S1E7 — Wild Magic — Strako v Zayliss

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Strako, the Wild Shadow, a seven-and-a-half-foot barbarian leaking unstable magic, faced Zayliss, a wall-climbing monk with glowing extra arms. They fought in a tower adrift in the cosmos and, after the floor fell out from under them, on a scatter of asteroids in open space. The match introduced Doug the Pug to the Acolytes, and Doug repeatedly beat the Arbiter at dice. The two champions kept telling each other they were cool, right up until one of them was cut nearly in half.

The Story

Bone Day

The Arbiter flew in through the skull-shaped mouth of the Dread Fortress and found the Grandmaster in her subterranean throne room. She was hovering over a small, old pug curled in a round fluffy chair. When he asked when they had gotten a dog, she was offended. “We’ve always had Doug,” she said. She explained that she had always had the goblins look after him, and she was appalled that the Arbiter could forget an entire family member. He blamed the stress of preparing all the Deathmatches.

Some days, she explained, Doug has no bones and simply collapses. If he has bones, it is bone day, and a good day lies ahead. Doug was very old and sad-looking, barely able to keep his eyes open. The Grandmaster dug her nails under him, stacked him up like a tower and let go. He held. “It’s a bone day! He has bones!” The Arbiter pointed out that the day’s sacrifices also had bones. He crowned Doug “the bone daddy” and said that maybe he was too stupid to understand. She agreed that this had to be it.

The Champions

The Arbiter admitted he didn’t quite remember where he had found the champions. Strako “was wandering around somewhere doing something,” and Zayliss “was outside of the carnival.” He thought they might even have told him they wanted to die. Strako had first worried he’d been “once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.” He was alarmed that nobody had warned him about a pug, then won over completely.

Strako: “I love puppies. Today, in honor of my fallen boy, I will now fight this battle for Doug the Pug and all the puppies!”

Doug teetered but stayed upright, which the Grandmaster took as approval. The Arbiter promised no repeat of last week’s “odd sexual tension” with “the cats and the dog thing.” The Grandmaster asked for a clean, straightforward fight, in a place with circles that Doug could hop through. The Arbiter opened a portal to a tower adrift in the cosmos, with stars streaking past. Each of its four corners held a portal. One had a mirrored finish that looked out into space, one was a fiery molten forge, one glowed green, and one was “a strange pool of blood with some squirming bodies coming out of it.”

“This is the chaos of time and space here,” the Grandmaster told the champions. “My gift to you.” She flew up to the Acolytes with Doug in her arms and raised him high while his body slouched. Then she set him on his own throne beside hers. The Arbiter announced a running wager on three, “maybe four,” liters of blood, and poofed away.

Balloon Animals and Exploding Fairies

The Acolytes demanded chaos before the fight had even started. Zayliss’s staff and Strako’s great axe both turned into balloon weapons, “as if some clown came through” and swapped them. Doug was clearly delighted.

Seeing his beloved axe reduced to a balloon animal sent Strako into a rage. Wild magic surged through him, and a tiny glowing fairy appeared in the middle of his chest. He leaned around the corner. “Zayliss, I have a present for you. Are you ready?” He asked whether she believed in fairies. She said yes. The fairy floated up to her face, said hello, and exploded. Zayliss shrugged it off, holding her balloon staff safely behind her back. She judged the fairy “a little doll.” Strako promised to pass that on: “She may not be so kind.”

Zayliss slipped behind a wall and parkoured up fifteen feet of it, shouting “Parkour! Parkour!” She ended up directly above Strako’s head. Glowing green astral arms burst from her as she dropped on him, the Grandmaster cheering “an aerial attack from above!” One spectral fist connected. Strako’s unstable magic answered with a magical hand that smacked her right back in the jaw. “Battle of hands,” the Arbiter observed. Her attempt to stun him failed against his unflinching bulk. At the end of the round both balloons swelled and popped. The champions took a little damage, their real weapons returned, and confetti drifted across the tower.

The same round started the night’s real rivalry, between the Arbiter and Doug. The Arbiter rolled a 2. Doug sighed so hard he nearly collapsed, and the Grandmaster scolded the Arbiter: “You almost removed Doug’s bones."

"Dude, I Respect You”

Strako kissed his axe, banged it on his shield and charged, complaining that Zayliss had no respect for him. His upward slash landed. Zayliss leaned in and whispered, “Dude, I respect you. Just be cool… I mean, it’s a show, right?” Strako was baffled, but he still wanted to fight her. She always wanted to fight things, so that was fine too. In the stands the Grandmaster asked whether everyone was cool. The Arbiter claimed he had been cool before anyone was talking about it.

Zayliss sprinted for the green portal and jumped in backwards, flipping Strako off as she went, still shouting “I respect you! Respect!” The Grandmaster called it “very Deadpool energy.” Strako’s axe hit the floor seconds too late. The portal smelled of springtime and citrus but did nothing for Zayliss. She stumbled out of the mirrored space portal, climbed a ledge, spread her arms and declared it “wasn’t that bad.” The crowd loved it, pelted the arena with hot dogs and beer, and granted each champion a measure of favor.

Doug, meanwhile, took over his own rolls. He picked up a tiny d20 in his mouth, spat it out and got a 14, beating the Arbiter’s 10. The Arbiter complained about “the New Jersey rules of rolling.” “As you know, there are no rules,” the Grandmaster replied. “Except for the rules that I make up.”

