S2E12 — Blood Cookies — Wandering Willy v Martin Messiah Malenko

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A laid-back druid and a gun-slinging sun cleric were pulled into a graveyard to fight to the death for cookies. Wandering Willy and Martin Messiah Malenko were billed as the unluckiest individuals in the universe. They traded fire, lightning and a near-fatal holy blast, then decided they would rather be friends. The night ended with friendship necklaces made of bones and a snack parade for the crowd. It also ended with an open crack between the Grandmaster and the Arbiter, who stormed off to his own arena full of risen losers.

The Story

The TV Room

The night began with the Arbiter wandering the halls of The Dread Fortress, looking for the Grandmaster. He found her voice echoing from a room he had never heard of. “We have a TV room,” she told him. “When did we get a TV room?” he asked. She had kept it secret because she hated sharing her shows with him: “You always like and watch all the worst things and it ruins my algorithm.” She paid for it herself, and she explained that TV was “important to me putting up with you.”

She had been watching the Oscars red carpet and was appalled. “I haven’t seen a single shield or sword or even a stick resembling a wand in all of this.” The Arbiter thought someone should put an arrow in the speakers who ran long, and the Grandmaster agreed they were “sitting ducks.” She admitted she had lost track of the days and asked for a morning reminder. She refused the loud goblins for the job: “Doug, get Doug to wake me up.” The request went on a sticky note.

Two Very Friendly Champions

The Arbiter warned that tonight’s champions were “a little eclectic.” He was not exaggerating. Wandering Willy had to be told it was his turn to speak, then complimented the Grandmaster’s wings: “I bet you get a good breeze.” Martin Messiah Malenko introduced himself as “Martin Masai Malenko” and asked how he had ended up there. The Grandmaster’s answer was “Magic.” Martin sighed: “It’s always goddamn magic every time.”

The Grandmaster explained that the Deathmatch usually brought in accomplished warriors. The Arbiter confessed his real reasoning: “These are the most nat one rolling individuals in the entire universe.” Willy had already decided Martin was his best friend. He offered to make matching friendship necklaces, including one for “grandmother.” He was swiftly corrected, and warned about Deathmatch etiquette on the subject of the Grandmaster’s age. The Arbiter suggested they make jewelry from each other’s bones afterward. Willy saw a flaw in that: “If I’m gonna make a necklace, you can’t do it out of me, because then I can’t make a necklace.”

The Grandmaster then named the prize. “Yes, I do make good cookies, but none of you will be getting those unless you put on a good fight.” Willy chose snickerdoodles and Martin chose sugar cookies, with the right to change their minds up to twice. When the Arbiter asked what goes well with cookies, Martin shouted “Blood!” A rift opened, and putrid moss and fog rolled out of it.

Gifts from the Box

The champions arrived in a graveyard the Grandmaster called “perhaps one of my favorite places, where the eternal dead sleep.” She warned that the dead there sometimes woke, and that anything buried with them could be claimed. Above, The Acolytes shimmered like ghosts and waved “Team snickerdoodles” signs. The Grandmaster looked down at her two cookie lovers, slumped, and predicted “maybe there’s gonna be a lot of hugging.” She stomped off to her throne beside Doug the Pug to sulk.

Behind a tree near a crypt sat the Box of Chaos, with Gerald peering over its lid with flaming eyes. Willy went straight to it and noticed Gerald had a cough, so he handed over throat lozenges. In return Gerald fetched him a ghost lantern with a restless spirit inside. The spirit would keep Willy alive if he fell. “This is lit. Get it? Because it’s a lantern.”

Martin sacrificed his lucky bullet, the one he saved “for just the occasions where, you know, I have to fight to the death.” Gerald gave him a small onyx orb that sharpened his mind. Then Gerald cackled, because the orb was cursed: it snuffed out flames and halved Martin’s fire. “I’m a light cleric, I have lots of fire things!” Martin wailed.

Martin then summoned a massive songbird, “my daughter Shiloh.” He warned that she hated music and had once ripped someone’s head off. He invited Willy to help dig some graves. The Arbiter asked whether Martin was getting him to dig his own, and the Grandmaster assured Willy graves were “the new rage of beds.” The Arbiter added that he bought a gravestone for all of his wives, “one at a time.” Martin had only the one wife: his rifle, Val. His twin revolvers were his children, Machiel and Cassandra, all polymorphed. “It’s a long, drawn-out story, but kids are watching.”

The Battle for Doug

The Arbiter’s luck at the end of the round was poor, so the Grandmaster called on Doug. “Fuck Doug,” said the Arbiter. Doug now had a little stage beside her throne. He bit a squeaky plush die and tossed it into the arena. “One day I’m going to skin that dog and wear him as a hat,” the Arbiter muttered.

Martin asked to adopt Doug, which earned the Grandmaster’s approval. Willy had a bolder plan: “Ownership is one eighth of the land. If you just steal the pug, then you could own the pug.” The Grandmaster overheard him. She was confident in her dog, so she let them try. Martin commanded Doug to roll, and Doug rolled over magnificently in the graveyard dirt. When Martin reached for his chins, Doug bit him. “No one makes Doug do anything that Doug doesn’t want to do,” the Grandmaster laughed. Martin was delighted anyway: “There’s blood, guys, there’s blood! For the cookies!” A small magical cup appeared and collected the drops.

Willy offered Doug a life of freedom. The Grandmaster countered with a tiny treat, and Doug trotted straight back to her feet. “That’s how you win a dog’s heart.” Willy shifted into a dog himself (“sometimes I just am a dog”) and nuzzled Martin’s leg. The Arbiter was losing patience: “I want to see some blood, or I’m going to start making you bleed.”

Storms, Corpses and Cookies

Martin started a game of fetch. The ball was a holy hand grenade, and it burst into flame on the impostor dog. “Do it! He’s an imposter dog anyway!” the Grandmaster cheered. The cursed orb dampened the blast, and Willy came out of it a man again with singed eyebrows. Shiloh then landed on his shoulders for a nuzzle and dug her talons in a little too tight. “I’m not done with you yet,” Willy warned.

The Acolytes grew thirsty for blood, and a storm broke over the graveyard. Angry blue and black clouds threw lightning into the headstones. Martin insisted his gunslinger reflexes saw it coming, but knowing the lightning would be bad did not help him dodge it, and he took the full blast. The crowd hurled milk, beer and tea into the rain. The Grandmaster raised the stakes: one more cookie for every hit.

