We gotta have legal letterheads. It's gotta have letterheads. And you should do a Post-It notepad that are the business cards, so you can take all the issues. That'd be our foray into-- Branded fountain pens.

I take five feet of movement forward. Before I cross the finish line, I look back over my shoulder at Dr. Pissin. And I utter one word to him. I command him to halt. Okay. So you have to pass a wisdom saving throw, a wisdom 15, and if you fail, you have to spend your turn taking no action, halting.

What the fuck? Pulse! And you are overcome. If you didn't get a 15, you are overcome by the magic of the command, and you must spend your turn. The target doesn't move and takes no actions. Wait, what's the saving throw? Wisdom, 15. Wisdom, plus eight. Then you meet it.

I'm going to use... Plus one. Oh, I thought you had plus eight. Holy shit. If it was caught, I would have succeeded. Okay, then you are halted for your next turn, and I use the rest of my movement to pass through the barrier and reach safety. You successfully make it, and you turn, and you realize that all you can do is watch. And as I cross the barrier, I walk up to the walrus, and I give him a high five. Woo-hoo!

We've got it! What is the next challenge for the guy who's the hardest to head? Investigation. Smashes it. So he can get to history or survival, probably, if he's got enough movement, he can just slide a hand. Okay, he can definitely make it there. And the next one, animal handling.

Not even close and Dr. Poison. Like he makes it not even close? Yeah, he does not make it. He gets popped back. Does halt mean I take no action at all? Yes. The target doesn't move and takes no actions. What are you going to do? Toss me an apple? My big...

Wow. I still get a five. That's a nightmare. What does it mean? An apple a day keeps the doctor away. That's so stupid.

With a natural 19, the crystal moves up and-- Perception or deception? Perception. You're a wicked genius. You're a mad genius. Glitzy. Oh god. You're up. I think...

I think I have Slate of Hands. I am friends with the walrus and he's kind of like Santa, so I'm familiar with slates. So I'm gonna go in there. Do it. I do. Then you do it. Can someone move her into Slate of Hand town? Yeah, she's here. She's already there. The most complicated lock you've ever seen and a fresh set of thieves to lie before you. Okay.

You go. You can do this. You did the Rubik's Cube, you got this. Natural. Oh! Let's go! You can make it, you're there. And I will get, well, I'll get right in front of the finish line and I'll turn around and I'll look at Dr. Pisson, who's not able to catch his apple. He's just held and frozen.

And the cynic. Apple strikes him in the face. And I'll look at him and I'll say, told ya, I was a fairy and anyone who fucks with my friend with the walrus fucks with me. And I just flip him off and look across the... Nice. All right. So as long as Jean-Claude doesn't fuck this up and this guy like squeaks in, we're golden. Yep, yep.

All right, John, go on. Do you have any to us left? As long as you don't fuck up. He's got no to us left. Well, I say, friendo, you look like you're in need of legal service. I don't know if I'm going to make it here, so take a card. And I toss him a business card. Oh, thanks. You could have given this to yourself. I really appreciate that. I can't. I looked at that. What arrives in his hand is actually a Polaroid of him and a compromising friend.

With a scantily clad, clearly, lady that you would find in... wherever Chromie is from. Memories. They look pretty good. Evidence of Chrom's most foul. It's a chicken-eared okra. Oh, foul! Yeah, there you go. Very funny. And...

That's my bonus action. When he rolls next, he has to subtract a d8. Nice! Amazing. Nice. Subtract a d8? Huh? Subtract a d8. Yeah, no, this is personal crime. You just got a twist. We got a...

Four more, right? Oh my God. 2,000. Thank you. Thank you, EJ Stress. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Trayvon Garth with 1,300 bits. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There it is, miss. Three more on top of the... I'd kiss it, but this is a doctor porn.

And then you throw three more in the hopper? Three more in the hopper. Yep. So bumpkin whim do 500. Amazing, thank you. Training guard is 1300. They need it. So we have four in the-- wait. 1300 plus the five? So that's just three. 2000 got us to the distribution and then we have-- Oh, so now we're at eight. We're 200 away from-- We're 200 away from another one. From the next one. Okay. Well, let's see if these chicken wings still got it. And I go into the sleight of hand door.

Elaborate lock. Thieves' tools. All the time in the world. Well, fuck. That's pretty fucking good. What's your plus? Gotta be high. Three, four? Yep. Oh!

22. 22! You continue to finagle on Jimmy the Lock until finally you find a rolled up business card just on the floor and you realize that you can use it perfectly as a shim and unlock the door with one final motion. And then you pass through the door unharmed. That's too bad. No, not yet. 'Cause you spent no movement going through. It's 5:10, 15:25. You have exactly enough to make it through.

You are here. Okay. You're good. Yeah. All right. Oh! Oh!

Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you. Shit. That's another six. That's another thank you, Sloth. Thank you so much. Oh, I thought you guys were reacting to the comment. So Sloth says, little known villain fact. The Walrus and Dr. Poison hatred started when one of them cheated in a game of mini-golf back in villain university. They each blame the other. To this day, no one knows who cheated or if anyone actually did. That's true. That's true.

It's canon now! It's canon now, oh shit! Very funny. All right, I think the one that's farthest ahead. Oh, that's it. That's it, four to pass. That fucking game. Yeah. Are you passing out our twists?

Oh. You should do that. Dr. Poison, you watch as the others around you begin to ignite and disintegrate and be pulled apart by the magic as all of a sudden, as the moment that Jonquad passes the threshold, the space inside of you, all of the challenge spheres burst away into flames and you have but your last thought and your last word before life is taken from you.

"Truly, this was an un-skinny-pop!" It's like that scene in Terminator 2 where the noose goes off and all of a sudden Dr. Poison is left in the nest. The only thing left in his place, a shiny red apple. See ya in hell, piss-boy. Holding an apple. My first weakness.

You hear, you don't hear this, but in a shadowy room, shadowy figures, shadowy faces all stare down. Clients are remarking about the terrific game, the race that they just witnessed. As deadly as it was for some, they've seen all of these different races happen with the different teams that have been assembled, all five of them. Having just finished watching yours, they begin to murmur.

Glitzy all the way, baby! Let's go Glitzy! Fuck 'em up, girl! Jean-Claude lives! Yes! Jean-Claude, I'm sobbing, I'm so happy right now! The emotional walrus makes me tired. Someone finish him. Honestly, the walrus was the most intimidating so far.

The walrus has heart, which is not commonly seen in these events. It is refreshing and he has my support. While I don't approve of his motives, I find Babar's drive and spirit rather inspirational. Babar is absolutely the best. Ah, Babar, the resilient Loxodon. It seems my choice was wise. His strength proves a formidable force in this deadly dance. Yes, Babar has proved to be very entertaining.

Please finalize your wagers for the next game and enjoy a short break before we reconvene. You find yourselves on the other side of the finish line watching in horror as everyone is spaghettified inside of the arena, the race that you just watched. Watch Dr.

Dr. Poison, and for a moment you realize that you can hear announcers speaking. Ah, rest in piss, Dr. Poison. And, uh... Rittenbozo. Got him! You can't say that! Oh, I guess we can say whatever we want. Cheers! And you hear the clinking of glass, and then you're led through the doors, and again, the...

Euclidean nature of this space being what it is, you walk through doors hundreds of feet away into this arena, but going through these same doors walks you right back into the dormitory. These magical portals being what they are seem to always take you where you need to be led by the clients, by whoever is running this entire

strange game they call the Cuttlefish Sweepstakes, and you find yourself in a space just like the dormitory that you've come to know with 20 fewer contestants, Dr. Poison and three nameless NPCs among them. But we did it! We actually did it! You know, I said it yesterday, I guess this morning before all that happened, we really should have just killed him before the games.