Death on One Hand, Life on the Other

Blue runes glowed on Strako’s axe, and one peeled off into his chest. The Grandmaster asked whether it was “a cool version of temporary tattoos.” Then he flipped Zayliss the bird and walked into the blood pool. The squirming bodies dragged him down into syrupy blood, and his middle finger stayed raised the whole way. He emerged from the space portal ready for a better swing. With no one to hit, though, his rage drained away.

Zayliss leapt off the wall and tackled him back through the portal, telling him mid-shove that he was really cool and they should hang out after this. “The messages are so mixed,” Strako groaned. The portals sent them to very different places. Strako came out of the lava portal with every hair on his body singed. Zayliss came out of the green one, healed. “Death on one hand, life on the other,” said the Grandmaster. The Arbiter, for his part, put the die in his own mouth, spat it into the air and got a 4. Doug led two to nothing.

Strako raged again and conjured the fairy once more. “Listen here. Walk with me a moment.” He closed the distance and threw it. Zayliss caught the fairy and swatted it straight back into his face. “Well, damn it. Just wait till I get my hands on that fairy.” One of her astral fists landed again, and a wild bolt of light shot out of Strako past her face. “Sorry, I can’t control myself sometimes.” She asked whether the eye twitch was normal and whether he’d had too much caffeine. The Arbiter, who had “been reading a lot of Cosmo,” explained that deteriorating mental health was cool these days.

Pull the Lever

After a snack break for Doug, the Grandmaster ordered the Arbiter to pull the lever. He asked which one, since they had a lot of levers. It was the big one, lit in bright green. “Are you actually color blind?” He was. “It’s the one that says, pull this lever.”

The air rushed out of the tower. Both champions clawed at the floor as their feet lifted off, and they were dragged through the portal of space and time. They landed on the desolate asteroid, three shattered rocks wrapped in a thin bubble of breathable air. Anyone pushed more than twenty feet beyond it would feel the cold of space “begin to take your life.” Between the rocks they drifted weightless. The Grandmaster tossed Doug a piece of popcorn.

Tag in Space

Zayliss pushed off first. Floating across, she asked whether this was “death death,” and whether Strako had a family or kids. Then she punched him. Her next swing spun her helplessly in place. “Just hit me, man.” He missed, and the Arbiter called him the worst barbarian he had ever seen. “But you may have heard of me,” Strako replied. Then he “Care Bear”-ed a blast of light from his chest. It blinded her and sent her somersaulting ten feet into the void. “Outer space can be wickedly vicious,” said the Grandmaster. Above them, the Arbiter finally beat Doug with a 15. “Suck it, Doug.” When the Grandmaster told him to be nicer to a pug with no bones, he complained that Doug had been looking at him “Like a dick.” “That’s why they call him Doug.” Zayliss flailed blindly back toward him, playing Marco Polo. Strako politely waited until she could see again before hitting her, then slammed her with his shield. In the low gravity the shove launched her to the edge of the atmosphere, where she gasped for air in the freezing cold.

Above them, the Arbiter lost to Doug again and snapped. “Fuck, fucking, fucking dog.” Shaking with fury, he dragged a meteor swarm down onto the arena. Strako weathered it, but Zayliss, unable to find her footing in space, was battered badly. The Grandmaster apologized to everyone: the Arbiter “clearly has anger issues because he got beat by Doug the Pug.” “No, no, no. I’m cool. I’m cool. We’re cool.”

Zayliss arced over Strako in three dimensions and punched him in the gut. She dug a sparking, electrified rock out of the asteroid, offered to let him catch it, and was told no. Then, with one last surge of strength, she kicked him off the rock into space. Strako was outraged that anyone “would dare kick the wild shadow off of a space asteroid.” He kicked off the debris and slammed headfirst into her entire asteroid with “all the force of an anime protagonist.” He even chose to let his own magic hurt him to push it further. It shoved her asteroid twenty feet out past the barrier and into the cold. “If you’re not going big,” the Grandmaster said approvingly, “what are you doing in my arena?”

The Acolytes struck again, and the Grandmaster reminded the champions that fans have murdered a champion on their own before. This time the chaos was Doug. Bones barely holding, he sprouted tiny wings, a small bubble encased his head, and he flew down to the asteroids. He licked Strako’s boot and flew back up. Strako was now “it,” and whoever was “it” at the end of two rounds would pay for it. The Arbiter won another roll, this time with a natural 20 (“Suck it, Doug”), and was made to fling his meteors back out of the field. Both champions dodged them.

The Fall of Timothy

Strako checked the rules. Could he tag something other than his opponent? A living being, yes; a weapon, no. He found a small caterpillar-like alien glowing pink, purple and blue, leapt after it, grabbed it and tagged “the living snot” out of it. Then he hurled it the other way. “Thank you, my friend. But it’s time to go to space.” Face peeled back by the G-forces, the creature screamed “I don’t want to die!” and exploded in a hail of fire. A second little glowing worm crawled out. “Timothy! Oh, I’m sorry,” Strako cried.

The Arbiter revealed what Strako had done. He had killed Timothy, mayor of the Worm’s Town. Timothy had brought peace and prosperity to his new empire and had just defeated the Republic. Now his leaderless society, cast adrift on an asteroid, would fall into chaos, decay from within and destroy itself. “Look, sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I’m sorry,” said Strako. “Rest in peace, Timothy. Anyways, back to the killing.”

The Final Blow

Zayliss found a second, bigger electrified rock and threw both. The big one hit Strako. The small one missed and killed Tabitha, the worm who had crawled out after Timothy. “She’s destroying the small little colony here,” the Grandmaster noted. Zayliss turned on Strako: “You were supposed to catch it!”

