S3E8, The Gauntlet 2 - Floyd of the Pink & Luci v Hurdey & Gurdi

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For her second gauntlet, the Grandmaster did not simply open an arena. She built one by hand, out of felt, glue and glitter, in the basement of The Dread Fortress. Into it stepped two odd couples: the devoted, fedora-burdened Floyd of the Pink and his silent satyr mistress Luci, against Hurdey, a bear, and Gurdi, the red bird who lives in his backpack. What followed was a drinking game, a seagull war, a Kraken, a burned waifu pillow, a bitten-off nipple, and an ending so tangled that both teams could claim victory.

The Story

Arts and Crafts in the Basement

The episode opened with The Arbiter clanking through the halls of the Dread Fortress, the chains of his punishment dragging behind him, hunting for the Grandmaster “because she’s always running around doing weird shit.” He found her in the lowest level of the fortress, below even the dungeon. The whole basement was buried in craft supplies: hammers, nails, glue guns, glitter. The Grandmaster stood among them clutching scraps of felt and fabric, scolding him for being late to the last-minute touches on “our freaking gauntlet.”

The Arbiter admitted he had expected something simpler: “they go, they fight, they die.” Instead she had “built a special world for them,” a giant battle map along the back wall that her goblins draped in purple satin to keep it secret. “This is going to be the battle map that will end all battle maps,” she declared. “Maybe.” A last flake of gold glitter drifted off the side.

The Champions

The Arbiter’s portal poured out fog, smoke and, for no reason anyone could explain, laser lights. Out came Hurdey, a bipedal bear, with Gurdi peering over his shoulder from the backpack. Their first speech was entirely unintelligible. The Grandmaster did her best to translate it as “I’m here for victory and for death!” but admitted she had missed the rest because she was too slow at reading.

Floyd introduced himself on his mistress’s behalf. He announced that Great Mistress Luci had “found me on street corners for no more than fifty pence,” taken him in and taught him everything she knew. Luci herself said nothing. She was a satyr with pink-to-red hair, grayish-red skin and great jet-black antlers, and she rested a huge maul across her shoulders and smirked. When Floyd dropped to his knees, tipped a hat he did not have and whispered “m’lady,” the Arbiter sighed: “Grandmaster, we got another one. Another m’ladyer.” Floyd’s fedora was missing, the Arbiter explained, because someone had once told him to shove it right up his ass, and he did: “It’s gone forever now.”

The Grandmaster responded with justice of the arts-and-crafts kind. A goblin glued a shimmering pink satin cape to Floyd’s shoulders. Then came a sparkly fedora stacked three high, about ten pounds of it, “so that you may be aware of the burden you put on the rest of us every time you say m’lady.” Meanwhile Hurdey and Gurdi seemed to be choking. Gurdi dug a super-large candy out of the backpack and wing-fed one to Hurdey. Suddenly they could speak plainly, and they used the gift at once to promise to tear heads off, bathe in blood, and lay eggs in their enemies’ stomachs. “I’m not sure if it was better before or now,” said the Arbiter.

Flippy Cup at the Tavern

The portal opened onto a quaint, noisy tavern on a small island. A bartender worked there with his little apprentice kitty cat, and the ceiling was so nearly see-through that The Acolytes could be seen cheering in the stands high above. The bartender explained that he had “been talking with the Grandmaster”: each team had to finish a drinking challenge to earn its map. Then he turned it into “my old college game,” Flippy Cup. The Arbiter asked if his chains could come off so he could drink. “Quit being a pansy,” said the Grandmaster.

Hurdey chugged while Gurdi flipped, and Luci drank while Floyd flipped (“like I do on a regular basis”). Gurdi stuck a landing with a wings-out backflip and a dab. Luci flipped off the other table for the whole of her third drink. Hurdey downed two at once. On the final round Floyd landed a perfect natural 20 and sent a wave of spilled drinks across the room onto the rival table. Hurdey had been obliviously balancing his pint on his head, and Gurdi’s flip skidded and failed, leaving the bear a little less nimble.

Each team got a scroll sealed with a skull and crossbones. “Lady, this seems to be the work of pirates,” Floyd observed. Gurdi promptly faked a sneeze that blasted fire at the enemy map. Floyd patted the bird on the back, said “Gesundheit,” and hit him with a spell of biting frost: “Allergies are horrible this time of year.” Gurdi spread his glowing golden wings to soak up the cold, and Hurdey clawed Floyd with his own frost. That was the moment the Grandmaster slammed her goblet down. “You will not wreak havoc in my adorable tavern!” Every papier-mâché patron, she explained, had a name, an age and a personality. “So don’t you dare hurt any of them or ruin their drinking time.”

Pillow Fight at the Docks

The Acolytes cried “Chaos!” and, stepping outside, every champion found their weapon turned into their own sleeping pillow. Hurdey’s claws became a mossy hibernation nest. Gurdi’s beak wore a down pillow like a child-safety bumper, because he is always bumping into things. Luci held a demonic lamb Pillow Pet with glowing red eyes that she uses as a flashlight for bathroom trips at night. Floyd’s scimitar became a full-length body pillow of a wide-eyed, cat-eared anime girl, and he turned very red. “Listen,” said the Grandmaster, “we all love to snuggle with our favorite anime characters.”

Down past a little orange tree, the storm-broken docks led to two ships. A horde of seagulls in tiny helmets swooped in with knives in their talons. “Not the murder seagulls,” Floyd groaned. “Be careful of the rare switchblade variety.” One gull flipped a butterfly knife on a rock while holding unbroken eye contact with him.

Luci tried to freeze Gurdi in place, and Gurdi flung the spell aside at the last instant. Hurdey charged through the gulls to shove Luci off the pier, but she simply planted her goat hooves. “She’s got fucking goat feet. She just stands there and is like, I’m not moving, bitch.” Floyd walked to the other dock and stared the seagulls down until they put away their switchblades, lined up like a choir and bowed. “My stepfather was a seagull,” he explained. “Must have been a gentleman,” said the Grandmaster.

