S4E12 — Racoons — Sam Cletus v Ben Zappa

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A whiskey-soaked wood elf fighting to save his Meemaw met a sleep-deprived monk haunted by a giant ghostly cymbal monkey, deep beneath The Dread Fortress. What followed included an alien abduction, a raccoon named Dolores, a case of rabies, two trips through the Box of Chaos that rearranged one champion’s anatomy twice, and a rude knockoff genie. By the end, Sam Cletus had become Samantha Cletus, the Jolly Chimp had a broken hand, and Ben Zappa was locked in a box with his monkey.

The Story

Locked in the Pantry

The night opened with no Grandmaster in sight. The Shadow King called for Elusia and found her knocking from behind a wooden door. She had gone into the pantry to put away supplies for the monthly employee appreciation party, a big goblin and chinchilla affair, and had ended up locked in. The Shadow King doesn’t carry keys (“Who’s going to rob me? I’m the ruler of this entire place”), so at her urging (“Come on, magic boy”) he stretched his fingers into shadowy tendrils, formed a key, and popped the door open. He explained that he was only there for snacks: “Get out of the pantry. I’m trying to get Doritos.” She threw a bag of Cool Ranch at his chest.

Reminded that she had a Deathmatch to run, the Grandmaster dashed to the throne room, looking far less pressed and ironed than usual. She listed her troubles: the changing of the months, “we’ve got to let the werewolves out,” the party, and “the chinchillas decided to poop everywhere.” The Shadow King suggested therapy, adding helpfully, “I killed a therapist once, and it really, really helped.” Then her amulet sliced into her fingers, as it does every week, and a portal crackling with bright blue sparks delivered the night’s champions.

Grandma’s Boy and the Monkey Man

Sam Cletus announced himself with a drink in hand: “I’m gonna beat your ass for grandma.” Ben had done nothing to his grandmother. Meemaw had “done caught the sickness” and could no longer spit tobacco and smoke at the same time, and Sam wanted the prize money to get her back on her feet, because “ain’t nothing gonna kill my Meemaw, except me.” When the Shadow King asked whether she’d tried killing a doctor, Sam replied, “We don’t listen to no damn doctors, boy.”

Ben Zappa wanted something simpler: to be rid of the spirit ruining his life. It was like the antique-store monkey toy with cymbals, only a ghost “with a fist the size of a car,” and it kept him from work, sleep and dates. The Shadow King summed up the matchup: “You’ve brought me some sort of grandma’s boy and a champion who spanks his monkey too much.” Sam demanded respect for “Mrs. Meemaw,” then deliberately spilled whiskey from his magical Starbucks tumbler on Ben’s only pair of shoes. Ben insisted the spirit wasn’t imaginary, and Sam took a closer look. He saw something enormous looming behind Ben: red-ringed eyes and a wide grin full of sharp teeth.

The Grandmaster refused to let the fight happen inside the Fortress (“I just cleaned up a ton of chinchilla shit, and I ain’t picking up blood now next”). She jinxed Sam for the whiskey on her floor. A tangent followed about housekeeping and the Shadow King’s botched taxes, which he blamed on Vythorn. Sam called her “Shakira,” and she bounced a Hydro Flask that Henrietta the Goblin had brought in off his skull. It did nothing, “probably because your head’s pretty empty anyway.” Fed up, she shoved them both through a red portal without so much as a welcome.

Abducted

They landed in a cold, dark, abandoned throne room buried deep beneath the Dread Fortress. It was a ruin of tiered steps, statues and cobwebs, lit by a pale green glow that sucked the heat out of anyone who got close. Where the ceiling should have been, an ethereal opening revealed The Acolytes in the stands. In their impatience they had already summoned chaos.

A humming metal disc descended, ringed with lights “as if it’s a streamer’s LED lights,” and The aliens beamed both champions up. Ben clung to the stones (“I’m not trying to get probed here”), but they gave way. Sam embraced it: “This ain’t my first fucking rodeo, boys. I’m going to try to seduce the alien.” He tried to clap cheeks and failed, since the aliens had no cheeks: they were flat as sheets of paper. They still took pity on him and worked on his “empty brain,” sending him back smarter. Ben, who had resisted, came back without his left eye. In its place was a glow-in-the-dark band-aid with an alien smiley face.

Dolores

Pushed over the edge, Ben heard cymbals crashing in the distance and summoned the spirit’s arms: matted black fur, pale and far-too-wrinkly knuckles, yellowed nails crusted with antique dust, and tiny cymbals on every finger. The blast of their arrival drew first blood, and the arms followed up with a solid punch. “I told you, this giant spirit monkey toy just shows up and ruins things,” Ben explained.

When Sam called the Grandmaster “baby,” she snapped, “No one calls the Grandmaster, baby!” and invited the Acolytes to empty their pockets on him. Raccoons, eyeball hot dogs, popcorn and waterfalls of beer rained down. Sam came out of it with ramen, beer, potatoes from an Acolyte named Dazzle, plenty of water, and one raccoon. He named her Dolores and launched her at Ben’s chest. The monkey arms tried to swat her back like a ping-pong ball, but Dolores, used to big branches, weaved through the hands and latched onto Ben’s face. Ben shrugged off her rabies at first, until Sam cried “Aha, pocket sand!” and twisted his luck with a flick of magic. Ben now had rabies. There was no help to be had, as the Grandmaster put it: “We do have insurance. It’s just not for the champions.”

Into the Box

Word reached the arena that there was a rabies vaccine in the Box of Chaos. A pink-and-yellow comet crashed onto the throne itself and became a gold-and-pink chest with fire inside that gave off no heat. “It demands a sacrifice,” the Shadow King intoned. “Drop of blood, a toe, cryptocurrency.” He seized the Acolyte Aether Flux with a giant spectral hand, ran a shadowy javelin through Aether Flux’s chest, and pulled out a black, viscous soul. The body dropped behind Sam. Two clawed shadow fingers and a pair of yellow eyes peered out of the box.

Ben dashed up the steps with Dolores still on his face, tore her off and held her over the box. “You fucking wouldn’t,” said Sam. He would. The box pulled her in and responded about as well as it ever has: cheerful raccoon chatter, a welcome party, because “they’ve always wanted a pet.” Out came the shadowy figure, now in a raccoon-skin hat, with Ben’s prize: the Raccoon of Annihilation, a cute squeaky charm that is secretly a weapon of mass destruction if squeezed too hard. Ben then hurled a bone-dusted rock with the monkey arms (“You throw raccoons, I throw rocks”). It pinged off Sam’s bottle by pure accident, and Sam kicked it back like a hacky sack. The arms, enjoying the game, clapped instead of blocking, and the rock left a raccoon-shaped mark on Ben’s forehead.

Deletus

Sam wanted his soulmate back. “You spooky bitch, you give me back my soulmate,” he demanded, reaching into the box, and the box dragged him in headfirst. In a black tornado with yellow eyes, he and Dolores were pulled together and fused. He emerged with a raccoon mullet, black eye-rings, a toothy snout and talons, his Hydro Flask melded into his body (“I’m naturally drunk now”). The only part of him still wood elf was his penis. “I am now Deletus. And I will not be questioned by any mortal man or woman on this godforsaken earth!”

The were-coon charged up the stairs and missed spectacularly. Ben stepped aside, and Deletus tumbled back into the box. The fusion flipped: raccoon became human and human became raccoon, leaving him with a raccoon face, nice hair, human teeth, and a raccoon penis. “I don’t consent to any of this!” The box spat him out. A coin flip declared him more attractive overall, and a second flip declared his dick “so much worse.” The Grandmaster called a break to wash her eyes with bleach.

