S3E7 — Severed Limbs — Cress v Chedrick McDougan

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The barefoot fighter Cress came for prize money, and the trash-talking Chedrick McDougan came for her shoes, or failing that, her feet. Their fight in the black fog of The Shadowlands became a gruesome swap meet of body parts. A toe, a hand and a whole foot came off, and the hand and the foot both passed through Gerald. It ended with the most decisive penguin in Deathmatch history.

The Story

Rat to Table

The night began deep in The Dread Fortress, whose cool stone halls are lined with paintings of the Grandmaster and full of scurrying goblins. The Arbiter admitted he was feeling lightheaded. “Oh, you’re always lightheaded,” the Grandmaster replied. “It’s easy when you have no brain cells.” He walked toward the kitchen with his chains still clanking at his ankles and wrists, and found the Grandmaster in a cooking frenzy.

Slushies and popcorn were not enough this time. She wanted to “elevate” the pre-show snacks with a charcuterie board. She had no idea what went on one, so she had let the goblins add whatever they liked: thin slices of rat, a few jams, and berries “that Thomas picked from the back bush behind the castle.”

The Arbiter clapped, and visible sound waves tore open a portal. Out stepped Cress, “just a human who likes to fight a lot,” who explained that if she didn’t win this “world tournament” she would have to get a real job. The Grandmaster called that “true motivation that we can all relate to.” Next came Chedrick, who greeted everyone as “peasants” and vowed to take the shoes of anyone in his way. Cress pointed out that she was barefoot. “Well, I guess I’ll be taking your feet then,” he said.

The Grandmaster served the rats on an axe-shaped wooden plate carried by two goblins. She assured Chedrick it was “definitely Master Splinter on the plate in front of you” and described the meat as freshly grown, organic “vegan rats.” Then Cress called it “a little gamey.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “This is rat to table. You can’t buy this anywhere else.”

The Arbiter backed her up (“This is the Wagyu of rats”), but the damage was done. “You insult my food, I send you to the Deathmatch arena,” she declared. She took back the small boost she had planned to give each champion, stomped off with her arms crossed, and kicked over a goblin, scattering charcuterie across the kitchen floor. She also raised the stakes: the winner’s opponent would be fed to the rats, and the winner would then eat the rats, rotisserie-style. When she insisted she was a good cook, the Arbiter offered only, “You asked me to find good fighters, not good people.”

Into the Fog

The Arbiter opened a second portal, and black fog billowed out. He thought the Grandmaster would like the Shadowlands. She did not. She floated above the ground rather than touch it, pulled her shoulders in in disgust, and took shallow breaths while her wings fanned away the musty, clinging fog. The rock squished underfoot and the few plants were pale and limp. “This land is a monster in and of itself,” she warned.

She rose to her throne in the sky with Doug the Pug tucked under her arm. Doug accidentally farted out a small cloud of his own on the way up. The Acolytes in the stands cheered, still clutching leftover rat slices and cheese. Chedrick then got off to the worst possible start, handing Cress the upper hand for her opening strike. “It’s okay, you’re a loser,” the Grandmaster consoled him. “You can rise from this.”

The Acolytes opened with chaos: storm clouds rolled in and the Thunder Twins struck down in anger. Lightning chased Cress as she moved and caught Chedrick too. Chedrick claimed to be unbothered: “I live in the water. I breathe thunder and lightning.”

The Pinky Toe

Cress drew first blood with her longsword. “That’s what you call a hit? That’s a love tap,” Chedrick sneered, and answered with his double blade, landing a vicious blow. Then he went for her ankles. His longsword clipped the side of her bare foot as she leapt, and her left pinky toe dropped into a puddle.

A small dark eel slid out of the nearby river and made straight for the toe. Cress flipped her sword, stabbed the eel through the head, and scooped up the toe in the same motion. She kept the toe, figuring she could reattach it someday, and pocketed the still-wriggling eel. “Is that an eel in your pocket or are you just really excited to see me?” the Grandmaster asked, and blew a kiss.

The next chaos event bound the two champions together hand in hand for a short time. The Grandmaster called it “so cute.” Cress used her free sword hand on Chedrick’s captive one and cut halfway to the bone. “Not my strong hand,” he moaned.

Gerald Gets Involved

The Acolytes granted each champion a surge of fighting spirit. They also summoned the Box of Chaos, which slammed down behind Cress in a column of pink and yellow fire. Two shadowy clawed hands and two yellow eyes rose from it: Gerald. Chedrick physically dragged Cress, still holding his hand, over to the box. He introduced his penguin companion (“His name is Fear, and he fears nobody”) and offered Gerald a box of grapes and two apples. Gerald took them with a shadowy hand: “I could eat.”

In return Gerald handed Chedrick a Mind Blade, a sword made by Mind Flayers that cuts into the mind. “I can see the future!” Chedrick cried. Then he tried to read Cress’s thoughts, latched onto the dead eel’s mind instead, and swung his new sword straight into Gerald. “I just gave you a cool dagger for apples,” the box complained. Gerald clawed three scorched lines into Chedrick’s thigh, just above the knee (lucky for Chedrick, the claws didn’t go any higher up), and explained himself: “I’m a demon in a box, not a monster.” Talk then turned to the charcuterie board, which you can’t make without sausage. Cress warned that it was turning into a sausage party, and the Grandmaster took the bait: “Chedrick, we might put your sausage on the charcuterie board. I can’t believe I said that.”

At round’s end, Doug hopped onto his cushioned platform and threw his squishy green plush die, beating the Arbiter’s roll by six. “When there are only 20 numbers, six higher is notably higher,” the Grandmaster said. “You just suck.”

A Hand for a Foot

Cress finished the job and took Chedrick’s hand clean off. Bright silver “vibranium… Terminator blood” pooled like a mirror at their feet. The severed hand was still clasping hers, so Cress tried to slap him with it (“Quit hitting yourself!”). The slaps missed, but one splattered his own silver blood across his face. Then she backflipped onto a tall rock. Chedrick protested the exchange rate: “I only took one piece, you took five, literally.” He strapped the Mind Blade to his stump and climbed after her. His blade found its mark, and Cress’s foot came off. “You take my hand. I take your foot. My nubs,” he said. The Arbiter, seeing enough spare parts for one complete person, declared himself Captain Planet.