Then Gurdi dove into the backpack. Two chicken legs popped out of the bottom, flipped the pair so the bird carried the bear, and ran so fast the planks started to smoke, then walked the bear across the water. Gurdi triple-flipped onto the deck: “Look at me, look at me, I am the captain now.” The bartender held up a 10. The anchor would not budge, though, and when the Arbiter rolled badly at the end of the round, the Grandmaster noted that Doug was laughing at him “in a little pug chuckle.”

The Ship Swap

A second chaos event arrived: a vast, fragile golden butterfly that trailed glitter from behind the tavern trees. Luci leapt across the docks “like a gazelle” and sent a conjured weapon crashing onto the rival boat. Gurdi drew the blow onto himself and took it hard: “I regret nothing.”

Hurdey gave up on the stuck anchor. “They can come and get this one.” He plucked a sparkling red feather from Gurdi to speed himself up, jumped onto Floyd and Luci’s ship, raised its anchor and set sail. A one-eyed pirate captain at the wheel was happy to oblige. The map’s first line read: “For those who hunger for gold, your feet must touch the land of dead and bold.”

Floyd bowed before his mistress, declared that “only the greatest of fans are worthy of these hooves,” and enchanted her to walk on water. Luci pushed his face out of the way and strolled off across the waves. The butterfly came down to give Floyd butterfly kisses, which raised the Grandmaster’s question: “Was your dad a butterfly and your stepdad a seagull?” “It was complicated,” Floyd replied. “My mother was… friendly.” He then rallied his seagull brothers against “the other strange looking bird.” Hurdey and Gurdi tried to scare them off like air traffic control, with Hurdey threatening to swap his turkey dinner for seagull. Floyd won the birds over by a hair, but the gulls’ dive did nothing to the nimble pair.

The Kraken

Near the island, giant tentacles burst from the sea. The Kraken had arrived, and the pillows turned back into weapons. Gurdi’s butt popped out of the backpack and fired four flaming eggs into a tentacle, which burst in great burning yolks. Hurdey shielded Gurdi with five golden feathers and harpooned a tentacle in half, scattering suction cups across the deck. Then he called on an old friend: “Clanky, remember that time we helped you out?” A medium-sized metal construct shark rose from the deep. It had a gold tooth and, for some reason, a blowhole, “because it’s poorly designed.” It missed both bites.

Floyd grew a kelp forest under the enemy ship and trapped it, then prayed to the “Lord of all tentacles” with the sacred word “boo-woo.” The Kraken did not appreciate being called a lord, and she turned her gaze on his ship. Gurdi burst out of the backpack in a cloud of red feathers and set Floyd’s sails on fire with an egg: “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but bird eggs will bloody burn ya!” The Kraken slammed both ships. Then the butterfly, offended that three of the champions had never called to it, introduced Hurdey, Gurdi and Luci to “the butt in Butterfly”: it crop-dusted them, farting on all three until their noses burned and they could taste exactly what it had been eating.

Luci vaulted off a plank at the prow, arced over the tentacles and landed walking on the water. Hurdey’s haste wore off, leaving him sluggish, so Gurdi’s legs carried the bear up the rigging and they “flew” for the island. Floyd, alone on a burning boat, marveled that “it is not about the mirth, but the motion in the ocean.” He slipped through hidden paths to the shore and summoned winds to blow “Hurdle and Gurdle” into the sea. “My name is Hurdy Gurdy and you’re not going to do shit,” came the reply, and Hurdey snuffed the spell out.

Songs for the Dead

The second riddle asked the teams to “sing them a song with twos.” Hurdey and Gurdi, both trained on the hurdy-gurdy, scatted at length over a four-string instrument. “Scatting is singing,” they insisted, despite admitting they can’t actually play. Floyd and Luci swayed arm in arm through “Oh, say can you see? / By the dawn’s early light.” The dead were satisfied with both performances. Hurdey and Gurdi then fumbled the next beat so badly (“Not quite my tempo”) that their rivals got two turns before they did.

The final riddle was grim: “You may only have one treasure at a time, so you must give the heart of your ally as a fine. Burn their passion and you will find the treasure you seek in kind.” Hurdey understood at once. “I think we have to kill each other.”

The Graveyard and the Temple

The island held an old graveyard of scattered bones, leading up to a temple between two low pillars with scale-marked platforms. The Arbiter rolled a natural 20 and raised a hand, and a minotaur’s skeleton burst from the sand with an axe and cut into Floyd. “Welcome to the Thunderdome.”

Luci decided the passion to burn was Floyd’s body pillow. “If mistress wants this, then mistress wants this,” Floyd said, and a single anime tear rolled down his cheek. She lit it with her own candles and incense on a pillar. For a moment the waifu seemed to come alive and shed a tear of her own. Then there was only ash, and nothing happened. “Wildly unfortunate,” said Luci. Enraged at losing his waifu, Floyd grabbed the skeleton’s wrist and withered it until its bones bled, and he enlarged two hundred-legged sandworms to fight beside him.

Hurdey and Gurdi bounced in on a giant chicken-legged springboard. Gurdi’s beak slammed into the ground with a thunderclap that did almost nothing (“Wow, oh no, you potato”). Then Gurdi launched an egg from his cloaca straight up. It curved back down and struck Hurdey “straight in the heart,” and Gurdi turned it into a blast of flame. “That’s because you said you didn’t like my music,” the bird explained. Hurdey stood and took it all willingly. As he burned, sparks became little musical notes with faces, dancing around his head like cartoon birds. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m not going to be in the sequel.” The Acolytes’ tears fell from the stands like rain.

The Final Blow

Only Gurdi could see the two chests that now appeared. One was faintly breathing, so he picked the other. Both were mimics. The breathing one was a baby that didn’t know how to hold its breath as well, and it had a pacifier in its mouth. Beneath them, Gurdi glimpsed gold.

Floyd knelt and fed the baby mimic one of Hurdey’s leftover feet: “It’s okay. You’re okay.” The Acolytes screamed “breastfeed it,” and Floyd, already shirtless, offered it his nipple: “I will suckle it to my bosom.” The mimic bit off his nipple. “My nipple is gone! I needed that nipple!” “Don’t shove your nipple in random animals’ faces,” the Grandmaster advised.