Free of being “it,” electrified and with bloodlust in his eyes, Strako charged full steam ahead. His first swing cut a huge slash across her chest. His second tried to cleave her in half and stopped partway, the blade buried in her hip. “Nice hit, bro,” said Zayliss, and died. Strako offered her a beer in Valhalla, “if I don’t kill all those gods first.” “I’ll save you a seat,” she said. They shared a bro moment, his hand clasping one of her astral ones.

The Grandmaster flew down with Doug, who ran to Zayliss’s body and snuggled in beside her. “You have been gifted a final snuggle to carry you well into the afterlife.” The Arbiter bent over the blood spewing everywhere and declared he had nailed his bet at “like three and a half pints.” Then, quietly, he revived Zayliss and told her she would “make a fine addition to my army.” She told him she was a cat person, and he vowed to show that pug, and all of them. Up above, the Grandmaster took Strako’s hand. “Come, my champion. Let me take you to your fans.”

Dried Blood

Afterwards, Strako summed up the rivalry: “You can still respect someone and nearly cut them in half.” Zayliss agreed that you can respect people who cut you in half, and thought the two would have been best friends. At the table, Strako’s player admitted that “Strako is a play on Kratos.” He also confessed that Zayliss’s “dude, we’re cool” had caught him completely off guard and turned deadly enemies into rivals. The hosts mourned Timothy at length. They riffed that he had also been the pastor and the CEO of Doctors Without Borders, and had “single-handedly adopted 18 orphans.” They wanted a “never forget” T-shirt. Asked whether the Arbiter could resurrect Timothy, the answer was that “he will need to make a comeback.”

Notable Moments

• Doug the Pug made his debut and passed the bone test by being stacked up like a tower.
• Strako’s exploding fairy was thrown at Zayliss and swatted straight back into his own face.
• Doug, rolling dice with his mouth, beat the Arbiter so often that the Arbiter rained meteors on the arena in a tantrum.
• Strako body-slammed an entire asteroid out of the atmosphere with Zayliss still on it.
• Space tag ended with Timothy, mayor of the Worm’s Town, thrown to his death, and his society doomed.
• The Arbiter secretly revived the fallen Zayliss for his army.

Memorable Quotes

• The Grandmaster: “We’ve always had Doug.”
• Strako: “I love puppies. Today, in honor of my fallen boy, I will now fight this battle for Doug the Pug and all the puppies!”
• Zayliss: “Dude, I respect you. Just be cool.”
• The Grandmaster: “As you know, there are no rules. Except for the rules that I make up.”
• The Arbiter: “You are the worst barbarian I have ever seen.”
• Strako: “Look, sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I’m sorry. Rest in peace, Timothy. Anyways, back to the killing.”
• Zayliss: “You were supposed to catch it!”
• The Grandmaster: “You have been gifted a final snuggle to carry you well into the afterlife.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Strako, the Wild Shadow (NyteTide). A 7’5” wild magic barbarian.

• Gear: an axe he loves (“my baby”), called a great axe at 0:15:04 and later a battleaxe used with a shield, plus a shield.
• Wild magic seen:
  • the exploding fairy, which rose from his chest twice
  • magical-hand and light-bolt backlash
  • the “Care Bear” light that blinds
  • a bolstering rune that peels off the axe into his chest
• Uses Shield Master shoves.
• Lore:
  • Loves puppies; fought “in honor of my fallen boy.”
  • Feared he’d been “once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.”
  • Expects Valhalla and to “kill all those gods.”
  • Mentions “you may have heard of me.”
  • Killed Timothy, mayor of the Worm’s Town, through tag. Wants revenge on the fairy.
• In this episode: he was tagged by Doug, shoved a whole asteroid with his hero point, and won by cleaving Zayliss. The Grandmaster carried him hand in hand to the fans.

Zayliss (HeyLochNess). A 5’6” monk with a staff and glowing green Arms of the Astral Self.

• Found “outside of the carnival.” Says weird things like this happen to her and she’s “accustomed to it.”
• A chaotic “bro” who genuinely respects Strako and flips him off constantly.
• Climbs walls (parkour), deflects missiles, uses Stunning Strike (never landed), evasion, and ki-point dodge.
• Found and threw electrifying asteroid rocks, accidentally killing Tabitha.
• Killed by Strako. The Arbiter secretly revived her to 1 HP “for my army.” She told him she’s “a cat person” and joined his grudge against Doug.

Doug the Pug. A very old, sleepy pug who has “always” lived in the Dread Fortress with the Grandmaster.

• The goblins look after him.
• Some days he has no bones and collapses. If he stands when stacked up, it’s “bone day,” a good omen.
• Has his own throne beside the Grandmaster’s in the stands. Eats popcorn and snacks.
• Rolls d20s with his mouth and beat the Arbiter in four of five roll-offs. The Arbiter won with a 15 and a nat 20.
• Can sprout tiny wings and wear a head bubble to fly.
• Started the game of tag. Gave Zayliss a “final snuggle.”
• Also called “the bone daddy.”

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• Didn’t know Doug existed and blames Deathmatch stress.
• Is color blind.
• Bet “three liters, maybe four” of blood and claimed he won at “three and a half pints.”
• Rages after losing to Doug and summons a meteor swarm. The Grandmaster says he “clearly has anger issues.”
• Reads Cosmo.
• Secretly revives Zayliss for “my army.” Admits he’s “a cat person” and vows to “show that pug… show them all.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix). Devoted to Doug and labels her levers clearly. “There are no rules except for the rules that I make up.” Warns that fans have murdered a champion on their own before.

