S5E1 — Rise of the Lord of Fate — Atlas v Killy Yesman

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Season Five opened on a very different Void. The Grandmaster had been “laid off,” and a bored new ruler, the Lord of Fate, sat alone on the throne of The Dread Fortress. He needed an assistant, so he made Thea out of a worm. Together they held the season’s first Deathmatch on the front lawn, “old school”: Atlas, a mouthless robot with floating fists, against Killy Yesman, a salesman willing to die for Double Sun Cola. Along the way the shed got used, the lawnmower got used, a new soul was poured into The Box of Chaos, and one champion lost a fight to his own head.

The Story

A Fortress Gone Quiet

The view swept through the open mouth of the great skull in the lava field and into the Dread Fortress, where the subterranean walls were wet with dew. Pictures of “what used to be the Arbiter” hung on the walls, and blue tabards hung everywhere. The place was oddly silent, with no merriment and no shenanigans. Everything was very straight-laced.

On the throne slouched the Lord of Fate, picking his teeth. He mumbled that there was something he was meant to do today, then remembered and stood up to announce “Deathmatch!” to an empty room. “This is not going to do,” he decided. “I’m going to need an assistant.”

He chose a worm. It swelled to about three feet tall and sprouted wings and a small face: still glittery pink, now less worm than imp, “almost like a very ugly fairy.” She grovelled at his feet (“I’m not worthy!”) and he lifted his new Italian leather boots out of reach: “I absolutely agree, you’re not.” He had expected a mindless automaton, so he felt obliged to ask her name.

Thea: “I am Thea… I’ve drank from the blood of champions as it spilled along the ground into the dirt… I have been raised in the arena. I know everything about it.”

Thea shook with excitement like a small Chihuahua. She produced a clipboard out of nowhere (“probably her butthole”), because an assistant needs a clipboard. Once reminded that Sunday is Deathmatch Day, she clapped. Portals burst open all over The Void, and since she had no control over this, every clap opened more of them. The Acolytes were dragged in from their living rooms, their bathrooms and, in some cases, their toilets. Nobody had planned a venue, so Thea suggested the front yard, which was exactly what the Lord of Fate had been about to say. “I created you, so I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense,” he said.

Thea found the champions by meditating until her pink flesh drained to deep gray, sitting “almost too still for a very uncomfortable time.” Back when she was a worm, she had heard people “talking shit” and saying they could fight better than the arena’s champions. She clapped open two portals. First came Atlas, a towering robot: “Salutations, Lord of Fate. I am Atlas, defender of the innocent, breaker of bones and bitches.” When Thea misheard “witches,” he apologized for his aggressive autocorrect. Then his chest expanded, shoulder pads ejected, and two goblin-sized fists floated into the air on crackling lightning to give a thumbs up. The Lord of Fate rated him an 8 out of 10, then 75%.

Thea had found Killy Yesman on his billboard. Her reasoning was that anyone with a billboard that big could probably do a really big attack. He pointed to the logo on his chest and promised to prove he was “just as unbeatable as the delicious, thirst-quenching taste of Double Sun Cola.” His pecs thumped “like two balloons, undulating back and forth,” and Thea hid behind her clipboard. “I consider my life to be worthless,” Killy explained, “so I am ready to fight to the death to sell this soda.”

Thea asked for “blood and guts coming up like fountains everywhere, blood cannons” to soak the fans. The Lord of Fate made a note to put a therapist on the payroll. He then clapped space apart, and everyone was suddenly standing on the lawn in front of the fortress, with the Acolyte stands floating high in the sky. Rising on white wings, he welcomed the crowd and stumbled over what had become of the Grandmaster. Was she fired? Had he fired her? He settled on “laid off. It’s more dignified.” When Thea asked whether she got a severance package, he said: “She’s going to get one soon enough. It’s a little beheading joke.”

Lawnmowers and Little Bitches

Atlas moved first. He was big and slow but powerful, and he found a lawnmower nearby with a death skull, Harley Davidson pipes and a buzzsaw spinning around its jaw. “It is time to cut the grass,” he announced, and slammed the engine into Killy’s face. Then he launched one fist off at an angle. Its turbines brought it back around like a boomerang to grab Killy by the back of the head and push him into the mower a second time.

Atlas hauled Killy up by the shirt. He observed that organic beings tend to become what they consume, “and it appears as though you woke up this morning and ate a big bowl of little bitches.” The punch that followed was a natural 20. Killy didn’t flinch. He sipped his soda, his wounds began to close, and he pushed the fist back with his immovable chin. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, At-less… you’re gonna have to try At-more.”

Thea remarked that his face was very punchable, admitted she wasn’t very good at fighting, then threw a punch at her own boss. The Lord of Fate saw it coming, as the Lord of Fate would, and she shrank onto the tip of his Italian leather boot to apologize.