Luci ran at Gurdi and brought her holy maul down on his beak twice. The second smite sent him flying into the big mimic’s mouth, where he was torn apart. But one wing snapped off, floated down and touched the gold. The Grandmaster ruled that Gurdi had technically won and that both his soul and Hurdey’s would rest, but the treasure would not be his. The well-fed mimics wandered off, and the chest opened to reveal a golden body pillow of a beautiful eared figure, with a separate tail that wraps around you as you hold it. “Something, something, the friends we’ve won along the way bullshit,” said Floyd. “Body pillow’s mine.” The Grandmaster closed the gauntlet with a reminder to her Acolytes: never give up.

Notable Moments

• The Grandmaster built the entire arena as a craft project, papier-mâché patrons with names and ages included, and banned any fighting in her “adorable tavern.”
• Floyd’s fedora grew heavier with every “m’lady.”
• Floyd turned a horde of knife-wielding seagulls to his side by revealing his stepfather was one of them.
• Gurdi grew chicken legs and walked across the sea carrying a full-grown bear.
• Luci burned Floyd’s beloved waifu pillow to solve a riddle, and it did nothing.
• Floyd tried to foster a baby mimic and lost a nipple; Gurdi’s severed wing “won” the gauntlet as he was eaten.

Memorable Quotes

• The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, we got another one. Another m’ladyer.”
• Floyd of the Pink: “Fools! Are you not aware of the greatness of Great Mistress Luci? For she has found me on street corners for no more than fifty pence.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “You will not wreak havoc in my adorable tavern!”
• Floyd of the Pink: “My stepfather was a seagull.”
• Hurdey: “My name is Hurdy Gurdy and you’re not going to do shit.”
• Gurdi: “That’s because you said you didn’t like my music.”
• Hurdey: “Well, I guess I’m not going to be in the sequel.”
• Floyd of the Pink: “Something, something, the friends we’ve won along the way bullshit. Body pillow’s mine.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Floyd of the Pink / “of the Pinketh” (carefulcantrip)

• Luci’s devoted servant; calls her “my lady,” “mistress,” “Great Mistress Luci.”
• She found him on street corners for fifty pence. He’s about 5’9½”, has a beard and goes shirtless.
• A “m’ladyer.” He now wears the Grandmaster’s glued-on pink satin cape and a triple-stacked glittery fedora that grows two pounds per “m’lady” (10 lb, then 12; he claims 16).
• Family: his stepfather was a seagull; his father was perhaps a butterfly (“It was complicated”); his mother was “very friendly.”
• His favorite bedtime pillow is an anime cat-eared girl body pillow (his “waifu”). Luci burned it.
• Befriended the knife seagulls. Tried to foster a baby mimic and lost a nipple to it.
• Spells used: Frostbite, Hold Person, Water Walk, Plant Growth, Hidden Paths, Control Winds, Inflict Wounds, Giant Insect.
• Survived. Claims the golden body pillow.

Luci (mendarii)

• A satyr: pink-to-red hair, grayish-reddish skin, jet-black antlers, chain mail shirt, a big maul. “Hella infernal looking.”
• Mostly silent and haughty. A paladin (“technically a religious person”), with a tinderbox, candles and incense.
• Has mirthful leaps and goat feet (“I’m not moving, bitch”).
• Her pillow is a demonic goat-lamb Pillow Pet with glowing red eyes.
• Burned Floyd’s waifu pillow. Killed Gurdi with two smites. Survived.

Hurdey (roberthartleygm)

• A bipedal humanoid bear who carries Gurdi in his backpack. At first he spoke an unintelligible language, until the candy gave him “the gift of speech.”
• Proficient in the hurdy-gurdy and in animal handling (taken because he handles a bird).
• Uses golden feathers (invulnerability flashes, a ward) and red feathers (Haste).
• Once helped Clanky the construct shark, who owed him a favor.
• Dex lowered by the Flippy Cup loss. “Not playing a sorcerer. I’m playing Hurdey.”
• Killed by Gurdi’s egg and burning hands, a heart burned to fulfil the riddle. “Not going to be in the sequel.”

Gurdi (deadaussiegamer)

• A red bird who lives in Hurdey’s backpack. A monk: walks on water, has evasion, fires flaming eggs from his cloaca, does Beak Buster.
• Can sprout chicken-like legs and carry the bear (Strength 18). Has Mounted Combatant and takes hits for Hurdey.
• Dabs, backflips, “I am the captain now.”
• Killed by Luci. Swallowed by the mimic, but his wing touched the gold first, so he “technically” won.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix)

• Built the gauntlet map herself as a giant craft project in the Dread Fortress basement, with goblin helpers.
• Made the tavern’s papier-mâché patrons, who all have names, ages and personalities.
• Gave Floyd the cape and fedora. Refused to remove the Arbiter’s chains.

The Arbiter (Mudcat)

• Wears chains in this episode; he asked to have them taken off to drink and was refused.
• Raised the skeletal minotaur with a nat 20.

Doug: a pug who laughs at the Arbiter’s bad roll with “a little pug chuckle” (0:56:21). Whether he is in-world is unclear.

The bartender (Caustic Phoenix): runs the island tavern with his little apprentice kitty cat. Works with the Grandmaster, calls Flippy Cup “my old college game,” and scores Gurdi’s landing 10/10.

The one-eyed pirate captain (Mudcat): already at the wheel of the ship Hurdey steals. A second captain sails Floyd and Luci’s ship (unnamed).

Clanky: a medium metal construct shark with a golden tooth and a blowhole, summoned by Hurdey.

The knife seagulls: a “horde” in tiny helmets with knives and switchblades in their talons. They respected Floyd and fought for him.

The golden butterfly: massive, glittering and fragile. Gives butterfly kisses (temporary HP) and crop-dusts anyone who ignored it.

