S2 Ep1, Fate of the Arbiter (Fate of the Arbiter Part 1)

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Three champions, Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry, set out across the lava fields of The Void on a rescue mission. Their orders came from the Grandmaster herself: bring back the Arbiter, who was carried off by a Tarrasque. What follows is a road trip full of bad dice, worse jokes and booby-trapped hallways. It ends with a betrayal, a death, a victory that turns out to be a lie, and a twist that drops the heroes straight onto the sands where the whole thing began.

The Story

The Broken Bridge

The heroes stood on a crumbling stone bridge above a river of lava. Volcanic stone and magma stretched in every direction. Three days had passed since the Grandmaster spoke to them in the halls of The Dread Fortress, and her words still echoed: “Do not fail me.” They had been walking ever since toward The Eastern Outpost, yet the Fortress behind them never seemed to get any smaller.

In the shimmering heat they relived the day it all went wrong. An unknown enemy had attacked the Dread Fortress, and a Tarrasque burst through the arena wall. The Arbiter flew down to hold it back while hordes poured in, and Lucien Brack and Monteclaire Dufresne fought off wave after wave. The Arbiter begged the Grandmaster to run. She refused, and she released the infamous Turkey Dragon, which scared off a red dragon that had landed on the sands. Then the Arbiter’s strength failed, and the Tarrasque bit down on him and carried him away.

Looking back on it now, Toddleheim the wizard was certain the Tarrasque had not been flesh and blood. It was “some sort of conjuration, some sort of construction, an illusion.” Flynry had noticed something unnatural about it in the moonlight. Locket had no idea. She was still in awe of the Grandmaster summoning “the turkey dragon of the horned devil of the waves and waves of devil dogs.”

The introductions came at the edge of the gap. Flynry was a burly shifter in a red cloak “from a place,” whose mum had promised him he’d one day “find myself a nice lady, take home and have little beastie babies.” Toddleheim was short, bearded and proud of it: “my swagger is on point, as the kids would say.” Locket was a lanky tabaxi with Russian-blue fur, goggles and a longbow. She ignored the men while they complimented each other’s faces, until she finally cut in: “I’m right here. I can hear your conversations.”

Flynry crossed the 30-foot gap by stepping from one shadow into another, then smiled and waved from the far side. Toddleheim prepared to teleport. Locket, who had no magic, tied a rope to an arrow and shot it into the ground beside Flynry, which he had not been warned about. Her swing went wrong when her foot caught the edge. She turned out to be heavier than expected, and Flynry began sliding toward the lava. Toddleheim teleported over and grabbed him by the waist (“That’s a nice grip you’ve got there”). With a perfect heave, Flynry yanked Locket straight up and over their heads. She landed on all fours.

Then Flynry noticed a set of stairs and stepping stones just to the left. “Maybe we look for a simpler solution than teleportation and Indiana Jones-ing our ways across a river.”

The Eastern Outpost

The outpost was an ancient temple-pyramid on the border of the Grandmaster’s lands. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of her soldiers were camped around it, kitted out for a full siege. They mostly came, it turned out, from southern New Jersey. One of them jeered at the newcomers and offered them “your mission right here, buddy,” with an obscene gesture. Toddleheim replied, “Well, I believe you can hold my balls, good sir,” and earned the man’s respect.

Inside, soldiers gambled and drank like people who expected some of their number to die tomorrow. A goblin won a dice game, bit his prize coin in half, found it was fake and tackled the hobgoblin beside him. Flynry joined the game, betting a bracelet his aunt had made. The goblin cheated openly and asked Locket, “How much for an ear?” (“My ears are very important to me, so I will not wager them.”) Then Flynry shifted his face into a horrifying beast-goblin mask and explained he had “a bit of a condition” that only the bracelet kept in check. The goblin shrieked “I’m not vaccinated” and fled. Flynry swept the goblin’s seven gold into his pouch. Meanwhile Toddleheim found a bard playing the lute by the fire, where a stranger asked what he had to say. “I say nothing,” Toddleheim answered, and he was slid a tankard of ale for his trouble.

In the main hall, under mounted dragon skulls, a huge eye-patched bear spoke up: “I’m not going to eat you… I’m not an it. I’m a man.” This was Orin, a werebear and the commander of the outpost. He showed them his one-eyed goliath form before switching back, because “I just prefer it this way.” He briefed his new “strike squad.” A rebellion calling itself the Servants of the Void had taken the Arbiter. Orin’s army would hit the rebels’ mountain fortress from the front while the squad slipped in “from the rear,” which the table did not handle with maturity.

Orin also explained his loyalty. As a boy, werebears had ransacked his village, infected him and devoured his family. The Arbiter leapt from his mount and swore to avenge them, “because… I can’t stand to see your heart break.” He later appointed Orin to this post on the Grandmaster’s behalf. Toddleheim wept, and Flynry handed him an ornate handkerchief. Orin finished with a warning about a goblin named Kenny: “He’s kind of a piece of shit, but he’s good with a dagger.”

The squad spent the night in a potato cellar with a hidden bottle of brandy. Toddleheim cheerfully said he had killed everyone who ever challenged him and that acid was his favorite spell because “they scream rather loud.” Flynry admitted he had never killed a man. Toddleheim finished the bottle.

Gifts and the Box

At dawn Orin gave each of them a glowing green pearl holding a powerful healing spell. He then opened a set of doors beneath the dragon skulls onto a literal inferno. At the far end sat The Box of Chaos, which “does demand a sacrifice.” Flynry fed it his pearl. Its heatless green, pink and purple flames gave him a scroll that would cover him in dragon scales, and he told no one what it was. Locket prayed, “Please, just give me a new bow,” and instead got a crackling potion of storm giant strength. She asked if that was all. “It’s a magic box,” Orin protested. “He just gave you a magic item, what do you mean?” Toddleheim kept his pearl.

The Back Door

They rode for a day into a dark, cold land “almost dead in a different way,” to The abandoned dwarven fortress, whose columns were carved into the shape of an old man’s face. Orin’s farewell was simple: “I won’t say good luck because I know that you’re not going to need it.” Sleeping drakes lay coiled among the rocks, and two armored guardians with enormous clawed metal fists stood at the gate.

Flynry cloaked them in stealth magic and Toddleheim turned himself and Locket invisible. Flynry, who was very much not invisible, squeezed through a crack in the wall instead. Inside, he wrapped himself in magical silence, slid the door’s bar aside and let his friends in, and Locket slid the bar closed again. Toddleheim raised a wall of earth outside to block the guardians. When they worked out something was wrong, their spiked fists punched through the door without a sound.

