S4E1 — Shadows Reign — Atalantos v Kaja

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Season 4 opened on the worst birthday party in the history of The Void. With The Arbiter dead and the Grandmaster in chains, The Shadow King dug up the two heroes who once helped her defeat him: Atalantos, the spear of Cor’thun, and Kaja, the Grandmaster’s lost love. He raised them from the dead and set them against each other in his own former home. It was a brutal, elegant duel between old friends, punctuated by goblin tea service, a door that demanded to be knocked on, and a brand-new Box of Chaos built from a random audience member’s soul.

The Story

A Void in Turmoil

The Void looked different this time around. Storms raged across every land. Fire and hail poured from the sky, tornadoes tore through crops and homes, earthquakes rumbled, and lightning of every colour danced overhead. The volcanoes around The Dread Fortress erupted without pause. Nothing dared fly or walk those lands, and only magic could get anyone inside its walls.

Elusia clanked down a hallway with heavy weights on her ankles, wrists and neck. Her uncle had summoned her to a throne room he had redecorated in his own theme. Her crown was gone. “What is it that you want?” she demanded.

“Elusia. Happy birthday,” said the Shadow King. She held up the gold bracelets inscribed with magical runes that weighed her down, and he told her not to be sour: “You’re another year older. And maybe wiser. I’m not sure. We’ll find out.” She refused the party hat. When he offered “the continuation of your little Deathmatch,” she called the amulet he had given her cursed magic, threw it at his feet and spat. “No one’s that desperate, except for you.” He snapped his fingers, and the amulet was back around her neck.

Old Friends

The Shadow King had invited “some of your closest friends.” Two stone sarcophagi rose from the shadows at Elusia’s feet. Their lids flew off to reveal the skeletal remains of Atalantos and Kaja. He had been “filling myself in on the history of what became of everyone after our little spat years ago,” which was the defeat he suffered at the end of Skypiercer. When Elusia asked how he could do this, he answered, “It was easy. It was a little bit of cursed magic, as you like to say.” She lingered a moment longer over Kaja’s bones. Kaja had been her love in the years after Skypiercer, until she died a natural death.

He snapped again. The bones creaked, the flesh grew back, and both champions stood up wrapped in a shadowy, ethereal haze. Atalantos woke first: “You raise my bones. You give me life once more. But if more death must come, then I will surely bring it.” Elusia tried to explain, but her restraints tightened on her body and on what she was able to say. “It is the Shadow King’s will. And you must fight once again, dear friends.”

Neither champion flinched. “What say you, Kaja? Care to dance with death?” asked Atalantos. Kaja sighed that this was a headache she was used to: “I was having such a great time on the other side.” Elusia tried to step toward them and found her feet frozen in place. She reminded them that they had set the standard in the very first Deathmatch. Atalantos warned Kaja that she might have grown weaker: “Every scar is a lesson. And if we are to do battle, then I will teach you many.”

The Shadow King rose. Portals opened in every street, town and dwelling across the Void, and The Acolytes filed into the stands. “Elusia, lead them to my home.”

Into the Obelisk

“Very well. And may we make it to ruins.” Elusia pulled the champions through to The Shadow King’s old home, a tall obelisk in his old realm and kingdom. Red vines now covered it, crawling over the walls and floors. They looked dead, yet they poured out blood and drank it back “as if it’s the very breath it takes.” The entrance was locked by an eye that twitched and watched every move.

“My dear friends, my dear love, please fight well,” Elusia told them. Then, embarrassed to be seen in chains, she flew up to the Acolytes. She promised them the arena was a refuge from their wrecked lands: their blood would not be spilled, but the champions’ would be, “as a sacrifice and a hope of protection.” She presented the pair as more than champions: “These are the gods that laid the groundwork for all that you see today.” Then she sat beside a tiny throne, empty of its small pug.

The new host was less polished. “That certainly was dramatic. I don’t really know what to do here. This is my first time.” Elusia had to coach him on how to start a fight.

The Dance Begins

Atalantos looked over the blood-soaked field and called it a mockery, offering to make the fight “quick and easy and forgettable.” Kaja would not hear of it: “When have I ever done anything plainly and without elegance? Of course, let’s put on a dance.” He slammed his spear into the ground. Crackling crimson power ran over his arm, torso and helmet and then froze over into ice. Then he did something that was a first: he took a defensive stance and let her strike first.

Kaja circled him, trailing a hand along his arm. “They say that the more experienced dancer should lead.” Shadows writhed up her body into a dress, spectral hands formed pauldrons, a robe and a cloak, and her skin melted away into a visage of pure undeath. Atalantos pointed his spear and cursed her eyes, and all three of her eldritch bolts went wide.

Elusia clapped, and a small goblin hurried out with a tray of freshly brewed tea for Kaja. “They’re not to be hit. That’s Theodore, and he’s very nice.” When the Shadow King took over the pug’s usual job of rolling for the Acolytes’ chaos, he flubbed it completely. “You are a loser!” Elusia cried, falling out of her seat laughing. “Back in my day,” he grumbled, “people just murdered each other the old-fashioned way.”

