S4E7 — Wings — Misery v Daisy Bloom

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A relentlessly cheerful paladin who believed in the power of friendship met a fighter who never stopped crying, in a dusty dig site where something that should have stayed buried had been unearthed. Daisy Bloom spent the whole fight trying to make Misery her best friend: she rode a moth, hit him with cactuses and prayed to Criss Angel. Misery answered with steel, tears and a slowly revealed story of love and betrayal. It is one of the strangest and saddest Deathmatches of the Shadow King’s reign, and it ends with a grave and a smile.

The Story

Ribs in the Throne Room

The Acolytes were welcomed into the Dread Fortress, whose castle stands among angry, rumbling volcanoes, “this beautiful soundtrack of disruption.” The Grandmaster charged down the hallway and burst into the throne room. There she found the Shadow King at a hot, smoky grill, flipping a rack of ribs. She reminded him that the fortress has a whole floor of kitchen. He was unmoved: “This is my throne room. I can do what I want with it.”

He was smoking them low and slow with Kansas City sweet sauce, “the only kind that matters.” The Grandmaster approved, since she has no patience for vinegar sauces or mustard bases (“Vomit everywhere”), and decided that “at least I know we’re still somewhat related for a reason.” The Shadow King was gracious about it:

The Shadow King: “Yes, I might have killed your friend and taken over this, you know, your throne and your empire, but I’m not a monster.”

When she asked whether this was a tailgate for “the yelling football thingy,” he pointed at the ribs and observed that “this fellow here had a tail.”

Two Champions

The Grandmaster ripped the amulet from her neck and cut her hand with it. By now the blood “begins to pour down quite easily.” A portal opened, and two champions stepped through.

Daisy Bloom, Beacon of Village Town, had overheard the sauce talk and declared ketchup her favorite. She arrived bearing “the power of friendship and love and light.” She insisted she was unlike anyone they had ever met: “I have dead parents and a mysterious patron and I’ve been chosen to save the world and that’s never happened to anyone before.” She added that her makeup was not makeup. She was born this way.

Misery had a different outlook. Wine gone bad can become vinegar, he said, “some value from what is lost. But human souls, they aren’t like that.” A black butterfly landed on his finger. He crushed it and spread the dust. When Daisy asked if it was coming back, he told her: “That feeling of hurt that you’re experiencing, hold on to it. Better to be sad and cry than feel nothing at all.” Daisy was undaunted. He could go through fifteen more butterflies, she said, because by the end of this they would be best friends.

The Grandmaster’s advice was to “smother them in friendship if you get my drift.” She also warned Daisy, who said she had been chosen so many times that “it’s a lot,” that “this might be the last time you’re chosen if you don’t make it out alive.” The ribs were done, so the Shadow King snapped his fingers and the goblins packed them in a cooler to take along. Misery declined his share: “I no longer experience any joy from food or drink.” Daisy happily claimed his portion and pocketed every bone.

The Dig Site

The Grandmaster grasped the amulet again, blood dripping down her other forearm, and a blue portal opened onto an abandoned excavation: sand, low walls and dunes, and dust that coated the throat and rattled in the lungs. “This is one of my favorite escapes,” the Grandmaster said. People had dug here “until they found something that they really shouldn’t have dug up,” and that is why it lies empty. The Acolytes floated above, cheering. The Grandmaster’s speech urging the champions to unleash it all drifted into “this is starting to sound sexual,” and she spread her wings, shot into the sky and left the rest to the Shadow King.

Misery got the first move. “Words wasted time. I’ll show you why I’m here. And you follow through on your promise when this is done.” Then he drew his greatsword and shoved Daisy into the sand. She simply let herself fall: “You can shove me all you want, but I’ll always get back up.” He answered with a savage critical strike: “What will you breathe in? Ash? Dust? Or perhaps the sting of steel.”

Janet

Daisy crab-walked away toward the only garden in the arena, a tiny cactus garden with pink and yellow blooms, cheered by a dusty butterfly she took as “a small little bit of hope.” Up close she noticed something about Misery. He had been crying the whole time, in a slow, steady stream, and the sand stuck to his tears and built little sandcastles at his feet. As she escaped he swung and missed, and his blade plunged into the dirt. He stared into it, lost in memories.

Among the cacti Daisy struck a vogue pose while wounded Acolytes yelled down, “Don’t touch the cacti!” Then she summoned a steed. It was a mid-sized glowing moth, drawn by her lanterns, wearing a harness she described as “a shitty bra.” It lifted her six inches off the ground. When she asked its name, it answered: “My name’s Janet.” Janet rose to seven inches. Daisy took this as proof: “That’s what the power of friendship can do for you. Believe it.” When the hosts got mean, even Misery took her side for a moment. “I might be the embodiment of misery and pain and stuff, but they’re being super mean to you right now.”

The kindness did not last. “Is this a mockery to me?” Misery asked the crowd. He walked nose to nose with Daisy and said, “This will hurt me more than it hurts Janet.” Janet slid apart. No blood came out. Black and white butterflies poured from her body, turned to dust and drifted into the stands, where the Acolytes choked on them. “We are all Janet,” the Grandmaster declared. “We have all now consumed some Janet in our life.”

Blood, Cactus and Heelys

Asked to explain how eating a dead friend could empower anyone, Daisy told her origin story. She was orphaned in Village Town when a supernatural force of evil killed both her parents, and she was later chosen “by this, like, alien” to defeat it. As a small child she lay between their eviscerated bodies and slurped up their blood, “a couple liters maybe,” dirt and all. Afterward she “took out like 15 villages,” and only the sight of a mob calms her now. The Grandmaster was appalled, though for her own reasons: “I can’t even drink one liter of 7-Up.”

As Misery listened, still frames flickered through his mind: children laughing, the flash of a blade, himself on his knees at a grave. He cried harder, and the sandcastles grew. Then he shoved Daisy into the cacti. Needles got into the joints of her plate armor, her armpits and the backs of her knees. “This is like when you fall in snow and it goes in your butt,” she said, and drew a life lesson from it: “But the cactus always gets you in the end, baby.” She ripped up the cacti and fought back “dual fisting cactuses.” One landed, one glanced off, and one drove its needles into her own body.

Offering a little sympathy, the Grandmaster dropped a gift for each champion: a pair of Heelys. The Shadow King assured everyone they were “the name brand ones… We’re not going to Great Value Heely you.” Daisy pointed out that real Heelys are velcro. Nobody thanked the Grandmaster, so she called a break to cool down and promised chaos when she returned.

