- [Brennan] A list of the topics, themes,
and subject matter
featured in this episode
has been included in
the video description.
♪ Here we go ♪
♪ T-T-T-Taking over, teenage rebellion ♪
♪ It's our time, it's our year ♪
♪ No more fantasizing about it ♪
♪ Everything's about to change ♪
♪ We're all gonna be okay ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, let's go ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, let's go ♪
Hello, one and all!
Welcome back to another thrilling episode
of "Dimension 20: Fantasy
High Junior Year."
I'm your humble dungeon
master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.
With me, as always, are
our Intrepid Heroes.
Say hi, Intrepid Heroes!
- Hi, Intrepid Heroes!
- Ooh, it's like they're shy.
- Oh, are we shy? Sorry, I was dramatic.
- You started the shy.
- No, because I was gonna come out!
- [Zac] Episode four of
every season, we're shy.
- Can you do that one more time?
- Yeah, one more time. One more time.
- [Brennan] Sure.
[beep]
- And with me, as always,
are our Intrepid Heroes.
Say hi, Intrepid Heroes.
- Hi, Intrepid Heroes.
- Are you guys shy?
- Yeah.
- Shy Intrepid Heroes.
- Shy Intrepid... [laughing]
- Always the worst when an adult
openly accused you of being shy.
Are you shy? Are you shy right now?
- Oh yeah.
- My thought is always,
you f*cking go to hell.
- You go straight to hell
for pointing this out.
- As a four year old, I'm like...
- Last we left off, it
was day one of junior year
for the Bad Kids back at the
Aguefort Adventuring Academy.
And one by one, they showed
up for a brand new day
of classes, having discovered all about
the Multi-Class
Achievement Test, AKA MCAT,
from some night-long investigations
by none other than Riz Gukgak
who, knowing that his friends needed
some academic achievement
and extracurriculars
to get back on the
board, agreed to sign up
our own Kristen Applebees
to run for class president.
- Hell yeah.
- Running during her junior year to ascend
to take the office
potentially in senior year.
However, another student,
Kipperlilly Copperkettle,
a halfling rogue who apparently
found the rogue professor,
thereby acing her entire junior year,
first thing, first day,
is also running for
student government as well,
a member of the Rat Grinders,
another adventuring party of juniors-
- Rat Grinders.
- [Siobhan] I hate it. It's disgusting.
- I don't get it.
- ...at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy,
including none other than
Ruben, who is the front man
of some kind of emo band that
did the song of the summer,
which, I don't know if we
ever got a title for it.
- Yeah, can I have a title for that?
- It's got a bunch of nasty lyrics.
- Oh. "In Space, No One
Can Feel You Dying."
- Goddammit!
Goddammit!
- Goddammit!
- It's good. It's really good.
- It's really f*cking good.
Also, we had a bunch of our students
that wanted to multiclass get into that.
Fig found out that the
warlock classes meet at night
and attended her first bard
class with Lucilla Lullaby.
- Lucilla got me in.
- [Lou] I'm proud of you.
- As Fig and as Wanda Childa.
Pursued for a brief moment by
Agent Clark of the Council-
- Not all who Wanda are lost.
- Not all who Wanda are lost.
We also saw Fabian
join a bard class for the
first time and multiclass.
Got a signature- on a
got a signature from
Terpsichore Skullcleaver
who also recommended that
he get another signature,
in which case he will be
allowed to multiclass,
from Corsica Jones.
- Must be nice.
- Must be nice, 'cause our friend Gorgug
did not get permission from Porter-
- Brutal.
- What's going on with that?
- ...to take the MCAT.
- Thank you.
- Did not get permission
from Porter to take the MCAT,
and was told to go talk to
Henry the artificer teacher.
- You say the word,
I'll take on Porter 1v1.
- 2v1, I'm there! Avengers assemble!
- I believe you, and that's
why I'm not going to.
- Also, we saw that our new interim
emergency backup principal Arcturus Grix,
a construct created by Arthur Aguefort
to run the academy in his absence.
All of that unfolded.
You had a little moment of
trying to steal the letter
from Jawbone, who let
you know that Kipperlilly
had asked some questions
about Kristen already,
and Kristen also had a
conversation with her parents,
Mac and Donna Applebees, as
her younger brother Bucky
went off to the first day of class
as a freshman adventurer at Aguefort.
Fabian was also told by Mazey,
the current class president,
that Jem Peppercorn graduated last year.
- Dude ruled.
- Dude ruled.
Jem Peppercorn, the kid from Prompocalypse
who wouldn't leave when
the dragon attacked.
- Yeah, he was a super senior, right?
- Super senior, yeah.
- Six years into high school.
- Six years into high school.
- I'm picturing the kid from
the Australian news segment.
- Yes, absolutely!
- You got it. That's Jem Peppercorn.
That is Jem Peppercorn to a T.
- I'm not gonna take off the glasses.
- [Australian accent] I'm
not taking off my glasses.
Absolutely.
I'm not leaving the gym
when there still food in Prompocalypse.
Also discovered that there's now a need
for a new party house, and
even though Fabian's a junior,
I mean, the fact that
you're a little older,
you know, if you got Seacaster Manor,
why wouldn't you have a party house?
- Why not?
- What's the drinking age in
Solace, if you're a pirate?
- You guys have m*rder*d so many people.
I don't know about the drinking age.
- I'm straight edge.
- You know what, for the hilarity of it,
the drinking age in Solace is 21.
- We'll figure it out.
- We'll figure it out.
- Is Wanda straight edge?
- No, Wanda drinks peach schnapps.
- We also met Cloaca,
which is pretty huge.
A lot happened last episode.
Met Cloaca.
- [Ally] Chloe!
- We created him.
- [Brennan] We created Cloaca last time.
- For a bird, a little bit too big.
- [Brennan] A little
bit too big for a bird.
- The cloaca itself?
- We got some sandwiches
in some trash bags
from Lydia Barkrock.
- [Sibohan] Such a sweet lady.
- Such a sweet lady,
with a demon in a shard
of gemstone in her chest.
And then, of course, Kristen
went and talked to Yolanda,
the cleric teacher, and had a meeting
with none other than Cassandra.
- Oopsie boopsie.
- With the reconstituted Kalina,
and that's actually where we're
going to go ahead and begin.
Kristen,
[single tense note]
looking down into the
lap of your goddess here,
you see Kalina,
having just addressed you
by name, smiling back.
Kalina, currently in an actual cat form.
Four legs. Not humanoid like
the last time you saw her.
Cassandra pets her and smiles,
and Cassandra looks up and says, "Um...
[quiet haunting music]
- Oh, her?
- Yeah.
- Kalina?
- Kalina, yeah.
- Kalina's here. That's Kalina, right?
- Yeah, my familiar.
- Great.
- Kalina looks up at you and
says, "I'm not bad anymore."
[players snickering skeptically]
- Classic good person thing to say.
- Classic thing a good
person has to say! That's-
- I know I was bad the last
time that we interacted,
but I'm not bad anymore.
- Okay. What went into that?
- Well, I think you'll remember
the last time you saw me,
Cassandra was not herself.
You see Cassandra sort
of pets the cat and says,
"You saved me from being
the Nightmare King,
and Kalina is bound to serve me.
I mean, she's my familiar, so
when I'm like this, you know,
[haunting instrumental continues]
she's a good kitty."
You see Kalina goes, "Meow."
[Emily guffaws]
- [Ally] Oh boy.
Do I have a Detect Evil and
Good? [nervous laughter]
I don't think I do.
Okay, yeah, can I just pet her?
Can I pet her little head?
- Yeah, give me Animal Handling.
- All right, great.
- Wait, that's gonna be
Wisdom-based, I think.
- That's a 12.
- Got to let them approach you.
- She doesn't give you her head.
She sort of intercepts and
sniffs your fingers. [sniffing]
- That's a big trash bag sandwich.
- Sorry?
- Before you say it,
I'd like to kinda beat
you to the punch there.
I know it smells like a sub
that was given to me in a trash bag.
- Hm. Gotcha.
So, what is sort of the plan for-
- Can I make another attempt?
- Yeah, make another attempt.
- 16.
- She bats your hand.
- Ow!
- I'm good, thank you.
- High DC for cats.
- I'm good.
- 30.
- You see she says, "So...
Happy to exist again.
Thank you for reconstituting me.
You know, as a familiar, I
can die and be recreated.
I'm sure you've seen Boggy and Baby
come back many, many times.
So it's good to be back.
Kristen, as the prophet of
my goddess and my mistress,
the one whose very creation
is the essence of my being,
what's the plan?"
- You're catching me on my left foot here,
gato.
- The left foot?
- This is a great moment for all of us
to put our heads together, I think.
Are you [clicks tongue]
in the real world as well?
Or are you kind of
chilling here for a bit?
- Well, Kristen,
that sort of all depends
on you, doesn't it?
'Cause that's sort of
what clerics do, right?
Is they manifest divine
will in the actual world.
If gods could just walk the world freely,
probably wouldn't need clerics.
- Yeah, I agree.
So, what are we
trying to push out there?
- So right now,
the amount of people
that would need to die
in order for me and my
goddess to stop existing
is two people.
- Me and who?
- Craig.
- And Craig.
- How's Craig? You keeping up with Craig?
- I saw that he liked
something on Instagram.
- Okay, Craig's 100% of your flock.
You're a shepherd with one sheep.
- That's interesting. Not for long.
- Now that's exciting to hear, Kristen.
That's really exciting to hear.
- Just one really quick
point of clarification.
If me and Craig were to pass,
you would come into the world?
Is that what you were saying?
- Oh, no no no.
We'd come into a different world.
Well, Cassandra-
- Oh, you would go off to-
- Cassandra would die.
- I see what you're saying.
Yes, we are holding you from oblivion,
and we're just kinda not doing
a very good job right now.
That's what you're
kinda trying to tell me.
- I don't know how much more clear...
You see that Cassandra
says, "Shh, shh, shh."
- Yeah.
- Look, there's a lot of ways for-
[die clatters]
- Nat 20.
- Nat 20? Kalina gives you...
Don't do circles.
[Ally shushing weirdly]
You know, actually just get under there.
Get under the cheek and scratch.
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
You see that Cassandra
says, "Kalina's obviously,
she's a good kitty, and
she's trying to protect me.
But the important thing is,
there's other options.
Kristen, if you don't
like me, I have offers."
You see she reaches in
and takes some scrolls.
She takes a scroll out that you can see
has beautiful gilded Sylvan
imagery on it and opens it up,
which is an invitation from
the Autumn Court of the Feywild
to stop being a goddess
and become an archfey.
[instrumental turns thoughtful]
Sometimes you retire.
Sometimes you become an
archfey or an archdevil.
You know, if you're a god,
there's other... [sighs]
If you think things are
not going to go your way,
there's ways you can throw
the towel in a little bit.
- kinda like in politics. You
can just become a lobbyist.
- Honestly, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
I do believe in you.
- I just wanna say,
you're definitely something
that I really believe in.
I think you're a hard pill to swallow,
but that's what I'm looking for,
'cause I think it's really true.
Yeah.
Eleventh hour.
- Kalina says,
[disbelieving laugh]
"Hard pill to swallow, yeah."
- I'm serious, I think-
- You know if we were a
company, you're sales, right?
- Yes, yes, I know.
Yeah, but that's a great way to put it,
'cause I think in the world,
people are looking for
something really convenient
and something sales pitchy,
and this goes much deeper than that,
so I think, you know-
- Right.
- The portion of people who are
open to this kind of an idea
is already a little bit smaller.
- Give me an Insight check.
[die clatters]
[thoughtful instrumental continues]
- Okay?
That's a 24.
- When you say, "Something
a little bit deeper,"
you see a softness in
Cassandra's expression
as you say something that you don't think
she disagrees with, necessarily.
Kalina narrows her eyes and says,
"Okay, all right.
So, you work on the sort
of 'hard pill to swallow,
challenging, this is gonna
ask a lot of you' sales pitch.
That sounds great, for
you to focus on that.
And then I think I'll probably
take an angle that is like,
'Do you want to wield
the power of night itself
and be as mysterious as the
shadow to bedevil your foes?'
See how that kind of-"
- Yeah, that definitely circumvents
the truth in a cool way.
I like what you did there.
- You see Cassandra says,
"I only have two people helping me,
and they shouldn't fight."
- Okay, got it.
- I guess Craig is also helping,
but Craig's not here right now.
- Craig's really easygoing.
I love working with Craig.
- Craig is just a Kristen fan.
Wherever Kristen's religion is-
- God, I love Craig.
- Someone who's like,
if you had a Patreon, it would be like,
"I don't really care
about what god you have.
I'm really more about you as a cleric."
- [Ally] I'm about you, yeah.
- I support you as a creator.
It's not project-based for me.
You see that Kalina says, "Well, you know,
we can massage the truth
after it's like 10 followers, you know?
Something a little bit
less instantly killable.
You know what I mean?
Maybe then we hash out
those kind of pillars."
You see Cassandra says, "Kristen,
you have a lot of stuff
going on in your life.
Just let me know when you have
the bandwidth to make this-"
- I have it right now. I really do.
Really, it's you and my candidacy,
and that is with a small C.
The you has a big Y.
- Cassandra, once again, her face sinks.
Kalina goes, "Mistress,
we can't interfere in the
material world of Spyre,
but your worship is just
based on mortal beings.
There are mortals that are not
in the material world of Spyre.
We could absolutely go find followers
without needing to further burden Kristen
with the terrible weight
of responsibility.
- I don't agree with that.
I'm sorry. I'm saying that you're a big...
You're the meat on my plate, okay?
And the veggies are my bid for president.
But you're the meat, mama. Okay?
I don't know how else
I can say this, okay?
- You don't know how you can
say it other than "meat, mama?"
- Yeah!
- [Emily] The meat mama?
- Cassandra looks at you.
Cassandra looks at you
and just goes, "Okay.
Actually, you know what would
be really wonderful?" - Hm?
Hey, why not both, you know?
If you have a strategy, that's
great. Kalina has a strategy.
It doesn't sound like they're at odds.
It sounds like you have
stuff that you wanna do,
and Kalina wants to do.
- Mine is about the beauty
of how little control
we actually have, and hers
is about utmost harnessing
as much control for yourself
as you possibly can.
- Give me another Insight check.
- [Ally] 26.
- Cassandra tries to process
that what you're saying is true
and really doesn't want to die.
- Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
- You see that Kalina goes,
"Kristen, I don't think
we're at odds here.
Look, let's just talk about
something simple, all right?
Are you trying to scratch me again?"
- Of course not.
- Can I scratch you?
- Please don't.
- Okay. I have before.
[players oohing]
- Oh my gosh!
- Ooh!
- Spicy.
- Honestly, good to have Kalina
back, kinda, a little bit.
- A little pepper in the soup.
- A little pepper in the soup!
Ooh, that soup is seasoned!
You see that Kalina just goes,
"There are a number of
extradimensional spaces
in and around Spyre that are
not the material world itself
that have mortals in them.
They just built a mall
in the Synod of Spyre,
the Wizard Citadel, so that's a place
that you can go find, you know."
You see Cassandra says, "Yeah,
wizards! Wizards are like...
Do you feel like that's a
market we're not exploring?
Wizards... think about,
'Oh, you're doing magic!
Don't you want a god or a
goddess to, you know, help?'
I don't know, just if there's
a pitch there. I don't know."
- Yeah, I love this, and Cassandra,
just to be completely honest with you,
I dropped the ball in a major way.
I don't even have paperwork
showing that I follow you as a follower.
I'm trying to rein everything back in.
That's what I'm gonna
do first thing tomorrow.
So I'm going from 0 to 100,
but you haven't even seen
anything above zero yet.
So yes, I have not thought about
the untapped market of
wizards yet, but I will.
- 'Cause wizards love mystery, right?
They love to solve problems.
- They love mystery.
They're always wearing big
cloaks. What's under there?
- Yeah, they have stars on their hats!
So many of them have stars on their hats,
and I have stars in my body.
- I'm writing this down,
I'm writing this down.
- You see Kalina goes, "Cassandra,
there's a lot of foot traffic
in the synod on weekends,
so this weekend we'll go,
we'll do some pamphleting.
We'll talk to some wizards.
You don't need a human
intermediary. You can just go."
So Cassandra sort of smiles
and says, "Well, this is great.
We have a whole team going. Hooray, team!"
- Great, great, great.
I'm so sorry for hurting your feelings.
I was so grouchy,
and I'm really sorry about that.
- You don't have to be sorry.
Hey, not too many people believe in me,
but I believe in you.
You brought me back,
and I know you've been having a hard time,
but when you're in the dark,
I'm there holding your hand, okay?
- Thanks. Thank you.
- She leans, gives you
a kiss on the forehead,
and you come back in your prayer room.
As you do so, all the
rest of our students,
your various classes let out.
[school bell rings]
Does anyone do anything
right after class lets out,
or do you guys head to lunch?
[bouncing instrumental]
- I'm gonna call Aelwyn.
- Hell yeah.
Call goes straight to voicemail,
and you get a text back saying,
"In class looking after bozos, what's up?"
- [Siobhan] Don't even worry
about it. I'll call you later.
- Okay, cool.
- Love you. Ah!
And then I delete love you.
I don't feel like we're
that demonstrative.
- Do you delete it after you send it?
- Yeah, it says deleted text.
- Deleted text.
You see that your phone starts to glow
as Divination spells are
coming in to be like,
what the f*ck did that text say?
- I'll make a quick call. Can
I pull out that business card?
- Yeah.
- Just step outside real quick
before I head in for
lunch and give him a ring.
- Which business card?
- My parents gave me a business card
about my trust 'cause I turned 18.
- Hello, this is Alston.