Well, this works because he died anyway. Yeah, that's fair. There could have been someone more capable in his place. Exactly right. In team. Well, I say good showing, everybody. I'm glad we all made it. That barber tentatively puts his hand in. You can tell there's hesitation. Our catchphrase goes.

- Yeah, tusks! - Oh, tusks, yeah. - So here's the thing-- - When did we establish that? When I was in that yellow contraption that was spinning off in the other room. - You were spending time with some pixies. I'm seeing a running theme here. Anyway, we are, I just want to bring it to everybody's attention here that that was a game where only four people won. And I think we're getting to the time

But we have to accept that as much as I love all of you guys as friends, Glitzy looks out for Glitzy. So, Mayfellpip, rest in peace. But when the fireballs rain from high, there's nothing I can do about it. And I'm gonna do what I gotta do to survive. Glitzy is right. She took the words right out of my mouth. The last two games, like she said, only had four survivors each. It will not surprise me, nor should it surprise anyone.

if the next game and beyond only allows for two, or perhaps only one winner for flight. We have formed an unlikely bond, the four of us, but just know that I will not allow anyone to stand in the way of my goals. Yeah, I mean, as long as we're in a game where four of us can win, I will do what I can to protect you guys. The moment we get to a point where only three of us can win, or it's only a one person winning game,

the stakes change a little bit, you know? And so I do think we should maybe rank each other on who we want to keep alive the most so that we can all gang up on the weakling and make sure that they die first. And sorry, Jean-Claude, I do think that's probably you, buddy. Oh, I say, that's ridiculous! The weakest member of the... I can't take that even a little bit, the way I'm tossing our business cards. I say, I say, eloquent as always, Jean-Claude. No! No!

Jean-Luc! Well, well, well, I didn't know they let two-bit lawyers into this sort of competition. Well, you should have because you're here. Well, no, I gave up my law practice in high school, if you recall, and I thought, you know, my

brother, Jean-Claude, is a despicable lawyer, and I never had the makings of a lawyer. I was always the charismatic one, so I thought, what is enough proficient that is truly more vile, truly more unnecessary, and truly more despicable? So I became an accountant. Oh!

Oh, yes, I was in a top security prison. Were you the same? I never found out what happened to you after you took that case to represent this pathetic craving of an elephant. Well,

Oh yes, I say they found me out for fabricating evidence and murdering 20 people and they had us in a top, top secret security clearance prison. That's child's play, Jean-Claude. I gotta say you are no villain, not our very truly evil father would be not very proud. As deep fried and finger licking good as he was.

Jean Claude? Well, yes, you glitzy. Yeah, me glitzy. Do we like your brother or do we not like your brother? The Despicable Fiend, no, we don't like him at all. I'm on for numbers, but not much else. So, also, do we kill your brother if we have the opportunity to or no? I couldn't condone killing my brother.

in the next three minutes. And once the clock strikes four minutes from now, we kill 'em dead! It is true that what they say, that kinslayers are cursed in the eyes of God and man, but I will let you decide if I am truly despicable. I was in that top-secret security prison for committing all three taboos of alchemy as a transmutation wizard that I am.

The third worst, I transmuted metal into gold. The second worst taboo, I attempted humanoid transformation. And the third taboo, the worst of all the taboos of alchemy, I broke, do not act against the government. So when the tax man cometh,

They rounded up me and all my clients. Cut to a dark room where alchemy has clearly just been performed. Transplantation magic. A horrifying beast looks up at Jean-Luc. Jean-Luc hurt. I say we can write that off. We can write that off. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude.

I have done terrible, unforgivable things. The people in this room are some of the most despicable and adventurous. But an accountant? I should splatter his brains across the floor now. I say absolutely right. I encourage you to do so. You have to wait two more minutes, though.

I begin to heft my giant maul. I say, Mr. Batbar, if you splatter these brains all over the walls, it'll take the custodian hours and days to clean it all up on account of its size.

My blood has not boiled with the fury of a thousand bureaucrats until now. What I'll say is, after this, this next challenge, you're going to be so destroyed, so weak and worthless, your dead brother can claim you as a dependent.

Don't listen to him, Bad Boy. I say, I say. I walk up to him. I get within an inch of John Luke's face, and I say, John Luke, you'd better hope the next game finishes you off quickly or painlessly, because if it comes down to me, you're going to beg for mercy. And I'll look right back at him, and I'll say, Bad Boy, be Bad Boy. I went up against the IRS. You think I'm afraid of you? LAUGHTER

Tensions are high. Tax foods. And it's not just between the five of you all getting to know each other, realizing that you are maybe talking to friend, but also foe, certainly. In the next few games, you may...

be forced to kill each other, or at least outdo each other in the performance of these cuttlefish sweepstakes. And a fight breaks out across the dormitory room, and you hear smashing, crashing, you see magic going off, there's an explosion of fire, but

Before you can blink, the fight is over and two bodies crumble to the ground and above them stands a very ferocious halfling. Clearly the victor of this fight and looks down haughtily at the two dead bodies, spits, and then goes and finds the egg salad. - Hate that guy. I was watching him in the tug of war and he thinks just because he's so mighty and small that he's

better than everybody else and I hate him! Should we just try to kill everybody else and get out of here? Yeah, but if we do that, then it's down to just the four of us. And it's a split! And then John Claude's dead brother. Look, we don't have to do this. You don't have to play with rules!

If we can just get out, we don't have to be guards. We can just go on to doing our various walrus-themed crimes. That is where you are wrong, the walrus. Yeah, no, I think you're wrong, dear. What? Because the thing is, I only had 30 more days left in the prison before I was a free woman. I came in here wanting to become a pop star of the stars.

Yeah, I'll say you really did not make the right choice. That was a large mistake in retrospect. I've thought about it a lot since the first game where I realized that death truly was on the line and I realized that maybe leaving prison as a free woman and just starting up my own yawn shop where I could sell yawn by the skein

and teach people how to make booties would have been much better than all of this. But I'm here now, so I'm gonna keep lighting things on fire, killing a bunch of other people, and hopefully ascend to what is rightfully mine, fame and infamy. Well, I suppose with a name like Glitzy, you just had to get it in lots. Couldn't be wasting away making yarn in some yarn shop.

I'm hoping that with a lot of fame, I can finally explain to people that the bang isn't quite what it sounds like, and it's more about bombs than anything else. What else would it be?

You're all guided away from it. I say, well, I guess all of my companions and clients all got horribly murdered in other games, so I guess I tag along with you for the amusement. You know what they say, a family that flocks together dies together.

And you're all directed to join together in groups of six. Now that there are only 18 remaining, three teams are put together and guided through separate doors. Just without prompting, very silently, the halfling walks up and finishes an egg salad sandwich with...

A couple bites, sir. You have some egg on your face. Is that the last one? You're going to have egg on your face when we are through with this next game. Okay! Are you threatening to kiss me or something?

Because that would, I would not be okay. That wouldn't be acceptable to me. We made that up. And I don't find myself attracted to you in any way. And I don't know why I would bring that up in front of my friends. If you want to, I'm not going to stop you. You're a very beautiful fairy. Why are you, I, okay, okay, we can't. What is your name? My name is Gorim. I'm sorry, what? Gorim. Gorim, okay. Yeah, they call me the Bang. And it has nothing to do with bombs. I mean, it has everything to do with bombs.