The Jolly Chimp

After the break, the Shadow King’s throne collapsed under him (he had eaten all the cake) and goblins stacked themselves into a pyramid chair. He named a goblin “Fernando” to roll for him, only to learn that “out of the 235 employees we have, we have zero Fernandos.” The Grandmaster listed the staff’s generous benefits, including a pet chinchilla on hiring and a union. The Shadow King immediately cancelled all of them, and she immediately said that was not true. Henrietta, a tiny goblin with bright blonde hair, did the rolling instead.

Then the monkey woke up properly. The arms spread wide, a grin and eyes appeared behind Ben’s head, and the cymbals crashed together on Sam with perfect force. Ben kept aiming for the groin, “because it’s the only part of you that has actually hurt me in this fight,” and the cymbals smashed the raccoon penis. The rest of the spirit took shape around him as the Jolly Chimp: a full chimp head in a bloody red fez, hypnotic red-black-white eyes, and a grin of flat, perfectly white teeth. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this thing,” Ben protested, but he began to clap, the chimp clapped in sync, and the Acolytes chanted along.

Sam answered with meth: “I was made for meth.” He chewed a handful of blue crystals and explained that Meemaw had laced her cookies to compete with the Aasimar bakers who moved into the deep woods. The rush revived him, and he tackled Ben using “gravity, physics, leverage” and his alien-boosted brain. Even the narrator called it “the dumbest fight I’ve ever seen.” Both of them fell into the Box of Chaos.

The Knockoff Genie

Inside the smoky box (“Are we in a hot box?”) they found the Acolytes’ second chaos event: a battered golden lamp. The Grandmaster warned that it could manage an exorcism but not a vaccination. Sam clubbed Ben with it (“And on the first swing, the Lord said, let there be light”), then wrapped a sweaty Nike band around his fists to double his rabies output. Ben grabbed for the lamp and got a handful of raccoon dick instead, which turned the Jolly Chimp’s grin into a horrified frown. Once it was ruled that raccoon testicles do not retract, the chimp squeezed, and Ben flurried into Sam’s nuts like a speed bag. Then the chimp took over Ben entirely. A man-sized cymbal ape punched from above and below: “we’re making biscuits out of these balls here.”

Sam survived with ten of his twelve inches left and rubbed the lamp with his damaged penis. A sleepy red genie appeared (“You’ve summoned me. This is terrible timing”) and granted one grudging wish to fix it. The dick healed at Dolores’s normal size, and Dolores had no dick: Sam now had a raccoon vagina. “I’m Samantha Cletus and I’m here to whoop ass and save my fucking Meemaw. I don’t care how many dicks I got to crush.” Down to almost nothing, Samantha fired a sawed-off shotgun and missed, then sulked in a corner the box didn’t have.

Samantha Cletus for Life

Ben softened. He was “only kind of sorry that I just smashed your penis into a vagina,” and he offered a way out. Samantha told him about Meemaw, the wrong pond, and the alligator mites that didn’t go away on their own. She suggested he just give up. He declined. When Ben threw a punch, Samantha used the Acolytes’ gift to flex so hard her pectorals burst like balloons, breaking the Jolly Chimp’s hand and leaving it with only one cymbal. She followed with coke, meth, and a stunning hip kick that Ben shook off.

Ben tried the lamp again. The genie told him to “fuck off,” since it only grants one wish a day, so he threw the lamp at Samantha. In slow motion she heard Meemaw’s voice telling her to mind her manners and dodge, and she kicked it back. Ben pointed out that the genie could have cured Meemaw’s cancer. The moment had passed. The Jolly Chimp brought down its one good hand.

Samantha Cletus: “You got this monkey off your back, but you got a Samantha Cletus for life.”

“In that squishing sound like a bug, Samantha is no more.” The Shadow King appeared beside the box and peered in. Ben admitted he and the chimp had kind of bonded, though not with the rabies. “I’ll see what I can do about the rabies,” said the Shadow King, “but in the meantime, I’ll just let the two of you have a little privacy.” He shut the lid and locked it with a key made from his own finger.

Dried Blood

Back at the table, StakeTCC said that if Sam Cletus ever came back, he’d live in the box again: “I like the box… I thought it would be safer.” The Grandmaster noted the season’s huge fascination with the Box of Chaos. As for Meemaw, she is “actually very proper,” disapproves of everything Sam gets into, and guides him from a distance, because “sometimes when you love things, you have to let them go.” Her cancer comes from the dip. KidCalrissian also revealed that his champion for a live show he had already played, which hadn’t aired yet, is Chef GPT.

Notable Moments

• The Grandmaster was locked in the pantry, and the Shadow King only came to get his Doritos.
• The aliens made Sam smarter for trying to seduce them and took Ben’s eye for resisting.
• Dolores the raccoon gave Ben rabies, got sacrificed to the box, and was welcomed by its residents as a pet.
• Sam went Sam → Deletus the were-coon → inverted Deletus → Samantha Cletus in under an hour.
• Samantha’s flex broke the Jolly Chimp’s hand, leaving the cymbal monkey with one cymbal.
• The winner ended the night locked inside the Box of Chaos with his spirit.

Memorable Quotes

• Sam Cletus: “Ain’t nothing gonna kill my Meemaw, except me.”
• The Shadow King: “I killed a therapist once, and it really, really helped.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “No one calls the Grandmaster, baby!”
• Ben Zappa: “You throw raccoons, I throw rocks.”
• Sam Cletus: “I am now Deletus. And I will not be questioned by any mortal man or woman on this godforsaken earth!”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “Out of the 235 employees we have, we have zero Fernandos.”
• Ben Zappa: “Honestly, I think I’ve gotten pretty used to this fella. After that fight, I think we both kind of bonded.”
• The Shadow King: “It was something. A lot of fluidity there.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Sam Cletus / Deletus / Samantha Cletus (Stake).

• Who he is:
  • A wood elf from the deep woods (a swamp region), 217 years old, one of Meemaw’s 27 kids (or grandkids).
  • Named after his father (Sam) and his great-grandpappy (Cletus).
  • Drinks every day, from a Starbucks Hydro Flask (“made of magic”) that replaced his clay pots after an assault charge.
  • No shoes until 17. Hasn’t paid taxes in 17 years. Writes Space Jam fan fiction.
  • Has a cousin Darla. Chews meth and does coke; got into meth through Meemaw’s cookies.
  • Fights for prize money to cure Meemaw.
• How he fights: a self-described bad drunken monk with Tipsy Sway, Deflect Missiles (with his bottle), Silvery Barbs (“pocket sand”), quivering palm, Stunning Strike and a sawed-off shotgun.
• What happened to him this episode:
  • The aliens gave him +2 Intelligence.
  • He fused with Dolores in the Box of Chaos to become Deletus, a wood-elf-sized were-coon, then got inverted (raccoon face, human teeth, raccoon penis).
  • The genie turned the penis into a raccoon vagina, and he became Samantha Cletus.
  • Flattened by the Jolly Chimp inside the box. He swore he’d come back for Ben “for life.”

Ben Zappa (Kyle).

• Who he is: a monk haunted by the Jolly Chimp, a ghostly antique cymbal-monkey toy. It wrecks his sleep, job and dating life; he eats melatonin like candy. Wears hard-to-find reproduction shoes, his only pair. His job’s healthcare hasn’t kicked in.
• What happened to him this episode:
  • Lost his left eye to the aliens. It’s covered by a glow-in-the-dark alien smiley-face circle band-aid.
  • Got rabies from Dolores.
  • Got a raccoon-shaped mark on his forehead.
  • Got the Raccoon of Annihilation from the box.
  • Won. He ended the episode bonded with the chimp and locked inside the Box of Chaos by the Shadow King, still with rabies.

The Jolly Chimp (Ben’s spirit). Disembodied arms of matted black fur, pale wrinkled knuckles, yellowed antique-dusty nails and tiny cymbals on each finger. Its visage: a bloody red fez, hypnotic red/black/white eyes and a grin of perfectly white flat teeth.