The Kraken: called “she” and “ruler of the ocean,” with ten tentacles. Blocked the way to the island.

The skeletal minotaur: raised by the Arbiter from the graveyard sand. It bleeds from its bones.

The sandworms: hundred-legged, centipede-like island creatures; two were made giant by Floyd.

The mimic and the baby mimic (the baby has a pacifier). They ate Hurdey’s foot, Floyd’s nipple and Gurdi.

The witch (backwards name, uncertain): heard laughing at Floyd.

Places

• The Dread Fortress basement, below the dungeon: the Grandmaster’s craft workshop.
• The quaint tavern on a small island, with an orange tree, wooden stairs and storm-broken docks.
• The sea and the Kraken’s waters.
• The treasure island: sand, wildlife, an old graveyard, and a temple with two low pillars and scale platforms.

Items

• Floyd’s pink satin cape and stacked glitter fedora.
• The super-large candy, which grants speech.
• The skull-and-crossbones-sealed parchment maps with their three-line riddle.
• The pillows from chaos event 1.
• Harpoon guns.
• The golden body pillow with a separate wrap-around tail (the treasure).
• Hurdey’s golden and red feathers, and the vellum-skinned four-string instrument.

Lore statements

• The Grandmaster can build a “special world” for a gauntlet by hand. Its inhabitants have names and personalities.
• The Arbiter is in chains at this time.
• The acolytes watch from stands visible through the tavern’s see-through ceiling and can summon chaos events. Their tears fell like rain at Hurdey’s death.
• Gauntlet rule as ruled: touching the treasure first, even in death, means you “technically” win and your soul is at rest, but the prize doesn’t go to you.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the Grandmaster’s craft basement

1. 0:00:54 The Arbiter clanks down the halls of the Dread Fortress with his chains dragging behind him, looking for the Grandmaster, “because she’s always running around doing weird shit.”
2. 0:01:21 The craft project. From the lowest levels, below even the dungeon, come clanging, building and sawing. The whole basement is covered in craft supplies: tools, hammers, nails, glue guns, glitter. The Grandmaster holds pieces of felt and fabric. “It’s about time you got here. We’re trying to finish the last-minute touches of our freaking gauntlet.” She wanted “a really epic battle map.”
3. 0:02:23 The Arbiter didn’t know there would be arts and crafts: “I thought it was just gonna be… they go, they fight, they die.” She has “built a special world for them.” Goblins drape purple satin over a giant map along the back wall. She keeps it secret so the champions must improvise: “This is going to be the battle map that will end all battle maps. Maybe.” A last bit of tiny gold glitter drops off the side.
4. 0:03:57 The champions arrive. The Arbiter opens a portal, and fog, smoke and (inexplicably) laser lights pour out. He announces “Floyd of the Pink! With his partner, Luci!” and “Hurdey! With his faithful partner, Gurdey!”
5. 0:04:42 Hurdey and Gurdi. Hurdey is a bipedal humanoid bear. A red bird, Gurdi, sits in his backpack and looks over his shoulder. Their first speech is unintelligible to the Arbiter (“I don’t speak whatever that was”). The Grandmaster reads it as “I’m here for victory and for death!” but missed the rest “because I was too slow at reading.” The red bird pops out: “Very well.”
6. 0:06:16 Floyd’s introduction. “Fools! Are you not aware of the greatness of Great Mistress Luci? For she has found me on street corners for no more than fifty pence. Took me back and taught me everything she knows. You will bow before her before the night is through. So said Floyd of the Pinketh.” Why pink? “Because it is a very pretty color.”
7. 0:06:54 The cape. The Grandmaster agrees it is gorgeous. A goblin drapes shimmering pink satin around Floyd’s shoulders as a cape and fastens it with a glue stick.
8. 0:07:43 Luci. A satyr with pink-to-red hair, grayish-reddish skin and big jet-black antlers, in a chain mail shirt. She looks down her nose at everyone and says nothing. She rests a big maul on her shoulders and gives Floyd a little smirk.
9. 0:08:57 “M’lady.” Floyd falls to his knees, “Blessings to the great mistress,” tips his nonexistent hat and says softly, “m’lady.” Arbiter: “Grandmaster, we got another one. Another m’ladyer.” GM: “Normally they wear fedoras, so they’re much easier to spot in the wild, but this one was hiding.” Arbiter: “Fedora in our hearts… One time someone told him to shove that fedora right up his ass and he did. It’s gone forever now.” GM: he “keeps it there in his safety pocket.”
10. 0:10:04 The fedora burden. As fair warning to all, a goblin brings a sparkly glittery fedora, stacked three high, and puts it on Floyd’s head. It weighs about 10 pounds: “a little extra burden for you so that you may be aware of the burden you put on the rest of us every time you say m’lady.” Floyd is roughly 5’9½”.
11. 0:11:14 The gift of speech. Hurdey and Gurdi appear to be choking. Gurdi rifles in the backpack for a super-large candy, pops one in his own mouth and wing-feeds one to Hurdey. “Oh, it seems to have given us the gift of speech… the locked words aren’t following us anymore.” “Strange words have always been a bane on my existence… For whom doth the word bite?”
12. 0:12:13 Their first understandable threats: “Shall we tear their heads off and bathe in their blood? Oh, yes, and let’s lay eggs in their stomach. You’re going down. I’m gonna put my bear claw right through your eye socket.” Then: “I will find that fedora inside you.” Arbiter: “I’m not sure if it was better before or now.”