The halls beyond were a gauntlet. They found a track of hidden spinning blades, which Flynry set off by rolling one of the goblin’s coins across it, trapping Locket between them (“I’m trapped!”). She studied the rhythm of the blades and darted through cleanly. They found a worn Dwarvish carving about “the hammer that resides in the mountain” and “the treasure of the east,” a gambling table abandoned mid-game, and a pair of healing potions that Locket quietly kept. At the end was a bookcase that unbolted a heavy iron gate when Flynry pulled one worn book and then hurled the rest of the shelf to the floor. A rusty blade sliced Toddleheim on the way. “You’re gonna need a tetanus after that one,” said Locket.

The Arbiter

Beyond the gate lay a cathedral-like chamber washed in purple light, and the Arbiter stood in its center, unharmed. He seemed oddly displeased to be rescued. “I’ve been stuck here for weeks, and you just walk right in. It seems a little too easy, doesn’t it?” As the screams of the siege echoed through the walls, he flared his wings.

“You think that I need rescuing? Look at me! You haven’t come to rescue me. You’ve come to die.”

He offered them a choice: kneel, help him overthrow the Grandmaster, and “live like kings and queens.” When Toddleheim tried to simply leave, the Arbiter flicked the door shut. “Oh dear,” Toddleheim observed, “he’s monologuing.” The Arbiter called Elusia “a waste of space” who “plays in her arena.” Then he swelled to giant size over a swirling cosmic portal, with five boulders of floor and wall orbiting him as a shield.

Flynry’s fists smashed boulder after boulder. Toddleheim’s magic missiles wove between the rocks. Locket drank her giant’s-strength potion and climbed a column for high ground. The Arbiter ripped Toddleheim’s missiles out of his own chest and flung them back even harder. Locket pleaded with him: “You and the Grandmaster were like this. You were friends.” He told her there was no helping him. Then Flynry landed a perfect flurry past the remaining boulders, a necrotic blow that doubled the giant over. “That was the biggest mistake of your entire life,” the Arbiter snarled, and Flynry fled behind some jars.

The fight grew stranger. The Arbiter turned back time to stop an arrow in mid-air. He fired a bolt of chaos that Flynry caught on his gauntlets. His aura split Toddleheim’s memories in two, until in one version of the day the dwarf was fighting the Arbiter, and in the other he was on the Arbiter’s side.

Orin’s Last Stand

The metal door crashed down and Orin charged in. “Am I too late?” The party told him the truth. The Arbiter, all warmth, told him the opposite: they were the traitors, and they had volunteered for this. Orin had known the Arbiter his whole life, but he chose the strangers. “I’ve talked to these folks. I’ve seen what’s in their souls… You won’t get past me.”

“And I kind of liked you, Orin,” the Arbiter replied, and disintegrated him. It was not a gentle fade. Orin’s legs burst into ash, holes tore through him, and with a final cry he crumbled like an ancient statue. His ashes were swept into the vortex. “Look what you forced me to do,” said the Arbiter. He hurled chaos lightning across the floor. In that split second Flynry read his secret scroll, and dragon scales sealed over him from head to toe, so he took the blast without flinching. Toddleheim’s shield wasn’t enough, and he was left barely alive. “Why won’t you just die?” the drained Arbiter demanded.

The Final Blow

Flynry shifted into his beast form, and the scales changed with him into a dragon-like beast. Toddleheim, bleeding out, told him: “Flyn, I believe in you. See this through till the end. Make me proud.” He splashed acid across the Arbiter’s hide. Flynry drove both blue-burning fists into the giant’s center, and Locket’s last flaming arrow pierced his head. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way! I had so much to do!” the Arbiter cried, as his own orbiting stones collapsed in on him and eviscerated him.

In the silence, a faint outline of ash marked where Orin had fallen. The Arbiter’s shrunken body lay at their feet, still wearing eight rings of eight different colors. Toddleheim sensed they were cursed so that no one else could use them. Flynry rigged a rock as a fulcrum and stomped the Arbiter’s hands off, rings and all, and bagged them as proof. They walked out through the cheers of an army that had no idea the Arbiter had turned.

The Twist

Back at the Dread Fortress, they entered through the mouth of its great skull and went down past portraits of Elusia Skypiercer to her throne room. The Grandmaster stood with her back to them, wings flared. Toddleheim broke the news terribly (“Is this just a game to you?”). Flynry silently set down the bag with the hands on top.

She turned, saw the rings, and began to smile, wider and wider, until the smile became laughter. Her hair and dress dissolved into mist, and the Arbiter stepped out of the illusion. The hands and rings shriveled and faded away, and with them went the whole victory.

“You thought that I wasn’t ten steps ahead of you the entire time. No.”

Their “betrayal” would be known across the realm, he promised: assassins who came to murder him under the guise of a rescue. Prison was an option. Death was an option. But he had a better idea. The mist became a portal and swallowed them, and the three found themselves on the hot sands of the arena beneath the roar of The Acolytes. The Arbiter rose into the sky. “Acolytes! You have come for dungeons and dice and deathmatches, and I have returned to satiate your bloodlust… Welcome to D20 Deathmatch.”

Notable Moments

• Flynry hauled Locket over the lava with a perfect heave, then noticed the perfectly good stairs nearby.
• Flynry scared off the cheating goblin with a fake contagious “condition” and pocketed the goblin’s seven gold.
• The Box of Chaos answered Locket’s prayer for a new bow with a potion of storm giant strength.
• The Arbiter turned his rescuers’ own magic missiles back on them and rewound time to stop an arrow.
• Orin chose the strangers over the man who saved his life, and was disintegrated for it.
• The Grandmaster in the throne room was the Arbiter all along, and the “dead” Arbiter’s hands faded to nothing.

Memorable Quotes

• Orin: “I’m not going to eat you… I’m not an it. I’m a man.”
• Locket: “My ears are very important to me, so I will not wager them.”
• The goblin: “I’m not vaccinated.”
• Toddleheim: “Oh dear, he’s monologuing.”
• The Arbiter: “Elusia will rue the day that she crossed me. She doesn’t know how to run an empire, how to be an iron fist. She plays in her arena.”
• Flynry: “You didn’t want to eat us, and I’m pretty sure that the Arbiter wants to eat us.”
• Orin: “I’ve talked to these folks. I’ve seen what’s in their souls… You won’t get past me.”
• The Arbiter: “And I kind of liked you, Orin.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Toddleheim “the Great” (Ahnubyss)

• A dwarf wizard, short, bearded, cocky. Also called “the Hot Toddy.” Others mangle his name: Toddy, Tiddlywinks, Timmy, Timothy, Trevor, Toto, Thomas.
• Says he specializes in Firebolt and loves acid splash because “they scream rather loud,” and enjoys killing those who challenge him.
• Reads Dwarvish. Claims to have seen cursed rings like the Arbiter’s “many, many eons ago.”
• Got drunk on the cellar brandy and played the fight hungover. He kept his healing pearl.
• Spells used: Benign Transposition, invisibility, Mold Earth, Sleep (abandoned), Magic Missile, Burning Hands, shield, Misty Step, acid splash.
• Ended the fight at 2 HP.