The first chaos event came from the door. A voice rumbled from deep in the ground: “You didn’t knock. Everybody knocks.” The eye blazed purple and red and fired lasers. Atalantos deflected the beam off his shield without even looking, his eyes never leaving Kaja. The Shadow King was offended on the door’s behalf: “You know that door was imported from France, right?” The Grandmaster couldn’t manage the accent, so the door’s homeland drifted to Belgium and then Bangladesh. That briefly broke even Atalantos’s focus.

Two Lessons, Two Scars

Atalantos charged, banging his spear on his shield. His first jab took off one of Kaja’s ears, and his second cut her leg. Kaja answered with a sickening crack as bone wings burst from her spine, and she called on the lower planes to make her immune to fire and poison. As she rose, Atalantos grabbed her ankle with his shield arm and dragged her back down. “You are exactly where I wanted you,” she purred, touched his face, and drank the life “from your very lips.”

When the door bellowed for a knock a second time, Atalantos obliged by throwing Kaja at it. The laser couldn’t burn her anymore. The door, however, turned out to be a mimic. It sprouted giant teeth and chomped her, and it kept biting whoever stood closest for the rest of the night.

The New Box of Chaos

The Acolytes had earned a gift, and everyone looked up for the Box of Chaos. Nothing fell. Elusia turned on her uncle: “You were the box of chaos.” Unbothered, he plucked an Acolyte named Robert Hartley out of the stands. “Do me a favor and lend me your soul.” He ripped the soul out as a shadowy mass, shoved it into an empty box that slammed down from the sky, and pink and yellow flames shot upward. “The soul is weak. It could last only a match,” Elusia judged. “No one even knows that guy,” he agreed.

Atalantos encased Kaja in ice and seared the symbol of Cor’thun into her, filling her mind with the screams of its battlefield. “Look forward. Look at what I fight for. And now this will be the same thing you will die for.” He shattered the ice with his shield and sent her flying over the railing among the floating corpses. Then he kicked the box open. Rob crawled out: “Where am I? What the fuck is this?… I was sold in a box.” After a little haggling, during which Atalantos offered his dusty old first dagger, a dingy yellow tank top floated out. It was a robe of eyes that let its wearer see in the dark and spot the invisible. On Atalantos it became a crop top bearing the Death Club logo. “It does make my abs look bigger,” he admitted, “but that’s besides the point.”

Twice the Blood

The chaos piled up. From here on, every wound would cut twice as deep, and the pillars became lightning rods. When Kaja said the shock had really rattled her bones, Elusia replied, “I’d like to rattle your bones.” The one-eared Kaja asked her to speak up, Theodore leaned in to repeat it, and Atalantos found it “very, very graphic.” Atalantos rallied the crowd for Cor’thun, but his sweep at Kaja’s ankle went so wrong that she simply stepped over it and rested her foot on his spear. “Bold of you to assume that this is my only weapon,” he replied, and slammed his shield into her skull. She tumbled into a pool of thick, ankle-deep blood.

Kaja took to the air. “Dance for me, Atalantos.” Fuelled by Theodore’s tea (“I call upon the power of Earl!”), her bolts became skulls with gaping maws that smashed into him and shattered into black crystal. Dread filled him, but the chanting Acolytes reminded him of his soldiers. “You look very good in red,” Kaja told him. “And you look very good in dead,” he answered. When she flattered his eyes, he took off his battered helmet. One eye was divine gold, and the other writhed with shadow. “Get a good look at it, because this will be the last thing that you see.”

The Shadow King took notice. “You, warrior with the shadowy eye… One shadow being to another.” The blood rose and flooded the space, then crept into Atalantos’s mouth and shadow eye and healed his wounds.

The Fall of Atalantos

Atalantos asked the floating dead to lend him aid for the warrior’s death they never got. He drew a pulse of life from blood worms in the pool, though it only tickled the undead Kaja. “I am a man, simply put. A man with an unbroken will,” he told her, and asked for a glorious death. “If it’s by the blade you want to die, then consider your wish granted.” Threads of shadow fell from her fingertips, and the corpses rose as skeletons and swarmed him.

He holstered his spear and drew a massive greatsword. The spear of Cor’thun became the blade of Cor’thun. He killed the skeleton that had stabbed him and turned it against its mistress with his own blood. But his blinding strike missed, and the other skeletons cut him down. He looked up at “this almost flying angel of death.”

“Oh angel of death, what song will you sing us now?” asked Elusia. “I will sing the song of Atalantos. Once my friend, now a new plaything for my mistress.” He roared “I’m not dead yet. Again!” As the last blast came, a small smile crossed his face. He was not sad or angry. He was proud to see his friends once more. He looked to Elusia: “Finish this warrior. I know you can.” Atalantos fell.

One Last Gift

Kaja wasn’t done. She gathered the flames devouring Atalantos’s body like the threads of her dance and shaped them into the Sword of Cor’thun. Then she hurled it at the Shadow King. It pierced his chest. “Excellent showing,” he said, and stepped out from around the blade as though it were nothing. While Kaja kept his attention with her skeleton and blast after blast, Elusia crept up to take the sword. Without looking, he flung it into the crowd, where it stabbed an Acolyte named Prince Vegeta through the heart.

