S2E3 — A Lovers' Quarrel — Lethe v Sorry

Watch on YouTube

Two towering exes, a goliath from the Witchlight Carnival and a satyr graduate of Strixhaven, were dropped into a snow globe of a town and told to settle things for good. What began as glitter bombs, goblin kidnappings and trash talk ended with ugly crying and a forehead kiss. For one night, the Grandmaster let love take the win instead of blood.

The Story

Hallmark at the Dread Fortress

The season opened in the halls of The Dread Fortress, where the Arbiter found the Grandmaster slouched across her throne, legs over one arm, glaring at an old TV. She was watching a Hallmark Christmas movie, the one where someone moves back home, the trees go up and the snow falls. She had had enough. She threw her remote at the screen: “I’m just sick of this! They give us the same romance story again and again… I want true romance. I want love and heat and fire.” Then she ran over and knocked the television flat. Goblins scurried to pick it up. “It’s fine. It’s an old one.”

The Arbiter had noticed her binge of rom-coms and had brought her “something more true to life.” She asked whether he had ever been in love. “I had a girlfriend once… You don’t know her. She went to a different school.” The Grandmaster’s reply was immediate: “Did she know she was your girlfriend?” Undeterred, he presented his offering: “a lover’s quarrel… Lethe versus Sorry.”

Two Towering Exes

Lethe arrived groggy, having been pulled out of sleep at the carnival, and suspected another carnival trick. Then they spotted who was waiting. Sorry was just as puzzled. The last thing she remembered was being in a dungeon. “Oh, right,” said Lethe. “At wizard school.” The old wound opened straight away: “You told me that I wasn’t smart enough to go to wizard school… That’s why we broke up.” Sorry insisted there was a difference: “It’s not that you weren’t smart enough. It’s just I didn’t think that you could do it.”

The Grandmaster saw “a little bit of bad blood and story to resolve” and invited them to settle it before her Acolytes. Lethe introduced themself as a lifelong resident of the Witchlight Carnival who could move things with their mind and with their arms, “I am after all seven feet fucking tall.” Sorry, a ripped 6’5” satyr in a deep V-neck and colorful scarves, confessed that she knew exactly one spell, comprehend languages, and cast it by eating the paper. That was how she had passed every test at Strixhaven, a school built on regurgitating information. Lethe asked whether she meant literally regurgitating. “Sometimes,” Sorry admitted: that one essay on bugbears “kinda didn’t sit very well.” Lethe had a theory: “I think the only reason you passed is because your professors couldn’t actually find the papers to grade.”

The Arbiter picked the arena: the Grandmaster’s old winter town, a personal vacation spot she shares “with none others.” Snow drifted down, the kind that makes you want to snuggle up to someone. “Those days are long past,” said Lethe. “We’re inside of a proverbial snow globe,” said the Arbiter. “You never know.” The Grandmaster flew up to her throne beside Doug the Pug, and the two champions landed in the very same alleyway. Fate, the Arbiter announced, would not let them stay apart for long.

Glitter and Grudges

Sorry struck first in the showiest way possible. She vaulted clean over Lethe in a mirthful leap, pulling a face down at them as they swung uselessly at the air. Then she punched a bolted door, which shook off its snow and refused to budge. She flew into a rage, and because she is a wild magic barbarian, her fury summoned a pixie spirit that hovered over Lethe’s head and made the same face. “Are you serious? Little trinkets again?”

The Acolytes demanded chaos and got the Mad Hatter, a disheveled old man in mismatched suspenders and a very large hat. He ran between the champions, shouted “Change places!” and vanished, scattering them across town. Lethe complained that this was just like the carnival. The Grandmaster explained that the carnival really had come by the week before, as a thank-you to the goblins.

Lethe gathered themself. Their shadow pooled at their feet and climbed their body, hardening into a carapace, and their eyes glowed cold white. “Fine. You want to fight, darling? Let’s fight. Follow me.” They swatted the pixie down the street like a baseball and stepped into a magic potion shop full of trinkets and a swirling basin of ethereal mist. It reminded them of the week the carnival visited Strixhaven, when they waited outside Sorry’s potion class. So they planted their glaive and waited again.

With Lethe out of sight, Sorry’s confidence briefly cracked. She recovered with a toothy grin at the shop door, her shield bearing the emblem of Lorehold, her old college: “I’m here. You called? Bring it.” Another pixie exploded on Lethe in a glitter bomb of soft blue, pink and creamy white. “Scars will heal,” the Grandmaster observed. “But glitter?” Lethe knew: “Glitter never comes out.”

Lethe had learned some tricks of their own. They flicked the glitter back at Sorry and laid a hex on her, turning it into sludgy dark ice that clung to her armor. Sorry had never seen them cast a spell. “I wish that you showed more of this ferocity when we were together,” she said. “You were so soft, Sorry,” Lethe replied. “I was afraid I’d break you in half.” There was a pang in her eyes, and also a blush.

Goblins in the Floor

The next chaos event popped up checkered tiles with little eyes peeking out: “It’s goblin snatching time!” Goblins swarmed both champions, hoping to take them hostage and make them pay for their freedom. Both shook them off, but the goblins lurked in the wings, hoping to earn a little extra coin.

Blades locked. “I can bang on this all day long,” Sorry boasted. “I’ve got the stamina. Can you keep up?” Lethe: “It was me that you could never keep up with. Sorry.” Sorry answered by winking and blowing them a kiss, and Lethe remembered that she had only ever toyed with them. Their face curled into a snarl. When the next pixie blast shoved them into her, they hit back with telekinesis and hurled Sorry thirty feet. It was too far, because Lethe was still flustered from the kiss. A goblin waved as she sailed past. Sorry was shocked, and maybe a little impressed.