Dodgeball and the Box of Chaos

She kept her promise. Deep-fried moth nachos were on sale in the stands, and then the Acolytes emptied their pockets onto the champions. Down came popcorn, stinky cheese, unfinished tax returns, eighteen pennies and lint, pineapple on pizza, cats, and raccoons of varying sizes that latched on with their claws. Unimpressed, the Grandmaster emptied her own pockets as well, and dagger dice, squid, ramen and the Shadow King’s rib bones rained down.

Then she told an Acolyte called Forty to save his box with a hole cut in it for his special someone. The Shadow King had Forty floated down, grabbed him with a shadowy hand and lifted the lid. “Oh. It’s just his dick!” He sliced Forty open with a shadow blade, tore out his black soul and threw the body onto the battlefield. At a snap of his fingers, The Box of Chaos fell from the sky. He fed it the soul, and a column of pink and yellow fire erupted from it. Any sacrifice would earn a magic item in return, he explained, and “what you give may impact what you get out, or not at all. We don’t know.”

Betrayal and Blindness

“Have you ever had friendship wielded against you?” Misery asked, and struck through Daisy’s armor. On his second swing his tears and the sand caked his eyes and blinded him. “I know that pain. I live by that pain and I hold onto it. It’s the only thing that keeps me in this world.” Daisy tested his blindness with a rude gesture. He didn’t react. Only later did she learn he was trained to fight blind. She flipped behind him and hammered him “from the back,” and for once she didn’t hurt herself. “Every day, we get better.”

A heated debate followed. The Grandmaster declared the arena “strictly David Copperfield only,” while Daisy remained a devotee of Criss Angel. “Criss Angel can’t hear you here… He’s not your patron,” the Grandmaster told her, but Daisy knelt behind Misery anyway and prayed to him for protection. Then the David Copperfield faithful in the crowd granted both champions a burst of luck to “use it before you die!”

The Blade of Nothingness

Misery dragged his sword to the Box of Chaos and wept into it. Another memory surfaced: a laughing child running to hug a young Misery, then the silhouette of a knife going through someone, and Misery coughing blood. Two yellow eyes and a clawed hand rose from the Box, which shouted “Quit!” and slammed itself shut. When it opened again, a shadowy hand placed a Vorpal Greatsword in Misery’s grip. A cloud of butterflies landed on the blade and melded into it until the steel became void, “a blade of nothingness, as if it was cut out of reality.”

Misery: “When there’s nothing left, when you can’t feel pain anymore, you become the most dangerous thing in the world. You become a monster. You understand now?”

“I mean, we could still be monsters together,” Daisy offered. “Then the lesson continues.” Her prayer held him off even after he dug deep to break it. Daisy declared that “praying to God, aka Criss Angel, was obviously the right thing to do.” She forward-rolled beneath him with both warhammers swinging at his pelvis “kind of like if a wheel had warhammers on it.” The Shadow King wondered aloud whether anyone had ever seen him and Criss Angel in the same place, then answered with a sandstorm. “Let’s see Criss Angel do this!” A tornado of sand closed around both champions and began to suck the air from their lungs.

Daisy Becomes the Moth

Misery broke through Daisy’s protection, and the void blade struck her three times in a row. To survive, Daisy reached inward. “I reach into the Void and I’m pulling out different people all the time,” she explained, and this time “the portal is me.” She summoned a steed inside her own body and let it break out through her flesh: the moth’s arms ripped through her torso and ribcage, its wings speared out of her back and its antennae came out of her ears. The result was about twelve percent moth: huge prismatic eyes, long antennae, fluffy hair, giant beautiful wings and shorter arms, on top of her own human legs. “Moth on top, and human on bottom.” It left her alive on a single breath of life.

Misery caught his second wind, and with it came the clearest memory yet. A knife plunged into his back. His eyes blazed, wings burst from his own back, and as they unfolded, the head of the silhouetted figure slid off and fell. Daisy flew up, caught him between her “strapping thighs” and tried to snap his neck, crying “Friends forever!” in a new, deep moth voice. A vertebra or two gave way, but his neck held.

The Final Blow

“Friendship fueled you, but it’s a well that runs dry in so little time,” Misery said. “At the end of the day, we’re just people clawing our way to the top, killing each other, hurting each other. It’s in our nature.” He spent his luck on a single swing, and the vorpal blade did its work. Trailing viscera through the air, he held Daisy’s head in place as they drifted down together.

Misery: “I envied you. You lived a life with so much joy and happiness. You didn’t need to know the pain that I go through… You didn’t deserve pain. You didn’t deserve this.”

He embraced her, then walked away. Behind him her head stayed in place for a moment, then fell. One last memory came: Misery, bandaged at the gut, pulling a greatsword marker from a fresh grave and walking into the sunset. “Then it’s done, isn’t it?”

The Shadow King asked if he was satisfied. He was not, but “a deal is a deal.” Misery asked for only one thing: “I want to swap places with him. Put me in the ground and give him a life. He was always better than me. He was everything to me. He deserves to live. I’m not valuable anymore.” The Shadow King stepped out of the shadows and stomped. A stone coffin rose from the earth, and he threw Misery in, sealed it and buried it in one motion. “Mind freak.” Just before the lid closed, Misery smiled for the first time in years. Whether the one he loved was given life in return was never shown.

Dried Blood

Afterward, at the table, the players shared their favorite moments. Misery turned out to have no organs to donate, just “wet sad notes,” and Daisy’s player promised to introduce a new spell, Find Steed [Internal]. The champions then left the Acolytes with their final words. Misery advised them to keep their distance from everyone, “because humans are only good for one thing, and it’s hurting you.” Daisy agreed that letting people close was “literally what killed me,” but warned against running away from them too, “so just forward roll.”

Notable Moments

• The Shadow King smoked ribs in the throne room and had the goblins pack them in a cooler for the road.
• Janet the moth died in a burst of butterflies, and the Acolytes inhaled her: “We are all Janet.”
• The Shadow King killed the Acolyte Forty over the contents of his box and fed his soul to the Box of Chaos.
• Misery’s tears in the Box of Chaos earned him a Vorpal Greatsword, which butterflies turned into a blade of pure void.
• Daisy summoned her steed inside her own body and became a moth on top and a human on the bottom.
• Misery won and asked to be buried in place of the one he loved, then smiled as the coffin closed.

