- Content warning.
This episode contains a flashback scene
where a Player Character's
childhood of neglect,
trauma and physical abuse is portrayed.
The scene is roughly 14 minutes long,
running from approximately
five minutes to 19 minutes.
Welcome, one and all,
to the penultimate episode
of "A Crown of Candy".
I'm your humble dungeon
master, Brennan Lee Mulligan
with me as always, are
our intrepid heroes.
Say hi, intrepid heroes!
- Hi, intrepid heroes.
- Last we left our heroes,
they were descending from the mountain
of the Ice Cream Temple,
far in the reaches of the
Great Stone Candy Mountains.
They had learned of a terrible conspiracy
by the devious Lord Cruller
to assemble your family's
greatest villains
to broker an unholy
alliance of all the forces
bent on the destruction of your family,
your people, and your homeland.
Appeasing the desire for crusade
by the Pontifex Belizabeth Brassica,
the desire for conquest by the
Imperator Ciabatta of Ceresia
and the desire for presiding over
whatever the new Concord shall be
from the Lady Plumbeline Uvano.
Calroy Cruller, defacto ruler of Candia
in the absence of its royal court
and Marquis of Muffinfield,
announced his desire to be baptized,
to welcome the Crusade of people coming
to slaughter those remaining
devotees of the Sweetening Path
and destroy the holy places of Candia,
and welcome the conquest
of Imperator Ciabatta.
A meeting of these great forces
to occur in neutral ground,
neither in Vegetania,
Fructera, nor Ceresia,
but in Calroy's held and
occupied Castle Candy.
You all having rescued
the Duke Joren Jawbreaker,
have provided a potential
to slow the machinations of w*r
and give Candia just
enough time to save itself
by recognizing Saccharina Frostwhip
as queen and sovereign ruler of Candia.
Journeying to the Ice Cream Temple
in the far northern mountains,
you found the Sugar-Plum Fairy.
The greatest and most powerful spirit
of the Sweetening Path left in Candia.
Whose mystical ambitions
had been a part of your life
ever since her first
meeting with Lapin Cadbury
many years before.
Finally reaching the Ice Cream Temple,
you discovered that her
offer to reunite you
with those you had lost
and to save Candia,
was an offer to journey into mist,
to turn your back on the world of Calorum,
to live in a sickly sweet
paradise, beyond dreaming,
and to belong to the Sugar-Plum Fairy.
- Was this an opioid epidemic homage?
- This whole season is an
allegory for the opioid epidemic.
- Yeah, I think, great. Okay, cool.
- Wow, meaningful.
- Wow, deep.
- No.
- Oh!
- Deep.
Oh.
- After pitched combat in a giant chamber,
discovering the Armory,
a secret library of lost Candian lore,
and the Dracoria Azucar
which was heated with fire
and hatched by the queen Saccharina-
- So cute, oh cute!
- Ruby of the House of Rocks
plunged her sister's sword
into the heart of the Sugar-Plum Fairy,
destroying her forever,
banishing the mist and the
illusions of this place
and revealing a hoard of Candian weaponry.
Words were shared
and Saccharina descends the mountain
flanked by her loyal followers.
Gooey's hand touches your back
and as you descend the mountain
ahead of the rest of
the Candians behind you,
the wind kicks up.
Snow flurries around you,
and you remember another cold night,
a very long time ago.
The year is 1196.
It is Frostdawn, it's
the 15th day of Frostdawn
and High Frosting's Eve is approaching.
It is a freezing cold,
snow covered island,
in the Dairy Sea, at the
Abbey of the Shimmering Cream.
A five year old Saccharina
is looking out of a window
at the sea under the starlight.
What's Saccharina looking
for out on the sea?
- I think she's looking for
the boat that her mom is gonna come back
and pick her back up,
because she's gonna
realize it was a mistake
to have abandoned her.
- The door of this room is locked,
you're wearing a common peasant's shift,
sort of formless, austere dress.
There's a small crust of cheese
on a plate in the corner,
and the other children,
mostly orphans or runaways or peasantry
that have had to give their children up
for one reason or another.
A w*r is going on so
a lot of lost children
have found their way to the abbey.
They are kept far away from you.
And you are in a part of the abbey
where you cannot be close to them.
The door opens and one of the nuns,
peering down at you severely, says,
away from the window child, this way.
The Mother Superior will see you.
- I obey because I know what
disobedience will get me.
- You are brought down the hallway.
As you walk, you go through
one of the abbey's central halls,
and this is a poor abbey
but there is some at least
decoration in this place
and you see one of the
shinning plates up on the wall
to cast some of the torchlight.
You see a reflection and
a dark indigo, blue Candian
woman with kind eyes
gazes at you out of the reflection.
You don't know her
but you see that she says to you,
it's alright.
Stay.
Believe.
The world is dark and dangerous,
but there are forces other than wickedness
at work in this world.
- Is it wrong what I can do?
Am I wrong?
- No, it is not wrong.
No matter who tells you
that, or how many times,
it is not wrong.
I cannot help you in this world anymore
but I am trying as
and you are walked past the mirror
and you are brought to a dimly lit office
where a tall, imperious
looking woman of many years,
the Mother Superior of the abbey,
the Mother Superior Edam, looks at you,
gazes down, stands up,
and takes a long, razor
sharp, cheddar switch
from an old cheddar
tree out back and says,
right there, Saccharina.
Some of the other children at mealtime
were doing as small
children do, I suppose,
and talking out of turn about
fairytales and the like.
One of them mentioned that
you said you could see a woman
all in blue in the
mirror, speaking to you.
- It was a lie.
I was just trying to get attention
from the other children.
That's what children do, children lie.
- The switch catches you across the face
and she says, lying is a sin, girl.
And it's what you just
did in saying that to me.
Sit in the chair now.
You are strapped into a wooden
chair with leather bindings
and you see that she faces
you and hunches down and says,
you're a wicked girl,
and I think unlike most of
the chatterings of children,
that these little stories
might be more than false.
Do you see eyes in the mirror, girl?
- Doesn't everyone see eyes in the mirror?
- She scowls furiously and says,
all the cleverness in the
world won't make you strong,
and it won't make you big.
The Bulb above knows best.
- Is that what you wish for me? Strength?
Is that why you do what you do?
- I wish for obedience
and silence.
You see that she bends the switch.
What does the woman in
the mirror say to you?
- There's no answer that
won't get me lashed so...
She says that
I don't have to hide.
That I'm actually not
only good the way I am,
but I'm actually great the way I am.
- She goes near the
roaring fire in the corner,
opens up a small, modestly
decorated gilded box
and takes a holy sign
of the Bulb out of it
and tosses the holy symbol
so that it is resting in
the embers of the fire.
You see that in the
underside of the now open box
there is a small reflective
surface of polished metal.
And you see the woman
look, the eyes staring out.
And the surface is not large enough
to show the whole face
but you see the eyes
looking at you saying,
you are perfect the way you are.
You are lost for the moment
but that does not mean
you will be lost forever.
There are people in
the world who love you,
and they will see that this suffering
will not have happened in vain.
Misfortune has befallen
you more than your share,
but it will be made right, I promise, I...
You see her eyes dart to the right
as the Mother Superior picks
the now burning red emblem up
and says, the Hungry One
works in mysterious ways
and takes whatever form he wishes.
And it sounds like exactly
the type of thing he'd say,
to find a young, strident, impudent sinner
and tell her that she was in
any way acceptable or worthy.
- You can do whatever you want to my body,
because what I can do
barely even needs a body.
- You think I'm about to
do something to your body?
Simply a vessel of the flesh.
I'm here to cleanse your soul.
And she pushes the holy
symbol onto your chest,
it burns through the cloth of your shift
and you are filled with
incredible blinding pain,
a child being burned in
the center of their chest
by this holy symbol.
In the blinding flash of light,
you can feel yourself
ejecting from the horror
of this own experience and
in this space of liminal,
outside of your own body pain
and mindless fear and confusion,
you see the woman in blue,
long robes behind her,
flecked with purple and indigo,
her golden eyes reaching
out and flickering,
reaching a hand out to you,
almost being blown away by the light.
And she screams, her voice
chopping and disappearing,
my hand, hold my hand, hold my hand!
- I hold her hand,
I hold her hand!
- Saccharina!
- I hold her hand!
No!
- The hand vanishes
and the connection is severed
as you are back in your body,
the Mother Superior standing over you.
No reflection waits for you
in the cold metal.
Mother Superior looks at you and says,
I will burn the Hungry One out of you
as many times as I need to.
It is not of this world or the Bulb above
that the water washes upon your feet
and that the sea seems to hear your call.
What you wield is sin.
- It was good.
What you took away from me, it was good.
- She lashes the switch
across you and says,
get her back to her room.
She'll have no breakfast on the morrow.
After your prayers, if I
believe the words of them,
you'll have earned your food.
As you are being led away by the sister,
she calls to you at the door and says,
what are you gazing
across the sea for, girl?
What do you think is
waiting out there for you?
- Why can't you let me have one privacy?
- Because in the dark
secrets of your heart,
I know the Hungry One is waiting.
When the children bully you in the yard
and you turn to look at them,
your voice rolls like thunder
and there is something dark in you
that I will drive out.
I'm only trying to save you.
And it is me that will save you
and not your sweet father,
the Prince of Candia.
Do you truly believe that story, girl,
or is that just you
telling schoolyard lies?
- My father is Amethar of House Rocks,
I am Saccharina Rocks.
When the people of Candia find me
and find what you have done to me,
you will wish you believed me.
- And how will this
prince in his tall castle
know that you are here?
Do you think he wants you?
Do you think anyone wants you?
Not even your own mother wanted you.
- She...
She did want me.
She just...
She just was very, very scared.
She thought she was protecting me.
- She was protecting herself
and her people from what's within you.
She sent you here because you're a danger.
To the world, to all the
good folk under the Bulb.
Your father, like as not,
is some no account Candian sailor,
telling stories to bed a young milk maid
in her licentious youth.
- If my father is nobody,
then how can I speak to the wind?
Then how can I walk out into the ocean
and have the water do my bidding?
If my father is nobody,
why are you so scared of me?
- Take her back to her room.
You descend the mountain,
the crown on your head.
Your sword's at your side,
the Winterscoop in your hand.
Nobody in all of Calorum
will ever be able to hurt you again.
And Cinnamon,
wraps around your neck.
It feels warm.
- That's right, baby.
- Ruby, you're standing
at the top of the steps.