Willy explained, at length, that after “a really nice set of nature’s meal” a person can understand a storm and call to it. Then he did, and lightning lanced down on Martin. While retreating with his lantern held over a grave, Willy woke a corpse. It coughed in his face and coughed up a pouch of dust. “I think Kevin goes back to sleep. Bury him back down. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Martin answered in slow motion. He lifted his eyepatch to reveal the sun god’s holy symbol shining from his eye, and fanned six flaming rounds from a revolver. “Time to turn up the heat!” “You turned the heat up to medium,” the Grandmaster noted, since the orb had struck again. Martin dug up a healing potion of his own and decided, “I like this place.”

The Dead Wake

Willy asked the skeletons below to help him scare Martin, since “you all have a hive network.” The ground erupted under Martin, cracking his ribs. Willy blamed “Erebarator up there,” which drew a threat of disintegration from the Arbiter. The Grandmaster banned it. Martin proposed they hug it out and told Shiloh to take five. As the two went in for the embrace, hands clawed out of the cracks, because they had “foolishly” set off an earthquake in a graveyard. Three rotting zombies rose around them.

Willy tried to negotiate: “Two’s a tango, five’s, like, just way more than I can count.” Martin’s eye flashed gold and blinded the zombies. Then he turned grave for a moment. “It’s at noon somewhere in the world right now.” He unleashed a barrage of divine gunfire from rifle and pistols. The clouds parted, dawn broke over the graveyard, and two zombies fell. A few stray bullets landed at Willy’s feet “by accident.” Martin then shot himself in the leg with a blue-and-white healing pistol, and his wounds shone with searing light. Willy summed it up: “I got a pocket full of sunshine.”

Fog and High Noon

The Arbiter claimed the next chaos for himself. Heavy black fog poured from his palms, though the Grandmaster insisted it was actually coming from his armpits because he hadn’t put on deodorant that day. It became a wall that drove the champions up the hill into a ruined cathedral and burned their lungs. Willy, “a man of the leaf,” argued he was well practiced at inhaling things, and the Arbiter found that compelling. Creepy organ music played. It was “just Pocket Full of Sunshine, but really slow and a minor key,” and the Arbiter sang it. “You are a bard, I knew it!”

Martin was tired of games. A golden halo formed above his head and he rose on radiant wings. “Did we invite a god by accident?” the Grandmaster asked. In a divine voice, he leveled a rifle. “Well, it’s time that we finish this, boy. It’s high noon.” The spell should have ended the match. Instead, Willy rolled a natural 20 and shrugged off almost all of it. “You got some fight in you, I’ll tell you that much,” Martin conceded. The Acolytes threw their grandmas onto the field. The Grandmaster asked them to be nice to grandmas “since apparently I’m one of them.”

Willy was more hurt by the betrayal than the wound. He ate a decadent fudge brownie in front of Martin, then bribed the Grandmaster with sour gummy worms. “I can be bribed with Snackos. Got it.” He healed himself, turned invisible, and only the hosts saw him walk slowly to the edge of the arena in tears, where he sat down, dejected. “You might smell a little salt in the air,” the Grandmaster told Martin. Martin warded his own heart against death. Then he sniffed Willy out and apologized, offering a snack party afterward. He meant it.

The Bone Brothers

Willy reappeared with a twinkle in his eye. “I think they’re trying to drive a wedge between us. What if we teamed up? There’s no I in team. There’s a me, if you mix the letters around. But you know what’s better than me? Us.” Martin admitted he had never enjoyed fighting. Willy healed Martin with a hug just as Martin was about to heal him, and their bonds of friendship glowed like “two of the brightest suns in this area.” Martin pitched the Grandmaster a two-on-two match against her strongest champions. She agreed on one condition: they forfeited every cookie they had earned.

The Arbiter’s Betrayal

The Arbiter was not on board. He snapped his fingers, and Gerald popped up behind the champions with Martin’s lucky bullet loaded in a revolver. Martin leapt in front of Willy, his eye flared, and both shots missed. “You always do this,” the Arbiter raged at the Grandmaster. “You always let them live. Every time.” He blamed Gerald for shooting them in the back, and said Gerald was “a paid employee.”

The Grandmaster told the champions to cover their ears. “You know that we always still bring them back. No one ever actually dies here permanently, except for a few accidents every now and then. … Don’t you dare go behind my back again.” The Arbiter spat “This is fucking bullshit” and shifted out of the plane.

Willy gave Gerald two more lozenges, and Gerald handed him a Deck of Many Things. “Gerald, don’t start handing out stuff willy-nilly,” the Grandmaster scolded. “That’s my whole job here,” Gerald replied. She let the two share the victory. With a wave of her hand, bones rose from the graves and wove themselves into friendship necklaces. “We’re the Bone Brothers,” Willy declared. She lifted them into the air so they could hurl brownies, chips and gummy worms into the crowd. Then she told the Acolytes that “your fate is always your own.”

In the Shadows

Elsewhere, the Arbiter appeared in his own arena on another plane, a place “that he has made use of even recently for his own nefarious purposes.” He paced before a great statue of himself. When he raised his hands, figures rose from the shadows of the stone: losers of past Deathmatches, among them Karn and Baron Voltágè. “Our time has come. Won’t be much longer now.” Back in the cemetery, the Acolytes found their favorite cookies waiting for them, and the champions got none.

Dried Blood

The Bone Brothers had final words. “Friendship kicks ass,” Willy said, which the Grandmaster preferred to “whatever mumbo jumbo” he’d said about teams. Martin gave the moral of the night: “Even when people tell you what to do, always try to do what you believe is right.” That held even if it meant starting a revolution and giving the crowd cookies and brownies.

Notable Moments

• Doug was commanded to roll over, did so magnificently, then bit Martin and drew the match’s first blood.
• Martin’s “fetch” ball turned out to be a holy hand grenade, and his cursed orb softened nearly every fiery attack he made.
• Willy survived a blow that “should have been life-ending” with a natural 20, then sulked in tears while invisible.
• An earthquake in a graveyard interrupted the first hug by raising three zombies, and Martin answered with dawn.
• The Arbiter had Gerald fire Martin’s own lucky bullet at the champions, and the Grandmaster publicly rebuked him.
• The Arbiter raised past Deathmatch losers from the shadows of his private arena.

Memorable Quotes

• Martin Messiah Malenko: “It’s always goddamn magic every time.”
• The Arbiter: “These are the most nat one rolling individuals in the entire universe. That’s why I brought him here.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “No one makes Doug do anything that Doug doesn’t want to do.”
• Wandering Willy: “I think Kevin goes back to sleep. Bury him back down. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
• Martin Messiah Malenko: “Well, it’s time that we finish this, boy. It’s high noon.”

Wandering Willy: “There’s no I in team. There’s a me, if you mix the letters around. But you know what’s better than me? Us.”

• The Arbiter: “They didn’t bleed enough. You always do this. You always let them live. Every time.”