• It enjoys violence; it clapped instead of blocking.
• One hand was broken by Samantha’s flex, leaving it only one cymbal.
• Fully took over Ben during the hero-point flurry.

Mrs. Meemaw (unseen). Sam’s grandma.

• “A very powerful, beautiful woman 77 years ago.”
• Spits tobacco and smokes. Doesn’t trust doctors.
• Now sick: she “caught the sickness,” which Sam also calls cancer and blames on “alligator mites” from the wrong pond.
• Laced her cookies to compete with the Aasimar bakers who moved into the deep woods.
• Sponsored by an adult-toy site.
• Her voice came to Sam in slow motion to tell him to dodge.

Dolores. A raccoon thrown by the Acolytes and caught by Sam (“my soulmate”).

• Gave Ben rabies.
• Sacrificed to the Box of Chaos, where she got a welcome party.
• Fused with Sam: “We are all Dolores.” “Dolores will live on within my penis.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Locked herself (accidentally) in the Dread Fortress pantry during prep for the monthly employee party. Frazzled all episode.
• Her amulet cuts her weekly to open the portal.
• Gave Sam Bane, pelted him with Hydro Flasks, and called the raccoon rain on him for calling her “baby.”
• Defends the staff’s benefits and loves Henrietta.

The Shadow King (Mudcat).

• Makes keys from shadow fingers. Has killed five to ten therapists. Ate all the cake and spiked the punch.
• Botched the taxes and blames Vythorn.
• Killed the Acolyte Aether Flux to prime the box. His throne collapsed and he sat on a goblin pyramid.
• Says he’ll cut all employee benefits.
• Locked Ben in the Box of Chaos, promising to “see what I can do about the rabies.”

The genie. A red (first pink) knockoff lamp genie, sleepy and rude.

• One wish per day. It granted Sam’s wish badly.
• Told Ben to “fuck off.”

Henrietta the Goblin. A small, adorable Dread Fortress goblin with bright blonde hair. Brought the Hydro Flask and rolled for the Shadow King.

The unusual four-legged goblin-like creature. Brought Elusia her amulet.

The flat aliens. Paper-thin abductors with no cheeks.

Fernando / Bartholomew. Goblins who don’t exist (0 of the 235 employees).

Places

• Dread Fortress pantry/closet (where party supplies are kept).
• Throne room that Elusia runs to (inferred: the Dread Fortress throne room).
• The abandoned throne room buried deep beneath the Dread Fortress: cold, cobwebbed, tiered steps, statues, a heat-sucking green glow, open to the Acolyte stands.
• The inside of the Box of Chaos: a void with a black tornado with yellow eyes, the spirits of the box, smoke (“hot box”), and no corners.
• The deep woods: Sam’s swampy home, where Aasimar bakers moved in.

Items

• The Box of Chaos: a gold and pink chest with heatless fire that falls like a pink and yellow comet. It demands sacrifice and has shadowy clawed fingers and yellow eyes. Said to contain a rabies vaccine. It fuses and un-fuses beings.
• The Raccoon of Annihilation: a squeaky raccoon-head charm that is a sphere of annihilation.
• The knockoff genie lamp: a beat-up golden lamp, the second chaos event.
• Sam’s Starbucks Hydro Flask (melded into him).
• Ben’s alien smiley band-aid; Sam’s Nike sweatband; the sawed-off shotgun; Cool Ranch Doritos; the party cake.

Lore statements

• The Dread Fortress has 235 employees (goblins; chinchillas also attend the party), a monthly end-of-month employee appreciation party, and a union. Benefits include health insurance, a gym plan, free meals, severance, a pet chinchilla on hiring and pet PTO. Champions get no insurance.
• “We’ve got to let the werewolves out” at the change of the months.
• The Grandmaster and Shadow King co-run the Deathmatch and share a household. The Shadow King filed the taxes; there are years of back taxes, which he blames on Vythorn.
• The Shadow King claims he could take “a little trip to the past.”
• Box sacrifices so far include “toes, souls, bodies.”

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — locked in the pantry

1. 0:00:01 Mudcat opens with “Welcome to D20 Toughball! Welcome to D20 Deathmatch.” The Grandmaster is nowhere to be found. The Shadow King calls out for Elusia.
2. 0:00:23 Elusia is knocking from behind a wooden door: she is locked in the pantry/closet. She had gone in to put away party supplies for the employee appreciation party, which is held at the end of every single month. It is April 30th, May is tomorrow, so this one was “a huge goblin and chinchilla employee party.” She asks if he locked the door behind her and where the key is.
3. 0:00:54 The Shadow King doesn’t carry keys: “Who’s going to rob me? I’m the ruler of this entire place.” She tells him to “just do your little weird magic thing… Come on, magic boy,” and kicks the door.
4. 0:01:16 “It’s been a while since I’ve had to make a key.” The Shadow King’s fingers extend into shadowy ethereal tendrils that form a key. He fidgets with the lock and the door pops open. “There! Get out of the pantry. I’m trying to get Doritos.”
5. 0:01:34 Elusia throws a bag of Cool Ranch at his chest. She’s annoyed that he only wanted his Doritos and wasn’t worried about her. He: “You’re a grown adult… If you want to lock yourself in the pantry, be my guest.” She insists it wasn’t her fault.
6. 0:01:57 “Shouldn’t you be planning a deathmatch or something?” “The Deathmatch!” She runs down to the throne room, realizes she left him behind, and waits there for him.
7. 0:02:20 — The frazzled Grandmaster. Normally she is perfectly put together and ironed. Today she looks “a little all over the place.” She lists her troubles: the changing of the months, “we’ve got to let the werewolves out,” the end-of-month employee party, and “the chinchillas decided to poop everywhere.”
8. 0:03:04 — Therapy. The Shadow King: “Have you been to therapy? I killed a therapist once, and it really, really helped.” He has killed “five, ten” of them: “I don’t ask everyone I kill what their occupation is.” She: “That’s why they’re so expensive these days.”
9. 0:04:55 The amulet slices into her fingers “as it does every single week,” drawing fresh blood. As the blood runs down her forearm, a portal opens with bright blue sparks, almost lightning. “Help me welcome Sam Cletus and Ben Zappa.”