- Hi, Alston. This is Fabian Seacaster.
Fabian Aramais Seacaster,
son of Bill Seacaster.
- Fabian, hi.
- Yes.
- We've actually met before.
- Oh, really?
- I'm Mr. Hughes. We
met a couple years ago.
I was your father's banker.
- Oh yes, you were in a room with him
back when my father was doing
all that really sneaky stuff.
- Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, KVX,
we've had a huge rebranding.
- Are you still called KVX?
- So that's, we have been going-
- Is it the same company?
- I am still with KVX Bank.
- Oh, okay.
- I am still with KVX Bank but, you know,
we have changed our logo,
so it is no longer red.
It is actually blue now.
[saxophone music]
These kind of huge branding decisions,
it goes through a lot of hoops.
- Like blue and red?
- That one was sort of emergency approved,
but we had a council of seven bankers
who were defeated in combat
by the leaders of the Council of Chosen
atop the central government
building in Bastion City,
and their ruin was smote
upon the skyscraper,
so we've had sort of a
leadership replacement process.
- Got it, got it.
- But your account is safe and sound,
and as we slowly kind of-
you know, we're in a process
with the insurance
company that we work with
disentangling Dragon Madness from
most of our accounts.
- Yes.
- But we're very excited to do business,
and we're very excited
to do business with you.
I understand that you are 18.
Happy birthday, Mr. Seacaster.
- Oh, thank you. It was
a couple of months back.
- Oh, okay. Understood, yes yes yes.
So I have your trust here in front of me.
What kind of questions
can I answer for you?
- Yeah, so I mean, my lovely mother
handed me this business card before she...
I had just gotten back
from saving the world,
and she handed me this business card
and then immediately left, so I'm not...
I guess something about me being 18
means something has happened?
So more, I'm calling to
find out what I need to know
now that I'm of age.
- Okay, so you have 20 million
gold pieces in your trust.
- Yeah?
I have...
For who?
- Hm?
- For who?
- For you.
- They're mine?
I have 20 million gold pieces?
- In a trust.
- In a trust.
- And it's structured.
- Uh-huh.
- We have an intermittent
release provision,
which is sometimes called
a long shadow clause.
- Okay, yeah.
- Which basically means that
the trust releases to you
in certain amounts, and
it was your father's wish.
- Mm-hmm.
- So that 20 million gold pieces is yours,
but it's being released right
now, essentially you have-
about 5,000 gold pieces is
released to you every month.
- Oh, okay.
I'm not sure you heard,
but my father's in Hell
now, fighting the devil.
Does that in any way change circumstances?
- Absolutely.
- Oh, okay.
- The term long shadow kind
of comes from the shadow
cast by the person who created the trust.
- We're really getting into it, man.
I just wanna know, can I change-
- Okay, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Let's say you wanted to cash
out the sum balance early.
- Yes.
- If you wanted to do
that while you were still
in high school or in a
place of higher education,
you could get 2 million
released to you right away.
And what would happen is
that that other 18 million
would go partially- so 5% of
that would go to the bank.
- Okay.
- And then the rest of
it, so the vast majority,
would be given to your
nemeses, your various enemies.
- Oh.
- Your father wanted to ensure
that you made a name for yourself, right?
He wanted to take care of you.
So if you want 2 million gold pieces,
we can clear that today.
- But then I have to give 18 million
or some odd gold pieces to my nemesis?
- And there are certain
yearly checkpoints.
So if you make it out
of school in four years
on that 5,000 gold piece allowance,
you can actually get- at
that point it would be,
with the interest rate, it
would be about 8.9 million,
and then only the other 10.
Or sorry, it's actually about 9.6 or 9.7,
and then the other 10 would go to nemeses.
So it's a little more balanced
if you wait a couple
years after you graduate.
- How do you know who my nemeses are?
Can I just tell you? Could
I give you some names?
- We have a department-
- Oh.
- ...that's basically
tracking who in Spyre
has sworn vengeance on each other.
- After we're finished,
can you transfer me to them
so I can find out who's
claiming me as a nemesis?
- Right now, we have a Chungledown Bim.
- Oh, Jesus.
Thousand yard stare.
- 18 million?
- All right, cool. So
we're not cashing out now.
Okay. Okay.
I thought about it, but
then you said that name.
I haven't thought about
that name all summer.
Okay, yes.
- But we would also, again,
we would find- so it's proportional.
Let's say you have a nemesis,
but they have a henchperson
that's always sworn vengeance against you.
They get a proportional share of that,
that's then put in a trust for them.
- Got it, got it.
- I can actually fax you over
some of this information,
if you want.
- Great, yes.
- Yeah, the finances. So I'm your banker.
Do you have a CPA or a
business manager or someone
that you work with to kind of
explain or walk you through?
- Not really.
You know, I'm kind of
a high school student.
My father taught me many things.
Few of them were about money,
especially money gained
by means other than m*rder,
mayhem, and pillaging.
- Oh, understood.
Well, you know, I worked with your father
for a number of years.
I actually was always
amazed at how frugal he was.
- Really?
- Well, he was very proud-
Your father was always more
interested in making money,
was my understanding.
- Yes.
- But most of the management
of Seacaster Manor,
I have here the proxies,
which were one Hallariel Seacaster,
and then a Cathilda Ceíli as well.
- Yes, yes.
- But yeah.
So, 5,000 a month.
- [Lou] Okay.
- Which is, you know, pretty-
- It's not bad.
- [Brennan] It's not bad.
- Not bad at all,
I'll tell you.
- For a high school student.
- With the mortgage
paid off on your house.
- Yes, all right.
- And obviously, with that
trust, Seacastor Manor,
all of your expenses, that's
all walking around money.
Everything else is covered by the estate.
- All right. This is all good news.
- Yeah, absolutely. Let
me know about cashing out.
Would you like Nemesis Alert?
- Yeah, I would love...
That's a service?
- It's 240 gold pieces a month,
and we let you know if
anyone on your planet
has sworn vengeance against you.
- You know, I'm gonna hold
off on signing up for now.
I feel pretty good. I
know Chungledown Bim.
There's probably a few Yorbies.
- Do you wanna free trial it?
- Oh, now, is it one of those things
where if I forget to
cancel, you charge me?
- Oh, Mr. Seacaster. We're
gonna work well together.
We're gonna work very well together.
- You have a great day, Mr. Hughes.
- Would you like Dragon Madness Alert?
- What's that?
- That's if any gold in your
account has Dragon Madness.
- I think I had Dragon Madness
a little bit ago, last year.
- Yes, okay.
- I had Dragon Madness.
- You know, I have to do it,
'cause we record these calls.
- Of course, of course.
- Absolutely. Okay.
- Okay, well, I'm gonna
go eat a cafeteria lunch.
I think we're having tuna today.
But I'll talk to you soon,
and yeah, you just...
This is gonna be fun.
This is gonna be fun!
- Absolutely.
[music ends]
You guys convene at lunch.
There is a little elfin or fey,
sort of like a fairytale goblin, gremlin,
with a Peter Pan hat and ruffled shoulders
who's prancing with curled
shoes throughout the cafeteria.
This is Simeon du Vayne, the lunch lad.
Tuna and corn! Tuna and corn!
And begins to sort of ladle it
onto people's trays throughout.
- I don't love this guy's energy.
- Wow, I never though I would
say it, but I wish Gilear...
I miss Gilear as our lunch lad.
- Gilear was a much humbler lunch lad.
- He is kinda making it all about him,
and not about the tuna and corn.
- Yes, exactly.
- I've never had this combination
before. Tuna and corn?
- It's very wet. It's a very wet meal.
- It's piles.
- It's dry. It's wet and dry.
- It looks wet, but it tastes dry.
- Real quick, everybody,
I'm gonna really painstakingly
send Messages to everyone
and say, Kipperlilly has
been listening to us.
[Siobhan groans]
[soft, bright instrumental]
Did find out, my bad, that your god died.
Apparently was listening in on us
while we were talking in
the parking lot before,
so does have it out for us
for some reason or another.
- What is her problem? I hate her.
- Great question.
Also, apparently Kipperlilly
didn't find the rogue teacher.
The rogue teacher found Kipperlilly,
whatever that means.
- Does that still count?
- Yeah, that sounds like cheating to me.
- I don't know, but they saw each other.
- It seems like, could it
have been in a weird way?
It was a compromising way
that the teacher found her?
- Do we see Kipperlilly in the-
- Yeah, anyone who wants to actively look,
give me a Perception check.
- Can I use Investigate?
- Yeah, use Investigate.
- Can I cast See Invisibility on myself?
- Sure.
- I got a 24.
- 24.
- I got a natural 20.
- I just got a 16.
- I got a nat one.
- Nat one, cool.
I'll say on a nat 20, Fabian,
you don't see Kipperlilly,
but some twinge of some kind of sense.
- Can I get my phone out
and text my banker and say,
can I sign up for that free
trial of Nemesis Alert?
- I wrote it down!
I was like, oh my god, this
is such a fun mechanic.
- Hi, I'm so sorry, I
was wrong. You know what?
I take it back. I can
afford it, let's do it.
I still want the free trial, though.
- He says, "Prudent financial decision.
That's free, 30 days of Nemesis Alert."
- Can I ask if anyone has
recently labeled me a nemesis?
- You see he says, "No nemesis swearings
within the past 30 days.
We have one alert for a 'real sonuvabitch'
from Duggan McCann."
- Oh god.
- Wow, Nemesis really needs
to tweak its algorithm.
- So someone labeled you
a real son of a b*tch?
- Yes, well, I'm sure,
I think Duggan called us
all real son of a b*tches.
- Would you consider
lunch to be a short rest?
- Mm-hmm.
[pulsing bass music]
- Great, then can I switch my Third Eye
from the Ethereal Plane
to being able to see
invisible creatures and
objects within 10 feet?
- You certainly can.
- Great.
- Absolutely.
- Can I see any invisible
creatures within 10 feet of me?
- You cannot see any invisible creatures
within 10 feet of you.
- Great, can I just very casually
take a little wander around the cafeteria
and say hi to people that
we haven't seen in a year?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Great. And look out for
Kipperface Pennybottle.
- You look out for Kipperface Pennybottle.
- I have an hour of See
Invisibility. I just wanna...
- Hell yeah, awesome.
- Lampshade that.
- Why would she not like
us? I mean, what have we...
I've never seen her before.
- She's threatened by us.
- What is a Rat Crusher?
- Rat Grinder.
- Rat Grinder.
- I thought it was crusher as well.
- Because I'm starting
to get into machines,
and I don't want one of those.
- Yes.
- I mean, I can't help but
think of when they do strikes,
and they have that big inflatable rat.
- Oh, yes.
- What about the sexy rat?
Maybe it has something to do with Zayn.
- So it's like grinding.
- The rat grinder.
- [Emily] Good call, Adaine.
- Is it worth maybe asking around?
- We don't know what their rep is.
- Exactly. We've been out
of the game for a while.
Maybe we test the scuttlebutt.
- Let's try and see
who's the rest of their adventuring party.
- You see, walking over, he's got a hat,
this massive sweatshirt,
still no pants, a loincloth,
a big whistle, is
Gorthalax the Insatiable.
Hey, sweetheart! How's it going?
- Hey, Dad! What's up!
- It's going good, it's going good.
- Do you teach classes during the day?
- Yeah, I was coming to
find my boys here to say,
do you wanna come by tryouts today?
- Yes, sure. I mean, I would
love to see the fresh meat!
[music ends]
- Yeah, I'd say so, I'd
say so. That'd be great.
Big season ahead.
I think this is the year we
actually take down the Hellions,
so I want us to really,
you know, no distractions.
We've got to really double down this year.
- Got it.
[trumpeting instrumental]
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- He looks over and says, "This is great.
Sweetie, you got a little
creamed corn on your jacket."
- What?
[trumpet ends]
[uncomfortable gurgling sound]
- Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
- Oh yeah.
- Sorry, that's so weird.
- What the hell?
- Don't eat it.
- Fig!
- It's cold and has fibers in it.
- All right.
- [Emily] I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'll go get...
I'll go to the nurse and
I'll get some new clothing.
- What?
- From the nurse?
- I don't think they have a rack of...
- I'll go to the...
- You mean the lost and found?
- Maybe she'll let you borrow her-
- The nurse does have
sweatpants if you poop yourself.
- What?
- The nurse has sweatpants
if you poop yourself.
- I guess you could drape some sweatpants-
- Is that a real thing?
- Yeah, I'll wear sweatpants
like a little preppy-
- Tied around, but then in the
back, it's just a waistband.
- [Zac] There's nothing else we can do.
- [Siobhan] Wow, what a
cool fashion statement.
- Just say that you pooped yourself.
Not that Riz has ever pooped himself
in school and had to get sweatpants.
Say that you pooped yourself
and they'll give you sweatpants.
- You puked all over
yourself on the first day.
- Yeah, can you actually go for me?
- Did you go to bard class today?
- I did, actually.
- Then I will, of course.
- Okay.
- [Lou] Gorthalax?
- Yeah?
- Do you know anything
about these Rat Grinders?
- Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
[tense instrumental]
I know about the Rat Grinders, yeah.
Why are you interested?
They got little pins this
year. It's cute, right?
- Yeah. How many of them are there?
- Who are they? Can you
give us sort of a dossier?
- Well, one of them's trying out.
- Oh! We'll see about that!
- Mary Ann is trying out for
the Owlbears later today.
My understanding is, she's a barbarian
of the Rat Grinders, yeah.
But yeah, what is it you wanna know?
- What's their vibe?
- Yeah, you know, we kinda had our,
Gorthalax shut it all down,
save the world kinda thing.
Have they done anything that cool?
- Because they kinda came at us before.
- Yeah, they're giving us some energy
that we're trying to
understand how to grapple with.
- Right, super aggro in a way that's like,
have we met them and we just
don't [muffled] remember?
- Exactly.
- Yeah, I mean, I've talked to them.
So, you guys, I don't keep that close
to what's going on in the student body.
- I think that is good to know.
- If you knew everything,
it'd be super weird.
- What I would say,
I can tell you where the name comes from.
- Yeah, we'd like that.
- 'Cause I asked about it.
I was like, "Rat Grinders?"
One of them's a pop star, right?
Just had the song of the summer.
A little bit, I don't know,
derivative for my tastes.
- Yeah, I agree!
[bouncy instrumental]
If you listen to the lyrics, you're like,
you sound like a terrible boyfriend.
- Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
- Right?
- Well, the Rat Grinders,
the name comes from,
because I think all of their adventures
have been in the Far Haven
Woods, for the most part.
I remember talking, 'cause I was like,
where is that name coming
from? 'Cause they don't seem...
Zayn Darkshadow has little Edgar, right?
I was like, are they
necromancers or rat-themed?
I remember... who was it?
Jace showed me a log of theirs.
The only three monsters they've
ever been logged as k*lling
is rats, spiders, and twig gremlins.
But they've k*lled, I think,
around 80,000 or something.
- Are they power leveling?
- Wow.
- Yeah, are they grinding in the woods?
- Absolutely disgusting.
- They're literally grinding!
- They're literally grinding!
[sudden bass, music stops]
- Wait, what?
- They're literally grinding!
- They're power gamers.
- They're power gamers.
- So they're just like, they
don't care about anything
but just getting stronger.
- But stats.
- Getting XP.
- They have sick stats!
- Wow.
[light instrumental]
- They don't care about saving the world.
Okay, how close is the Far Haven Woods?
- Yeah, can we see the map?
- [Brennan] You see he
points out the window
at the tree line right outside the window.
- They're just out there k*lling rats!
- Is there a map where you're pointing?
- [Siobhan] They haven't
even left the base!
- He's like, "I mean,
it's a little bit silly,
because the Far Haven Woods is-"
- A little bit? Sorry.
- Whoa, that energy is-
- I'm ready for tryouts.
- We saved the world like three times,
and they've just been k*lling babies.
- I wonder if the rogue teacher just went
to go tell Kipperlilly
that this is bullshit,
and then on a technicality,
Kipperlilly got the rogue teacher.
- Maybe the rogue teacher is a little rat.
- So you guys, Arthur
Aguefort died on the first day
of your freshman year, but you remember
upperclassmen talking
about the Far Haven Woods.
Your freshman year was very abnormal.
You were running around doing mysteries.
You were solving the mystery of Kalvaxus.
The Far Haven Woods has
a couple of little areas
where there's just this
huge amount of rats,
spiders that are not giant spiders,
but they are small, so
they're two foot big spiders,
and these things called twig gremlins
that basically attack in groups of three.
- They're just in the newbie zone.
They're in freaking newbie zone.
- They're farming XP.
[light instrumental continues]
- They're farming XP in the newbie zone.
- That's so f*cked up.
- Riz is so mad.
You've never seen Riz more
mad. He punches a locker.
- The Ball! Calm down, The Ball!
- They're grinding! That's
not the point of adventuring!
- Actually, Riz,
give me a Wisdom saving
throw with disadvantage.
- Riz, hear my voice!
- Can I give Riz Bardic Inspiration?
- A 10.
- For a little green guy,
you're turning so red.
[Murph hissing furiously]
- The Ball!
- Stop biting me.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Okay, okay! Riz-
- Girlie, girlie! Come here!
- Girlie, girlie!
- Girlie, girlie!
- Girlie, come on!
- Come on, girlie!
Girlie, come on!
- So you feel, Riz, it's
hard for your heart rate
to come down from the unfairness of it.
- Fairness is what her platform was.
- 'Cause she's technically
playing by the rules,
'cause the rules are, if
you just get a bunch of XP-
- Yeah, so if I have the most XP,
I should be the one who's special.
- Wow, the bad guy this
season is XP leveling?
[music stops abruptly]
- It's "Milestone versus XP, Junior Year!"