- So anyway, I was like,
she can be my sister or
my queen, but not both,
and I feel good about that.
I feel like it was a good, noble choice
that I made her make.
- Ruby's standing at
the top of the stairs.
You watch Saccharina and her marauders
and her sweet baby
dragon descend the steps.
What's Ruby going to do?
- I'm gonna go find my dad, I think.
I would also like to check out the library
and see if I can find anything
that will help us against,
I mean, basically, can
help me k*ll Ciabatta.
- Cool.
You walk back onto the steps.
For those that were on the platform,
I think it's just Theo,
Cumulous and Amethar,
you're still looking in the chamber,
the mist has all cleared at this point.
Liam has scooted down to explore.
- Yeah.
Big mistake.
- Oh no!
- Big mistake.
- Fingers crossed for a second dragon.
- Fingers crossed.
- I mean, how cute is this? We need two.
- A little one and a big one.
- What are Cumulous, Amethar and Theo,
or I guess Theo, you actually
walked away from Amethar.
- Yeah, I think I kinda-
- Cumulous did too.
- So Cumulous, so Amethar,
Theo says his words.
- Yeah, I'm just standing there looking.
- In the halls of the
Ice Cream Temple, Ruby,
you pass Theo and Cumulous who are exiting
in that little pronged room of hallways
with the one going right
and the one going left
to the Armory, you see Theo and Cumulous
descending the stairs.
- I don't say anything to them.
- You walk up, you guys are
walking after Saccharina?
- Mhmm.
- Cool.
You guys look at this incredible victory.
The Queen of Candia with her Winterscoop
has opened this place
and now Candia has the best
fighting chance it's had
in your lifetimes.
You descend the steps silently,
or I guess you say whatever you wanna say,
but the two members of this party
that are brothers in arms
and sworn to the service of this family
and not of this family,
descend the steps together.
- I think Theo's just,
instantly down to business
and I think I'll talk to Cumulous
and Saccharina and stuff
and just start coordinating
how we get these weapons
and everything to the troops and all that.
- Yes, I think we should definitely.
Cumulous, I mean,
would you consider going in and just,
finding every magical item in there?
- Look.
It may be difficult for me.
Have you ever heard of choice paralysis?
- Could we consider this
a new base of operations,
or is this gonna be too
far from everything?
- Wow.
Yes, that sounds great.
I don't have much interest
in actually occupying the Castle of Candy.
- Oh, I just meant until,
just for our troops just to get
all the weapons and everything.
- Yeah, I like that.
- Sounds good.
- Ruby, you ascend the stairs
and are at the edge of the platform,
looking at the Tower of Ice Cream
where Amethar is standing.
- How...
How you do you...
How does peace happen?
How do you live once
this has happened to you?
I don't understand how
peace works when w*r...
- I feel like I'm the worst
person to answer that question.
I'm a w*r guy, through and through.
I spent the last couple years
just going through the motions.
- Well.
I love you, dad.
- I love you, Ruby.
I give a side hug.
- You guys stand at the
platform looking out,
you can't see Liam anymore.
- Liam?
- Liam.
- Liam, stop hiding.
Liam, you are falling
through endless fire and red-
- What?
- What?
- Swirling red, you
smell cinnamon and smoke
and hot chocolate.
The cold peppermint of your body,
you can see is slowly disintegrating
and little swirls of red and white
are peeling off of your
arms and legs as you fall,
and you hear a voice.
It's like you're falling down,
but you're also sh**ting into something.
And you hear.
- I'm being eaten?
- You...
The pain you feel,
you feel incredible pain,
that disturbs you so deeply
because it's also ecstatic,
because you know, deep down,
that you taste good.
- The Hungry One has eaten me?
- You
but a hand was grabbing you
and you look down and see the hand.
This hand on your chest,
that's pulling you in,
has been on your chest before.
You are in a
disintegrating library
as the hand rips you into it.
The space you are in is
a ruins or something.
It looks like it's part of
the Ice Cream Temple maybe,
but that it was an
illusory part or something,
there is ice cream stone around,
but the stone has become reddened
and covered in cinnamon ash,
and is slowly just disintegrating.
You see the stone is just.
So you're in a ruin that is flying away.
Stones will rumble a little bit
and then just fly up into
nothingness.
As this sort of comes apart
in this other-planar realm.
And I may have misspoken.
It's not a hand on your chest
so much as it is a paw.
- Hello, Liam.
- What?
Get off of me!
- I'm sorry I grabbed you
by the throat earlier.
- That was crazy!
- It was a little bit of a
stronger move than I meant.
I'm not mad at you.
- Lapin!
- Lapin is standing in front of you
and is partially.
Lapin is disintegrating as well,
but as his own chocolate and tinfoil
comes off of it, it doesn't leave.
It looks like he is disintegrating,
but it's not diminishing him at all.
He keeps replacing and
replenishing himself
even in this space of things going away.
He also is not,
he is partially this
swirling red cinnamon energy,
but there's something deep and purple
and magical about him as well.
And you see that
the edges of him are very opaque,
he's here, he grabbed you,
but his center becomes translucent,
and you see three spinning eggs of magic
wrapped in bright green and yellow
and purple tinfoil.
As three little wishes circle around
in his translucent chest.
- How are you?
- What is going on?
- Oh.
When you came down here,
I guess I'm here just
to pack up, so to speak.
- What do you mean?
- I have to take these
things to the Hungry One.
- Whoa.
- And I think Lapin picks up
some kind of magical artifact.
- You see that there are some scrolls
on a weird sort of stone
altar and some candles.
And as Lapin extends his paw to them,
you realize that these scrolls and candles
are symbols, manifestations of dreams,
memories, stories, wishes, prayers,
and they just curl up in his hand
and he deposits them as motes of light
into a small scroll case at his side.
- But I've been feeling the Hungry One,
I've been seeing visions
that smell and sound just like this.
What's going on?
- Liam, this place is disappearing.
When Ruby k*lled the Sugar-Plum Fairy,
it undid the illusion of this place.
- Okay.
- This, quote unquote, afterlife
that King Amethar's sisters
and Jet and I were all in,
is not truly an afterlife.
It's sort of this sick dream
of the Sugar-Plum Fairy.
- Oh.
- And so we all have had
to go to the Hungry One.
And so-
- Is that a bad thing?
- Not necessarily.
- Would we still be able to contact you
and Lazuli and-
- I don't think so.
- Jet?
- They're already gone.
- Oh.
- And I'm just,
well, we're bringing up the rear.
- Me? Oh.
- And Preston leaps into your arms.
- Oh! My baby boy, my sweet boy!
You look so good, you got a haircut?
- I gave him a little haircut.
- That's so cute, you gave him a haircut!
- He won't stop following me
around for some reason and-
- You see Preston blast out of your arms,
and goes and flies and
nuzzles Lapin's head,
leaves a little wet pig snout.
- You love it.
- Oh, I do love it.
- You love it!
- No, I don't love it.
- Lapin, have you been watching?
Are you able to see what's
going on in our world?
- We can see, we were able to see, but-
- We're f*cked, what are we gonna do?
I'm gonna get that carrot,
I'm gonna f*cking ruin that carrot.
I'm a w*r guy now,
and at first I was just happy
I was good at something,
but now, it's all I think about.
And I just wanna get better and better
at k*lling bad people.
- Well, I do not like that carrot man.
I would very much like to.
But before he k*lled me,
I found some information.
- What?
- Before I could tell any
of you, I was struck down.
- Well, what was it?
- And that's why we're talking.
- You see that Preston snorts up at you
and wiggles his little corkscrew tail
and begins to ascend up to a
viewing balcony in this ruin.
- I guess I follow, Lapin follows Preston.
Come this way.
- Okay.
Are you gonna teach me something?
- I will tell you something.
- Cool.
- I don't know
if there's much time to teach, but.
- You arrive at this viewing balcony
and see yourself in this, indeed this,
now cinnamon and ash
covered dissolving castle.
And the realm around it
has already been consumed,
huge tracts of land
are just now empty void
being sucked up into this swirling,
red and black, all-consuming vortex.
And you see mirrored, or,
that is going up into the vortex,
but through the ground
there is another sky, upside down
and far away through the blackness,
you see a brilliant shining Bulb.
A beacon of pure light.
And you see this castle
constructed through magic
in the middle of these two things.
And you've heard about
the will of the Bulb
and the trickery of the Hungry One.
And you're looking at,
and forgive my sacrilege, two ba*ls.
There's a ball of light
and a ball of all-consuming darkness
and they're just two
really big, cosmic ba*ls.
The light
emitting from the Bulb,
and then everything being
sucked up into the Hungry One.
- So, the interpretations of the Bulb
and the Hungry One have
been very complicated.
And a lot of agency has been put on them
for as long as any of us have been alive.
But the truth is that they
are truly just light and dark.
One is creation and one is destruction.
They're just purely
forces, they're not alive.
They have no dog in the fight.
But because of that, the
church, Pontifex, whoever,
can attribute any meaning
to any of it with impunity.
- Yeah.
- So.
They don't care about any of this and...
What is going to happen,
what has always happened
is that the Hungry One
and the Bulb, both do what they do.
The Bulb creates, the Hungry One destroys.
So, without the Sugar-Plum Fairy,
the Sugar-Plum Fairy-
- Yeah?
- Is not...
They're not gods,
the Bulb and the Hungry One are not gods.
The Sugar-Plum Fairy is also not a god.
They're more like...
The Sugar-Plum Fairy
and the other magical
beings in this world,
they're all just more like living spells.
They're closer to mortals
than they are to anything else.
- Okay.
- So the Sugar-Plum Fairy is of the Bulb
and she was able to use
the power of the Bulb
to create this area we are now,
but without her, it's time for her to go.
- Whoa.
Okay.
So then what is the future of Candia?
If now we know that
these are just two energy sources,
but there's so much corruption
that's being used with them as the source.
- I don't know.
- Is it...
There's no way to get back the people
that everyone is so upset about losing.
We're going into some
huge battle at a house?
Is it worth k*lling even more and more?
Should I keep being a w*r guy?
I could still be a seed guy,
I just need a therapist.
- There's nothing wrong
with being a seed guy.
And I think that's when the ba*ls of light
that are hovering in Lapin come forth.
- You see that Preston flies up
and lands on Lapin's head and,
and coughs up the three
peppermint heart seeds,
and each one goes,
and spins around the wishes
coming from Lapin's chest.
And they stack vertically,
horizontally, into a triangle,
and begin to circle in that
triangle in front of you.