Fear stole the next scene. Doug threw his die so far that it bounced to Fear’s feet. The penguin rolled an 18, the crowd chanted “Fear, Fear, Fear,” and a parade and a conga line broke out in the stands.

New chaos brought Boggarts that took the shape of each champion’s deepest fear. Chedrick’s fear was heights. His Boggart hoisted him thirty feet into the air like a cheerleader at the top of a pyramid. He leapt off, and he landed on Cress’s severed foot, which he had picked up: “I’d rather crack hers than mine.” Cress’s fear became a Karen with a giant purse and a shopping cart, demanding cash refunds without a receipt. Cress stared her down and said, “No, I am the manager. And you gotta go.” Then she kicked the cart over in a spray of green beans and Kinder eggs.

Gerald had not forgotten being hit with a sword. He tossed Cress a healing potion out of spite. “I am a professional box hitter, what you expect?” Chedrick shrugged, and the Arbiter wondered aloud, “Did I find champions or children?” Cress tried to regrow her foot and got only an ankle ending in tiny toes (“Twinkle Toes”). Then she dragged the Box closer with her mind and fed it Chedrick’s hand. “Oh yeah, this will go great with my hand collection,” said Gerald. In exchange he gave her a scroll of healing so powerful the table called it “close to the wish spell,” and her foot grew back whole. The Arbiter described the new foot as “like a skin sweatpants.”

Chedrick fought fire with fire. He threw Cress’s old foot into the box, and Gerald handed back his hand along with a sewing kit. He stitched it on the right way round, but the hand was weak now, and Gerald’s shadow was still poking out of the box, steering it. Chedrick’s first swing with it went into his own face, a slap hard enough to leave a mark. “It’s got a mind of its own,” he complained.

Sir Shadow Ten the Third

The Boggarts came back for a second round. Chedrick was hoisted up again and once more jumped off on his own. Cress faced down a mother-and-grandmother pair of Karens filming on a flip phone, and they ended up arrested. Then the Arbiter gathered the Boggarts and the other lurking shadows in the arena into a shadow ghast with a long, whipping tongue. Under pressure from the Grandmaster (“Everybody has a name”), he christened it Sir Shadow Ten the Third, a knight of the night.

Chedrick melted perfectly into the gloom, his spilled silver blood serving as camouflage. Then he ruined it by taunting the ghast: “I mean, you can’t see me.” It turned toward his voice. It clawed and bit Cress, who shrugged off its paralysis. Chedrick drove the Mind Blade in and briefly seized its mind before it threw him back out. When the Arbiter suggested building the Grandmaster a shrine in the Shadowlands, she had heard enough.

The Penguin Drill

“I banish this shadow creature from my arena,” she announced. She drew her oath bow and pinned the ghast to the ground through the heart, and it dissolved. “Show me what you are worth.” Cress backhanded Chedrick, leaving a handprint on his other cheek to match the one from his own slap. He limboed under her next swing Matrix-style. When she dashed away, he accused her of running and tried to scare her, but he was the one who peed himself a little, with “a little trickle” running down his pant leg. The Grandmaster promised him new pants if he survived. He chased her down and landed two blows with his double blade.

Finally the Grandmaster threw each champion a rainbow, shimmering bean: the stronger ultimate move would destroy both the other move and its owner. Cress raised a hand to the sky and called down “a heaven of dawn,” a beam of fire and lightning that turned the rock around Chedrick to lava. “Waving my hand is the controller, baby.” Chedrick answered with his super spinning penguin drill: “I got the penguin for a reason.” He spun ten times and hurled Fear, now a gray blur of fire, through the beam.

Fear won by a narrow margin. He punched straight through Cress’s flames and then through Cress, leaving a penguin-sized tunnel in her stomach. She looked down at it and delivered her last words: “This isn’t even my final form.”

“Arbiter, remove our Yamcha,” the Grandmaster ordered. He slung Cress over his shoulder by putting his arm through the hole and flew off. “Don’t worry, she’ll probably be back,” the Grandmaster said. “Death is just the beginning.” She held out her hand to the victor. Chedrick threw a water bottle at her instead, and it hit her in the face. “Fine. Have it your way,” she said. “I gift you your wish, but I’m going to leave you here in this place.” She clapped, and everyone was back in the kitchen. Everyone except Chedrick, who was left behind in the Shadowlands.

Dried Blood

After the fight, Cress repeated that this was not her final form. She promised “transformation action” if she ever returned for a rematch or another Deathmatch. Chedrick complained that he never even got to power up like he wanted to, and warned that next time he’d be using his “super whirlwind for explosion number five.” “The gauntlet has been thrown,” the Grandmaster said.

Notable Moments

• The Grandmaster’s “vegan rat” charcuterie board was called gamey, and she kicked over a goblin in protest.
• Cress killed an eel to save her own severed pinky toe, then pocketed both.
• Chedrick and Cress traded a hand and a foot through Gerald, who puppeted the sewn-back hand to make Chedrick slap himself.
• Fear rolled Doug’s die for an 18 and got his own parade.
• The Arbiter named his shadow ghast “Sir Shadow Ten the Third, a knight of the night.”
• The winner hit the Grandmaster in the face with a water bottle and was abandoned in the Shadowlands.

Memorable Quotes

• Chedrick McDougan: “So if you come my way, I’m taking your shoes… Well, I guess I’ll be taking your feet then.”
• The Arbiter: “You asked me to find good fighters, not good people.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “Is that an eel in your pocket or are you just really excited to see me?”
• Gerald: “I’m a demon in a box, not a monster.”
• Chedrick McDougan: “You take my hand. I take your foot. My nubs.”
• Cress: “No, I am the manager. And you gotta go.”
• Chedrick McDougan: “I got the penguin for a reason.”
• Cress: “This isn’t even my final form.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Cress (Reck1568)

• Wants the world tournament prize money so she doesn’t have to get a real job.
• A multiclass monk (Kensei): longsword, javelins, telekinetic shove, Flurry of Blows, Step of the Wind, Agile Parry, Kensei’s Shot. Resistant to necrotic. “Not strong, just fast.” Fights barefoot.
• Blue blood.
• Losses and regrowth:
  • Lost her left pinky toe; she kept it and pocketed the dead eel.
  • Lost her foot.
  • Regrew the ankle with tiny toes, then the full foot from a 9th-level Mass Healing Word scroll.
• Beat her Karen Boggarts. Killed by Fear’s penguin drill. Last words: “This isn’t even my final form.”