Doug’s tongue rolled out when Sorry asked whether she could pet him after she slaughtered her ex. The Grandmaster ruled that the victor would get to pet him and take him on a walk. Meanwhile a short goblin swung a scimitar at Sorry and missed, fuming that “Kenny’s got to pay his rent.”

The Potion Shop Explodes

After one too many pixie blasts, the shop’s bottles burst. Sorry dodged the whole spray and found a healing potion on the floor. Lethe had thrown their body over her on pure reflex. “What are you doing?” “Nothing! We’re fighting to the death, that’s what we’re doing.” The Grandmaster was not fooled: “That is a sign of love.”

Poison and glitter mixed into a gas of decay that ate at Lethe’s carapace, and their flustered swings glanced off Sorry’s shield. Then, locked in close, Sorry sniffed them. “Are you using a different shampoo?… Never mind!” Lethe was stunned: “You remember what my shampoo smelled like?”

Sensing the conflict, the Grandmaster spoke into Lethe’s head: “Trust your heart. Whatever action you choose… it must always be done in confidence.” Lethe did something they had never done before. Their tattoos moved and glowed into a map of the skeleton beneath their skin, and glowing white tears streamed down their face as they took on an aspect of their patron’s dread. “I was never good enough for you. And this, I’m good enough for this.” Sorry: “You don’t look okay.”

A long-armed goblin chose this moment to pin Lethe and demand payment. “Cost me what? I’ve already given up everything that matters.” “That’s super sad. What’s in your pockets?” He saw that Lethe’s little song horn was sentimental and took the hand axes and a flask of cranberry juice instead. “Next time, put better things in your pockets.” Sorry declared victory on the spot, since every real fighter knows the power comes from hydration.

Chairs from Behind the Throne

After the break, The Box of Chaos dropped from the sky in pink and yellow flames, offering a magic item for the right sacrifice. Then came another switch-up. The Grandmaster rated the Arbiter’s roll the same as she’d rate him: a 4. “You sound like my mom,” he said. “She and I talk often,” she replied, and HR, a small terrified goblin in the corner, totally approved it.

From behind her throne, her “Mary Poppins bag of danger,” she produced two metal chairs. The Arbiter soared down and whipped his onto Lethe, who half-caught it. “You are all ridiculous.” “This is my career… don’t ruin this for me.” The Grandmaster dove like a falcon at Sorry and missed, but her chair threw up a wave of snow that caught her anyway. The Arbiter resolved to call Dave about another chair-fu class.

The Breakdown

Sorry had stopped having fun. She finally landed a real blow, and looked almost regretful as she pulled her bloody blade back. Lethe answered with a flurry of glaive strikes, but the last ones carried regret too. As blood was drawn, Lethe staggered: “What are we doing?”

Sorry’s wild magic surged into rainbow protective lights, and she began ugly crying. In those lights Lethe saw the colors of the carnival, and the question they had never asked: what if you were at the carnival too? Sorry kept swinging with her eyes shut, screaming “I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” Lethe stepped back: “Do you want to, or are we just trying to kill each other because those two weird gods pulled us into a pocket dimension and told us to?”

It all came out. Sorry had graduated, thank you, and was now “a glorified babysitter” whose little ones were probably lost in a dungeon without her. Lethe admitted they had wanted to ask her to come with the carnival, but took her words to mean they didn’t fit together. “So I left.” Sorry lowered her sword: “Of course you don’t fit in at Strixhaven. You’re better than all of them.”

Lethe’s glowing bones flickered out, and a blush rose where they had been. They knew Sorry couldn’t tell lies, “unless you took care of that curse.” “Wait, I’m cursed?” Lethe laughed. They admitted that they had spent so long trying to prove they could be something that they never thought about who they wanted to be. “I decided to just be angry.” Sorry preferred “unbridled passion.” Lethe had a suggestion: “Maybe we could reach into that weird box and get the fuck out of here? Maybe try to start over?” They could deal with their curses together. Blushing furiously, Sorry stammered that it was safe to do these kinds of things together, and Lethe agreed: safety in numbers.

Love Will Win

The Grandmaster, who had been eavesdropping, leaned into the doorway. “This battle was a choice, a chance for you to find your heart and where it lies.” At her glance the Box of Chaos vanished. It could not give them closure or safety. “That you will only find together.” She admitted that only Doug had ever brought warmth to her heart, then knelt in the snow before them both.

“Today, I can’t believe I’m choosing to say this, but today, love will win.” — the Grandmaster

She offered them her retreat, her home away from home, as a place to bond and grow, and promised that the Arbiter, “a master of time,” would return them to whatever time they chose when they were ready. Sorry wiped the snot off her face and wondered aloud whether to mention that she’s just an aggressive crybaby by default. Lethe kissed her forehead, and her little deer tail wagged. “Maybe we complement each other pretty well.” The Grandmaster lifted them before the Acolytes as two champions, celebrating tears as fiercely as blood. Doug barked in circles at the prospect of double the walkies.

Dried Blood

After the show, Sorry offered some advice. Therapy is great, but in the meantime it’s fine to punch a few doors, or even get into a deathmatch with your ex. You might get to pet a magic pug at the end. She’d read something like it on a piece of paper, “and, you know, I ate that.” Lethe’s advice was gentler. Holding on to someone else’s idea of who you are only buries you deeper, and you have to remember who you want to be. “And sometimes that means saying sorry.”