I am not sure I believe you. Goram Stonefist. Oh, God. I shakily shake his hand. Because his hand feels like warm marble, the strength of it underneath your palm. And he pulls away. Will, are we ready to do this? Yeah.

I say, I say, boy, if you were an investment, you'd be short term. Well, I say, I say, that was pretty fucking funny. Are you making fun of my height? I say, I say, that's what I said, did I fucking stutter? Well, I still say you're intelligent as all black bags if you haven't got that one. It works on multiple ways. I gotta say, your cash is quite liquid, my friend. Well, take it out on you, one.

The field of play, and he pushes past you and walks in through the door, and you're all led to an arena, another arena, and I'm gonna ask you to clean the space so that we can create the next area. Hey, Freebird! All these years, you never introduced me to your brother?

Well, I mean, yeah. No, absolutely not, I say, I say. I hate the scoundrel. Though he is quite funny sometimes. We called him Fever back in the guild because his clients always got acquitted. That's very funny. Well, I mean...

Is all he does tax-related jokes? No, he also does tax-related crimes! Exactly right! Fair point! In my supervillain guild, I was called the White Collar. That is actually amazing. That is actually incredible.

I was born to play this game! I was born to dance! I've never heard so much tax-related jokes forever before. Well, I say, I say, just don't let him do yours because he always signs his name at the end. It's his fatal flaw. That's why he never gets away with it.

We're going to draw the map here. Let's look at this. I say, I say. Oh, here we go. Another Battle Royale? Oh, fuck. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas.

Shroud over Saltmarsh. You can also go to thecrookedmoon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you!

So we've all been split up. Yes, you walk through and all of a sudden, blinking, you realize that you're all standing on other side, on platforms, leading to what is an impossibly far drop. You can't even see the bottom of this huge, airy space. And as you are staring out, you realize there is a...

Nothing above or below. It just seems to be this massively deep, chasmic shaft almost. You could fall forever and perhaps not see the bottom of this thing. And all of a sudden, in front of you, each of the tiles here, each of these many different tiles, light seems to shift and shimmer, and these panels sort of

pop into existence and start to float and hover there in the air. And then the next one floats and hovers next to it, and then two more spread out. And before long, the entire field of play has been covered in these floating panels. And it becomes obvious to all six of you that you could stand on one of these for a short time before it failed and broke, perhaps like glass or like magic.

And a voice rings out. Six enter. Only three will leave. Mace is using the wrong arrow.

What did he say? Only six will leave? Yes, that's... No, he said three. Three will leave. Presumably when they walk across these magical tiles, there are only going to be so many. They're going to start disappearing very rapidly. They'll have to keep moving around and then perhaps strategically corner each other or otherwise fall to their death. Oh!

Oh, that's terrifying. Do you think they think that they can affect the tiles in other ways? Probably. If it were me, I'd find ways to destabilize the arena as quickly as possible so that others fall through before I do. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You know, you're surprisingly good at this, Verit. Yeah, I was in the cuttlefish sweepstakes once. And let's roll for initiative. Oh, shit. This is not good.

Oh man. That's fucking go. I'm a very good. I say, I say I'm using one of my twists. Fuck, I got the same roll as a three. Throw it in so that we can-- Oh yeah, I'll use the twist as well. Sorry.

Are you actually using the wrong Aarakogra? Yeah. So you should have had 30 feet the whole time. Yeah. It's fine. I don't think it fucked you that hard. You're still alive. He's still alive, yeah. And you got an entire free session. I'm just going to send it to my final form. I'll see you.

I say could you quickly summarize the game I was distracted by looking at the character sheet. I say also if you wouldn't mind summarizing the game for me as well, I was distracted looking at the character sheet. That's my pleasure. So you each need to probably have something along these lines. As you make your way across, here's how I would do it.

As you make your way across the field of play, you can try to discourage, hurt, or buff or help any of the additional other players that are inside. Once you cross this threshold, you will be in here and you are trapped. You might fall because anytime you walk on a tile, you should mark it, and at the end of your turn, any tiles that you've marked off... I'm sorry, the end of your next turn. At the end of your next turn, any tiles that you've walked on will be X'd off.

That's essentially it. It's filling these spaces as quickly as possible and trying not to fall. So here's what we'll do. When you step on something, we'll create a dot. At the end of your next turn, your dots turn to X's. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, a dot is still something you can walk on. And a cross off is something that you can no longer walk on. It's just air. Now you can jump from tile to tile. Any valid terrain still is something that you could land on.

Do I feel like I would have, for things that would have taken a minute or so to cast, would I have been preparing or just totally fresh for this combat? I would say that there's the announcement time, there's sort of time for everyone to assess, there's been a time for the voice to describe the rules. With just one minute, you'd be able to pull something off. And I would grant any of you that same minute, should you want to do something in preparation before initiative begins.

Take a moment. This one's going to get ugly. Yep. That's all I can say. And did everyone roll for initiative? Yep. 15 to 25? 22. Nice. 19. I got a 19 as well. Ooh. Roll off. Roll off. 13. A 10. Okay. 10 to 15? I got an 11.

John Luke? Huh? Oh, John Luke. John Luke. Initiative. Oh, John Luke, I got a... That'll be an eight. An eight. I say, I say... Nope, not a moment. Five dollars, ribs, and shrimp. Walrus, you are up, as they say.

You feel the wall behind you almost force you out into the field and you realize standing on the surface of this platform, there are very thin grooves, gaps between the platforms, but it doesn't look like anything could squeeze between them. It's solid ground, but they already, the light is almost dimming and shrinking having been touched just once. You know that you have to keep moving very quickly.

Meaning, do I think that I could use my movement and like just go one square and then just stay there? The tiles that you touch will disappear at the end of your next turn. Okay, so I could just go one square by one square every single round. Yes, sure. I will jump down. One, two, one, two, three, four, five, six. I'll just run straight out here. Oh, I don't know what kind of strategy I have. I do tusks.

Who's with me? I'm with you, the walrus, but some of us are gonna die. Well, I'm with you too, but definitely we're not all making it out of this one. I'm not gonna go against you, but I'm gonna be all for myself. Let me see the range of my spells here. Jean-Claude. We didn't get any kind of rest in between the-- No, just a short rest, I guess, technically. Yeah, technically it would've been a short rest. Not long, though.

Is he within 120 feet of me? Probably. Or sorry, 60 feet? That's a little farther. 12 squares. One and a half, three, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. If you have extra movement, use it. So instead, I'll go here first. Sorry!

If you need to remove pips, then do. I got it. You got it, thank you. Thank you for being my forward master. The game master. And by that, I guess I can't be the game master. The rule master. Yeah. The game state keeper. The field master. I will take my... I'm the game state keeper and the game master. I'll point it at Jean-Luc and cast Ray of Frost with my action. And then I will finish my movement.

I say, I say, what do you do, boy? Poor Mandy. It's okay. This one could be a long one. Oh, it's just a spell attack. I say, not when I'm about to do what I'm about to do. There you go. Those are not spots. 25 to hit?

Damn. That hits. I say, I say that hits. If it makes you feel better, I'll use those so we can mark them off. And then we don't have to worry about it. 16 points of cold damage and your speed is reduced by 10. Damn. Until the start of your next turn. I'll say, I'll say, do you want to do that? Because on account of our cast,

my client that was one of my ultimate alchemical taboos and cast Phantom Steed as I'll clap my hands and place them on the ground as a large transmutation circle and from beneath me you'll hear right off right off

That's right, brother! That's right, brother! I say I can create car manners with the wave of a hand and a horse-human-dog hybrid appears beneath me as I get ready to ride. Yikes. I say, I say! How much damage? 12? Was it 12? I think it was 12, right? Plus 5? I think it was more than that. No, it wasn't.