- Oops.
You see Gorthalax says, "Yeah,
you know, listen. They...
You know, there's not a lot you learn.
[instrumental résumés]
I mean, we actually take kids
out to fight twig gremlins
usually in their second or
third week of freshman year,
and it's just a way to,
honestly, focus on teamwork,
getting your first injury,
but it's an injury that can't
possibly actually drop you.
- sh**ting fish in a barrel.
- Yeah.
They've been doing it- their
freshman and sophomore year,
they logged three hours at
the end of every school day
and nine hours every weekend,
not missing one.
- What level are they?
- Adaine, can you, from your
Jacket of Useful Things,
get a couple, looks like the Rat Grinders,
but it's just two hoes,
and it's XP Farmers?
- Yeah.
- And then we can put those pins on them.
- Yes, that's so funny. Wait.
- That's an awesome prank.
- Should we go try to spy on them?
I'm so curious if they're
actually having fun out there
or if they're just so over it
and going through the motions.
- But I feel like Kindlesnap Whatsherface
is so good at spying, she
would be able to tell.
- Who has really good sneaky?
I can make you invisible.
- I do.
- [Siobhan] I can also make you invisible.
- You can sense an invisible person.
- Um...
- [Siobhan] I have Scrying.
I don't have it right now.
- I have Scrying.
- Gorthalax is still here.
- I have Scrying.
- Hm?
[music stops abruptly]
- Don't worry about it.
- Wait, wait, wait!
- Stop, stop!
- Girlie!
- He's a teacher!
[light instrumental résumés]
- You see Gorthalax says, "Guys,
look. I know you're upset.
You're probably, you know-
the other students...
You guys have been gone all
summer. I think you're wiped.
You've got to ask yourselves,
is the best use of your time
gonna be running down kids
who spend hours of their
free time every night
stepping on rats in the
Far Haven Woods, or-"
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Okay, if that's the
best use of your time.
- Come on, guys!
- I know some of us have albums to write,
if you want help shredding.
- Yeah.
- You know, and I know some of us...
You know, spite.
I know the guy who invented
spite. He's an okay guy.
- Name drop.
- I'm just saying.
But you know, don't make
revenge the priority
over living your best
life, is all I'd say.
- Hear, hear.
- Can I do an Insight check
to know what level the Rat Grinders are?
- For sure.
- That's a nat one.
- Nat one.
- [Siobhan] The game
doesn't want me to know.
- You have no idea. And also,
I think you guys would know-
just to delineate the line
between what is in-character
and out-of-character,
I don't think you guys
would know what levels are, necessarily.
- Sure, yeah yeah yeah.
- But I think you would know
that fighting weak opponents
still teaches you a little bit.
So it's that idea of, oh, they are-
- For three hours every day,
and nine hours every day on the weekend?
- Three hours every day.
- Riz, you're still so angry,
but give me an Insight check.
- Can I give him the Help action?
- Mm-hmm.
- Insight is 21.
[grunts] I've got it!
- You're so f*cking pissed,
and you think about,
even within the anger,
and maybe, I don't know, it
might make you more angry.
It's pretty f*cking impressive
for a group of people
to do something for three
hours every f*cking day.
And you think about the
feeling you and Adaine had
when you found out that your party
might have to write 10 page essays.
Gorthalax says, "All right,
I'll see you out at the stadium.
Hoot, growl!"
- Hoot, growl.
- [Brennan] Hoot, growl! Hoot, growl!
[everyone chanting Hoot, Growl!]
[guitar riff]
- Okay.
- That was rad.
- All right!
- We've got to. Got to.
- Gorthalax, that's really good magic.
- Yeah, it's good, right?
Whenever I say it, it happens.
- That's canon.
- That's canon now.
Is there anything else you
guys do at school that day?
- I would probably try to
see this artificer teacher.
if there's time.
- Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Go for it. Hell yeah, hell yeah.
- Just a teacher named Henry?
[gentle uplifting instrumental]
- He's just a guy!
- It's got to be a robot-
- He's just a guy!
- ..with the dots in between the letters.
- HNR1.
- Yeah.
- The Thistlespring tree is
filled with gear and workshops,
but a lot of it is junk under tarps.
There's some rain damage.
The things are incredible,
but they're in an old chest,
and the parts are out.
You walk into a place
with perfectly floating,
crystalline signs being like,
"Remember to put your tools back!"
And you see holsters of
tools, pristine lockers,
crystals, machines,
arcano-tech, gleaming things,
spires, workbenches of
hovering force planes.
You see the most incredible series,
huge bins of raw materials,
parts, calibrators.
Everything is- you know when
you see a professional's space
where you're like, oh, this is clean.
Everything's put away.
Everything is wrapped.
Everything is polished.
Nothing got put away dirty.
And you look up on a giant whiteboard,
and you see
[uplifting instrumental continues]
the first half of an equation,
an engineering equation.
And you see it's in a box,
and within the box, you see "Extra credit"
written in this beautiful
little chicken scratch.
- Gorgug's gonna confidently
walk up to the board
and just start doing it.
- Go ahead and give me a
straight Intelligence check.
- [Lou] You got this.
[die clatters]
- Intelligence?
- Mm-hmm.
- A total of
[uplifting music grows louder]
four
[music ends]
- [Murph] Oh no.
[Emily laughs]
You're using two hands?
- You're using a permanent
marker on accident.
- You see, walking in behind you,
you hear a voice say, "No one's
ever cracked that before."
- You're welcome.
[whimsical instrumental]
- He looks like a younger guy,
one of those teachers that's
probably fresh out of college.
He's got a little shock of
sandy, brown blond hair,
gnomish ears, a little pair of
gnomish goggles that are up.
He walks in, he's got a nice black, thick,
fireproof, waterproof,
canvas apron. And you see
that he's got a sort of
robotic arm, it looks like.
You see he walks in and goes,
"Wow.
You walked in and..."
[music ends abruptly
You said, you're welcome.
- Yeah, because?
- This section over here
[whimsical music résumés]
is my name and school email,
so that's not a part of the equation.
- I thought that was in the
parentheses for a reason.
- Well, parentheses, 'cause
it's the area code, right?
- Oh, okay.
[music ends abruptly]
- In the school phone
number for my office, so.
- That's not one part of the triangle?
- What's your name?
- [Zac] I'm Gorgug.
[whimsical instrumental]
Sorry, I was-
- [Brennan] Gorgug Thistlespring.
Hi, I'm Henry Hopclap.
It's nice to meet you.
- Hopclap?
- Yeah, you can call me Mr.
Hopclap, or Henry is fine.
- Nice to meet you.
I don't know if you know
anything about this,
but I was just interested
in multiclassing this year,
but then I just kinda ran into some stuff
with my barbarian teacher.
- Yeah, so I was hired this last summer,
and it was one of the first things,
Principal Aguefort sort of
put me in touch with Porter.
We got the request in from your
parents. The Thistlesprings.
You know, the name, as well...
Your parents are sort of tinkerers, right?
- Yeah, they're tinkerers.
- Amazing.
- They're pretty good, I think.
I feel like I learn a
lot by just, you know-
- Yeah, of course, obviously.
Well, that's really exciting.
I talked to Porter about it,
and the letter from your
parents was so sweet.
I know that there's some kind
of practical engineering stuff
that they've passed on to you.
- Yeah, I mean, well, I
don't know if you need
any sort of example of my expertise
or just what I've learned,
but I made this solar lasso this summer.
It worked pretty good. We
captured the Night Yorb with it.
- Oh my god.
- Yeah.
- You were able to seal the Night Yorb
inside of a solar lasso?
- We pulled it in, and then we sealed it.
I guess I sealed it in the sigil.
I'm not even sure exactly what
was going on with that part,
but I guess I did it, yeah.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- Awesome.
- I felt the power.
- Yeah. Felt the power.
So, sort of innate magic?
- Well, that part, I guess I
don't really have a great...
I think the solar lasso helped,
and then I'm not exactly
sure what happened-
- My name's Cloaca! I suck!
[crystals clanking chaotically]
- He goes, "Huh? Okay."
- This is actually a
pretty good way to hold it.
- Wriggling.
- You see he goes,
"So Gorgug, I see you have a
homunculus there, awesome."
- I made it this morning.
I didn't really have
a ton of time with it.
It's actually Chloe. I think it has a-
- Can you not get it to say its name?
- Well, I think once I get a little...
I forgot my tools for that at home.
- Gotcha. Gorgug, I'm gonna
be really honest with you.
I wanted to approve your MCAT.
So I didn't have any issue with it.
It's obviously a
tremendous amount of work.
I know your parents are...
They have some machinery
and stuff like that.
I know them in sort of maker faire spaces,
and I've seen them in sort
of DIY and crafting spaces.
I'll be honest with you.
If artificing is something
that brings you joy
and brings happiness to your
life, you don't need school.
You can do that on your own.
You don't have to actually, you know,
make that a part of your studies
here at Aguefort if you don't want.
Because outside of getting
Porter's permission,
there's not a lot we can do,
and junior year artificing
is really challenging.
It's really, really challenging.
And there are gonna be other
students in here that are gonna-
you know, we're all
gonna be rooting for you,
but it's a lot of work.
- I feel like I want to do it.
I would work really hard.
I just...
To be honest, I don't understand why...
I don't get why he can stop me.
- So, he kind of can't, actually.
Look, you want this, and
perspiration is 99% of it.
If you persevere,
there's a lot of artificers
out there who are inspired,
and they just have natural
talent, and they're geniuses.
That's not who I bet on.
If you work hard every day,
you can make this work.
The MCAT needs his
approval, and I don't think
that Interim Emergency
Backup Principal Grix
is likely to allow a kind of workaround.
But what I will say is
that you could sign up
as a freshman artificer,
and what we can do
is we can stack up the workload
of your freshman and
sophomore year concurrently
with the junior year artificer classes.
Now, the issue is, you know,
that's three years of
class in one, and you would
probably have to formally
quit the barbarian track,
which might in some ways be advantageous.
I don't wanna talk you out
of multiclassing if you want,
but I will say that, you know,
reckless abandon and the embrace
of your wildest emotions in pitched combat
is going to make the
intense, dispassionate focus
that maintaining these
machines and algorithms takes,
it's gonna be challenging.
- I was gonna ask. I
wasn't sure if that was...
Someone was doing that,
that I could look up.
- In the history of this school,
the Aguefort Adventuring
Academy has approved 112 MCATs
for people that wanted to branch off
from rogue classes to
take fighting classes,
or from fighting classes
to go join rogue classes.
You would be our first
artificer barbarian.
- Well, I...
Hm, that sounds like a lot of class,
and if I were to do that,
I would just have to quit barbarian class?
- If you're going for three,
you could go for four.
You could do freshman,
sophomore, and junior artificer
while you're doing junior barbarian.
- The barbarian stuff is
honestly kinda easy, but-
- If you're gonna keep
the barbarian classes
while you're doing this,
I would need you to at
least tell Mr. Cliffbreaker.
He doesn't have a way of
stopping you from doing that,
but just for professional
courtesy and to let him know
that your class schedule is
gonna take some serious hits,
that would be necessary.
- Yeah, I can...
When do I have to figure this out?
- This morning.
- Okay.
Okay, okay.
Like, today this morning?
- Like, it's after lunch,
and it needed to happen this morning,
but I can try to wiggle
something into the stack of stuff
that's going to Principal
Grix at the end of the day.
- I just, I'm gonna...
I'll go tell him.
- Okay, great.
- Yeah.
- You see students start
to come into the room,
and you see one of them
is a shifting warforged
of changing, moving parts.
There's a praying mantis thri-kreen
who's reconstructing crystal
technology on their arms.
There's all of this wild...
You see that there is a sort of
hazard suit water elemental
in a space suit that's moving
itself through the space.
There is a bronze cube
with a flesh being put into it
with a single eye in
the middle of the cube
that has tiny bronze artificial wings
and little spindly robot arms and legs.
How's it going? Gorgug, this is Unit.
- Hi, Unit.
[Brennan beeping cordially]
Oh, hey!
[Brennan beeping]
Hey, it's nice to meet you.
I'll see you guys pretty soon.
- We'll keep a chair open for
you, Gorgug. Thanks so much.
- You know, don't learn
too much without me.
- I'll have the handouts for you.
Actually, if you wanna take the handouts,
I usually hand them out at the end, but...
He hands you a stack of
paper about that thick.
- Gorgug uses his back to
try to erase the chalkboard.
- And you head on out of there.
- It's gonna be fine.
- You're Billy Madison-ing
being an artificer.
- Incredible. Anyone else doing anything?
- I'm all good on my MCAT stuff, right?
- You've got to talk to Ms. Jones.
- I'll go talk to Ms. Jones after class.
- Cool, cool.
Yeah, you see Ms. Jones in
the hallway after class.
- Ms. Jones?
Hi, I'm not sure you heard,
but I'm going to be going
for my MCAT with bard.
- Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay.
How did everything go
with Ms. Skullcleaver?
- I mean, I don't want to-
- This energy is not wanted.
- Sorry, I don't wanna toot my own horn,
but in the Divination class,
they're saying Fabian
Seacaster's the future of dance.
They have five points on it,
five extra credit points.
- Okay, you know you're still gonna do
- Yep, completely understand.
- Okay, understood.
She goes ahead and signs away on it.
- All right.
- As she does so, she looks out and says,
"I just wanted to mention
that some people in class
were talking about Seacaster Manor.
Word going around school."
- What?
- About a party house.
- Oh, well, that's nothing you
should trouble yourself with.
- [Brennan] Probably
just kids talking, right?
- Probably just kids talking!
I mean, you know, my father built it,
and I have respect for it.
I wouldn't trash it like that.
I mean, plus, I'm going for my MCAT!
My focus is other places, Ms. Jones.
- Of course. All right.
- You don't have to worry-
- No!
- Sorry, sorry.
You don't have to worry about anything.
- You got it, all right.
I'll see you in class, Mr. Seacaster.
- Yes, you will.
- Right on the edge. Right on the edge.
- I know, I know!
- [Brennan] Incredible. Any other stuff?
- I'd love to take Riz
aside and be like, Riz,
so I've got to fill out a lot
of paperwork about my new god.
I was wondering, could I
have some of your coffee,
and could you maybe help
me? This has to be in before
I leave school today.
- Of course. Yeah, let's do it.
- Okay, thank you so much.
- I got some papers to fill out, too.
I have, I guess, applications or whatever,
signup sheets for every club.
- Every single club at
Aguefort is in front of you.
There's so many that barely make sense.
- Great, I put a coffee
down in front of Kristen,
put a coffee down in front of myself.
- Oh god! That's lighter fluid!
- I think, 'cause both of our...
Oh yeah, Fig.
- Yeah, I just wanna, en route,
I'm just gonna slip a note
under Lucilla's door saying,
"Great class today, maybe
I'll catch you around."
- From you?
- Yeah, from me.
To say I liked the class, and
I'm considering coming again.
- See you around? In your junior year?
- Junior year. Hey, halfway
through, I checked it out.
Not bad. You just might see me again.
- And then I wanna go to,
is there a scientific or lab sort of area?
'Cause basically it's
like I have this album
hanging over my head, and I am aware
that I am without my normal muse.
- Yeah.
- So I wanna take the trilobite fossils
and find a scientific
student to carbon date them
to find out when they're from.
- Um, actually, you can't
carbon date trilobites,
'cause they're too old, and
you need to uranium date them.
- [Emily] I throw a trilobite at Adaine.
- You find Adaine,
and Adaine tells you.
- [Ally] You find Siobhan Thompson.
- Carbon-14 has a half-life
that means that trilobites-
- I shove a fossil in your mouth.
[Siobhan gurgling]
- Amazing.
- I don't know how to send
a message back in time,
but the easier thing feels like
finding the time I would
have to send it to.
- I don't have it prepared,
but I could try to use
the keys of the synod.
There's nothing in the language of it
that says it can't work through time,
but it would have to be tomorrow.
- Okay, yeah.
- I can give it a go.
- We could give it a go at some point.
- There's no harm in giving it a go,
and I heard that they just
put a mall into the synod,
so if not, we can just go shopping!
- Okay, cool, yeah.
- I think there's a break
period where you guys
are out on the quad, there's
some grass, some shady trees.
You guys have been able to
reconvene and compare notes.
You guys, you have your
MCAT, you know what you need,
sort of what you need to do.
As you're looking at this
big trilobite fossil,
you guys see, coming out of the tree line
towards the Far Haven Woods,
you see that there is,
mounted on a pure white horse
in full plate mail,
covered in mud and the
scratches of thorns and battle
with a shield over him.
This is not a Solesian.
This is a full knight from
somewhere else in Solace.
You see he takes his visor up,
leaps off the horse and
goes up to you and says...
[Emily laughs]
You.
[celestial instrumental]
Are you...
He kneels, and you see sun shines on him.
He says, "You are Figueroth Faeth."
- Yeah.
- Tears.
I am Sir Davin of the
Order of the Sacred Scroll.
- Nice to meet you?
- I am the last of my order,
slain in battle for the sacred
charge of protecting this.
He slings this ancient, gorgeous
scroll case from his back,
kneels and lifts it to you in two hands.
- Thank you. You have served your purpose.
- For 1,500 years, the
Order of the Sacred Scroll
has guarded this mystery beyond mysteries.
The stars aligned and I have
journeyed from lands far beyond
to place it in your hands.
- You never once peeked?
- What?
- You never once peeked at the scroll?
- My brother tried to peek,
breaking the sacred vows he took,
and I cut him down where he stood.
- What? You could have peeked!
- Traitor that he was.
With this is the mission
of our order completed.
in service to this cause.
I am free.