The tavern: Flippy Cup

13. 0:13:22 A cool summer breeze comes through the portal. They arrive at a quaint, busy tavern on a small island, full of noise, drinking, laughter and music. A bartender works with his little apprentice kitty cat beside him. “Welcome! Are you travelers?” Hurdey/Gurdi: “We want the pop of murder!”
14. 0:14:05 The bartender: “Murder may be on your way, but there’s adventure to be found as well… I’ve been talking with the Grandmaster, and we’ve set up a bit of adventure.” To get the map, each team must finish the drinking challenge. Teams sit at a north table and a south table, with five giant jugs each. The Grandmaster observes one team and the Arbiter flies over to the other (the south side: “I’m always on the south side, you know that.” GM: “You do like going down.”).
15. 0:15:40 The bartender changes the game: “Let’s make this my old college game,” and brings out more cups. It becomes Flippy Cup: chug, then flip with sleight of hand. A failed flip costs the drinker a point of Constitution or Dexterity.
16. 0:17:26 The toast. The Grandmaster raises a large chalice. The Arbiter: “It’s kind of hard to drink with these chains on. You mind taking them off?” GM: “Be stronger. This is a good strength exercise for you. Quit being a pansy.” “Worth a shot.”
17. 0:17:51 The tavern ceiling is almost see-through, and the Acolytes cheer from the stands high above. GM: “To my acolytes, I have brought you a gauntlet that will test the very means of every part of their nature.” Devil horns go up and drinks are raised. Because the acolytes are cheering, she grants inspiration dice of d8, d6 and d4 for the first three drinks.
18. 0:18:50 Setup. Hurdey chugs and Gurdi flips for him; Hurdey takes the consequences. Luci drinks (“I’m going to just shove it all down”) and Floyd flips (“I will flip for you, my lady, like I do on a regular basis.” “I don’t wanna know”).
19. 0:21:08 The rounds.
    • Floyd’s first flip lands perfectly (“I’m done m’lady proud!”). Hurdey/Gurdi’s first also succeeds; the drink “tastes like honeycomb.”
    • On the second, Gurdi flips, slams it down, and does a wings-out backflip (acrobatics 16, landed). Gurdi dabs.
    • While drinking her third, Luci flips them off the entire time (“Flip the bird! Flip the bird!”).
    • Hurdey chugs two drinks at once. With the d8, the flip lands right on 17.
    • The fourth round is a success for both sides (“my fingers are very dexterous”).
20. 0:25:07 The waterfall. Floyd rolls a nat 20 on the last flip and splashes the spilled drinks across to the other table. The wet table gives the other team disadvantage. Hurdey, oblivious, is balancing his pint glass on his head to tip it into his mouth. Gurdi’s flip fails. Hurdey loses a point of Dex. Someone cries “Ah, Butter Wings!” and the pair can’t stay mad at each other: “we can both stay mad at them! Let’s tear their head off!” (speaker split uncertain).
21. 0:27:08 Luci makes a beeline for the bartender. He hands each team a rolled parchment sealed with a skull-and-crossbones wax symbol. Floyd: “Lady, this seems to be the work of pirates.”
22. 0:27:51 The sneeze. As Gurdi hands the paper to Hurdey, he fake-sneezes (“ah, ah, ah”) a Burning Hands at their rivals’ map. Luci dodges (19). Hurdey/Gurdi: “They’re just awful this time of year… that’s because you picked up those phoenix feathers.”
23. 0:28:49 Frostbite. Floyd pats Gurdi on the back, says Gesundheit, and casts Frostbite on him: “It’s all right, my friend. Allergies are horrible this time of year.” Gurdi fails: “Did someone leave a window open? I thought I felt a gentle breeze.”
24. 0:30:11 A golden feather glow comes from Gurdi’s wings. He spreads them in front of both of them while Hurdey casts Absorb Elements. Hurdey makes a striking claw attack back, dealing Floyd’s own cold damage: “No hard feelings here.”
25. 0:30:37 The Grandmaster intervenes. She slams her goblet down: “Enough of this! I gave you an adventure! Go on this! You will not wreak havoc in my adorable tavern!” The patrons are adorable; she built the map. Luci asks if she made all the little papier-mâché guys. “They all have personalities and ages and names… So don’t you dare hurt any of them or ruin their drinking time.” “They started. We’re sorry.” Hurdey runs outside.

Chaos event 1: pillows (0:31:20)

26. The acolytes summon two chaotic events (“Chaos!”). Stepping outside, every weapon turns into the holder’s own sleeping pillow for two rounds. Pillows hit easily and deal “fluffy damage.” “No one’s resistant to fluffy damage.”
27. 0:33:21 The pillows.
    • Hurdey’s claws go thick and fluffy. His pillow is a hibernation nest of moss and soft vegetation, and he can curl up on the backs of his hands.
    • Gurdi has a multicolored red, blue and purple down-feather pillow wedged onto the tip of his beak like a marshmallow, like a child-safety bumper, because he’s always bumping into things.
    • Luci has a Pillow Pet shaped like the Cult of the Lamb lamb, a little demonic goat-lamb. The GM adds glowing red eyes, which she uses as a flashlight for the bathroom at night. Luci is “hella infernal looking.”
    • Floyd’s scimitar grows to body length and becomes his favorite bedtime body pillow, showing a young girl with very large eyes and cat ears. Floyd’s face goes very red. GM: “Listen, we all love to snuggle with our favorite anime characters.”
28. 0:36:08 They go down wooden stairs past a beautiful little orange tree to the docks. A storm has broken the bridge to the ships: “Good luck champions. May the race continue and may you be swift.”