Chot will tell us how a scary's Chot. No, it was 12. It was 12. I'm pretty sure it was 12. I remember it was 12 as well. John Claude, you're up. Well, I say, I say, I say, and that's brand new. Okay. That's you, right? That's brother. Yes. Yeah. All right, I will...

I will go here and then 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, go here. And I will shout out to that guy. Gorim here to you. Gorim? Well, I say, I say, I say, Jean-Claude says take one step forward and stop. An ICAST suggestion.

That's a fucking amazing. There are some spells in this that are extremely powerful. What is the--? Wisdom or Crop? Is it charisma? I can't remember. Wisdom saving throw. Yeah, wisdom 16. So many wisdom 16. Wisdom 16. That's a 14, I'm going to use a twist of dread. No, that's not good. Nope. He fails.

So he takes one step forward? Yep. And then he just stops? On his turn. Oh, sorry, okay. Oh, that's interesting, yeah. Yeah, on his turn. That's it? That lasts for eight hours! As long as you don't lose concentration! You're not moving? I moved. I moved to get enraged. Oh, I should be considering this. The suggestion, I can't save again. Correct. That's just eight hours. Unless you knock the concentration.

That's the only way to stop it. Theoretically, well, I don't know that you, like, lose your action or anything, but you would be compelled to take a step forward. Presumably take on the persona of a wrestler. Okay. And you would be compelled to stand up. Take one step and then stop. One step forward and stop. And he can't repeat that. He can't go one step and then stop and then one step and then stop. Yeah, I suppose that's up to you, but it was not my intention. But he's test.

He's toast. Unless he has a way to break concentration. My intention was for him to take one step, like, just dig one step and then stop. Okay. Okay. But you are the almighty king of the world. No, that's fine. That's mean, but that's fine. That's really mean. Okay. Anything else you want to do on your turn?

What up? I don't think I can do anything. Glitzy the Bang. I am going to move forward three and then towards Richie three. He takes one step forward.

and then stops and he turns, uh, he gives first, uh, Glitzy a little bit of a wink and then he pulls out a spear and seeing you, he's like, I will kill you for this. If I cannot survive, neither can you! And he tosses a spear at you. Oh, shit.

Did you get some natural 20? Well, actually... There's no ease in range for you to... That's what I'm looking at. It is as long as I can see. Oh, that's crazy. Someone that I can see. I'm going to use two sorcery points and I'm going to remove a d4 from his roll. Natural 20 automatically hits. Would it not, Chris? If it's reducing the roll... It's reducing the roll.

Okay. I'm not sure that you can reduce it by a number. Great question. If you can disadvantage it. Presumably you can take a 20 and get it down to a 19, 18, 17, or 16. It's a bonus or penalty to the creature's roll. Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna treat it. It's up to you. I believe the rule is written. Yes, rule is written. It would not, but it's up to you. Oh, really?

- Let me just do a quick Google. - I'm curious. - I'm sure the rules is written. - What's the name of the feature? - Bend luck. - Interesting. This is one of those like-- - When another creature you can see makes an attack roll and an ability to check worth saving for, you can use your reaction and spend two sorcery points to roll a 1d4 and apply the number rolled as a bonus or penalty, your choice, to the creature's roll. You can do so after the roll, but before any effects occur.

Are we long rested after the last show? No, we're short rested. I said death is the longest rest, I feel fine! You want me to short rest? I should've used my bonus action on her. My guess is that Glitzy's gonna get her two sorcery points back. And that's fine if I do, I can use them for other things. Yeah, that's my guess, but I will be surprised if it works.

- I see, okay, it does not change the dice, the naturalness of that 20. As an example, if my plus to hit was plus five, I have a 25 to hit, so I would reduce that 25 down to 24, 23, 22, or 21, but it doesn't change the 20 to a 19 or lower. So you would not negate the crit. - I will keep my sorcery point. - That's a good call.

So you keep it. Corner case. Yeah. I do 13 points of piercing damage to you as the spear slices into you. Oof. And I don't play spell casters well at all. So how do I roll for concentration? You roll a d20. This is a con save. You can play a sorcerer. DC 10. Stand by my statement. DC 10.

You rolled a natural. Perfect. You're good. A natural what? 10. So 13, 13 in total. Well, there's nothing I can do about that, so Gorim stays there. Sorry about that, Gorim! How much damage did that take? You crit me. Oh, 14. It was 13. Was it 13? I thought it was 13. It was nine plus four, 13. It was 13. That's it, all right. I'll add one. Thank you. That's gonna be good. So he's fucked, that's unfortunate. Babar.

Oh, man. I'm just making sure there's nothing else I can do here. This gives me anxiety. I end my turn. Okay. You can dash. I'm good. Okay. Thank you, Riz. Very cool. And very legal. John Luke. Um, I will, uh,

slap my hands and I'm going to place it on top of my horrible Chimera creature. There you go. And I'll say, sail, sail, sail! As I cast haste on him. And I'm going to dash with him. My speed is 400 feet. Oh my god! Okay. And you're large. And I'm large.

Here's your large token. I got a mini. Oh, you got it? Okay. Holy shit.

It's pretty big. It is. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say... Wait, who's who? That's Babar. Babar. I'm at the other end. Jean-Claude's at the other end. That's Gorom. Gorom is the skull. Gorom's the skull. Five, ten... The only thing I ask is try to figure out the speaking mark as we go, since this is so many. Try to edit your path as much as possible. How do I basically... Can I just, like, do math it out of what 400 squares would be? You can. 400 feet in squares would be? Yeah, well, first start dividing it by...

It's a large creature. It's like 80. It's like 80 squares. If you turned left, and just circling the entire thing, you could shrink the field of play very quickly. That would be one way to do it. So if you wanna go-- It's 80 squares. If you wanna start snaking this way, we can just get rid of these four. No, no, no. 400 divided by 5. Is 80. Okay, got it. It's 80 squares. It's 80 squares. 'Cause you have 400 feet divided by 500 feet. 5...

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Well, he'd be chunking two at a time. I know, I know. I'm just trying to... I'm just gonna basically blaze past everybody here. All right, so you went this way, you tucked in here. Yeah. Yep. All sides. Not good. You went this way? Yep. You don't want to... You're not... You can't go home by him. Yeah.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. I think he's at 20 there. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. You're saying that's 25? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, we'll call it 25. You just want to keep going? Uh, yeah, I'm going to keep going. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35.

35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. Tell me when to stop. And then just zip, cut here.

44, 45, 46, 47. Cut back here. 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57. And then just snake up. 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80. It's going to be close. I might be off by like five feet. I think that's pretty fucking close. That's fine. So just give me a minute here. Oh!

Holy shit. We're in trouble here, folks. We are in deep shit. Very well played, Mike. Very well played. I say, I say, it's gonna be a crash! You don't care about these guys? Because they already, or were you? No, he wanted to go against the wall, I think. That's fine. Actually, this is fine. This is fine. Just keep it in place. No, no, yeah. Just get rid of that one. And then just, just, just, yeah. It's an easy fix. And then just get rid of that one dangler. Done. Holy shit. Well done. Well played.

I am shocked. I am shocked. Where did he end? Here. Oh. Yeah, give or take five feet. That's my turn? Holy shit, that John Luke is one hell of an accountant! Look at all the counting he just did!

That's very shocking. You ain't wrong! Kill him! The walrus. Oh, now that it's your turn, X off the-- Oh no, at the end of your turn. Holy shit! Yeah, so the only problem here is gonna be just, nah, it's gonna be fine, it should be all right. Jesus Christ almighty. Spells.