One of these raw glowing wishes
takes on a red hue with
a deep smell of cinnamon.
And sucks
in the light around it.
Another one takes on a
bright, golden, luminous hue.
And a third one is a
many colored, foil
wrapped, shimmering wish,
much like Lapin's robes.
- So.
One of these looks sort of like
the Sugar-Plum Fairy, right?
This is the Bulb, this is that energy,
this is the energy to create.
One of these is like the cinnamon dragon,
you know, the Hungry One,
so it has the energy to destroy.
And this third one-
- Yeah?
- Is something else.
It's the energy to change.
And I think that's what's
happening to this world,
is things are changing.
And that's what happens
when we leave this place.
The energy that is created by the Bulb
is also destroyed by the Hungry One,
and that cycle keeps continuing,
and I think that's not a bad thing.
So, the way that I can help you
is I can offer you one of these.
- I'll take that one.
- Which one?
- The change one.
- The change one?
Cool.
- Was it the right answer or wasn't it?
- It moves forward from Lapin
and you are holding a
part of Preston's heart,
a part of Lapin's soul,
all wrapped up in a wish,
and that wish becomes wrapped in a seed.
- Cool.
Not gonna plant this one.
No, no, no.
This is a collector's item.
So, nevermind.
- What's up?
- f*cking.
So people are so hellbent
on using their time alive
to either homage creation or destruction,
but wouldn't change be the only thing
that the living have to do with?
- I think that-
- Is there-
- Both are fine.
- Is there a religion
associated with this wish?
- I don't know that
there would be a religion
associated with it but,
I think it's associated with living.
- Okay.
I'm just wondering if
we made the wrong choice
with k*lling the Sugar-Plum Fairy.
- No, she sucked.
- Okay cool, okay cool.
And one last question.
Does the Queen now have a mini Hungry One
that she's treating as a pet?
That feels bad.
- Remember when I said a living spell?
It's kind of like a living spell.
- Okay, cool, that's cute then.
It's not gonna grow up
and then eat everyone.
- Maybe, I don't know.
- Okay. Well, I guess I'd take it.
Start with the vegetables.
- It's good to see you again.
- It's good to see you too, Lapin.
Are you in pain at all?
- All the time, I'm joking.
- No!
f*ck you, rabbit!
- I got ya!
- Your foil is being ripped away from you
and you're essentially stripping at me
while you tell me about religion.
- Liam.
As you share that laugh
with Preston and Lapin,
you suddenly wake up.
And Amethar and Ruby, you found Liam,
he was passed out in a cavern underneath,
in this old dragon's nest,
this giant dragon's nest
where there's broken egg shells around
and bones and stuff like that.
But yeah, he's just down
here, he must have collapsed.
- Liam, you having a nap?
- Oh.
No.
I just saw Lapin.
- What the?
- I just saw Preston.
- Wait, are they here?
- I know the meaning of life.
I don't need to be a w*r guy anymore,
hurt people hurt people,
and that's just a cycle of abuse
I don't need to continue to act out.
I need to go start a garden.
- Okay...
- Maybe-
- I need to move to somewhere up north.
- Did you have a bunch of dreams or what?
- I don't know.
- You look down in your hand
that you're gesturing with,
and you are holding a
brilliantly foiled seed,
silver and yellow and green and purple.
And it is as real as can be in your hand.
- Okay.
I relay everything that
Lapin told me to them.
- Cool.
- And then
I show them the seed.
- Wow.
- Are you supposed to plant the seed?
What are you supposed to?
- I think it's a wish.
I don't really know how it works.
- Okay.
- I mean, I don't think
I'm the guy for this.
- Can I figure out what this,
can I do an insight check or something?
- Give me an insight check.
- Can I do an arcana check on it?
- Do an arcana check on it.
- I'm just gonna look at it.
- I got a 10 on the insight.
- I got a nine. I rolled
a two, got a nine.
- I mean, that's a magic g*dd*mn seed.
- Wow. Cool.
I put it in a special seed holder,
I still have my seed book!
I put it in my seed book.
- You take out your dusty seed book
that you haven't used in quite some-
- A bunch of pressed flowers in it,
and I put the seed in one
of the little holders,
like when you collect cards.
- The pockets?
You put it in there next to
some candy daffodil seeds,
and it feels a little-
- I'm like, hmm.
- Strange neighbors.
Cool, and you guys
ascend up out of the pen.
- Can we, before we leave,
the three of us check out
that third strange room?
Just have a look at
what's going on in there
with the enchantment
magic, is that too scary?
- Sure, yeah, you go ahead
and give me an arcana
check as you walk in there.
- Okay.
- Can I also give you
an arcana check?
- Yeah, same.
- Yeah, sure, go for it.
- I got a 13.
- 13 as well.
- Oh no, no, no.
- Cool.
- Oh, no, no, no.
- When it's so bad
you just don't say it out loud.
- Embarrassing.
- It was almost a 15 and it rolled.
- The illusion magic has faded from here,
there is still some conjuration magic here
which makes you think
that you are not going
to see lies in here anymore.
That you will probably just
see things that are true.
- Okay.
- You look, Liam and see
that the ice crystals
in here are flickering.
And that as they flicker,
they're flickering with stories
and memories and things like that.
As they flicker with stories and memories,
you see that they're flickering
because they're disappearing.
And you can tell on
the other side of them,
that Lapin is taking them
where they need to go.
- Lapin's kinda cleaning up.
- Go ahead and you guys can give me
either an investigation
or a perception check.
- Can I use Yak?
- You can use, actually,
you can all roll this with advantage.
- Wow.
- Me too?
- You too.
- I rolled a nat 20.
- I didn't, I rolled a 16.
- 16.
What did Liam get?
- Not, a 10 or something.
- Even with advantage?
- Cool.
What is Liam looking-
- Oh, 14, but still.
- 14, what are you kind of
looking for as you look?
Anything in particular?
- I mean, maybe I'm trying to see if,
I know Lapin is taking everything,
and I know that we were
hoping to use this cache
of magical items to defeat
everyone who's against us,
so maybe I'm trying to
see what is gonna stay
that we could possibly use if anything.
- Of the things that are here,
you see memories of cinnamon dragons
from ancient Candia.
Truly enormous.
Huge and monstrous and terrifying.
Lots of weapons here, lots of lore here.
As you're thinking of Lapin,
you look back and see a memory Lapin
in a city, town, in the
Great Stone Candy Mountains
as a young scrappy urchin,
like a pick pocket, thief, kid
with no birthright or
inheritance, low born.
And you see some standing
stones of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
and you see a holy place
where different scrolls
and stories of the Sugar-Plum
Fairy have been amassed
by the priests of the Sweetening Path,
sort of freer to go about their business
here in the mountains.
And you see a young Lapin break
into a small monastery of
Sweetening Path druids,
and steal an ancient bound tome
with a ritual on it to
summon the Sugar-Plum Fairy,
bind it, and get three wishes granted.
And you see this little
kid do this ritual,
not even necessarily
really being able to read
or know what they're doing,
do the ritual and the Sugar-Plum
Fairy herself showing up.
And the binding's not working.
And instead of being
bound, in an act of mercy,
or perhaps in an act of manipulation,
the Sugar-Plum Fairy is saying,
I'm not going to give you three wishes,
in fact, you're going to give them to me.
And the young rabbit replies,
what does young Lapin in this memory say?
- Oh, no.
- He always sounded like that?
- And the Sugar-Plum Fairy's saying,
but your wishes won't be of much use
if you have no magic to grant them.
And you see her granting
the first magical powers
to Lapin and making him a Warlock.
- Cool.
- Dude was so cool, we didn't even know.
- Didn't even know.
You see a world without an afterlife
and a world without gods
and a world that has to come up
with its own answers for itself.
And there is no wisdom
in these memories that will save you.
But you do have a seed
and you don't know what it does,
but it does something.
- Cool.
- Amethar, what are you looking for?
- I think having seen Sapphria earlier,
I'm looking for my sisters.
- You see many, many
memories of your sisters.
You see a memory of you being
about five or six years old,
skinning your knee down by the Cola River
and Sapphria picking you up in her arms
and telling you you were gonna be okay
and carrying you back up
the hill towards the castle.
You see memories of Rococoa
training you in swordplay,
Citrina helping you with your
prayers and your studies.
Lazuli making her first Cola concoction
for you to enter your Rage.
You see the memory of Rococoa
dead on the ground
and you crying out and screaming,
out of Cola, out of your
ability to even Rage
and you feel Gustavo's arms on you
and you remember him
saying something to you
in that moment of,
the fact that the world
that she had died to build
was going to be one worthy of her memory.
And you remember looking in his face,
and seeing someone who had just k*lled
the Imperator of Ceresia
and seeing a man who had fought a w*r.
And you looked into his eyes
as he wept for your
sister and her martyrdom
and you knew that something that he
and Rococo both shared was a vision
for what the world would
be like after the w*r.
What's Ruby looking for?
- Show me the snakes.
- The what?
- I wanna know
who's betraying us,
I wanna know all of the g*dd*mn people.
I have a list, and it's getting longer.
- With a nat 20, I'm
gonna give you two things.
You see a lot of them,
you see Calroy has got people in the army,
no one close to you guys,
Calroy was as close as it got,
but you see who the snakes are,
you see who's talking
on Jawbreaker's side,
you see people in Saccharina's marauders,
you see people in the House of Rocks.
Saccharina's crew has
got the least of them
just because they're remote.
And you don't see
Saccharina in there at all.
For whatever fears or concerns you have,
Saccharina and no one
within one step from her
is being deceitful about
why they're in this fight.
You also don't see your mother in this.
Who else do you not see?
Yeah, you don't see Joren Jawbreaker.
The remnants of Candia that
are still here are trustworthy.
- What about the sisters?
- Rococoa, Sapphria, Citrina and Lazuli?
You see memories of all of them,
strengths and heroism, faults,
mistakes that were made,
things that were done and undone.
You see all of them look back and,
no, there was no betrayal.
- Okay.
- There was only sacrifice and tragedy
and the chaos of four different people
that could have ruled and didn't live to.
Speaking of rulership, on a nat 20,
is there anything else
you are looking for?
- Is this only information about Candy?
- Only really Candian
memories, I would say.
- I don't think so,
I've seen Jet die too many times,
I don't think I need to see it again.
- Yeah.
In that case, I'll move your nat 20
one step down the table.
- Okay.
- You see a memory that
you've long forgotten about
and someone that I think in
many episodes of this campaign,
we have not seen yet.