Notable Moments

• The Grandmaster rage-quit a Hallmark movie by knocking over the TV, and the goblins cleaned up.
• Sorry’s only spell works by eating the paper, and sometimes she literally regurgitated it; the bugbear essay didn’t sit very well.
• Lethe threw their body over Sorry in the potion-shop explosion, then insisted they were “fighting to the death.”
• “Are you using a different shampoo?”
• The hosts swooped into the fight with metal chairs and were badly out of chair-fu shape.
• Sorry ugly-cried in a rainbow of wild magic while still swinging her sword.

Memorable Quotes

• The Grandmaster: “Did she know she was your girlfriend?”
• Lethe: “You were so soft, Sorry. I was afraid I’d break you in half.”
• Sorry: “Every real fighter knows that the power comes from hydration.”
• The Arbiter: “This is my career, you know what I mean? Like, don’t ruin this for me.”
• Sorry: “I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”
• Lethe: “I decided to just be angry.”
• Sorry: “Of course you don’t fit in at Strixhaven. You’re better than all of them. You don’t need someone telling you what to do.”
• The Grandmaster: “Just as hard as it is to shed blood, we have shed tears. Both fierce, both beautiful, and both something to remember.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Lethe (pi_sharp)

• Appearance: a seven-foot Goliath (they/them) with bluish-gray skin, white tattoos and a white tuft of hair. Their eyes were once yellow and are now white, and white light motes drift off them.
• Background: the Witchlight Carnival has been their home all their life, where “it’s my job to stay alive.” They were asleep at the carnival when they were pulled into the arena.
• Abilities:
  • A halberd/glaive (Polearm Master)
  • Telekinesis
  • Dark magic learned since the breakup: shadow-carapace false life and Hex
  • Stone’s Endurance, second wind, action surge
  • An undead patron: in their “form of dread,” the tattoos become a glowing skeleton and they cry glowing tears. They had never used it before this fight.
• Personality: low Dexterity. Claims to have no sense of humor. “I decided to just be angry.”
• Belongings: a song horn (sentimental), a flask of cranberry juice and hand axes. A goblin took the flask and axes.
• History with Sorry: they dated. Lethe waited outside Sorry’s potion class the week the carnival was at Strixhaven. Sorry said they weren’t smart enough for wizard school (or “couldn’t do it”). Lethe heard it as “we don’t fit together” and left without asking her to join the carnival.

Sorry (stellaluna)

• Appearance: a 6’5” satyr with deer-like legs and a little deer tail, very muscular, in a deep V-neck with colorful scarves.
• Gear: a longsword and a shield with the Lorehold emblem.
• Strixhaven: a graduate whose only spell is comprehend languages, which she casts by eating the paper. Bugbear essay.
• Abilities: a wild magic barbarian. Her rage summons pixie spirits that explode as glitter bombs. Bolstering magic; Unstable Backlash gave her rainbow protective lights.
• Now: a “glorified babysitter” who was on a dungeon field trip with “little ones” when she was pulled into the arena.
• Personality: cannot tell lies (Lethe calls it a curse; she didn’t know). An “aggressive crybaby” by default. Values hydration and self-care.
• She found a potion of healing in the shop.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix)

• Before the fight: bored of Hallmark Christmas romances on an old TV in the Dread Fortress, she knocked the TV over.
• The arena: owns the winter town as her private retreat.
• Doug the pug: sits beside her throne, and she voices his barking.
• During the fight: keeps metal chairs behind her throne. Telepathically urged Lethe to “trust your heart.” Eavesdropped on the reconciliation.
• Verdict: knelt to the pair, named both champions and gave them the town as a home.
• Talks often with the Arbiter’s mom.

The Arbiter (Mudcat)

• Brought the exes as “something more true to life.”
• “Had a girlfriend once… she went to a different school.”
• Chose the winter town.
• Bad end-of-round rolls that improved each round (12, 14, 15, then 17).
• Out of shape at chair-fu; Dave runs the chair-fu class.
• Called “a master of time” by the GM. He will return the pair to whatever time they choose.

Doug the pug. Sits by the GM’s throne. The victor gets to pet and walk him, so now he gets “double the walkies.”

The Mad Hatter. A chaos-event figure who swapped the champions’ positions.

The goblins:

• They scurried to pick up the TV.
• The kidnapper goblins in the floor tiles. One took Lethe’s flask and hand axes.
• A scimitar goblin who needs rent money. “Kenny’s got to pay his rent” (0:54:30) inferred: this goblin is named Kenny.
• HR, a small, frightened goblin in the corner.

Dave. Runs a “chair-fu class” (mentioned).

Places

• The Dread Fortress halls / the Grandmaster’s throne.
• The Grandmaster’s winter town:
  • Her personal vacation retreat, “my home away from home”; “a proverbial snow globe.”
  • Snowy alleyways and the magic potion shop with its ethereal mist basin.
  • Given to Lethe and Sorry as their home.
• Witchlight Carnival (Lethe’s home). It visited the Void “last week.”
• Strixhaven and its Lorehold college; potion class.
• An unnamed dungeon (Sorry’s field trip).

Items

• The Box of Chaos: pink and yellow flames. It grants a magic item in exchange for a sacrifice, and it vanished at the GM’s look.
• Metal chairs.
• The GM’s old TV and remote.
• Lethe’s song horn, cranberry-juice flask and hand axes.
• The potion of healing.
• Sorry’s Lorehold shield.