The Arbiter: “Our time has come. Won’t be much longer now.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Wandering Willy (ArcaneAdam). A druid and a self-described “man of the leaf.”

• Personality: laid-back and easily distracted. Always friendly; calls everyone “man.”
• Gear and powers:
  • Carries an assortment of “stoner snacks”: brownies, sour gummy worms, chips, candy bars.
  • Wild shapes into a dog.
  • Spells: Call Lightning, Erupting Earth, Heal, Cure Wounds. Can go invisible (Hidden Step).
• Items gained: a ghost lantern (restless spirit inside), dust of sneezing and choking, and a Deck of Many Things from Gerald.
• Lore and quirks:
  • A guy named Mike once gave him something “magical.”
  • He “knew a dryad once.”
  • Attended Boulder Gate Community College Online and didn’t graduate; a high school teacher called him a loser every day.
  • Gives Gerald throat lozenges. Named the coughing corpse Kevin. Said “Leeroy” while holding up the lantern (unclear whether that was a name for it).
  • Talks to skeletons (“you all have a hive network”).
• In this episode: survived Martin’s 7th-level Harm with a nat 20, then proposed the team-up.

Martin Messiah Malenko (Sensei_Suplex), also “Masai.”

• Who he is: an aasimar light cleric of a sun god, flavored as a gunslinger. He wears an eyepatch, and the sun god’s holy symbol shines from the eye beneath it.
• His family: he claims to be dead or recently back from the dead (“got shot”). His wife Val is his rifle. His revolvers Machiel and Cassandra are his kids. All three were polymorphed: “a long, drawn-out story.” Someone named Gona called him “little tiny son.” His mama always said “four hands are better than two.”
• Shiloh, his “daughter”: a massive songbird (Spiritual Weapon) who hates music and once ripped someone’s head off.
• Powers and gear:
  • Holy hand grenades (Fireball), fanned incendiary rounds (Scorching Ray), and a gun barrage (Radiance of the Dawn).
  • A blue-and-white “stim pistol” (Healing Word); a shot to his own heart for Death Ward; Warding Flare from his eye.
  • Radiant Soul: halo and wings. Harm at 7th level.
• Items: gave away his lucky bullet and got the cursed Orb of the Veil. Found a potion of healing.
• Personality: a sugar-cookie lover, pro-adoption, and wants Doug. “I never really enjoyed fighting. I’m trying to get away from all that sort of stuff.”

The Bone Brothers. Willy and Martin’s tag-team name. They wear friendship bone necklaces made by the Grandmaster, and they asked for a future two-versus-two match. The GM said she was “open to this idea.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Has a secret TV room in the Dread Fortress that she pays for; watched the Oscars.
• Wants a daily morning reminder of the day, delivered by Doug, not the goblins.
• Bakes cookies, and by the end accepts being “a grandma.”
• Wins Doug back with a treat. Can be bribed with snacks.
• Rebukes the Arbiter for the sneak attack. States the champions are always brought back and that nobody dies permanently “except for a few accidents.”
• Makes the bone necklaces. Gives the Acolytes the cookies.

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• Recruited the “most nat one rolling individuals in the entire universe.”
• Claims many wives, each given a gravestone “one at a time”; he can’t keep track.
• Wants to skin Doug and wear him as a hat. Threatens to disintegrate Willy. Sings “Pocket Full of Sunshine” in a minor key.
• Sends Gerald to shoot the champions, then accuses the GM: “You always let them live.”
• Storms off to his own arena with a statue of himself, where he raises losers of past Deathmatches from the shadows: “Our time has come.”

Gerald (Mudcat). The figure in the Box of Chaos.

• Has a cough. Fake-walks down stairs.
• Cackles over the cursed orb. Calls himself “a paid employee” (per the Arbiter).
• Shoots at the champions with Martin’s lucky bullet on the Arbiter’s order. Gives Willy a Deck of Many Things (“That’s my whole job here”).

Doug the Pug. Now has his own small floating pedestal-stage beside the GM’s throne and rolls a squeaky plush d20 for the Arbiter’s bad rolls.

• Wisdom 1 (GM).
• Was commanded to roll over, then bit Martin for it: first blood of the match.
• Chose to stay with the Grandmaster for a treat.

Kevin. The corpse that coughed up the dust; Willy’s name for it.

The zombies. Three, raised by Willy’s earthquake. Martin’s dawn killed two.

Karn, Baron Voltage (Voltágè), “and many others”. Named as “losers of past D20 Deathmatches,” raised from the shadows of stone in the Arbiter’s arena.

Mike, Gona, Val, Machiel, Cassandra. Named in the champions’ backstories (see above).

Places

• The Dread Fortress TV room (the “back TV room”).
• The graveyard “where the eternal dead sleep”: one of the GM’s favorite places. Moss- and fungus-covered headstones, a crypt, dead trees, and dead who “on occasion… wake.” Things buried there can be claimed. No name is given.
• The broken-down cathedral up the hill, where the Arbiter’s fog seals the champions in.
• The Arbiter’s own arena on another plane: a courtyard with a large statue of him and a railing. He “has made use of [it] even recently for his own nefarious purposes.”
• Boulder Gate Community College Online (Willy’s school, a joke).

Items

• Ghost lantern; Orb of the Veil (cursed); dust of sneezing and choking; potion of healing; Deck of Many Things.
• Martin’s lucky bullet: given to the Box, then fired at the champions by Gerald.
• The magical cup that gathers blood “for the cookies.”
• Holy hand grenades; Val, Machiel and Cassandra (the guns).
• Friendship bone necklaces woven from the graveyard’s bones.
• Doug’s plush d20 and his pedestal.
• The GM’s plate of snickerdoodles and Doug’s treat.

Lore statements

• The GM, stated: champions are always brought back; nobody dies in the Deathmatch permanently “except for a few accidents every now and then.” The matches exist to “push and challenge and create better fighters.”
• The Arbiter, stated: “You always let them live.”
• The Arbiter has a private arena and is gathering past losers: “Our time has come. Won’t be much longer now.”
• The Acolytes attend as shimmering, ghost-like figures above the arena.
• Chaotic events: the GM triggers them on the Arbiter’s end-of-round roll. When it hits her threshold (18), the Arbiter runs his own.
• The GM’s closing theme: “your fate is always your own.”