Amethar, you're about 16 years old
and you see King Jadain.
There is a screaming
argument in the main hall,
in the throne room of Castle Candy.
w*r has yet to break out,
but the rumors of w*r are on the horizon.
You hear your mother, Pamelia Pomagrana,
having it out with your four sisters.
Your mother and your four
sisters despise each other.
And both sides in this disagreement
are flexing on your father
who is being very silent
and just trying his best
to agree with everybody.
After a moment, you hear your father say,
yes, yes, obviously
this will be continued,
we will find a resolution,
and, I just need to use the chamber pot
and I will be right back.
And you see that your father
is a slim man of green hue,
a little shiny, but not
translucent green rock candy,
steps out, has the crown
that has never quite sat well
on his head, it's a little
too big for his head
and he never wanted to
complain to get it resized.
You see he comes out, a little mustache,
and he walks out and doesn't see you,
and you see he just walks out
and is just shaking and standing.
And you see he sits on one
of the steps in the dark.
- Dad?
- Oh!
Amethar. Oh.
Very good to see you.
- Are you okay?
- I'm alright. Yes, I'm alright.
There's just an awful lot of shouting.
You see he takes the crown off
and puts it on the ground next to him.
You know, your mother and your sisters
they're strong willed to be sure.
Have very clear visions
of the future of Candia.
I wish I had that clarity.
- You're gonna fight, right dad?
- Fight? Your sisters and your mother?
- No, everyone's talking
about how w*r's coming.
You're gonna fight, right?
- Now, now, now.
Now, now, Amethar.
Remember, in sweetness,
there is strength, so...
We will...
We must remember.
Candia is a sweet land and,
w*r does not fit us.
We are at our best in times of peace and,
best not to act hastily, or...
By acting too quickly we
might make more enemies.
And that's dreadful to consider.
And...
No.
The best path is the path of kindness and,
remembering to, you know...
Lost track of what I'm saying.
This crown is heavy!
Would you ever want to wear the crown?
- Oh. No.
What?
I mean, it's gonna be Rococoa.
She's gonna be-
- Of course, no, your
sister Rococoa, she is,
even if she'd been born a commoner,
she probably would've barged in here
and taken the crown for herself.
If you did want it, you
could have it, you know.
- I don't want it.
I'm a w*r guy. Like Joren.
- Yes, your uncle Joren.
Well, there may be a
time for w*r guys soon.
Sometimes I think about
just leaving the crown here on the steps
and walking off into the woods some night.
I never asked for this responsibility.
I never asked to make
these decisions, you know?
It's not fair.
The world should be fair.
The world should be sweet,
that's what it should be.
- I mean, you're the king though.
So you gotta be the king.
- Those words echo in your head.
You guys watch as the last
memories leave this room.
As you leave and you rejoin your friends
at the base of the mountain,
you know that Liam can get you guys
to Castle Manylicks, no problem,
maybe two or three days.
- Right, yeah, I think knowing
that the Mold People are coming,
maybe we should just fill a few wagons
and take what we can
take to Castle Manylicks.
- There's a nearby-
- Although we should set up a series
of booby traps to really
f*ck those guys up.
- Oh yeah.
- Sounds good.
- Yeah.
- Awesome.
I'm not even gonna make rolls for this,
you guys are all 10th Level characters,
you have incredible
resources at your disposal.
There's a nearby village that
you can get to very quickly,
especially as some of you have abilities
of flight and teleportation
and stuff like that.
You get a bunch of wagons here,
load up the biggest deal stuff.
And you see that Gooey
looks over at you, Saccharina, and says,
if these Bulbians are on their way here,
we don't have a chance to set an ambush.
What if there was no door to
this temple, Your Majesty,
when they arrived?
- Are you implying that
we explode it from inside?
- We can always come back
to dig up the rest of the treasures later.
- I don't know
how I feel about that.
I've long revered this place and,
I don't know if I could call for the ruin
of such, an amazing place.
I suppose, as the Queen,
I will consult my advisors.
Cumulous.
- Yes?
- Do you think it wise
to destroy this temple?
So that we may cover our footsteps
and the Sanctus Putris will not be able
to detect anything that we've done here?
- We all know I like this stuff.
- That's true, see? I'm in the same boat.
- It's kind of all I'm about.
- Yeah, I know, right?
- But I think right now,
we don't even really have
to destroy the temple,
we can destroy the entrance and-
- Okay.
- Slow them down enough.
- I like that, yeah.
Let's just f*ck up the-
- I'd love to blow it up,
I don't if I'm included in
the advisors category but-
- Swifty, yeah.
We're gonna blow up the foyer
and the mudroom.
- Yes!
Yes!
f*ck the mudroom!
You, with a single slam
of the Winterscoop,
the door collapses,
you guys have three wagons full of hardy,
very frost covered meeps
that begin to cart your
wagons away from here.
It is not all the vast
treasures of ancient Candia,
but it's enough to outfit
probably 100 soldiers.
It's got books and texts,
the most important,
most dangerous tomes you guys got.
So you scooped a little
scoop of cream off the top,
no pun intended,
got it in the wagons
and head out from there.
- Cool.
- We can go back and fix it.
- Please.
- One, honestly, it's gonna become
a UNESCO protected site
once I'm done with it.
- You all journey from
the Ice Cream Temple
to Castle Manylicks,
three days through the
freezing wilderness,
Liam keeps you guys all alive.
You arrive at, standing
atop a mighty crag,
Castle Manylicks, the
home of House Jawbreaker.
You all get the wagons in,
Jawbreaker with the help
of Saccharina's marauders,
and the Order of the Spinning Star,
has retaken and his castle is safe.
And you see that, also,
you see the flags of House Rocks flying,
that those forces have arrived as well
and clearly are not worried
about Crusaders of any kind.
It seems that they've joined
up, they're reinforced,
and the trumpets blare, strange Northern,
these are not the long, straight,
golden trumpets of Castle Candy.
These are curling mountain
trumpets
as you guys approach.
You see there's purple and
pink striped bighorn rams
up on the castle walls,
sort of tattered banners,
big stone mounds of the Sweetening Path.
One tiny little Bulbian church
that's been shuttered
after the mission left it,
and you arrive here.
And as the gates open, you see, Liam,
you're sort of leading in,
you see that your older
brother Grash walks up
and says, hey there, Liam,
did you get my letter?
- Yeah, I did.
- Well, I see he's still very much alive
so clearly you're in for the
a*s-whooping of a lifetime.
- Yeah, well ask if he's king.
That's right.
- Noted.
- Yeah.
- I should still whoop your a*s anyway.
- Yeah, you can f*cking try,
I'm a Gloomstalker now, b*tch.
And I sh**t him.
- You sh**t him in the
shoulder, and he goes.
- Yeah!
- And you see that everyone screams
and you see that, he goes,
Liam is trying to k*ll me!
And you hear a voice
from the balcony saying,
let it stand!
And you look up and you
see your dad salutes you.
You take that arrow,
you see he says, Grash,
you leave the arrow in.
If I see you take the arrow out,
it's an a*s beating.
- Theo is f*cking horrified.
- Yeah, I think for the
first time I'm like,
this was my role model?
- Cumulous goes,
that is absolutely badass.
- Liam, will you be
the head of my archers?
- Look, Queen, I would love to serve you,
but I've recently decided
maybe to be a seed guy than a w*r,
I'm still figuring it out.
- You just shot that guy in the arm.
- I know, look, I just,
revenge is so tempting
and it's just gonna keep tempting me.
- Look, we can just vengeance it out
and then go back to being-
- Controlled revenge?
- Yeah!
- But then it's like getting a tattoo,
it just leads to the next one.
- Look, Liam, you could be a w*r guy
to become a seed guy again.
- Also, I hatched Cinnamon from an egg
and isn't an egg sort of
just like a human seed?
- Yeah. So?
- Isn't gardening waging
w*r on the ground?
- I, you guys, I don't like
all these new philosophies, okay?
- You see the doors
open, Spearia is there,
your 33 other parents are there.
- Yay!
- Joren welcomes you.
Huge feast, music playing, big fires.
Joren says, to our new queen,
Saccharina of the House of Frostwhip,
long may she reign.
Anybody who wants to get
slammed down big style,
come and see me.
- Finally! I've heard so much about it.
- To the queen!
- To the queen!
- Long may she reign!
- It is a f*cking-
- My poison taster tastes
mine before I sip it.
- I can taste it, I am immune to poison.
- Okay, will you be my poison?
- So you won't
be able to tell.
- I don't know.
- I also could, but yeah.
- There are many days of
feasting and merrymaking.
The north of Candia is
a wild f*cking place,
there's a lot of rooms
with gumdrop bear fur rugs
that smell of a lot of
bodies doing a lot of stuff.
There's a thick mint sage haze everywhere,
so everything's smokey.
It's all lit by burning coal and fires
and smell of sweet,
it's this big pagan f*cking castle.
- Smells like home.
Someone open a window,
it smells like home.
- It's so cold outside.
- I don't know.
- Within the first week of being here,
you've lost track of time
being on the run so long
and finally you're safe again.
And at the end of that week,
Liam, it is your 18th Saints Day.
- Whoa!
- What?
- The week of revelry ends
and your dad comes over to you and says,
your older brothers that
are still here are turds.
- Thank you.
- Got you armor.
Then he hands you-
- You remembered it was my birthday!
- Yeah, I remembered.
- Does it say Preston on it?
It says Liam!
- Liam, that's right.
This is the Chillguard,
it's a breastplate.
Should keep your arms
and legs free for jumping
and scampering and doing all that.
I remember, you're the
one that's always outside.
Liam is the one who's always outside.
- Yes! That's me!
- He gives you a magic
peppermint breastplate.
- Sick!
- That raises your armor class to 16.
So your armor class goes up.
- Sick.
- And you may also cast
Shield once per long rest.
- f*ck yes!
Once per round?
- Once per long rest.
- Oh, got it, yeah.
- That would be insane.
- That's crazy.
- Raises your AC by six.
- To 22.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Permanently.
- You're invincible and you can fly.
- You see, he just looks at you
and says, obviously, you know,
we're outta the Concord now and you know,
this whole ward business is over
so you'll be back here
at Castle Manylicks.
And, you know, you're not next in line
so you do whatever you wish, but...
Yeah, you got out there
and you did it, you know?
- Thanks.
I have been thinking though,
you know, if I get married,
I don't come back, right?
I just go live wherever.