“I’m not giving up as long as you are here,” Elusia vowed, and punched him barehanded despite her shackles. Her fist sank into his incorporeal chest. “If we’ve had all of our fun for the day, I have one last gift to give you.” He vanished, appeared behind Kaja, and twisted her head off. Her body crumbled back into bones and splashed into the blood. He held the skull aloft. “Happy birthday!”

Dried Blood

Kaja was unrepentant: “Someone should kill him… I’ll do it again, and again, and again.” Atalantos concluded that the plan had been sound and only needed more hardware. Next time he would stab “with two spears rather than one.” The table quickly agreed that everyone should have more spears. Elusia suggested spears on the bottoms of feet and on arms, which was declared brilliant, and someone wondered why Cor’thun never thought of this earlier.

Notable Moments

• The Shadow King “celebrated” Elusia’s birthday by raising her dead friends and her love to kill each other.
• Atalantos opened the fight by letting Kaja hit him first, and took off one of her ears soon after.
• He “knocked” on the mimic door by throwing Kaja at it.
• The Shadow King built a new Box of Chaos out of an unknown Acolyte, Robert Hartley, who handed out a Death Club crop top.
• Atalantos died smiling, finally getting the warrior’s death he wanted.
• Kaja stabbed the Shadow King with a flaming Sword of Cor’thun. He tossed it into the crowd and then twisted her head off.

Memorable Quotes

Atalantos: “Every scar is a lesson. And if we are to do battle, then I will teach you many.”

The Shadow King: “Happy birthday!”

• Kaja: “This is a type of headache that I’m quite used to. I was having such a great time on the other side.”
• The Shadow King: “Back in my day, people just murdered each other the old-fashioned way.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “You were the box of chaos.”
• Robert Hartley’s soul: “I was sold in a box.”
• Atalantos: “And you look very good in dead.”
• Kaja: “I will sing the song of Atalantos. Once my friend, now a new plaything for my mistress.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Atalantos (Sensei_Suplex). Raised from his sarcophagus by the Shadow King’s cursed magic, his body covered in shadowy etherealness.

• A human Blood Hunter who calls himself “the spear of Cor’thun” and fights “for Cor’thun.” He carries a spear and shield, plus a greatsword on his back: the spear of Cor’thun becomes “the blade of Cor’thun.”
• One divine golden eye and one shadow-infested eye, which the Shadow King calls a kinship (“one shadow being to another”).
• Has a “dusty old” first dagger from his uncle, which he gave to Robert Hartley’s soul. Wins the Death Club robe-of-eyes crop top.
• Calls himself “an old man.” Creed: “every scar is a lesson.” He longs for a glorious warrior’s death and dies happy and proud.
• In this episode: Rite of the Frozen, Blood Curses of the Eyeless and the Fallen Puppet, the Brand of Castigation (the symbol of Cor’thun), Shield Master shoves, Tides of Vitality. Healed by the Shadow King’s blood. Killed by Kaja.

Kaja (stellalunaTV). Raised alongside Atalantos. She says she was “having such a great time on the other side.”

• Warlock: Form of Dread (a dress of shadows, ghostly hands, an undead face) and an otherworldly guise (bone wings; immune to fire and poison, and to necrotic during the fight).
• Spells: Eldritch Blast, Vampiric Touch, Danse Macabre (skeletons).
• A ballroom dancer (“the more experienced dancer should lead”). Atalantos calls her “a general.”
• Speaks of “my mistress” (who is not said). Lost an ear to Atalantos. Branded with the symbol of Cor’thun.
• Killed Atalantos. Pierced the Shadow King with a flame Sword of Cor’thun. Her head was twisted off by the Shadow King.

The Shadow King (Mudcat). Elusia’s uncle, back in power over the Dread Fortress; this is his “first time” hosting a Deathmatch.

• Raised Atalantos and Kaja with cursed magic and studied “what became of everyone after our little spat years ago.”
• Gave Elusia the cursed plane-opening amulet. Calls the obelisk arena “my home.” Imported its door “from France… an age ago.”
• Rebuilt the Box of Chaos by putting Robert Hartley’s soul in an empty box.
• Can turn incorporeal and teleport through shadow, and controls the blood.
• Rolled a nat 1 on his first chaos roll. Killed Kaja as Elusia’s “birthday gift.”

Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix). A captive: weights on her ankles, wrists and neck, gold rune bracelets, no crown.

• Her restraints also limit what she can say. Her feet froze when she tried to approach her friends.
• Today is her birthday. Something bloody happened on her 13th.
• Calls the Box of Chaos the Shadow King’s former job (“You were the box of chaos”).
• Tried and failed to steal the sword, then punched the Shadow King through his incorporeal chest.

Theodore — the goblin servant who serves Kaja tea (Earl Grey) and gives d4 inspiration. “Very nice.” Not to be hit.