Locket (Miss_Magitek)

• A tabaxi with Russian-blue fur and goggles, armed with a longbow and daggers. She prefers high ground.
• A trap expert who designs traps. She has killed beasts and aberrations but never a man. Her ears are not for sale.
• Got the potion of storm giant strength from the Box (she had wished for a new bow) and drank it in the fight. Found two potions of healing and gave one to Toddleheim.
• Used Flame Arrows.

Flynry (BDTeej)

• A shifter who can’t return to his homeland. Burly, with long brown hair, a beard and a red cloak. Carries a short bow.
• A monk (“I like to punch things”): unarmed strikes, Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, Deflect Missiles through his monk gauntlets.
• Shadow powers: shadow-stepping, Pass Without Trace, Silence, Darkness, granting darkvision by touch, Inflict Wounds (necrotic).
• Seeking a nice lady per his mum. His aunt made his bracelet.
• Won the goblin’s 7 gold with a fake contagious “condition.” Took 8 gp 4 sp 3 cp from the fortress.
• Got the scroll of Dragon’s Skin from the Box, kept it secret, and used it on himself. Dealt the crit that bloodied the Arbiter and snapped off the Arbiter’s hands.

The Arbiter (Mudcat)

• Taken by the Tarrasque (which Toddleheim knew was an illusion or conjuration). Found apparently free in a cathedral chamber of the dwarven fortress, claiming he’d been “stuck here for weeks.”
• Openly declares he wants the Dread Fortress and to overthrow the Grandmaster (“Elusia will rue the day”).
• Grew giant, shielded himself with orbiting stones, turned back time (chronal shift), reflected Magic Missile, threw chaos bolts and chaos lightning, wore a psychic memory-splitting aura, and disintegrated Orin.
• Wears eight prismatic rings, cursed against anyone else.
• His “death” was a deception. He reappeared disguised as the Grandmaster, framed the party as would-be murderers, and portaled them into the arena.

Orin (Mudcat)

• A werebear who prefers bear form, with a one-eyed Goliath human form. Commander of the Eastern Outpost.
• Talkative, sarcastic, a self-described smasher, not a strategist. Bad at housekeeping.
• Infected as a boy when werebears destroyed his village. The Arbiter avenged his family, and later appointed him to the outpost for the Grandmaster.
• Gave out the healing pearls and offered the Box of Chaos.
• Sided with the party over the Arbiter and was disintegrated. His ash joined the Arbiter’s vortex. Possibly a “Toddy” in his past.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer

• Appears only in the memory and as the Arbiter’s illusion (turquoise and purple dress, black wings). She has no lines. Her order “Do not fail me” is recalled.

Kenny (inferred)

• Orin warns of a cheating goblin named Kenny: “kind of a piece of shit, but he’s good with a dagger.” The goblin who bit a fake coin, cheated at dice, asked to buy an ear and fled “not vaccinated” is inferred to be him.

Minor NPCs

• The Dragonborn who spotted the goblin 7 gp.
• The hobgoblin tackled by the goblin.
• The orc who didn’t know “she was your sister,” and the furious elf.
• The jeering New Jersey soldier (“hey Joe”).
• The maybe-halfling who shared ale by the fire.
• The bard on the lute.
• The orc or soldier who “cut off his own arm.”
• The goblins who “all sound the same.”

Mentioned: Lucien Brack and Monteclaire Dufresne (S1 finale defenders), the Turkey Dragon, the red dragon, the Tarrasque, a horned devil and devil dogs. Orin also mentions an unnamed Toddy.

Creatures: sleeping drakes, two shield guardians with clawed metal fists.

Faction: the Servants of the Void, a rebellion bent on overthrowing the Grandmaster (per Orin).

Places

• The lava fields between the Dread Fortress and the Eastern Outpost, including the broken stone bridge (with stairs and stepping stones nearby).
• The Eastern Outpost: an ancient temple-pyramid on the border of the Grandmaster’s lands, with an army camped outside.
  • A main hall with a lava river and dragon skulls.
  • An inferno room beneath the skulls where the Box of Chaos is safeguarded.
  • An eastern potato cellar.
• The land beyond the border: dark, cool, blue, “dead in a different way.”
• The abandoned dwarven fortress in the mountains, a day’s ride away, with columns shaped like an old man’s face.
  • A back gate and a demolished great hall.
  • The trap halls: a blade track, a bones-and-wine cellar, bedrolls, a gambling room, and the bookcase and crystal room with its three-bolt iron gate.
  • The purple-lit cathedral chamber.
  • Its carving mentions “the hammer that resides in the mountain” and “the treasure of the east.”
• The Dread Fortress: entered through the mouth of the open skull, with cool dank halls and portraits of Elusia. Its throne room is where the illusion stood.
• The sands of the arena.

Items

• Three opalescent healing pearls (4th-level cure wounds). Two were sacrificed; Toddleheim kept his.
• Box of Chaos: heatless green, pink and purple flames. It demands a sacrifice.
• Scroll of Dragon’s Skin (Flynry, used).
• Potion of storm giant strength (Locket, used).
• Flynry’s aunt-made bracelet; his ornate handkerchief; the goblin’s 7 gold (some or all possibly fake; one was rolled to trigger the trap).
• Two potions of healing; 8 gp 4 sp 3 cp.
• The Arbiter’s eight prismatic cursed rings and his severed hands (both illusory, they faded).

Lore statements

• The Arbiter is “ancient” though he doesn’t look it (Orin).
• The Servants of the Void rebellion seeks to overthrow the Grandmaster (Orin’s understanding).
• The Arbiter can create convincing illusions: the Tarrasque (per Toddleheim’s read) and a perfect Grandmaster disguise.
• The Box of Chaos is housed at the Eastern Outpost.
• Orin claims the Void’s weather was cooler in his youth.