- Yeah, that's right.
- I don't...
I haven't found someone like me yet
but I think I might get married
and I don't think I will come back here.
Everyone back here are turds.
And you have 60 sexual partners,
you're not gonna miss me.
- I have to have sex with
about three people a day
just to keep people happy.
- Can I just tell you
right now? I'm asexual.
I'm not aromantic,
I'm looking for a romantic partner, Dad.
I'm nothing like you.
Sex doesn't do it for me,
seems a little clinical,
a little sweaty, everything's wet?
- No, it's good.
- Who signs up for that?
- It's great, you get wet.
- Multiple sources of wet? No!
- I love stuff to happen to my holes,
I don't know what's going on.
- Not me, so I think I'm gonna find
some sort of sweetie to snuggle
and I'm gonna go back to being a seed guy.
- Seed guy, w*r guy.
You're my guy.
- Oh!
- And he gives you a big hug.
- I weep.
- You see he gives you
a huge hug and he says,
now I gotta go f*ck a couple people
because it's been weeks.
You know, we got 'em on rotation,
it's just hard, you gotta really-
- I saw that chore wheel looking thing,
but it wasn't chores, it was
just names and positions.
- As much as you are proud
of your asexual identity,
I'm very proud of my polyamorous identity.
- Yeah, yeah, of course.
- I do love my partners,
I love all of them.
The ones that I am wed to
and the ones that are more casual.
But it's logistical, it's not
a f*cking party, you know?
It's, you're trying-
- Are you ever? Yeah, okay.
- You gotta take care of people, you know?
It's about getting needs met.
If you think the answers to life
are gonna be solved by
going poly, you're crazy.
'Cause it's just a different
type of thing to navigate
and it requires just as much respect
and diligence, if not more,
because you're trying
to handle more people.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- It is all about respect.
- It's about respect,
it's about communication.
- Yeah, totally.
- Alright, I'm gonna go polish Chin Seeker
so I can smash some heads!
You see that-
- Is that a sexual thing
or is that a w*r thing?
I'm losing track!
- You, everything.
So the Crusaders in the
Great Stone Candy Mountains
have been driven out.
There are still open
Crusaders in the south
and it looks like the Cersian forces,
the Imperial forces have backed out,
which means that the Ceresian
forces backed out with them
based on a letter from the
Duchess Primsy Coldbottle
written to all of the Lords and Ladies
and Nobles of the Concord saying,
the rumors are true,
that an heir other than Joren Jawbreaker
is the rightful claimant
to the throne of Candia
which means that all
nations invading Candia
have broken the Concord and
trials must be administered
and a meeting in Comida
of the Cornucopian Council
must be held and people held accountable
for what has happened and yeah-
- f*ck yeah, Primsy.
Bless you.
- And so, bless you.
So you see that Ceresia has
withdrawn because of this
and the Imperial forces-
- Bless you.
- Double bless you.
- They're so cute!
Do you want a tissue?
- No, I'm okay.
- But the Crusade still stands
because that's not a matter of nations.
So there are Vegetanian and
Fructerian, Ceresian Lords
that have their people that are attacking,
which is much less of a threat,
but it does mean that
there's still urgency,
that Southern Candia is burning,
there are people attacking.
And the forces of House Cruller
are letting them do that.
Very shortly thereafter, Saccharina,
you have an official coronation.
And an envoy from the
Dairy Islands arrives
and a diplomat from the
Meat Lands arrives as well,
both to witness this coronation
and see that the claims
of the heir are true.
A huge ceremony is held.
What's Saccharina's ceremony
like at Castle Manylicks?
- What is it like?
Okay.
I know I said I wanted a party at a bar,
but I think that Saccharina's realizing
she needs to put on a
little more of a show
to get some respect, so,
I think it's very, very
lavish, very drunken.
There's a lot of fermented
yak milk and curds.
And I think that I walk
down the aisle like a bride
and deep down inside I'm
so uncomfortable with it
and every five minutes I'm
going into the bathroom
and just being like, oh God,
oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.
And then just leaving and
looking as regal as I can.
- The ceremony is held,
your marauders cheer
the loudest of anybody.
You see Gooey screaming, Jon Bon
barking and howling.
With your insane mountain warriors
and sailors and cutthroats.
- Oh, I'm wearing a very fancy gown,
but I am still wearing
my plate mail over it.
- Hell yeah.
- Cool.
- I think Theo's
trying to get everyone
to do a proper kneel.
- Yeah.
- Drop the knee.
It's like, everybody's getting rowdy.
Okay, let's do this properly,
this is official now!
- Cumulous is testing
wine still. Not sure.
- And for the first time-
- Who knows?
- You are sworn in by Spearia Mentha,
who even though she is the one
who was married in the Bulbian church
and technically is an ordained Bulbian,
she just straight up performs
a Sweetening Path ceremony,
there's no mention of the Bulb anywhere,
it is a full pagan ritual.
- Yeah, buddy.
- And it's just enough
for the Dairy Islanders
and the Meatlanders, the fact that Spearia
is ordained in the Bulbian
church that it's like,
hey, we'll sign our names on this,
we saw it, it happened, it's legal.
- And then I think once
things get really rowdy,
we probably light some Bulb
Bibles on fire and sh*t.
- Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.
- Are we the bad guys?
We're burning books.
Feels like a slippery slope.
- You know, I also didn't like this.
- The Queen said to burn the books!
- What are you talking about, Ruby?
- We're not burning all of them!
- You get temporary hit points.
- Ruby, as you say that,
you see that your mother Caramelinda
looks and shakes her head.
She's a devout Bulbian,
she's looking at it, and.
The Duchess Primsy Coldbottle
comes to you and says,
Your Majesty, Queen Saccharina.
It is a pleasure and an
honor to swear to you
as the new Queen of Candia.
As the Duchess of the Dairy Islands
can I just say that it is a delight
to see something of a cousin
on the throne of Candia?
And winks at you.
- Thank you, I mean, honestly your support
means the world, and right back at you.
Curtsy to the Duchess.
- Oh! That's very kind, I appreciate it.
Well, the matter will need to be sorted
and there is a great deal to discuss,
the laws of the Concord are clear
and there must be some
recompense for what has happened.
We will-
- Yes, I do expect
that the Concord will see the injustices
that were committed
against Candia rectified.
- Primsy also goes over to
you, Liam, at the thing.
And she says, well, Count Freezyberg,
the master Liam Wilhelmina.
- Hello, Duchess, hi.
- You look rather charming
in your new armor.
- Thank you, my dad
got it for me, actually
for my birthday, it's my birthday.
- That's lovely.
Well, it's lovely to see you again
and thank you again for your
brave heroics on the battle.
- Yeah thanks.
- The ships.
- Yeah.
- Do you still have my
favor from the tourney?
- Yeah, totally.
What?
- Well, nothing. Just, you
know, it's good to see you.
- Yeah. Good to see you too.
- Annabelle and Sir Morris were mentioning
that seeing as my previous husband
was shot to the bottom of
the sea by a magic dagger
that I, and as a widow,
that my prospects were
less than ideal, and...
You know, probably I would settle
for a political marriage with, you know,
someone from another country who might,
you know, probably not
a prince or anything,
but maybe an earl?
Or maybe a count.
- Oh, that's so crazy,
'cause I am a count.
- Really?
- Yeah, I...
I do think that ultimately
we will have such a huge misunderstanding
in what we want out of the relationship.
And I will strive to
maybe one day meet someone
whose needs meet my own, and there's not-
- What sort of needs
are you talking about?
- It's honestly more like
a lack of needs, but.
But I am thinking about
taking a political marriage.
See, I just feel like
most people are like,
I'm so in love, I'm going
to go bone that person.
And for me, it's like, I'm so in love,
I'm gonna hug that person really tight
and then move on with my day.
- Oh, I don't have a problem with that.
- Oh, that's really cool, yeah.
Yeah, I just, you know.
- Listen, you know, I
was very sweet on Stilton
and I like to kiss but you know.
I know I'm soon to be 17
and all of that should wait
until I'm a woman and grown, but.
- Hm, interesting.
- To be honest, I've been mortified
since I've been here.
Everyone keeps talking about
getting slammed down big style.
- Yeah. It's a lot.
And it's for those people, you know?
That's what they wanna
do, it's just not me,
it's absolutely not me.
- My head is a milk bottle
and if I were to be slammed down
in any sort of meaningful way,
- You'd die. Yeah.
- I could die.
So I'm not about that life.
- Me neither. Me neither.
- Would you like to hold
hands and go on a walk?
- I would love to!
I would freaking love to.
- She holds your hand and
goes on a walk with you.
- Me and a milk bottle.
- I would like to find my pops and say,
since Manta Ray's here,
I was thinking about getting Jet's name
tattooed above my heart
and I was wondering
if you would like to do that too?
- Oh, let's make it double, Manta!
- Right there, sir!
- Two tattoos stat.
- Alright! You want it on a little banner?
You want it on a heart?
You want it on an anchor?
You want it on-
- Oh, that's a good question.
- Oh my goodness.
I feel like a banner.
- Oh make mine a dagger,
stabbing me through my heart.
- Oh, that's really cool,
yeah I want that too.
- I could do a banner
over a dagger.
- That's dope.
- Yes!
- Right, let's do it!
- Man, this is the daddy daughter special
I've been waiting for.
- You guys get two tattoos from Manta Ray
that both say Jet on them.
- I'll get whatever
tattoo you want me to get.
- Honestly?
- Okay, no.
- What do you want?
- Well.
- What about a magical weapon?
- A magical weapon?
- Yeah, you want a big ax?
- Picture of a magical weapon?
- Can I get a big ax on my back?
- Ooh, can I get a big ax on my back also?
- Right, yeah, I'll
probably need some more ink
if we're doing a full.
- Okay.
- Well, we'll find it.
- We'll find it.
- That's right? Oh, great, here.
Cool, you guys get a bunch of tats.
Sweet f*cking party.
- Theo is cringing so hard as the Queen
gets a full back stick and poke tattoo.
- Yeah, yeah, I love the pain!
- Amethar can't stop.
He doesn't like that he is doing it,
but can't stop imagining Primsy Coldbottle
getting smacked down, big, big style
and just, her head is shattering.
It's just so gruesome.
- Yeah, you see Castle
Manylicks has a lot going on
and a lot of it is frightening.
You guys.
So, being safe, healing,
you're researching a bunch of stuff.
There's a little bit of downtime here.