What's the range of this? 30 foot cone. One and a half, three, four, six. Oh yeah. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shoot another ray of frost at Jean-Luc. Sure. Jean-Luc just painted a big target on his back. I say I didn't come here to make friends. That's pretty good. 21 to hit. Ah fuck.

How many hit points can you possibly have? 14. Huge. 19 points of damage. Oh, fuck! Make a concentration check for that haste. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I say on account of my transmophilosopher stone, I am proficient. Ah, the transmophilosopher stone.

Oh, I'll say-- I'm going to bend your luck, minus a d4. I don't think you should say that, right? I think he got like a billion. Oh, okay. I didn't say one. We're so-- I'll say--

Do you take the damage? Yes. Okay. I'll say I am not looking good, I'll say. Jesus. One, two, three, four. Oh, by the way. Dude, you gotta get well. Rich, I also wanna say, if you want to instead attack the mount the second the two mount take any damage, it's dead. We wouldn't know that. I don't know if you would know that. I wouldn't know that, I didn't know that. You're happy with this path? Yep. And then, and then he pecks his-- Is the mount considered a creature? Yes.

You can target it however you like. Cool. It uses one more stat, but it's faster. Things are heating up very quickly here in beautiful... Oh, Jean-Claude, you're up. It's just you and me. You cannot escape without me moving. Well... Turn off your suggestion, and I will help save you. I say you're going to move pretty far at the end of your next turn. Ah!

I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, that's the brother I know. Don't forget you can fly! I curse you to the nine hells, Jean-Claude. Well, maybe waiting for me yet. Do I think I can fly in this room? You haven't heard anything otherwise.

I mean, if he can summon a fucking Phantom Steed and cast Ace on it, I hope you can fucking fly. I look at Jean-Luc and I put my hand up to my mouth and he'll hear a whispering in his ear and say, where'd you find this one? I mean, it's a lot... I say, I say, I say, it's a lot prettier than your previous pair of more. And I cast Dissonant Whispers. Brill. It's my action.

You have to make a save, a wisdom save of 16. Me? Yeah. I say, oh no! I say I'm gonna use a twist. This? Yeah, up below, yep. Oh. Yeah. I say with that twist, what do I have to use? Constitution? Wisdom. Wisdom, I say that'll be a 19. Damn.

What are you trying to do? Dissonant Whispers. How does that work? Like, what does it do to him? It's damage. Oh, nice. But Targus will make a wisdom saving throw on a failed save. It takes 46 psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction. On a successful save, it takes half as much and doesn't have to move away. I'll say, how much damage is that? Just look at what's happening on the battlefield. Damn.

Okay. Okay, Jean-Claude. What if it's 16, so eight? I say fuck. And I will move. You can walk over doubts. I would try and... If I now reveal that I have 30 feet, I think I would try and get over...

If I think I could like fly over him, that'd be small. - With the jump rules. - I'll tell you, you do not feel the teleportation or flying magic as being punished in this game. - I take the dare. - You wanna go straight, you wanna keep going this way? - I just wanna go, yeah, one past him. - That's 30. That's your turn? - That's my turn. And you mark, yeah. - And then, oh, you're flying over him.

- Glyphie. - I'm gonna turn to Jean-Luc and I'm gonna look at him and I'm gonna cast Nelthar's Mischief on him and his horse. - I say, oh fuck! - Oh no, it just happened. So it's a 20 foot cube. - It's a cube, yeah. - Yeah, and I'm gonna place it over him.

then I have to roll a d4 and that's gonna determine what happens. I say there might be yummy apples in there! I love it! I saw that snake fella! We need a directional thing. Oh, scatter die. I say, I say, oh fuck! Yeah, just make me north. Oh. That's fine. Yeah, we can do whatever we want. All that matters is that it's random, right? The d8, right? Yeah. Cool. Okay, so roll a d8. Five. South. Towards Rich. And I.

- Okay, so. - That's good. - You watch as Glitzy takes out what looks like a stick of dynamite, but it's really just, it really is just like pixie stick dynamite, and it's filled with glitter as she tosses it at him. This glitter dynamite goes off around Jean-Luc, and each creature in the cube must succeed on a wisdom saving throw, so you do get a wisdom saving throw.

I say, I say-- Your horse has to do it too, by the way. I say, I say, the horse has a, he's a riding horse, let me pull up his statistics. And you're on top of it, so this might actually matter. You pass handily, but it runs it. I say, I say, I whizzed up, I'm gonna use one of my twists on my horse. I suppose I could, I suppose I could. Oh boy!

- One more twist, one more twist. - Okay, my horse gets a 13. I, however, succeed with a 20, I believe. - The horse begins giggling until the start of its next turn. It is incapacitated and it uses all of its movements to move in a random direction, and that random direction is self.

And that happens right now. Wait, on its turn? It is incapacitated at the start of its next turn, period. A giggling creature is incapacitated and uses all of its movement to move in a random direction. So you can't take action? If he's using his movement, it's on his turn. Yes. That would happen. So on, yes, at the start of its next turn, the horse will immediately move south. He's toast. He's toast.

All of its movements now. Yeah, we'd have to see if it's just going to fall off of it. And then it's going to collapse. But can he jump off the horse? Great question. It's immediately after me. Okay, so you... The horse is taken care of. But the horse will no longer be able to do anything. That's huge. We almost got him. We almost got him. Help. I'm so sorry, my forbidden love, but it's every man

for themselves and then I am going to move forward three and then towards base three. - Towards Derek three? - Yeah. - One, two, three. One, two, three, okay. - Things are getting very sweaty very quickly. - And then the ones that were activated last time that I moved over aren't those Xs now too?

- Who these are? - The dots. - Just these. - Just yours. - Oh, so the dots don't change regardless if someone walks on them. - No, you can't make it like worse. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, only the path of the... - I can hardly believe what I'm watching. We normally enjoy non-lethal fling-flow and we're watching people literally try to kill each other. - Yes, it's much more entertaining.

You don't like the chicken. I don't know what's going on. The roof is clattering above me. I think the movement happens now because it says that they get to roll again at the start of each of their turns. Oh. What is the name of the ability? It's called Nathair's Mischief. Oh, no. No, I roll again at the start of each of my turns if I want to change it. Okay, that's what it is. That's what it is. Okay. Okay.

- It's not below. - Yeah. - The camera's not below. - No, I do, can you look it up? I do think it happens right away. So this, I'll read exactly what it says. Each creature in the cube must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or begin giggling until the start of my next turn.

A giggling creature is incapacitated and uses all of its movement to move in a random direction. Yeah, so-- If it's using its movement-- It has to be on his turn. Okay. I say, we need some ribs and shrimp back again. Oh, I say, that sounds like a good time! The ribs and shrimp are back and holy shit, what the fuck is Gorim doing? You sentenced me to death and now perhaps we die together. Gorim uses his action to attempt to grapple you.

Oh. Yeah, maybe you should have not stood next to me. No! Would that-- Would that-- Is that work? I make a strength athletics check against your-- Acrobatics or athletics. Whatever's higher. Okay, acrobatics. Deserve respect. Yeah, let's make sure. I'll twist it just in case. I'll twist it just in case. Let's shoot one over here. What does it say? Eight. I rolled eight last time. Also give me one of your coins.

I guess I don't have the ability to like bonus action or anything right now, do I? No. No. At least you have some special reaction. Do you have cutting words or anything like that? Like, no. Like, silvery barbs? Yeah, no, no, you're a frickin', whatcha call it? You certainly have a reaction. The break text is still on. So you realize that Gorim has you in a choke hold. He may not be able to take another step. He has taken his step and he has stopped, but he whispers into your ear.