Introductions

11. 0:05:41 Sam starts out muted (a real-world mic issue). The Grandmaster asks for interpretive dance. The Shadow King: “Bury [bare] your soul to us through the art of interpretive dance.”
12. 0:05:56 — Sam Cletus. “I don’t know nothing about no darn interpreting, but what I do know about is drinking.” He’s here to fight: “I’m gonna beat your ass for grandma.”
    • Ben didn’t do anything to his grandmother. Meemaw “done caught the sickness.” She can’t walk like she used to, can’t spit tobacco and smoke at the same time anymore, and can barely change the TV channel.
    • He’s here to get enough money to get Meemaw back on her own: “ain’t nothing gonna kill my Meemaw, except me.”
    • The Shadow King: “Has she tried killing a doctor?” Sam: “We don’t listen to no damn doctors, boy.”
13. 0:06:48 The Grandmaster is “reeling” from all the double negatives. Sam: “I’m positive as hell most of the time.”
14. 0:07:13 — The name. “Sam is actually what my father’s name was, and Cletus was… my great grandpappy’s first name.” The Grandmaster notes it “just sounds like two first names.”
15. 0:07:40 — Ben Zappa. He’s here “to get rid of this stupid spirit that’s been keeping me up all night.” It’s like the monkey toys with the cymbals from antique stores, but a ghost that haunts him all the time, with “a fist the size of a car” holding a cymbal.
    • He can’t go to work, can barely sleep, and eats melatonin “like they’re candy.”
    • He can’t go on dates: “I just want this thing gone.”
16. 0:08:17 The Grandmaster: “Grandma, a ghost symbol thingy. I’m sure this is the recipe for the best success in D20 Deathmatch we’ve ever had.”
17. 0:08:30 The Shadow King: “You’ve brought me some sort of grandma’s boy and a champion who spanks his monkey too much.”
    • Sam: “My grandma ain’t raised no bitch. Now, my grandma was a very powerful, beautiful woman 77 years ago… throw some respect on her name. It’s Mrs. Meemaw.”
    • The Shadow King: “Maybe after this Deathmatch, I’ll take a little trip to the past. Pay my respects.”
    • Sam: “You drink enough whiskey, you can go back to the past anytime you want, bud.”
18. 0:09:25 — The tumbler. Sam drinks from a Hydro Flask from Starbucks. A lady was “clowning” him for drinking from clay pots, so “an assault charge later” he got the tumbler. The Grandmaster promises him “as many Starbucks containers as you would like.”
19. 0:10:07 — The shoe. Ben asks for a swig; his ears have been ringing from the cymbals for days. Sam goes over and deliberately spills whiskey on Ben’s shoe: “Ah shit, my bad… maybe your imaginary friend can help you wash them off.”
    • Ben: “It’s the only pair of shoes I have… Do you have any idea how hard it is to find reproductions of these shoes?”
    • Sam: “I didn’t get shoes until I was 17 years old and I beat the rabid chickens out of my backyard to get them out of the shed myself.” Then: “I’ve heard about reproducing and whatnot. It ain’t happening here.”
20. 0:11:04 — The presence. Ben: “It’s not imaginary… Sometimes when people say things like that, it gets really pissed.” He looks around for the giant ape arms. Sam rolls Insight (23) and senses something enormous standing behind Ben: two giant eyes with red rings and a massive wide grin of sharp teeth, a giant cymbal monkey staring down at him. Sam: “This is called an enemy stand user.” He takes another shot.
21. 0:12:37 — Not in the Dread Fortress. “If you thought I’m going to let you fight inside the Dread Fortress… I just cleaned up a ton of chinchilla shit, and I ain’t picking up blood now next.” Ben points out that Sam spilled whiskey on her floor, so the Grandmaster gives Sam Bane (−d4 on his next roll). “You’ve already made my life a little bit more difficult.”
22. 0:13:15 — Housekeeping. Sam: “Meemaw wouldn’t have liked you one bit. Maybe if you kept a clean floor in here…” (cobwebs, “skulls in the corner”).
    • The Shadow King sides with him: “She thinks a Swiffer is enough, but Swiffers, they don’t even work.”
    • The Grandmaster: the Shadow King “decided to do taxes and he fucked it all up and now we owe way more.” She has to refile everything. Shadow King: “Blame Vythorn. It was a series of years of back taxes owed.”
    • A Roomba is too expensive for “how many rooms we have.” Ben suggests waiting for an Amazon sale. Sam: “I haven’t paid any taxes in 17 years… You don’t know where I’m from in the deep woods.”
23. 0:14:12 “Whatever, wherever you’re from…” Sam: “I apologize, Shakira.” The Grandmaster pings the last Hydro Flask that Henrietta the Goblin brought in off Sam’s head. It does no damage, “probably because your head’s pretty empty anyway”; it’s “full of liquor, just sloshing around,” like Darth Vader in a bacta tank but with whiskey. Sam sways “like Johnny Depp… Pirates of the Caribbean.”
24. 0:15:00 Ben asks how long he’s been drinking today. Sam: “I do drink every day… don’t you get thirsty when you wake up?” “For water?” “What, fish fucking [in] that? Absolutely not.”

The arena — the abandoned throne room

25. 0:15:34 The furious Grandmaster opens a red portal and shoves them both in, without even welcoming them. “Welcome to a place that you actually can destroy.”
26. 0:16:00 It’s a very cold, dark dungeon: an abandoned throne room with tiered steps, statues all around, cobwebs and broken steps. A cold breeze shifts the cobwebs. A light green glow gives off no warmth; it sucks the heat from your body if you get close. “I welcome you to an old ancient place where we’re used to hear and see all from these seats. Buried deep beneath the Dread Fortress, I bring you to our abandoned throne room. We’ll see who gets to sit on the seat by the end of the night.”
27. 0:16:56 The exhausted Grandmaster wearily opens her wings and soars up. Instead of a ceiling there is an ethereal opening with the Acolytes in the arena seats, screaming, spitting and drinking. In their impatience they’ve already summoned one chaotic event. “Chaos!”
28. 0:18:01 The Shadow King: “Acolytes, I hope you’re ready to see a lot of blood spilled and maybe some whiskey.” Ben wins initiative. Sam, with his Bane, comes second.

Chaos event — the alien abduction (0:18:40)

29. A zooming sound. A metallic disc lowers from the heavens, humming, with colored lights all around “as if it’s a streamer’s LED lights.” A bright green beam opens from its middle: “They are aliens here to abduct you.” Each can try to resist being sucked up “for a little alien experimentation.”
30. 0:19:41 Ben: “I’m not trying to get probed here.” Caustic Phoenix: “No one ever is, but it happens.”
31. 0:20:11 — Sam gives in. “This ain’t my first fucking rodeo, boys. I’m going to try to seduce the alien. I’m going to try to make allies with my new alien friends to help me jump this nerd.”
32. 0:20:22 Ben clings to the broken stones, but they give way, and both are lifted up. Sam: “That’s right, come to daddy.”
33. 0:21:05 Sam tries “to clap [cheeks].” He fails badly: “What if the aliens don’t have cheeks?” They have none. They are completely flat, like sheets of paper in the wind, and move aimlessly. “You do nothing for them.”
34. 0:21:50 — The experiments. The Acolytes watch with x-ray vision.
    • Sam: the aliens appreciated the effort and “must have taken pity on you.” They work on his “empty brain,” and he returns with +2 Intelligence. Ben: “You tried to clap cheeks and got smarter.”
    • Ben: unimpressed that he resisted, they take his left eye. He has disadvantage on perception from now on. In place of an eyepatch they give him a little circle band-aid with an alien smiley face on it that glows in the dark. Ben: “Ah, fuck. What the hell is this?” They zoom him back down.