Probably what we should cover is
the four things you guys decided on before
were basically armies, allies, artifacts,
and then attacking the castle, right?
The artifacts you got,
you've summoned your allies to you.
Your armies are all gathered.
Basically what the deal is now
is that there are still some Crusaders
in the Great Stone Candy Mountains
that make life a little bit tricky
and then there is this meeting happening,
potentially at Castle Candy.
You guys end up having a w*r council
after the sort of week of festivities,
Liam's Saints Day, the coronation.
The attitude from your advisors is one of
Ceresia has retreated
but given how important
the divvying up of Candia is,
your other advisors are not
holding up a lot of hope
that Primsy's letters are
going to get the job done
rather than mostly stall people out.
That without a Concordant
Emperor or Empress,
there's not really a Concord.
And that if it were just to disband,
maybe the Meat Lands and the Dairy Islands
would come to your aid,
maybe they wouldn't,
but certainly Vegetania
Ceresia and Fructera
are the vast majority
of people in Calorum.
- Question, so, is the main Crusader army
at Castle Candy now or
are they marching north?
- They are ransacking the Southlands
and are pinned down in the
Great Stone Candy Mountains.
Before you guys showed up,
remember Keradin and Grissini
and a big Imperial and church force
had besieged Castle Manylicks
and were taking over.
And basically what happened
is once Ceresia withdrew
and the Imperial forces
withdrew along with it,
Keradin's church people were just left
and they didn't leave.
So you've got a couple
Bulbian Crusader armies
that were a third of the original force
still kind of scattered in the
Great Stone Candy Mountains.
- Got it.
- Do you have allies in Vegetania?
- Not really.
I mean, the way the w*r happened, I mean,
mostly the Dairy Islands and Fructera
were who I was with.
Vegetanians-
- But Fructera we can't trust right now
because of Plumbeline, right?
- Of course. Yeah.
- Okay.
- Queen Saccharina, perhaps
we could call upon our allies
from the Dairy Islands and the Meat Lands
to meet us here and help
defend Castle Manylicks
while a force and the rest of us
go to retake Castle Candy?
- I see, so you're saying
sort of a distraction w*r
while we ambush those meeting?
- I think a way to defend Castle Manylicks
without losing too many of our own troops
would be to get some Dairy Islanders here.
- To be clear, I remember Cruller
was trying to orchestrate
some sort of coup
or some sort of new Concord.
Do we know the timeline?
Have we intercepted any missives,
if they're still doing that?
- If you guys would like to,
you can go ahead and give
me a group espionage check.
So go ahead and either give me-
- This game rules.
- So what I'm gonna ask you guys to do
is give me either stealth
or I would say you can give me stealth,
insight, or perception.
And it'll be a little bit good
if your group can clear a 15
and incredible if you can clear a 20.
- Can Cinnamon give me advantage?
- I'm actually gonna say
that you get advantage
from the artifacts that were taken
and you see that there are two artifacts
that are set up in Castle Manylicks,
one of which is a
crystal pool of milkshake
that you can gaze into.
And another is a swarm
of white chocolate ravens
that show up and you can send
them over the countryside to.
- Fly, my birdies, fly!
- We're definitely the bad guys.
Oh wow!
- I got two 15s.
- Jesus Christ, I got a one.
- 23.
- 23?
- Yeah I got it.
- 22.
- Nat 20
and I have plus 12 to that.
- Jesus.
- Woo!
- Is that enough?
- Master of arrows, what have you found?
- Over the course of a couple of weeks
the Witch Queen of
Candia sits in her throne
atop this tall tower in a pagan castle
in the north of Candia,
sending fleets of ravens out
and gazing into this pool of milkshake.
You lead a contingent
of peppermint rangers
and just assassinate couriers.
You sh**t messenger ravens
down out of the sky,
or messenger owls outta
the sky, Ceresian owls.
You intercept supply
lines, find things there.
Who else got a 20 or above? Cumulous?
Yeah, your order is fully empowered again.
You guys have all these
tools at your disposal again,
you start getting the
teleportation grids back online
and you guys are just
f*cking ghosts in the night.
Also, because there's a Crusade on
you're still at w*r.
So your guys are not just going to Candia,
you're dipping into
Ceresia, into Fructera,
just striking out into the.
- Can my ravens tell me if they see magic
waking up across the land?
- We're actually going to go to a scene.
I think that this is probably,
the people that rolled 20 were Saccharina-
- 23. Not nat.
- 23, this and a nat 20 here.
You guys arrive at a village,
a rather large town in the southern area
of the Great Stone Candy Mountains
near to where the Lowlands start again.
Your marauders have hit this place
and you knew that there was
an envoy of the Imperator here.
Fires rise from the buildings around here
'cause the Crusaders either k*lled
or drove out everyone that was here
except for the people that were
loyal to the Bulbian church.
You see that in the night
with fires everywhere,
the doors of the church are opened.
You have some peppermint rangers here,
you're here with the Order
of the Spinning Star,
and your marauders Gooey and Jon Bon
are dragging clergy out
of the Bulbian church
and throwing them on the
ground in front of you.
There's dead Crusaders all around here.
And one of the priests
is grabbed by the hair,
brought up onto his knees,
blood is coming out of his eyes.
And you see Jon Bon says,
produce the letter.
You see he reaches in and
takes something stamped
from the Pontifex herself.
- Thank you.
- You see that as he pulls the letter out,
his holy symbol of the Bulb shows.
Cinnamon wrapped around
your shoulders goes
and his eyes glow red as he sees the Bulb.
- I grab the holy symbol and
then Create Bonfire on it.
- As you do, you see
that this Bulbian priest,
a glow appears on his
chest over his heart.
And you see that almost
like dim spotlights,
Cinnamon's eyes are trained
on this priest's heart.
- Okay.
Go for it, baby.
- You see Cinnamon
leaps on the priest,
bites his throat out.
Your marauders raise their axes
and start beheading the priests here
in front of the Bulbian church.
The villagers start screaming,
your marauders say, let no one leave!
They rush after the villagers.
- No, save the villagers, they're fine.
- You see that they turn to you.
Yes, my Queen.
The villagers turn to look at you
as the fire rages around their town
and you see there is a cracking
and sundering of bone
as Cinnamon wriggles.
You see that Cinnamon devours
this Bulbian priest's heart.
As Cinnamon does so,
you see that.
And you could swear he's a little bigger
than he was before.
- Oh my god.
I think I see this and
I think it's awesome.
But I also take my Winterscoop staff
and I cast Cone of Cold
to put out the fires.
- You see that the fires begin to go out.
The villagers look at their saved village.
These are Candian villagers
who were just conquered
by these Crusaders.
But they're also looking,
you see many of them wear Bulbian symbols,
symbols of the Bulb,
and are looking at these
slaughtered priests
that also just took part in conquering
and occupying their village,
and just gaze in horror.
- Many of you went to
the Bulb to be saved,
but hopefully today you'll
remember what really saved you.
Fire, and Cinnamon looks
at the rest of the clergy's
bodies around the ground.
- Oh my God.
Oh my God!
Oh my God!
I let him do it.
- The villagers watch
as the fires extinguish
and the only light left in
the dim night of the village
is the glow from behind Cinnamon's jaws
as he eats and eats and eats.
You guys arrive after many weeks of this.
- Was there anything in
that letter that you got?
- Oh!
- Oh, yeah.
- Yes, the letter, right.
- Oh, right, the letter.
I undo Create Bonfire
and just chuck the holy
symbol over my shoulder.
- In the letter is word from the Pontifex
to Sir Keradin to arrive, to protect
and accompany her to Castle Candy.
She says the meeting will
take place at Castle Candy
on the 13th day of Highharvest.
This is right now the
28th day of Harvestdawn,
so you have a little over two weeks.
- Master of arrows, your
carrot will be at Castle Candy
on the 13th of Highharvest,
if you wish to take a
break from gardening.
- I will probably do that.
- You have your date,
you know that they will all be there.
- Let's plant that carrot in the soil.
- No, 'cause then he would flourish.
- f*ck.
- Let's put that carrot in a hot car.
'Cause you forgot about it.
- Garbage disposal.
- Yeah!
- Yes, there we go.
- Right, right.
- Oh, I wish I could make all my arrows
become a garbage disposal.
- That would be sick.
- At the w*r council after
you get this information,
you guys meet back up
again at Castle Manylicks,
Gooey comes to you before
the w*r council and says,
Your Majesty, there's a rumor
that some of the Crusaders
have fled to Port Syrup
and are waiting for
extraction by the church.
I'd be happy to go and take care of it.
- Yes. I'll dispatch you to do so.
- This is about-
- How are things
going with Theo?
- She says, how are
things going with Theo?
- I feel like Theo in this
sexually charged castle
is actively avoiding Gooey in a way that,
just trying to be so professional.
So he literally, but
he's such a hang around
that he's just within earshot of the Queen
basically at all times,
and then when Gooey leaves just walks up.
- Cool.
- You see that Gooey's like,
Your Majesty.
He's being weird, I don't get it.
- He's being weird, I'll
order him to stop being weird.
- Don't order him to f*ck me-
- Okay, I won't.
- That's not...
- No, no, no.
- I hate that.
- Not to f*ck you,
just to stop being weird.
- Stop being weird? I appreciate that.
It's just like, look-
- What if I order him to follow his heart?
- That's beautiful.
- Yeah.
- Can I ask you a question?
- Yes.
- Would it be good?
Would a gummy bear and chocolate be good?
- Yeah, haven't you ever
had a movie popcorn salad?
- No, what is that?
- It's just where you put
a bunch of candy together
in with popcorn.
- Okay, that's good, I like that.
- So Gooey says-
- Are we joining the Ceresians?
- Hey!
- Only the ones that are willing
to do a movie popcorn salad.
- Gooey says, we can go
and root the Crusaders
out from Port Syrup.
And this is about three days
after finding the letter in the village.
And you see, she says,
and I'd also be happy to take your sweet,
rambunctious son along with us.
And you see that Cinnamon
is about the size of a horse now.
- I believe there will be many
more Bulbian hearts for him.
I think we're just gonna stick around here
and practice some tricks.
- As you wish, Your Majesty.
You see that Cinnamon looks up at you
with sad little eyes, or not up,
he looks eye to eye with you and you see,
he looks at Gooey going away
and goes.
These little bits of smoke
come out of his nostrils.
- Wait!
- Your Majesty?
- Give the boy what he wants.
- You see he nuzzles up against you
and snorts some little bit
of ash and cinnamon on you.