Robert Hartley (“Rob”) — an Acolyte whose soul the Shadow King ripped out to power the new Box of Chaos. “I was sold in a box.” His soul is weak and may last only one match. Gave out the robe of eyes.

Prince Vegeta — an Acolyte stabbed in the heart by the thrown Sword of Cor’thun. Possibly alive (Caustic Phoenix, Dried Blood). Pronouns are unclear: Caustic Phoenix says “she.”

Earl — of the Caffeine Clan, Kaja’s tea-joke “warrior.” Atalantos wants to fight him.

The pug — the usual roller, absent; its tiny throne sits empty.

The door mimic — the eye-locked door of the obelisk. It demands a knock, fires lasers, and bites.

Places

• The Void in turmoil: storms, fire and hail, tornadoes, earthquakes, multicoloured lightning.
• The Dread Fortress amid constant volcanic eruptions. Reachable only by magic. The Shadow King’s throne room is redecorated in his theme.
• The Shadow King’s old home: an obelisk covered in blood-drinking red vines, with a pool of blood, floating corpses, blood worms, pillars (lightning rods for the night) and a railing.
• Cor’thun: its battlefield screams, its symbol, and its spear, blade and sword.

Items

• The cursed plane-opening amulet. The gold rune bracelets and weights.
• The new Box of Chaos (Robert Hartley’s soul).
• The robe of eyes as a dingy yellow Death Club crop top.
• Atalantos’s first dagger.
• The Sword of Cor’thun, now in the Void and lodged in an Acolyte.
• Theodore’s tea.

Lore statements

• The Shadow King was the Box of Chaos (Elusia, 0:47:46). He can make a new one from an Acolyte’s soul.
• Atalantos and Kaja fought in “the very first” Deathmatch and are worshipped by the Acolytes as gods and deities.
• The Arbiter is dead and the Grandmaster is captured (YouTube blurb).
• The arena is offered as the Acolytes’ refuge from the storms, with the champions’ blood “a sacrifice and a hope of protection.”

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the Void in turmoil

1. 0:05:34 Caustic Phoenix narrates. The Void “looks different this time around.” Storms brew across the land: fire and hail pour from the sky, tornadoes destroy crops and homes, earthquakes rumble, and lightning of every colour dances across the sky. The volcanic eruptions around the Dread Fortress are volatile and constant. “Nothing dares fly or walk these lands; only mere magic now gets you inside these walls.”
2. Elusia clanks down the hallway with heavy weights on her ankles, wrists and neck. She has been summoned by her uncle, the Shadow King. She barges into the room, which is now decorated in his own theme. “What is it that you want?”
3. 0:06:53 The Shadow King: “Elusia. Happy birthday.” She holds up her wrists to show the gold bracelets inscribed with magical runes that weigh on her. He tells her not to be sour: “You’re another year older. And maybe wiser. I’m not sure. We’ll find out.” Elusia refuses the party hat, and she is “sans crown” this time.
4. 0:07:39 — The amulet. The Shadow King offers “the continuation of your little Deathmatch.” Elusia refuses. She says the amulet he gave her is cursed magic (“You don’t open or walk through planes with that”). She throws it at his feet and spits: “No one’s that desperate, except for you.” He snaps his fingers and the amulet reappears around her neck.
5. 0:08:11 — The guests. He says he has prepared a grand celebration and invited “some of your closest friends.” Two stone sarcophagi rise out of the shadows at her feet. The lids fly off to reveal the skeletal remains of Atalantos and Kaja. “My friends.” He explains: “I’ve been filling myself in on the history of what became of everyone after our little spat years ago.”
6. 0:09:07 Elusia: “How could you do this?” She lingers a moment longer over Kaja’s remains. The Shadow King: “It was easy. It was a little bit of cursed magic, as you like to say.”
7. 0:09:25 — The raising. He snaps without waiting for an answer. The bones creak, the flesh regrows, and both are covered in a shadowy etherealness as they stand.
8. 0:09:59 Elusia apologizes: “we’re bound now in this order.” Atalantos wakes: “You raise my bones. You give me life once more. But if more death must come, then I will surely bring it… Elusia, what is the meaning of all of this?” Elusia says it was a trick and a trap. She feels the restraints tighten, both on her body and on what she is able to say: “It is the Shadow King’s will. And you must fight once again, dear friends.”
9. 0:11:13 Atalantos: “So be it. What say you, Kaja? Care to dance with death?” Kaja: “This is a type of headache that I’m quite used to. I was having such a great time on the other side. I suppose there’s only one way out of this… Elusia, you seem a bit in a bind.”
10. 0:11:47 Elusia tries to step toward them, but her feet seem frozen. She says they “set the standard of the Deathmatch in the very first one” and have been drawn back “in this perversion of magic.” Atalantos answers that they embrace battle and death: “If it’s to be against one another, then personally, I’d have it no other way.” Kaja: “I have never been one to say no to a fight.” Atalantos warns Kaja that she may have grown weaker: “Every scar is a lesson. And if we are to do battle, then I will teach you many.”
11. 0:13:43 Elusia: “How I’ve missed this banter… I will make sure that your names will echo once again. Are you happy enough, Shadow King?” He is delighted: “I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate your birthday.”
12. 0:14:25 — The portals. The Shadow King rises from his throne. Shadows swirl into a portal under their feet, and across the Void portals open in every street, town, city and dwelling as the Acolytes file into the stands. “Elusia, lead them to my home.”