Timothy. A glowing caterpillar-like alien on the asteroid, mayor of the Worm’s Town. He brought peace and prosperity, had just defeated “the Republic,” and was killed when Strako tagged and threw him. His society collapsed into self-destruction.

Tabitha. Another worm, killed by Zayliss’s missed rock.

The Acolytes. They throw hot dogs and beer, award hero points and trigger chaos events.

The goblins. They take care of Doug.

Places

• The Dread Fortress, its skull-shaped rock mouth, and the Grandmaster’s subterranean throne room.
• The portal tower adrift in the cosmos (“the chaos of time and space”). Its four portals, as observed:
  • green: smells of spring and citrus; it healed Zayliss on her second pass and dumped her out of the space portal on her first
  • blood pool: squirming bodies pull you down; it sent Strako out of the space portal, then into the fire portal
  • fire/lava “molten forge”: burns on exit
  • mirrored space portal: grants advantage on the next attack
  • A clock there moves in a different time.
• The desolate asteroid field: three asteroids with about 20 ft of breathable atmosphere around them and freezing space beyond. It holds electrifying “magnetic” rocks and glowing worm-aliens.
• The Worm’s Town: Timothy’s colony, now collapsed.
• Valhalla: Strako’s expected afterlife.

Items

• The balloon weapons (one round, then they burst into confetti).
• Strako’s runed axe and shield.
• Zayliss’s staff.
• The electrifying rocks (small and large).
• The lever labeled “pull this lever,” lit green.
• Concession hot dogs with eyeballs.
• Doug’s fluffy chair and throne.

Lore statements

• The Grandmaster’s lair has many levers.
• Fans have killed a champion on their own via a chaos event before (per Elusia).
• The Arbiter restores dying champions in secret for “my army” (stated here for Zayliss).

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: bone day

1. 0:00:01 The Arbiter flies in through the skull-shaped rock mouth of the Dread Fortress to the Grandmaster’s subterranean throne room. He finds Elusia hovering over a small, old pug in a round fluffy chair.
2. 0:01:02 Doug. The Arbiter asks when they got a dog. Elusia says “We’ve always had Doug.” She has “always had the goblins take it, but Doug’s always been a part of this family and the Dread Fortress.” She is offended that he forgot “an entire family member.” The Arbiter blames the stress of preparing all the Deathmatches.
3. 0:01:29 The bone test. Some days Doug the Pug has no bones and “just kind of collapses.” If he has bones, “then it’s bone day and we have a good day in front of us.” Elusia compares it to “the creature when it pops out and it sees its shadow.” Doug is a “very old, sad-looking pug,” barely keeping his eyes open, trying to bury himself in his bed. Lights shine down on him. Elusia digs her nails under him and stacks his body up like a tower, then lets go. “It’s a bone day! He has bones!”
4. 0:03:20 The Arbiter: “Do you know who else has bones? The sacrifices for today’s deathmatch.” She says he’s underestimating how important this is. He calls Doug “the bone daddy” and says “I think maybe I’m too stupid to understand.” She agrees: “That has to be it.”
5. 0:04:26 The champions. The Arbiter presents “Strako, the Wild Shadow, versus Zayliss.” He doesn’t remember where he got them: “Strako was wandering around somewhere doing something. Zayliss was outside of the carnival. It was a whole mess.” He adds, “They told me they wanted to die, I think even.”
6. 0:05:05 Strako is alarmed that nobody told him there’d be a pug, then: “I love puppies. Today, in honor of my fallen boy, I will now fight this battle for Doug the Pug and all the puppies!” He says “At first I was concerned that I was once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.” He is confused about the bones (“For puppy bones?”).
7. 0:07:44 Doug teeters and might collapse but stays up. “Doug is happy that I am happy… Good champion choices, Arbiter.” The Arbiter says “Last week was a little bit weird with the cats and the dog thing. I didn’t want there to be any other odd sexual tension this time.” Elusia asks for “a good, clean, straightforward fight.”
8. 0:08:49 The arena. Elusia wants “a place with circles, perhaps little like doggy holes. Doug loves to go through those when he has bones.” The Arbiter opens a portal to a tower set adrift in the cosmos, with stars streaking past. Each corner has a portal:
   • one that looks out into space, with an almost mirrored finish
   • a pit of lava with a fiery opening (the “molten forge”)
   • a green portal
   • “a strange pool of blood with some squirming bodies coming out of it”
9. 0:10:07 Elusia’s welcome. “This is the chaos of time and space here.” Doug doesn’t like to walk far, so portals make it easier for him to hop through. “It belongs nowhere else in time but here… My gift to you.” She challenges them to “be masters of this space and time.” Then she flies up with Doug in her arms to the Acolytes, who are doing devil horns: “for Doug the Pug!… For the fight! For the blood! And for the win!” She lifts Doug up; his body slouches in her arms. Doug has his own throne beside hers in the stands.
10. 0:12:08 The Arbiter’s wager. “I want there to be as much blood as possible. I have a running wager on about three liters, maybe four even.” He poofs out.
11. 0:13:14 Placement. Strako rolls a 20 on initiative and Zayliss a 12. Zayliss starts by the molten forge. Strako starts behind a wall with cover.

Pre-match chaos event: balloon weapons (0:14:08)

13. The Acolytes demand a chaos event before the match even begins. The Arbiter rolls “for Doug”: a 2. “Doug’s not such a great roller.”
14. 0:15:06 Zayliss is holding a staff and Strako a great axe. Both turn into balloon weapons “as if some clown came through and swapped it out,” for one round. Doug is “clearly impressed and very happy.”