He puts his helmet on the
ground, takes his longsword,
stabs it through the open
visor into the ground.
To a life of peace.
To remember my brother in better days.
He mounts up on his horse.
Last of my order.
Figueroth Faeth.
And he rides into the woods.
[fading hoofbeats, horse neighing]
- Well, open it!
- Okay, I open the scroll.
Wait, I didn't say thank you!
Thank you!
- You see it says, "Darling
paramour, trip is going okay.
Miss you lots and lots.
PS, my dad keeps saying
'basketti' instead of 'spaghetti,'
and I said, is that a bit?
And he won't admit it's a
bit, and it's driving me nuts.
My heart burns for you
with an eternal fire
that will never dim.
XO, XO, XO, XO, XO, XO, XO,
your paramour, the wizard Ayda Aguefort."
- Many knights died for a good cause.
- You actually see, in this moment,
Porter is sort of walking
out across the quad,
Gorgug, you see.
Looks like he's finished his
last class and is heading off
towards a teacher break room faculty area.
- Adaine, can you hold this?
- Yeah.
- Got your back.
- Wow, it's heavy and sharp.
- I know.
- Wow.
- Can I give you a Bardic Inspiration?
- Please, thank you.
- I Bless you.
- I put it on my Mage Hand,
'cause I don't wanna touch it.
- I Thaumaturgy to make the ground shake.
- f*ck!
- Porter goes, everybody get
down! Away from any structures!
- It's all right, it's all right.
- It's go time!
- So violent for a cantrip.
- Mr. Porter?
- Gorgug, hello.
- I just wanted to talk to you, because I-
- He looks over your shoulder
and sees Fig and goes,
"Hey Fig!
How's it going?
God, she's great. She really gets it.
She really gets it.
Why don't you ever do that?
Why don't you ever do that?
That's what I'm looking for!"
[Emily hisses like a goblin]
- Our conflicts are completely different.
I've decided that I will be taking
artificer courses this year,
and I will continue with
the barbarian track,
but I am going to triple down
on the artificer classes as well.
- You're gonna have a 400% course load?
- Yeah, I'm gonna do that.
- Bold.
- He's really clever.
- Is he?
- And he works really hard.
- I'm holding the bird's beak shut.
My hands are shaking
so that it won't shout its name
and embarrass you.
- The bird is trying so...
[muffled] I'm Cloaca!
I suck!
- Pardon me, that's my familiar from Hell.
- Baby appears. Mistress!
- Oh f*ck.
- I believe, with the
support of my friends
and all these loud animals,
that I can get through it.
- He looks at you and sort
of crosses his arms and says,
well, we just got a
memo from Principal Grix
that the strength of the hero
is the strength of the party.
How much do your friends
actually wanna support you?
Would anyone be willing
to audit barbarian classes
to help Gorgug with his course load?
- Yeah, I would. I have
a lot of free time.
- No, you don't.
- Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that.
- If you sign up for barbarian classes,
I'll let you take the course load.
- Sign up for barbarian classes?
I was thinking of actually
going to my real classes.
What does that mean, to sign
up for barbarian classes?
'Cause if it's just spending
more time with Gorgug,
that sounds like a dream.
- Well, you'd be a junior.
You'd be a barbarian, so.
- Okay, yeah, I'm in. Let's do it, Porter.
Keep your friends close,
and your enemies closer.
- You keep giving me the
energy, and I keep loving it.
Can I be honest? I think you're
a good example for Gorgug.
- I understand that
your heart is in a place
where your point of view is different-
- God, this sucks!
f*cking pissing me off. All right!
- In some way, you are looking out for me,
but it's just different from how I see it.
- I'm looking out for you.
- I welcome the challenge, Ms. Faeth.
All right, see you in class. Good luck.
- What if Porter's the rogue teacher?
- That'd be insane.
- And he takes off.
- I don't know what I just committed to.
- [Murph] You just, okay.
- Triple classing?
- So, Gorgug is tripling
down on artificer,
so you're just doubling down, right?
'Cause it's the the one barbarian-
- Well, 2.5-ing down.
- Right, but you can still
go to your bard classes,
is what I'm saying.
- And warlock classes.
- Yeah.
- I mean, anything to
just not write my album.
- Okay, no, I do get that.
I absolutely do get that.
- Do you still need me to
play drums? I forget if-
- Of course I do.
- Okay, good, good.
- Although I have learned
how to play myself.
- I can maybe invent something
that plays it like I would play it.
- Whoa.
- Then I can just [claps] stand near it.
- And you can applaud your own creation.
- I think the day wraps up.
If you guys have stuff that's dealing...
All of you do walk out of here
with a shitload of paperwork,
handouts, all that stuff, so
if you guys wanted to head out
and either handle that
together or do whatever.
But I will say, Adaine,
at the end of the day,
as you guys are peeling out
to go wherever you're gonna go,
you do get a call on
your crystal from Aelwyn.
- Hey, how's it going? How's teaching?
- Oh, you know, I've been summoned
[pretentious violin music]
up to the principal's office
because I made some of my students cry.
- You went to the principal's office?
You're a teacher and you
got sent to the principal?
- First of all, you're not an adult,
so you don't understand, you don't get it.
- Okay, well, you're not
really an adult either!
- The principal's office isn't
just for children, Adaine.
Other work happens in
the principal's office.
- Sure, yes, okay.
- It's not called the child
scolding center. It's for work.
- All right. I am calling to... [sighs]
So, we had our first day of class today
with Professor Runestaff.
By the way, she is so much nicer
than any teacher we had at Hudol.
- Oh, I know. Tiberia,
she's such a pushover.
- I know. I mean, do you
remember Dr. Bucklebeak?
I think he straight-up hit
a kid in our first week.
Didn't get in trouble.
- A kid walked in and said good morning,
and he hit him in the face.
- In the face!
- Right in the face.
- In the face.
I think he does that every
class, to assert dominance.
Anyway!
- Tenure.
- Crazy. Private school.
I suddenly have to get
all of these materials
that I didn't even know I had to get.
I've got to get, okay,
An insane amount of diamonds.
A gold bow crafted by an archfey.
Eggs, just a lot of
different types of eggs.
- Oh sure, the junior year eggs.
- So many eggs. Troglodyte nuggets?
Do you know what those even are?
- Well, nuggets is sort of
a polite term for testicles.
- Oh, okay, so troglodyte
testicles. Another type of egg.
The spleen of a two-headed goat,
and she said dried was fine
but in that way that was like, it's not.
- You don't want dried.
- I don't want dried!
And then a rose plucked
from a desert spring.
Phoenix feathers, which
would normally be fine for me
because Ayda could just give
me some, but she's away.
- Could you borrow some from Fig?
- I don't think so.
She's really emotionally attached to them.
- Well-
- Can I have some of
your girlfriend's hair?
- I need it for school.
- That's my girlfriend, not
a f*cking spell component!
- Okay?
- Porter!
- You see she says, "Well, listen.
I can try to source some of
these things, if you'd like.
Do you wanna come by the apartment later?
I'm sorry, by the way,
that I moved out. I just-"
- No, no no no!
I don't wanna say I'm glad,
but I'm glad for you,
do you know what I mean?
- In the sort of month after we got home
after the nightmare forest,
it was kind of nice,
'cause it was full and I had you there,
and then when all of you
went to go do the Night Yorb-
- Sure, suddenly you're in
the top bunk on your own.
- And also, Jawbone, when he
doesn't have to split focus?
- Sure.
- And every breakfast-
- He's very caring. He's very caring.
- He's very caring.
- Sometimes I just don't need
to be cared for, do you know what I mean?
- I don't want to get better that fast.
- Sure.
- You know?
- I do, yeah, no, I get it.
I love him, he's so nice.
- He's really nice.
- But sometimes I'm just like,
I just need to eat my cereal.
- I got uncomfortable one time,
so I said something kind of
sinister and flirty to him.
- Sure, yeah, no, you love doing that.
- I do!
- And he took it seriously?
- No, he didn't take it seriously.
He sort of smiled ruefully and he said,
we all hurt from time to time.
And I said, I'm moving.
- Yeah.
- I'm moving.
So, you know, I had to get out.
- You two, chalk and cheese.
- Yes, truly, absolutely.
Come by the apartment. I'll
try to source some of these.
Off the top of my head, you
know, I wouldn't be teaching
a bunch of snot-nosed middle schoolers
if we had access to
Mum and Dad's money.
- Literally any money.
Have you heard from Mum?
- No, well, the problem is,
it's not the nightmare
forest anymore, is it?
So she's just somewhere in Sylvaire.
- Somewhere in Sylvaire, just hanging out?
- Well, she's being chased by
a van with hands for wheels.
- Right, yeah, but I mean, it's Mum.
That should be fine, right?
- I don't know.
But what I would say is,
without access to any of that...
Okay, options. Track down
Mum, k*ll her, inherit.
- Sure.
- But, you know, if she's alive,
she's done some financial shenanigans.
- Some kind of crazy trust
where we have to be 500.
- Do you get paid for
the Elven Oracle stuff?
Is there any payment for that?
- I don't think so. I think
I'm just doing it as a favor.
These old elves keep
on showing up and just-
- Poof. Oracle! An elf in robes teleports.
I have seen a vision of things to come!
- Okay, just hang on one
second, Aelwyn. Yeah?
- My daughter, she plans to marry,
but I see ruin upon the
face of her beloved.
Must I strike him down?
- Okay, I actually have not
had a vision about that,
but if I do, I will let you know.
- Okay, do you need my information?
- Yeah, that'd be great.
- Scroll. Hands it to you.
- Thank you, I'll put it with the others.
- And I'm available tomorrow.
- Sure, yeah yeah yeah.
If I have a vision
between now and tomorrow,
I will let you know.
- I'm available tomorrow.
- No, I do hear you, thank
you so much. Thank you!
- He teleports away.
Aelwyn says, "That is f*cking awful."
- Yeah, no, it happens
like five times a day.
- k*ll Mum.
- Yeah.
- Sell drugs.
- Eh...
- Sell weapons.
- Oh! Mm.
What kind of weapons, and to who?
- Not even weapons, you know?
I made a lot of money
with those Hudol students
when I was summoning
elemental cheerleaders.
- I mean, yeah, that seems like an option.
- Do you want me to put you
in touch with some Hudol kids?
- Yeah, my elementals are
just sort of dry, though.
I don't think the party
would want the Dry Guys.
- I'll see what I can do.
You could get a job.
- I could get a job. People
have jobs. Teenagers have jobs.
- Teenagers have job. I got a job.
- How did you get a job?
- I blackmailed the principal
of Oakshield Middle.
- Interesting. With what?
- Photographs.
- Well, I don't actually need
to know any more information.
- And you shan't, dear sister.
- Thank you. Thank you for
protecting me from that.
- All right, well, come by if you'd like.
- I don't suppose you have
any barrels of diamonds
that I can borrow in the meantime, do you?
- I have a chest full of rubies.
- Actually, specifically
she did say diamonds.
Somebody in the class
did ask about sapphires,
and she said absolutely
not, so I'm assuming no.
- Yeah, well, you know, do your best.
Maybe get a part time job.
Maybe save up for a
barrel or two of diamonds.
- How much do diamonds cost?
- Three gold pieces?
- How much is minimum wage in Elmville?
- I think I heard one of the teachers say
that they had a cousin that
made five copper a day?
- Great. No, this'll be great for me.
I'm so glad we threw away
all of that cursed dragon gold last year.
- All right, ta-ta, I need
to go. Bye bye, Adaine.
- Bye, love you. Can I delete speech?
- I heard it! I heard
it! I heard you say it!
- No, no, no!
- Ha ha ha ha ha!
I win. You've exposed
yourself to me. Click!
Your first day is winding
down, and Fabian and Gorgug
find themselves out on
the bloodrush field.
Gorthalax goes, "Here
it comes, here it comes,
here it comes!
All right."
- Yes.
- Cap, you wanna say a
couple words to the squad?
- Sure. Everyone circle up.
- Hoot, growl!
- Hoot, growl. Hoot, growl.
- Do the thing, Gorthalax.
There it is!
- Hoot, growl! Hoot, growl! Hoot, growl!
- Hoot!
- Growl.
- Growl, all right.
Guys, gals, everybody in between.
[Ally and Emily laughing]
- Inclusive. Nice.
- Was that good?
I felt really weird
about it toward the end.
Is it bad that I put the
everyone else in between,
like those are the
extremes, or does that work?
- No, you know, the intention counts.
- All right, thank you.
- You know, is gender a
three dimension space?
We don't know, you know? We don't know.
- All right, phew! Anyway.
- You broke Ally like the
tactical guys broke Murph.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- The whole team's on their knees.
- Technically, Riz is probably trying out
for the bloodrush team.
- Oh my god!
- All right, back again! Gukgak!
This time's the charm, let's do it.
- This year's gonna go a lot smoother
than this speech so far,
I'll tell you that much.
- Woo!
- We got a great squad.
We got a great team.
We got a lot of heart,
and I'll tell you what a lot of heart has.
It's got blood, and you know
what blood does on this field?
It rushes.
So a team with a lot of heart
and a lot of blood rushes.
- A team with a lot of heart
and a lot of blood rushes!
A team with a lot of heart
and a lot of blood rushes!
A team with a lot of heart
and a lot of blood rushes!
- All right! All right.
Let's get this fresh
meat out on the field,
Let's do some drills.
Riz, go ahead and give me
an opposed Athletics check-
- I have a minus two.
- ...with Gorgug and Fabian.
- All right, guys!
- I'm gonna go into a rage.
- You go into a rage.
- The Ball?
- Gorgug, let's focus!
- Hey, The Ball?
- Okay?
- You've got this, all right?
- Okay!
- You have other strengths.
- All right!
- I give you a Bardic Inspiration.
- Oh, you rolled poorly!
- You get 1d6.
- I appreciate ya.
- That is a 15.
- Okay, cool.
- I rolled a 16.
- I have a Bardic Inspiration.
- [Siobhan] You could beat that, for sure.
- Okay, that's a seven to start with.
How much is your Bardic?
- A d6.
- Okay, I physically can't get there.
- Gorgug and Fabian's bodies are things
that you could dodge,
nimbly scuttle around.
You could jump out of the way.
The reality of their mass and yours
makes taking any of them
to the ground impossible.
- Okay, I keep hanging on.
[Murph hissing and snarling]
- Gorgug is just carrying you.
You tackle Gorgug. Gorgug
is running down the field.
- Just biting him.
- Hanging on.
All right, great hustle! Hey!
- Way to go, The Ball.
- You know, it's always great
to have The Ball on the field,
so way to go.
- You're supposed wear a mouth guard.
- Shut up, Gorgug!
I have clumps of mud in my face.
- You guy see Max Durden
walk on the field.
Max, you remember from
the Boys' Night one shot,
is the drow kid who yelled "Police state"
in your first year at the assembly
when the new crystals
were put up everywhere.
- Yes!
- Max has got long white
hair, those tall ears.
He's got a little skull T-shirt,
looks a little bit wiry.
He's like, "All right.
Here we go, let's do it.
This is junior year for me too,
so let's see if we can get it done."
- [Lou] All right, Max!
- I'll roll in front.
He's got a plus four.
That's a nat 20.
[players oohing]
- Wow! Against us?
- Against you guys.
Unless you can hit a nat 20.
- No, I did not hit a nat 20.
- I also did not hit a nat 20.
- You see that Max
looks like some kind of,
probably a Hexblade warlock as well.
He's some weird mixture of
gish, arcane, but still martial,
and manages to trip you up, quick change,
get you to go in the wrong
direction with a fake
and then get past you into the end zone.
- All right, good job, Max. Nice moves.
- Yeah, awesome!
- Way to keep your head in the game.
- Hey, I gotta get invited
to Seacaster Manor somehow, right?
Let's go, let's go.
- I'm glad you've heard.
- Do you wanna play bloodrush?
- Yeah!
- Okay, yeah.
- 'Cause some of us really wanna play!
- You can get off me at this point.
- As soon as you go
down, it counts for me.
- Are these where tryouts are?
You see that there is a young kobold girl.
She's got kind of a
weird fuchsia sweatshirt,
some purple jeans, and
she's about two feet tall.
You see on her sweatshirt is a little pin
of a rat being crushed under some gears.
- Butt Grinders.
- Yes, this is where tryouts are.
- Hi, I'm Mary Ann.
- Mary Ann, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Can I make an Insight check?
- Yeah, go for it.
- Are you allowed to cast
spells when you play bloodrush?
Is that okay?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- 13.
- What are you trying to-
- Is there an angle that's
not just bloodrush-related
that's related to us, I think?
- Mary Ann's reptilian face
is kind of inscrutable to you.
She looks pretty nonplussed
across the board.
She looks up and says, "Okay.
This is where the team is?"
- Yes. Are you ready?
We'll just run you through
some drills to see-
- Gorthalax goes, "Okay, Mary Ann Skuttle.
Junior, trying out. Okay, let's see.
Let's see it on the field."
- I'd like to cast
Enhance Ability on myself.
- Go for it.
- Okay, great.
Give myself Bull's Strength.
- Let's go.
- I'm also motivated to beat this person.
I go into another rage, I guess.
- I'm gonna give you the
number you need to beat.
- Great.
- You need to beat a 35.
- I'm not here, right?
- No.
- Okay.
- That is not gonna do it.
- That's also not gonna do it.
That's a 19.
- A 19 and a 16? Gorgug, you get the ball.
It feels like someone's
pulling your right arm off,
until you realize that she's
hit you so hard in the chest
that your chest is moving faster
than your arm can keep up with it.
Gorgug's head is buried in
the bleachers underneath,
on the opposite side of the field.
- Riz didn't get a chance.
- Is Riz still on me?
- You're in the bleachers
near where Gorgug is.