Full Round-by-Round

Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)

Cold open: the broken bridge and the memory

1. 0:00:02 “Welcome to D20 Deathmatch, Fate of the Arbiter.”
2. 0:00:12 The heroes stand on a broken, crumbling stone bridge above a river of lava. Volcanic stone and magma stretch in every direction. The Dread Fortress is miles behind them. It is three days since the Grandmaster spoke to them in its halls, and her words still echo: “Do not fail me.” The Fortress hasn’t seemed to shrink at all as they walk toward the Eastern Outpost, where they are to meet their contact.
3. 0:01:13 The memory (the Season 1 finale, retold). Heat rising off the lava ripples the air like a mirage, and they relive the day “all hell broke loose”:
   • The Dread Fortress was attacked by an unknown entity, and a Tarrasque burst through the wall of the arena.
   • The Arbiter flew down to hold it back with all his magic, while hordes poured through the breach.
   • Lucien Brack and Monteclaire Dufresne fought off wave after wave.
   • The Arbiter begged the Grandmaster to run and hide. She refused and stood in the arena trying to unleash a beast.
   • A red dragon landed on the sands. The Grandmaster opened the last lock of the cage and released the infamous Turkey Dragon, which scared the red dragon away. The champions slew the remaining forces.
   • Then the Arbiter’s strength failed, and the Tarrasque bit down on him and carried him away.
4. 0:04:01 Perception rolls on the memory.
   • Toddleheim, as a wizard, knows without doubt that the Tarrasque was not flesh and blood. It was “some sort of conjuration, some sort of construction, an illusion.”
   • Flynry saw that its ethereal form in the moonlight looked unnatural, but couldn’t tell what it was.
   • Locket (nat 1) has no idea. She was simply awed by the Grandmaster conjuring “the turkey dragon of the horned devil of the waves and waves of devil dogs.”
5. 0:05:42 The gap in the bridge is about 30 ft across. On the far side lies the rest of the road to the Eastern Outpost, where they are to meet Orin, as the Grandmaster instructed.

Introductions

6. 0:06:07 Flynry.
   • A shifter “from a place”: “it’s important that I’m here because I can no longer be there.”
   • Burly, tall, with long brown hair, a big beard and a red cloak. He sometimes uses a little bow “when I’m not making myself into some kind of a beast.”
   • His mum told him he’s quite attractive and that one day he’ll “find myself a nice lady, take home and have little beastie babies.”
7. 0:07:24 Toddleheim.
   • “Toddleheim the Great.” He is a bit mystified as to why he’s here, but “one must follow on these conquests and attain the name and keep the name of Toddleheim the Great.”
   • Short (“don’t judge me for it. It’s in my jeans”), with a nice beard: “my swagger is on point, as the kids would say.”
   • He and Flynry compliment each other’s faces. Flynry worries Toddleheim will get the ladies first.
8. 0:08:38 Locket.
   • A tabaxi, tall and lanky, with dark grayish-blue fur “like a Russian blue.”
   • Goggles on her head, a longbow on her back and several daggers at her side.
   • She scans the surroundings and ignores the men. They decide she doesn’t find either of them attractive. Locket: “I’m right here. I can hear your conversations.” Then: “Shall we move forward?”

Crossing the gap

9. 0:10:08 Mudcat stresses that falling into the lava means certain death. Under the ash it is dim in the middle of the day, the lava glow tints everything orange, and there are stark shadows.
10. 0:11:58 Toddleheim plans to use Benign Transposition to teleport across. Flynry shadow-steps: he warns the others that “a man evaporates into thin air like that,” then poofs from one shadow to a pillar’s shadow 60 ft away, smiling and waving: “See, it wasn’t going long.”
11. 0:12:33 Locket has no magic. Toddleheim suggests she hop across (“very high risk”). She proposes a rope swing, and Toddleheim leaves “the theatrics to the both of you.”
12. 0:15:42 Locket ties the rope to an arrow and shoots it into the ground beside Flynry. Flynry: “When we discussed this, you did not say you’d be shooting it with a bow and arrow.” He braces, wraps the rope around his elbows and offers to “reel you in like a little fish.” Locket to Toddleheim: “If anything happens, will you catch me? Just kidding.”
13. 0:18:22 The swing goes wrong. Locket catches her foot on the bridge’s edge and tumbles. She is “a lot heavier than you thought,” and Flynry starts sliding toward the lava. Locket keeps her grip.
14. 0:19:44 Toddleheim transposes across and grabs Flynry by the waist. Flynry: “That’s a nice grip you’ve got there, my waist. That feels quite nice.” Toddleheim: “I do have quite a strong grip as a dwarf.” With Toddleheim’s help, Flynry rolls a nat 20 and yanks Locket straight up. She flies over their heads and lands on all fours. Flynry: “I don’t know my own strengths.”
15. 0:22:19 The stairs. Too late, Flynry spots stepping stones and stairs down to the left that cross the lava river. “I think in the future, maybe we look for a simpler solution than teleportation and Indiana Jones-ing our ways across a river.” Toddleheim: “Good observation.”

The Eastern Outpost

16. 0:23:31 Ahead stands an old temple-pyramid, a ruin of an ancient society repurposed as the Eastern Outpost, on the border of the Grandmaster’s lands. The land cools here. From the top you can see the landscape change drastically just beyond.
17. 0:25:10 Toddleheim’s history roll (8) only tells him it must be the outpost, since it’s the only thing out here for miles. “Tally ho.” Flynry adds: “But it could be a trap.”
18. 0:26:06 The ground shakes from shifting magma, and artifacts and runes are scattered around. Hundreds if not thousands of the Grandmaster’s soldiers are camped outside, among singed trees where the land turns to woods. They look battle-ready but have settled in for the night. Bridges cross the lava here.
19. 0:29:10 The party get stares and snarls. Mudcat describes the army as kitted out for a full siege, while the party look very different. From the back, a soldier jeers: “hey Joe, you see these losers over here.” Flynry pegs him as a rude New Jersey man.
20. 0:30:46 Soldier: “Hey, I got your mission right here, buddy,” with an obscene gesture. Toddleheim: “Well, I believe you can hold my balls, good sir.” The soldier decides Toddleheim is okay: “You’ve earned his respect with your quick wit.”
21. 0:31:18 The stairs. Locket ignores everyone and climbs the pyramid’s deceptively steep stairs, barely making it look easy in the sulfurous air. Flynry nearly has to crawl: “I think I could use… maybe a water.” Toddleheim: “Maybe work on your cardio… try some time on the elliptical.”
22. 0:33:55 Inside are the higher-ranked warriors, “the inner circle of the war council,” and more lava. Toddleheim: “There seems to be a recurring theme.”
23. 0:34:49 The orc and the elf. An orc pleads with a furious elf whose face is red as a strawberry: “I didn’t know she was your sister. I didn’t know. Listen, I was a perfect gentleman… She started it.” Locket: “We should listen in on the tea.”
24. 0:35:42 Inside, soft lute music and a singer echo off the walls. The mood is somber, as on the night before a battle some won’t survive. Soldiers gamble, drink or sit quietly.