Memorable Quotes

• Misery: “That feeling of hurt that you’re experiencing, hold on to it. Better to be sad and cry than feel nothing at all.”
• Daisy Bloom: “I have dead parents and a mysterious patron and I’ve been chosen to save the world and that’s never happened to anyone before.”
• Janet: “My name’s Janet.”
• The Shadow King: “They’re the name brand ones… We’re not going to Great Value Heely you.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “This is not a Criss Angel place, okay? We are strictly David Copperfield only.”
• Daisy Bloom: “But the cactus always gets you in the end, baby.”
• Misery: “I know that pain. I live by that pain and I hold onto it. It’s the only thing that keeps me in this world.”
• The Shadow King: “Well, if it’s in the ground you want to go… Mind freak.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Misery (DeeEmSteve). A fighter, “a good, even six foot,” who calls himself “the embodiment of misery and pain and stuff.”

• Cries constantly. His tears gather sand into little sandcastles at his feet.
• Butterflies follow him and are part of his imagery: he crushes a black butterfly, Janet dissolves into butterflies, and butterflies meld into his sword.
• “No longer experience[s] any joy from food or drink”; “Misery doesn’t like anything.” He calls poetry a waste of his skills.
• Two fighting styles, one of them Blind Fighting. Also has Indomitable, Action Surge, Second Wind and Extra Attack.
• Weapons: a greatsword carried on his back, and a Vorpal Greatsword from the Box of Chaos, reshaped into a void “blade of nothingness.”
• Flashbacks (stated):
  • children laughing, a blade, Misery at a grave
  • a beloved friend hugs him, then a knife goes through someone and Misery coughs blood
  • Misery’s eyes glow and wings sprout from his back, and the friend’s silhouetted head slides off
  • Misery, bandaged in the gut, pulls a greatsword marker from a fresh grave and walks into a sunset
• Inferred from 0:59:59, 1:14:46, 1:32:26 and 1:41:54: a friend he loved betrayed him, stabbing him in the back. Misery, sprouting wings, beheaded the friend, buried him, and took the sword from the grave. The episode title “Wings” likely refers to this. This is not stated outright.
• He had a prior “promise”/“deal” with the Shadow King (0:14:10, 1:41:54).
• After winning, he asked to swap places with “him”: “Put me in the ground and give him a life.” The Shadow King sealed Misery in a stone coffin underground. Misery smiled for the first time in years.

Daisy Bloom, Beacon of Village Town (TAYvanbiljon). A paladin (“Captain Paladin,” per Caustic Phoenix) in plate.

• Gear and abilities: two warhammers (Two-Weapon Fighting), a javelin, three lanterns and a glow stick. She casts Find Steed and Sanctuary, has “stupid protection spells” but no healing, speaks Primordial, and animal handling is her dump stat. She has a “mysterious patron.”
• Lore and personality:
  • Her makeup “is not makeup”; she was “born this way.”
  • Her favorite sauce is ketchup.
  • She brings “the power of friendship and love and light” and came to make Misery her friend.
  • Her orphan story: parents killed by a supernatural force of evil; chosen by an alien; drank liters of her parents’ blood mixed with dirt; “took out like 15 villages”; mobs calm her.
  • Pockets her rib bones.
  • Says she pulls different steeds from the Void each time.
  • Devoted to Criss Angel (has a poster, prays to him).
  • Over 30.
• Transformation: cast Find Steed inside herself and became 12% moth (moth on top, human legs).
• Thigh-choked Misery. Decapitated by Misery’s vorpal crit.

Janet (voiced by Caustic Phoenix). A glowing, mid-sized moth summoned by Find Steed, with a harness. She told Daisy her name, carried her 6–7 inches off the ground and winked at her (“You be you”). Cut apart by Misery. She dissolved into black and white butterflies and dust, which the Acolytes breathed in: “We are all Janet.” Once called “Jaina.”

The Shadow King (Mudcat).

• Rules from the Dread Fortress throne room (“my throne room”). Smokes ribs low and slow with Kansas City sweet sauce. Goblins serve him.
• “I might have killed your friend and taken over… your throne and your empire, but I’m not a monster.”
• Killed Acolyte Forty and fed his soul to the Box of Chaos. Raised the sand tornado.
• Honored Misery’s deal with the stone-coffin burial.
• Claims nobody has seen him and Criss Angel in the same place.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Brings champions by cutting her hand/forearm with her amulet to open a blood portal (“pour down quite easily at this point”).
• Hates vinegar and mustard barbecue sauces. Says she and the Shadow King are “still somewhat related.” Can’t drink one liter of 7-Up.
• Prefers wine to “human beans.”
• Gave both champions Heelys; she has never owned Heelys herself. She was upset when no one thanked her.
• Ran the dodgeball event. Rules the arena “strictly David Copperfield only.”
• “Shadow King just put that one in my pocket” (unclear).

Forty / “40 man”. An Acolyte (chat member) who brought a box with a hole cut in it, which held his own genitals. The Shadow King killed him with a shadow blade and put his black soul in the Box of Chaos. His body was left on the field.

Souls in the Box of Chaos: Gator, Blissful, Vegeta and Scrib (named by Caustic Phoenix; “they’re all adults… just souls”). A creature with two yellow eyes and a clawed hand is inside the Box.

“Him”: the friend Misery asked to be given life in his place (“He was always better than me. He was everything to me.”). It isn’t shown whether he was brought back.

Places

• Dread Fortress, amid rumbling volcanoes. The throne room (now the Shadow King’s) has a grill. A full floor of the fortress is a kitchen. There is a hallway leading to the throne room.
• The excavation arena: abandoned, dusty sand with low (5 ft) walls. People dug until “they found something that they really shouldn’t have dug up.” It has a tiny cactus garden with pink and yellow blooms. It’s one of Elusia’s “favorite escapes.” Acolytes float above it.
• Village Town, Daisy’s home.

Items

• Elusia’s amulet (opens portals with her blood).
• Ribs (the goblins’ cooler), with Kansas City sweet sauce.
• Light-up name-brand Heelys, one pair each.
• Deep-fried moth nachos sold to the Acolytes.
• Box of Chaos: falls from the sky when the Shadow King snaps. It’s fed with souls and erupts in heatless pink/yellow fire. Any sacrifice, used as a free action, may yield a magic item.
• Misery’s Vorpal Greatsword (void blade).
• Forty’s box with a hole.