Mary Ann Skuttle tackled
Gorgug with an amount of force
that moved him across the field
in a way that you've never-
[Zac wheezing in excruciating pain]
- Okay, thank you. She gets
up off of you, walks away.
[Zac groaning]
Sorry, you do take-
- What happened?
- I took you down, dude.
- I think more things happened!
- Thank you, Mary Ann, for the assist.
- You take 27 points of damage.
- Halved?
- You were in a rage.
- [Brennan] Halved, yeah.
- Okay.
- Mary Ann and The
Ball. The wrecking crew.
- What happened? Did you see it?
- Yes, she hit you hard!
- How did she go that hard?
- I don't even know!
- Can I cast Detect Magic?
Just use one of my devices?
My necktie, kinda click
it and do a little scan
of the field to see if she's
been enhanced by anything?
- Yeah, she has.
- She has!
- Yeah, she has.
- Great job, Mary Ann. Way to play.
- Gorthalax says, "Yeah, Mary Ann.
Incredible hustle out there. Holy sh*t."
You see Mary Ann goes, "Okay.
Bye." And turns around and walks away.
- Hell!
- Gorthalax leans in and
says, "Holy sh*t, fellas!
Can you imagine having her on the squad?
We're gonna destroy the Hellions!"
- I guess.
- Yeah, yeah, I mean, she's on.
Skill like that, I mean, you can't say no.
- Did anyone record that?
I just wanna watch it back.
- Gorthalax, did you see how...
Did she run?
- Well, she wasn't running,
but then as soon as the ball
made contact with your hand,
which is when it's legal to tackle,
she was off the ground.
She didn't actually run. She just jumped.
- She's got that dog in her.
- She's got that dog in her!
- There's only one way to
describe play like that,
and it's by someone with a dog in them.
- Mary Ann, you wanna come back?
Come back real quick, Mary
Ann? She turns around.
You see she's got a backpack
that has a little puffy
stuffed animal strawberry
hanging from the zipper.
She comes back and says, "Yeah?"
- We just had a brief chat.
You're really incredible, and
we'd love if you'd consider...
A lot of other people here,
we'll tell them later,
but your skill was so immense
that we just wanted to say
we'd be thrilled to have
you on the team this year.
- Okay.
- Are you excited about that, or?
- Mm-hmm.
- You are?
- Hm?
- Do you wanna elaborate on anything?
- No.
- All right, well, we practice
four days after school,
if you just wanna be here
right after the final bell.
- Okay.
- Okay!
- Email the schedule?
- Yeah, we'll follow up.
- Okay.
- You psyched, or?
- Yeah.
[Ally laughs]
- We sometimes like to do team hangs.
Would you wanna come to those?
- What?
- Team hangs.
You know, kind of group
bonding activities.
- Is that required?
- No, but we like to do it as-
- Okay, bye.
- The last required thing-
- Turns around and walks away.
- I Prestidigitation
some hype about The Ball,
about all the hustle
that he showed out there.
- Hype about The Ball?
- Did you hear that?
- [Brennan] All right, okay!
- You just hear whispers of
people being like, Riz was good.
- Riz, you see Gorthalax
comes over and says, "Hey bud.
Buddy, buddy boy."
- Coach.
- You don't have to call me Coach.
- Oh no!
- Okay.
- We're gonna get 'em next year.
- [Murph] Right on!
- We're gonna get 'em next year.
- Okay, that's fine.
I actually have a couple
more meetings and tryouts
that I need to get to, like, right now.
- Oh yeah!
- If I'm cut, let me know.
- You're cut, man. You gotta go.
- I run. Dash action.
- Dash to the next extracurricular.
I love that you're here
not because you love
the bloodrush team, but just like,
I've got to get more on the résumé.
- I'm just literally changing uniforms
as I run across the field.
- Hell yeah.
- Oh, and I think I pass on to you guys
that she was buffed by some kind of magic.
- Oh.
I was, as well.
- I was in a rage.
- Yes. Good to know.
- Does Detect Magic tell me...
Oh, it does.
- Doesn't it tell you the class of magic?
- Thought it tells you school of magic.
- School of magic? It doesn't
tell you the exact spell.
- You sense the presence of magic,
and you learn its school of magic, if any.
- Oh, so the school of magic?
- Uh-huh.
- What school of magic is Enhance Ability?
- She had Enhance Ability?
- Transmutation.
- She had Transmutation on her.
- [Murph] Got it, okay.
- But at what level to get such a buff?
Didn't you get a d4 for that?
- No, you just get advantage.
- So even still, with
advantage, that's pretty sick.
- Yeah, it means that she has
more than a plus 15 to her Athletics.
- Right, or at least a plus 15,
'cause she could've crit, we don't know.
- She could have, but I
feel like he would have said
you have to beat a crit.
- I think so, too.
- The end of that school day,
everyone's piling out again.
As you guys are wrapping
up classes and everything,
you see that walking out
of the school, or waiting,
I should say, as you guys
walk out of the school,
you see that Bucky is waving.
- [Ally] Hey, how was your first day?
- It was awesome. It was hard.
It's like, I walked in...
I'm doing paladin. I'm
doing paladin stuff.
- Cool. Great sword, by the way.
I was gonna say, where did you get this?
- Yeah. It's one of Dad's old ones.
I mean, he uses polearms now,
but it's an old longsword.
So I'm doing paladin
of Helio. It's awesome.
- That's great, yeah.
- How are you?
- I'm really good, yeah.
I'm living with some friends.
I don't know if you've met
Jawbone, the guidance counselor.
He's amazing.
- [Brennan] Okay.
- It was just, you know, I had
a hard time with Mom and Dad.
I don't think they necessarily get me.
They make me feel like I've
made weird life choices.
Yeah, I feel very free. But
how has it been for you guys?
You're good? Probably having
just a normal, fine time.
- I haven't told Mom
and Dad about the gold.
- Oh yeah, that's okay.
- But I'm lying.
- Oh.
- And I'm gonna go to Hell when I die.
I'm gonna go straight to Hell for liars.
- You know, I think-
- You see Bucky looks over at Fig.
- Join us.
[all laughing]
- I gotta go!
- No, wait!
- No, it's okay.
I really miss you, but you're living
in sin, maybe, I don't know.
- Maybe, yeah.
- Really?
- Well, no.
- You admit it!
- It might be more poetic than that.
What if there isn't a Hell
that you get punished for for lying?
What if it's just, you have
decreasing relationships
with the people around you
that could be [clicks tongue]
that much better if you were honest?
Doesn't that make more sense
than a burning Hell that
happens 80 years later?
- Give me a Persuasion check.
- Goddammit, I really wanted that.
That is a 16.
- As you say that, you see Gorthalax
walks by in the background being like,
"Yeah, Hell, let me tell you about it."
And sort of walks away.
He's like, "I don't know,
Hell feels pretty real.
I just wanted to say that
I had to fight really hard
for Mom and Dad to let me come here,
and I really miss you."
- We should have lunch once a week,
if you can fit it into
your schedule or something.
- Yeah, our lunches line up sometimes.
- Yeah, so that'd be awesome.
We can hang out a little bit.
- You wouldn't be- I know
I'm a freshman, but...
- Oh, I'm not here trying to be cool.
I'm here trying to be president.
- I'll vote for you.
- I'm running for president,
by the way, I don't know if you wanna tell
all the freshmen you can.
I give him a bunch of-
- I will!
- Why are you talking to freshmen?
- Adaine!
- Who is this?
- This is my brother!
- Oh, hi! It's so nice to meet you!
- Hello. I do not accept the ways of sin.
- Okay. I had a half
a bottle of beer once.
- Wow. What'd it taste like?
Never mind, I don't wanna know. Listen.
- Actually, I didn't love it.
- I bet it would be great.
For sinners, would love it.
Kristen, I gotta go soon.
I'm already telling all
the kids in my class
that they're going to Hell,
so I'll tell them to vote for you.
- You know what? Just
stick with your script.
And then I'll kinda do my thing.
I have a different plan than that.
- Okay.
- You know what, actually?
You should take this campaign pin.
I give him a campaign pin
for Kettlechip Krispykreme or whatever.
- Kipperlilly Copperkettle?
- Oh, that's great.
It's all part of the plan.
Tell people they're going to Hell,
but before they do, vote
for Kettle Krispykreme.
- You see Bucky smiles and says,
"This has a little rat in between-"
- Two butt cheeks, yeah.
- The new cleric of
Helio in town has that.
- What's that?
- There's a transfer
student from Highcourt here.
Mom and Dad love him.
- And he's part of the Butt f*ck?
- Bucky goes [screeches] and
sprints away from school.
- He's part of the Butt
Grinders! Come back!
Goddammit, I should've gotten more info!
- I don't know what anyone's
doing after... later,
but I have a free place
if anyone wants to come
over help me find dinner.
- I actually think I need to...
How do you get a job? Why am I asking you?
- Oh, I have no idea!
- I have a job. What you do-
- You have a job?
Oh, of course, you're
a rock star. I'm sorry.
- No, I'm not a rock star
right now. I lost that job.
- Oh, I don't think you lose that job.
I think you just take a break from it.
- Well, if you don't make
a good sophomore album,
then yeah, you f*cking lose that job!
But the way I got my other
job, which is running Hell,
is I found out that my dad was a devil
and then he was trapped in a gem,
and I inherited the responsibilities.
- Yeah, so my dad, I k*lled.
[Lou hums sympathetically]
And then my mum is-
- So you inherit his job.
- I actually don't know if
that isn't how that works.
Fallinel's rules are really weird.
But actually, if anyone
was gonna inherit it,
it would probably be Aelwyn.
You know what, I actually
might look into that.
- I also worked at Subway
Sandwiches for a little bit.
- How was that?
- I got fired for putting
too much mayonnaise
on the sandwiches.
- Weren't you a doctor?
- Oh, I've also been
a doctor, a detective.
- Oh wow, yeah, you've
gotten a lot of jobs.
How do they pay? I need
- Oh.
- Well-
- Like, today.
- Oh.
- I mean, okay.
Where do they sell
diamonds? A jewelry store?
- A wholesaler is what my teacher said.
A diamond wholesaler. She
said it like I should know.
- Is one of the Rat Grinders a wizard?
- They have a cleric, a rogue,
a barbarian who kicked my a*s.
- And then a bard in Ruben.
- Seems like there might be
a fighter and a wizard, also.
- Yeah, 'cause far be it from me to steal
from another student,
but if it had to be one-
- Sometimes stealing isn't stealing
so much as reappropriating.
- You guys see that
buses start to pull out.
The school's sort of
shutting down for the night.
- I mean, I'm headed
home. Again, if anyone...
It's a house and a lot
of me but, you know...
- I've got to wrap my head
around my new schedule.
- Yeah.
- [Ally] I've got a lot
of writing to still do.
- I have a lot of homework
to do, but I could do it
at your house if you
could drop me back later.
- Yeah, same.
- Same.
- Yeah.
- I'll do a study party.
- Yeah, let's do it!
- Come study party!
- Sure, yeah.
- Yes!
- Let's do it.
- You have food there,
right? There's so much food.
- Yes, there's definitely
food. We just have to find it.
- [Siobhan] Okay, that's easy.
Riz is so good at investigating.
- [Murph] Riz is on the job.
- [Brennan] A little study party
unfolds at Seacaster Manor.
- [Siobhan] Milk for everyone!
- [Brennan] Milk for everyone.
- So I found the milk refrigerator.
We have one refrigerator just for milks,
and the many varieties.
But everything else is a mystery to me.
- Can Riz Investigate to
try to find the other food?
- I'll give Riz the Help
action to Investigate.
- [Brennan] Yeah, go for it.
- I look around. This is harder
than I thought it would be.
- How do you open these
cabinets? There's no handle.
- I actually rolled really
bad, but I got a 16.
- There are cabinets, there's
food, but what you see is-
the milk refrigerator is filled with milk,
you know, and in three
weeks, it'll all be bad.
- Wow.
- I guess we have to drink all this milk.
- I guess I could pound some milk.
- How do you make cottage cheese?
[Ally gasps]
- Ooh!
- I'm gonna take off.
- Okay!
Well, I can also order food. This...
What did my mother leave me to order food?
- It's basically a crystal screen,
like an iPad in the wall that
you open to a delivery app.
So 100% of your meals will be delivered.
- Can I try to order us 10 pad thais?
- [Brennan] Yeah, for sure.
[die clatters]
- What are you rolling?
- That's a little bit c*ck,
but it was kinda 19 on the die.
[die clatters]
But I'll be honest. All right.
What do I roll for that?
- Why did you roll
without even being asked?
- Why are you rolling for pad thai?
- You said, can I order us 10 pad thais?
- What are your pad thai stats?
- I'm trying to think narratively
how a success or failure
on ordering pad thai-
- Because the pad was really hard to use.
He tried to use it the whole morning.
- [Brennan] Yes, yes, yes. Okay.
- It seemed really challenging.
- I think, add your Intelligence to that.
- Okay, great.
- How smart is Kristen?
- 17.
- 17. Yeah, you do it.
You get 10 pad thais on the way.
- I'm gonna hang out for a little longer.
- Okay.
- Riz, can you look at my schedule
and tell me what I have to do?
- Yeah, totally.
- Oof.
- So you spend this first night
putting your schedules together.
The schedules here are
deeply f*cking challenging,
none more so than Gorgug's.
Gorgug has to do four
years of school this year,
plus the Owlbears.
- I'm taking pinches of diamond dust
out of my jacket, one pinch at a time.
- Yes!
- Nice.
- Putting it into one
of the pirate barrels.
- Yes, just trying to get
this barrel full of diamonds
as best as you can.
Later that night, Adaine,
actually, as you're doing that,
Aelwyn texts you a link and says,
"Bad money, dash,
store credits for wizardly
material components."
And it's a job listing
for the Synod of Spyre Mall.
It's basically like,
because it's a place
where wizards congregate,
there's a bunch of wizard sh*t there,
and their employees, 'cause
they're just starting up,
they're offering a 40%
discount on store items
for employees at the mall.
- I could get a job at the mall.
That's a thing that teens do, right?
- Cool.
- Yes.
- Yeah, there's usually kind of a scene.
- Yeah, you'd be part of a scene.
- Yes, I mean, between the
party scene here at my house
and then also you just
kind of running the mall?
- That's crazy.
- A lot of scenes.
- Coming to all of my
speaking engagements.
- Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I'm
definitely gonna do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was just sort of
assuming that my part in it
would be handing out pins, but yeah,
if you want me to come to the
speeches, sure, absolutely.
- Give me an Investigation to see
what kind of job you can find at the mall.
[die clatters]
- That was so close to
an 18. That is a two.
Wait, an Investigation? That's a six.
I don't know how to look for a job.
- You're looking, you're looking.
You do the filter wrong
on how it's filtering.
So you thought you were
looking for most relevant,
and maybe that's not
actually what you selected.
But you see one that is basically saying,
it doesn't need you to submit a résumé,
it's just interview
only, right off the bat,
is a little shop at the Synod Mall
called Oodles of Strudel.
- I like strudel. Who
doesn't like strudel, right?
- Strudel is very good.
- And what does it pay? Does it say?
- It says-
- Probably oodles.
- I mean, I'm assuming. It's in the name.
- This pays two silver pieces a day.
- Is that good? Two silver pieces a day?
- It's kinda good. Could be worse, right?
- Right?
- And you get a 40% discount
at a place that sells all
the wizard stuff you need.
- Anywhere in the mall, right?
- Yeah, anywhere in the mall.
- Nice.
- How do I apply?
Do I just email them,
or do I have to go to...
I could just go to the mall, right?
- Yeah.
- Do I just show up?
- You have the keys to the
synod, if you wanted to go.
- Yeah, does anybody wanna
go to the mall right now?
- Actually, President Kristen?
- Yeah.
At ease.
- I'm wearing an earpiece now.
President Kristen,
permission to attend
warlock class tonight?
Do you feel safe?
- Incredible. Yes, permission granted.
Thank you for your service.
- I take out the earpiece.
- Thanks. I give it to Gorgug.
- I actually probably need to go home.
This thing's broken.
This is one half of a set of headphones.
- Amazing, so yeah, you have the keys.
If you wanna just go in person-
- Go get 'em attitude, right?
- Yeah, I mean, the mall's
probably gonna close.
Well actually, no, the
Elm Valley Mall closes,
but the Mall of the Synod is-
- It's 24 hours, right?
- It's 24 hours, 'cause
it's available to wizards
throughout different f*cking dimensions.
- Right.
- Yeah, if you wanna go there, you can,
and yeah, it's about 7:30
PM, about time to head over.
- I got leave from my president, so.
- You take your job really seriously.
- f*cking honor to serve.
- Going around, technically,
bard, barbarian, warlock.
- Yeah, I'm doing it all,
because I'm terrified of
failing at my sophomore album,
so I'm putting my energy
into everything but that.
- So just to outline, because again,
a lot of your junior year is sort of,
everything's piling up.
So just to put it all together,
wizard classes, need part
time job, Elven Oracle.
- I am also in the AV club.
- Adaine's also in the AV club.
Gorgug, barbarian, Owlbears,
and freshman, sophomore,
and junior year of artificer
all simultaneously.
- Right, something might
have to give at some point.
- For Fig, undeclared warlock classes,
bard classes auditing, question mark?
Barbarian, auditing, question mark?
But full bore for both,
plus sophomore album.
- My girlfriend's out of
town, okay? I'm spiraling!
- Spiraling.
- I cradle the scroll.
- Fabian, full bard, full fighter,
Owlbears, master of ceremonies.
Riz, Fabian, and Gorgug
get a text from Ragh
being like, "What's up, m*therf*ckers?