The dice game

25. 0:37:10 A goblin wins a dice game, bites the gold coin in half, finds it’s fake, and tackles the hobgoblin next to him: “You piece of shit!”
26. 0:38:10 Flynry asks to be dealt in. He wagers a small bracelet worth 10 gp, in his homeland’s style, made by his aunt. The goblin lowballs it (“just enough to cover your wager”). Flynry’s insight shows the goblin is full of it, so Flynry starts to leave.
27. 0:40:41 The goblin begs a Dragonborn: “Listen, just spot me… like six or seven gold pieces.” Thinking he might be dead tomorrow anyway, the Dragonborn tosses him seven gold. Best of three.
28. 0:42:10 Flynry rolls a 2 and the goblin an 11. The goblin nudges Flynry’s dice with his foot. Locket sits and watches for cheating. The goblin: “I’m watching you.” Then, to Locket: “How much for an ear?” Locket: “My ears are very important to me, so I will not wager them.”
29. 0:44:15 The scare. As the goblin throws, Flynry shifts just his face into a horrifying beast-goblin visage. The goblin rolls a 6. Flynry: “I have a bit of a condition… I’m feeling a bit of a flare-up coming on.” “Is it contagious?” “It can be. One thing that helps keep it in check is if I’m wearing that bracelet.” The goblin: “I’m not vaccinated” and flees across the map.
30. 0:45:44 Flynry puts the bracelet back on and sweeps the seven gold into his pouch. To Locket: “I’m really glad you didn’t sell him one of your ears.” Then he leaves.

Toddleheim by the fire

31. 0:46:10 Toddleheim finds the music: a bard with a lute in a quiet room where soldiers reflect on tomorrow. Perhaps a halfling says: “Well, what say you, friend?” Toddleheim: “I say nothing.” “Oh, the silent type. I like it.” He slides Toddleheim a tankard of ale with his foot. Toddleheim checks it isn’t poisoned, toasts and drinks. They sit and watch the fire.

Orin the werebear

32. 0:49:03 In the main hall a lava river runs through the floor, and the heat is nauseating. Mounted dragon skulls hang above a large humanoid bear wearing an eye patch. Locket: “My encounters with bears generally are, they want to eat me.” Flynry suggests fetching “Toddy, Tiddlywinks, what his name is.”
33. 0:51:32 The bear: “I’m not going to eat you… I’m not an it… I’m a man. This is your first time seeing a were-bear?” With cracking bones and falling fur, he becomes a tall Goliath with an eye patch and bare chest.
34. 0:53:20 Flynry does a full shift into his beast form, and Locket asks if this is “that condition.” Flynry admits “I might have embellished my lack of control a bit. I can kind of do this at will.”
35. 0:54:16 Toddleheim walks in on all the shapeshifting: “Jesus, I’ve never seen a sight to behold.” Someone in the background yells “Change places!” Flynry calls him Timmy.
36. 0:56:14 The Goliath: “I’m not going to eat you. Although… maybe after breakfast.” He is sarcastic, but his face can’t show it. Flynry reverts, and the Goliath goes back to bear form: “I just prefer it this way.”
37. 0:57:13 Locket explains they were summoned to rescue the Arbiter. “You’re the strike squad?” Flynry: “That’s a pretty cool name.” Toddleheim: “Toddleheim the Great, also known as the Hot Toddy.” The bear: “The Hot Toddy sounds sensual, I like it. … I think I knew a Toddy once,” and he trails off.
38. 0:58:20 Orin’s briefing. “I’m Orin, the commander of this installation.” Tomorrow his army marches on the enemy to create an opening for the strike squad to “snatch the Arbiter back.” He retells the whole Deathmatch story, which the party saw and he didn’t, because he rarely gets visitors.
39. 0:59:55 The enemy. “It’s an uprising, a rebellion… They call themselves the Servants of the Void. They’re bent on overthrowing the Grandmaster.” “Why would you want to overthrow a creature as beautiful and as powerful and as regal as she?” Taking the Arbiter is “a low blow. In my day, you fought your battles out in the open. None of this subterfuge. No offense.”
40. 1:00:47 Orin’s story. “The Arbiter saved my life once, as a boy… he doesn’t look that old but he’s ancient. Very, very good diet, I guess… maybe a nice skin and hair routine.”
    • Werebears ransacked Orin’s village. Orin was infected, and his family and many friends were slaughtered and eaten.
    • On “an auspiciously cool morning here in the Void” (“the weather was different in those days, you know, global warming”), the Arbiter leapt off his mount and swore: “I will avenge your family. Not for the sake of glory or honor, but because… I can’t stand to see your heart break.”
    • “I knew I would follow him anywhere.” The Arbiter later appointed Orin to this installation on behalf of the Grandmaster.
41. 1:03:29 Toddleheim is moved to tears. Flynry hands him an ornate hand-woven handkerchief and rubs his back. Locket: “Chin up, Timothy.” Toddleheim: “Who on earth is Timothy?”
42. 1:04:30 The plan. The army rides at first light. It is a hard ride, about a day, to “a fortress deep in the mountains, an old dwarven castle built into the side of a cliff.” Orin is “good at smashing things.” The army attacks the front while the strike squad enters from the rear, through a mountain pass to a lightly guarded back gate. The table loses it over “enter from the rear.” Flynry asks if there are nice ladies by the back door. Orin: “I’m sure if you dig around enough, you’ll find it.”
43. 1:07:13 Orin says the soldiers outside are “mostly from southern New Jersey.” Flynry: “I’ve been to Hoboken. It’s quite nasty there.”
44. 1:08:02 Orin: “There’s a goblin around here. He cheats. Watch out for him. His name is Kenny. He’s kind of a piece of shit, but he’s good with a dagger.” (The cheating dice goblin is inferred to be Kenny.) He promises the party “a few aids” before they leave.
45. 1:08:40 Locket is drenched. Flynry: “I didn’t know that the kitties could sweat.” Orin points them to a cooler cellar to the east where the potatoes and provisions are kept: “you can see why I’m not wearing a shirt,” which makes no sense, since he chooses to be a furry bear.

The night in the potato cellar

46. 1:10:44 On the way, a soldier brags: “Did you hear about the time that I cut off my own arm and sewed it back on in the battlefield?” “Why would you cut off your own arm, dipshit?” Toddleheim: “Try not to cut your arms off too often.” The soldier admits it was “more of like a large laceration,” pointing to a faint scar. Toddleheim makes him step into the firelight to show it. The goblins laugh at him. Flynry to Locket: “The more we meet of these people, the less I like our chances.”
47. 1:13:12 The cellar holds sacks of potatoes and turnips, salted meat, cots, junk and a hidden brandy. Orin is clearly bad at housekeeping. Flynry touches the others’ shoulders to grant them darkvision.
48. 1:15:01 Brandy talk.
    • Flynry asks if they’ve fought before. Locket: “A few… none to this caliber.”
    • Flynry calls Toddleheim “Trevor.” Toddleheim: “I have indeed, yes. I killed them all. It was rather enjoyable, actually.”
    • Toddleheim: “I specialize in the Firebolt spells… the acid splash. That one is my favorite. It’s slow to burn, so they scream rather loud.” Flynry: “You got a bit of an illness in the head, then?” Toddleheim: “Not others, just the ones who decide to challenge me and fail.”
    • Flynry slides down the wall with his brandy. He has never killed a man. Locket: “I’ve not killed a man, but I’ve killed beasts, aberrations.” Toddleheim: “That doesn’t count.”
    • Flynry: “Everyone sleep tight, and perhaps with one eye open.” Locket sleeps with her dagger beside her.
49. 1:18:34 Toddleheim finishes the bottle and gets trashed, so he’ll be hungover. Midway through the night Flynry checks that Locket is still alive. Locket wakes everyone before dawn. Toddleheim: “Just a little quieter, please.” Flynry: “We know it’s meant for a bear.” Toddleheim: “Considering my stature, that would explain quite a lot.”
50. 1:20:57 The camp is now somber and urgent. Soldiers arm themselves and ignore the party. (Break, cut from the mp3.)