Lore statements

• The Grandmaster has a private winter retreat in the Void.
• The Arbiter is “a master of time” and can send people back to any time they choose.
• The Witchlight Carnival came to the Void after the previous show “to appreciate the goblins.”
• Goblins serve in the Dread Fortress, including an HR goblin.
• The GM on the Deathmatch: “As always, we have favored blood and death,” but this night they celebrated love and tears.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: Hallmark in the Dread Fortress

1. 0:00:00 The Arbiter opens season two, calling it “here to say stuff to you and Junk and other stuff.” In the halls of the Dread Fortress he finds the Grandmaster huddled in front of an older-looking TV set.
2. 0:00:39 The Grandmaster is slouched in her throne with her legs over one arm and the remote in hand, watching “the Hallmark Show”. It is the classic Christmas movie: she’s moved back home, the trees are up, snow is falling. She throws her remote at the TV: “I’m just sick of this! They give us the same romance story again and again… I want true romance. I want love and heat and fire.”
3. 0:01:26 “What is this trash?” She runs over and knocks the TV over, and goblins scurry to pick it up. “It’s fine. It’s an old one.” She asks if the Arbiter has something better “than this drivel… on the silver screen.”
4. 0:01:47 The Arbiter has noticed her watching a lot of rom-coms and the Hallmark Channel lately, so he has brought “something more true to life.”
5. 0:02:18 The Grandmaster asks if he has ever fallen in love. Arbiter: “I had a girlfriend once… You don’t know her. She went to a different school.” GM: “Did she know she was your girlfriend?”
6. 0:02:46 The Arbiter presents “a lover’s quarrel… Lethe versus Sorry.”

The exes meet

7. 0:03:13 Lethe arrives confused: “How did I get in here?… Is this another carnival trick that you’re playing on me?” The Arbiter explains that “a longtime friend is wanting to reconnect with you.” Lethe: “Wait, Sorry’s here.”
8. 0:03:54 Sorry: “Oh, hey there. How’s it going?” She doesn’t know why she’s here either: “Last I recall, I was in some kind of a dungeon.” Lethe: “Oh, right. At wizard school.”
9. 0:04:29 Lethe: “You told me that I wasn’t smart enough to go to wizard school… That’s why we broke up.” Sorry: “It’s not that you weren’t smart enough. It’s just I didn’t think that you could do it.” “Is there a difference?” “I think so.”
10. 0:05:06 The Grandmaster sees “a little bit of bad blood and story to resolve.” She invites them to “find your loose ends, burn them, bury them, tie them back together” in front of her Acolytes.
11. 0:06:00 — Lethe’s introduction. “My name, Great Acolytes, is Lethe. You might have seen me in the Witchlight Carnival, for that has been my home for as long as I have been alive. I can move things with my mind. I can move things with my arms. I am after all seven feet fucking tall… I think that’s a little bit better than being able to read books.”
12. 0:06:43 — Sorry’s reading. “I only know one spell and it is called comprehend languages. It requires me to physically touch the surface… the way that I do that is by eating the paper.” Lethe: “How did you even actually graduate from Strixhaven?” Sorry passed every test at an institution “based solely on… regurgitating information.” Lethe: “Like, literally regurgitating?” Sorry: “Sometimes… that one essay on bugbears… kinda didn’t sit very well.” Lethe: “I think the only reason you passed is because your professors couldn’t actually find the papers to grade.”
13. 0:08:02 — Sorry described. A satyr, about 6’5”, with long, almost deer-like legs. She has “a bit of a handsome kind of beauty,” is very ripped, and wears a deep V-neck with a number of colorful scarves tied on. She carries “a very long sword.”
14. 0:08:35 — Lethe described. Lethe’s player breaks in first: “Oh my god, sorry, hello, are you free Thursday?” Lethe is a seven-foot Goliath who uses they/them pronouns. They have bluish-gray skin, thick white tattoos across the face and arms, and a little tuft of white hair pulled back. Their eyes used to be yellow and are now completely white, and little motes of white light pop off them and dissolve. They lean impatiently on a huge halberd.
15. 0:09:30 The GM calls them “my two towering champions” and the fight “the final exam.” The Arbiter proposes “the old winter town in the spirit of the Hallmark movies.”
16. 0:10:01 — The arena. The GM: “a sweet little spot that I love to vacation to… It’s personally my own. I share it with none others.” The champions may enter or destroy any building. The falling snow gives “a little desire to perhaps snuggle up to someone, or get your blood boiling.” Lethe: “Those days are long past.” Arbiter: “We’re inside of a proverbial snow globe. You never know.” GM: “Arbiter, do not allow her frozen heart to thaw.”
17. 0:11:10 She flies up to her Acolytes and takes her throne right up next to Doug the pug.
18. 0:11:56 At the mention of breaking things, Sorry’s eyes go wide as saucers and she cracks her knuckles: “I’ve always been way better than you at applying destructive force.” Lethe: “Applying destructive force is basically my whole thing.” Sorry: “I think you’re gonna have to prove yourself… sweetheart.”
19. 0:12:29 Arbiter: “Acolytes! Are you ready to see the blood on the snow?” Both champions roll placement and start close together in the same alleyway: “Fate will not allow you to be separated for much longer.” Several buildings have open doors.
20. 0:13:26 Sorry wins initiative. Lethe: “This simply does not bode well.” The Arbiter roots for “the one that does things with their arms.” The GM: “I believe Sorry is not as apologetic as she seems.” The GM: “This may be therapeutic for all of us.” Arbiter: “I definitely feel better after watching people murder each other.”