Round 1

15. 0:16:00 Strako rages at the sight of his beloved axe turned into a balloon animal. His body pulses with energy. Wild magic: a tiny fairy starts glowing in the center of his chest. “How fitting.”
16. 0:17:35 He peeks around the corner: “Zayliss, I have a present for you. Are you ready?” Zayliss: “Dude, my staff just turned into a balloon.” Strako: “Do you believe in fairies?” Zayliss: “Yeah.” Strako: “Good.” The fairy shoots out and hovers in front of Zayliss’s face (“Hey, what’s up?”). Zayliss looks between it and her balloon staff, really confused.
17. 0:18:40 “I hope you enjoy your present.” Strako ducks back into full cover and the fairy explodes in her face. Elusia: “Did this fairy know it was going to explode?” “Oh yeah.” “Bye-bye!” Zayliss passes the save easily (26) and holds her balloon staff behind her so it won’t get hit. Strako: “Did you like my fairy?” Zayliss: “It’s a little doll.” Strako: “I’ll be sure to tell her that next time. She may not be so kind.”
18. 0:20:29 Parkour. Zayliss “tactically retreats” 25 ft behind the other side of a wall, then parkours up the 15-ft wall: “Parkour! Parkour!” She ends right above Strako, “looking right down at his dome.”
19. 0:22:39 Arms of the Astral Self. “I have extra arms that are coming out of me. They’re green and they start to glow. Thank Zenyatta.” She jumps down and the arms burst out as she falls. Strako saves against it with a “dirty 20.” Elusia: “an aerial attack from above!” She lands 10 ft in front of him, inside her astral arms’ 10-ft reach. Strako is 7’5” and Zayliss 5’6”.
20. 0:24:46 One astral-arm strike hits for force damage. Strako’s unstable backlash: as the punch lands on one side of his face, “a magical hand is going to come back and smack you right in the jaw.” Strako, as she drops in: “Hey.” Elusia: “Lots of magic hands.” Mudcat: “Battle of hands.” Zayliss’s Stunning Strike: Strako stands “unflinching” and saves. Her astral hands are fists while her normal arms are crossed.
21. 0:29:26 The balloons burst. At the end of the round the balloon weapons swell until they pop. Both champions take a little “balloon bursting damage.” Their real weapons return, and the balloons scatter as brightly colored confetti. Elusia: “Doug the Pug is satisfied.”
22. 0:30:55 Arbiter vs Doug, begun. The Arbiter rolls another 2. “An embarrassment. You can’t teach that.” Doug sighs and “almost slaps you,” nearly collapsing. Elusia props him back up: “You almost removed Doug’s bones.” The Arbiter bows (“My apologies, Doug”) and rolls his eyes. Elusia: “You should show more respect to your elders.”

Round 2

23. 0:31:30 Strako: “I’m so happy to have my baby back. Thank you, Doug. That was a most unfunny but hilarious ruse.” He kisses his axe, smacks it against his shield, and tells Zayliss: “You have no respect for me and I don’t like it at all.” He rushes in. The first swing misses as she evades; an upward slash connects.
24. 0:33:36 “We’re cool.” Zayliss whispers: “Dude, I respect you. Just be cool.” Strako: “Really?… Oh, I had no idea you have such a resting face demeanor.” Zayliss: “I mean, it’s a show, right?” Strako: “but I mean, I definitely want to fight you.” Zayliss: “Oh. I mean, I always want to fight things, so yeah.” Elusia: “Are we all cool? Is everyone cool?” The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, I have no idea what’s happening right now… I was cool before anyone was talking about it.” Elusia: “ice cream cool.”
25. 0:35:24 The green portal. Elusia notes “the clock there is moving in a different time.” Zayliss sprints for the green portal. Strako’s opportunity attack misses; he slams his axe into the ground seconds after she has gone. Zayliss jumps in backwards, flipping him off. Elusia: “This is very Deadpool energy, I like it.” Zayliss: “I respect you! Respect!”
26. 0:36:47 Strako’s insight check: does she genuinely respect him or is he being led on? Zayliss’s player: “she actually does respect you, she just is very weirdly chaotic.” That confusion is why he missed. Strako: “what the f-”
27. 0:37:24 Portal roulette. The green portal smells of “springtime, and health… citrus, and vitality.” Zayliss doesn’t get the refreshing effect. It’s like walking through a door, and she stumbles out of the mirrored space portal with advantage on her next attack. She climbs a ledge, spreads her arms and announces: “the portal wasn’t that bad.”
28. 0:39:21 Hero points. The crowd loves the portal and throws hot dogs and beer. Each champion gets one hero point. Elusia: “Plus ultra.” She warns Zayliss about the bubbling lava to her left.
29. 0:40:42 Doug rolls for himself. The Arbiter rolls a 10. Elusia: “you, dear Arbiter… apparently have no bones this evening.” She rolls for Doug, “this dog picking up a small d20 in his mouth just barely spits it out and rolls a 14.” The Arbiter: “I didn’t realize we were using the New Jersey rules of rolling… I didn’t know mouths were allowed here.” Elusia: “As you know, there are no rules. Except for the rules that I make up.” She pushes Doug’s throne closer so he can see.