Chedrick McDougan (BigCheese)

• Calls people “peasants” and sounds like a college football coach. Calls himself “the bungee cord.” -1 Wisdom; focused on Strength and Constitution.
• Fighter-type: double-bladed scimitar, longsword, hand axes, Second Wind, Action Surge, two attacks.
• Silver “vibranium / T-1000” blood.
• Hand history:
  • Lost his strong hand to Cress.
  • Strapped the Mind Blade to the stump.
  • Got the hand back from Gerald in exchange for Cress’s foot and sewed it on. It’s now weak and briefly puppeted by Gerald.
• Afraid of heights (his Boggart).
• Peed himself a little after a failed intimidation. The Grandmaster promised new pants.
• Winner. Left in the Shadowlands after hitting the Grandmaster with a water bottle.

Fear (Chedrick’s penguin). “His name is Fear, and he fears nobody.”

• Rolled Doug’s D20 for an 18, outdoing the Arbiter, and got a crowd chant and a parade.
• Pecked the Boggart’s ankles.
• Became the super spinning penguin drill that killed Cress.

Gerald (Mudcat). The shadowy demon in the Box of Chaos: clawed shadow hands, yellow eyes.

• Gave the Mind Blade for grapes and apples. Clawed Chedrick for hitting him.
• Gave Cress a healing potion out of spite.
• Has a “hand collection.”
• Gave Cress the Mass Healing Word scroll for Chedrick’s hand, then traded the hand back for Cress’s foot along with a sewing kit. Puppeted the sewn hand.
• “I’m a demon in a box, not a monster.”

Sir Shadow Ten the Third, Knight of the Night (Mudcat). A shadow ghast the Arbiter shaped from the Boggarts and the Shadowlands’ shadows.

• Partly incorporeal, long tongue(s), paralyzing claws, necrotic bite.
• Resisted Chedrick’s mind control.
• Banished and shot through the heart by the Grandmaster.

The Arbiter (Mudcat)

• Arrives with chains clanking on his ankles and wrists. Lightheaded.
• Opens portals with a clap (visible ripples) and summons the Box of Chaos with a snap. Has giant wings.
• Chose the Shadowlands, thinking she’d like it, and suggested building her a shrine there.
• Keeps losing his end-of-round rolls to Doug.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix)

• Made a rat charcuterie with goblin help; “I am a good cook.” Kicked over a goblin in a huff.
• Hates the Shadowlands. Floats rather than touch the ground there.
• Has an oath bow. Banished the ghast and gave both champions advantage. Handed out rainbow beans.
• Abandoned Chedrick in the Shadowlands.

Doug the pug. Rides under the Grandmaster’s arm and farts a small cloud. Has a cushioned platform beside her throne and a squishy green D20 plushie, which he throws to beat the Arbiter’s rolls.

Thomas. Picked the berries from the bush behind the castle (unidentified).

The goblins of the Dread Fortress (kitchen staff, platter carriers).

The eel. A dark river eel that went for Cress’s toe; killed and pocketed.

The Karens (Cress’s Boggarts): a Karen with a cart, then a mother-and-grandmother pair with a flip phone. Arrested.

Master Splinter. The Grandmaster claims he’s on the plate (gag).

Places

• The Dread Fortress kitchen, in the “subterranean castle.” Its halls are lined with paintings of the Grandmaster. A bush behind the castle has berries.
• The Shadowlands: thick, musty, cold, clinging black fog; squishy rock; pale plants; a river with eels; puddles; a 10-ft rock. “A monster in and of itself.” Chedrick was left here.
• The Grandmaster’s throne in the sky above the stands.

Items

• The Mind Blade: a sword made by Mind Flayers, adds psychic damage, one attuner. Chedrick’s.
• Scroll of Mass Healing Word (9th level), used by Cress.
• Gerald’s healing potion; Gerald’s sewing kit.
• The Grandmaster’s oath bow.
• Rainbow shimmering beans (super moves).
• The axe-shaped charcuterie plate; the rat charcuterie (garden / “vegan” rats, berries, jams); grapes and two apples; the “pineapple of death.”
• Cress’s severed pinky toe (kept). Cress’s severed foot (traded to Gerald). Chedrick’s hand (returned).
• Doug’s green D20 plushie.

Lore statements

• The acolytes summon chaotic events, hero points and the Box of Chaos. The Grandmaster says there are 53 chaotic events.
• The Arbiter can mold shadows and creatures into new beings (the ghast).
• The Box of Chaos gives items for sacrifices of any value and trades limbs.
• The Grandmaster: “Death is just the beginning.” Cress “will probably be back.”