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the Dread Fortress TV room

1. 0:00:16 The Arbiter walks the halls of the Dread Fortress looking for the Grandmaster. Her voice echoes from the back TV room. “We have a TV room.” “When did we get a TV room?”
2. 0:00:54 She kept it secret because she hates sharing her shows with him: “You always like and watch all the worst things and it ruins my algorithm.” She pays for it. The Arbiter asks: “In this economy?” She replies: “TV is important to me putting up with you. Helps with my patience.”
3. 0:01:24 — The Oscars. She has been watching the Oscars red carpet and calls them “the worst looks I’ve ever seen.” “I haven’t seen a single shield or sword or even a stick resembling a wand… who shows up in an event being completely unarmed?” The Arbiter says there’s not enough bloodshed for him. He thinks someone should “put an arrow in their chests when they’ve talked too long.” The GM agrees: “They’re sitting ducks.” She clicks off the TV.
4. 0:02:30 It’s Sunday, so it’s Deathmatch night. She has lost track of time and wants a morning reminder of what day it is. The Arbiter offers to send the goblins to wake her. “No, not them. They’re just very loud… Doug, get Doug to wake me up.” He agrees to send Doug, and she has it added to the list on “a little sticky note.”
5. 0:03:13 The Arbiter has “a couple of champions. They’re a little eclectic.” He introduces them: Wandering Willy versus Martin Messiah Malenko!

The champions

6. 0:03:47 Willy isn’t paying attention and has to be told it’s his turn. “Oh, hey. What’s up? I’m Willy.” He is hot and “like a breeze.” He compliments the Grandmaster’s wings: “I bet you get a good breeze.”
7. 0:04:32 (Speakers are mixed here.) Someone says they don’t know how they got here: “that was some good flour… I just sort of, you know, got shot and then here I am.” Willy: “Oh, man, getting shot. Oh, hey, I like this guy… This guy’s nice.” The Arbiter tells him he has to fight “him” to the death.
8. 0:05:13 — Martin. “My name’s Martin Masai Malenko. You can call me Masai. You can call me Martin.” He asks how he got here. The GM answers: “Magic.” Martin: “It’s always goddamn magic every time.” Willy: “I’ve smoked that before.” A guy named Mike once gave Willy something “magical,” and afterwards he believed him. Willy has “heard of plane shifting.” Martin explains to him that they’ll be in one-on-one combat.
9. 0:06:14 — The reputation. The GM explains that the Deathmatch usually brings in accomplished champions to tell “their own great chaotic event story.” The Arbiter admits: “These are the most nat one rolling individuals in the entire universe. That’s why I brought him here.” Martin: “That was one game, one bad game… seven nat ones later I’m here.” Willy: “Sometimes life finds a way, and other times you end up here fighting your best friend, Martin. I know we just met, but I feel like there’s a connection.”
10. 0:07:29 — Friendship necklaces. Willy offers to make matching friendship necklaces. Martin suggests ale and “a good time.” Willy offers one to “grandmother,” and the GM corrects him: “the name is Grandmaster.” The Arbiter: “You can make jewelry with each other’s bones after you’ve killed each other.” Someone warns that “you cannot ask the Grandmaster her age… There is Deathmatch etiquette.” Someone apologizes: “New realm, new planes, my apologies, won’t happen again.” The GM: “Maybe by the end of this, I’m going to be making a new necklace out of somebody’s bones.” Willy: “If I’m gonna make a necklace, you can’t do it out of me, because then I can’t make a necklace.” The Arbiter: “I can’t argue with it, so it must be a good point.”
11. 0:09:17 — The cookie wager. The GM shuffles everyone out of her TV room. “Grand Master, not your grandmother. Yes, I do make good cookies, but none of you will be getting those unless you put on a good fight. The winner gets cookies, any kind of cookie you want.”
    • Willy wants snickerdoodles.
    • Martin is “more of a sugar cookie person.” The GM: “It’s because you’re so sweet, Martin.” The terms: Martin wins sugar cookies, Willy wins snickerdoodles, and the winner is whoever has the most health at the end.
    • Martin asks whether he can switch to cake halfway through. Willy asks for a grab bag. The GM rules they may change their choice up to two times (red velvet, confetti), but they get one type, no mixed bag.
12. 0:11:11 The Arbiter: “You know what goes good with cookies?” Martin: “Blood!” The Arbiter: “I’ve never did my cookies in blood. Well, you will tonight.” He opens a rift, and putrid moss and fog roll out of the portal.

The arena: the graveyard

13. 0:11:44 The GM brings them to “perhaps one of my favorite places, where the eternal dead sleep. I figured the two of you could bring some warmth to this very cold environment.” She warns that the dead “do sleep here on occasion, they wake.” Whatever is buried with them can be taken. Her wings blow the moss and fungus on the headstones as she flies up.
14. 0:12:32 The Acolytes shimmer above “almost as ethereal as ghosts,” already chanting for Martin, Willy, snickerdoodles and sugar cookies. “Team snickerdoodles” signs are up.
15. 0:12:56 — The shirt gag (unclear in the transcript). The crowd yells for a dance. Willy says he isn’t wearing a shirt, so he grabs a rag off the ground and wraps it around his body. Martin: “It’s okay, Machio. It’ll be all right.”
16. 0:13:32 The GM floats with her jaw open and her shoulders slumped. “I’ve got two cookie lovers for you… Maybe there will be blood. Maybe there’s gonna be a lot of hugging.” She flies to her throne seat next to Doug the Pug “as if stomping,” sulking.
17. 0:14:09 — Housekeeping. The Acolytes have summoned the Box of Chaos behind a tree near a crypt in the top-right corner: a purple box with yellow and pink flames, and a Void-like figure with flaming eyes peering over the lid. It “contains every magic item ever,” given for a sacrifice (“the more meaningful the better”). The crowd awards each champion one hero point.
18. 0:15:49 Placement: Willy starts at one end. Martin starts behind a half-broken wall between them. The Box is to the north. Dust swirls and the Acolytes spill beer.
19. 0:16:36 Initiative: Martin rolls a 4 (“These bones don’t work the way they used to.” The GM: “You just got back from the dead”). Willy rolls 18.