Orin’s gifts and the Box of Chaos

51. 1:22:56 Orin stands pondering the dragon skulls, “he sees them every day, but he still just ponders them.” Flynry approaches politely.
52. 1:23:53 Orin gives each of them an opalescent pearl that glows green in the light: a 4th-level cure wounds trapped inside, used by throwing it at your feet. “Now, don’t lose those.”
53. 1:24:39 “This is where we safeguard a certain box… the Box of Chaos, which you may or may not have seen in the arena. It does demand a sacrifice.” The pearl can be sacrificed for a gamble. He opens wooden doors under the dragon skulls into a literal inferno, with the Box at the end. “I think the Grandmaster would approve.”
54. 1:28:24 Flynry’s gamble. “I like to be in the dark a lot and I don’t get hurt very often.” The Box’s lid opens on green, pink and purple flames that give off no heat. Flynry waves his hand through them, and Mudcat jokes it’s just paper-flame fans. Flynry drops the pearl in, and the lid slams and rumbles. Flynry: “I don’t think I like the way the box is talking to me.” Toddleheim: “I do believe the box hit you with the Owen Wilson.”
55. 1:31:40 A plain paper scroll floats out: a scroll of Dragon’s Skin, a 6th-level spell giving AC 20 and immunity to one of acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder. Flynry tells no one what it is. He nods and smiles “like… your grandmother’s Christmas card” and pockets it. Toddleheim: “Disloyal fool-ass.”
56. 1:34:06 Locket’s gamble. She prays: “Please, just give me a new bow.” Instead a small vial rises with swirling white and black colors and flickering lightning inside: a potion of storm giant strength. Locket: “Is that all?” Orin: “It’s a magic box. He just gave you a magic item, what do you mean?”
57. Toddleheim keeps his pearl.

The ride and the back gate

58. 1:36:09 Montage. Given mounts, they ride all day and into night. The land beyond is dark, sinister, cool and “almost dead in a different way,” in deep blues. After days in the volcanic heat, the cool mountain air feels like an ethereal sheet of ice. The dwarven fortress has columns and pillars built into the mountainside in the shape of an old man’s face.
59. 1:38:11 Orin: “I won’t say good luck because I know that you’re not going to need it… we’ll meet you in the rear.” The army goes east, the party west.
60. 1:38:27 From the cliffs, they spot sleeping drakes that blend into the rock. Before the door stand two large armored guards with swords on their backs and huge clawed metal fists bigger than their torsos. Mudcat later calls them golems, statues and shield guardians.
61. 1:41:24 Flynry casts Pass Without Trace. Toddleheim: “Flyn, how confident are you feeling?” Flynry: “I have a few more tricks up my sleeves.” Toddleheim casts invisibility on himself and Locket.
62. 1:45:39 Flynry nearly steps into two more sleeping drakes’ nest and stops just in time. He sneaks behind a column. The invisible pair slip past the guardians to the door, which is locked.
63. 1:48:18 Flynry sees he is visibly not invisible, unlike his “sci-fi shimmery cloak friends,” so he squeezes through a broken section of wall. Locket: “Oh dear. Hope he’ll be all right.” Toddleheim: “He can handle himself.”
64. 1:50:23 Inside is a large ruined hall with distant murmuring voices. The great wooden door is barred with a beam (“they were expecting an assault here today”). Flynry rolls a nat 1, but the bar is impossible to miss.
65. 1:52:09 Flynry casts Silence on himself. Toddleheim (a somatic-only spell) raises Mold Earth outside as a barrier between the guardians and the door. Teej: “Anubis, the GM is literally being your computer when you’re about to erase your hard drive. Are you sure?”
66. 1:54:37 Flynry slides the bar back in total silence. Toddleheim and Locket slip in, and Locket slides the bar closed again. The guardians feel the earth move, smash through the barrier, and work out “something fishy.” Their spiked knuckles punch through the door, silently.
67. 1:58:18 The hall is demolished and full of rubble. Suits of armor line a staircase, and there are open doorways north and south. Unseen voices to the south talk among themselves. Flynry considers Darkness but keeps the Silence up, since dropping it would let the pounding be heard. The party regroup in a corner outside the sphere.
68. 2:02:16 Flynry can’t tell which invisible friend is which (“I’ll look at Toddy and say, Locket”). He proposes taking the large side door away from the voices. On a nat 1, Mudcat rules the guards are too wrapped up in their conversation. The table jokes they’re discussing Real Housewives: “That’s canon.”

The trap halls

69. 2:04:27 An empty corridor. Locket checks for pressure plates and finds nothing. Flynry: “I think we should let the kitty go first.” Toddleheim: “They do have nine lives as opposed to us. I’ve only got one.”
70. 2:06:26 A former wine cellar or study holds an empty wine case, a pile of bones, broken glass, armor scraps and broken pots. The castle is a strange place for a hideout.
71. 2:07:39 Locket, an expert in designing traps, senses stones that have been lifted and reset: “It could be booby trapped.” Toddleheim spots a thin track between the pillars.
72. 2:09:26 The dwarven carving. Flynry finds an old carving. Toddleheim reads Dwarvish: “something about the hammer that resides in the mountain… something about the treasure of the east.” The rest is worn away; the fortress has long been abandoned. Flynry asks if it says “speak friend and enter” (speaker uncertain). Toddleheim: “Not quite.”
73. 2:12:11 Flynry rolls one of the goblin’s gold coins across the track. It triggers the trap, and spinning blades shoot up on either side of Locket: “I’m trapped!” Toddleheim: “Have you noticed my stature? My jump distance is not quite far.”
74. 2:14:06 Flynry shadow-steps across. Locket studies the blades’ rhythm for 30 seconds and darts through cleanly. Toddleheim teleports, then passes a Dexterity save. No one is hurt. Mudcat: “This is exactly what I had planned the whole time.” Toddleheim: “That’s awfully suspicious.” Flynry: “My friends, I think that God is lying to us.”
75. 2:17:26 On a nat 20, Locket finds two common potions of healing in a room of bedrolls that was used within the day.
76. 2:18:24 A newer table that has been moved in holds dice, tankards and coin pouches. Flynry takes 8 gold, 4 silver and 3 copper, enough for weeks of lodging. Whoever was here seemingly left in a hurry when the siege began.
77. 2:20:14 Toddleheim finds nothing wrong with the next corridor and crosses it. Everyone follows nervously. Mudcat: “I’ve set you guys up for so much suspense… you’re going to destroy yourselves.” Flynry: “The anxiety will kill us alone.”