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the Dread Fortress kitchen

1. 0:00:01 The Arbiter opens the show and says he’s “feeling a little lightheaded today… Might pass out in my chair.” The Grandmaster: “Oh, you’re always lightheaded. It’s easy when you have no brain cells.”
2. 0:00:28 The camera moves through the halls of the Dread Fortress, “deep in the subterranean castle.” The stone corridors are cool to the touch. Paintings of the Grandmaster line the walls and goblins scurry about. The Arbiter walks toward the kitchen with “chains still clanking off of his ankles and his wrists,” and finds a frenzy inside.
3. 0:01:04 — The charcuterie board. The Grandmaster is making pre-show snacks. Normally there are blue raspberry slushies, popcorn and cotton candy, but this time she wants to “elevate it” with a charcuterie board. She doesn’t know what goes on one, so she has had the goblins add random items:
   • slices of rat;
   • berries “that Thomas picked from the back bush behind the castle”;
   • a few jams.
   The Arbiter: “Nothing says Deathmatch like charcuterie.” She plans to offer rat slices to the champions to “boost them up.”
4. 0:02:07 — Summoning. The Arbiter is “once again bewildered by the Grandmaster’s everything.” He claps, visible sound waves ripple out, and a portal tears open. He presents Cress and Chedrick McDougan.
5. 0:02:57 — Cress. “I’m Cress, and I’m here to win the world tournament. I need that prize money.” The Arbiter asks whether they’re telling them it’s a world tournament this time. The Grandmaster: “Yes, it’s a world tournament, shut up.” Cress is “just a human who likes to fight a lot. But if I don’t win this world tournament, I have to go and get a real job.” The Grandmaster: “That’s true motivation that we can all relate to… Good pick for our first champion, Arbiter.”
6. 0:03:58 — Chedrick. “Greetings, you peasants. I am Chedrick McDoodon [sic]. And I plan to bring nothing but pain to whoever comes in my way of winning this tournament.” He promises: “So if you come my way, I’m taking your shoes.” Cress: “I’m barefoot.” Chedrick: “Well, I guess I’ll be taking your feet then.”
7. 0:04:36 The Arbiter narrates that Chedrick “casually eats his pineapple of death.” The Grandmaster wants the pineapple for her board. She runs up with two goblins carrying a small wooden plate shaped like an axe, loaded with thin rat slices (“only from the best kind of rats”), cheese cubes and berries. The Arbiter: “They’re locally sourced rats.”
8. 0:05:15 Chedrick: “The only rats that I know is by Tui [?] and Master Splinter. So if they are the ones sliced up, I will let it taste greatness.” The Grandmaster: “That’s definitely Master Splinter on the plate in front of you.” It tastes like chicken.
9. 0:05:57 — “Gamey.” Cress asks whether it’s “Skyrat.” The Grandmaster says these are garden rats: “Freshly grown, organic… Vegan rats.” Cress: “Those taste a little gamey though.” The Grandmaster is outraged: “This is rat to table. You can’t buy this anywhere else… some random celebrity named Apple probably ate it.” The Arbiter: “This is the Wagyu of rats.” Cress admits it was seasoned “a little bit.” The Grandmaster: “Okay, a lot.”
10. 0:06:50 — The tantrum. “You insult my food, I send you to the Deathmatch arena.” She had planned to give each of them two temporary points and now withholds them. She stomps away with her arms crossed and kicks over one of the platter-carrying goblins, spilling the charcuterie across the kitchen floor. Cress: “We just wanted to know if you season until your ancestors told you to stop.” Chedrick: “I like her, even though I gotta take her shoes. Or her feet.”
11. 0:07:42 — The stakes. Fight to the death, “or I’ll be feeding one or two of you to my newly done vegan rats.” The group works out that the opposite of vegan is carnivorous, or maybe omnivore rats. Ruling: “If you win, I will feed your opponent to the rats and then you can eat the rats.” Chedrick asks whether they’ll be rotisserie. “Yes, champion-fed rotisserie rat that’s well seasoned.” Chedrick: “We’re gonna have rotisserie Cress.”
12. 0:08:26 The Grandmaster: “Every time on this show, everyone always critiques any food that I bring up… I am a good cook.” The Arbiter: “You asked me to find good fighters, not good people.”

The Shadowlands

13. 0:08:36 A second portal opens and dark black fog billows out. The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, I think you’ll like this location. We’ll make our way to the Shadowlands.”
14. 0:09:14 The Grandmaster floats with her feet never touching the ground. Her face shows disgust and she pulls her shoulders in. “You thought I would like this place?” She warns: “This is not a land to be trifled with. I’d be careful where you stand, what you touch, and what you breathe here.” She takes shallow breaths while her wings fan away the fog.

• The fog is thick, musty, cold and damp, and it clings to the skin.
• The rock squishes underfoot. The few living plants have pale, lackluster leaves.
• “This land is a monster in and of itself.”

15. 0:10:04 Her wings part the fog as she rises. Doug the pug is under her arm and “accidentally leaves a small cloud behind of his own.” They take her throne in the sky. The acolytes in the stands scream and stomp, holding leftover rat slices, cheese and berries from the charcuterie board. Her charge: “Fight to your hardest, prove your worth, and may only one of you be standing at the end.”
16. 0:11:39 The Arbiter: “Acolytes, are you ready?” Fans spill beer, eat cotton candy, and “shovel” down malt cups with wooden spoons.
17. 0:12:06 Chedrick rolls a nat 1 on initiative, so Cress gets advantage on her first attack. The Grandmaster: “It’s okay, you’re a loser. You can rise from this.”

Chaos event — the Thunder Twins (0:13:04)

18. The acolytes have already summoned two chaotic events. Cress rolls a 15. Storm clouds roll in, it rains, and “the Thunder Twins strike down in anger.” Lightning dodges along with Cress as she tries to move (“your hair feels a little frazzled, your bones a little shattered”). Chedrick also fails his save. Both take lightning damage. The Grandmaster: “Wake up, champions.” Chedrick: “I live in the water. I breathe thunder and lightning.” Cress: “That’s a very odd thing to breathe.” Chedrick: “I am supercharged.”

Round 1

19. 0:17:06 Cress draws her blade and rushes Chedrick. Chedrick: “How dare you put your hands on me, you peasant?” Cress: “I’m not putting my hands on you. I’m putting my blade on you.” Her slash hits. Chedrick: “That’s what you call a hit? That’s a love tap.” Her second swing misses.
20. 0:18:49 Chedrick: “I will show you the power of Chedrick Magooda as I slash you with my double blade.” The first swing misses as Cress bobs and weaves under it. The second, “with the right,” is a critical hit for a big wound. “You make this too easy for me.”
21. 0:20:37 — The pinky toe. As a bonus action, Chedrick says “there’s somebody’s ankles I gotta take” and makes a longsword ankle shot. It’s a glancing blow while Cress leaps, but he clips the side of her bare foot. “Give me your pinky toe.” Cress’s left pinky toe is severed and lands in a puddle. The Arbiter: “Make a necklace out of it.”
22. 0:21:42 — The eel. A small, slithery dark eel slips out of the river next to them and makes a beeline for the toe. Initiative pauses so either champion can react. Cress flips her longsword, stabs the eel through the head, and grabs her toe on the same motion. She keeps the toe (“I feel like I’m going to be able to reattach this at some point”) and pockets the still-wriggling dead eel. The Grandmaster: “Is that an eel in your pocket or are you just really excited to see me?” The Arbiter: “I’m always excited… It can be both.” The Grandmaster blows a kiss.