Back in town and nobody's safe.
Nut tap central. I've deeply missed you.
Heard about the party house. Noice!"
Rogue classes, as many extracurriculars
as you can scarf down your f*cking gullet,
plus campaign manager
for student president.
- Riz, do you wanna be my intern?
- Do you offer credit?
- We also have Kristen as
cleric, student president,
plus, you know, prophet.
Have you told the rest of the Bad Kids
about Kalina, by the way?
- Yes, I wanted to take a
second and let everyone know,
Kalina is back, this was her exact vibe.
- Riz's girlfriend Kalina?
- Yes.
- Not my girlfriend.
- Riz's girlfriend.
- Riz's dad's girlfriend Kalina?
- Just walk me through it,
'cause I'm just the security detail.
What is Kalina's angle?
Kalina's like, let's go manipulate people
into following you?
- I don't know, she just
had that power marketeer
look on her face of, I
know exactly what we'll do.
But I don't really...
I don't completely see her angle.
Does she get to come back?
- What was the first thing she said?
- Hello, Kristen?
- She said hello, Kristen?
- That b*tch!
- I'm good now?
- Yeah. Oh yeah, "I'm good now," yeah.
So she's pretending to
be reformed or something.
I think she's just excited to not be
blasted out of existence anymore.
- I mean, I get that.
- She has a little toe
in the door, and I think
she's really trying to push
it open as much as she can.
- So Riz, I think this is the
map you see in front of you.
This is what you see, in order
to get you guys graduated.
You also find something in
that 30 you rolled earlier,
the last thing I'll give
you on that very high roll.
Your party composition is announced
at the end of your first day.
Students whose party composition
for any reason changes
during the course of a year
automatically become pass-fail.
So in other words, if anyone
were to leave the party,
drop out, die permanently,
all the other party
members become pass-fail.
They are not gonna be
punished, but pass-fail
unfortunately doesn't allow
you to get extra credit.
You don't get the extra credit
of those extracurriculars.
It just basically means that you move
into this academic state where
you're hand-waved through,
but you are in a position
where you cannot be hand-waved through.
You need to succeed profoundly
with every brass ring available to you.
- Does party composition
include multiclassing
and changes that we just made?
- Not multiclassing.
- It's just exiting the party.
- Exiting the party, and
your status at Aguefort.
- Or someone dying.
- So if we k*ll one of the Rat Grinders,
they don't get to go to college!
- Which helps us?
- If we became pass-fail
and Riz was trying to pad his résumé,
it would not help him pad his...?
- Riz moving to pass-fail
would really hurt him.
- So I wouldn't be able to get
a scholarship, essentially.
But that's fine, 'cause
we're all gonna graduate!
We're good.
- Nighttime activities that night.
Adaine, you go to the synod.
Astral blue light.
[marketplace music]
Panes of translucent energy.
Rippling blue glass
made of pure thought magic
forming planes, tiles, walls,
fountain, sunglass kiosk, palm tree,
all made of rippling arcane energy.
You begin to see ancient
wizards with hats and staves
moving throughout the mall.
- Hello, good morrow. A fine day.
- Good morrow to thee, yes!
You see there's a little
wizard going around.
Hello. Oh, a Jacket of Useful Things.
A world of wonders awaits inside,
but perilous the journey of egress!
- I mostly use it to get erasers.
I lose them all the time.
- Yes, an eraser is a
hard thing to come by.
I wish you well, fellow
magus of the synod.
Now, to Ochre Julius!
Ochre Jellius!
You see there's a bunch
of other places around.
You see in the back,
there's this big food court
where there's stairs.
It's a two story mall,
and the big open air
where you see the balcony
and the stores on the upper level.
- I am so trepidatious,
walking towards this place.
Suddenly it's so important
that I get a job,
and I don't know how to do it.
It feels so grownup.
- You walk up to Oodles of Strudel,
which is one of those mall restaurants
that doesn't even have a kitchen.
- Sure.
- You see it's almost like
an Auntie Anne's Pretzels.
- Right, there's a little toaster oven.
They just heat it up for you.
- They just heat it up.
- Half toaster oven, microwave, combined.
- You see there's a small area
with a steel cover on a lid,
but it's floating in astral space,
so you can kind of see that it's just
a little steel chafing
dish, deeper kind of thing.
It has a ladle in it.
You see that there is a
portal in the back wall
that is crackling with
this violent pink energy
in deep black space.
And there is a strudel,
this long danish-like pastry,
that is coming out of the portal,
and then there's a crank to
crank it out of the portal,
and then there's a
place to chop it quickly
with a sort of paper
cutter chop down thing.
- Is that an infinite strudel void?
- It's the strudel dimension.
- The strudel dimension.
- What? Yes, hello.
- Hi. I'm sorry.
- Sort of a little bit of...
It looks like some missed spots shaving,
a little bit of acne, a
little bit of unshowered hair,
paper hat, white shirt,
apron that says Oodles of Strudel on it.
Guy turns around. Hey, can I help you?
- Yes, I was looking for a job?
- Okay, are you looking for a job
here at Oodles of Strudel?
- Honestly anywhere,
but yeah, this is, yeah.
- Okay, pay is two
silver pieces per shift.
Shifts are eight hours.
- Great.
- Okay.
- Hours?
- Do you have any other conflicts?
- School.
[head thumps]
- Okay. Can you work graveyard shift?
- What's the graveyard shift?
- Well, I don't know
what planet you're from.
Spyre?
- Yeah.
- Okay, so after school,
could you come here and
work for eight hours?
- I mean, that seems...
Yeah, no, I can do that.
- Okay.
- How long are hours here?
- You see he points up to a flickering,
multidimensional clock that is
hovering above the fountain.
Just focus on that like
you would a magic eye,
and your time from your home
dimension will come into focus.
- Okay, so it's eight
hours. That's random.
That's weird, that's it's the same.
- Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.
- No, great. Eight hours.
- Strudel dimension,
don't put your hand in it.
Don't put your hand in it.
- Okay, what happens if I do?
- Don't put your hand it!
- I'm not going to!
I wouldn't.
- Okay, use the crank.
Pulls the strudel out.
Strudel has not ended yet, okay?
But the store's only been
open for about four days.
We don't know if the strudel's infinite.
If people ask if the strudel's infinite,
you just say, "What is infinite
is these savings." Okay?
And then you offer them one
of the sales on the menu.
We don't know if the strudel is infinite.
It just hasn't ended yet.
- Okay.
- Okay?
- In four days?
- What?
- It hasn't ended in four days?
- [sighs] I don't know
if this is gonna work.
- I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry, it was just
a clarifying question.
- It's not like a puzzle.
It's just, there's strudel.
It comes out of the
hole. The hole was here.
- You're a wizard?
- What?
- Are you a wizard?
- No!
- Oh, okay, I just assumed that
everybody here was a wizard.
- Yeah, not everybody here is a wizard.
It's actually pretty weird
for stores here to even...
You see he points over at another place
called Bloodbath and Beyond and you see
it's just pure energons,
these energy constructs
that are basically
manifested Unseen Servants.
He's like, "Yeah, wizards
mostly tend to make
energy beings and constructs
that work for no money."
- And if I were to do that,
would I get paid for it?
- [sighs] In the employee handbook,
which, if you get the job, you will read-
- I will absolutely read it.
I love to read.
- You are not allowed to summon
any form of help.
You are allowed to use
telekinetic magic with a waiver.
- Okay, so how do I get the waiver?
It's fine! No no no, it's okay!
I'll read the handbook,
I'll read the handbook!
- Okay, thing number two. You've
got to keep the sauce hot!
The sauce has got to be hot!
- The strudel sauce?
- Yes.
- What's in the sauce?
It's in the handbook, I'll
look it up! I'm so sorry.
I have never had a job before,
but I'm really excited,
and I'm gonna work really
hard for eight hours a day.
- Eight hours a day, people
come, they order strudel.
You pull the strudel out
of the portal. You cut it.
You put it in a paper. Before
you put it in the paper-
- You put hot sauce in the paper?
I'm asking genuinely! You
look really mad at me.
- Asking questions about
how Oodles of Strudel works
makes me think that you don't get
Oodles of Strudel as a brand.
- I do.
I'm loyal to Oodles of Strudel.
- Okay, there's a lot of
people who want this job.
There are people who
would k*ll for this job.
People your age, high schoolers,
would k*ll for this job.
You get 40% off anywhere in the store.
Anywhere in the mall, 40%.
- Yeah, you're right. I'm
excited to have this job.
I'm gonna read the handbook
back and forth, sir.
What's your name?
- Biff!
- Okay.
- I'm your manager, okay?
- Thank you, Biff. My name's Adaine.
- Sure.
You gotta keep the sauce hot!
- Hot. The sauce is hot.
- You ask them if they want sauce.
Strudel, chop. Do you want sauce?
They say yes, one ladle.
They ask for extra, it's two copper.
- Do I have to use the ladle?
- What?
- It's just a little triggering for me.
But it's fine, I'll figure it out.
- Just read the employee handbook.
- Yeah, I'm gonna read the
employee handbook so well.
- Okay, literally, you're hired.
You see he hands you
the employee handbook.
Welcome to Oodles of Strudel.
- Thank you. When do I start?
- You wanna start tomorrow?
- Yeah, okay.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.
- Great.
- Great. Here you go.
- I shake his hand again.
- You shake his hand
again and he gives you
a paper hat and a uniform
and stuff like that.
- Thank you.
- And off you go.
- Can I have my familiar
here? Is that okay?
I can make him a little hat.
- He opens a drawer and gets
a tiny little paper hat.
- Thank you. He'll look really cute.
He'll help sales.
- If he says anything-
- Oh no, he mostly just ribbits.
- I'll have to check
the employee handbook,
but I think that's okay.
- Thank you.
- Okay.
- Okay, bye. I disappear out of existence.
- Whoosh, you appear back in the kitchen
with your other friends
who are doing stuff here.
- I got a job!
- Congratulations.
- Pad thai is here.
- Anything else that happens that night?
We have warlock class.
- I just wanna text Mazey and see,
when is prime first
party of the year season?
When's the moment to come out
and emerge as the party house?
- [Brennan] You see she says, well,
depends on how much of a
legend you're trying to be.
- [Lou] Maximum legend.
- Friday night, first week.
- Put the word out. It's
going down. Seacaster Manor.
Everyone's invited, even
the f*cking freshmen.
- 'Bout to f*ck up your house, king.
- Good luck!
- So you set that up.
Fig, nighttime at the
Aguefort Adventuring Academy.
- Ooh!
- As you arrive at nighttime,
you see a single room
with lights on in the building
at the warlock classroom.
- I think I'm gonna
cast Darkness on myself
and then go in, so I'm hidden in darkness.
- You begin to walk through.
- I just wanna hug the corner,
so I can just kinda watch from the corner.
- You begin to hear a
shuffling, kind of bumping noise
as you walk into the classroom,
and I'm gonna need you to
make a Dexterity saving throw.
[die clatters]
- That's a 10.
- You get elbowed hard in the head,
and you fall down and accidentally stick
one of your hands into
what feels like a kind of,
it's some sort of construction putty.
- What is it with you and cement?
- I already lost a boot to you!
- Some sort of spackle jar.
You hear a voice say, "Students,
you have all cast Darkness on yourselves,
and you are bumping into each other.
Please dismiss. Please dismiss."
- I dismiss it.
- One of the most
stunningly beautiful women
you've ever seen sits,
the chair to the side of
the desk, looking out.
She has dark eyeshadow
on, medium brown skin,
long ponytail in the back, blood red lips.
You see two fangs extend from her mouth.
Up on the blackboard, it
says Professor Zara Sool.
Welcome, students who wish to pursue
the intricate and deadly
art of crafting deals
with forces beyond our imagination.
The previous teacher of
this class, Evan Freem,
was devoured by his patron
for failing to meet the
necessarily requirements.
Are there any here who wish to forego
the secrets of your junior year?
- Oh. I don't raise my hand.
- Very well.
- I look around to see if anyone does.
- She is gonna make an Insight check
as the other warlock students look over
and don't recognize you.
- Oh, right.
- You see she just looks over-
- Can I just, real quick,
Minor Illusion my name
on the attendance list?
- Cool, give me a Deception.
She's gonna make a Perception.
I'll roll in front of the board.
Okay, she got a 23.
- Okay, I got... [groans]
I got a 17.
- She sees you do it.
You see one of the students says,
"Aren't you supposed to
be in the bard classes?"
- Yeah, but I'm...
I'm from Hell, and I've had
some sort of nascent warlock
abilities blossoming in myself,
and I thought this was the
place to come to explore them.
Was I wrong about that?
- Are you Jabberwockying dancing?
- You see Zara smiles and
looks at you and says,
"Quincy, you are, I am
afraid, quite mistaken.
Ms. Faeth's name is on the
paperwork for the class."
You see he says, "But she
clearly cast an illusion to-"
- I wasn't that loud about casting it!
- You see that as this kid
Quincy says, but she wasn't...
You see that Zara puts up a hand,
and you see that for a moment,
all the color drains out of Quincy's face.
She says, "Lesson number one.
In manners regarding warlocks,
what's on the page is the
only thing that counts."
- Can I cast Hex on Quincy?
- Yes, you can cast Hex.
- Cast my Hexblade Curse on him.
- You put a Hexblade Curse on Quincy.
Zara proceeds to teach a
very interesting thing.
Go ahead and give me an Arcana
check. We'll call it a DC 17.
- Okay.
Nat 20, baby!
- So sick.
- You immediately catch up, and actually,
the warlock stuff is all
making a ton of sense to you.
Fig can honestly use herself
as a f*cking source of warlock powers.
Where do you think you draw
your warlock powers from?
- I think it's from my dad
or my bloodline or my legacy.
- Yeah, everything she's saying
makes a ton of sense to you
because basically,
rather than wizard craft,
which is, you have to
break the universe down
into its really discrete
molecular magical components
to put it back together.
This is sort of a broader,
more holistic look at,
what are the forces that
are actually at work here?
What is the Fey Realm trying to do?
What are devils trying to do?
And even though it's very legal,
in a weird way, it's legal in...
It presents contracts
not as these really
arcane language things,
but as, well, here's how
people are trying to f*ck you,
and here's what they're going for,
and here's what this clause
actually means someone's trying to do.
Really quickly, the human component
and how it all factors into Charisma
really starts to make a lot of sense.
So I think on a nat 20, you
catch up really f*cking fast.
At the end of the class,
Zara pulls you aside as
the others are leaning out.
You see she smiles and says,
"Incredible work in class, Ms. Faeth.
You have a knack for understanding
the deeper motivations of
these kinds of bargains."
- Thank you. Can I ask who your patron is?
Is that a rude question to ask a warlock?
- It can be. In this instance, it is not.
But perhaps some caution in the future.
You happen to have gotten lucky.
- Okay.
- As she says lucky, you
see that she looks and says,
"You have a little bit of
pad thai on your jacket."
- f*ck, really? I didn't even have any!
I just sat next to Gorgug. f*ck!
- You see she just looks and says,
"My patron is my paramour,
who is a celestial."
- See, I'm also a bard,
but my power comes from my
paramour in that aspect.
- Bargains are something
that are more common
than I think people realize.
There's a connotation of the
legal, which we cover here.
There is a connotation of the
contract, the agreement, yes?
But when you take away
the gilded edges of this,
then an agreement is something
that we do every day.
Often wordlessly, there are agreements,
and it is in the power
of those relationships
that a warlock draws their strength.
- Yeah, and I sort of think people talk
about contracts and bargains
like you're losing something,
but it's really more of a promise
to show up and do something.
- Exchange.
- Yeah.
- Energy moves from one place to another,
and in a good contract,
the exchange is equal,
because the power of the cycle created
of the energy passing
forth in that agreement,
it is ongoing.
If a contract, if an agreement,
is to love and honor one another,
a powerful pact, and one with the ability
to cycle that magical
potential for eons to come.
You are very gifted at this.
Are you interested...
You see she dispels
the name on the roster.
She says, "If you are interested
in signing up for this class legitimately,
I would be more than happy
to approve your MCAT."
- So, I'm kind of on the line
to put out my sophomore album,
but the expectation is
kind of crushing down on me
like a vice.
So yeah, I am, yeah.
Yeah, I would like to. Are you willing to?
[Brennan mimics celestial
energy whooshing]
- Let's sign. Her fangs distend.
- Can I ask one last question?
- Mm-hmm.
- What's the sickest spell you know?
Just brag for me.
- I know how to draw the
blood from someone's body
in a way that gives me
not only the power of their raw life,
but the life of the mind
and all of their knowledge.
- I sign so enthusiastically.
- She smiles and says,
you have achieved much.
I know that the majority of your magic
comes from your bardic training,
but I will say simply this.
Meditate on what the agreement is
that has given you your power.
Agreements exist wordlessly,
and they exist without
acknowledgement or even consciousness
on the part of those who
have engaged in them.
But agreements are at their
most potent when they are-
- Conscious?
- Conscious.
- Okay.
- She smiles and you have
your first warlock class.
For the rest of you-
- I am gonna follow Quincy home
and find out where he lives.
- For the pad thai crew
back at Seacaster Manor-
- Sorry about that, guys.
I was just kinda eating pretty crazy.
- It's all right.
- It's okay, Gorgug.
- No, I love it.
- I was starving.
- You're a good eater.
- Thank you.
- Yeah.
- For those of you who are there,
this party happening, Fabian,
is there anything you're doing
to prepare for the party?
- I think I'm gonna go
look and try and find
any stores of alcohol that,
between Papa and Mama,
might have been left around the house.
But also, in the meantime,
just in case, Gorgug,
could you artifice me a fake
ID or something like that?