The arena — the Shadow King’s old home

13. 0:15:04 Elusia: “Very well. And may we make it to ruins.” She pulls both champions through to the old home, realm and kingdom of the Shadow King: a tall obelisk. It is now covered in red vines dripping blood. The vine-creature crawls along the walls and floors and seems dead, yet it both pours out and drinks blood “as if it’s the very breath it takes.” The entrance door is locked with an eye that twitches and watches your every move. The ground is uneven with vines, but the stone foundation is still strong.
14. 0:15:59 Elusia to the champions: “My dear friends, my dear love, please fight well.” Embarrassed to be seen in chains, she flies up to the Acolytes. She tells them she hears their pain: their lands are wrecked, but the arena is a refuge. “Your blood will not be spilled, but theirs will be as a sacrifice and a hope of protection.” She presents Atalantos and Kaja as more than champions: “These are the gods that laid the groundwork for all that you see today. These are the deities whose feet and tombs we have worshiped, praying for their return.”
15. 0:17:04 She sits next to a tiny throne that sits empty of its small pug.
16. 0:18:16 The Shadow King: “That certainly was dramatic. I don’t really know what to do here. This is my first time.” Elusia coaches him to call initiative.

Round 1

17. 0:18:46 Both roll low on initiative (Elusia: “I just gave you the best hype speech I possibly could”). Kaja asks for advantage because she’s inspired. The narration: “Unfortunately, she doesn’t make the rules here anymore.” The Shadow King steps into the shadows and reappears beside Elusia.
18. 0:19:47 — Atalantos opens. He looks over the blood-soaked field and asks Kaja what she makes of it: “A mockery of the past… They seem to make us fight as if we are animals caged here… shall we make this quick and easy and forgettable? The choice is yours.” Kaja: “When have I ever done anything plainly and without elegance? Of course, let’s put on a dance.”
19. 0:20:56 He slams his spear into the ground. Familiar electricity crackles over his arm, torso and helmet as his Crimson Rite (Blood Hunter) activates, then freezes over: the Rite of the Frozen. “Take your best shot.” He takes the Dodge action and lets her strike first. Mudcat: “That is a first.” Elusia: “I love the energy, Atalantos. You never lost it for a second.” Atalantos: “I will gain many stars in this fight, and all of them… will lead to what I truly wish for, their head at the end of my weapon.”
20. 0:23:25 — Kaja’s Form of Dread. She circles him, trailing a hand along his arm: “They say that the more experienced dancer should lead.” Shadows writhe up her body into a dress; spectral ghostly hands form pauldrons, a robe and a cloak. One hand crawls up her face, and her skin melts away into a visage of pure undeath. She moves 30 ft toward the stairs and dances “with a practiced grace of someone who’s seen many a ballroom.”
21. 0:25:00 Atalantos points his spear at her and casts Blood Curse of the Eyeless: her vision goes null for a moment. All three of her Eldritch Blasts miss. “The shadows are just tickling you, I guess.” Atalantos jokes about their bones creaking as they get used to their bodies again.
22. 0:27:15 — Tea service. Elusia (“Oh, my hip”) claps her hands, and a small goblin runs out carrying a tray with freshly brewed tea for Kaja. It stands at the side as her serving table. “They’re not to be hit. That’s Theodore, and he’s very nice.” The Shadow King asks whether she always interferes. Elusia: “We don’t even have wolves in this map.” “Would you like some?” “No, no.” Kaja takes a final sip and sets it aside.
23. 0:28:36 Elusia asks the Shadow King for a d20 roll, the job the pug normally does. He rolls a nat 1. “You are a loser!” Elusia falls out of her seat laughing. Shadow King: “I’m not accustomed to these shenanigans. Back in my day, people just murdered each other the old-fashioned way.” Elusia stands in as “temporary” pug and rolls a 13: “And that’s how it’s done.” The Acolytes have summoned two chaos events.

Chaos event — the door that wants a knock

24. 0:30:08 Atalantos rolls a 5. A voice rumbles from deep in the ground: “You didn’t knock. Everybody knocks.” The eye in the door turns vibrant purple with flames, burns red at the centre and fires laser beams (“Clearly it’s an eyesore”). Atalantos rolls a nat 20 on the Dex save and gets a bonus reaction. Without even looking, he deflects the laser off his shield; his eyes never leave Kaja, and he goes on waiting for her to hit him. Kaja takes fire damage. The door rattles: “No one has knocked!”
25. 0:33:25 The Shadow King: “You know that door was imported from France, right? I had it put in an age ago.” Caustic Phoenix can’t do the accent, so it becomes Belgium and then Bangladesh. Atalantos breaks focus: “Wait, Bangla, what? Whatever. Focus, battle, yes.”