Round 1: the Box of Chaos

20. 0:17:11 Willy heads for the box, hoping for “some unique flower power.” He invites Martin along: “We can go together and talk to him.”
21. 0:18:13 — Gerald’s cough. Gerald coughs. “It happens to me all the time… I got some lozenges for you.” Willy gives Gerald throat lozenges. Gerald: “I got a lot of magical items.” Willy: “Got any flowers?” Gerald does the gag of fake-walking down stairs into the box.
22. 0:19:19 — The ghost lantern. Cold flames shoot up and Gerald returns holding a ghost lantern glowing blue and green, with shapes swirling inside. A restless spirit is trapped in it. It can shed light, act as a mage hand, and stabilize Willy if he falls unconscious within 10 ft. The GM: “It’s giving you lip to lip action and CPR… It cares about you.” Willy: “This is lit. Get it? Because it’s a lantern.” Willy becomes “a middleman” for Martin.
23. 0:21:24 — The lucky bullet. Martin says the dead don’t keep their stuff. He gives Gerald “my lucky bullet. I save it… for just the occasions where I have to fight to the death.” The GM: “Here’s hoping you won’t regret giving away that bullet.” Martin claims it’s reverse psychology: “that’s the one where I only miss with… I’m never going to roll one ever again now.”
24. 0:23:09 — The Orb of the Veil. A small onyx sphere floats into Martin’s hand. It gives +2 Wisdom, darkvision and advantage on finding hidden things (“Big brain time.” The GM: “Your forehead swells a little bit”). It is cursed. He must keep it on him, non-magical flames within 30 ft go out, and his fire damage is halved. Martin: “Oh no! That’s so bad!… I’m a light cleric, I have lots of fire things!” Gerald cackles and closes the lid, sure he has pulled one over on Martin. Willy: “Hey man, you didn’t even roll for that one.”
25. 0:25:52 — Shiloh. Martin asks Willy whether he likes nature. Willy: “Me and nature, we’re like, I love nature.” Martin casts Spiritual Weapon. Blue divine light shines from under his eyepatch, and a massive songbird appears: “my daughter Shiloh.” She tweets. Petting is fine, but don’t sing to her: “the last time that happened, she did, you know, sort of rip somebody’s head off. She does not like music at all.” Willy: “I’m no bard… I can’t carry a tune, mostly because I don’t carry much.”
26. 0:27:19 — The grave-digging offer. Martin: “You want to start digging some graves?… Four hands are better than two. My mama always say it.” The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, is he trying to get him to dig his own grave?” The GM shushes him. Willy hears it anyway (perception 18): “Why would I need my grave dug?” The GM: “It’s the new rage of beds.”
27. 0:28:10 — The Arbiter’s wives. The Arbiter says a grave is a gift so loved ones aren’t left holding the bag. “I buy a gravestone for all of my wives… one at a time. They end up in the graves.” How many? “Who can keep track?” The GM: “You should keep track.”
28. 0:28:59 — Martin’s family. Martin has had “just the one” wife, and points to his rifle. Willy “knew a dryad once” but gets confused; the GM doesn’t count the dryad. Is the rifle sentient? Martin: “This here’s my wife Val.” He pulls out two twin revolvers: “This is Machiel, and also this is Cassandra. This is my family. We’re on some sort of a fucked up road trip. They didn’t agree to this. They were polymorphed. It’s a long, drawn-out story, but kids are watching.” The GM: “Is this like Mambo No. 5?”

End of round 1: Doug’s roll and the dognapping

29. 0:30:49 The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is a 3. The GM: “We’re gonna call on Doug for that one.” The Arbiter: “Fuck Doug. Why do you always have to call Doug?”
30. 0:31:00 — Doug’s pedestal. Next to the GM’s throne there is now a small stage just big enough for Doug the Pug. He bites a squishy plush d20, which squeaks, and tosses it into the arena: a 7.
31. 0:31:35 The Arbiter: “One day I’m going to skin that dog and wear him as a hat.” The GM: “Doug is well loved here.” Martin asks to take Doug home. “He’s not a prize.” Martin says he wants to adopt. The GM: “You should adopt more dogs. So I appreciate that behavior.” She gives Martin a d6 inspiration for being pro-adoption.
32. 0:32:17 — The plot. Willy puts an arm around Martin: “Ownership is one eighth of the land. If you just steal the pug, then you could own the pug… We could get Doug and we could just blow this.” The GM overhears (perception 19): “You cannot steal my dog.” She’s confident Doug won’t leave, so she puts him back on his pedestal and lets the champions make their appeal.
33. 0:33:40 — Command. Willy gives Martin help on persuasion. Martin wants to establish “who is the sort of alpha” and casts Command on Doug: “roll.” The GM makes Doug a stat card on the spot (Wisdom 1; “pugs aren’t known for their wisdom”). The Arbiter imposes disadvantage on Doug’s save. Doug fails, hops down and rolls over magnificently in the graveyard dirt, belly up with a little wiggle. Martin: “It’s not pug kidnapping… I will heavily convince him with magic.” The Arbiter: “I won’t steal them, I’ll just brainwash them.”
34. 0:36:32 — First blood. Martin goes to scratch Doug’s chins, and Doug bites his hand, unhappy about the spell. The GM laughs: “Get him, Doug. No one makes Doug do anything that Doug doesn’t want to do. You have to get him treats.” Martin: “There’s blood, guys, there’s blood! For the cookies.” A small magical cup appears and collects the drops of blood into vials.
35. 0:38:07 — Willy’s appeal. Willy offers Doug freedom: “I’ve got a lot of friends you can meet and you could roam free.” He rolls persuasion. The GM counters with a tiny doggy treat and advantage (“because I have food”): “Would you like to stay here instead where you’re loved and respected in every single way?” She beats him 10 to 9. Doug hops back on his pedestal, floats to her feet and eats the treat. “That’s how you win a dog’s heart.” Martin: “I guess I always was a bird person.”
36. 0:39:49 — “Sometimes I just am a dog.” Willy wild shapes into a dog (mechanically a wolf). Doug barks at the intruder. Willy nuzzles and cuddles Martin’s leg. Martin: “Oh, you suck up.”
37. 0:40:57 The Arbiter: “I want to see some blood, or I’m going to start making you bleed.” Martin: “I don’t really do the stabbing sort… But the cookies. Alright, I’ll do it!”

Round 2: fetch

38. 0:41:53 Martin backs off without an opportunity attack (“No, man, we’re good”) and starts a game of fetch. He shakes a yellow-golden sphere: “Here, boy… Is she the ball?” He throws it at dog-Willy. It’s a holy hand grenade, and he casts Fireball. The GM: “Do it! He’s an imposter dog anyway!” The Arbiter: “That is not a real dog. I know real dogs.” The cursed orb halves the fire. The GM: “You are real lucky he’s got that orb.”
39. 0:43:55 The dog form is gone. Willy is back to himself with singed eyebrows: “Whoa, man. Whoa, not cool.” Martin: “Wrong, wrong, wrong ball… It won’t happen again.” He laces his belt with more holy hand grenades.
40. 0:44:12 The GM holds up a plate of fresh-baked snickerdoodles from the kitchen to remind Willy what he’s fighting for. Willy: “Oh yeah, I knew there was a reason I was doing this.”
41. 0:44:40 Shiloh lands on Willy’s shoulders and nuzzles him, then digs her talons in “a little bit too tight,” drawing blood. Martin: “A little to the left… No hard feelings, right?” Willy: “I’m not done with you yet.”