Is that above-
- It's mostly gears and pieces of metal,
but I could see if I can...
You know what, I'll give it a shot.
- You guys hear a knock at the door.
- Okay.
- Oh, there's a knock at the door.
- Hide it!
- More pad thai?
- No, no, it's all right.
Did somebody order more pad thai? Hello?
- What's up, m*therf*ckers?
Hoot, growl, hoot, growl, hoot growl!
Nuts! f*ck' nut tap, nut tap!
Give me a big hug, you're my
close friends. I love you.
- f*ck yes.
- Hi, Ragh.
- What's up, Adaine? How's it going?
- Good, how're you doing?
- What's that you're
holding? What is that sh*t?
- I got a job!
- Oh, sick! And I'm sorry, but
yeah, f*ck, you gotta, right?
- Yeah, I really gotta.
- Yeah, f*ck yeah.
- Do you want some pad thai?
We have a sh*t ton of pad thai.
- Oh sh*t, I'm so f*cking hungry.
- Yes!
- Wait, are those lunch bags?
You see he point at one of the trash bags.
- Oh yeah, your mum made us lunch bags.
- Oh sick, is there any good
sh*t in there? What's up?
- I mean, it's an eight
hour old salami sandwich.
- Tight! You see he takes it
and f*cking scarfs it down.
Yeah, give me that pad
thai. Boys, what is up?
I heard this is the f*cking party spot.
- It's going down Friday,
starting maximum legend status.
- I make eye contact with Riz like...
- We need people to vote for Kristen.
- Yeah, I can tell The
Ball is f*cking psyched
for maximum legend.
- The Ball can't wait.
- I'm writing a speech
already on note cards.
- It's gonna be a half campaign kickoff,
half kind of welcome to the new year,
the new way, kind of, you know,
the beginnings of
everything sort of thing.
- Campaign kickoff?
No, you don't wanna sour the vibe
with student government sh*t, man.
- [Murph] The way we do it-
- We're making student government cool.
The Bad Kids do student government.
- Yeah, so it's kinda like a
happy hour thing, you know?
- Okay, happy hour,
where people that work
at office jobs come to-
- Well, it's an hour of being happy!
- Everyone's gonna be chilling,
and then I'm just gonna
slip right in.
- [Siobhan] It's always happy hour with
Kristen Applebees.
- And just make a couple points.
- I think, okay, what if we
just made Kristen also a legend,
and then later, because the cool kid's
gonna get voted class president.
- So I don't have to give a speech.
I just have to do something cool.
- Yes, we just have to set
you up for an awesome moment.
- Kristen just needs to be a legend.
- Look, it's your f*cking
spot, it's your party.
You do what you wanna do, but ultimately,
f*cking, you know, let me know.
Listen, you know, I just graduated.
I've just got to be
focused on bloodrush stuff,
practicing for tryouts and sh*t like that.
But it might be nice
'cause it's been kinda,
you know, sort of a lonely...
Summer wasn't lonely lonely. It was good.
But, you know, it was
night the whole time.
- How's Tracker?
- She's super good.
I think actually the endless night
sort of was great for
her socials, you know?
Sort of moon-
- Out all the time.
- The moon was bumpin' all the time, yeah.
- Gorgug feels awkward and
pulls down a welding mask
to work on the fake IDs.
- But yeah, glad Tracker's
doing well. But yeah,
we're gonna throw it way down on Friday.
- Yeah. Is it cool if I
swing by? I graduated, but-
- Do you wanna grab a couple dozen kegs?
- Yeah, you could totally
come by if you don't mind
just grabbing us some, you know,
or at least giving us
a hookup for a little-
- Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- A little stuff, you know?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You need Barkrock to f*cking hold it down.
- In some ways, yes.
- Yeah, tight.
- I mean, hey, you party hard,
so honestly, you could
come on as a party advisor,
'cause you know I'm trying to smash
Jem Peppercorn's legend out of the sky.
- Dude, Peppercorn was
a f*cking maniac, man.
- Yeah, and I'm Fabian f*cking Seacaster.
- Oh sh*t.
- Yeah, that's right.
- Oh sh*t!
- Yes!
- What's this?
- It's this energy now.
Corsica Jones was not about
it, but I can tell you're-
- Love this energy, dude.
- [Siobhan] You call your
teacher by her first name?
- Well, yeah.
- And she likes that?
- No! I mean, I wouldn't
do it to her in person.
But I wanted to look cool
in front of you guys.
- All right, I'm gonna go get the kegs.
- [Lou] Okay.
- I'm gonna go get some liquor,
maybe some bottle, get some fifths, okay?
I'm gonna go get some sticky, okay?
- Okay, good. Sticky, yes.
- [Siobhan] What is sticky?
- I'm assuming it's some kind
of substance we might abuse.
- Get some spice.
- Get a little bit of spice.
Hey, if it's in Seacaster Manor,
get a little bit of that
[sniffs] snuff powder.
- Yes! Oh!
- And my price is very simple.
I need you to go get a little crown
with a little crab on it.
'Cause I'm the m*therf*cking
crab king! Crab King!
- Who's the little shrimp?
- Ragh jumps up in the middle
of your math of careful stuff
and starts shaking.
- Okay!
- Crab king! Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!
- We're back, m*therf*cker!
- We're back, m*therf*cker.
It's okay to hang out at high school
for a little bit after you graduate.
- Just like a year.
- You're in the window.
- In the window!
It's gonna get weird at some point,
but not just right now.
- Right now, it's fun.
- And you live with us,
so it'd be weird if we didn't
invite you to the party.
- It would be so weird!
- That's true.
- Fabian, this is made out of sheet metal.
- Ragh, would this pass?
- Give me a craft check.
Intelligence plus proficiency.
- It says I'm 35, which I kinda like.
- You're an elf.
- Yes, I'm an elf.
- A 14.
- Okay, it's sick.
- Elf don't shelf.
- Yeah, 35,
you know, you are a
half-elf, so that could pass.
- There it is.
- It could pass.
It's made out of steel, right? So-
- That's how they do it in Fallinel.
- You know, honestly,
dude? Just try to flash it.
- Oh yes, just quick one.
- Is there a way that it
could just be perceived
as like a fancy credit card status thing?
- Yeah, does the government
issue fancy identifications?
- If you just look really
tired, you know what I mean?
That works really well. You
go in and you're just like...
- I had a long day.
- A long day!
- Yeah, you have kids. You have kids.
- I just need six
- I work a job for my children.
I've got to put my
children through school.
- This is good. This is all great.
Hell yes, it's going down.
- I also made your name Christian Delnore.
I don't know if that matters.
- That's great. I'm Christian
Delnore, and I have children.
- So as you guys are talking,
Ragh takes a moment to actually
go over to Kristen and go,
"Hey, I wanted to check in with
you, what we talked about-"
- Your shoulders suddenly got so high.
- The thing we talked about last night.
Just, if I could let
Tracker know if she's good
to reach out, if you
would be okay with that.
- That's great. Who's
the b*tch on her lap?
Who's the b*tch on her lap?
You mentioned a b*tch
that was on her lap, Ragh.
I'mma need to know who that is, Ragh.
- Ragh is shaking.
Ragh has never seen this
energy from Kristen before.
- Ragh, I gotta have an answer!
- She's kind of a legend now, Ragh.
- Okay.
[Ally yelps manically]
So, okay.
Look.
Nara-
- That's a dog's name.
I'm surrounded by women with dogs' names.
- Which is short for
Naradriel, is an elven-
- God, that's beautiful.
- I don't wanna say this in a weird way.
It actually is just a
fact, it's not even weird.
She is a princess, elven princess,
and she's really sort
of found a connection
to Wolfsong and to the
sort of moon worship.
It's kinda taken off. Because
the worship of Galicaea
got very stale in Fallinel.
People were like, "The moon is eternal,
the moon is eternal."
And Tracker was like,
"How can something be eternal
which is ever-changing?
Do you not see that the moon,
by showing the eternal cycle..."
She really f*ck' got 'em.
- I'm listening.
- You're pouring pad thai on your lap.
- Squeezing limes.
- You see Ragh goes, "Look,
Nara's not as cool as you.
Not as cool as you.
But there's sort of this
situation where Tracker,
'cause, you know, you guys sort of ended,
and the way Tracker described it was like,
it was so loving and so
amicable and it was like,
yeah, we're gonna stay friends,
it's obviously gonna be friends
and we're gonna be friends,
and then there was sort
of zero contact after that
for probably two months.
Two, three."
- I think...
I think I was kinda wishful thinking
when I said let's be friends
right away, you know?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So, the princess on her lap
is what?
They're dating, and then they've
got this religion together,
and it's doing really well on the socials?
- Yeah, and I think
actually the lap thing,
that got posted because there
was sort of a compromise there
because Nara has really
been asking for Tracker
to kind of announce, or just be like,
'cause Nara kinda wants to
share on her own socials
that this is sort of happening.
- Oh totally, like when you
go on a girl's Instagram
and it's all her boyfriend,
you go on the guy's,
and she's not on there!
She is not on there, ever!
- Yeah, so it's sort of that,
and there's kind of some pressure
coming from the Nara
direction to post on main.
- And that was the that.
That was Tracker being
like, of course, babe.
Here's a picture of us looking cute.
- Well, that one was
sort of like, you know,
because there was one where Tracker
had some elven kids on her
knee and was teaching them,
and Nara was like, well, if
you have kids on your knee
and you have other people on your knee,
why can't I be in your lap?
And that was, like-
[Ally cringes]
- Okay, yeah. Okay, I appreciate, yeah.
- So this is more about, like,
that actually, you clocked the vibe,
which I agree in that post
is eminently clockable,
but that was not even supposed
to be the announcement.
That's just supposed to
theoretically be normal,
and the announcement
would be much more of,
how important Nara is as a
kind of disciple, apostle.
- Kristen, here's your ID.
- Thank you.
- Tracker just wanted to, like...
I sort of f*cked up by
even saying all that.
Tracker kind of wanted
to explain all of this,
but then you came at
me with a lot of power.
- A lot of what, Ragh?
- A lot of that, a lot
of that! I don't want it.
- Okay, yeah, I think
definitely let her know
that she should reach out, definitely,
definitely, 'cause I actually just squared
some things away with my deity,
and just a cat that scratched
me super hard previously,
who I'm now kinda co...
The cat is my princess on my lap.
- You talking about Kalina?
- She won't even let me
touch her. Yeah, Kalina.
- Kalina's back?
- Yeah, she's back.
She'd never pose on my
lap for f*cking anything.
- Okay. Should I tell
Tracker don't reach out?
- No, I think I would like
to hear. I actually would.
'Cause I'm trying to get...
Yeah, actually, there are a lot of reasons
I would love to talk to her.
- Okay.
- She's got that momentum right now.
She's got that dog in her.
- I'll let her know.
Yeah, she's pretty busy this week,
but I'll let her know to reach out
probably next week sometime.
- Great.
- It's good to see you.
- She's got that dog in her
and a girl with a dog name on her.
- Yeah.
- Whoa.
- Amen.
- Oh yeah.
- Pound it.
- I'm rooting for you.
- Thanks, man.
- Hell yeah, unless there's
any other pressing business,
I think the rest of that first week goes.
Even if there were any
other things you guys
really wanted to do in your
downtime that first week,
what f*cking downtime?
The tidal wave crashes
on top of you, boom,
of just the pounding of classes
upon classes upon classes.
Even if you were just doing
your normal year of classes,
it would be way harder
than your sophomore year
of classes were, and
suddenly it is thrumming.
Things are getting ready
for the party that week.
The announcement of the campaign.
Are there any scenes that people think
definitely would happen that week
before the big party at Seacaster Manor?
- I think we would definitely
have to go get beer.
- Ragh's taking care of that.
Ragh's gonna go get it done.
- Are we sure we don't wanna diversify?
Because I could definitely
put on hospital scrubs
and Disguise Self to be a nurse.
- Be a tired nurse.
- And get a ton of booze.
- [Ally] Be almost like
you're sleepwalking.
- Booze from a hospital?
- Yeah.
- Adaine, I just wanna ask for the party,
would you be able to put some arcane traps
on some of the doors, just
so people can't go in my room
or f*ck with my stuff, you know?
- I actually don't think
I have anything like that.
- I can make myself invisible
and just kinda hang out in your room.
- No.
- You know what I can do?
- I can put the dog in there.
I can put Moggy the Doggy in your room.
- Yeah, if you could just put
Moggy the Doggy in my room
so an invisible dog kind
of thrashes people around.
- What about a bucket with water?
- I could rig that up.
- Yeah, bucket of water.
- We could do a bucket.
- We could do both.
- [Emily] Let's do a bucket with water.
- Cool, there's just like two
rooms I don't want people in,
but apart from that-
- A bucket of water in one.
- [Siobhan] Okay, yeah, I
can only do the dog in one.
- A bucket with cottage cheese?
- Well, I mean, it's one action,
and then it's duration eight hours
and it's not concentration,
so I guess technically
I could do it in two rooms.
- Perfect.
- So you are planning
for the party that week.
So, classes start up. You
start taking artificer classes.
Jesus, are they challenging.
Wizard classes are hard
'cause you're down equipment,
so you're having to make do
with not the material components you need.
- I'm borrowing from the
other wizard students.
- Fig, you jump into barbarian classes,
and I guess maybe to Gorgug's chagrin,
keep getting positive
feedback from Porter.
I want everyone to see. This
is her first barbarian class.
- I'm lifting a boulder.
- Gorgug, not while I'm talking.
We also have campaign manager,
president, and party advisor.
Kristen, you have a campaign w*r room.
- Yes, everybody gets a message
to meet me out in the
forest behind Aguefort.
- Hello? Hello?
- I'm there in a second.
- Hello. Welcome, everybody.
- I'm doing a perimeter
check. Don't worry.
- Okay, I'm at work, but I have my crystal
set up on the counter.
- Okay, great.
- No one was watching that side,
and I just walked right in.
- You're bringing everyone to the woods?
- [Emily] I tackle Gorgug.
- Yeah, everyone to the woods.
- What do you want with the president?
What do you want with the president?
- To say hello!
- So Kristen, you've
assembled a team here.
I'm also gonna say, we
established last year
that Kristen was involved with
the LGBT student alliance.
- Oh, yes.
- [Brennan] So Torek
Railgrinder is also here
with a dwarven button press, pressing-
- So tight. All right,
everyone, come in with me.
I'm gonna use a spell
slot every single day
and cast Leomund's Tiny Hut,
and this is our w*r room
so we can all be inside here,
but we can also look out
and see what's going on in the forest.
- [Brennan] Cool.
- Stand behind Kristen.
- We need some pollsters.
So if anyone knows someone who'd be good-
- Pollsters? Like for polls?
- Yeah, go be out there polling.
I need to know what
people are caring about.
- Okay.
- I've got my agenda today.
- I can definitely do that.
- I've got to leave school early
and give a couple speeches.
I'm gonna be at the steelworkers guild,
and then I'm gonna swing
by the teachers union.
- I don't think they get to vote, Kristen.
- These people do not get to vote.
- Kristen, it's only the high school.
- All the clubs that I'm in-
- Every vote matters.
I will be cutting a
ribbon at the dealership,
and then I'm gonna come right
back here to this w*r room
to find out what you guys found out.
- Okay.
- I will pass out pamphlets and pins
to everyone in all the clubs that I'm in.
- I'll definitely survey people.
- This will be available every school day,
so just so you know,
you can come out here.
I don't have to be in it.
- Great.
- Up to nine people, though.
- And I just found out that,
I mean, I can't bring any strudel home,
but the sauce gets thrown
out at the end of the day,
so if anybody wants any-
- In a bag?
We could play slap bag at
the party with the sauce!
- Oh, great. I love that.
- Are we just gonna drink the sauce?
- You slap the bag first, but then yeah,
you drink the sauce.
- The sauce is really good.
They won't say what's in
it, but it's delicious.
- Do we think, should we
decide on what we're gonna do
to make Kristen a legend?
- For legend status?
- I'm thinking maybe ride the Hangman
off a roof or something.
- We could do something like that.
- Yeah!
- Wait, wait, wait.
- Maybe ride it into your pool.
- No, no, no.
- Ride the Hangman into a pool!
- No.
- Yes!
- You have to think about
Kristen's Dexterity.
- Don't worry, the
Hangman does everything.
- Exactly.
- He's a sentient motorcycle.
- I'll just be there eating shrimp on top.
- Exactly!
- I could make you a helmet.
- I would love that.
- Perfect.
- Can you have a streamer coming
off the back of the helmet?
- Ultimate shrimp party!
Ultimate shrimp party, okay?
We dress the Hangman up like a shrimp,
and we put a bunch of tartar sauce.
We fill the pool with tartar sauce.
- Yes, yes, and I go, anyone for a dip?
[Ally mimics engine revving]
- I don't see how this goes wrong!
- Me neither!
- I really love it.
- It's foolproof.
- I can get the tartar sauce.
- You're on security.
- Fabian, your crystal is blowing up.
- Yes, hello? What's up?
- Mazey is like, is it cool
if some Hudol kids come by?
- f*ck yes. Bring 'em on over.
- Okay, are you sure? 'Cause
there's a lot of them.
- Tell them about the shrimp jump!
- How many?
- Have them bring a little
bit of tartar sauce each.
- It breached the
containment, so it's like,
there's 20 I know of,
but I think it got out.
- Well, tell all those
m*therf*ckers to bring a friend!
You're gonna be a f*cking legend.
- Yes, I am!
- You should invite the
steelworkers union, too.
- I will, I'll invite
the teachers as well,
and everyone at the dealership.
- Don't invite the teachers!
- Torek looks up and says,
a lot of the skaters up
from Durinson Mithril,
there's skaters all over town.