Jean-Claude, release me and I will walk away. I'm going to twist one more time. I'm going to twist one more time. Oh yeah, you're better. You're better. Give up your last twist? 21 for acrobatics. Throw it on the old cauldron over there. Oh, nice. You asked for the last one. This is all so confusing. I'm going to read the stat block to make sure that I'm not missing anything.

You turn, and you're able to slip out at the last second, breaking free of the chokehold. He reaches for you, but his turn is ended. As the platform underneath you, him disappears, and he...

And because he's falling next to a tile that still exists, he can make a saving throw. Oh! To endeavor to hang on. That's huge. He definitely prepared silver cards. He definitely prepared silver cards. I just randomly picked spells. To the same tile that you're standing on. Oh, shit. Um...

If he moves five feet down as he falls, can I opportunity attack him and kick his hand? No. Damn it! He manages to grab on. Wow. He can't take another step. He can't do anything, but he's doing everything that he can to survive. A tenacious survivor like him, having made it this far, he is hanging on. And you look down and you have the dizzying height

of the impossible scenario that you find yourself in, Jean-Claude. He is still hanging on. Release me, release me, please! And that'll be the conclusion of Gorim's turn, Babar. I end my turn. Is that Babar, B. Babar from the 42nd Grand Flingfellow Prime Material Plane Championship?

Yes, I think that is. He's playing a very tactical game. I'm not sure why he isn't attacking the others like the others are attacking the others. Very interesting. John Luke. So, I come to... If I swap my spell and drop Concentration on Haste, oh, then the horse is stunned, and I don't care. It's incapacitated. Incapacitated. Yeah. Horse screwed anyway. Ah...

I will, I'll look down and I'll say, you were always worthless, Kevin. And I will jump off of the horse, ending my concentration on haste. It'll be stunned and paralyzed.

I think it's still up though, I think it needs an action. I don't know, so it's still gonna try to run in different directions I guess, depending. - It's gonna run out the deck. - Do you have your token though? - Oh I do. - Well actually, even if it's incapped, the second you end your turn, all that will fall.

It'll just plummet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's fucked. He's fucked. So I will jump in. You always were useless, Kevin. And now I will utter foul words and cause the worst thing you could possibly hear. The only thing that's inescapable and certain are death and taxes. That's right. As I cast Summon Lesser Demons. Oh, my God.

I will slap my hands together and once again create a summoning circle. I'm going to roll 1d6 to see the demon summoned, and it's up to Derek to choose how the demon is manifest. Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry. May I start X-ing these off? This is going to take me a while. Is there anything that's going to happen with it? Summon what? Four demons of challenge rating, one half or lower. No, I need that spell. What are you casting? Summon lesser demons. Thank you.

I just want to see my options. Four demons of challenge rating half or lower is what you got? Yes, one half or lower. They're hostile to all creatures, including you. Oh, great. Roll initiative for the summon demons as a group. They pursue and attack the nearest non-demons to the best of their ability. Where are they? I can place it anywhere I'd like. So what I'd like to do is...

I like to place them in between Glitzy and Babar, hoping that they'll basically, hoping that they'll attack both of them. As I will, oh actually, I'm gonna go in this direction. So all, by the way, all of these are tapped. Actually, can I, oh, I can run, I can run, I'm here. Choose your movement after Andy's done with what he's doing. There's a lot of platforms. Yeah, you hit me.

Now these were the walrus, this was our boy the horsey. And then his just straight down those two lines. Yeah, because you went through and around. Okay, where's your movement? So I, well I've jumped off, so that's five, 10, 15, 20, 25. Yes, you're good, you're good, you're good. You're good.

And so I'm going to summon the demons. So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven in between Babar and Kletze. When do they show up? They show up immediately. I mean, when do they move? They roll initiative. So they're hostile to everyone, including me. As part of the action, though, I can create a circle that prevents me from their gaze. Jesus. And I'll put the circle around me. Is it just five feet?

It's fine. Okay. Do you want any of them touching Babar or Glitzy or just in the middle like randomly scattered? How would you like to place them? Did you roll how many? You said how many? I rolled, yes, four demons of challenge rating one half for Lord. Okay. The DM chooses the demons. Yep. Oh, I can choose the unoccupied spaces. I can see. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so you can put them, that's, okay.

All of a sudden there's this loud infernal bang and you all smell the impossible, almost like ozone toxicity of the abyss. And after a brilliant fiendish light, these four, they almost look like pig-faced hairless apes,

land down, long, thick ears, disgusting green skin as four dretches suddenly emerge out of nothingness, having been transmogrifilosophized by Jean-Luc. Is he dead? No, he's holding on. He's holding on to his clapper. He's like hanging onto the ledge. Yeah. Is that the conclusion of your turn? That's my turn. Walrus, all of a sudden you've watched all of these panels evaporate and disappear. It is getting...

Sketchy. Can these demons fly? They cannot. Awesome. Fuck you, demon. How's Jean-Luc looking? Like a bitch. Like a bitch? Not good. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for, to be honest. I just want everyone to have a nice time. This is violent. I'll go this way so that...

Sorry, where did you start? So I started here. Okay. I would do this, this, and that. Oh, okay. You can X off the squares that I did. Should it be those? Yep. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. So if he wants to make an opportunity attack, he can. And... Oh, the demon can. Yeah. I don't have any idea how many HP these demons have.

Oh, they're dretches. They shouldn't be too strong, right? I mean, you don't want to tell me that. They're one half. I can't imagine they have a lot of HP. They came in like a dretching ball. He would say that. That was a very him thing to say. They're very strange. They move around like a squirrel with three tails. Confusing but entertaining.

I'm going to, my hand will glow again and the ice will glow blue and I'm going to shoot Rhyme's Binding Ice at Sean Luke. He needs to make a con save, so he's pretty good at that. I say a con save. I say 19 plus three. Oh, provision, I'm provisioning those because of my Philosopher's Stone. So plus six, 25. So you take...

- The nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. You take 10 points of cold damage. - Well, I say, I say, I say the walrus, he might have a quick whip, but in a battle of brawn, he couldn't rip up your baby picture. - I say, I say, he says. - I say, I say, is there a little poor?

All the demons disappeared. No way! So we got it marked there of spaces, I presume. Yeah, you just have to mark there of spaces. It was here, here, here, and-- Yep. Now you got it first, yeah. Okay, and they'll go when the dredges count. So you're still unconscious, but you're-- Yeah, but the concentration has-- We got him! I yell out,

Babar looks at you with a face that looks like it's carved from stone. He looks conflicted. This is not the ruthless Babar that you're used to. Okay, that's good. What's Glitzy looking? Does Glitzy say anything in this moment? Bad guy. Okay. Okay. I will hold on to my bonus action and just leave it at that. Jean-Claude.

I'll talk to Flawless and say, oh, my brother. And she would have said, nice job, the walrus. We got rid of that fuck. Um, please.

Help me up, I will protect you. Well, I say, I say, I say, boy, I've just assisted a fellow in my own brother. You think I give a damn about you? Yes, but your brother was a dick. Well, that's fair. What? I've seen what you do with those hands. I can make him a whole lot. I said, uh...

You just stick a pole right in his face. Is that-- is that-- is that-- I don't care. Is that-- is that-- what do you want me to do? I say, I say, I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night. And you feel you could get away from him without incurring an attack of opportunity. He has no-- Okay.