Round 1

21. 0:15:14 — The leap. Sorry narrows her eyes mischievously, runs at Lethe and uses a mirthful leap to vault right over them, making a face down at them. Lethe tries to knock her out of the air with the butt of the halberd (Polearm Master), but it goes wide under the elegant leap. Lethe sighs.
22. 0:18:05 — The door. Sorry flexes and punches a closed door. It’s sturdy and bolted from inside: snow shakes off it, but it holds. “I do have a good challenge.” She rolls up her sleeves, digs her hooves into the ground, muscles rippling, and enters her rage. Lethe: “I thought you said you were good at hitting stuff.”
23. 0:19:24 — Wild magic. Sorry is a wild magic barbarian. Her rage summons a pixie spirit that swirls into existence over Lethe’s head, making the same face down at them. It explodes at the end of the turn. Lethe: “Are you serious? Little trinkets again?”

Chaos event 1: the Mad Hatter (0:21:08)

24. The Acolytes demand chaos. The GM lets Lethe roll since they’ve been rolling badly: 14. An old, disheveled man runs onto the field. He has holes in his shoes, a jacket that doesn’t match his suspenders (one polka dot, one striped), checkered pants and a very large hat. He runs between them, shouts “Change places!” and poofs away. “The Mad Hatter has entered the field.” Both reroll their positions.
25. 0:22:52 Lethe: “This is seriously just like the Witchlight Carnival… I was just like asleep. Is this like a prank?” The GM: “the carnival did come by last week… right after the last show we had, we just wanted to appreciate the goblins and everything. So we brought the carnival to town. We did take a little bit of inspiration, but I promise it’s not a prank.”
26. 0:23:28 Sorry: “You should loosen up your sense of humor.” Lethe: “I don’t really have a sense of humor. Sorry.” The pixie travels with Lethe. Lethe lands in front of an open door; Sorry lands in an alleyway with no door, “to your dismay.”
27. 0:24:24 — Lethe’s turn. Lethe has been “picked up and put down by godlike figures” and is face to face with an ex from several years ago: “a bit of an afternoon.” They center themself. Their own shadow pools around their feet and climbs up their body, hardening like a carapace over legs and sternum (false life). Their eyes glow a cold white matching the snow. “Fine. You want to fight, darling? Let’s fight. Follow me.”
28. 0:26:24 Lethe swats the pixie like a baseball with the glaive, smacking it “way down here, center field.” Lethe enters a magic arcane potion shop: trinkets, potions, and a swirling basin of weird ethereal mist-liquid in the corner.
29. 0:27:23 The shop takes Lethe back to the week the Witchlight Carnival was at Strixhaven, when they waited outside Sorry’s potion class. It makes them angrier, like an overlay of Strixhaven. They plant their glaive and wait for Sorry. GM: “Waiting, I love it.”
30. 0:28:22 The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is 12. GM: “Ah, you are a disappointment.” “That’s above average.”

Round 2

31. 0:28:52 With Lethe out of view, Sorry’s expression changes; she looks unsure of herself. She rubs her hands, shakes off the snow and runs to the shop doorway, sword drawn. Her shield bears the emblem of Lorehold, her Strixhaven college. “This is a version of Sorry that has grown up without you in their life”: confident, toothy grin. “I’m here. You called? Bring it.”
32. 0:30:30 She thrusts her sword and another pixie appears, then takes the Dodge behind her shield. The pixie explodes on Lethe: “When it explodes, it gets glitter all over you. It’s a glitter bomb… soft blue, soft pink, creamy white… You are shining.” GM: “Scars will heal… But glitter?” Lethe: “Glitter never comes out.” GM: “That’s on you for life.”
33. 0:32:31 Lethe just takes it and skids back, wiping glitter off their forehead. “You’ve always been kind of flashy, Sorry. What’s behind the facade, though? More glitter?” Sorry: “Plenty more where that came from.”
34. 0:33:26 — The hex. “I’ve learned a few tricks too.” Lethe flicks glitter up at Sorry with the polearm and casts Hex. The last time Sorry saw Lethe, they couldn’t cast spells. The dark magic turns the glitter into clingy, sludgy dark ice that sticks to her skin and armor. The first glaive swing ties her AC for a glancing blow. The GM rules that the hex’s dark ice still bites even through a dodge. The second swing clunks off the shield.
35. 0:37:17 Sorry: “I wish that you showed more of this ferocity when we were together.” Lethe: “You were so soft, Sorry. I was afraid I’d break you in half.” GM: “That one kind of hurts.” There’s a pang in Sorry’s eyes, “but there’s also a blush.”
36. 0:37:53 Lethe: “You wanna prove you’re not breakable? Bring it.” Intimidation 25 vs insight 5: “a little self-doubt is instilled in you.” Sorry: “You’re kind of spooky.”

Chaos event 2: goblin snatching (0:38:58)

37. Sorry rolls 17. Checkered floor tiles pop up and little eyes peek out. Goblins surround both champions and try to take them hostage, and anyone caught must barter to be freed. GM: “It’s goblin snatching time!” Lethe: “Who are you people?” Both shake them off. The goblins hover “in the wings” for two more rounds, “looking for a chance to perhaps earn a little extra coin.”
38. 0:41:34 The Arbiter rolls 14. GM: “I will not embarrass you and shame you in public again… You’re a bit fragile.” Arbiter: “At the end of my rope here.”