We could go to the skate park.
- Yes!
- Yes!
- Wait, can you all build
a ramp off the roof onto-
- Yes, can we?
- The great ramp of Marak-Bier.
A ramp forged in the dark
recesses of the underworld.
My fathers and my fathers'
fathers built a great ramp,
and this ramp shall dwarf their ramp!
And by dwarf, I both
mean the double meaning-
- Very good. See, now that,
we should put on a button.
- That, yes.
- Ragh calls the phone.
- Yes? What's going on, Ragh?
- What's up? Crab king coming in hot.
- Hey-o!
- Hey, listen.
They're trying to get rid
of a bunch of Goldschlager.
You know, that's the liquor
that has flecks of gold in it.
- Wait, that's good!
- It's discounted?
- It's discount, premium,
'cause it got real hot in the back room.
- Hey, all right. I gave
you my credit card, right?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much is on here?
- m*therf*cker, don't ask.
m*therf*cker, just buy!
- Ooh, nasty boy!
- Nasty boy!
- Wait, wait, wait, wait!
Can we filter out the gold?
- For you?
- Yes!
- Fine, yes.
- Thank you!
- Pour it all through some cheesecloth.
- I'll do it.
- And then I'd like to be on
whatever the fantasy version of Yelp is,
just looking for some dudes who do septic
to f*cking come and suck all
of the water out of my pool,
while at the same time
looking for a catering company
that can get me 500
gallons of tartar sauce.
- Cornichons, not pickles, okay?
You can tell when it was a pickle.
- Give me an Investigation check.
- Okay, great.
- Little shrimp jump!
That's so stupid.
- That's a 19.
- Hell yeah. You find a company
that can do it no problem.
They're like, pool full of tartar sauce?
Yeah, we can get that there.
- Great, fantastic.
- All right, great, and
we've got to get the water
drained out, so we'll just
get that into the storm drain.
- Yes, that's perfect.
Just throw that right out.
Hey, and do you have any
high school aged children?
- What's that?
- Do you have any-
- For sale?
- No, no, no, no!
- Or just out of high
school. There's a window.
- Do you have any-
- Honestly, cool middle schoolers.
- Children that you have?
- Applebees is doing a shrimp jump!
- You see he says, I don't know...
And in the back, you hear what
sounds like a high school kid
be like, "Kristen Applebees
is doing a shrimp jump?"
- She's doing a shrimp jump!
She's doing a shrimp jump!
- [Brennan] Click.
- I'm doing pushups to get ready.
- I have a thing around your head,
trying to measure your head.
- Do you think the Hangman
is gonna let you dress him as a shrimp?
- Hangman?
- Sire!
- [Lou] We're gonna dress
you like a little shrimp,
and Kristen's gonna ride
you off the top of the roof
off an ancestral ramp,
and then into a pool full of tartar sauce.
- What?
- Come on, man! Come on!
- I love you. I will do it if you ask.
- Okay, well, don't be
like that, all right? Hey.
- Wait, I'm gonna do it for you,
but I also need to be excited about it?
- You don't have to be over the moon,
but I don't wanna feel
like I'm making you do it.
- All right.
- Has your butt ever itched for no reason?
- What is that? What is
she saying back there?
- She's saying her butt itches.
- Don't make her sit on
me! She has to sit on me!
- Well, you're gonna be
dressed like a little shrimp!
- I can't figure it out.
- Tell her to shower day of.
- Have you tried anything
to figure it out?
- No, but I mean-
- All right, well, yes.
- How often do you change your underwear?
- You find what you need
inside to want this.
- They don't sell
costumes for motorcycles.
- Well, we're gonna make one.
- We're gonna make one.
- Torek says,
you need me to make a
costume for a motorcycle?
- [Lou] Yeah, a little shrimp costume.
- I work in the theater
department. I'll get back there.
- Hell yes!
- A well-oiled machine, everybody.
- You get everything together,
and f*ck it, Friday rolls around.
- Thanks, guys.
- Friday, you have extra classes,
and Gorthalax scheduled
an Owlbears practice,
so you're gonna have like
Question, do you dip from practice
to get extra time to set up
for the shrimp party or not?
- Gorgug, one of us has
to go back to my house
and set up for the shrimp party.
We can't both go to practice.
- Okay.
I can help set up.
- Obviously by presenting
this situation, I was the one-
- I didn't know that was obvious!
Okay, fine, I'll stay here.
- Just tell them I was sick or something.
- I don't know, where do
keep the shrimp and stuff?
I guess yeah, you're right.
- Exactly, you don't
know where the shrimp is.
- Fabian chooses the
party over the Owlbears.
Fabian, you head home.
For the president's detail,
so security, campaign
manager and president,
what are you doing that day
to prepare as you're getting ready?
- I've got eyes on my president.
[presidential music]
- Everyone here makes steel,
and I think that's wonderful.
- I'm scanning the audience.
- You are in the lobby
of a steelworkers plant
and the receptionist is looking up.
- I think that's beautiful.
- Excuse me, miss. Can I shake you down?
- What?
- Can I shake you down?
- I need to shake you down.
- [Ally] Not pat you down?
- Are you saying pat me down?
- [Emily] [laughing] I prefer-
- Get out of here!
- Get out of here?
- You're kids! Get out of here!
- I'm so sorry. Let me
take my sunglasses off.
I'm Kristen Applebees.
I'm here to give a speech
to the amazing workers here.
- Look. For what?
What are you giving a
speech to our workers about?
- I'm a local candidate.
- For what?
- I'm running for president.
- Of the town?
- Yes.
- Riz rushes in,
having not realized that
they were coming here.
- I'm sorry, I'm just here
to speak to the steelworkers?
- I'm sorry, but your attitude
is harming the president.
I tackle her.
[presidential music continues]
- You tackle her! Make
an opposed Athletics.
- I run back to where the
steelworkers are working
with my note cards
- Make a Dexterity saving throw.
- I got a 21 on my Athletics.
- Dexterity?
- That's a five.
- A five.
You sprint through a pair of double doors,
and an active buzzsaw clips
the side of your head.
[Ally screams in agony]
- Kristen!
- Don't run in a f*cking factory!
Don't run in a f*cking
factory! The doors swing open.
- We've been compromised!
- My president!
- The doors swing open, and an
aarakocra in a suit walks in.
[instrumental ends]
I'm looking for a young
woman named Wanda Childa.
- Last I saw her, she got
on a train to the Red Waste.
- Give me a Deception check.
- I'll give you the Help action.
- That is a 25,
and I'm gonna Cutting Words
whatever his Insight was.
Two less.
- A train for the Red Waste?
- Yeah.
- One way ticket.
- You saw the ticket that she bought?
- Uh-huh.
- She had a lot of regret in her eyes.
- She was a freakin' turncoat, man.
- Thank you for your help.
He turns and walks out.
- Well, our job here is done!
- I heal myself.
- I try to get Kristen up.
- I had the receptionist in
a headlock the whole time.
- Get out of here, and thank
you for saving the world! Go!
- Can I just leave my talking
points? Okay, we leave.
- They don't vote in this election!
- You do that,
and as you're getting
ready for this big party
where you're going to
announce your candidacy,
you get the message from
Jawbone, all three of you.
Actually, Fabian too gets this, saying,
good luck, President Applebees committee.
Paperwork came through.
You're all good to run.
- All right.
- And then Mazey says,
see you tonight at the party.
I have to stay impartial, but winky face.
- Does it sound like Milkyriver is...
Meredith...
- Kipperlilly.
- Kipperlilly!
- Milkyriver?
- Does it sound like Biscuit
is also going to announce her run soon?
Do they have their eyes on that at all,
or has she already at school this week?
Has she beat me to it?
- You get a thing back
from Jawbone saying,
can't weight in on other
students' candidacies.
Sorry, pal.
- I feel like they're gonna
try and come to this party.
[Siobhan gasps]
- Which is fine.
- They haven't been invited, though.
- Well, I think everyone's invited.
- I think we invited everyone
and said bring friends.
- As the day is winding down,
you're getting ready to go,
Fabian, you dip out
before Owlbears practice.
Adaine, you get an email on your crystal.
Friday is when the new schedule comes out.
You're scheduled for tonight
at Oodles of Strudel.
- I'll be there! And then another text.
When do I get paid?
- No response.
- Ha ha, JK. I'll be there.
- You head to Oodles of Strudel.
- I text Fabian on the way.
Had to work. Be there
later, ha ha. Have fun.
- No response.
- Adaine, you also know that
your shifts are eight hours.
- Well, yeah, but the
party's gonna be going
for a while, though, right?
- We'll see.
- No response.
- I text the rest of the Bad
Kids. Is Fabian mad at me?
- Seacaster Manor.
Night is falling, and the lights are set.
Ragh rolls up with kegs and bottles.
Seacaster Manor, sound system is ready.
Torek has the ramp ready,
that attaches to the roof.
She's been building it all day.
Everything is set up for
the ultimate shrimp party.
Adaine, nowhere to be found.
Adaine, you are in the wizards' synod.
You have a little paper hat on,
the smell of the sugary sweet
strudel sauce behind you.
A wizard comes up.
- Hi, welcome to Oodles of Strudel.
- I'd like some strudel.
- Great, yeah.
Would you like sauce with that?
- Yes, please.
- Great.
- Thank you.
- Here we go.
How are you? Are you enjoying your time-
- Walks away.
- ...at the mall? Okay.
- A familiar voice says,
I'd like a strudel.
You see Kalina standing there.
[Lou gasps]
- Oh.
Oh, hi. how are you?
- [Brennan] She has assumed
her humanoid form now.
- Can you eat strudel?
- Hm?
- I thought you were, you know...
- It's not for me.
- Yeah, yeah, no, sorry.
I actually shouldn't say that.
There's lots of incorporeal
people here in the synod anyway,
and if they want strudel,
that's on them, you know?
- I didn't say that I wanted sauce.
- Do you want sauce?
- Well, you've made it with sauce.
- I can make you a new one.
- What happens to that
one? You just throw it out?
- Yeah, or sometimes I just eat them.
- That's a lot of strudel.
- I eat a lot of strudel now, yeah.
Honestly, I've been here less than a week,
and I'm already a little sick of strudel.
There's only one flavor of strudel.
- You look over her shoulder
and see Cassandra standing,
looking around and handing
pamphlets to wizards that pass by
being like, "Hello, I'm the
goddess of mystery and doubt,
and if solving the mystery of magic is...
Hello, I'm the goddess
of mystery and doubt."
- Isn't Kristen supposed to be doing that?
- Kalina looks over and says,
"Yeah, isn't Kristen on her way?"
- Actually, I don't know if
Kristen can get here without me.
- Would you mind running and grabbing her?
- I'm at work, actually.
It's really important that
I just stay right here.
Strudel, no sauce. Here you go.
- We said in our last meeting
that we were doing this this weekend.
- Oh yeah, I don't, I'm not a part of-
- Yeah, all right, I get it.
You're working at the strudel stand.
- Yeah, and I'm not, like,
I mean, I don't work for Cassandra.
- Kalina walks away,
leaving the strudel here.
- Good luck!
- And goes and talks to Cassandra.
Kristen, as you arrive at Seacaster Manor,
you hear in your mind,
Kristen, so we got started
with pamphleting at the synod.
Are you on your way?
- Oh, I thought I was
doing the corporeal world,
and you two were doing
that with Kalina's ideas.
- Well yeah, I thought you
were doing the corporeal world
this whole week, but this plan... [sighs]
I don't know, I just thought...
Yeah, we can just do it ourselves.
- I'm going to show you a vision
of how many people are
about to be at this party.
I'm really gonna make
headway with a lot of people.
- Oh, show me!
- Well, they're not here
yet, but in a little while,
when everyone shows up,
please look through my eyes.
- Let me see the space.
- Yeah, definitely. I show.
- You look through.
So you're gonna get some
converts to this religion
by throwing the ultimate shrimp party?
- Yes.
- Massive letters.
- Yes.
I'm going to become
student body president.
Through that influence,
I'm also gonna let
people know about doubt,
and it's gonna be incredible.
The numbers are on our side,
people not even from my school
are gonna be at this party.
- Kristen, I...
[Brennan screaming in pain]
You see that there is
a shatter of red light
through Cassandra's chest.
Adaine, you see it physically.
Collapses to the ground.
- Can I run over? Somebody call a medic?
- The vision stops.
Kalina rushes over to
the body alongside you.
Cassandra... [groaning]
- Is anybody good at god medicine?
- You see Kalina says,
"You have to get Kristen here right now."
- Oh god. Kristen!
- That image has gone.
Your crystal works here.
- Okay, Kristen, Cassandra just collapsed.
WTF? She says you need
to be here right now.
- We could get Fig to
do the jump as Kristen.
- I can disguise myself as you.
- Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah.
- You can be a little shrimp.
- I can be a little shrimp.
I'll be a little shrimp.
- As you do that,
you see that there are
several wizards around.
Cassandra... [groaning in agony]
This isn't fair!
And the red spreads
through her body even more,
and there is a splash of indigo blood
coming from the front of her chest
as a razor-sharp flickering
star of red light
emerges from her chest. [groaning]
The red light sails out, and
you see there is a wizard
who's sitting with a number of soft tacos
on a plastic tray in front of him.
You see he goes, "What in
the devil is that thing?"
It approaches, floats towards his face,
and disappears into
his mouth and nostrils,
sort of shredding them.
[Brennan roaring furiously]
His robes rip as he becomes
incredibly musclebound.
[Brennan growling bestially]
A wizard next to him says,
"Eustace, what the devil is happening?"
And he picks up his quarterstaff
and kills his friend by
smashing his skull open.
Adaine, what do you do?
- I guess, using the key to the synod,
I blink to where Kristen
is and then blink back.
- All of you, as Adaine appears
through this open doorway,
see what I have described.
You see Cassandra. You
see the red in her chest.
[Brennan screams]
All of you see Kalina looking horrified.
You see three more of these
fractured glass crystal
red light shards move from her chest.
A centaur wizard says,
"Everyone stay away!
You, I banish you to the..." [gasps]
[Brennan roars]
Veins pop out on the side of his neck.
All of you see this as the first cars
are pulling up to the party.
- Fabian, if we can't host a party,
let's burn your house down.
- What? No!
What? Absolutely not! Absolutely not!
- We have to go to this place!
- You f*cking go to this place!
I'm gonna throw this f*cking party!
- We have to go!
- The portal flickers and shimmers.
Normally, you can only get
into the synod yourself.
However, because you are an employee
and sometimes need to
bring boxes of goods here,
they've given you a key to the synod
that can bring some people with it.
This portal is about to close.
- Am I there yet?
- Yes, you walk up.
I think you're the first
person to get here,
right as all this is happening.
All of you need to make a decision.
Something absolutely insane is happening
in the wizards' synod,
in the Synod of Spyre.
Cassandra is on all fours,
and she is growing larger,
and the red light is growing,
and Kalina looks horrified.
- Guys, I think the Nightmare King
is literally coming back right now!
- We can party later.
- I'm going there.
The question is, I cast
Armor of Ayda on myself,
if we wanna save face, we
need to burn your house down.
- We're not burning my house
down! Stop saying it out loud!
- Then people will think
that we did have a party!
- It's still pretty legendary
to just open your door
and let people go in the house!
- How do I go maximum legend
if I only threw one party,
and it never happened
because my house burned down?
- The burning house was not my idea!
- Sorry, going to a cooler party.
- Portal is closing in five, four-
- Bless, Bless, Bless!
- ...three, two-
- I go into a rage!
- One.
Everyone jumps through the portal?
- Yes!
- Whoosh! I need everyone
here to roll initiative.
And that's all for this episode
of "Dimension 20: Fantasy
High Junior Year."
Tune in next week as a party is abandoned
in favor of saving the
goddess of mystery and doubt.
See you at Basrar's!
All of you appear here on the b*ttlefield
in the brand new wizards' synod mall.
- Wizards of the mall!
Have you ever wanted to
beat the sh*t out of a jock
who made fun of you in high school?
- Unanimously, yes!
[Brennan growling]
- Abjurative grammar is prescriptive!
- What?
[Brennan roars]
- He said abjurative
grammar is prescriptive.
- What?
- I can't explain. If you
don't get it, you don't get it.
- I have always loved you!
Wait, how old are you?
- 45!
- Oh, gross!
- What?
- Gross?
- Gross?
- Face sunken, eyepatch,
sort of patchy white hair,
dentures fall out of your own face.
I never got to be a maximum legend.
- We have to go now!
Let's wrap this sh*t up!
- Maximum legend!
- Can I ask you a question?
Do I suck?
- You? No!
- I suck!
- No! You? No!
- Cloaca!
- [Siobhan] What's her tail doing?
- [Brennan] Tail is
twitching from the very base.
- Okay. Kalina's stressed out.
- Does she need scratchies?
- Ooh, you don't know cats.
- I think we're beyond scratchies.
- Hey, kid.
Sticking up for me,
just like your old man.
Time for a little bit of mystery.
How are they back here?
I thought you were dead.
- I think this is someone
else's fault and not mine!
- She is at my side
once more.
I am coming for you,
and when I find you,
I will break you in a way
that none who loved you
will recognize the ruin I have wrought.
I don't feel good.
I don't feel good about what you've done.
I'm not happy, Kristen!
- [Lou] Are you about
to blow the world up?
- His tongue just went out.
- No, put your f*cking
tongue back! Girlie!
Come on, girlie. One more roll, come on.
- He's gonna blow up the world.
He's gonna blow up the world.
- Please get back!
Boom!
♪ T-T-T-Taking over, teenage rebellion ♪
♪ No more fantasizing about it ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, let's go ♪
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21x04 - Under Pressure
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A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.
A tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout and created and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master.