Round 1: the docks

29. 0:37:28 Luci goes first despite her −1 initiative. She runs to the middle of the bridge.
30. 0:38:35 The knife seagulls. “Mine? Mine? Mine?” A “horde” of seagulls in tiny helmets, carrying knives in their talons, swoops in. The GM refuses to call them a flock. Luci takes a heavy slash. Floyd: “Not the murder seagulls. Vicious creatures with the large knife talons. Be careful of the rare switchblade variety.” One gull lands on a rock and flips a butterfly knife while making unending eye contact with Floyd. Arbiter: the others are behind him smoking cigarettes. Rob: a matching gull faces the other way, so it looks like two evil eyes.
31. 0:40:46 Luci casts Hold Person on Gurdi. Gurdi fails, then claims a counterspell. Luci: “You can’t fail and then be like, this is a counter spell!” The Arbiter makes him roll sleight of hand to get it off in time, and he succeeds. The golden wings flare again for a moment of invulnerability. Arbiter: “It’s a good thing we’re at the beach because there’s enough salt for the fish and chips.”
32. 0:42:46 Hurdey charges through the gulls with Gurdi’s head poking out of the backpack and gets slashed. Gurdi uses Mounted Combatant to take the hits instead. The GM gives Gurdi a bane for not listening to the pre-show (no hero points this time). Hurdey’s charging shove tries to knock Luci off the pier, but she wins the contest: “She’s got fucking goat feet. She just stands there and is like, I’m not moving, bitch.” The GM points out there are two ships. Hurdey moves to block Luci’s path anyway.
33. 0:48:03 Floyd casts Hold Person on Hurdey; Hurdey counterspells with the gold wings. Floyd moves to the other dock and stares down the seagulls (“I’m watching you seagulls”). They respect him. They put the switchblades away, line up about ten strong like a choir, nod unblinkingly, cheer him on and bow (“They’re all like m’lady”). Floyd: “My stepfather was a seagull.” GM: “Must have been a gentleman.” The gulls won’t attack him.
34. 0:50:44 Gurdi carries the bear. Gurdi swan-dives into the backpack. Two chicken-like feet pop out, flip them over so Gurdi is on the bottom and Hurdey on top, and run so fast the wood starts to burn. Then Gurdi (a monk) walks across the water carrying Hurdey. They checked his carrying capacity against a bear’s weight in advance. GM: “Is it rude to ask how heavy you are, Hurdey?” “Very rude. I don’t ask you your age, Grandmaster.”
35. 0:52:52 Disengaging, Gurdi squawks to the birds: “At ease, my avian allies. We ask for your aid against these egg-eating motherpluckers before they eat your eggs.” The gulls are already neutral.
36. 0:53:44 The captain now. Gurdi does a double, then triple, flip onto the deck and descends slowly with his wings up. “Look at me, look at me, I am the captain now.” The bartender comes out and holds up a 10 out of 10. With the bane, Gurdi can’t budge the anchor. He tries biting the metal chain; the GM says he’d break all his teeth.
37. 0:56:21 The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is a 4. GM: “Doug doesn’t even care. He just laughs at you in a little pug chuckle.”

Chaos event 2: the golden butterfly (0:56:21)

38. From behind the trees by the tavern comes a huge golden butterfly that sparkles and leaves a trail of glitter. It’s fragile in nature but massive, and its shadow is big enough to hide under. It comes if called (a free action). On the map it’s “a pink square, but pretend it’s a butterfly.”

Round 2: the ship swap

39. 0:58:02 Luci backs up, sprints, jumps onto a rope and mirthful-leaps over to Floyd’s dock “like a gazelle leaping over the plains.” She gives Floyd a knowing look (“Are you ready?”) and holds her move. She summons a spiritual weapon onto the rivals’ boat. Gurdi redirects it to himself and takes a crushing critical: “I regret nothing.”
40. 1:02:27 Hurdey steals their boat. Hurdey leaves the stuck anchor: “They can come and get this one.” He plucks one of Gurdi’s red feathers, which sparkles and jolts Gurdi, and casts Haste. He jumps the 10-ft gap onto Floyd and Luci’s ship, raises its anchor and sets the sails. At the helm he flips Gurdi upside down so Gurdi can flip them the bird, then puts him back.
41. 1:05:00 The pirate captain and the map. A one-eyed pirate captain is already at the wheel: “Oh, hey, we’re going here… Yeah, I can get you there.” Inside the map are three lines, two of them blurred. The first reads: “For those who hunger for gold, your feet must touch the land of dead and bold.” The ship pulls out.
42. 1:06:35 Floyd and the hooves. Floyd rushes in front of Luci and bows: “My lady. Only the greatest of fans are worthy of these hooves. This trivial water in front of us is no longer worthy.” He casts Water Walk. He sees the butterfly: “The greatest weebs of house Tumblr spoke of giant butterflies.” Luci pushes his face out of the way and walks off across the water toward the boat.
43. 1:07:38 Butterfly kisses. Floyd sings to the butterfly in a warm tone. It comes down and gives him butterfly kisses (“Like dad”), granting temporary hit points. “I love butterfly kisses.” GM: “Was your dad a butterfly and your stepdad a seagull?” Floyd: “It was complicated. My mother was… friendly. Very friendly, apparently.”
44. 1:08:09 The seagull war. Floyd calls his “good friends, the Knife Seagulls”: “Brothers, I beg of you, your aid. Do you see that other strange looking bird over there? No, no, not the bear, the other one. Get them, my champions.” Hurdey and Gurdi counter like air traffic control, with Gurdi waving his wings while Hurdey talks: “I had chicken for breakfast. I’m going to have turkey for dinner, but I’m happy to swap that out for seagull if you get any closer.” The GM turns that into intimidation, and Floyd wins by one. The gulls dive at Hurdey and Gurdi, but Hurdey has evasion through Gurdi, and they take nothing. Floyd boards the remaining ship, which is still anchored.
45. 1:11:46 The table jokes about the “circle of friendship/trust” when Floyd accidentally draws a circle on the map (table talk).
46. 1:12:31 The Kraken. Near the island, the water ripples, and giant tentacles burst up around the boats. A Kraken roars (“I haven’t met a Kraken in person yet”). Harpoon guns on the boats can spear the tentacles and reel them in. The pillows turn back into weapons.
47. 1:14:21 The egg barrage. Gurdi’s butt pops out of the backpack and he fires flaming eggs (Ancient Way of the Egg) at a tentacle. All four hit and explode in big flaming yolks. The Kraken roars (“I don’t like that!”). Arbiter: “I don’t want to hear anything the next time I make dragon sounds.” GM: “The sound is traveling underwater.”
48. 1:17:24 The GM has been staring at a lot of water and needs the bathroom, so they take a break (cut).