Round 1

35. 0:23:54 — Ben summons the arms. Pushed over the edge by losing an eye and having to deal with “this whiskey drunk elf man,” Ben hears cymbals banging in the distance, louder and louder. He summons Arms of the Astral Self: matted black fur ending in pale, way-too-wrinkly knuckles, yellowed fingernails “from collecting antique dirt and dust,” and tiny ringed cymbals on each finger. The disembodied arms float beside him and the summoning blast hits Sam for first blood. “While you have lost an eye, you will make sure that first blood is yours.”
36. 0:26:28 Sam: “What kind of cheating nonsense was that?” Ben: “I told you, this giant spirit monkey toy just shows up and ruins things.”
    • Sam: “I’m going to beat the monkey out of you.” Ben: “Maybe the monkey will spank you.” Sam: “We’re going to see whose monkey is getting spanked.”
    • The Grandmaster: “I’m not touching that one.” The Shadow King: “Keep your monkeys to yourselves.”
    • The arms smash their cymbals together in response.
37. 0:27:21 The cymbal arms land an unarmed strike (“dirty 20”). Sam makes a sound when he’s hit (“Hit me again”), and the Grandmaster throws another Hydro Flask at him for fun.
38. 0:28:19 — “Baby.” The Grandmaster asks whether he prefers Cletus or Sam. Sam: “Baby, you call me whatever you want as long as you call.” Caustic Phoenix: “No one calls the Grandmaster, baby!” She invites the Acolytes to empty their pockets at him. Raccoons and hot dogs with eyeballs rain from the sky, along with red solo cups of beer poured down like a waterfall and raining popcorn.
39. 0:29:15 Sam: “I am scared of no damn audience members. I’m also going to catch all these pet raccoons.” To the Grandmaster’s dismay, he ends up with cups of ramen noodles, beer, popcorn, a ton of water (“you need to hydrate”), potatoes thrown in by Dazzle, and one raccoon.
40. 0:30:38 — Sam’s turn. He tosses the popcorn at Ben’s feet as difficult terrain, launches the raccoon at Ben’s chest, and goes for Ben’s other eye with a finger from each hand.
41. 0:31:14 — Dolores. The Grandmaster insists the raccoon be named. “This here’s Dolores.” She is sure it’s his grandma’s name. Sam: “My grandma’s name is Mrs. Meemaw. I already told you.”
    • “I’m one of 27 kids. She never worked a day in her life. All she’s done is pop out youngins… and taught us how to drink and fight like the rest of the wood elves.”
    • He doesn’t know where he falls among his siblings: “You think we have birthday parties? There’s 27 of us… out there shooting crow just to have enough to eat… I’m 217 years old.”
    • Ben asks whether he’s geriatric. Sam: “If you come and get in this conversation, it’s only gonna get bad for you. Get him, Dolores.”
42. 0:33:03 — The raccoon missile. At the Grandmaster’s request, the raccoon attacks with sound effects. Since she was thrown, she counts as a missile, so Ben tries to Deflect Missiles (“deflect raccoon”). A monkey arm rears up to table-tennis her back. Sam: “Don’t you touch my raccoon.”
43. 0:34:17 Ben narrowly fails. Dolores, “used to climbing along big branches and trees,” weaves through the hands and lands on Ben’s face. Ben: “Get this thing off me!” Sam: “Fuck him up, Dolores!” She claws him with “her little grubby hands” and stays on his head.
44. 0:35:10 — Rabies. Ben makes his Constitution save and doesn’t contract rabies, “vibing with the idea of the raccoon on my face.” Then Sam uses his reaction: “Aha, pocket sand!” and casts Silvery Barbs. “Get it in the eye! My eye!” Ben rerolls and fails: he now has rabies and takes damage at the start of each of his turns until it’s cured. Sam: “Back where I’m from, rabies don’t even work.”
45. 0:36:57 The Grandmaster asks if there’s a vet in the audience (“in the closet — sorry, my brain’s back there”). Sam: “I actually also need to see a veterinarian… These fucking pythons are sick!”
46. 0:37:17 Since Ben “is going through a really hard time,” Sam kicks him in the left side, the side he can’t see, twice. Both kicks miss. It “looks like you’re doing Tae Bo.” Ben dances and screams. Sam: “Take that, you son of a bitch. I got him on the ropes now.”
47. 0:38:19 — End of round. The Shadow King rolls a 4. The Grandmaster: “They call you the Shadow King, but why? You’ve done nothing.” He: “Because I’m the king and I can turn into shadows. It’s not that difficult to understand.” Sam takes his side (“don’t talk back to the king… It’s dirty in this room, too”).
    • The Shadow King gives Sam advantage on his next attack. The Grandmaster counters by giving Ben advantage (“No triple advantage”). Sam takes “a triple shot of this whiskey.”
48. 0:39:03 — Insurance. Ben asks her to remove the rabies, since his “healthcare’s [not] kicked in for my job yet.”
    • The Grandmaster asks the Acolytes for a rabies shot. None came prepared (“Perhaps their grandma will bring one”).
    • The Shadow King: “We don’t really have insurance either… We can’t risk the lawsuit.” The Grandmaster: “We do have insurance. It’s just not for the champions.”
49. 0:39:49 — Hero points. The Acolytes are enamored with both champions and grant each a hero point, a “plus ultra… Super Saiyan” moment. It can do anything they dream up, except negate nat 1s, “because they are things of beauty in and of themselves.” Shadow King: “It could probably cure rabies.”

The Box of Chaos arrives

50. 0:41:25 Ben relays that Boxgang (chat) says there’s a rabies vaccine in the Box of Chaos. The Grandmaster: “There is, yes, as it turns out.” Sam keeps interrupting (“What’s in the box?”), so she claps and duct tape appears over his mouth. He tries sign language, and she removes the tape.
51. 0:42:05 A pink and yellow comet falls from the sky and crashes onto the throne chair itself. It becomes a beautiful ornate chest of gold and pink, with a fire inside that gives no heat.
52. 0:42:39 — The Shadow King introduces it. “It’s a wondrous box, and it demands a sacrifice… Drop of blood, a toe, cryptocurrency. You’ll be rewarded with the magic item in return.” Sam volunteers himself: “Throw me in the box. I’ll come out made of magic.” He’s ignored.
53. 0:43:10 — Aether Flux. The Shadow King forms a giant spectral hand that flies into the crowd and seizes the Acolyte Aether Flux. With his physical hand he forms a giant shadowy lance and throws it like an Olympic javelin through Aether Flux’s chest. It pulls a black, viscous soul out through the back. Aether Flux’s body falls limp and dead on the floor right behind Sam. The javelin lands in the box, which explodes in pink and yellow fire, a column shooting into the sky. Two shadowy, claw-tipped fingers and yellow eyes peek out: the box is primed to deal.
54. 0:44:22 The Grandmaster: toes, souls and bodies have all been sacrificed. “Sometimes the box likes new things… you don’t want to give them something they already have.”
55. 0:44:39 — Workplace respect. The Shadow King: “Shadow King is always getting disrespected around here.” “I unlocked the closet that you locked yourself inside of. And then I ate some Doritos.”
    • The Grandmaster: “You ate all the cake. He didn’t even order the cake.” He: “I also spiked the punch, but no one talks about that.”
    • “Would it kill you to be a little appreciative?” “Fine… Round number two.”

Round 2 — Dolores into the box

56. 0:45:39 “I gotta get this fucking raccoon off my face.” Ben uses Step of the Wind to get past Sam and runs like hell up the throne steps to the box, raccoon still on his face.
57. 0:46:23 Ben pulls Dolores off his face and holds her over the box. Sam: “You fucking wouldn’t.” Ben: “You gave me rabies with this fucking raccoon that I didn’t ask for… Box, I don’t know, take this raccoon.” Shadow King: “I would love to have a raccoon.” The box’s shadowy fingers wrap around the raccoon and pull it inside, shutting the lid. Ben: “This is all on you, Sam.” Sam: “I’m gonna get my raccoon back.”
58. 0:47:15 — A 100. The box rolls its best possible result. It shakes loudly and small raccoon sounds escape, “not panicked ones,” but conversational, as if those in the box are throwing a welcoming party for her. “They’ve always wanted a pet.”
59. 0:48:00 The lid flips open in another heatless pink-and-yellow column. The shadowy figure climbs out, this time wearing a raccoon-skin hat. Caustic Phoenix: “That’s very counter to what I described.” Mudcat: “I didn’t say it was the same raccoon.” Ben: “So there’s Dolores merch inside of the box now?”
60. 0:48:51 — The Raccoon of Annihilation. Ben describes the object: a cute little raccoon-head charm. It is a Raccoon of Annihilation, a sphere of annihilation.
    • If you squeeze its little stomach, its eyes pop out and it squeaks. Squeeze too hard and it activates.
    • “This is not the time to skip to the bottom and say, I’ve read it.” “It is truly a dangerous item, despite its cute, fluffy outer shell.”
    • Ben reads its little manual: “Weapon of mass destruction. Got it.”
61. 0:50:51 — The rock. Ben takes his rabies damage. Looking around with his one eye, he spots large and medium rocks and a few skulls. He picks up a hefty rock covered in bone dust, blows the dust off (“Cough it out”), and hurls it at Sam with a Jolly Chimp arm: “You throw raccoons, I throw rocks.”
62. 0:52:24 Sam has put the duct tape back on his own mouth (“reminds me of the times of yonder back when I used to do Boy Scouts at night”).
63. 0:53:10 — The deflection. Sam deflects the rock: he goes to take a big swig from his bottle and the rock tinks off it, “100% on accident.” Then “I’ma got it like a hacky sack. Right back at you, bitch.” He flips and kicks it back.
    • Shadow King: “What the hell’s that bottle made out of?” Sam: “Oh, fucking magic, bitch.”
    • The Grandmaster: “Everyone knows Starbucks drinks are made of magic.” Sam: “It tastes good because of the human suffering it takes to get the coffee so delicious.”
64. 0:54:27 — Ping pong. Ben tries to deflect it again (“It’s a game of ping pong!”). He tells the monkey arms to block. They don’t. They just clap, enjoying the game, and the rock smashes Ben in the face. He’s dazed for a moment and is left with a small mark on his forehead shaped like a raccoon. “Son of a bitch.”