The bookcase puzzle

78. 2:21:38 A smaller room has a pit, empty side rooms and a large iron gate bolted from the outside, “indicating there’s something in there that nobody wants to be let out.” Toddleheim: “I have absolutely zero interest in opening that gate.” Flynry: “Perhaps they’re trying to keep the Arbiter in there.”
79. 2:23:46 Toddleheim: “Wait!” There are three floating, spinning crystals. His arcana roll is a 2: magic, but he doesn’t know what kind. “They may kill each and every one of us.” Flynry: “I’m not touching the shit.”
80. 2:25:16 At the bookcase, Flynry finds one book slightly more worn and pulls it. One of the gate’s three bolts slides open. “There’s always three.” Excited, Flynry throws a whole shelf of books on the floor, and the other two bolts open.
81. 2:27:50 Toddleheim walks across the middle and a rusty whirling blade pops out, slashing his back or leg, and blood flings on the wall. “That’s fucking me up.” Locket: “You’re gonna need a tetanus after that one.”
82. 2:29:37 The squealing gate opens. In the distance: siege machinery striking stone, explosions, and the clanking of the two shield guardians tracking them (Mudcat: “There may or may not have been an alarm spell”). Toddleheim: “This is the most sophisticated security in any game ever.”

The Arbiter

83. 2:31:02 A cathedral-like chamber with pews, tall columns and soft purple light. The Arbiter stands in the middle. “Arby!” Toddleheim: “This feels a little bit sus.”
84. 2:31:52 The Arbiter: “What are you? Who are you?” “We’re the strike team.” He is not harmed. “So you were just able to walk in? You got past all of the forces outside the fortress?” Toddleheim: “We are professionals.” Flynry: “We penetrated the rear defenses… Thomas made a stone wall.” The Arbiter: “I’ve been stuck here for weeks, and you just walk right in. It seems a little too easy, doesn’t it?”
85. 2:35:52 The walls crumble, and the screams of slaughtered soldiers echo inside the fortress. The Arbiter: “Well, that’s… that’s just great… Oh, you plan and you plan and you plan!” (“And it all goes to shit.” Speaker uncertain.) Toddleheim: “Well, I do believe I’ll take my leave now.”
86. 2:36:37 “You think that I need rescuing? Look at me!” He flares his wings. “You haven’t come to rescue me. You’ve come to die.”
87. 2:37:42 The Arbiter’s offer.
    • “I should have known that she’d send somebody to screw up my plans… You try to influence things from the inside. You make your moves stealthily, but sometimes, I guess you just have to seize the power you want.”
    • “Make no mistake, the Dread Fortress will be mine. This is your last chance. Kneel. Pledge your fealty to me. Help me overthrow the Grandmaster. You will live like kings and queens.”
88. 2:38:57 Toddleheim tries to just leave: “What a wonderful misunderstanding… I’m just on my way out.” The Arbiter flicks his fingers and the door slams and locks. “This is my time! This is my moment!” Toddleheim: “Oh dear, he’s monologuing.”
89. 2:40:04 “Elusia will rue the day that she crossed me. She doesn’t know how to run an empire, how to be an iron fist. She plays in her arena. She accomplishes nothing… She’s a waste of space.” Toddleheim: “Indubitably.”

The fight

90. 2:40:50 The Arbiter transforms. He sucks the air of the room toward himself. He grows huge as an ethereal portal of swirling cosmic energy rips open at his feet. Chunks of floor and wall lift and orbit him as a shield (five boulders). Wisdom saves are rolled against his aura. Toddleheim: “Flyn, you don’t suppose he’s compensating for something?”
91. 2:43:11 Round 1.
    • Flynry (a monk) charges with unarmed strikes, but each hit lands on a boulder, which crumbles instead. Two boulders are gone, three remain.
    • Toddleheim tries Sleep (“it’s time for you to go to sleep, good sir”). The Arbiter has too many hit points, so Mudcat lets him change spells. His Magic Missile (“Abada bing, abada boom”) weaves around the rocks into the Arbiter’s chest.
    • Locket drinks the potion of storm giant strength: “I just become a Hulk.” She climbs a column for high ground and hits with an arrow. On a nat 1 the swirling debris nearly pulls her off the column.
92. 2:52:25 The Arbiter’s reply. Looking at Toddleheim, he pulls the Magic Missile’s energy out of his chest and slings it back at a higher level, hitting like a freight train. Toddleheim: “Taste of your own medicine, but I never thought it’d be like this.” The Arbiter stands with arms open, laughing: “Is there anything else that you would like to do before I kill you?”
93. 2:54:56 Locket pleads: “Arbiter, please, this is not the way. You and the Grandmaster were like this. You were friends.” The Arbiter: “There’s no helping me. Unless you’d like to help me kill the Grandmaster.” “Then do what you’ve come to do!” Locket: “Rescue you.” The vortex grows and starts pulling stone off the walls.
94. 2:56:07 Round 2.
    • Flynry’s Inflict Wounds hits a boulder, leaving two. Flynry: “These rocks are starting to hurt my hands more than they were hurting the Arbiter.”
    • On a nat 20 his Flurry of Blows gets past the boulders, and Inflict Wounds lands on the crit for 64 damage. The giant Arbiter buckles and doubles over, bloodied. “That was the biggest mistake of your entire life.”
    • Flynry uses Step of the Wind to flee behind some jars “like when… you just shot the neighbor’s dad” with a water gun.
    • Toddleheim’s 2nd-level Magic Missile destroys the last two rocks and hits the Arbiter.
    • Locket enchants her quiver with Flame Arrows. The Arbiter raises a hand and her arrow stops mid-air and moves backward, as he turns back time (chronal shift). It still hits on the reroll. Then an arrow he can’t stop strikes him in his giant hand.
95. 3:06:37 The aura pulses with psychic energy. Toddleheim’s memories of the day become muddied, with pieces missing. Flynry feels it slightly.
96. 3:07:35 The Arbiter: “This is me versus you guys.” Flynry tries: “I got a text once from my late Scottish relative. He said he bought some of your candles. I think you should spare me.” The Arbiter scoops a fiery, color-shifting tornado into his hand: “How about a little bit of chaos” and fires a 5th-level chaos bolt. Flynry deflects it with his monk gauntlets, channeling ki into a momentary shield, but the acid seeps through onto his arms.
97. 3:11:37 Round 3.
    • Flynry Step-of-the-Winds back in and lands two punches.
    • Toddleheim casts 5th-level Burning Hands. The Arbiter channels chaos to deflect half. Then Toddleheim Misty Steps away: “I’m going to catch you later, Doug.”
    • Locket’s flaming arrows hit, “a little spark” like a sparkler taped to the arrow.
98. 3:17:32 The aura splits Toddleheim’s memories in two. In one set he is fighting the Arbiter; in the other, the Arbiter has convinced him he’s on the Arbiter’s side. His friends look less and less friendly.