- I've never had the love of family before
and I can't say no to you!
- You see Gooey takes
the chain off his neck.
He flaps his wings and she says,
well, we'll take a teleportation circle,
but, Cinnamon, I think
you know what to do.
And he
takes off into the sky
to fly west to Port Syrup.
You guys have your little w*r council,
now knowing the information
that you know about the
13th day of Highharvest.
- What if we spread misinformation
about the status of Castle Manylicks?
And we made it seem as though
we were being attacked by the Meatlanders
and then we just abandoned the castle
and attacked King Candy at full force?
- Yes, I had a similar thought,
staging something,
staging some sort of military distraction.
- The only problem with that is that
that would make them reinforce
Castle Candy even more.
- Ah, yes, if they thought
that the Meatlanders-
- We could, though do something like that,
and without even dragging
the Meatlanders into it,
we could pretend that
there's more conflict
between House Jawbreaker
and the new queen.
- That's one way. We could also-
- Ah, yeah.
- We could also spread a false information
that we've planned an as*ault
on somewhere in Ceresia.
- That might just lead to,
the Ceresians it sounds like
already have reason to
maybe not attack us.
- You actually know that the Ceresians
are holding about 40
miles of Candian territory
in Gumdrop Pass, which is the main pass
from Ceresia into Candia.
So they're still technically invading,
but you know what I mean?
They withdrew their
troops, but Gumdrop Pass
is such an important strategic location
that they couldn't give it all the way up.
- I know that we all have
those who are disloyal to us.
So I do not think it would be hard
to get that information in
a way that felt authentic.
- Hmm.
- We have this dragon,
there'll be rumors just
by seeing Cinnamon.
- Sending in the dragon.
Yeah.
Yes?
- We're gonna k*ll 'em all, right?
I know I keep saying it, but.
- I mean, honestly,
that's definitely my plan.
- Great.
- Okay, great.
- I'm trying to keep the
bloodlust at bay a little bit,
but when I go there, I'm
gonna just fully unleash it.
- Yeah.
- Great.
- Do we want to go as an army
or do we want to go as a small force?
We all know the castle
better than everybody
there except maybe Cruller.
- From fighting alongside all of you,
I feel as though
a carefully plotted assassination
may be in our advantage.
- You were able to
sneak out of the castle,
do you think that we could sneak back in?
- I mean, if we use their
teleportation circles
and slip through the same way
that, Theo, you made it out,
we could probably get
deep inside the castle
with a small force.
- And have a bigger force
attack the outside or something.
- Have waves, we're the first wave
and then we have a second.
- I think that's the move,
is if about a third of their forces
are still down by Castle Candy,
that means we should bring people with us,
but we could sneak in as a
small group on the castle.
And that way if there's fighting outside
and fighting inside,
they can't bring too many people into-
- Exactly.
- You see that Snickersnack
speaks up and says,
my Lord Cumulous, the standing stones
within days' travel of Castle Candy
have been destroyed.
The crusaders have done their work there.
So a teleportation could move us
throughout the Great
Stone Candy Mountains,
perhaps some places in
the West Cake still,
but to make it all the way
to Castle Candy speedily,
the teleportation stones
are not available to us.
You see that Manta Ray speaks up and says,
right well, Annabelle is headed
with her new fleet of ships to Port Syrup
and will be there in a few days' time.
If you're looking for a fast
way to get to Castle Candy,
a few Dairy ships going up that way
could probably sneak by, maybe
no more than two or three,
but if you're talking about a small force
to just take the castle
back, could be enough.
- That's great.
- Right.
- I definitely want to
send my ravens to explore
if there are many encampments
around Castle Candy or not.
If it feels like there's like
a military presence there or?
- That's a good idea.
- Just to make sure that we're not trying
to sneak up on an entire army.
- Gotcha, go ahead and give me
an insight check, or perception.
- Okay.
- Can I help?
- Sure. Yeah, yeah.
- Okay.
14.
- 14.
Yes, it's hard to tell, because again,
it's not a unified army,
there's a lot of Crusaders.
If this were an army that
was completely unified,
you'd be really f*cked.
Because it's sort of a
Crusade with a bunch of Lords
that are basically coming here
to loot Candia, destroy
religious artifacts and relics,
it's possible that there's
not a clear chain of command
so that if you were able to
hit Castle Candy fast enough,
and slyly enough with a fighting force,
you could potentially take it back
while those people were there.
But the risk is, if you don't
take it back fast enough,
the Crusaders around don't have
the response time of an army.
But if you weren't able to
take it back fast enough,
they would eventually be alerted
and close in on the castle.
- How long would it
take for a dragon to fly
from where we're talking
about dispatching Cinnamon
to Castle Candy?
- Oh, a dragon flying over land
could get there in no time.
- Okay, so we have backup
if it goes terribly.
- We could also,
we're talking about
spreading misinformation,
it doesn't even necessarily
have to be misinformation.
We could just send troops south
hoping that that'll
draw out some of theirs
to meet us in the middle and then we go.
- You see that Joren says,
where are we sending troops to?
Send a larger force?
- It looks like we're sending
a large force to Castle Candy
and draw out people to meet in the middle.
Leave enough people here, obviously
to defend your castle, but.
- Oh, yeah.
- You know what I'm saying?
Make it look like we're planning on
waging a slow w*r there,
that we're not doing that
to assassinate the people,
the powers that be.
- Yeah, maybe we send an army
to a place where we would
have an obvious advantage.
So it looks like that's our big play.
- Like we're planning to
do a siege or something?
- Yeah.
- Right, or even like,
we have the upper land.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Can I investigate the seed
to see if maybe I would know
when is the right time to?
- Yeah, give me an investigation.
- That is 15.
- It doesn't appear that
there's a right time right now.
It seems like this is a
very powerful, magical thing
but right now it doesn't
seem like, you know.
But what's interesting is
it does seem kind of like a seed.
In terms of maybe planting it
would be the right thing
to do, but you don't know.
It's weird 'cause that
place you got it from
was such a place of dreams
and thoughts and ideas
that you're like, do I
plant it in the ground
or plant it in my mind?
You know, it's confusing, even with a 15,
it's still confusing to Liam.
But you don't think it
needs to happen right now.
You think you can wait on it
until a moment where it seems
like the thing you must do.
- Okay. Yeah, cool.
- Awesome, you see that
Joren looks up and says,
well, yeah, I mean, we can send an army
just marching straight
south out of the mountains.
We can send an army to the east
to try to take Gumdrop Pass
and try to make it seem
like we're trying to block them in.
We could send one to Port Syrup
and try to bolster the port,
whatever you think.
- I wonder...
- What do you think?
- I like the idea of staging
an invasion on Castle Candy, but far away.
And sussing out their
troops and distracting them
north of the castle while we
enter from the Cola River.
- They'll likely send troops north
because they'll be afraid of our troops
getting near the Pontifex.
- Exactly.
- Exactly.
- Joren nods and you see that
Primsy speaks up and says,
I think it high time that
I write to Lord Cruller
and say that I, on behalf
of the Dairy Islands,
would like to recognize House Cruller
as the rightful rulers of Candia.
- So that he's not
expecting any sort of scene?
- Or so that he is.
- So he's kind to Dairy Island ships
and all that.
- That is good.
- So that he is expecting
three Dairy Island ships
bearing the Duchess to Castle Candy.
- We got a shark amongst
us, yes, I love it!
- You're being awful sweet, Your Majesty.
She nods and curtsies.
Yeah, she's a f*cking baller.
You all get ready to head out
and meet Annabelle at Port Syrup
who's coming with some Dairy Island ships.
You guys arrive at Port Syrup.
This is the 10th day of Highharvest.
You have three days before you
need to be at Castle Candy.
You arrive at Port Syrup
and see the joyous port city
reduced to rubble.
The Bulbian churches that did not ring out
when Amethar first landed here
are utterly destroyed.
And the city is surviving,
there's not active open flames,
the flames have been
put out by this point.
But you see the population of the city
walking in the shadow of w*r.
The people look terrified.
There is no clamor from the marketplace,
there is no cry of gulls.
The smell of ash burning
puts a dim silence over the city
as the Dairy ships stand in the harbor.
You see that Gooey walks up to you,
the marauders salute and bow,
all hail Queen Saccharina!
All hail!
- Okay. Love the spirit, guys.
- A shadow is
cast over the buildings.
A towering, bright red Cinnamon head.
And a dragon the size of a house
slinks his long neck on the ground.
And like a dog pushing
his head forward on a rug,
moves a head the size of a carriage
so that his nose rests in front of you
and it puffs with smoke.
- I missed you too.
- Is there a way to cast
Invisibility on this dragon?
Or make it so that we don't-
- I mean, Invisibility
isn't size-dependent.
It's just a creature.
- I was going to dispatch Cinnamon to the,
we're in private right now, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- I was going to dispatch
Cinnamon with the fake.
- To make it that much more of a threat?
- He could also go burn
up that Ceresian line.
- Yeah.
- You could also just have him lie in wait
in the mountains nearby
and have him swoop in
if things get super dire.
- Yeah, he's just got
a real fighting spirit
and I feel like if I do that,
he's just gonna follow us.
I feel like I need to
give him something to do.
- Okay, cool, I like him
being in the dispatch.
- Because then he'll be close to us
so he can save us if need be.
- Yes, I think we need him close,
that's what I'm saying.
- Are you worried that
I'm putting him in danger?
- I look at Cinnamon.
Does Cinnamon seem like
Cinnamon could be in danger?
- Does Cinnamon seem like
he could be in danger?
No.
Here in the ruins of Port Syrup,
no, Cinnamon does not
look like he's in danger.
He looks f*cking fine.
- I take out some dragon
nip and I lay it around
so he can roll around in it.
- Rolls around.
- Can I talk to Annabelle?
- Annabelle is in the harbor,
so you head to the harbor.
Amethar, what are you up to right now?
- I mean, I think I'm
just wandering around
this sacked city.
- You walk around the sacked city,
looking at the ruined churches
and you see that there is,
these are the churches that specifically
didn't ring out for you when you came
as a statement of disavowal
of you as an Oathbreaker.
The only thing that dimmed your arrival
in the happy city of Port Syrup,
which was a loyalist,
pro House of Rocks city.
There is a ruined church that
the spires have come down
and the central area is collapsed,
but the door and gate is still there.
Warped and buckled in by the force
of a blast of fire and the smell of death
and cinnamon echoes off of it.
You see that there is a incinerated body
with its hand against the church door
and a weapon fused into what
remains of a skeletal hand.