All the same, I'll slide him a Polaroid of him having a personal intimate moment in the stalls. Unless he's a gentleman of not ill repute, then that won't... And he will, any roll that he attempts to make, I'll have to take one d8 away from it.

And I'll say, "Well I say, I say, I say, Gorm, you know what? I will drop concentration, but only to do this!" And I flap my chicken wings as hard as I can, 'cause I am now the correct Aarakocra, and I can Gust of Wind! Yeah! And I blast a pillar of wind erupts from my flapping, righteous wings. Do you have any suggestion?

Do you have to? Well, it's concentration. Yeah. So I'll end Suggestion. I mean, he's done what I've suggested he do. He's given his spot. It's over. And he hasn't moved. So I will end Suggestion there to now concentrate on a massive pillar of wind that is blasting at a downward angle. The Polaroid flaps away from his hand and he holds on with both hands as best he can. So he will... Strength saving throw. It is, I believe, a strength saving throw. What's the DC?

He might not have to do it until his turn. I'm gonna, let me, um...

So it's concentration, a line of strong winds 60 feet long and 10 feet wide, but I'm gonna try and blast it down into his square. Choose a spell duration. Each creature that starts its turn in the line must succeed on a strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away deep down in the direction of following the line. Any creature that attempts it, if you could successfully climb out of it, it would eat a large chunk of its movement.

Uh, if he has any flames on him that's extinguished. Um... Uh... And I move my movement to the corner of the room. That's smart. Okay. Uh, take six steps towards the car. But you're not-- you're flying though, so you're-- you're not triggering it. I am flying-- I don't know if that-- Oh, are you flying? Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't be triggering the tiles without putting pressure on them. So, remove the tiles for me, Andy. Let's fucking go. Oh! Apologies. I got it. Here. Um...

You do not touch the tiles. Oh, just when you land.

And if he flew here too... You gotta give it land. Oh, did you fly to that other location? He flew here too, so I don't think these would be touched either. Well, he started here. Right. So that would be touched. No, that would still be touched. So he has to land. But these three... I mean, it doesn't say that I have to land. It just says that I fly. If you don't have the hover, then you can't stay in the air. Got it. Okay, okay, okay. I believe. Okay. So there's a tile behind...

That is, that is. Okay, I'm going to increase the DC a lot, but we'll see if he can survive the wind and potentially grab onto the other. I can't kill this guy. There's a polar void of him enjoying an intimate moment. It's mind-boggling. What we're learning is that Jean-Claude's real crime is not all the jury tampering shit. You're a peeping Tom. That's how you're getting these photos. This guy's in the privacy of his own home and you're taking pictures of him doing lewd shit. To win a court case, you need everything on your side. The law and authority.

a bunch of other criminal activities. - Let's see you're up. - Yeah, you don't need a criminal lawyer. You need a criminal lawyer. - It's a great line. - It's all good, man. - Well, I can fly too. - You can. - I'm a fairy. But I'm not gonna. And so I'm gonna move along the line that I had walked on previously. No, along the line I'd walked on previously. And then, no, back one there. So that should be three and then,

Three, nope, and then over. Oh, X off Jean-Claude's two pips for me while we're talking. Oh, this one and that one. Yeah. And I'll need to quickly roll for-- For him. He does fall to his death. What does it sound like? Oh!

Oh my god, there's spikes down here! Iglesias, you're done? Uh, yeah, that's my turn. Now mark off the dredge pits as their turn is over, and Babar.

Do we decide, uh, did you ever cast a bonus action spell and an action spell in the same turn? I did. I used 5 feet of movement, 30, I can bonus action Misty Step. Then I have 10, 20, 30, 40, sorry, I used 5. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. I raise my hand, and with the most solemn face I've ever had in my life,

I close it as I channel my divine energy and I begin to cast Hold Person. You have to make a wisdom saving throw. You don't have any twits either. It's just plus zero. Let me see, let me see, let me see, let me see. I mean, it's probably out of the river. Oh, that's right. Don't tell my dice. Oh my god. What is it? It's a nine, and I say, you should have been a better attorney. Oh, no!

You are now paralyzed for the duration. Oh my god. How long is the duration? A minute. Goodbye! Do you have any ability to save against it? At the end of your next turn. Okay. With which the tile will have fallen and it will be gone. Well, it will be simultaneous. It falls at the end of my next turn. You will not have any movement. But would I have the same opportunity to catch the tile? Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Perhaps. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And you got wings. That...

This is the end of Babar's turn. - It's fucking brutal. - Oh my god. - You almost see it, you see what looks like there might be a tear in Babar's eye, but you're not sure. You're not sure. - Glitzy looks between Babar and Jean-Claude. - I mean, yes, right? He wasn't one of the three. He wasn't with us in the last game, so if one of us has gotta go, I guess, I'm sorry, Jean-Marie.

This is really very sad. I'm not sure exactly what to say. Say whatever's in your heart, Tank. That's your turn. Jean-Luc. Am I able to use twists on death saving throws? I don't see why not. Damn, okay. Okay. Okay. Hold on, hold on.

Oh, should I not roll? No, you can roll. Did you ice him at all? I'm gonna twist. No, I save. I still save. Okay, 'cause he's doing Deathsaving Throws. Will you roll all of them now, though? No. I just did damage knocked him out. I'm going to twist. He's trying to fish for a natural 20. I'm fishing for a natural 20. Oh yeah, 'cause you gotta get up and move. Yeah, I'm gonna use all my twists. Yeah, I mean, you gotta. Might as well. Keep an eye on him so he doesn't cheat. Just be aware you won't have them for-- That's fine. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna fucking live, you gotta live.

I think he really likes playing this evil transportation game. I was gonna roll that one. Roll it out here. Roll it out here. One last one. That's it? I got one more twist after that. He's got one. Okay. This is it. The last twist. I love that you're doing this. I'm gonna use part of the cards here. Oh my god, I saw the 19 and my blood ran cold. I succeed.

You succeed. Not with a 20. You have one successful death saving throw, but at the end of your turn, you are unawares as the panel underneath you disappears, and all of a sudden, you are plummeting. I say, I say, I'm sorry, brother.

- As I'm paralyzed, I have a core in my eye. - You have my eyes like this. - You have two more. You have the moment of falling unconscious initially as all this damage hit you over and over and over after your outrageous initial sprint.

onto the battlefield and as you are plummeting I would say that you do finally find that natural 20 and wake up just in time to hit the ground below what are you thinking? that is harsh that's harsh I'll say just in time oh fuck my only regret

I got hit by all those eye spells. And you do find that there are spikes. Prince of Persia style at the bottom of this pit. That's generally the walrus's turn. What a good song change. Oh, God, no! Bobo, how could you? I'm focusing on the spell, and I look to you.

And I just have, again, my face looks like it's carved from stone. I look stoic. I look displeased. But I don't look as vengeful as you've normally seen me. You're the chosen one! From my point of view, the tusks are evil.

So... That's fallen. You're trapped, man. No, I can teleport. Yeah, we both have Misty Step. Oh, man. You have Face Step, too. Yeah, that's what I'm using. So I...

So how do we win? Just be the last three alive? As soon as the third next person dies, the game should presumably end. Because the last one is correct. Even though he's going to try to take me out over here. Look at this. He's calculating 120 bugging squares. So that's one square of movement. Then one, two...

So, theoretically, I'm gonna say here, but... Yeah, just calculate it out. One. Five feet of movement, and then if I can Misty Step, one and a half, two and a half, three and a half, four and a half, six. Yep. Yep. And then I have five feet of movement left. One, two, three, four, five. Yep. And then if I have a 60-foot spell, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Oh! Oh my god! I'll allow it, because those are the rules of the game. I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!