Lore statements

• The Shadow King killed the Grandmaster’s “friend” and took her throne and empire (0:04:26). He and Elusia are “somewhat related” (0:04:18).
• “Your father didn’t bleed much,” the Shadow King says in reply to Elusia’s line about her family’s blood (inferred to be addressed to her).
• Daisy claims her Find Steed reaches “into the Void” for different beings each time.
• The Box of Chaos holds Acolyte souls and gives items for sacrifices.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — ribs in the throne room

1. 0:01:56 “Welcome to D20 Deathmatch!” Caustic Phoenix teases Mudcat that his yell was “a little wavy.” Mudcat says he’s switching it up.
2. 0:02:47 The Acolytes are welcomed into the Dread Fortress. Its castle stands among angry, constantly rumbling volcanoes, “this beautiful soundtrack of disruption.” The Grandmaster charges down the hallway once again and bursts through the doors.
3. 0:03:18 The Shadow King is standing at a hot, smoky grill in his throne room, flipping a rack of ribs. Elusia: “You know we have a kitchen, right? Like a full floor that has an entire kitchen.” He replies: “This is my throne room. I can do what I want with it.” He’s smoking them “low and slow.”
4. 0:04:05 — Sauce. He uses “the only kind that matters”: Kansas City sweet sauce. Elusia approves: “Nobody likes vinegar sauces… None of that mustard base. Vomit everywhere… At least I know we’re still somewhat related for a reason.”
5. 0:04:26 Shadow King: “Yes, I might have killed your friend and taken over this, you know, your throne and your empire, but I’m not a monster.” Elusia: “At least we all have standards.”
6. 0:04:39 — The tailgate. Elusia asks if this is the pre-cookout for “the yelling football thingy.” He supplies the word “Tailgate?” She says they “dress up in cosplay and they go wild.” He points at the ribs: “this fellow here had a tail.” Elusia: “Very funny. Haha, he had a tail.”
7. 0:05:20 — The champions arrive. Elusia rips the amulet from around her neck and cuts her hand with it. The blood “begins to pour down quite easily at this point.” A portal opens and two champions step in: Daisy Bloom, Beacon of Village Town, and Misery.
8. 0:05:57 — Daisy’s introduction. She overheard the ribs talk. Her favorite sauce is ketchup, “but I think there might be ketchup and mustard in it at the same time.” She brings “the power of friendship and love and light because I am the beacon of village town.” She claims to be unlike anyone they’ve met: “I have dead parents and a mysterious patron and I’ve been chosen to save the world and that’s never happened to anyone before.” Elusia: “No, no you cannot. A wonderful beacon, I’m so grateful that you’ve graced us.”
9. 0:06:55 — Misery’s introduction. “What are any of us doing here, really?” He notes that spoiled wine can become vinegar, “some value from what is lost. But human souls, they aren’t like that. When they’re spent, all that’s left is, well, I know all too well.” A black butterfly lands on his finger. He looks at it, crushes it and spreads the dust: “See, this one I like.”
10. 0:07:38 Elusia asks whether that was his familiar. Daisy: “Isn’t it coming back?” Misery: “That feeling of hurt that you’re experiencing, hold on to it. Better to be sad and cry than feel nothing at all.”
11. 0:08:02 Daisy says her makeup “is not makeup, I was born this way.” She tells Misery he “can go through 15 more butterflies because at the end of this we’re gonna be best friends.”
12. 0:08:31 — The Grandmaster’s advice. “Best friends, or you might die trying… If they won’t be your friend, off them.” She agrees with Misery: “I would prefer a bottle of wine over some human beans… Humans are somehow the worst at times.” She says she was “reading faces” but was actually looking at a goblin. “You may bring your friendship, but be sure to smother them in friendship if you get my drift.” Shadow King: “Was that a joke or is that supposed to be funny?”
13. 0:09:27 Daisy is confused about how she got here. Elusia: “You were chosen. Remember, Beacon.” Daisy: “I’ve been chosen so many times now that it’s just, it’s a lot.” Elusia: “This might be the last time you’re chosen if you don’t make it out alive.”
14. 0:10:07 — Ribs to go. The ribs are done. The Shadow King snaps his fingers, and the goblins wrap the ribs in a towel and pack them in a cooler to take along. Elusia asks him to share. Misery: “I no longer experience any joy from food or drink.” Daisy: “Well, I’ll have yours!” The goblins bring ribs to everyone except Misery. Daisy puts each finished bone in her pocket. Misery: “Make a broth with that.” Steve (OOC): “If you don’t have barbecue, you’re miserable. That is like the through line for today’s episode.” Daisy: “You can barbecue anything.” Elusia: “Or anyone.”

The arena

15. 0:11:08 Elusia grasps the amulet again, and blood drips down her other forearm. A blue portal opens. “Please, let me welcome the two of you to a beautiful, beautiful place.” Instead of flowers they breathe in dust that coats the throat and rattles in the lungs. “This is one of my favorite escapes.”
16. 0:11:58 It is a place where “they’ve done a little excavating here or there until they found something that they really shouldn’t have dug up. And that’s why it’s abandoned today.” She tells them to “dig deep into each other’s own flesh and bone to discover something true, something treasurable.”
17. 0:12:28 Acolytes float above, cheering. “Whether you may be buried here by the end of the battle, they will remember you nonetheless. So make sure you are known… unleash it all on us today.” Then: “This is starting to sound sexual.” Her wings open and she shoots into the sky: “Shadow King, I allow you to take care of the rest.” Shadow King: “I was just getting to the good part too… You will spill blood here today for the Acolytes.”
18. 0:13:31 Daisy: “But I just met you, and I thought we were gonna be friends.” Initiative is Misery 20, Daisy 19.
19. 0:14:05 — Opening lines. Daisy: “Let’s dance!” Misery looks up: “Words wasted time. I’ll show you why I’m here. And you follow through on your promise when this is done.” Caustic Phoenix says “Got it.” It sounded “like a haiku.” Daisy suggests poetry. Misery: “Poetry is a waste of my skills. Who would enjoy it? No one… It would only bring pain.” Shadow King: “Speaking of pain, round number one!”