Round 2

26. 0:34:06 Atalantos bangs his spear on his shield, walking, then jogging, then sprinting: “If you wish to run and hide, then let the battle come towards you.” His jab almost takes off Kaja’s ear, and the blood freezes as the rite kicks in. Kaja’s player confirms it: “You take off one of their ears.” His second, a slashing arc, cuts her leg: “Keep your eyes on the battlefield. You can flee, but you will meet your fate all the same.” So far he has given her “two lessons… two scars.”
27. 0:37:05 Shadow King: “I thought that these two showed a little bit more, I don’t know, chutzpah when we last fought.” Elusia: “Your commentary really bores me. If you keep this up, I’ll cut my ear off as well.” “I would just reattach it and force you to listen to me for an eon.” Elusia: “Kaja, go kick his ass!”
28. 0:37:30 — The wings. Kaja uses her otherworldly guise: with a sickening crack, bone-skeletal wings break out of her spine and unfurl. She calls on the lower planes to become immune to fire and poison, and flies up 20 ft.
29. 0:38:40 Atalantos takes his opportunity attack as a grapple instead. He grabs her by the ankle with his shield arm and drags her down (15 vs 11): “Where are you running?” Kaja: “You are exactly where I wanted you.” She touches his face and casts Vampiric Touch, a nat 20, drinking the life “from your very lips.” Elusia lets her heal for the full amount: “Yum yum.” Kaja: “You can hold on for as long as you like. I will too.”
30. 0:42:32 Atalantos sees the corpses lying about: “You toy with me… Bring upon your minions and let the army fight against the spear of Cor’thun.” Elusia: “That gauntlet has been thrown.”
31. 0:43:23 — The second knock. The voice: “No one has knocked on my door!” (in a failed French accent). Atalantos is exempt this time thanks to his nat 20. He says, “If you wish for me to knock on it so bad, then here, let me deliver a corpse to you,” and throws the grappled Kaja at the door as his knock. The laser can’t hurt her, since she is now immune to fire. Giant teeth appear and chomp her. The door is also a door mimic, and from now on it gnaws at whatever is closest while staying on its hinges. Kaja seems unfazed. Atalantos: “Be aware of your battlefield and of the opponents in front of you.”

The new Box of Chaos — Robert Hartley

32. 0:47:07 Elusia “demands” a roll; the Shadow King balks at “demand.” She rephrases (“Sir, would you please grace us…”), and he rolls a 19. “Feels 18 better than the last time.”
33. 0:47:46 A gift should be due. The Acolytes and Elusia look up expecting the Box of Chaos to rain down. Nothing comes. Elusia to the Shadow King: “You’re supposed to be a box of chaos… That was you. That was your job… You were the box of chaos.” Shadow King: “The box, box of chaos, that’s the best name you could come up with?” “It was descriptive. You weren’t here, you can’t critique it.”
34. 0:48:43 He asks the Acolytes whether they want chaos, then picks one out of the crowd: “You! Robert Hartley!” He lifts him out of the stands: “Do me a favor and lend me your soul.” He rips out the soul as a shadowy mass. An empty box slams down from the sky, and he shoves the soul inside. Pink and yellow flames shoot into the sky, and froth pours out “like a giant fog machine” (Elusia: “Last Airbender style”).
35. 0:49:52 Shadow King: “I’m not sure it’ll hold up very long, but it depends on the soul.” Elusia: “The soul is weak. It could last only a match.” “Then I guess it will be destroyed.” “No one really cares.” “No one even knows that guy.” Elusia tells the champions that the box, “Robert Hartley,” will give “great gifts… at least okay gifts, maybe some mediocre gifts.” Both champions earn hero points. “Just make sure you don’t die before it happens. Well, die permanently.” Kaja: “A very important distinction.”

Round 3

36. 0:51:50 Atalantos strikes twice to build an icy prison around Kaja. Both hit. He brands her with the Brand of Castigation, searing the symbol of Cor’thun into her. She is immune to its heat, but her mind fills with the screams of the battlefield of Cor’thun. “Look forward. Look at what I fight for. And now this will be the same thing you will die for.”
37. 0:53:33 — The yeet. He spends his hero point on a Shield Master shove (athletics 26 with advantage). He slams his shield into her, shattering the ice, and sends her flying over the railing into the area where the corpses lie. “Running again, very well. Making an old man walk every time.”
38. 0:55:01 — The box opens. He kicks the box open, and Rob screams from inside. Kaja: “There’s someone in there. Be a little more respectful.” A shadowy figure crawls out: “Where am I? What the fuck is this?… I was sold in a box.” Kaja: “Are you the gift?” Rob: “I don’t know… What are you going to give me?”
39. 0:57:52 — The tank top. The lid flips open: “Here, I don’t know, this was laying around down there.” A dingy, yellow, beat-up tank top floats out. It is a robe of eyes (advantage on perception, 120 ft darkvision, sees invisible creatures). Elusia asks for it as a crop top, and it is one on Atalantos (“Show us those abs!”). At Atalantos’s request it carries the Death Club logo. Atalantos: “What is this? Is this branding?” Kaja: “It looks good on you.” Atalantos: “It does make my abs look bigger, but that’s besides the point… Thank you, strange spirit.” Rob: “Whatever, leave me alone!” Atalantos gives a thumbs up.
40. 0:59:21 Kaja: “You don’t have to be quite so rough when our dance is not over yet.” Her Vampiric Touch misses. The goblin rushes up with more tea, giving her a d4. Kaja: “It’s funny that you think you’re winning, Atalantos.” Atalantos: “You called yourself a general, yet I see you fighting only by yourself. Were your men at arms, or was it all lies?” Kaja: “Oh, they’re coming… I’ve got to soften you up a bit first.”
41. 1:01:21 Break announced and cut. A third chaos event has also been summoned.