That's amazing. Let's go! I don't think the walrus realizes what we're doing here. No, he doesn't seem to appreciate that everyone's gonna die for the sake of godhood. He's trying to save his friends for some sort of twisted vision of his walrus justice. So you landed there. And then you have five, 10, 15, 20, and that was your 25. Yeah, and then those three need to be crossed out. Yeah, they'll be gone at the end. Thank you, Andy. Um...

Okay. Thanks for keeping me on top of it. You know, from a certain point of view, the X'd out area all looks kind of like a chicken, like a pixelized chicken icon to me. Maybe it's just from my perspective. Oh, yeah. I see the beak. It's all right. Yeah, I see. As I have Jean-Claude in my grip from a distance, I see the walrus coming in and I say, The walrus! No! Stop! You don't understand! You cannot!

I am doing what must be done, the walrus! We can fight! You are not a fool! The walrus might need to go. That's very funny. The walrus the entire time is impossible. I'm respectful. Thank you for all the twists that I wasted on the saving throw, but I appreciate you guys. Hell yeah.

Oh yeah. Okay, I gotta try this. Walrus wave! I'm going to cast, and from Jean-Luc's, Jean-Claude's paralyzed body, a wave with a bunch of walruses will start to-- Badass. --flow and crash into Babar. Needs to make a-- I'm gonna use so many twists.

It's a dex save 16. Oh wow, that's well you picked one that I suck at. I thought it was gonna be a wave of water called Walworth's Rave, but it's actually a wave of Walrye. Oh, you're good. I got a 24. I have a plus 6 to save. So, a 48. Could you want a 48? 48 is a lot. Would you like one of mine? I would like one of yours. I don't know if this is a conflict of interest. It's not.

One, two, three, four, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 points. So it's still 10 I have to save for, right? Not more than 10? Correct. Your concentration is 10. But I'm taking half of 19? Yes. Or I take the full amount? You take eight points of damage. And I will save for concentration. My con save is plus seven. I need to lose to 10. Come on, come on, come on. I'm going to use a twist because that would be a nine. Okay, okay, okay. I have to just not roll ones, twos. Yes.

Anything higher than a... I save my concentration. The walrus! Stop this nonsense! Open your eyes and realize that I'm trying to save you!

I see my oldest friend paralyzed on the ground. All of my magical walruses fall into the pit. Well, it's not over yet. We gotta see what happens here. How would you like to do this, Derek? So you have to, at the end of your turn, you are allowed to make the save again. Yeah. But what it says is that you are paralyzed for the duration

and you just make another wisdom saving throw. On a success, the spell ends on the target. So yeah, that's it. I mean, you won't be able to move or anything, but you will save for it, and then it's up to the DM to determine whether or not you can grab one. Save for it. If you succeed, I'll walk through the steps. If you succeed, then you will have a moment's reaction as you pass down, because the- You got three to grab.

the platform that you're standing on disappears at the end of your turn. At the same time, at the moment that you maybe are able to free yourself and suddenly have locomotion again, you'll start to drop. At that moment, you might be able to reach out and maybe grab on to a platform. I think people are giving you twists by the way. We need to check to see if we don't have more twists. Real quick, can I, if I can use a bonus action on my turn, if that's okay? If you misty stepped, isn't that the bonus action? It is, thank you, I appreciate that. Then you can hold on.

So that'll be a DC 15 dexterity saving throw after you try to succeed from the whole person. If none of this happens, then you simply fall to your doom and you get to enjoy a death moment. - Yeah, make sure though that nobody has given us five twists total.

Mace might get an extra. Hold on. I didn't roll without. We're seeing if we have twists. You allotted your twists. Canadian Tech Priest, we have Smeet, was 500 across all of these. Thank you. We have, that's another one between across all three of those. Thank you. Oh my god. We got 900 bits. There's two more. So yeah, you got an extra twist. You got a twist.

We got another one from Motaku, thank you. Another one from Smeet. Smeet, not you. So we are two away from a full-- although, you're dead. So is it the player? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will roll the save with one twist. Just with ownership of one twist. Yeah, yeah. See if you pass first. It's not like Crazy Eye.

What is this? What's it? It's 15. I was going to tell you. Wisdom. I just meant wisdom. It's wisdom.

Do yours. Okay. I'll use my one twist. He's gonna cash in his twist. His twist. Whose are all these? Oh, those are Mike's. Those are Mike's spent ones. And then this is Mace's spent one. Nope. It's a seven. It wasn't meant to be. I fail. You used his twist. I used it. It was a five and then a seven. It wasn't meant to be. That bar tightens his grip as you feel your bones...

- The muscles tighten even further as you are unable to get away from the grip of the paralysis. - You drop 500 feet in what feels like no time at all. You are unable to fly. You are unable to do anything. All that you have left for these few moments before you hit the spikes at the very bottom of this chasm is what you think to yourself before the end. - May I have final words? - That's what I'm asking you to do, yeah. - Can I have vocal final words? - Sure.

I feel it. I feel it. As my bones are crunching, I'm paralyzing. One chicken eye opens to the side, and I look towards the walrus, and I say, I say, I say, my real brother, this chicken is blocked. As I plummet, as I plummet.

- Oh, I say I save my final flight! - But the moment that he passes through the threshold of that opening, you feel the ground underneath you solidify. It suddenly, all of the fallen panels and everything underneath you restores itself

to the point where you need not fear where you're standing. You do not need to keep moving. All of a sudden, it becomes a safe space once again for the three of you, the walrus, Glitzi, and Babar to stand. The moment the ground solidifies, Babar will double over, hands on knees, one hand on the wall next to him, and he begins to breathe heavily. I'm just like sobbing. I'm on the ground.

My brother! Oh, Freeburgers! To one of the walls. This is so fun to watch. Doors open. And two, three, four sets of pyramid-headed

constructs, guardians, sentinels walk in and you know that you're being led, guided to the dormitory. The moment that they come in and do they try to like, like touch us or grab us or take us? No, they don't try to like grab you by the arms or anything. They just create an opening and just by their very body language, just. As we walk past them, that bar is radiating heat and anger. And as he gets closer, he says,

Fuck you. Fuck all of you. When I win this, I'm coming back for all of you. And I proceeded the dormitory. You continue to walk through. You said that's the pyramid. Yes. Okay. Shit. They'll have to drag me out. I'll be like sobbing and screaming and wailing and slamming on the door.

As I fall, as I fall and I plummet. I run over to this corner and I'm like falling on the ground. They just solidify me. They grab you underneath the arms eventually and pull you, boots scraping against the...

- I can walk myself! - Glitchy. - This is so messed up! - One day more, Jaune. We'll see each other again. - Glitchy just looks around the room as the walrus is being dragged out.

I only had 30 more days. - You can take her out of my town. - Clitzy is the, what's the, not the Mallrats movie, the movie, I wasn't supposed to be here. - What the fuck, man?

- Is the Clarks. - You, all three of you eventually find your way back to the dormitory and you've realized that the beds have been cleared out. This entire space has actually been almost decorated. Curtains hanging from the walls, tapestries, there are now tall candelabras in all directions. It's been made to look faux fancy. For it still is in this sort of hygienic space of an un-dressed room.

decoratedness, but in the center, just underneath the treasure chest, there's a table, a long banquet table, and you can see other people are beginning to assemble, and the voice above is not the announcers that you've come to recognize from the Fleeing Flow Championship, but the announcer of the front man. "Please, sit down, assemble. "It is time for your last meal."

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