Round 1

20. 0:14:47 Misery: “Friendship, happiness, sands in your fingertips.” He drags his hand through the dust and lets it fall, then draws the greatsword from his back and shoves Daisy. She chooses not to contest, so she falls and slides back.
21. 0:15:44 Daisy: “So that’s how you wanna greet a friend? That’s okay because I have all night… I was chosen to bring you back from the edge, Misery, and I’m gonna do it.” She picks up the sand that fell through his fingers and breathes it in: “I can already tell that you’re coming closer to my side of things… You can shove me all you want, but I’ll always get back up.”
22. 0:16:40 Misery: “You know, I almost pity you. So full of life, jubilant. One day, it’ll be taken away from you… What will you breathe in? Ash? Dust? Or perhaps the sting of steel.” He attacks with advantage against the prone Daisy and crits on a 19 with the greatsword. Daisy: “This might not last the whole night, you guys.”
23. 0:18:09 — The garden. Daisy scrambles away. “Do you know why I’m scrambling?” She has spotted the only place on the map with a little garden and crab-walks toward it. Caustic Phoenix asks for perception, since two walls block her view. Daisy only sees a dusty butterfly fly over: “a small little bit of hope,” a sign there is life here somewhere.
24. 0:19:44 — The tears. Misery stands stoic. Up close, Daisy notices that Misery has been crying the entire time, a slow steady stream of tears. Caustic Phoenix adds that sand sticks to the tears and builds small mounds at his feet, which are later called sandcastles. Misery: “That’s not cute.”
25. 0:20:50 Daisy: “Where a butterfly can land, only hope can grow. And that’s where I’m gonna go to draw my ultimate power.” She crab-walks off, provoking an opportunity attack. Misery: “maybe I can grant you the sweet release of, well…” He misses, and his greatsword dives into the dirt. As Daisy crawls away, Misery leans down and stares into the blade, “as if somewhere else. Memories, memories, memories.”
26. 0:22:54 — The cactus garden. She reaches a tiny cactus garden with pink and yellow blooms, “a place of great power for me.” She lies dramatically among the cacti in “a very vogue moment” and tries not to touch them. Acolytes, some of whom have clearly been hurt, yell down: “Don’t touch the cacti!” It’s “just an echo in the wind.”
27. 0:24:26 — Janet. Daisy casts Find Steed and summons a moth: a mid-sized moth drawn by her three lanterns and glow stick. It glows faintly to match her aura and wears a harness she calls “a shitty bra” that she holds onto “like a grocery bag.” It carries her six inches off the ground. Caustic Phoenix: “Your friend.” Daisy: “It’s not a steed, it’s a friend. Summon friend.”
28. 0:26:13 Daisy speaks Primordial to it while they glide over the sand: “Thank you for coming to me from the beyond… I’ve been trying to convert Misery like for 36 minutes already… you look really familiar… can I get your name?” She rolls animal handling, her dump stat. Misery: “Maybe you should’ve asked for their name before this.” The moth answers: “My name’s Janet.” Daisy: “Thank you, Janet… Something amazing is gonna come from this.” Janet nods: “I’m here for you. Let me lift you.” Janet rises to seven inches. Daisy: “That’s what the power of friendship can do for you. Believe it.”
29. 0:31:46 Daisy: “I’m here for a good time, not a long time… I’m just here to spread my spores, baby.” Caustic Phoenix: “Be free, Daisy Bloom, of the rules and norms that everybody else has.” Janet looks down: “You be you,” and winks. Daisy: “Thanks, Jaina [sic]. We’re gonna live forever.”
30. 0:32:18 The Shadow King rolls a 19 at the end of the round: “Don’t you worry about it… You don’t ask questions, we ask questions.” Daisy: “Asking questions is a really good way to learn.” Misery: “You’re not here to learn, you’re here to kill each other.” The GM tells him to shut up. Misery then takes Daisy’s side: “I might be the embodiment of misery and pain and stuff, but they’re being super mean to you right now.” Daisy: “My God, thank you.” GM: “You can shut up again, Misery.” Shadow King: “I don’t like any of this. Round number two.”

Round 2 — the death of Janet

32. 0:33:00 Misery to the crowd: “Is this a mockery to me? Is this some kind of sick joke? This is what you put me against? This cannot be over fast enough.” He saunters past the wall, dragging the greatsword through the sand, nose to nose with Daisy. “This will hurt me more than it hurts Janet.” He attacks the steed.
33. 0:34:30 Janet is slain. “There’s like a warp, like the frame rate changed a little bit.” At the end of the strike, Janet slides apart. No blood comes out; black and white butterflies escape the body, fly up, turn to dust and blow away.
34. 0:34:59 The dust drifts up into the stands, and the Acolytes choke on “the dead mini versions of Janet.” Caustic Phoenix: “Baby Janets are ashy… We are all Janet. We have all now consumed some Janet in our life.” Daisy argues this empowers her, since everyone now carries a piece of her friend.
35. 0:35:55 — Daisy’s backstory. Elusia asks for a story where Daisy ate a dead friend and was empowered. Daisy tells it:
    • She grew up “a scion of village town.” She was an orphan: both parents were killed in “a really bizarre planned thing by a supernatural force of evil,” something “going on my whole life.”
    • She was chosen “by this, like, alien” to defeat them.
    • She was there, aged “three or eight,” lying between her eviscerated parents in their blood.
    • She “learned to be this, like, lethal fighter… good at everything that I tried to do because that’s, like, kind of how this goes.”
    • She lolled her tongue out and slurped up all the blood, “a couple liters maybe,” with “a lot of dirt in it… vitamins and minerals.” Then she “popped up like, you know, pushing daisies.”
    • Afterward “I took out like 15 villages… I don’t even think that they were all like a part of it.” Seeing a mob is the only thing that calms her, “because they were there too and they drank some of the blood with me.”
36. 0:39:32 — 7-Up. Elusia: “I can’t even drink one liter of 7-Up… 7-Up’s gross, but my family’s blood mixed with dirt is perfectly fine… clearly, you’ve lost your mind.” Shadow King: “Get out of here with that 7-Up!” The crowd/DMs award Daisy a d6 inspiration for the story.
37. 0:40:09 — Misery’s first flashback. As he listens, Misery has flashbacks in still frames: children laughing, the flash of a blade, Misery on his knees at a grave. He cries even more, and the sandcastles grow. The dust of Janet lies at his feet.
38. 0:40:41 — Into the cacti. With his extra attack, Misery shoves Daisy into the cacti. She asks whether thorns could benefit her as a plant person. Caustic Phoenix says no: “I’m gonna let you drink blood and heal from that… but I’m not gonna let you take a spike into your body and be like, what if the damage is healing?” She contests, citing her plate, but Misery wins (18). Needles get into the joints of her plate, the armpits and the backs of the knees. Daisy: “This is like when you fall in snow and it goes in your butt… Ruins your whole life.” Her life lesson: “You see a new cactus… you get a new boyfriend, you’re like, I can change him… But the cactus always gets you in the end, baby.”
39. 0:43:40 Misery grinds one of his sandcastles back into the earth with his heel, looks at Daisy and gestures: bring it, bring more.
40. 0:43:53 — Cactus combat. Lying in the cactus, Daisy considers lying there to die, but chooses to fight. “I came here to make Misery my friend.” She has two warhammers and asks if that means four hits. Mudcat says no. Instead she rips up the cacti and fights with them. Mudcat: “if you’re dual fisting cactuses, then I think you can make three strikes.” Caustic Phoenix asks whether it’s “dual fisting or butt fist,” and the table derails (“They were on my butt”). Caustic Phoenix: “I will no longer be DMing for the rest of this.” The cacti count as light finesse weapons.
41. 0:47:02 Three cactus strikes. One hits (22), one is a glancing blow (16, half damage), and one is a nat 1: needles are pushed into her own body. Daisy’s first nat 1 is noted (“there was a nat 1 rolled on this floor”). A tangent about hiding pills in hot dogs follows; Shadow King: “And for people when you don’t want them to know.” Caustic Phoenix: “Hard no.” Daisy laments “all these stupid protection spells… none of them are little healies.” She wants to cast Sanctuary, but she has no bonus action left.
42. 0:49:40 — The Heelys. Offering a little sympathy, Elusia drops a package for each champion. It cracks open to reveal a pair of Heelys, which change nothing about movement, but now they can describe themselves “Heely-ing across the sand dunes.” Misery: “As the coolest kid in the hallways.” Daisy asks whether they light up, since cheap ones would be “really uncool.” Shadow King: “They’re the name brand ones… We’re not going to Great Value Heely you.”
43. 0:50:53 Daisy complains that the Shadow King never asked what rib flavor they wanted (“we could have had like red or like could have had marshmallow”). Shadow King: “I gave you the only flavor that’s good… put on your shoes, lace up and get ready to rumble.” Daisy: “Real Heelys are velcro.” Caustic Phoenix: “Thank you for pointing out that I’ve never in my entire childhood or adulthood owned a pair of Heelys… I didn’t do my lore research on Heelys.”
44. 0:52:12 The Grandmaster is upset that no one thanked her or smiled for the gift. “We’re going to take a 10 minute break. I’m going to cool down. And when we come back, I’m bringing some chaos… the Acolytes want it too.”