Chaos event — bound hands (0:24:14)

23. Chedrick rolls an 8 and the Grandmaster triples it to 24 (“Quick math”). A mysterious aura seeps from inside their bodies into their bones and out through their fingertips. For two rounds, Cress and Chedrick are bound together, holding hands. Each has only one free hand, so there’s no two-weapon fighting. The Grandmaster: “So cute.”

Round 2

24. 0:26:01 Cress keeps her longsword hand free and swings at Chedrick’s held hand. It cuts halfway through, to the bone. Ruling: a clear second hit is needed to chop it off. Chedrick: “Not my strong hand… You won’t get away with this.”
25. 0:27:28 — Hero points and the Box of Chaos. The acolytes give each champion a hero point. The Arbiter: “push yourself plus ultra… go Kaioken times 20.” The acolytes also summon the Box of Chaos. The Arbiter snaps, and the box containing Gerald slams down behind Cress. The lid flips open and a column of pink and yellow fire shoots into the sky, briefly dispersing the shadow. The Grandmaster: “Quit dancing on my field!… Quit dancing on the box!” Two shadowy clawed hands and two yellow eyes rise out: Gerald. Because they’re still hand in hand, moving means dragging the other person (a strength contest) unless both agree.
26. 0:29:32 Chedrick wants to see what’s in the box. He uses “my pimp hand.” The Arbiter suggests the half-severed hand “could probably get a little more whip action.” Chedrick: “You activated my trap card.” He wins the strength contest and drags Cress to the box (Cress: “I’m not strong, I’m just fast”).
27. 0:30:52 — Fear. Gerald eyes the penguin. Chedrick: “His name is Fear, and he fears nobody.” Gerald: “Oh, that’s kind of badass.” For his sacrifice, Chedrick offers “a box of grapes and two apples.” The Grandmaster: “Is that from your own personal charcuterie board?” Gerald takes them with a shadowy hand: “I could eat.”
28. 0:32:44 — The Mind Blade. The column of fire shoots past Chedrick’s face (“Holy shit. I’m on fire.” The Arbiter: “We’re not insured for fire damage”). Cress: “That fire better not jump on me.” The Grandmaster: “Don’t give me ideas, Wreck.” The shadow hands Chedrick a Mind Blade, a sword made by Mind Flayers that deals extra psychic damage. Chedrick: “I can see the future!”
29. 0:34:54 — Hitting Gerald. “Let’s read your mind.” Nat 1. He focuses on the wrong mind, the dead eel’s, picks up nothing, and strikes Gerald and the Box of Chaos instead. Gerald: “I just gave you a cool dagger for apples.” Chedrick: “It was an accident… It was my left hand. My strong hand still messed up.” Gerald claws Chedrick just above the knee, into the thigh, leaving three scorched marks (“you’re lucky he actually didn’t claw any higher up”). Chedrick is now bleeding from his leg and his wrist. Gerald: “I’m a demon in a box, not a monster.”
30. 0:36:47 — The sausage joke. “Can’t make charcuterie without sausage.” Cress: “You put rat on there, it’s turning into a sausage party.” The Grandmaster: “Chedrick, we might put your sausage on the charcuterie board. I can’t believe I said that.” Chedrick: “I hate you for that.” The Grandmaster: “Reck set me up for it.”
31. 0:37:25 — Doug’s roll. The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is a 5. Doug the pug snorts, hops onto his cushioned platform with his squishy green D20 plushie in his mouth, and throws his own D20: an 11. The Arbiter: “It’s only six higher.” The Grandmaster: “When there are only 20 numbers, six higher is notably higher. You just suck.”

Round 3 — the hand comes off

32. 0:38:29 Cress: “I’m going to finish the job on this hand.” Chedrick: “Leave my hand alone. This is all I have over here.” Her first swing misses because he weaves, oddly well for a man holding hands.
33. 0:39:11 — Silver blood. The Grandmaster asks Chedrick’s blood colour. Chedrick: “Vibranium color. T-1000… Terminator blood.” Bright silver blood pours out, mirror-like, reflecting both of them in the ground. The Arbiter holds up a Polaroid: “Have you seen this boy?” The Grandmaster: “You’re an android?” Chedrick: “Fifty shades of gray blood.”
34. 0:39:54 Cress’s second swing chops Chedrick’s hand clean off. “My strong hand.” Cress is free to move, but the severed hand is still clasping hers until the end of the round.
35. 0:40:32 — “Quit hitting yourself!” The Arbiter asks, “You gonna slap him with his own hand?” With Flurry of Blows, Cress slaps Chedrick with his own severed hand. The blows miss, but one splatters blood across his face (“Tasting my own vibranium blood”). The dead hand’s grip makes it awkward.
36. 0:41:44 Cress backflips 10 ft up onto a rock (Acrobatics 22 after a reroll Caustic Phoenix allowed because the die was ambiguous).
37. 0:42:29 Chedrick skips the opportunity attack. Cress: “You took my toe.” Chedrick: “We’re not even. I only took one piece, you took five, literally.” Cress: “You’re the one that was after my feet, bro.” Chedrick wonders whether he can regenerate. The Arbiter would let Second Wind reattach the fresh hand, but Cress still holds it.
38. 0:43:29 — The Mind Blade stump. “I’m going to attach this mind blade to my chopped off hand. I’m coming after you, Cress. I’m going to get my hand, and I’m going to take the rest of your feet off.” Cress taunts that he can’t reach her. Chedrick: “I am the bungee cord. My legs will take me anywhere I need to go.” The Arbiter: “Who gave it to you? Why do they hate you?” The Grandmaster: “If you have a nickname, that probably means you have friends.” Chedrick: “I’m disoriented, okay? I’m just losing blood.”
39. 0:44:46 The Arbiter calls it “that evil dead arm.” Chedrick climbs the rock (Athletics 12) and the Mind Blade hits.
40. 0:46:00 — Cress’s foot comes off. Chedrick crits again, and the psychic dice double too: he chops off Cress’s foot. “You take my hand. I take your foot. My nubs.” The Grandmaster: “We’re gonna have to like have a puzzle by the end of this as we piece the two of you back together.” The Arbiter: “We’ll have enough parts to make one complete person… I am Captain Planet.” Cress: “Captain Planet, he’s a hero.”
41. 0:47:34 Chedrick uses Second Wind. The Grandmaster explains Cress’s psychic damage as the pain of watching him heal after hurting her: “a small little tinge of headache.” Cress: “Emotional damage.” Chedrick: “Refreshing… What do you think about that?” The Arbiter: “That was Fear.”
42. 0:48:39 — Fear’s roll. The Arbiter rolls a 7. The Grandmaster: “You just need to get better at this.” Doug flourishes his tail and throws his D20 far across the arena. It bounces at the feet of Fear. The Grandmaster: “Fear, pick it up.” The Arbiter: “Where does somebody learn to speak penguin?… Rosetta Stone or like a Duolingo?” Fear rolls an 18. Chedrick makes the penguin “victory sound.” The crowd chants “Fear, Fear, Fear”, small children try penguin sounds, a parade for Fear breaks out, and a conga (“Mamba”) line weaves through the stands. The break is called so they can “celebrate Fear.”