Chaos events — double damage and lightning pillars

43. 1:02:08 Elusia “spares a bone” to the Shadow King, since “there’s no dog to catch this,” and lets him roll too. Kaja rolls a nat 20: all damage is doubled from here on. “I hope that you all brought your first aid kit.” The Shadow King’s 16: the pillars turn into lightning rods that shock anyone within 5 ft. “Shocking, isn’t it?” Shadow King: “Your joke is bad and you should feel bad.” Kaja: “That one really rattled my bones.” Elusia: “I’d like to rattle your bones.” Kaja: “I only have one ear. You have to speak up.” The goblin leans in: “She wants to rattle your bones.” Atalantos: “I feel like that’s just very, very graphic.”
44. 1:04:42 The Shadow King snaps for round four. There is a brief mix-up over whether Kaja had already acted, and it is settled.

Round 4

45. 1:05:31 Atalantos: “Acolytes is what they’ve called these individuals… Tonight, we fight for Cor’thun, and Cor’thun wishes their demise. So grab your arms, your swords, your spears, and your staffs.” His arm glows with divine light. The first thrust misses, and the follow-up sweep at her ankle is a nat 1: Kaja steps over it and rests her foot on his spear. “You’re going to have to swing faster and harder than that.” “Bold of you to assume that this is my only weapon.” He slams his shield into her skull and knocks her into the pool of blood, then drops down after her. The blood is ankle-deep, thick and mucusy, “perhaps also not human.”
46. 1:08:24 Kaja flies up 20 ft: “Dance for me, Atalantos.” She fires three Eldritch Blasts, all hitting, one boosted by the goblin’s tea: “Oh yes, the power of Earl Grey… I call upon the power of Earl!” Shadow King: “Who is this Earl? Is he a mighty warrior?” Kaja: “Warrior of the Caffeine Clan.” Atalantos: “If I live, may I fight him?” Elusia: “He will keep you up at night.” With doubled damage and her grave touch, he takes about 68. The shadows become corporeal skulls with gaping maws that slam into him and shatter into black crystal. He fails the save and is frightened: “A sense of dread fills you.”
47. 1:12:18 The fans scream his name, and Elusia grants him a d6 inspiration from the crowd. He hears the chanting of soldiers, “brothers and sisters in arms.” He is a bloodied mess but ready to fight harder.
48. 1:13:12 Kaja: “You look very good in red.” Atalantos: “And you look very good in dead.… Should I take off my helmet for you this time?” Kaja: “Because you have pretty eyes… Your eyes, they glisten like the night sky” (persuasion 22).
49. 1:14:35 — The eyes. He takes off his battered helmet. He is human, with one divine golden eye and one eye writhing in shadow, “as if it’s being infested with the likes of demonic beings,” as in the previous mini-campaign. “Get a good look at it, because this will be the last thing that you see.” Kaja: “I’m counting on it.”
50. 1:15:44 — The Shadow King’s gift. “I’m getting the hang of all of this.” He stands: “You, warrior with the shadowy eye.” Atalantos: “Aye. What is it that you seek?” “Nothing. But to give you a gift.” “One shadow being to another.” The blood rises until the whole space fills. It creeps up Atalantos’s legs, through his armour, into his mouth and into his shadow eye, healing him for 40. He slams the spear down, and blood explodes upward as his wounds mend.

Round 5

51. 1:17:45 Atalantos addresses the floating corpses: “You all have died. Deaths that you might not have been proud of. Not receiving a true warrior’s death. Then fine, at least lend me your aid for mine.” He runs up the wall, kicks off, stakes the spear into the ground like a flag, and the blood forms a massive sphere that bursts out as a wave: Tides of Vitality. The bodies are 100% dead, but blood worms soaking in the blood give him a pulse of life. There are four. He heals 22, but Kaja is immune to necrotic: “Ooh, that tickles.”
52. 1:21:15 Atalantos: “I am a man, simply put. A man with an unbroken will… Please, give me my only wish and a glorious warrior’s death.” Kaja: “Fine, enough playing around then.”
53. 1:22:41 — Danse Macabre. “If it’s by the blade you want to die, then consider your wish granted.” Shadows pool between her palms, and threads descend from her fingertips onto the corpses floating by Atalantos. She raises them as skeletons (Elusia: “Skeletons look better doing the dance anyway”). Atalantos: “They barely even know how to stand.” Kaja: “They only know how to do one thing… Kill him.” Atalantos eyes the greatsword on his back. The four skeletons swarm him and one stabs him in the torso. “You, I like you.”
54. 1:26:34 The Shadow King asks for an end-of-round roll. Elusia: “Forget the roll. There’s blood everywhere.” Shadow King: “It’s not much of a birthday without a little blood.” Elusia: “Listen, that happened on my 13th. I don’t need this again.”