Round 3

39. 0:42:13 Sorry kicks a goblin off her leg like a cat or dog doing the leg wiggle and lunges at Lethe; she misses. Lethe locks their halberd with Sorry’s weapon and leans into it: “Close, but not close enough.”
40. 0:43:39 Sorry: “Listen, I can bang on this all day long. I’ve got the stamina. Can you keep up?” Lethe: “It was me that you could never keep up with. Sorry.” Intimidation (nat 20) vs history (19). Sorry winks and blows Lethe a kiss, belittling them. Lethe’s history check means they remember that Sorry only ever toyed with them and never took them seriously. They flinch, and their face curls into a snarl.
41. 0:45:38 Another pixie explodes behind Lethe (“my horrid, horrid… dex saves”) and pushes them into Sorry, glitter raining over their head. A goblin is caught in the blast but jumps clear.
42. 0:46:42 — The telekinetic shove. Lethe’s eyebrow twitches with determination. They use telekinesis on an unwilling Sorry and win. A burst from their mind shoves Sorry 30 feet back. It’s an overshoot “because they’re still a little flustered from the kiss that you blew at them.” A goblin leaps out of her path and waves as she flies past. Sorry is aghast: she has never seen Lethe do magic. She’s “shocked, maybe impressed. Just a little.” Lethe: “Like I said, Sorry. It’s been a long, long time.”
43. 0:50:52 The goblins try again. Both champions shake them off, the goblins hanging off their biceps “like you’re now the new jungle gym.” Goblins: “I’m trying so hard! Just let me kidnap you!… You wait!” They get one final chance.
44. 0:52:03 The Arbiter rolls 15. GM: “I’m proud of you, may I even say.” Arbiter: “watching these people work through their struggles is really helping me with my dice rolls… makes me feel better about my own life.” GM: “you do have a lot to worry about in your own life, but we can talk about that later.” Lethe: “We don’t have struggles.” Arbiter: “The picture of relational health.”

Round 4: Doug, the potion shop, and the dread form

45. 0:52:51 The GM says she’ll have to let Doug the Pug out after round four. Sorry, leaping over a goblin: “Can we pet Doug the Pug after the match if we survive?… Can I pet you after I slaughter my ex?” Doug’s tongue rolls out and his tail wags fervently. The GM rules: “Whoever is the victor will get to pet Doug the Pug and even take him on a walk.”
46. 0:54:30 A short goblin swings his scimitar at Sorry as she jumps over and misses. He fumes: “Kenny’s got to pay his rent.” Sorry: “Sorry, little one, I’m busy.”
47. 0:55:33 Sorry tries “way too fancy” an epic slide-in stab and completely misses. Lethe just moves their head aside: “I thought they were supposed to teach you something in that fancy school of yours.” Another pixie explodes; Lethe makes the save, but the goblin doesn’t.
48. 0:56:31 — The potion shop explodes. It’s the second explosion in the shop, so the GM has the Arbiter check how the glass bottles hold up: a 3. The bottles burst. Sorry (nat 20) avoids all the splatter and finds a common potion of healing on the floor.
49. 0:57:48 — Lethe shields Sorry. The player asks: “Could I do something gay, actually?” On reflex, Lethe throws their body and arms over Sorry to deflect the spray, “which is maybe why they take so much of it. Don’t think about it too hard.” GM: “Oh, I’m thinking about it a lot. That’s like the instinct that I make to save my pizza… That is a sign of love.” Sorry, confused: “What are you doing?” Lethe: “Nothing! We’re fighting to the death, that’s what we’re doing.”
50. 0:59:04 Poison vials and a black ichor-like liquid [?] mix with the glitter into “a glitter gaseous form of decay,” eating into Lethe’s false-life carapace. Lethe: “The power of gay protected me.” GM: “Yes, always.” GM: “Show her that love hurts.”
51. 1:00:44 Lethe swings with both ends of the glaive, but every blow is a flustered, uncommitted glance off Sorry’s perfectly timed shield. “You really just can’t let me get a hit in, huh? You just have to keep exploding pixies behind my back?”
52. 1:02:02 — The shampoo. Locked in close, Sorry sniffs Lethe: “Are you using a different shampoo?… Never mind!” Lethe: “It’s not the one I was using years ago. You remember what my shampoo smelled like?”
53. 1:02:44 — The Grandmaster’s voice. “I feel the conflict within you… I want your head in the game.” She lets Lethe redo the attack and speaks into their head: “Trust your heart. Whatever action you choose… it must always be done in confidence.”
54. 1:03:24 — Form of dread. “I know what I have to do. Fine. Let’s get serious.” Lethe does “something that they have never, ever done before.” They step back and transform. Their body grows, and the white geometric tattoos move and glow into a skeletal map of the bones beneath their skin, like glow-in-the-dark paint of their own skeleton. Glowing white tears stream from their eyes as they take on an aspect of their patron’s dread. “I was never good enough for you. And this, I’m good enough for this.” Sorry: “You don’t look okay.”
55. 1:05:25 — Lethe kidnapped. The goblins feel “like they’ve stumbled into a conversation that they have no business being in.” Sorry shakes hers off again, but a long-armed goblin pins Lethe: arms over their shoulders, feet in their back, his long arms knotting their arms behind them. Lethe: “Is this more of your tricks? Sorry. You can’t just talk to me one-on-one. We have to play all of these games.”
56. 1:06:35 — The barter. Goblin: “I’ll let you go, but it’s going to cost you.” Lethe: “Cost me what? I’ve already given up everything that matters.” Goblin: “That’s super sad. What’s in your pockets?” Lethe was asleep at the carnival and brought little: a few hand axes, a little flask, and a song horn. The song horn is a soft, flute-like instrument Lethe plays quietly alone, “a soft instrument for a very not soft person,” which Sorry maybe saw once or twice. The flask holds cranberry juice. The goblin takes the flask, eyes the song horn and sees it is sentimental, but Lethe won’t react. He takes the hand axes instead and crawls back under the tiles: “Next time, put better things in your pockets.”
57. 1:08:41 Sorry: “I am very clearly gonna win this because you now do not have the means of hydration… every real fighter knows that the power comes from hydration.… Self-care is very important.” Lethe: “I’m doing just fine on my own.” The skeletal tattoos glow brighter.
58. 1:09:19 Break: “get your drinks, hydrate up as we’ve learned in today’s lesson.”