After the break

43. 0:51:23 The Arbiter: “Cress versus Chedrick Magudan. Don’t forget his last name. He has two names… The man with one arm. And the monk with one foot.” Cress says Chedrick sounds like a college football coach. The table riffs on clipboards, whistles, headsets and recruiting (“He’s special, he’s very special”).

Chaos event — the Boggarts (0:52:34)

44. The Arbiter rolls 11. After a math muddle he settles on event 53 (“What a nerd”). Two shadows seep from the ground, one in front of each champion, read their deepest fears and transform: Boggarts.
45. 0:53:43 — Chedrick: heights. Caustic Phoenix: “Heights!… don’t give me heights. I can’t make it a height.” It becomes one anyway: his Boggart rises beneath him, grips his feet, and lifts him “like a cheerleader to the top of the pyramid,” 30 feet up.
46. 0:54:13 — Cress: a Karen. (Cress had joked “a retail job.”) Hers becomes a pale Karen with short blonde hair, spiky at the back and longer in front, and a giant purse. She cartwheels her shopping cart toward Cress. She wants to return everything for cash, though she paid by credit card in someone else’s name, and she has no receipt. Cress: “She’s definitely the one that tries to return a hot dog at a Stein Mart with no receipt.” The Grandmaster: “It’s had a couple bites in it.”
47. 0:56:00 Chedrick: “I have no wisdom.” He fails. He runs 15 ft off the Boggart, falls 30 ft to land right above the chest, and his ankle snaps a little. Fear was not lifted; he was “just pecking at the ankles of this Boggart.”
48. 0:57:18 — The foot as a cushion. Chedrick reveals he picked up Cress’s severed foot and landed on it: “I’d rather crack hers than mine.” Cress: “That’s fine, I got plans, don’t worry.”
49. 0:57:43 — “I am the manager.” Cress passes and stares the Karen down: “No, I am the manager. And you gotta go.” The Karen hesitates, stunned. Cress Spartan-kicks the cart. Green beans, corn and Kinder eggs spill everywhere (Chedrick adds ketchup, mustard, licorice, fruit hoops). Cress: “She thought she was finna hit a Supermarket Sweep.”