Round 6 — the fall of Atalantos

55. 1:27:19 “Do you remember when I said that this is a lesson for you?” He holsters spear and shield and draws the massive greatsword: “the spear of Cor’thun will turn into the blade of Cor’thun,” trading defence for damage. He kills the skeleton that struck him; the blade locks in its skull and it freezes over. “You wield your armies so carelessly. You focus on numbers, quantity rather than quality. … You, the one who struck me. How would you care to fight for Cor’thun?” With Blood Curse of the Fallen Puppet he turns the dead skeleton on Kaja, giving it his Crimson Rite at the cost of his own blood. It hits her.
56. 1:30:37 He throws blood in her eyes to blind her and strikes at the back of her neck, but misses. The other skeletons hit him with opportunity attacks. He crumples, looking up at “this almost flying angel of death.”
57. 1:32:15 Elusia: “Oh angel of death, what song will you sing us now?” Kaja: “I will sing the song of Atalantos. Once my friend, now a new plaything for my mistress.” Three final Eldritch Blasts. Atalantos: “I’m not dead yet. Again!”
58. 1:33:54 — His death. As the last blast comes, a small smile creeps onto his face. He is finally getting the warrior’s death he has longed for. He looks at the scars on Kaja and hopes she learned something. “He does not feel sad, he does not feel angry. He is happy, he is proud to see at least his friends once more.” He looks to Elusia: “Finish this warrior. I know you can.” The final blast strikes. Atalantos is down.

The Shadow King strikes

59. 1:35:22 With her hero point, Kaja controls the flames devouring his body. She pulls them like the threads of her Danse Macabre, forms them into the shape of the Sword of Cor’thun, and launches it at the Shadow King. It hits, with advantage “with the will of everyone behind you.” The sword pierces his chest. He looks down (“Excellent showing”), turns incorporeal, forms around the sword and steps out in front of it while the magic dissipates.
60. 1:37:26 Elusia hints to Kaja to keep his attention. Kaja orders her remaining skeleton to “Kill him!” and fires Eldritch Blast after Eldritch Blast while Elusia sneaks behind him to take the sword. Her stealth fails. Without looking, he flings the sword into the crowd, where it stabs right into Prince Vegeta’s heart.
61. 1:38:38 Shadow King: “Well, are we done here?” Elusia: “I’m not giving up as long as you are here.” She punches him barehanded, hampered by her shackles. He lets her hit him, and her fist sinks through his incorporeal chest.
62. 1:39:41 “If we’ve had all of our fun for the day, I have one last gift to give you.” He vanishes from around her arm, appears behind Kaja, grabs her head with shadowy hands and twists it off. Her body reverts to a skeleton and falls into the blood. He holds up the skull: “Happy birthday!”
63. 1:40:14 “Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

• Kaja: “Someone should kill him.… I’ll do it again, and again, and again.”
• Atalantos: “I will make sure to stab them again with two spears rather than one. Then it will work, I’m sure.” The table riffs that everyone needs spears (“Why didn’t Cor’thun think of this earlier?”; Elusia: put spears on the bottoms of feet and on arms; “Brilliant, Elusia”).

Creator notes (out-of-character):

• Mudcat: “this whole thing was just one big fucked up birthday party for the Grandmaster.” Caustic Phoenix: “There’s nothing worse than bringing your dead friends back to life and then killing them again.”
• Caustic Phoenix: “I want us to remember the Sword of Cor’thun is now here in the Void. One of the Acolytes has it.” Mudcat: Prince Vegeta has it through their chest. Caustic Phoenix: “Surely they’re not dead. I think she’s alive still.”
• Stella’s favourite moment: Atalantos’s throws and mobility, a dynamic battle. Sensei: he likes “little stupid anime fights” and how a battle evolves like a story. His favourite was Kaja’s flaming-sword strike at the Shadow King. Kaja: “Just wanted to leave a scar on the Shadow King in honor of Atalantos.”
• Mudcat: the strike let him remind chat “that the Shadow King is now ten times more powerful than he ever was.” He enjoyed tying the Shadow King in after Skypiercer: “you had the victory at the end of Skypiercer but then you get to be resurrected and figure out that like oh it’s not much of a victory now.” Will they be resurrected again? “Maybe.”
• Sensei: if Kaja is ever resurrected she should have just one ear. Stella: “Carry that scar.” Caustic Phoenix: “Deal.”
• Caustic Phoenix imagines a yellow Death Club crop top falling to the ground like a flag as the arena empties. Merch joke.
• Final words. Stella: “Throw yourself into what you love… Love fiercely and without end.” Sensei: like Atalantos, use obstacles “to motivate you to try even harder.”