Chaos event: the storm (0:45:52)

42. The Arbiter rolls a 15. The Acolytes “are getting a bit thirsty for blood,” and the first chaotic event triggers. Martin rolls for it for drawing first blood.
43. 0:46:11 The winds whip through the dead trees and headstones. Clouds billow in angry blues and blacks. Lightning webs across the sky and strikes down in several spots. Both make Dex saves.
44. 0:47:57 Martin argues for a Wisdom save: his gunslinger reflexes spot the blue surge in the clouds first. The GM rules that his wisdom tells him the lightning will be bad, but that “doesn’t mean you have the ability” to dodge it. Willy: “All right, I’ll just fireball the dog.” Martin: “I did not fireball the dog… I gave it a holy hand grenade.” Martin takes the full blast; Willy takes half.
45. 0:49:40 In the flashes, the Acolytes scream and cheer and throw milk (“Grandmas and cookies”), beer and tea into the arena. It mixes with the rain and covers the champions: “For the cookies.”
46. 0:50:23 — Cookie per hit. The GM: “For every hit you make, I will give you one more cookie,” including hits by Shiloh. The Arbiter: “I’m not going to find a better deal than that here in the arena.” Martin loads “a couple of special rounds.”

Round 3

47. 0:51:08 — Call Lightning. Willy: “You gotta appreciate storms… thunderstorms are really something special and sometimes, you know, if you are really in that headspace after a really nice set of nature’s meal and you get ascension and you kind of understand the storm, sometimes you can call to it and it just responds.” He casts Call Lightning, boosted by the existing storm. Martin: “Now what the hell is he talking about?” He half-saves. The GM: “He knows lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, so he stayed in the same spot.”
48. 0:52:57 Willy: “You’re kinda mean.” He moves away from the bird to the other side of a tree, holds up the lantern over a grave and says “what do you think, Leeroy?” Shiloh claws at his neck as an opportunity attack. Each champion gets one more cookie.
49. 0:54:30 — Kevin the corpse. A corpse animates right in Willy’s face, coughs on him and coughs up a small pouch: dust of sneezing and choking, which looks like dust of disappearance. Willy: “I think Kevin goes back to sleep. Bury him back down. Didn’t mean to wake you… Just dealing with some stuff.”
50. 0:55:45 — Fanning the hammer. “You said every single shot counts. Well, time to miss a couple.” Martin walks forward in slow motion and lifts his eyepatch; the sun god’s holy symbol shines from his eye. He fans a revolver for six flaming incendiary rounds (Scorching Ray at 5th level). “Time to turn up the heat!” The GM: “You turned the heat up to medium.” The orb halves it again, and one ray is a glancing blow. When the barrel goes red hot he blows on it and holsters it. Martin now has six cookies. Shiloh dives at Willy’s legs to bring him to one knee, but misses. Martin: “Don’t worry. You get her next time.”
51. 0:59:30 Martin digs up a grave too (perception 26: “Well, hey, Willy, it’s a grave, look”). He finds a potion of healing. “You do a little bit of good. You get some cookies… I like this place.” He offers to feed Doug a couple of cookies, pending the GM’s approval.
52. 1:00:55 The Arbiter rolls a 10. The GM: “Everyone’s getting a little too intense… Doug, would you like another cookie?” She calls a 10-minute break “since you rolled a 10, and also because that’s how much time I planned for.”

After the break (cut from the mp3)

53. 1:01:26 “Welcome back, Acolytes.” During the break there was “brand new artwork from one of the Acolytes in chat.”

Round 4: the earthquake and the zombies

54. 1:02:01 Willy, to Shiloh: “I don’t really like you… you’re mean.” He holds the lantern over the grave: “I know you skeletons, you all have a hive network. Look, he’s kind of being mean right now. We’re kind of fighting. We’re best friends. It happens.” He asks “your friend over there in the grave” to scare Martin. A skeleton stirs, the ground shakes, and he casts Erupting Earth under Martin. “This is a night of Dex only,” says the GM. Martin fails badly and the ground becomes difficult terrain.
55. 1:03:44 Martin: “Did you do that?” Willy: “No, man. That was all them. I think it was Erebarator up there.” The Arbiter: “Are you talking to me?” Willy: “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking about you.” The Arbiter: “I will disintegrate you.” The GM: “No disintegrations. You don’t need to be in part of this fight.” She counts it as a hit.
56. 1:04:15 Willy: “I like it when we shake things up… get it?” Martin: “I’d be laughing if I didn’t have a couple ribs cracked.” Willy: “I think I maybe tore my spleen.” The GM: “It wasn’t that funny of a joke.”
57. 1:04:53 — The first hug. Martin: “You need a hug, you want to just hug this one out?” Willy: “We’re going to get on common ground?” He asks Martin to call off the bird. Martin: “Shiloh, take five.”
58. 1:05:32 — The dead wake. As they go in for the embrace, a guttural sound rises: “Foolishly, you did an earthquake in a graveyard.” Hands claw out of the cracks. Three partially disintegrated zombies, missing eyeballs, jaws askew, rise around them.
59. 1:06:39 Willy: “I’ll fix this, Martin.” To the skeleton: “We were just scaring him, okay? This is a little much… Two’s a tango, five’s, like, just way more than I can count.” Martin: “Don’t forget the kids.” The GM: “These things… don’t have a brain.”
60. 1:07:41 The GM asks whether the hug is genuine. Martin: “It wasn’t going to be, but now we got some zombies here, so I’m questioning my life choices.” Willy keeps his arms out “wanting to hold you, Martin, in an embrace of friendship and companionship.”
61. 1:08:21 The zombies act. One slams Willy. The other two go for Martin, and his eye flashes blinding gold (Warding Flare). They stumble, “their bones and their legs cracking,” and miss.
62. 1:09:40 — “It’s noon somewhere.” “Just a sign of good faith.” Martin glows with divine radiance in a misty wind and turns serious for a moment. “It’s at noon somewhere in the world right now.” He unleashes Radiance of the Dawn as a gun barrage: a rifle at the zombie behind him, two pistols at the others, and “by accident” some stray bullets at Willy’s feet. The GM: “We entered the Wild West.” The clouds part and dawn rises over the graveyard. Two zombies die; the third hangs on. Willy is hit too. Martin: “Oh, crap. Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to hit you.”
63. 1:11:59 The surviving zombie breathes in Martin’s ear. The GM: “It’s a mouth breather. It doesn’t have a nose.” Martin fires the blue-and-white pistol into his own leg like a stim pistol (Healing Word at 5th level). His wounds don’t close; they shine with divine, searing light, and the air around him gets warmer. The GM: “Are you like a glow stick?” Martin: “Gona always used to call me little tiny son… I’ve been through some shit.” Willy: “I got a pocket full of sunshine.” Martin: “Willy, come on, group hug with the zombie.”