Round 3

30. 0:42:20 Bolstering magic. Blue runes glow on Strako’s axe. He presses it to his chest and one rune peels off and starts glowing in his chest. Elusia: “So is this like a cool version of temporary tattoos?”
31. 0:43:05 Strako looks up at Zayliss: “Oh, I get it. I see.” He flips her the bird and walks into the blood portal: “You want blood?” The squirming bodies grab his ankles and pull him down into syrupy blood. He holds up his middle finger toward Zayliss the whole way down. He comes out of the space portal with advantage on his next attack. He didn’t attack or take damage, so his rage ends.
32. 0:44:37 Elusia: “Ooh, he’s got layers.” The Arbiter: “rage is great, but it’s a one trick pony… get at the emotional heart of our champions before we… take the blood out of that heart.” Elusia: “Have the heart and then drain the heart.… Just putting all the organs on display.”
33. 0:45:50 The tackle. Zayliss leaps off the wall and tackles Strako back into the portal, spending her hero point on the strength contest. She wins and goes through with him. While pushing, she says “dude, you’re actually really cool. Like, we should hang out after this.” Strako: “The messages are so mixed.” Elusia: “This is a new dance… D20 dance bros.” Zayliss’s player: “She’s very much so a bro.”
34. 0:47:45 Different exits. Strako steps out of the molten lava portal and is burned. It singes “all the hairs on your body,” and any metal on him is hot to the touch. Zayliss steps out of the green portal and is healed. Elusia: “Death on one hand, life on the other.” The Arbiter: “I’d like to think of this as the wild magic version of a map.”
35. 0:49:01 The hosts are still trying to work out whether the champions are cool. “Should we do this to each other? Is that like a friendship thing?” The Arbiter: “They’re fighting to the death and we’re up here eating nachos… We have Doug. They don’t have a Doug.”
36. 0:50:14 Mouth roll. “The Arbiter puts that D20 in his mouth and spits it up in the air.” “Disgusting.” He gets a 4. Doug beats him. Someone shouts “Fuck you, Doug!” (speaker uncertain, probably Mudcat). The Arbiter: “Maybe I gotta get rid of my bones.” Elusia: “get rid of your bones and then regrow them and then you will be stronger.” Doug leads 2–0.

Round 4

37. 0:51:27 Strako comes out of the fire portal. The fire evaporates the leftover blood on him and his chest hair singes. Unamused, he watches “little fluffy magic” heal a scratch across Zayliss’s chest: “Really?” He rages again, and the wild magic is the fairy again. “Listen here. Walk with me a moment.” He closes 40 ft and throws the fairy.
38. 0:53:06 Zayliss uses Deflect Missiles. Strako rolls a nat 1, so she deflects the fairy back into Strako’s face. Strako: “Well, damn it. Just wait till I get my hands on that fairy.” NyteTide: “Massive badassery and epic failure all rolled into one.” Elusia: “Perfect package.”
39. 0:54:38 Zayliss’s regular arms “are now just probably flipping them off” while her astral arms attack. One hit lands. The backlash fires a wild bolt of light that zooms past her face. Strako: “Sorry, I can’t control myself sometimes.” Zayliss: “Your eyes twitching? Is that normal? Did you have too much caffeine today?” Someone adds “Yes, this battle is electrifying, I love it!” (speaker uncertain).
40. 0:58:05 Elusia can’t tell whether they’re becoming less cool or more unstable. The Arbiter: “I’ve been reading a lot of Cosmo… deteriorating mental health is cool these days.… All the kids are doing it.”
41. 0:58:43 Philadelphia style. Roll-off number three. The Arbiter tries “Philadelphia style. You don’t want to ask what that is.” Elusia: “it’s certainly less weirder than the L.A. style.” He gets a 3 and Doug a 4.
42. 0:59:26 The low rolls still push them over the chaos threshold. Elusia calls a water break because “Doug the Pug needs a snack.” The concession hot dogs now have eyeballs: “sometimes plucking it out was a lot more effort, so we just left them in.” (The break is cut from the mp3. 1:00:06 “Name that monster” is the trivia prompt.)

After the break: the lever (1:00:22)

43. The Arbiter mentions the chocolate ice cream eaten with a wooden “tongue depressor.” Elusia orders “Arbiter, pull the lever.” He asks which one; they have a lot of levers. It’s the big one lit with bright green lights. “Are you actually color blind?” “Yes.” “It’s the one that says, pull this lever.… We label these clearly for that purpose.”
44. 1:01:45 Sucked into space. The air pressure shifts as if being sucked out of the room. Both champions fail strength saves and are dragged through “the portal of space and time,” clawing at the ground with their feet lifting off. They land in a shattered asteroid field, standing on asteroids.
45. 1:03:14 Elusia: “welcome you to the desolate asteroid.” There is a small breathable atmosphere, but anyone pushed more than 20 ft out into space takes damage “as that cold will begin to take your life.” Fighters are weightless crossing the gaps and can kick off between the three asteroids.
46. 1:04:28 Initiative is rerolled. Zayliss gets a dirty 20 and Strako 12. “The tables have turned.” “Turntables also turn.” Elusia throws Doug a piece of popcorn.