Sam’s turn — Deletus

65. 0:55:53 “I want Dolores back out of that fucking box.” Sam reaches both hands in: “You spooky bitch, you give me back my soulmate.” The Grandmaster warns him that “Ether” in the box is also wearing a raccoon hat, “so you be careful of the feels.” Sam: “I’m only mostly drunk.”
66. 0:56:37 — The fusion. The box’s two shadowy arms wrap around his biceps and tug him headfirst inside; the lid shuts. He is suspended in a void, inside a black tornado with yellow eyes, and sees Dolores in the eye of the storm. They are pulled together and their DNA melds into one monstrosity.
67. 0:57:30 Sam’s new form:
    • a huge, full raccoon-colored mullet;
    • black marks around his eyes;
    • an extended mouth with sharp teeth;
    • talons on his hands and feet. The Grandmaster asks what part is still wood elf. “The penis.” (“Still okay to fuck… And my grandma says it’s very okay… We have a very close, tight family.”)
68. 0:58:32 “I am now Deletus. And I will not be questioned by any mortal man or woman on this godforsaken earth!” The box yeets him back out onto the stairs.
    • In this form every strike deals extra rabies damage.
    • His Hydro Flask was melded into his body in the fusion: “Oh, I’m naturally drunk now.”
    • Ben: “Did you become like a werewolf?” Table: a “were-coon.”
    • Size: Sam insists on fully wood elf size, “just raccoonified.”
69. 0:59:57 “I’m here to eat, crash, and kick ass, and I don’t see any fucking garbage.” He scampers up the stone stairs and charges to latch his jaw onto Ben’s upper thigh, but rolls a nat 1.
70. 1:00:56 — The reversal. Ben sidesteps and Deletus falls back into the Box of Chaos (“Back in the box. Go away!”). The fusion inverts: everything that was raccoon becomes human and everything human becomes raccoon.
    • He now has a raccoon face, nice human hair, raccoon ears and “human teeth… regular human enamel,” like the fake dog in dog-dentist commercials.
    • He now has a raccoon penis. “I don’t consent to any of this!” “Dolores will live on within my penis.”
71. 1:01:49 Ben tries to have the ape arms hold the box shut, but the box is too powerful and spits Sam out. “It does not want that raccoon penis inside of it anymore.” Sam: “Now none of my cousins are going to know who I am.”
72. 1:03:19 — Coin flip: attractiveness. “Am I more or less attractive than I was before?” He is more attractive now. “I’m gonna be… like ain’t nobody ever done seen before.”
73. 1:03:47 — Quivering palm. Sam goes for Ben’s left buttock with a quivering palm strike. The Grandmaster: “Make that ass quiver.” Ben renames him “Clitoris.” The strike lands as a glancing blow; Sam is “mostly doing this to give them rabies,” coughing all over his hand.
74. 1:04:55 Sam is now fighting in the nude because his raccoon dick keeps getting caught in his karate pants, and he asks whether Ben should be blinded by it. A second coin flip on whether his dick looks better: “Heads for good dick.” It’s worse. “It’s so much worse.” “There’s so much extra skin.” He puts his clothes back on.
75. 1:05:55 The Grandmaster calls a 10-minute break “while the rest of us purge our brain… wash my eyes with bleach… Animal control, we need something.” (Cut from the mp3.)

After the break

76. 1:06:34 The Shadow King: “Welcome back, Acolytes. Hopefully those commercials were great, especially the Dice Daddy one.” Grandmaster: “My least favorite.”
    • Sam: the dice won’t stop him “from getting my fucking cousin pregnant… [no] converse— contraceptive.” Shadow King: “I think the raccoon dick will take care of that for you.”
    • Ben: “Not a single ad to get rid of this rabies in all of the Dread Fortress.” He is now foaming at the mouth.
77. 1:07:38 — The throne collapses. On a nat 1, the Shadow King goes to sit in his throne, and because he ate the whole cake earlier, the seat collapses under him. “See, this is why you share.” He snaps his fingers and several goblins stack their bodies into a pyramid chair for him. “Together, they’re much stronger than apart.”
78. 1:08:19 — Fernando. The Grandmaster hands a d20 to a goblin of his choice. He names “Fernando,” and admits he made it up.
    • “Out of the 235 employees we have, we have zero Fernandos.” Sam: “Then let Bartholomew roll.” There’s no Bartholomew either.
    • Sam claims he heard in the parking lot that when Fernando was fired he got no proper severance, and points out there’s no healthcare and no liquor but his own.
79. 1:09:19 — Employee benefits. The Grandmaster says all employees (not the champions) get:
    • extensive health insurance, a gym plan, and free meals any time they’re working in the Dread Fortress;
    • a severance packet;
    • a pet chinchilla when they’re hired, plus pet PTO days on top of regular PTO.
    • They are unionized. “We care extensively… he doesn’t even know any of their names.” The Shadow King: “You’re telling me we’ve been spending money on all of this the whole time?… As of today, at this moment, we no longer offer healthcare or any other benefits.” “That is not true.”
80. 1:10:12 — Meemaw’s sponsor. Sam announces that “Meemaw got sponsored”: an adult-toy site (Bad Dragon), with a code for 20% off. “My Meemaw was having issues with intimacy due to the sort of nasty nature of denizens of the swamp down there in the deep woods… Love you, Meemaw.”
81. 1:10:53 — Henrietta. “Let Henrietta roll.” A small, adorable goblin with bright blonde hair rolls a 14. Sam: “That’s the most attractive goblin I’ve ever seen.” The Grandmaster: “Please stop and don’t harass our employees. I love you, Henrietta.” Henrietta hides behind the goblin chair. Mudcat: “Hide your employees, hide your wives.”