Chaos event: the Arbiter’s fog (1:13:54)

64. The Arbiter rolls 18, the GM’s threshold, so he gets to run his own chaotic event. “Of course I planned one… Maybe the best one.” The GM: “Are you stalling?” “Yes.”
65. 1:14:27 Heavy black fog erupts from the Arbiter’s palms. The GM: “it’s actually coming from his armpits, he didn’t put on deodorant today.” The Arbiter: “Can I finish the thing I’m doing?” Martin checks in, and the Arbiter snaps at him: “I don’t need your input down there.”
66. 1:15:07 The fog becomes a physical wall pushing them back. It burns the lungs (necrotic). Willy: “As a man of the leaf, any inhaling of anything, I would do so with advantage based on my history.” The Arbiter: “You make a compelling case.” The GM reminds them of their hero points.
67. 1:17:03 The GM: “Creepy organ plays in the background.” The Arbiter: “It’s just Pocket Full of Sunshine, but really slow and a minor key,” and he sings it. The GM: “You are a bard, I knew it!”
68. 1:17:20 Both champions gasp for air. Willy: “I breathe normally.” The Arbiter: “with all the years of lung damage.” Initiative is rerolled at 9 and 8. “Both are very humble.” They each insist the other go first. Martin goes first.

Round 5: the Harm spell and the nat 20

70. 1:18:19 The GM explains hero points: “as if you were chugging a ton of energy drinks all at once.” Martin: “If the people want what the people want… the cookies and the cake are starting to call.” Willy: “Oh yeah, I want some cookies.” The GM tallies six hits for Martin, two for Willy.
71. 1:19:43 — The halo. “Martin is tired of the games.” His divine wounds shimmer and a golden halo forms above his head. He rises into the air on aasimar wings (Radiant Soul) and spends his hero point to action surge. The GM: “Did we invite a god by accident?” The Arbiter: “We have wings, it’s not that big a deal.”
72. 1:20:48 — “It’s high noon.” In a divine voice echoing across the area, Martin draws a divine rifle: “Well, it’s time that we finish this, boy. It’s high noon.” He casts Harm at 7th level. The Arbiter: “My dude wants those cookies.”
73. 1:21:47 — Nat 20. Willy rolls a natural 20 on the save. “He does it!” The Arbiter: “Just when they said it wasn’t possible.” The GM: “Who are you?” The Arbiter rules a nat 20 on the save means only a quarter damage. Willy survives. Martin: “You got some fight in you, I’ll tell you that much.” He drinks the potion and braces for Willy’s answer. The GM: “That should have been life-ending right there.”
74. 1:24:14 The Acolytes are on their toes, screaming. “People are throwing their grandmas onto the field.” The GM: “Let’s be nice to grandmas now since apparently I’m one of them… I’m willingly accepting that title.” Martin gets a cookie for the hit. Willy gets two cookies for the nat 20, four in total (“doubling my profit”). The GM: “Why am I the cookie counter?” The Arbiter: “You put yourself in this position.”
75. 1:24:59 — The brownie. Willy, floating there hurt: “Wow, man, I thought we were friends. That kind of hurts.” Martin: “It’s all for cookies, I promise.” Willy: “I had a lot of special cookies that I could have given you.” He eats a decadent fudge brownie in front of Martin: “Yeah, Martin, you wish you could have something this moist.” The Arbiter: “I don’t think I’m old enough to be hearing this.”
76. 1:25:50 The GM: “You brought snacks to the arena and didn’t bring enough to share?” Willy pulls out an assortment of “stoner snacks” and tosses her a bag of sour gummy worms. She gives him a d6 inspiration. Martin still hasn’t used his: “I’m saving it.” The GM: “I can be bribed with Snackos. Got it.”
77. 1:26:44 “I’m just feeling better already.” Willy casts Heal on himself for 70 HP. The Arbiter: “You didn’t tell me you were a paladin… It’s a goddamn lay on hands.” Willy: “I’m just kind of torn. I just need to think about it.” He turns invisible (Hidden Step).
78. 1:27:58 — The sad walk. Only the Grandmaster and Arbiter can see it: tears in Willy’s eyes and a slow walk to the edge. He feels betrayed by a friend and sits there, dejected. Martin stands with his eyes closed waiting for the shot: “Wait, did I win?” The GM: “Your opponent has disappeared, but they have not left. You might smell a little salt in the air.”
79. 1:28:38 Martin asks whether Willy leaves “a certain smell.” The Arbiter: “You asking if you smell like pot?” Willy answers in character: it permeates the air, and “we’re locked… So it’s a hotbox.”
80. 1:29:25 Martin fires a pistol into his own heart; it glows, then turns dark purple (Death Ward). “Where’d you go? I just wanna apologize. We can talk this one out. I mean, you brought food… we can have like a sort of snack party or something after this, but we gotta do this. Cause you know, we want the cookies.” He sniffs Willy out to the right side of the cathedral. His persuasion beats Willy’s insight: Willy hears him over his crying and finds him genuine.

Round 6: the team-up

81. 1:31:49 Willy reappears, dejected, then turns with a twinkle in his eye. “I think they’re trying to drive a wedge between us. What if we teamed up?… There’s no I in team. There’s a me, if you mix the letters around. But you know what’s better than me? Us.” He offers to share his cookies.
82. 1:32:52 Martin: “I never really enjoyed fighting. I’m trying to get away from all that sort of stuff. And you seem like a swell individual. Of course I’ll share my cookies… We’re teaming up!”
83. 1:33:14 Willy: “I’m fine with being a loser. My high school teacher told me I was a loser every day. But look where I am now.” The school was “Boulder Gate Community College Online.” The Arbiter: “Good old BGCCU Online.” How did he graduate? “Come loudly. I didn’t.”
84. 1:33:59 — The healing hug. Willy: “I don’t know if you’re genuine, but I will come in and I will hug you.” He casts Cure Wounds on Martin, and Martin was “literally about to cast heal” on Willy. They glow together: “your bonds of friendship now become two of the brightest suns in this area.”
85. 1:34:32 — The tag-team pitch. Willy suggests they come back and fight together so the crowd still gets a show. Martin: “What if we do a sort of tag team duo against another two?” He reminds himself it’s “Master, not mother.” To the GM: “You’ll get twice the amount of blood, maybe even four times… Me and Willy versus two of your strongest competitors.”
86. 1:35:49 The GM: “I’m open to this idea. Do I have to make cookies?” Willy offers brownies and cookies for everyone, and mentions “[Ho Hos?]… chocolate with cream.” The GM puts an arm around both of them: “If you both agree to do a duo team, I don’t have to make you any cookies. You forfeit the cookies you earned tonight.” They agree.