Asteroid round 1

47. 1:05:30 Zayliss pushes off and floats across on momentum. On the way she asks: “is this death death?… you have like a family or kids or anything?” Then she punches with an astral arm and hits. The backlash erupts as giant light from Strako’s body and narrowly misses her. Strako saves against her Stunning Strike again. Mudcat: “You guys are good at con saves.”
48. 1:07:57 Her second swing is a nat 1, and the momentum spins her around in space. She can’t right herself.
49. 1:08:39 Strako tries to find an angle on the spinning monk. Zayliss: “I can’t control this. Just hit me, man.” He misses. The Arbiter: “You are the worst barbarian I have ever seen.” Strako: “But you may have heard of me.”
50. 1:09:18 Care Bear stare. Strako’s bonus-action wild magic: “he’s just gonna like Care Bear this light from his chest.” Elusia: “Which Care Bear are you invoking?… Who’s the grumpy one?… The little thunder one?” They settle on that. Zayliss fails: force damage, and she is blinded until the start of her next turn. The force becomes momentum: she’s pushed 10 ft into open space, spinning, now in different directions. Elusia: “You are somersaulting. Outer space can be wickedly vicious.”
51. 1:11:29 Arbiter vs Doug, round four: 15. “Suck it, Doug.” Elusia: “He’s a pug with no bones. You should be a little nicer.” The Arbiter says Doug was looking at him “Like a dick.” “That’s why they call him Doug.”
52. 1:12:39 Marco Polo. Still blinded, Zayliss pushes off debris toward where she thinks he is. Strako: “I’ll help you out, Marco.” A random direction roll brings her back onto solid ground. Her spectral arms swing at the air and both miss. Elusia: “That Marco Polo makes more sense now.”
53. 1:14:49 Elusia reminds them that hero points don’t carry over: “You could take a piece of the rock so you can say, like, look, I’ve been to asteroids.”
54. 1:15:17 Strako waits for Zayliss to see again: “You’re done flailing about now. You can see, right?” When she nods, he attacks. The first hit lands, and the impact pushes her slightly so he misjudges the second. “Gravity is different here.”
55. 1:16:29 Shield Master shove. He plants his foot and shoves her with his shield. He wins the strength contest (25 vs 3). The low gravity doubles it, sending Zayliss 20 ft out to the edge of the atmosphere, where she takes cold damage and struggles to breathe.
56. 1:18:02 The Arbiter snaps. He rolls a nat 1 and Doug beats him with a 3. “Fuck, fucking, fucking dog.” Face shaking, he raises his hands in rage and drags meteors down in a meteor swarm on the champions. Both save. Strako weathers it. Zayliss, unable to get her footing in space, is smacked by the meteors and looks “very rough.”
57. 1:20:09 Elusia apologizes to the champions and chat: “The Arbiter clearly has anger issues because he got beat by Doug the Pug… Who knew that he would feel so insecure because of a Doug that has bones?… You should sit down, Arbiter.” The Arbiter: “No, no, no. I’m cool. I’m cool. We’re cool.”

Asteroid round 2

58. 1:20:52 Zayliss arcs over Strako in three dimensions and lands behind him. She tries to kick him into space and misses. She turns and punches him in the gut. The backlash zaps her back. He resists her Stunning Strike using the bolstering rune’s bonus.
59. 1:24:09 The electrifying rock. Perception: within 5 ft, something in the rock sparkles. Zayliss digs out an electrifying rock with little sparks dancing around it, which she can throw for thunder damage. Elusia: “This is a magnetic little asteroid.” Zayliss tosses it up and catches it, looking at Strako: “You want to catch it?” “No.”
60. 1:25:35 Can Strako stay on the asteroid? He rolls 26. Zayliss spends her hero point and “find[s] that inner strength just to kick a little harder.” Strako goes flying 10 ft into space.
61. 1:27:27 Shoving the asteroid. Strako: “That you would dare kick the wild shadow off of a space asteroid.” He kicks off debris back toward the rock and spends his hero point to shove the entire asteroid Zayliss is on. Mudcat: “you push off with all the force of an anime protagonist, and you sonic boom your way into this asteroid,” slamming in headfirst. The asteroid moves 20 ft. Strako then opts to take his own backlash force damage to push it further: “I want blood to just go from my head as I do that.” Elusia: “If you’re not going big, what are you doing in my arena?” The asteroid ends up 20 ft outside the barrier, and Zayliss takes cold damage.
62. 1:30:47 Chaos event: Doug plays tag. The Acolytes trigger another chaos event. Elusia warns that “it has happened before, that the fans have actually murdered a champion on their own.” Zayliss has the least health, so she rolls (10). Doug rises from his throne, bones barely holding, and tiny wings pop out of his back. A small bubble encases his head and he flies down into the asteroid field. Strako calls heads on the coin flip (“He’s just gonna touch the blood on his head”). Doug lands next to Strako, licks his boot, and flies back up: “You are now it.” The rule: two rounds, and whoever is “it” at the end of the second round takes tag damage. Mudcat: “Tag in space.” Strako: “Okay. Thanks, Doug.”
63. 1:34:23 Strako uses the rest of his movement to reach “the itty bitty tip” of Zayliss’s asteroid, which is now “way the F out there.”
64. 1:35:37 Redemption. The Arbiter rolls a nat 20 and finally beats Doug (“Suck it, Doug”). Elusia: Doug is “a little exhausted” from playing tag. She has the Arbiter sling his thrown meteors back out of the field with a small reverse meteor swarm. Both dodge it entirely, Zayliss with evasion and Strako with Shield Master.