After the break: the Box of Chaos and the chairs

59. 1:09:48 Arbiter: “The star-crossed ex-lovers in a little potion shop, seeing if they can brew up some chemistry.” Lethe: “That’s not what’s going on here.” Arbiter: “We have to make up some sort of narrative for the ratings.” Lethe: “What’s a show? Like the carnival?”
60. 1:10:33 Sorry: “This is part of why sometimes you are insufferable. You can’t just go with the flow.” Lethe: “I’ve had to go with the flow forever. Is that really what you think of me?” “Well, only sometimes.”
61. 1:10:58 — The Box of Chaos. An explosion: a box drops from the sky, its lid lifts, and pink and yellow flames erupt. Champions may offer it a sacrifice or gift, and it grants a magic item of any level or type, “could be a health potion, could be a scroll of power word kill,” whatever it thinks they deserve.
62. 1:11:53 The Arbiter’s roll is 17.

Chaos event 3: metal chairs (1:12:02)

63. The Acolytes demand another switch-up, and the Arbiter rolls: a 4. GM: “That’s how I would rate you on a scale of one to 10.” Arbiter: “You sound like my mom.” GM: “She and I talk often.” Lethe: “They seem to have as many problems as we do.” Arbiter: “Typical workplace discussion.” GM: “HR totally approved it.” She looks at a small goblin in the corner (“right, HR?”), who has fear in his eyes.
64. 1:13:18 From behind her throne she pulls out a metal chair, tosses one to the Arbiter and takes one herself. “The Arbiter and I, well, we do not miss.” Lethe: “I really should not have made dexterity my dump stat.” Sorry expected a shotgun. GM: “Who knows what’s behind my throne?… a Mary Poppins bag of danger.”
65. 1:14:47 The Arbiter: “It’s been a minute since I’ve done this. I’m a little out of shape.” He flares his wings, soars down and whips his chair onto Lethe. Lethe tries to catch the chair and throw it down (Stone’s Endurance), cutting the blow to a third: “I’m tired. Why? What is this? You are all ridiculous.” Arbiter: “This is my job. Just, you know, play off me.” Lethe: “It’s my job to stay alive at a carnival.” Arbiter: “This is my career… don’t ruin this for me.” He shrugs and walks off.
66. 1:16:12 The GM: “Let me show you how it’s done.” She dives from her throne, wings closing like a falcon, at Sorry. Sorry dodges. The chair hits the ground and throws up a huge snow wave that still catches her.
67. 1:16:53 Arbiter: “I’m going to call Dave, see if we can get another chair-fu class… because we’re rusty.” “Maybe it’s because the chairs were rusty.” They consider La-Z-Boy recliners, then knockoffs: “You gotta be frugal… We’ll put it together ourselves.” The GM flies back to her cushiony throne.

Round 5: the breakdown

68. 1:18:00 Sorry: “I don’t think I’m really having fun anymore. This is really strange. Even for me… I’m pretty easy going usually.” Lethe: “Wait, are you saying that you didn’t do this?” Sorry: “Why are you blaming me?”
69. 1:18:24 Sorry bangs her sword against her shield and attacks recklessly with bolstering magic. She finally lands a blow. As she pulls back the bloody blade, she looks almost regretful, then shakes it off. Another pixie appears, but Lethe finally expects it and raises their shield behind their head without turning. The GM grants advantage on those saves from now on: “Truly a scholar of the field of battle.” Lethe: “May I make you proud?”
70. 1:21:29 Lethe uses second wind; their patron’s tattoos glow and knit their bones back together. They crack their neck and go in with the glaive. The first two blows hit hard. Lethe uses action surge for two more, but those land “with less… a little bit of regret.” As blood is drawn, Lethe hesitates, glowing crying eyes squinting, and staggers: “What are we doing?”
71. 1:24:39 — Sorry cries. Unstable Backlash rerolls her wild magic: multicolored protective lights surround her. “Sorry starts crying… ugly crying” as rainbow light crackles around her.
72. 1:25:54 Among the lights, Lethe sees the same colorful lights that are all around the carnival. The thought “what if you were at the carnival too?”, the ask they never made, flashes through their mind. “Sorry, are you… I know that I cry when I do this dread thing. Are you okay?”
73. 1:26:47 Sorry, eyes shut, swinging the sword wildly: “I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” Lethe steps away: “Do you want to, or are we just trying to kill each other because those two weird gods pulled us into a pocket dimension and told us to?”
74. 1:27:16 Sorry: “I was on a field trip in a dungeon. There are little ones that are probably wandering around lost without me.” Lethe thought she’d still be at Strixhaven. “No, I graduated! Why do you have to insult me like this over and over again?” Lethe had thought she’d become a teacher. Sorry, still swinging: “I’m not an adventurer… I’m a glorified babysitter.”
75. 1:28:05 — The confession. Lethe: “I wanted to ask you to come with me in the carnival, but… you said I wouldn’t fit in to Strixhaven… I guess I assumed that you also just meant… that we didn’t fit together. So I left.”
76. 1:29:01 Sorry lowers her sword, eyes wild with colors and tears streaming. “Well, I know I’m not the best at communicating, but of course you don’t fit in at Strixhaven. You’re better than all of them. You don’t need someone telling you what to do. You’ve always done your own thing.”
77. 1:29:38 Lethe is taken aback. The glowing bones flicker and peter out, and a low blush forms where the bone paint had been. “I know you can’t tell lies unless you took care of that curse. Is that really what you think?” Sorry: “Wait, I’m cursed?” Lethe: “You said that you could never tell lies. That’s a curse… That’s what a curse is.” “Oh, that makes a lot of sense.” Lethe: “For someone so smart, you really make me laugh sometimes.”
78. 1:30:45 Sorry: “I’ve always just kind of dealt with what’s right in front of me.” Lethe: “For so long, I was trying to be something, anything, just to prove that I could be, that I never really thought about who I wanted to be.” Sorry: “You decided to become this?” Lethe, looking at the black roiling magic on their hands: “I decided to just be angry. And I guess we both kind of know a little bit about that.” Sorry: “I like to call it unbridled passion.” Lethe: “The unbridled passion that makes you explode stuff with your mind?” Sorry: “I can’t do that. Is that what you do?”
79. 1:32:20 Lethe: “This isn’t really how I wanted things to go down. Maybe we could reach into that weird box and get the fuck out of here? Maybe try to start over?” Sorry: “Are you going to turn into that spooky skeletal thing again?” Lethe: “Maybe we can deal with our curses. Together?”
80. 1:33:23 A flush takes over Sorry’s face and ears and she stammers: “it’s safe… to go and do these kind of things together, like as a glorified babysitter.” Lethe: “For safety reasons, safety in numbers. Two of us, the number two together.” They imagine fighting back to back against the goblins, then “I bet we could take on those weird gods.” “Wait, are we gonna fight together?”