The Arbiter’s betrayal

87. 1:36:33 The Arbiter: “No, this is… I don’t know what’s going on here.” He snaps his fingers and Gerald pops up behind them. Gerald loads Martin’s lucky bullet into a revolver and fires while Martin is looking at the Grandmaster. It misses. On the second shot, Martin leaps in front of Willy: “But no!” His eye flares and gives Gerald disadvantage. Both shots miss.
88. 1:37:13 The Arbiter: “You said blood and I said that I would make you bleed if you did not.” Willy: “But we already bled.” The Arbiter: “They didn’t bleed enough. You always do this. You always let them live. Every time. Name the last time someone died here.”
89. 1:37:48 The GM: “We had a 7th level spell… There was a 7-11 Slurpee somewhere out here. It was insane… What, you’re going to shoot them behind their backs? What kind of fight is that?” The Arbiter: “No, Gerald was going to shoot them behind our backs.” The GM: “You brought Gerald in to do your dirty work.” The Arbiter: “He’s a paid employee.”
90. 1:38:22 The GM tells the champions to cover their ears, and the Arbiter puts his hands over his own ears. “You know that we always still bring them back. No one ever actually dies here permanently, except for a few accidents every now and then. This is meant to push and challenge and create better fighters, better champions in this world. Don’t you dare go behind my back again.”
91. 1:38:43 The Arbiter: “This is fucking bullshit.” He shifts planes and bounces out.
92. 1:39:04 Willy: “Where’d arbitration go?” The GM: “It’s just a little internal conflict… business matters.” Willy: “You need counseling?” Gerald: “Do I need to be here for this?” The GM: “Gerald, you just stay right there. I will take care of you and your Box of Chaos in a bit.”
93. 1:39:29 — Gerald’s gift. Willy gives Gerald two more throat lozenges. Gerald: “Thanks.” Gerald gives Willy a Deck of Many Things (said by Mudcat; whether it carries forward is unclear). Willy: “That’ll be fun later.” The GM: “Gerald, don’t start handing out stuff willy-nilly. The match is over.” Gerald: “That’s my whole job here.” He shuts his lid, but keeps it open just enough to watch.

The Bone Brothers

94. 1:40:07 The GM: “Clearly I have to go talk to the Arbiter. It’s fine… I’m allowing you to share the victory if you forfeit your cookies.” Willy: “I’m fine with putting on a show. I just can’t do it against my best friend.” Martin: “Friends also make up.” Willy: “It’s not the destination, but it’s the destination’s journey that you get to it.” Martin: “A little bit of a mismatch of the words, but you got there.” The GM: “You all have a very certain wavelength of wisdom.”
95. 1:41:09 — The necklaces. The GM waves her hand. Bones rise from the graves and weave themselves into friendship bone necklaces for both of them. Willy: “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever been given outside of the lantern and the deck.” Martin plans their tag-team entrance: “Y’all don’t have bracelets, but we do. That means we’re so cool and we’re going to beat you.” Willy: “It’s kind of like we’re branding.” The GM: “Brandine.” Willy: “We’re the Bone Brothers.” GM: “Okay, deal. The Bone Brothers.”
96. 1:42:10 — The snack parade. She holds out her hands to present them. Willy: “I got brownies, Acolytes, for all of you.” He and Martin start throwing snacks into the crowd. The GM: “This isn’t a parade.” But she lifts them both up so they can throw better. The crowd grabs Doritos, Pringles, pretzels, gummy worms and brownies; “a bit like trick or treating.”
97. 1:42:38 — The GM’s speech. “You have received not only blood as tonight’s sacrifice, but snacks and friendship. And with anything, this should pose a reminder to each of you that your fate is always your own and that you should not allow anyone to tell you what you should do.” The crowd screams for the Bone Brothers. Further down, she notices the Arbiter.

The Arbiter’s arena

98. 1:43:58 The Arbiter poofs into a different plane: “his own arena. A place that he has made use of even recently for his own nefarious purposes.” In its courtyard he paces back and forth before a large statue of himself.
99. 1:44:52 He raises his hands, and out of the shadows of the stone rise familiar figures: losers of past D20 Deathmatches. Karn, Baron Voltage, and many others form. He looks over the railing: “Our time has come. Won’t be much longer now.” The scene drifts back to the cemetery.

Closing

100. 1:45:27 The GM: “Tonight I give you the fight for cookies… Tonight, we witness how important it is to be true to yourself, that in the midst of battle, we show our truest colors, and that is why we always have these matches… May it be friend or foe that we face.” The Acolytes find their favorite cookies in front of them: chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, red velvet, confetti, sugar cookies, “which the champions will not get.” “You all can salivate as you watch everyone else enjoy the goodies.” “Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In character (canon, Dried Blood):

• 1:55:25 The Bone Brothers’ final words. Willy: “Friendship kicks ass.” The GM: “That’s much better than whatever mumbo jumbo you said about team and being me and I or us.” Martin: “There’s no I in team, but there is me.” Willy: “And if there’s a me, then there’s an us, and us is more important. I don’t know what I said.”
• 1:55:57 Martin: “Even when people tell you what to do, always try to do what you believe is right. Even if it means sort of going about and starting a revolution and giving a bunch of crowd members cookies and brownies… if it makes everybody else happy, then I guess that’s all that matters, right?”

Out of character (creator notes):

• ArcaneAdam didn’t plan the friendship ending: “it just kind of happened.” He describes Willy as “not the smartest tool in the box, but he’s a nice guy,” who thought Martin was a nice guy too.
• Sensei_Suplex meant Martin to be “a little ridiculous… And then he’s like, wait, he’s a nice guy… This is not going to work at all.”
• Caustic Phoenix: “The best defense in D&D is to be a nice person.” Mudcat: “It’s worked a number of times.” Mudcat jokes they should have hung a cookie on a stick over each champion’s head.
• The cursed orb: Martin had 22 Wisdom but nearly all his damage was fire. The players think it kept the fight going; with full hits “this fight would have been over really fast.” Caustic Phoenix confirms Willy is a druid, which made Shiloh’s antagonism to him funnier.
• Mudcat praises Martin’s flavoring: a gunslinger built on a class that isn’t a gunslinger. “There’s no rules against flavor. You can make yourself a gunslinger and just shoot Eldritch Blast out of a gun.”
• Caustic Phoenix on the “riff… between the Grandmaster and Arbiter.” The players hope to win Doug over next time. Caustic Phoenix: “Now you know he needs treats.”
• Mudcat: neither player rolled a single nat 1, and Adam rolled a nat 20 “when you needed it.”
• Live artwork by Sensei’s community member (heard as “LSI,” goes by Finn): a pencil sketch and two or three colour passes made during the episode, showing the scene with everyone’s expressions “from Doug to the Arbiter.” Willy (in character) on it: “Calling me grandmother and then making me bake cookies. I love it.”