Round 3: kelp, fire and Clanky

49. 1:17:44 Luci hauls up the anchor and the second captain sails them out. Floyd’s fedora grows two pounds heavier for the earlier m’lady: “Oh! My neck! It’s gonna be horrible for my beard.” Luci moves the spiritual weapon to a tentacle and hits for max damage.
50. 1:21:23 The golden ward. With his hasted action, Hurdey spends five of his golden feathers to give Gurdi a protective ward. He harpoons a tentacle and obliterates it: “you slice it in half and pieces of it go everywhere. Suction cups litter the floor of your deck.”
51. 1:23:15 Clanky. Hurdey looks overboard: “Clanky, remember that time we helped you out? Now it’s time to return the favor.” A metal construct shark rises behind a tentacle. It has a golden tooth and, for some reason, a blowhole (“because it’s poorly designed”). It’s actually only medium-sized. Both its bites miss. It does “that shark thing where its nose is right up against the tentacle, but its mouth is doing this.”
52. 1:26:06 The kelp garden. Floyd strides to the starboard side (“Yes, I am very nautical and awesome at the same time”). He casts Plant Growth under the rival ship. Rob points out that they’re actually on Floyd’s port side. A massive underwater kelp bush slows the rivals’ ship and blocks their forward harpoon shots. GM: “Just go trim the bushes.”
53. 1:28:23 Boo-woo. At the prow, Floyd calls: “Lord of all tentacles, hear my prayers. Those who try and attack you will do you harm… And in so, I speak the great word, boo-woo. Boo-woo.” He fails. The Kraken turns her gaze directly on his ship, unhappy. “She’s no lord, but ruler of the ocean.” “I should have known better.”
54. 1:29:43 Burning sails. For the first time today, Gurdi flies out of the backpack in an eruption of red feathers. He fires a flaming egg into Floyd and Luci’s sails, which go up “like they’re made of gasoline.” Their ship slows and trails smoke. Gurdi: “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but bird eggs will bloody burn ya!” (transcribed as “Drops and stones”). Then he fly-by-bombs the tentacles Clanky is chewing, “like the Valkyrie,” and dives back to the deck. The rival ship is still caught in the kelp.
55. 1:32:17 The Kraken slam. The Kraken rears and slams tentacles down on both ships. Gurdi dodges, and evasion shields both bird and bear. The others are hit hard.
56. 1:33:42 The crop-dusting. The butterfly notices that three of them never called to it. “You are now going to experience the butt in Butterfly”: it crop-dusts Hurdey, Gurdi and Luci. They all save, but their noses burn and they can taste “clearly what this butterfly has been eating.” Then it flies off.

Round 4: reaching the island

57. 1:35:07 Luci, “demonic ass looking satyr with fire behind me,” learns the island is 60 ft away past a Kraken with ten tentacles, spaced 10–15 ft apart. She mirthful-leaps off a plank moved to the prow, flies about 20 ft in an arc, lands water-walking and dodges. A tentacle slaps the water and misses: “It just looks like it’s playing in the water.”
58. 1:40:13 Rob slips and refers to himself as “Banjo.” The table chants “Ope!”
59. 1:41:35 Lethargy. Hurdey realizes Haste and Summon Construct both need concentration. Haste ends and lethargy hits him. He quickens a Dimension Door to the island, flavored as: “Gurdi, I’m feeling a little stunned.” Gurdi’s legs run up the much-too-steep netting to a little red platform with a red symbol, then they jump off and “fly” to the island.
60. 1:42:37 Floyd is alone on a burning boat. He looks at his mistress in amazement: “It is true what they say. It is not about the mirth, but the motion in the ocean.” He uses Hidden Paths to teleport 60 ft to the island. Then he casts Control Winds to drive “Hurdle and Gurdle” down into the Kraken’s waters. Hurdey: “My name is Hurdy Gurdy and you’re not going to do shit.” He counterspells it at 5th level. He knew the spell’s level because he has it prepared himself.
61. 1:45:21 Everyone reaches the island, where a different boat is already beached.