Round 3 — the Jolly Chimp

82. 1:11:26 — Natural 20. From the box, Ben has the arms fan out as wide as they can. Behind his head appear the eyes and the widening smile, and the two arms crash together, the cymbals flattening Sam. Maximum damage plus the roll.
83. 1:12:50 Ben: “You can get rid of this rabies, I’ll stop hitting you.” His second strike goes straight for the groin. Sam: “Why is he only going for my groin?” Ben: “Because it’s the only part of you that has actually hurt me in this fight. I now have a disposition against raccoons now.” Sam: “Maybe if you hit it hard enough, it’ll go back to normal.” The cymbals smash the raccoon penis. The arms can hit from 10 feet: “No kissing.”
84. 1:13:53 — The Visage. Ben’s bonus action summons the Visage of the Astral Self. The rest of the Jolly Chimp spirit takes physical shape, “pleased at the violence and madness”:
    • a full chimp head wearing a bloody red fez;
    • eyes moving in a hypnotic pattern of red, black and white;
    • a horrible, insatiable grin of flat, perfectly white teeth (“he’s got too good of a dentist”). The head forms around Ben’s body.
85. 1:15:31 Ben: “Okay, this was not what I had in mind… oh shit.” The Grandmaster: “Are you afraid of your own creation?” “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this thing.” “You should just embrace it.” He begins to clap and the chimp arms clap in sync. The Acolytes clap and chant along.
86. 1:16:23 — Meth. Sam: “Y’all hate me? Good. That’s fine. People ain’t never like me nothing. Mama told me this world was made for weed, but I wasn’t. I was made for meth.” He throws a handful of blue crystals into his mouth and chews.
87. 1:17:21 — The cookies. “Meemaw started making cookies a long time ago, but… the Aasimar moved into the deep woods around those times, using their heavenly divinity to make these fantastic shitty-ass white chocolate macadamia nut bullshit. So Meemaw said, fuck it, I’ll put in some of this special ingredient… people will be… like, where’s that next cookie?… That’s how I got into meth.” The meth gives him a “meth-fueled second wind” and a good chunk of HP back. “Oh, the meth feels so good!”
88. 1:18:22 — The tackle. “I’m tackling you now, bitch!… Get in this treasure chest with me and the raccoons.” Ben: “Get away from me, you weird furry fuck!”
    • Sam uses his alien-enhanced intelligence, “gravity, physics, leverage” (“Are you just naming categories out of STEM?”). “I’m 16 intelligence now, you can’t tell me shit.”
    • Ben counters with the wisdom of the Jolly Chimp: “The ancient malice of the Jolly Chimp leers down over you with its wide, pulsating eyes, and you know that there is only insidious, bloodthirsty intelligence behind those eyes.” Sam: “I’d be afraid if I wasn’t so gosh darn horny every time that thing rises up.”
    • Sam’s Intelligence check works: “I have created a pivot point between my leg and your ass, boy.” It gives him advantage.
89. 1:21:13 Sam wins the contest. Mudcat: “This is the dumbest fight I’ve ever seen. You successfully tackle him using a pivot point and… all the power of science.” Sam: “I have a 10 strength. This was nothing except folding laundry.” Both fall into the Box of Chaos together, Sam chanting “raccoon nightmare.”

Inside the Box of Chaos — the lamp

90. 1:21:42 Inside, besides the spirits in the tornado, is the Acolytes’ second chaotic event: a small, beat-up, bent-in golden lamp sitting in the empty space. The box is full of smoke.
    • Ben holds his breath (“Are we double dead now?”). They can breathe.
    • Sam: “Are we in a hot box?… Take deep breaths, Ben. We’re going to get through this together.” He wonders if smoking it could get rid of the ghost.
    • The Grandmaster: “This can do an exorcism, it can’t do a vaccination for you. Rabies ain’t going nowhere, you earned that.” Ben: “So regardless of what happens here, I’m dead.”
91. 1:23:45 Sam: “Sometimes when I’ve been bad, the rest of the family would call me Cooter,” in case they don’t like “Clitoris.”
92. 1:24:03 — The lamp strike. Sam hits Ben with the lamp: “I hope you got ass-whooping insurance because I’m about to take me a big-ass deductible, boy.” “And on the first swing, the Lord said, let there be light.”
    • The lamp strike shouldn’t carry rabies damage, so Sam argues the lamp is drenched in his sweat and blood: “like when you’re playing basketball with a big guy… you’re gonna get wet.” Mudcat: “Sounds like a really interesting Space Jam fanfiction.” Sam: “I do write Space Jam fan fictions down in the woods. Sometimes I’m usually fighting with Lola Bunny to help take over Toontown.” (“Shout out to Brandon the DM.”)
    • Caustic Phoenix allows the extra damage: “I am a sprinkler of justice.” A double-handed overhead slam.
93. 1:26:18 The Grandmaster: “I still miss Dolores.” Ben: “You are Dolores.” Sam: “We are all Dolores. Do you hear me, Acolytes? We are all Dolores.”
94. 1:26:37 Ben worries they’ll fuse “like a John Carpenter’s thing.” Sam: “Maybe we should Megazord together and beat the shit out of the two people running this show.” Ben’s contribution would be “my boyish charm.” Sam: “After you die, I’m bringing your body back.” Ben: “Yeah, no, I’m out of here.” Sam: “I think I broke the deal.”
95. 1:27:26 — The sweatband. Sam wipes his forehead with “one of those cool Nike bands” and wraps it around his fists. This doubles his rabies damage (“I’m leaking rabies”). “Waste not, want not, son of a bitch… It’s hammer time.”
96. 1:28:04 The Shadow King rolls a 14. Ben: “Is the Shadow King in here with us?” Shadow King: “I’m always here with you.”

Round 4 — the testicles

97. 1:28:53 Sam still has the lamp: “I got two arms, one for eating, one for beating.” Which one holds it is never settled.
98. 1:29:58 Ben goes for the lamp with the chimp arms, hoping for a way out of the box or “a genie and it can cure my rabies.”
99. 1:30:40 — Tipsy Sway. Sam misdirects the grab: the giant ape hand gets “a handful of raccoon penis instead of the beautiful, wonderful golden lamp.” “You ain’t never gonna get this lamp, boy.” The Jolly Chimp’s grin turns into an utterly unrecognizable frown. “It wanted the shiny. Instead, it got a handful of raccoon dick.”
100. 1:32:02 — Retractable? Sam asks whether raccoon testicles retract, citing the zoo books from elementary school. Mudcat googles it: 50 pounds of force ruptures a testicle. Caustic Phoenix rules they are not retractable. Ben: “According to Google, we’re going to break your balls now.” The chimp squeezes. Sam: “That’s a Saturday night, bitch. That would normally cost 40 gold pieces in a backwoods alleyway district… Or free at your mom’s house!”
101. 1:33:13 “Now you’re talking about its mom.” Ben spends ki on a Flurry of Blows into Sam’s nuts, “like a speed bag.”
102. 1:33:50 — Ben’s hero point. “The Jolly Chimp has taken over Ben Zappa.” It fully manifests around him: Ben is now a giant man-sized Jolly Chimp, cymbals in hand, “going full JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.” Ben’s own arms join the chimp’s, punching from above and below: “we’re making biscuits out of these balls here. This is a puree, these are mashed.” It’s a critical hit. Sam: “I don’t know if I should roll a death saving throw, or just see if I cum.”
103. 1:35:45 — Sam’s request. Sam wants to spend his hero point to sever the “hideous magical abomination raccoon dick” so the damage goes to it, not him. “It’s the dick or me.” The ruling: Ben’s hero point shouldn’t be negated, so if Sam survives the “dick punching of a century,” he can disconnect without extra damage and keep his hero point.
104. 1:37:46 He survives the crits.
105. 1:38:32 — Inches. Sam asks “to see of the 12 original inches how much there is left.” A d12: ten inches remain. “He polished off about two whole inches. Meemaw’s gonna be very upset.” It’s flat now, “like a dolphin’s.”
106. 1:39:16 — The genie. Sam rubs the lamp with his damaged penis. The lamp shimmers and a genie appears. Caustic Phoenix says pink; Sam asks for another color (“one of the only colors I can’t do”), so it becomes a red genie, lighting up the sky. - Genie: “I woke up. You’ve summoned me. This is terrible timing.” - Sam: “You sound just like my cousin Darla. So this guy beat my dick off.” Genie: “That sounds like a Sunday night activity.” - “Look at this dick.” “No, I really don’t want to.” “Hey, who summoned who here?” - Sam: “Fix it. I wish you fixed whatever that is.” Genie: “He doesn’t even say please… One wish you get, deal, I’ll fix it.”
107. 1:41:09 — Samantha. The genie snaps his fingers. The dick heals, but at Dolores’s normal size, and Dolores had no dick. Sam now has a raccoon vagina. “All right. I’m Samantha Cletus and I’m here to whoop ass and save my fucking Meemaw. I don’t care how many dicks I got to crush.” - “Every time someone’s ever called me a pussy, I’ve been like, why? They’re so durable.” - The healing leaves him with 2 HP. “The snatch that smiles back, Sam Cletus.” Genie: “That is definitely your slogan.”
108. 1:42:35 — The shotgun. “Shit’s gotten weird here.” Samantha pulls out a sawed-off shotgun (added to Sam’s inventory on the spot): “Hey, sorry about this, kid… I’m so drunk. I hope it’s loaded.” It misses. “Ah, this fucking thing don’t work.” There’s no way out of the box.
109. 1:43:26 — The pout. Ben: “We’re trapped in here because you threw us in here and now we have a raccoon vagina and a shotgun.” Sam: “Just blame me for everything.” Ben asks for the lamp. Samantha tosses it over her shoulder and pouts in the corner (“even though there are no corners in here”).
110. 1:44:06 — A moment of sympathy. Ben catches the lamp and feels sorry for Samantha: “Do you want to get out of here?” “Don’t act like you care all of a sudden.” - Ben: “I’m only kind of sorry that I just smashed your penis into a vagina. Well, the vagina part’s more of the genie’s fault… I just exploded your balls.” - Samantha: “I’m just trying to save my Meemaw. I understand that you’ve got your imaginary friend to deal with.” “When you live in the poor, poor deep woods, when you step in the wrong pond, and you get a little bit of festering alligator mites down your leg, and you think it’ll go away on its own, but then it don’t, and now your daughter’s fighting for you in an arena, not gonna make it home.” - Ben proposes that Sam loses, so “your Meemaw gets a daughter instead of a son and then I can get rid of this monkey spirit or preferably the rabies.” “I’d honestly rather have the Jolly Chimp than have rabies.” - Samantha: “My grandma will get better if I win. Your problem will get better if you die. So maybe if you just give up, my grandma will live and your monkey will go to hell with you.” Ben: “Or I could have the monkey punch the shit out of you.”
111. 1:46:05 — Pocket sand vs Fist. “You fucked up this time, pocket sand!” Ben: “You throw sand, and I cast Fist.” Samantha: “Counter spell.” Ben’s Flurry: the first punch hits.
112. 1:47:26 — Samantha’s hero point. “I’m gonna flex so fucking hard that when he punches me it breaks his hand instead.” At 2 HP, her pectorals flex so hard they burst out like large balloons popping. The Jolly Chimp’s spirit hand breaks, and Ben takes the damage instead. “I’m flat chested, but they still do the fucking trick.”
113. 1:48:13 “I know counting’s a little hard for you, but it does have two hands.” The second hand misses, “perhaps almost in a mode of survival… terrified of… that flat chest.” “The Jolly Chimp… you’ve ruined its hand. Now it can’t play symbols together anymore. It only has one symbol.”
114. 1:49:05 — Coke and meth. “I’m going to first do some coke. And I’m going to shake that with a little bit of meth.” Samantha swings four times (two attacks plus Flurry): “I can’t hit shit with dick.” Only the last strike lands: a hip kick “with all of my bad juju and energy,” a Stunning Strike, with doubled sweat-rabies damage (“Make that two, bitch”). Ben makes his save and is not stunned.