Asteroid round 3: Timothy

65. 1:37:35 Zayliss dashes about 70 ft back into the atmosphere, to the far side of the asteroid from Strako. She spends a ki point to Dodge.
66. 1:40:10 Rules clarification. Strako: “Must I tag her with my hand, or can I use a different object?” Elusia: he can tag another living being, such as his fairy, “but you cannot tag a weapon and then yeet said weapon across the field.” He looks for “a little alien nearby.”
67. 1:41:12 The alien. He finds a small caterpillar-like creature that glows pink, purple and blue, with sudden bright flashes at random times. Strako: “I’m just going to try and leap after it and grapple it. I’m pretty good at that.” He leaps and catches it, tagging “the living snot out of this alien.” “Arbiter, this alien is it, correct?” It is. He throws it the opposite direction, away from Zayliss. Elusia: “Oh, sneaky… That’s cool, dude.” Strako: “Thank you, my friend. But it’s time to go to space.”
68. 1:43:03 Pulling enormous G-forces with its face peeled back, the alien screams “I don’t want to die!” and explodes in a hail of fire, “like Krillin and DBZ.” Another little glowy worm crawls out. Strako: “Timothy! Oh, I’m sorry.”
69. 1:43:46 The fall of Worm’s Town. The Arbiter narrates: “Unbeknownst to you, you’ve killed the mayor of the Worm’s Town. He had brought peace and prosperity to his new empire and had just defeated the Republic, but now their society, cast adrift on an asteroid, leaderless, falls into chaos once again and decays from within and eventually succumbs to self-destruction.”
70. 1:44:14 Strako: “Look, sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I’m sorry. Rest in peace, Timothy. Anyways, back to the killing.” He points: “You better go get it.”

Asteroid round 4: the kill

72. 1:45:02 Elusia: “give me all the bones left on this asteroid for Doug, who’s just munching on some popcorn.” Zayliss finds a bigger electrified chunk with double the damage. Elusia: “I’m trying not to make a balls joke… we met our quota a couple episodes ago.” Zayliss throws both rocks. The big one hits Strako with thunder. Elusia: “Which I never understood. It should be lightning damage.” The small one misses and kills Tabitha, the other worm that had crawled out. Elusia: “She’s destroying the small little colony here.” Zayliss yells at Strako: “You were supposed to catch it!”
73. 1:48:09 Reckless. Strako, “no longer it,” charges “full steam ahead” with two reckless attacks. Both hit.
74. 1:49:42 Zayliss: “Nice hit, bro.” NyteTide describes it: “got bloodlust in his eyes from being like electrocuted… he just cuts this huge slash across your chest and then he goes to literally cleave you in half with his second hit and kind of stops halfway and just kind of embeds the blade into your hip.” Zayliss dies.
75. 1:50:07 Valhalla. Strako: “It was a good match and I know we can’t get that beer but maybe in, you know, Valhalla, if I don’t kill all those gods first.” Zayliss: “I’ll save you a seat.” Strako: “Be well, my friend.” He reaches for one of her astral hands for “a little bro moment.” Elusia: “Cool bro hug. Aw.”
76. 1:50:33 Doug’s farewell. The Grandmaster flies down carrying Doug. “You have fought and left blood on my asteroids.” Doug runs to Zayliss’s body and snuggles in beside her: “You have been gifted a final snuggle to carry you well into the afterlife. Thank you, champion Zayliss.” She summons the Arbiter.
77. 1:51:20 The bet. The Arbiter bends down over the blood spewing everywhere: “Thank you… That was like three and a half pints. I nailed my bet.”
78. 1:52:38 Victory. The Grandmaster extends her arm: “Come, my champion. Let me take you to your fans.” She carries Strako up hand in hand to the crowds. “To our acolytes, you who have brought chaos to our arena… Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

• Mudcat introduces “Nighttide and Loch Ness, our newest guests.”
• Strako’s build: straight Wild Magic Barbarian to level 10, with the Sentinel and Shield Master feats, to blunt “crazy ki point damage.” NyteTide picked wild magic as soon as he saw unstable backlash. “Strako is a play on Kratos.” He badly wanted the thrown-weapon wild magic result “to be able to throw the ice axe.”
• Loch Ness, on seeing a barbarian opponent: “I can’t… I like chaos anyways.”
• Loch Ness loved the blinding and the Marco Polo bit. NyteTide gave her his position “because… we’re content creators… it’s a show.” He was surprised by the monk’s movement: climbing the wall, hammering down from above, and the portal push.
• Caustic Phoenix: the jump over him took “the map from 2D to 3D.”
• Mudcat: the portal-tower map was used in a Patreon playtest. Since there was no second map then, he added being sucked through a portal into the asteroid field to “spice this one up.”
• Retcon idea (not adopted on air): Loch Ness imagines Zayliss running under, or log-rolling on, the shoved asteroid.
• Timothy: Mudcat wanted to make Strako feel bad. NyteTide thought throwing it away would make Zayliss chase it. The hosts riff that Timothy was also “the pastor,” “the single founder of every charitable organization in the region,” “The CEO of Doctors Without Borders,” and had “Single-handedly adopted 18 orphans.” These are table riffs; their canon status is uncertain. Caustic Phoenix chose the alien’s glow colors to match the D20 Deathmatch aesthetic. They want a “remember Timothy / never forget” T-shirt through Highscore T, and an “Alien Timothy worm token.” Caustic Phoenix asks, “Can the Arbiter resurrect Timothy?” Mudcat: “He will need to make a comeback.”
• NyteTide was caught off guard by Zayliss’s “dude, we’re cool.” It turned the fight into rivals rather than deadly enemies, and he had messaged Mudcat beforehand about how to play it. Loch Ness pictured it like Ragnarok, where fighters who don’t have to fight just sit and chat. “She’s edgy and she’s chaotic, but also like she did respect him.”
• Final words (in character? uncertain):
  • Strako (2:07:11): “You can still respect someone and nearly cut them in half.”
  • Zayliss (2:07:37): “You can respect people who cut you in half.” / “I feel like they would have been best friends.”
  • Mudcat: “We’ll get that beer in Valhalla. We’d have been best friends if you hadn’t murdered me.”