The island: the riddles

62. 1:45:37 Second clue: “The dead miss their tunes. Sing them a song with twos to find your next clue.” Wisdom saves; at least one on each team passes. Both members of a team must sing the same song.
63. 1:46:24 The duet. Hurdey and Gurdi are both proficient in the hurdy-gurdy. They swap to a four-stringed, long-necked instrument with a round, vellum-skinned body. Gurdi tunes his (“ding ding ding…”) and they scat at length. Floyd objects that he heard no singing. “Scatting is singing.” They only made the sounds while moving the instruments: “we can’t play instruments.” The performance succeeds.
64. 1:48:44 The anthem. Floyd: “Are you ready, mistress? We’ve practiced long and hard.” Luci puts her arm around his shoulders and they sway. Floyd sings “Oh, say can you see?” and Luci answers “By the dawn’s early light.” Their performance succeeds too.
65. 1:49:38 From now on, teams act together on one initiative. Hurdey and Gurdi roll a nat 1: “You’re way too busy focusing on your music.” They lose a round, so Floyd and Luci get two turns first. “Are you rushing or are you dragging?… Not quite my tempo.”
66. 1:50:43 Final clue: “You may only have one treasure at a time, so you must give the heart of your ally as a fine. Burn their passion and you will find the treasure you seek in kind.” Hurdey: “I think we have to kill each other.”
67. 1:51:28 The island. It has lots of sand, small seagulls, a bird, a hawk and a few monkeys. An old graveyard with scattered bones leads up to a temple flanked by two giant but low pillars, each with a platform marked with a scale.
68. 1:52:16 Floyd and Luci dash up to the pillars (“we shall move together the swiftness of the bond that we share.” “What?”).
69. 1:53:12 The minotaur. The Arbiter rolls a nat 20 (“Did we just get laid? Or murdered?” “It depends on what you’re into”). He raises a hand toward the graveyard, and the skeleton of a dead minotaur bursts out of the sand with a large axe. It hits Floyd hard. Arbiter: “Welcome to the Thunderdome.”
70. 1:56:09 The waifu sacrifice. Luci: “I would like to take Floyd’s body pillow. I would like to cut it open and set it on fire on one of the pillars.” Floyd: “If mistress wants this, then mistress wants this.” A single anime tear rolls down his cheek. Luci finally swings her “big boy maul” and hits the minotaur twice; bones crack and crumble.
71. 1:59:13 She lit the pillow with her tinderbox, candles and incense, because she’s “technically a religious person.” As it burns, the waifu seems to become animated for a moment and a tear drops from her face. Then: ash. Nothing happens. “She burned my waifu pillow for nothing?” Luci: “Wildly unfortunate. Well, I guess you know what we gotta do, bud.”
72. 2:00:22 In rage over losing his waifu, Floyd grabs the undead minotaur’s wrist and casts Inflict Wounds. The bones go brittle, and blood splatters from the skeleton (“The blood is in the bones.” “Don’t ask questions”).
73. 2:01:26 The sandworms. Floyd hunts for bugs and finds two sandworms: mealworm-like, hard-shelled, with a hundred legs (“I guess I’m describing a centipede to you.” “It may look like a centipede, we call it a sandworm”). He casts Giant Insect on them. One misses the minotaur. The other lands a weak hit that “goes up and tickles the bones… tap, tap, tap.” It then moves halfway toward Hurdey and Gurdi and lies in wait.
74. 2:04:57 Beak Buster. “It’s okay. We’ll practice later in rehearsal.” A giant green circle with chicken legs drawn on it appears in front of Hurdey. He jumps on it, Gurdi’s legs spring them high (Jump), and they come down in the middle of the group. Gurdi’s beak slams into the ground with a thunderclap (Beak Buster). It’s loud but weak, and everyone saves (“Wow, oh no, you potato”). Luci: “For a sorcerer? You fucking weirdo.” Rob: “I’m not playing a sorcerer. I’m playing Hurdey.”
75. 2:07:14 The heart burned. Gurdi shakes his beak and launches an egg from his cloaca straight up. It catches the wind, veers back and hits Hurdey “straight in the heart.” Gurdi channels it into a Burning Hands that engulfs Hurdey, the minotaur, Floyd and the sandworm. Hurdey: “Is this because I keep using your head to pound the ground?” Gurdi: “That’s because you said you didn’t like my music.” “Bird brain.” Hurdey willingly takes the full blast. Floyd: “You know what they say, there’s no fire in team.” GM: “What fortune cookie did you open up?”
76. 2:10:36 Hurdey’s death. “Oh, this is more painful than anything I’ve ever felt.” The GM asks him to describe his death. Everything goes quiet in his mind. A slow, serene fire burns, and the crackling throws sparks that become little musical notes with faces. They smile, dance and bounce around his head like cartoon birds. He looks up at them: “Well, I guess I’m not going to be in the sequel.” Then he hits the ground.
77. 2:11:57 A sad tear drops from the acolytes high above, almost like rain, mourning his death. His heart is completely disintegrated. Only Gurdi can see the two chests that now appear behind their enemies. “Chests can be dangerous. So choose carefully.”
78. 2:12:42 The breathing chest. Gurdi studies them closely. The one on the right is very slightly breathing; its lid rises a centimeter and falls. To avoid Luci’s opportunity attack, he moves around her and grabs the chest that isn’t breathing.
79. 2:15:29 Mimics. It’s a mimic. “The one that was breathing is a baby mimic, because it doesn’t know how to hold its breath as well.” It has a little pacifier in its mouth, with odd-angled teeth around it. Dag adds that the pacifier “is also a tinier baby mimic.” Gurdi, flustered, cries “ow!” as the big mimic’s tongue lashes and misses. He slaps the mimics aside and sees something shiny and gold underneath them: “As long as you touch it, you claim it.”
80. 2:17:42 Rob asks whether Floyd’s head is on the ground yet from the fedora. Floyd: “It is 16 pounds tall. No fedora could ever hold me down.”
81. 2:19:20 The foster attempt. Only Hurdey’s feet and fingertips remain. Floyd takes one of Hurdey’s feet, kneels and offers it to the baby mimic: “It’s okay. You’re okay.” It eats the foot. With his poor roll, “now it knows you are food. Food comes from you.” It eyes his feet (“there’s no meat on these feet… very tiny feet”). Floyd: “Listen, I can foster a mimic, okay? I’ll fill out the paperwork.”
82. 2:21:24 The nipple. The acolytes scream “breastfeed it.” Floyd, already shirtless: “I will suckle it to my bosom.” The mimic crits, biting his nipple for piercing and acid damage. “My nipple is gone! I needed that nipple!… This is what I get, Acolytes, for trying to spread my love.” GM: “Don’t shove your nipple in random animals’ faces.”
83. 2:22:38 Luci finishes it. Luci and the minotaur just watch: “huh, that was something.” Luci, re Floyd: “Hey, you paid 50 cents for this show, okay? Listen, he’s a cheap fighter.” She runs at Gurdi and swings her maul at his beak with a Divine Smite. Hurdey’s golden-feather ward absorbs most of it. Her second swing and last smite drop him: “That’s what I built this lady for.” Gurdi: “No, no, I’m not, because I’m a chicken. And not a coward like some people.”
84. 2:27:05 Gurdi’s death. The smite knocks Gurdi flying into the big mimic’s mouth, where he is chomped and torn apart. But one of his wings snaps off, floats to the ground and touches the gold beneath the mimic, which only he could see.
85. 2:27:55 The ruling. GM: “Technically, as you have touched the chest first in your moment of death, you have won. Your soul and Hurdey’s soul will be at rest. However, the treasure of the inside of that chest will not belong to you.” The mimics, full from the nipple and from Gurdi, wander off. The golden chest opens, pushing Gurdi’s wing aside.
86. 2:28:42 The treasure. A golden long body pillow showing a beautiful figure with adorable ears and a tail. The tail is separate and wraps around you while you hold the pillow. Floyd: “Something, something, the friends we’ve won along the way bullshit. Body pillow’s mine.”
87. 2:29:17 Sign-off. GM: “So ends our gauntlet. Blood has been shed. We have pushed ourselves to the ultimate limit. And even in death, have we found ourselves still going that extra mile. Remember my acolytes, never give up. May you remember the lessons you’ve learned here at the Dread Fortress. Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch.” A long scream follows.