After the break — dodgeball

46. 0:52:37 “Welcome back… Hopefully you got the moth nachos.” Elusia: “They are actual moths, not nachos shaped like moths… they were deep fried.” Daisy: “That’s the best way.”
47. 0:53:03 — Chaos event: Acolyte dodgeball. “The Acolytes, as if in unison, pull all of the junk out of their pockets and begin to throw them at you.” Chat names the items:
    • popcorn (“helps our sales”)
    • stinky cheese, spaghetti, and “your tax returns! …unfinished”
    • records, hot dogs, 18 pennies and lint
    • raccoons of varying sizes, which soar through and latch on with their claws
    • fish heads, cats, confetti, pineapple on pizza, moth nachos, and someone’s stolen Doritos
    Both champions fail their Dex saves and take bludgeoning damage. Daisy: “I’m gonna have to start thinking responsibly.”
48. 0:56:06 — The Grandmaster’s pockets. Disappointed in the meager pigs, nachos and beer, Elusia empties her own pockets and aims at them, with a harder save. Chat supplies the contents. The Shadow King offers the rib bones. Caustic Phoenix: “I have words in my pocket… I’m going on some butt fisting, and I throw it at you all.” Also thrown: dagger dice, squid and ramen. Both fail again (Misery 10, Daisy 8). “This is for you, Acolytes!”
49. 0:57:12 — Forty Man’s box. Elusia tells a chat member: “40 man. You keep that box with a hole cut in it. You save that for your special someone.” Daisy and the Shadow King want to know what’s in it. Forty is lifted out of the stands and floated to the Shadow King, who grabs him with a shadowy hand. “Show me what’s in the box!” He lifts the lid: “Oh. It’s just his dick!”
50. 0:57:49 — Forty’s soul. The Shadow King turns his other hand into a shadow blade, slices Forty through the chest and rips out a black soul. He throws the body onto the battlefield, where it thuds beside the champions. “Here! Let’s spice things up a bit!” He snaps his fingers, the Box of Chaos falls from the sky, and he throws the soul in. Pink and yellow flames erupt in a column into the sky.
51. 0:59:10 — Box rules. Shadow King: “You can use the Box of Chaos as a free action. If you make a sacrifice to it, you can get a magic item in return.” “Any sacrifice. We don’t care… your eyelash… or your opponent or pieces of your opponent or some sand… what you give may impact what you get out, or not at all. We don’t know.”