As though it was holding the door shut
and standing in front of
it, as it faced something.
You look at the armor
and see it's covered,
you can't tell what kind of armor it is,
it's covered in ash and soot and cinnamon.
But there's something about
it looks familiar to you.
- Can I investigate?
- You rub your hand across the armor
and it reveals a burnt
and corroded cheese.
This is Morris Brie's armor.
- There were cheese Crusaders?
- Morris Brie was sent-
- No, just an innocent victim.
- Morris Brie was the
Dairy Islander knight
that you guys left in
charge of Port Syrup,
is the one that challenged Liam to a duel.
And Liam asked if he was Bulbian
and he said, of course.
- Can I take it off of him?
- Yeah, you pick him up,
his remains are still within the armor,
his helm fused here, his bones.
In the blast of fire that k*lled him,
he had armor turned into his coffin.
- Yeah, I think I hold it.
Do I get the sense that
anyone is still inside?
- It looks like the church collapsed
and anyone that was inside
or anything like that, it's been left.
You look at why this body is still here
and you realize that it was just,
you were able to pry it off
and probably no one else was strong enough
because it had fused partially to the door
and the stone beneath it.
- Got it.
Yeah, I think I just sit next to it.
Just sit.
- Can I talk to Sir Theobald?
- Yeah. Absolutely.
- Sir Theobald, I require your council.
- Yes, my Queen.
- Okay.
Sorry, just a formality.
- Right.
- I trust you enough to tell you
my weaknesses, which I do
not trust everyone enough
to do that with.
Cinnamon is the first
creature in my entire life
who has ever freely and
immediately loved me.
Everyone else I have had
to fight tooth and nail
to prove myself to,
but Cinnamon just loved me.
For no reason, just because I existed.
I...
I will have a very difficult time
saying no to him
and I want to say to you that...
Just look out for me, my...
I don't necessarily...
I don't know what to do about,
I don't know that my love for him
is stable or rational.
- If I can speak freely,
I will say that it does not
seem like Cinnamon saved Port Syrup,
but destroyed it.
- Yes.
- Before the Crusaders could have it.
And that's-
- That is also my concern
and that is why I speak to you now.
- I think if we are to use Cinnamon
to our advantage, then
I don't think it's something
that we can take lightly.
That it's something that can
be sent off as if it's a
footman holding a spear.
- Yes.
I think even though I love him,
I really can't control him.
- Well, yes,
he's new to this world
and you are his mother.
You have to discipline him
and make sure he...
You have
a great responsibility.
- Are you telling me
to ground him?
Are you telling me
to ground him?
- I think he might need
to be grounded.
- I just, I don't know
if I can ground him.
No allowance.
- I think when Theobald says discipline,
perhaps not right away, but maybe moments
after the conversation ends,
Saccharina remembers all of the ways
in which she was disciplined as well.
Ruby, you go to the docks
and you find Annabelle Cheddar
looking around at the
chaos and devastation,
but also you can see
her compartmentalizing
and looking at that
and then also realizing
that she's about to go off to w*r
and doesn't have time to deal with this.
- Annabelle.
I think you're really cool.
You...
You also lost your titles,
your lands, your power.
How did you...
I guess what I'm asking...
This is bad, right?
I'm not just blinded by this,
I don't know, jealousy or anger or?
- You see as she puts
a hand on your shoulder
and says, Ruby,
I'm sorry, I'm not sure
what you're asking me.
Is the world bad? Is this bad?
What do you mean? The sack of the city?
Aye, this is bad. Aye.
You're not wrong.
My father, the prince
Tarthur Cheddar told me
that he would disown me of my title
and the throne of Lacramor,
my future as the Princess
of the Dairy Islands,
unless I wed and produced an heir.
I have no interest in doing that.
So I chose to be a captain.
Take my ship, my crew,
head to the open sea.
I was not willing to be less than free.
And so I gave up power.
And I think in a way I gave
up responsibility as well.
She looks around and says,
I could've lived a life of misery
and perhaps the Dairy Islands
would have recovered more
from the w*r if I had.
How do you see those scales though?
Your freedom on one side and
your joy versus the world.
And...
I'll never know if it
was the right choice.
But I do know that
if I am to be free and
to look to the horizon
with clear eyes, then I need
to reckon with this truth.
The things I didn't decide
were as much my decisions
as the things I did.
And what I turned my back on
was my responsibility too,
even as I left them behind.
So I'll take my freedom,
but I won't take it without
reckoning what it cost.
I need to speak with your father.
- Okay. I'll tell him.
- She nods.
The rest of you guys get
ready to get into the ships,
sail down the river.
Amethar.
- Mhmm?
- Annabelle comes up to you,
where do you think you are on the ship?
- The helm? That's the front?
- On the prow? Oh, yeah, yeah.
- The prow.
- Prow of the ship.
She walks up to you.
You're alone up here, it's
just you and Annabelle.
She looks at you and says, Your Majesty.
I know we have-
- Oh, oh.
Yeah.
- Amethar.
I know that much has changed
and there's now bigger
fish to fry, so to speak.
We found...
Well, we found Catherine Ghee.
- Oh, oh.
- Or I should say, Amethar,
we found where she is buried.
- Oh.
Where was she?
- She was in a small grave
on the Isle of Crumble
up in the far west.
She's buried there in a small graveyard
of a Bulbian church.
And we weren't sure, her name was there,
but Catherine Ghee is a rather common name
so we checked in with the church
and there was a Father Belford Buttercream
who had noted her death
there in the ledger.
She passed away many
long years ago, actually.
She passed away, you
see she opens a scroll,
looks it and says, she passed away
on the 12th day of Harvestdusk 1196.
- Hey, thank you so much for doing that.
I think I'm...
That's important to know.
- She was not a woman of letters,
but Father Buttercream
had some writings on her
and her confiding in him
and she was taken with
illness later in life
after giving your daughter away.
And she had become quite scared, I think,
of retribution from your family or,
she had become quite religious and...
Notes about her daughter and such,
but she was not a woman of letters
so left nothing behind.
I'm sorry for your loss,
as strange as it may sound.
I know it's been almost 20 years, but.
- Thank you.
I should go tell Saccharina.
- You walk away and you find Saccharina
on one of the ships.
- Hey.
- Oh, Amethar. Have we
business to attend to?
- Yeah. Is now a good time?
- I was in, yeah, no, that's good, yeah.
- Oh, okay.
I just found out from Annabelle
that your mother is dead.
And has been for some time.
- Oh.
I guess...
That's really weird to hear
because I guess I just
assumed she had been.
- Hmm.
- Can I ask you something?
- Yeah.
- Who sent all those
people to threaten her?
- I'm sorry?
- When I was a child,
she lived in a constant fear
because messengers from
Candia threatened her
that if she ever tried to contact you,
they would silence her with weapons.
- What? No.
No, I sent people to find her.
To...
I didn't, that's not.
That's not what I wanted.
- Can I cast Detect Thoughts
on him to see if he's?
- Give me a wisdom save Lou.
- Okay.
14.
- Doesn't pass. What's Amethar thinking?
- Yeah, I wanna know if he-
- I don't remember.
- You never sent anyone to threaten her.
- I wanted to find her.
- Find her.
All of Candia's vast resources
were bent on finding her,
for you just to see her again.
- Yeah.
- You, as dumb and young as you were,
were very much in love.
And you're feeling all that,
you're feeling like you
loved Catherine Ghee
and you tried to find her and couldn't.
- You tried to find her?
- Yes.
I couldn't leave Castle Candia
because all of my sisters had died
and I had to take their place, but...
I mean, your mother was
the only woman I ever loved
and after the w*r I
did everything I could.
Within reason, still honoring
my sisters, to find her.
I had no idea that they had
intimidated or threatened her.
And if I had, oh, the
things I would've done.
- Oh, well,
I guess I'm sorry for
your loss as well then.
- Hey.
I'm sorry.
- For what?
- For everything.
When I look at you, I get so confused.
Like I have a thousand thoughts at once
and I can't pick which one I wanna say.
And some of them are good and
some of them are bad, but...
The life you've had,
it just feels like another one
of the many things I messed up, and...
I'm not good at this.
I'm.
I'm sorry.
- It's okay.
It means a lot that you tried to find her.
I didn't know that.
- Amethar leaves and you feel his mind
move out of your Detect
Thoughts and detect again,
all of the feelings of Amethar's life,
the role his sisters played in it,
and just the weeks and months and years
of messengers returning with no word
or ability to know who
they were looking for.
And also not knowing why they were going
because all their young
king would tell them was,
there's a peasant in the Dairy Islands
that I need to find.
- In that Detect Thoughts,
did I detect any affection for Saccharina?
Or did I detect hatred for Saccharina,
or did I detect nothing?
It's also fine if I didn't.
- There's a very small part
of wanting to love her.
- Wanting to love her.
Thank you.
- You walk away. Where
does Amethar go after that?
- I go to whatever my quarters are and I,
is the Lady Caramelinda there?
- Yeah, she is.
- And I sit with her.
- Saw you speaking to
Annabelle up on the front,
what's going on?
- My wife's...
My wife's dead.
- Well, I
suppose I'm sorry to hear that.
She sounds like she was,
well, I don't know anything about her.
- Yeah.
- I'm sorry that a person
that you loved is gone.
How did she die?
- Illness. Got sick.
- Has she been dead long? Was she-
- 20 years. Long time.
- What did you say, Amethar?
- 20 years.
- Amethar, when did she die?
- 1196.
- What day, 1196?
- Oh, f*ck! I'm not good with-
- What day, Amethar?
- It was like the 12th day
of Harvestdawn or something.
- Harvestdusk, you see she says,
the 12th day of Harvestdusk?
- Caramelinda, what's happening?
- Amethar, we were wed on the
17th day of Harvestdusk 1196.
- I'm sorry, I'm not a smart guy.
I'm having a real hard-
- You are not an adulterer.
You are not an Oathbreaker.
I will tell you what you are, Amethar.
You are the King of Candia.
- Oh.
- And that's all for this
week on "A Crown Of Candy".
Tune in next week for
the thrilling conclusion.
- b*stard no more!
- Wow!
- I think she's dangerous.
- There is always a potential
that certain problems
can solve themselves.
- For Candia!
- Boom! Let's get Amethar
his home back, shall we!
We gotta k*ll all those m*therf*ckers!
All you gotta do is give me the word.
Dragon!
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05x15 - The Two ba*ls
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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.