Round 5 — the death of Samantha Cletus

115. 1:51:28 Ben: “Samantha, like, we had a dialogue here and you chose violence.” Samantha: “You changed my gender with your fists.” Ben: “You changed your gender with the lamp.”
116. 1:51:52 — The second wish. Ben rubs the lamp. Genie: “Fuck off. No, I have a quota of one per day. Fuck off.” Inspection shows it’s a knockoff genie, unable to grant three wishes. Ben says “fuck this thing” and throws the lamp at Samantha.
117. 1:52:40 — Meemaw’s voice. Samantha Deflects Missiles (24). “I went down to one knee and I just went, I’m sorry, Meemaw. I failed you. I won’t strong enough.” As the lamp comes in slow motion, Samantha hears Meemaw: “Sam Cletus, I told you not to embarrass us as you went out and fight into the arena. I told you to mind your manners and yourself. Oh, quickly, dodge that attack, son.” “Oh, yes, Meemaw.” She flips and kicks the lamp back, and it hits Ben. - Ben: “She sounds like the nicest lady.” Samantha: “Meemaw’s a fucking saint… She’s got cancer. I’m here to solve that.” - Ben: “You could have used the genie to solve cancer.” “I didn’t show up and get fucking raccoon penis.” Grandmaster: “You had the option in your hand, Samantha… The moment has passed.”
118. 1:54:23 Ben: “God damn it all right, I’m done with this.” The Jolly Chimp brings down its unbroken hand to flatten Samantha.
119. 1:55:12 — Last words. “I ain’t gonna be able to save Meemaw, but that’s okay. Wherever I’m going, I’m sure there’s liquor and people not paying enough attention to the rules. I’m gonna come back from this life or to the next, Ben. Don’t ever sleep again with your eyes closed. You got this monkey off your back, but you got a Samantha Cletus for life.”
120. 1:55:48 “In that squishing sound like a bug, Samantha is no more.” The Grandmaster: “See, was this not the death you wanted?” Shadow King: “It was something. A lot of fluidity there.”
121. 1:56:11 — Locked in. The Shadow King vanishes in a puff of smoke and reappears by the Box of Chaos. Ben looks up and sees the box’s opening with the Shadow King’s face staring down inside. “Seems like you were having some trouble with your friend there.” - Ben: “Honestly, I think I’ve gotten pretty used to this fella. After that fight, I think we both kind of bonded. But the rabies, we’re not bonded to the rabies.” - Shadow King: “I’ll see what I can do about the rabies, but in the meantime, I’ll just let the two of you have a little privacy.” He shuts the lid, turns his finger into a key and locks the Box of Chaos with Ben (and the Jolly Chimp) inside.
122. 1:57:05 “Welcome and goodnight to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

• Box of Chaos.
  • Stake: “If I come back, I’m also going to live in the box again. I like the box… I thought it would be safer.”
  • Caustic Phoenix: there has been “a huge fascination with the Box of Chaos this season,” including someone who gave their own body and soul.
  • Mudcat: “Maybe last episode, episode before, we hollowed someone out and then the soul in the box inhabited their body as a meat suit for the second half.”
• The empty map. Caustic Phoenix liked that the final fight happened inside the box with nothing on the map: “Ditch all of that. Let’s just have the two of you.”
• Stake on Sam Cletus:
  • Built for roleplay, not combat: “a drunk that gets in fights at bars… a redneck who’s come out of his comfort zone into the big league unprepared.”
  • He wanted long tangents about the backstory and some animal interaction (“You can’t fucking go wrong with raccoon”).
  • Both players built “shitty” monks and ended up “monk versus monk.” Stake’s abilities are better for team fights.
  • Kyle went for “the monk that just sounded the most visually cool.”
• Art. Caustic Phoenix says the were-coon is the artwork she now most wants, “a before and after”: “Sam Cletus, Sam Cletus Were-coon, Samantha Cletus.” There’s a joke about a lewd D20 Deathmatch fan-art site, DeviantArt and gnoll art. Stake’s gnoll main character is on “the Cantrip cast.”
• Caustic Phoenix googled whether raccoon testicles are retractable.
• Meemaw (player-stated; possibly partly in Meemaw’s voice, so marked uncertain). Stake says Meemaw is “actually very proper.” She does not approve of what Sam Cletus gets into and has been “trying to guide him from a distance… sometimes when you love things, you have to let them go.” She has cancer “from all the spit tobacco. She does dip.” Stake suggests playing Meemaw in the arena someday.
• The live show. Mudcat notes Kyle has played a live show that hasn’t aired yet. Kyle prefers live (“the exhilaration”). For that show they settled on Chef GPT; his other idea was a briefcase-carrying rules lawyer. Stake pitches a butler (“I would like to apologize for getting this blood upon your floor…”) or a “murder hobo” who brought rocks and an actual gun.
• Advice. Kyle: “not everything has to be… serious heroic fantasy… let your imagination run wild.” Stake tells “a joke that Meemaw taught me” (the horse and the chicken in Meemaw’s mud pit; “when you’re hung like a horse, you don’t need a pickup truck to pick up chicks”). It’s told as Stake, so it’s treated as table talk.