Orin’s death

99. 3:18:20 The metal door crashes down and Orin charges in: “Am I too late?” Toddleheim: “You were right on time.” They tell him the Arbiter wants to kill the Grandmaster. Flynry: “You didn’t want to eat us, and I’m pretty sure that the Arbiter wants to eat us.” Orin: “That can’t be. I’ve known him my entire life.” Toddleheim: “Look at me. I’m a fucking mess… it wasn’t Michael Patrick that did it to me. It was definitely the Arbiter.”
100. 3:20:42 Orin: “Arbiter… tell me that this isn’t true. Just give me the word and I’ll slay these traitors.” The Arbiter: “Orin, my friend, it’s good to see you. They’re plotting to overthrow the Grandmaster… Think about it, they volunteered to come here.” Orin: “No, I’ve talked to these folks. I’ve seen what’s in their souls… You won’t get past me.”
101. 3:22:05 Orin charges, claws flailing. The Arbiter: “And I kind of liked you, Orin” and casts Disintegrate. Flynry tries to touch Orin with the Dragon’s Skin scroll as he runs past, but is too slow.
102. 3:23:21 “It’s not a wispy Thanos-snap kind of disintegration. It’s visceral.” Orin’s legs explode into ash, holes tear through his body, and he crumbles like an ancient statue. He cries out “Uluwai!” (likely “Elusia!”) and scatters into ash. The ash is sucked into the Arbiter’s vortex and becomes part of the chaos. Flynry: “Poor Orin.”
103. 3:25:14 The Arbiter: “I have to commend you. It was a very nice try. Although, you know, I’ve known Orin since he was a child. And look what you forced me to do.”
104. 3:25:34 In “a twisted sense of love for Orin,” he throws a line of chaos lightning across the floor at Flynry and Toddleheim. Flynry reads the Dragon’s Skin scroll in that split second: dragon scales cover him head to toe like an Iron Man nanobot suit, his face closes over with narrow glowing yellow draconic eyes, and he stands rock solid and eats it, immune to lightning. Toddleheim’s shield isn’t enough, and he takes the full blast (he is left at 2 HP).
105. 3:29:03 The Arbiter, visibly drained: “Why won’t you just die? Know your place.”

The killing blow

106. 3:29:27 Flynry shifts into beast form, and the dragon scales change with him into “this humanoid beast dragon-like being.” The Arbiter freezes him in time for a reroll on one punch, but the rest connect.
107. 3:31:39 Cinematic finish. - Flynry: both fists catch fire with blue flame as he thrusts both arms into the Arbiter’s center mass “with every ounce of strength left.” - Toddleheim, bleeding out: “Flyn, I believe in you. See this through till the end. Make me proud.” He summons an acid splash to weaken the Arbiter’s exterior, and the Arbiter sizzles just before the impact. - Locket, from above, looses her last flaming arrow, which ignites and pierces his head.
108. 3:34:13 The Arbiter: “It wasn’t supposed to be this way! I had so much to do!” The chaos collapses on him, the orbiting stones fling in, and he is eviscerated. Then the chamber falls quiet. A faint outline of ash marks where Orin fell. The Arbiter’s body, now reduced in size, lies at their feet. How will they explain this to the Grandmaster?

Aftermath

109. 3:36:18 Flynry searches for proof of the plot, but the body’s clothes and papers are shredded. He is wearing eight rings, each a different color, which the party have seen on him for years.
110. 3:39:02 Locket admits she never shared the two potions and tosses one to Toddleheim, who was at 2 HP. Flynry: “Drink up, Tiddlywinks. Time to look at some rings.”
111. 3:40:09 Toddleheim’s arcana check: the rings feel sinister, almost evil. Together they are prismatic, each color a different effect of prismatic spray, and the Arbiter cursed them so no one else could use them. Toddleheim: “Don’t touch those rings. They’re quite cursed. I’ve seen something like this before. Many, many eons ago… They may consume you completely. It’s the way they did the Arbiter.” Flynry: “This feels like proof of corruption to me.”
112. 3:42:25 Flynry rigs a fulcrum from a rock and stomps the Arbiter’s hands off, rings still on, and bags them without touching the rings. Orin’s ashes are unrecoverable.
113. 3:44:32 They walk out through the cheers of the victorious army. The soldiers don’t know the Arbiter turned. They believe they saved the realm from the Servants of the Void.

The Dread Fortress and the twist

114. 3:45:19 They cross the lava fields into the open skull fortress, through the mouth of the structure, and go deep underground into the cool, dank halls. Water drips down the stones, and portraits of the Grandmaster, Elusia Skypiercer hang on the walls. Behind an iron-and-wood door, the Grandmaster stands before her throne with her back to them: hair flowing, a turquoise and purple dress, large black wings flared, pensive.
115. 3:46:55 Toddleheim breaks the news badly: “Miss Grandmaster, we’ve almost died, me specifically, trying to rescue you… Is this just a game to you?” She waits in palpable silence.
116. 3:48:07 Flynry quietly sets the bag down 10–15 ft from her, places the hands on top, and backs away without a word.
117. 3:48:40 The reveal. She turns, sees the rings, and begins to smile wider and wider. Her hair and dress fade into a mist like fog falling off a mountain, and the smile becomes laughter. The Arbiter steps out of the ethereal veil. The hands and rings shrivel and fade away. The Grandmaster’s image was an illusion.
118. 3:49:48 The Arbiter: - “You thought that you could defeat me? You thought you would be champions? Heroes? You thought that I wasn’t ten steps ahead of you the entire time. No.” - “But don’t worry. You will serve a purpose. Your betrayal will be known far and wide across the realm. I narrowly escaping your clutches as you came to murder me under the guise of a rescue mission.” - “When the Grandmaster hears of this, I’m not sure if she will thank me or weep for ferreting out your treachery.” - “What do I do with you?… Do I kill you now? Maybe prison… No, I have a much better idea.”
119. 3:51:32 The mist becomes a portal, and the party are sucked through onto the hot sands of the arena under a sunny sky. The Acolytes cheer and scream above. The Arbiter launches into the sky: “Acolytes! You have come for dungeons and dice and deathmatches, and I have returned to satiate your bloodlust.”
120. 3:52:40 “You’ve been here before. You were here that day. You know what happens in this arena… Welcome to D20 Deathmatch.”