Round 3 — betrayal and blindness

53. 0:59:52 Misery: “You keep talking about friendship… But have you ever had friendship wielded against you? Do you know what it feels like to feel the sting of betrayal? To know what it feels like to look into the eyes of someone you loved and know that they never felt it back?” He raises his sword. The first attack hits through her plate (22). The second is a nat 1: his tears and the sand stick to his wet skin, get in his eyes, and blind him until his next turn.
54. 1:01:17 As the tears well up and he can’t see, Misery: “I know that pain. I live by that pain and I hold onto it. It’s the only thing that keeps me in this world.” Caustic Phoenix: “That needed to happen.” Misery: “Totally meant to do this.”
55. 1:02:12 — Testing the blindness. Daisy makes a rude gesture at Misery to test whether he’s blind: “I didn’t touch you.” It’s sleight of hand against perception, and both roll 4. Then Misery reveals that his second fighting style is Blind Fighting. Caustic Phoenix: “Are you kidding me?” Daisy, angry: “I’m playing your little game.” Misery doesn’t react to the gesture (“No, just tears”), so as far as Daisy knows he is blind.
56. 1:04:44 — From behind. Daisy does a cool acrobatic flip and lands behind Misery, then warhammers him “from the back.” Caustic Phoenix: “Some people enjoy that. We’ll find out if Misery does.” Her first swing is a glancing blow for 1 damage. Mudcat: “This is the first time you’ve done it without hurting yourself, though.” Daisy: “Every day, we get better.” Her second warhammer hits (18). “Amazing, magic, close-up magic… David Blaine.”
57. 1:08:43 — Criss Angel vs David Copperfield (table bit, played partly in-world). Steve says his first costume idea was too Criss Angel. Caustic Phoenix: “This is not a Criss Angel place, okay? We are strictly David Copperfield only… he knows how to tell a story.” Daisy defends Criss Angel: “Criss Angel has, like, three different stories. One of them is motorcycles, and the other one is just saying mind freak 37 times.” Caustic Phoenix: “I fireball you for three points of damage.” Daisy: “MIND FREAK and I disappear and I show up somewhere else… then I open my mouth and the fireball comes back out.”
58. 1:10:52 — The prayer. Daisy: “Criss Angel, help me!” Elusia: “Criss Angel can’t hear you here… He’s not your patron.” Daisy asks Misery if he likes Criss Angel. Misery: “Misery doesn’t like anything.” Daisy says she has “a really cool poster” of him. For her bonus action she casts Sanctuary while bowing on her knees behind Misery and praying to Criss Angel.
59. 1:12:37 Elusia: “There’s people in the chat that are only on Team David Copperfield.” She reminds them the Box of Chaos is here for “some sort of goody as a free action.” Then: “By the grace of our David Copperfield fans, both of you have been gifted hero points… plus ultra, super saiyan, dream big… use it before you die!” Daisy: “Which is gonna be soon for some of us.” Elusia: “Probably within the next 30 minutes, according to my plan.”

Round 4 — the Vorpal Greatsword

60. 1:13:52 — Misery’s tears in the Box. Using Blind Fighting, Misery drags his greatsword to the Box of Chaos, which is within 10 ft. Still talking to Daisy: “There’s so much pain can bring. It can ground you. It can center you. It can make you feel like you’re still alive. In fact, sometimes it’s the only thing you can feel to know you’re alive.” He puts his face over the box and cries into it, and the tears fall in.
61. 1:14:46 — Second flashback. One of the kids from the earlier flashback, laughing, runs toward a young Misery (“maybe not Misery at the time”). They hug. Then a silhouette of a knife going through someone, and Misery coughs out blood.
62. 1:15:36 He rolls d100: 56. Daisy: “Are you going to stab a kid?” Elusia: “We don’t just keep children in the box. They’re all adults. There’s Gator and Blissful and Vegeta and Scrib… You can stab one of them, though… They’re just souls.”
63. 1:16:02 — The Box answers. Two yellow eyes and a clawed hand reach up from inside the box. “Quit!” It slams the lid shut, and the box rumbles. The lid flips open, and a column of heatless fire, yellow and pink, shoots into the sky. A shadowy hand rises out of the box and puts a new sword in Misery’s hands: a Vorpal Greatsword that decapitates on a crit. Misery: “This is dangerous in a fighter champion’s hands.”
64. 1:17:00 — The blade of nothingness. Still looking at Daisy with blinded eyes, Misery grabs the hilt. A cloud of butterflies passes through and lands on the blade, then melds into it. It loses its steel sheen and becomes void: “a blade of nothingness, as if it was cut out of reality.” Misery: “When there’s nothing left, when you can’t feel pain anymore, you become the most dangerous thing in the world. You become a monster. You understand now?” Daisy: “I mean, we could still be monsters together. As long as we’re together.” Misery: “Then the lesson continues.” Caustic Phoenix: “I want that sword.”
65. 1:18:17 — Sanctuary holds. Misery attacks while blind. Daisy is still kneeling behind him praying (“Criss Angel, please”). To get past Sanctuary he needs a Wisdom save, and he fails. “I’m tired of failing saves. I use Indomitable.” He fails again (14), so he can’t attack her. Caustic Phoenix: “This is what dreams are made of.” Daisy: “Criss Angel, thank you.”
66. 1:19:40 — The forward roll. Daisy: “I thought you were blind and it kind of feels weird that you would lie about that… Praying to God, aka Criss Angel, was obviously the right thing to do.” She does a forward roll (“always a question when you’re over 30”) to get out from in front of him. As she rolls under him she swings both warhammers at his pelvis: “kind of like if a wheel had warhammers on it.” Mudcat: “A warhammer to the pelvis is going to hurt regardless.” The first is a glancing blow. She adds her inspiration die to the second (“please, Criss Angel. Where are you? Las Vegas?”), which hits for 9 bludgeoning. Daisy: “If we were just friends, this could all stop. But maybe it wouldn’t.” She refreshes Sanctuary.
67. 1:23:03 Daisy: “Chris is in the house tonight.” Caustic Phoenix: the Shadow King was rolling the damage. Daisy: “Who was possessed by Chris Angel.” Shadow King: “Has anyone ever seen me and Chris Angel in the same place?” Caustic Phoenix (to Tay, about her costume): “I hope your backwards robe strangles you.” “It can’t because the string’s not long enough.” Gaara jokes: Misery gives off Gaara vibes. “You put us in a sand arena. What are you going to do?”
68. 1:24:35 — Chaos: the sand tornado. Shadow King rolls 17. Elusia: “Let the sands of time be very unkind to you.” The Shadow King stands: “Let’s see Criss Angel do this!” He snaps his fingers, and the sand whirls into a vacuum and tornado around both champions, slowly sucking out the oxygen. Each round they must make a Con save. Both succeed and take half damage. Mudcat: “You only suffocated a little bit.” Daisy: “Some of us are down here in the 30s of HP, baby.” Shadow King: “Well, I guess you’ll have to kill him fast then.”