Round 4 — the limb exchange

50. 0:58:57 — Gerald’s revenge. Gerald creeps up over the box, still angry about being hit with a sword. He tosses a healing potion to Cress, and it heals her. The Grandmaster: “That’s what you get for hitting the box. Makes friends for others.” Chedrick: “I am a professional box hitter, what you expect?” The Arbiter leans over: “Did I find champions or children?” Someone shouts “Kill each other!” The Grandmaster: “Get your act together!”
51. 1:00:54 — The senzu bean. Cress asks to “senzu bean” her hero point to regrow her foot and toe. She needs above 17 on a D20 and fails (“You ain’t no lizard”). The ankle grows back, ending in tiny toes and no foot, and she heals. The crowd cheers “Goku, no, sorry, Cress, Cress, Cress.” Chedrick: “Orange Namekian now.” The Grandmaster: “Twinkle Toes.” Chedrick: “You got a little rascal’s ankle.”
52. 1:03:01 — Javelins. Cress throws javelins from her rock. Chedrick: “Your accuracy decreases by 20% because you’re on one foot.” The Arbiter: “This guy, he’s been playing D&D all of an hour and thinks he’s a DM now.” The first javelin glances off him.
53. 1:05:02 — Feeding the box his hand. Cress uses telekinesis to drag the willing Box of Chaos 5 ft closer (“Gerald’s up for a free ride”). Then she throws Chedrick’s severed hand into it: “That is my gift to you.” Gerald: “Oh yeah, this will go great with my hand collection.” The Grandmaster: “Sorry, Chedrick. I don’t think you’ll be getting your hand back.” The d100 comes up 64 (“Nintendo 64”). The Arbiter: “Uh-oh. This is an uh-oh for Chedrick.” He has to find a list, then has Cress roll a d12: a 3.
54. 1:07:12 — The scroll. Gerald floats out a scroll of a ninth-level spell: Mass Healing Word at 9th level (“It’s close to the wish spell though”). The table jokes about which foot she should get: dragon, tiefling, goblin, “the Subway foot.” Chedrick wants a dragon foot to jump higher, and they point out he’s afraid of heights. Cress heals a large amount and her foot regrows fully. The Arbiter’s description: “it’s like a skin sweatpants.” Caustic Phoenix: “I’m actually imagining something else that it could look like… I’m so sorry!” She later says, “It’s fun to make everyone uncomfortable.”
55. 1:11:23 Chedrick now holds “a foot that doesn’t matter anymore.” The Arbiter: “It’s a souvenir foot.” The Grandmaster: “Put it as a keychain. It’ll bring you luck.” The Arbiter: “I fought to the death and all I got was this foot.”
56. 1:11:44 Cress’s Kensei’s Shot javelin misses. The Grandmaster: “You’re kind of looking like a Krillin out there.” The Arbiter: “Better a Krillin than a Yamcha.” The Grandmaster: “If you miss this next one, you’re a Yamcha.”
57. 1:12:53 — Foot for hand. Chedrick: “It seems to me that my hand gave Cress the most powerful healing spell of all time. Let’s see what this stinky foot could do.” He throws Cress’s foot into the box: “Unlike you, I was nice to the box.” Gerald peeks at the foot, reaches back into the chest, and holds out Chedrick’s hand: a trade. Chedrick: “Get my damn hand.” Cress: “That’s how you talk to them when they give you your hand back?” Chedrick: “I’m grateful. I’m very grateful.”
58. 1:14:21 — The sewing kit. Gerald takes the foot and tosses Chedrick a sewing kit to sew his own hand back on (Sleight of Hand 13; Caustic Phoenix “was really hoping for a nat 1”). It’s on the right limb and the right way round, but weak: “This is no longer your strong hand for sure.”
59. 1:15:35 — “Stop hitting yourself.” Chedrick says the hand is “already at disadvantage. It’s slapping me.” The Grandmaster takes the idea, and his first attack with the hand is against himself. He slaps himself so hard it leaves a mark. Gerald’s shadow hand is sticking out of the box “like commanding the hand, like he cursed it.” Chedrick: “Hey, hey, leave me alone… It’s got a mind of its own.”
60. 1:18:17 Chedrick: “Hey, Cress, about that ankle of yours, I’m aiming for it.” He throws a hand axe left-handed at Cress’s ankle. It slices but doesn’t sever.
61. 1:19:20 — Blue blood. Cress: “My blood’s blue.” It mixes “beautifully with this silver alloy” from Chedrick. Cress: “Got that Quicksilver going.”
62. 1:19:53 — The Boggarts return. Chedrick’s Boggart lifts him 30 ft again. Two Karens approach Cress, mother and grandmother. Grandma records on her flip phone. Cress: “Let’s go straight to TikTok. I don’t even work retail and that’s giving me freaking PTSD.” The Karens: “The customer is always right,” banging on her rock.
63. 1:21:00 Cress rolls a 20. The Grandmaster: “Not only are you the manager, you’re the owner. You kicked them to the curb. You banned them from the store.” Cress: “They called the cops, and the cops arrested them.” They turn out to be drunk (“Those coupons expired 30 years ago”). Her Boggart slinks away, terrified.
64. 1:21:34 Chedrick rolls a nat 1. His Boggart, “giggling, laughing,” lifts him another 10 ft. He jumps off willingly and takes fall damage again. “What is going on?”

Round 5 — Sir Shadow Ten the Third, Knight of the Night

65. 1:22:53 — The Arbiter’s chaos event. The Arbiter’s 18 triggers his event. He pulls the Boggarts and other shadowy things out of their hiding places and shapes them into a shadow ghast between the champions. It is partly incorporeal, pours smoke and shadow, and has a long whipping tongue (or tongues). “Wife is a very lucky lady” (speaker uncertain, probably Mudcat). Chedrick: “Is that plural? Like tongues?”
66. 1:24:00 Both champions try to hold still and hide. Cress rolls 6 and is seen. Chedrick rolls double nat 20s: “Maybe because you’ve been bleeding so much, you just look like a silvery background in this space.” He is hidden for two rounds.
67. 1:25:30 Cress checks that her Kensei weapons count as magical and hits the ghast with a javelin.
68. 1:26:50 — Blown cover. Chedrick yells at the ghast: “Hey, but she just hit you. What you going to do about that? I mean, you can’t see me, so I ain’t worried about it.” It turns toward his voice and his stealth is gone. The Grandmaster: “You talked directly to it. Whoops.” Cress: “Fear is mad.” Cress holds her action behind the rock (“She’s playing the long game”).
69. 1:28:43 — The name. The Grandmaster: “Everybody has a name.” The Arbiter improvises: “Sir Shadow Ten the Third… He’s a knight… A knight of the night” (the first “knight” with a K). The Grandmaster: “I would have named Bob.”
70. 1:29:17 Cress damaged it, so the ghast goes after Cress. Its claws hit and she narrowly resists paralysis. It bites. She resists the necrotic part (“Every point counts… I’m so squishy”). Her held action hits back. She hunts for a radiant feature, and the Arbiter identifies Celestial Revelation / Radiant Consumption (usable only while transformed) and allows the radiant damage.
71. 1:33:08 — The mind-control try. Chedrick wants to take control of the creature with the Mind Blade. The Arbiter: “This is D&D, all you gotta do is ask.” He hits and gets into its mind. He rolls a 5, then spends his hero point for another try with advantage. For a moment he thinks he has control, then it pushes back, throws him out, and deals psychic damage to him: “Only for now.” The Grandmaster: “It’s gonna take more than a four.” Chedrick: “A monster with two tongues needs to be taken over… they ain’t got no brain.” Both remaining swings miss, the last because the ghast pulls its own form apart so the blade passes through like mist. The Grandmaster: “Saying it louder doesn’t make it more effective.”
72. 1:36:48 The Arbiter’s roll is a 2. The Grandmaster: “Bless your heart. As the Karens would say.” The Arbiter: “I’m thinking about building a shrine to you here in the Shadowlands.” The Grandmaster: “No. No, you know I hate this place… As soon as this battle’s over, we’re leaving.”