The Grandmaster’s judgment

81. 1:34:11 The Grandmaster, who has been eavesdropping, pokes her head into the doorway. “This battle was a choice, a chance for you to find your heart and where it lies.” She looks back, and the Box of Chaos disappears: “That will not give you what you want. It will not give you closure or safety. That you will only find together.”
82. 1:35:01 She looks down at Doug: “This little one here was the only one that brought a little warmth, maybe even a little smile to my heart.” “The strength in your vulnerability, it’s a weakness I have.” She kneels in the snow, hands on the ground, head lowered to them both, then rises.
83. 1:36:06 — The gift. “Today, I can’t believe I’m choosing to say this, but today, love will win.” She gives them her retreat, “my home away from home”: “The Arbiter, a master of time. Together we give you this. You may stay here. This is your vacation, your home, to bond, to grow, to learn, and when you are ready to return home, he will take you back to whatever time you are ready for.” “If it is not without those passions, then what is it that we fight for?” She holds out a hand to each.
84. 1:37:17 Sorry wipes snot off her face and whispers: “Should I tell them that I’m just by default an aggressive crybaby?” Lethe: “I think we should just roll with it for now.” Lethe pats her back, then gives her “the tiniest little kiss on the forehead” and wipes a tear from her cheek. Sorry looks up with big doe eyes, her little deer tail wagging.
85. 1:38:01 Lethe: “I always thought it was kind of cute that you cried so much.” Sorry: “This spontaneous behavior that you’re exhibiting right now, it’s a nice look on you.” Lethe: “Maybe we complement each other pretty well.” Sorry grabs Lethe’s hand: “All right, let’s go.”
86. 1:38:50 The GM lifts them both up, eye level with the Acolytes. “Normally we have one champion who stands before you today, but tonight we have two. As always, we have favored blood and death, but perhaps tonight we will celebrate something anew. Just as hard as it is to shed blood, we have shed tears.… I give you our two champions!” Doug barks his head off in circles, knowing he has two champions to walk him, “double the walkies.” “Thank you and good night for coming to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In character (canon, Dried Blood)

• 1:45:18 Sorry’s advice: “Therapy is great. Sometimes it’s gonna be hard to get there. In the meantime… if you gotta punch a few doors, that’s fine… If you gotta get into a deathmatch with your ex, it’s okay. You know, you might, at the end of the road, get to pet a magic pug.” She read something similar on a piece of paper “and, you know, I ate that.”
• 1:45:57 Lethe’s advice: “Sometimes holding on to someone else’s idea of who you think you are only buries you in a hole deeper and deeper. And you have to remind yourself who you want to be. And sometimes that means saying sorry.”

Out of character (creator notes)

• Mudcat counts the season’s one-shot as episode one, so this is S2E3.
• Mudcat jokes about “the sequel, whether the relationship lasts.” It’s a dual victory.
• pi_sharp enjoyed real combat flavored with “the inherent homoeroticism of leaning on each other’s swords.” Their approach: “I see your Deathmatch and I raise you emotional repression.”
• Stella: the players agreed beforehand that the characters were exes with “little knives of secrets” about each other. Once the stream started, she realized Sorry would try to be nice while they were trying to kill each other.
• Neither player expected it to be so emotional. Stella: “I didn’t have to answer all the questions because I could just try to stab you instead.”
• Favorite moments:
  • Mudcat: Sorry crying while still swinging the sword.
  • Stella: Lethe shielding her in the potion-shop explosion (“I know exactly what to do from here. I’m gonna be a crybaby”).
  • pi_sharp: Sorry’s breakdown, and the closing “nice look on you” line.
• Caustic Phoenix: “Very Hallmark… And they lived happily ever after.”