Round 5 — Daisy becomes the moth

69. 1:26:19 Misery to the crowd: “Tricks. His foolishness, trying to garner some kind of joy out of life. There’s nothing at the end of this. You all must realize that.” He tries to break Sanctuary (“the power of Chris compels you,” says Daisy) and gets through.
70. 1:26:53 The void blade comes down: a hit (19). Elusia reminds both of their hero points: “A chance to do anything.” A second Vorpal hit (20). Misery Action Surges for a third swing (“I’m fishing for something here,” meaning a crit). It hits.
71. 1:28:36 — Find Steed, internal. Daisy spends her hero point. “You do not own the rights of Criss Angel, but you know what we do own the rights to? Moth carnage.” “Janet was not the only steed… I reach into the Void and I’m pulling out different people all the time… today it was Janet but tomorrow it could be Steven.” This time “the portal is me.” She casts Find Steed over her own mouth “to summon the steed within my body and let it break through my own flesh. And I’m going to become the moth.” The moth’s arms rip through her torso and ribcage, the wings spear out and unfurl from her back, antennae come out of her ears “because skulls are hard,” and she glows.
72. 1:30:27 Caustic Phoenix asks for a nature check to see how moth-ish she becomes: 12, so 12% moth. The moth “blooms out of” her. Her eyes expand, big, glassy and prismatic. Her ears stretch into long antennae. Her hair turns fluffy, “cute and soft.” Giant, beautiful wings burst from her back. Her arms are slightly shorter, and she keeps human legs. “Moth on top, and human on bottom.” Daisy: “Ah, gross!… I can work with that.” The steed’s HP is added to hers, so she survives Misery’s hits with 1 HP.
73. 1:32:08 — Misery’s Second Wind and the third flashback. Misery breathes in deeply as the storm swirls (“Now it’s getting gross”) and uses Second Wind. Flashback: the knife plunges through his back and he coughs blood. There’s a flash, and Misery’s eyes glow bright. Wings sprout from his back, and as they bloom out, the friend’s head in the silhouette slides off and falls to the ground. He regains 18 HP.
74. 1:33:30 — The thigh choke. Daisy, at 1 HP: “I’m here for a good time, not a long time… I’ve got moth benefits and human benefits at the same time. This is a great time to be alive.” “Lower body strength for the win, Peloton,” which she figures she can afford as the Beacon. She flies up, grabs Misery with her “strapping thighs” and thigh-chokes him, trying to snap his neck. Caustic Phoenix: “I’ve never heard anyone interpret it that way, but yes, that is a legitimate unarmed strike.” It hits (24). In a new deep moth voice (“puberty”): “Friends forever!” (heard as “French forever”).
75. 1:36:31 Misery makes a Con save “to see how strong your neck is” and rolls a 10. His neck creaks and a vertebra or two goes, but it doesn’t break. Misery: “I’m gonna be caught in that endless chiropractor cycle now… maybe a fate worse than death.” Daisy: “My moth dust is like in your mouth and your nose and your eyes… But maybe you don’t care because we’re kind of the same.”
76. 1:37:54 The Shadow King rolls 19. Elusia notes that Daisy has 1 HP, Misery is high in the sky being strangled, and Misery still holds his hero point.

Round 6 — Misery’s kill

77. 1:38:34 Misery: “You held onto it for so long, so long. Friendship fueled you, but it’s a well that runs dry in so little time. Sands, like I said, in our fingertips. Friends, allies, meaningless in the grand scheme. At the end of the day, we’re just people clawing our way to the top, killing each other, hurting each other. It’s in our nature.” His hands are free. He misses with the first attack (14) and hits with the second. He spends his hero point to turn the hit into a crit, triggering the vorpal blade.
78. 1:39:59 — The decapitation. A trail of viscera follows them through the air. Misery looks at the moth and holds her head in place: “I envied you. You lived a life with so much joy and happiness. You didn’t need to know the pain that I go through. The pain that I can never forget. The pain that fuels me. I hope that this was as painless as I thought it was. You didn’t deserve pain. You didn’t deserve this.” He guides the moth back down, embraces her and walks away. In silhouette, her head stays in place, then falls off.
79. 1:40:57 — Final flashback. Misery stands at a freshly dug grave. A greatsword is driven into the ground as its marker, with memorabilia on the hilt. Misery is bandaged around the gut. He puts a hand on the hilt, pulls the sword out of the ground and walks off into a sunset. Back in the arena, still holding the moth, he looks up: “Then it’s done, isn’t it?”
80. 1:41:31 Daisy: “No, because Criss Angel jumps out of the corpse.” Shadow King: “Criss Angel!” Elusia: “The real enemy was inside!” (Tay OOC: “Please do not take my melon cut death away from me.”)
81. 1:41:42 — The deal. Shadow King: “I suppose it is. Are you satisfied with this?” Misery: “What kind of question? No, I’m not satisfied.” “A deal is a deal.” “What is it you want then?” Misery: “I want to swap places with him. Put me in the ground and give him a life. He was always better than me. He was everything to me. He deserves to live. I’m not valuable anymore.”
82. 1:42:28 — The stone coffin. Shadow King: “I don’t see why I can’t accommodate.” He disappears into the shadows and is thrown out of them right in front of Misery. “Well, if it’s in the ground you want to go.” He stomps, the earth moves, and a stone coffin rises from the ground with its lid sliding off. Smiling for a moment, he reaches out, throws Misery into the coffin, seals the lid and buries it in the ground in one magical motion. “Mind freak.”
83. 1:43:21 Just before the coffin closes, Misery, still crying, smiles for the first time in “years, decades.”
84. 1:43:34 “Welcome. And goodnight to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

Out-of-character, creator notes:

• Caustic Phoenix jokes that next time Steve can report on the coffin. Mudcat: “I guess it could have cremated you. I didn’t ask.” Steve: he said “into the ground,” so it was clear.
• Is Misery an organ donor? Steve: Misery has no organs, just “wet sad notes.”
• Caustic Phoenix loved Misery’s flashbacks: “We had Heartbreak and Beauty and then licking up blood from the dirt.”
• Steve pictured Daisy with a proboscis when she slurped the blood. Tay: “I ship it.”
• Mudcat thought Daisy’s backstory was the opening of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist until the blood drinking. Tay calls that the “hard left” requested by “our lawyers” for copyright.
• On “Find Steed, but backwards”: Tay will “introduce a spell called Find Steed [Internal].” Mudcat: “You might be expecting a moth and you might get Criss Angel.”
• Most unexpected moment: Steve says everything that came out of Daisy. Tay riffs on Lucy and on “I’m not in here with them, they’re in here with me.” She wonders if she gets to keep the human legs, “the secret weapon.”
• Mudcat wanted to give her the neck break but felt 10 was “pretty good for a neck strength.” Caustic Phoenix: “Misery’s got to do some more neck workouts.”

Final words to the Acolytes (in character, canon, Dried Blood):

• 1:51:26 Misery: “Don’t let anyone get close to you. Just distance yourself. Create as much distance as possible from other human beings. Because humans are only good for one thing, and it’s hurting you.”
• 1:52:03 Daisy: “Don’t let people get close to you because that’s literally what killed me. But also don’t try to get away from them either because attack of opportunity, so just forward roll.”