Round 6 — the Grandmaster intervenes

73. 1:37:32 “I am uncomfortable staying in the Shadowlands any second longer.” She gifts both champions advantage. “I banish this shadow creature from my arena.” She draws her oath bow and spears the ghast’s heart to the ground, and it dissipates. “I demand a fight between these two champions… show me what you are worth.”
74. 1:38:57 She rouses the acolytes (“roll harder, live harder, give blood, catch a body… Let me see those devil horns”). Chedrick: “Someone’s gonna die.” The crowd throws devil horns. The Grandmaster: “Are we not entertained?”
75. 1:40:38 — The backhand. Cress backhands Chedrick across the face. It hits, and the Grandmaster adds psychic damage “because that’s just like demeaning at this point.” He now has a handprint on each cheek, one from his own slap and one from Cress. Agile Parry raises her AC while she holds her sword.
76. 1:41:45 She spins into a longsword “anime swish,” but Chedrick limbos under it, Matrix-style, and pops back up.
77. 1:42:33 The Grandmaster: “You have no more senzu beans… There are no dragon balls to summon you back.” Chedrick dances on his toes, “staying warm.” Cress uses Step of the Wind (“Instant transmission”). She first tries to dash 90 ft, then takes a 45-ft disengage after the Arbiter’s correction.
78. 1:44:53 — “She’s running.” Chedrick: “Coming from somebody that really wanted to fight to the death. You’re surely running from me now.” Intimidation against Cress’s insight of 19: he fails. The Grandmaster: “a little trickle goes down your pant leg.” The Arbiter: “She’s not scared of shit.” The Grandmaster: “If you survive, I’ll get you a new pair of pants… We’ve got prestidigitations.”
79. 1:46:52 Chedrick dashes 45 ft and uses Action Surge: “You will not get away from me… You hit me with the backhand. Made me feel like a little bitch earlier.” The double blade hits twice. The Grandmaster: “You done messed up, A-Aron.” Then “mind blade jutsu” misses twice. The Grandmaster: “She’s just moving her hips back and forth and you’re just missing every time. Hips don’t lie.” The Grandmaster’s end roll is a 19.

Round 7 — ultimate moves

80. 1:50:18 — The rainbow beans. The Grandmaster throws each champion a magical, rainbow, shimmering bean. Each will describe an ultimate move. Whoever rolls more damage destroys the opponent’s move and the opponent.
81. 1:51:45 — Cress. “With my off hand, I throw a hand to the sky and I charge up and summon a heaven of dawn.” A focused energy beam falls straight onto Chedrick, “engulfing him in the laser fire and lightning… glassing the spot where he stands.” The Grandmaster: the fog is pushed away and the rock around him turns to molten lava.
82. 1:52:48 — Chedrick. “First I dodge… then I will use my super spinning penguin drill. Hence why I have my friend Fear with me. I got the penguin for a reason.” He spins ten times and throws Fear in a drilling position through her torso.
83. 1:53:16 Cress, eyes glowing, lowers her gaze from the sky to him: “What makes you think I can’t move this as you move?” Chedrick: “Because you have to focus your whole attack while your hand is up… you’re going to see a pinwheel drill straight through your torso.” Cress: “Waving my hand is the controller, baby.” Chedrick: “You can’t control it when you’re dead.” The beam grows larger, and Fear spins so fast he becomes “a gray blur of fire.”
84. 1:54:16 — 40d6 each. Cress rolls 143: “that fiery heat burns hotter… almost turning white.” Chedrick first rolls 1d6 plus 40, then 5d8 (“He’s panicking!”), and finally gets 40d6 (“This penguin is building up even more so. He starts to scream”). He wins by ten points.
85. 1:56:36 — Death of Cress. “Chedrick’s penguin pushes through, blue, supersonic blast, destroying the fiery flames from Cress and pummeling through her, creating a tunnel through her body.” (Caustic Phoenix first says “The victor is dead,” then corrects: “Victory is yours!”) Cress looks down at a penguin-sized hole through her stomach. Her last words: “This isn’t even my final form.”
86. 1:57:31 The Grandmaster descends, feet still not touching: “Arbiter, remove our Yamcha.” The Arbiter lands with his giant wings folded and slings Cress’s body over his shoulder by putting his arm through the hole, then flies away. The Grandmaster: “Don’t worry, she’ll probably be back… Death is just the beginning.”
87. 1:58:26 — Chedrick abandoned. She holds her hand out to Chedrick. Instead, a water bottle he throws hits her in the face as she tries to catch it. “Fine. Have it your way. I always hated this place anyway.” She rises: “I gift you your wish, but I’m going to leave you here in this place.” To the acolytes: “We’ve given you a battle to remember. Each time we come back, we come back stronger.” She claps, and everyone is back in the kitchen, without Chedrick, who has been left in the Shadowlands. “Drinks on me! And welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In-character final statements (canon, Dried Blood)

• 2:09:12 Cress: “Like I said before, this is not my final form, okay? You’re going to see some transformation action if I get this character back for a rematch or even to jump into another Deathmatch… I’m going to pull out some more things as I learn this multiclass.”
• 2:09:46 Chedrick: “Next time you come back, I’ll only use my regular form. I ain’t even get to power up like I wanted to. Next time you come around here, I’m using my super whirlwind for explosion number five.” The Grandmaster: “The gauntlet has been thrown.”

Out-of-character (creator notes)

• This was BigCheese’s first time ever playing D&D. Reck was shaking off rust and playing a multiclass she’d never played before. She says her current campaign is only her second ever.
• Cheese chose Reck as his opponent because she was “trash talking at GCX.” Reck doesn’t recall it.
• Cheese’s plan was to take the player’s shoes. Reck is “always rocking some Jordans,” and he meant to tie them up and throw them over the clotheslines. Hence “I’m taking your shoes,” and then the feet. “It all started with a pinky toe” (a Proud Family reference).
• Reck built Cress on Dragon Ball Z. The name was chosen like a Saiyan vegetable name. The ultimate move was based on Gears of War’s Hammer of Dawn. There’s a tangent on Gears of War (Cole Train, Dom’s storyline) and crying over it.
• Fear is based on Cheese’s friend, who streams on Twitch as a penguin character. The penguin drill came from their goofy ideas. Reck pictured Naruto’s Gatsuuga (Kiba and Akamaru).
• Mudcat: “I’m always looking for the gut punch… find the emotional gut punch and then just keep punching it.”
• Caustic Phoenix: D&D should be playable by anyone; “if a game is fun, it’s because the people are fun… None of us know all the rules.”
• Closing: Reck and Cheese play up “D&D beef” (“This would be great for our engagement”).