Killy darted in on twig legs and elbowed Atlas in the chest (“you’re slower than my girlfriend’s five-year-old iPhone”). Then he produced a glass Double Sun Cola bottle with “two large balls at the bottom that remind you of suns.” After a long detour on proper two-handed shaking technique (“You could even hold both balls while you shake it”), which left Thea “not mature enough for this conversation,” he tossed it to Atlas. It exploded in the robot’s hand. Soda ran into his joints, his hands sparked and twitched, and he was soon so sticky, “covered in Killy stuff” as he put it, that he could barely move. Atlas’s verdict on the flavor: “It tastes like science.”

Thea kept calling her boss “Arbiter” by mistake. To end the confusion, he gave her the title. “Thea the Arbiter?” she gasped. “I’ll be the second best Arbiter there ever was. After yours, of course.” He explained that he had chosen “Lord” over “King” or “Master of the Universe” because he was a humble man. To close the round, Thea stole a die from an Acolyte, rolled it and threw it back at its owner, then promised everyone cookies on the Lord of Fate’s tab.

The Garden Shed

Atlas pushed himself up on magnetic repulsion, dripping cola. A tiny chinchilla appeared with an AA battery and stuck it up his butthole (“It is the exact right size,” Atlas reported), and his electricity turned from blue to yellow. His floating fists seized Killy, hoisted him thirty feet into the air and spiraled him down into the garden shed. When the dust cleared, Killy had a pitchfork through his shoulder.

“Who left this here?” Atlas demanded. “This is an active battle zone.” A finger on one hand opened and sprayed antiseptic on the wound: “I do not wish for you to die from an infection. You will die because I will tear you to pieces.” Killy pulled the pitchfork out anyway and sealed the hole with cola. It took two pours (“that pitchfork is girthy”), and he flexed a pec to show it had healed. The Lord of Fate could not see who he was trying to impress.

Killy’s leg sweep clanged off Atlas’s sturdy metal legs. “My hat’s off to your maker,” he said. When Thea asked who that maker was, a window opened in Atlas’s chest and played a clip: “your mother.” Thea took offense and revealed that she does, in fact, have a mother. “Suck it, Atlas!” she cried. “I cannot,” Atlas replied. “I have no mouth.” Killy then tried to kick a cola bottle up into the port where the chinchilla had put the battery, and the robot informed him the device was not compatible.

Sponsored Content

Atlas spun at the hip and played “Nice hat, bro” from his chest. Then he grabbed the soda cans mounted on Killy’s hat and poured everything he had into one move, his Unbreakable Force. He shook Killy’s head until it blurred, the cans burst, and a deafening blast ruptured Killy’s ears. Double Sun rained over the stands. The Acolytes in ponchos were very pleased with their choice, and Thea’s chinchillas handed tiny towels to everyone else. Killy, irises spinning, asked the crowd how they liked their free sample. They screamed for more.

Atlas tried to cool down, but cola seeped into his circuits and he shorted out again. Killy weakly offered him a bottle: “You can suck this if you want. You deserve it after that. I recognize you as a true champion.” Then the logo on his shirt began to glow, starting in the two suns at the bottom, filling the bottle’s shaft and exploding outward all over him, and it shook off the lasting damage from the blast. As the Lord of Fate put it: “He definitely heroic surged all over himself.”

Then came the sponsor break. A giant Double Sun logo lit up the sky, and Killy addressed the children of the Void directly: “Listen, kids. Double Sun Cola, go steal your parents’ wall[et] and get some.” It was a food, a superfood, a supplement and a pretty good adhesive, and it had been banned in at least three countries, “so you know that those governments don’t want you to get the good stuff.” While everyone stared upward, Killy painted the logo onto Atlas’s chest. “Drink up, bud. You’re part of the family now.” Atlas was undaunted: “I have branding potential. Fear me!”

Tuna Juice and the Hibachi

After the break, the Lord of Fate decreed that tuna juice was now illegal throughout the Void, except as bait. He ordered the fortress’s entire storeroom of tuna cans drained and eaten dry. Thea asked whether that applied to the fish. He replied that he doesn’t govern the fishes, and that he would not be questioned “by someone who was a worm 30 minutes ago.” He also pointed out that fish love to eat worms.

The Acolytes triggered the Box of Chaos, and it slammed onto the lawn in a column of heatless pink and yellow fire. Thea rolled a natural 20 for the chaos event, and chef chinchillas wheeled out a hibachi grill. They built a flaming onion volcano and catapulted shrimp into the champions’ open mouths. Killy fumbled his. Atlas, once again, reminded everyone that he had no mouth, and lost extra face for the embarrassment. Both were wearing down, and the Lord of Fate reminded them that a champion who reaches the limit of exhaustion dies in the arena. Thea, who had held up five fingers for round four by mistake, fixed the problem by chopping off her thumb with a hatchet and throwing it to the Acolytes to eat: “My gift!”

Atlas melted the logo off his chest with cola (“you can use it for anything”) and opened the box. It turned out to be empty, holding only a few useless leftover essences. “I’m not using this thing anyways,” said the Lord of Fate. He tore his own shadow off the ground, pulled it to its feet and threw it in. The lid slammed shut, the fire roared, and a newly formed soul peered over the rim with yellow eyes.

Atlas asked to be bigger. When the shadow asked what he would trade, Atlas had it turn around, squatted, and something fell out with a thunk: a battery from the Void that a chinchilla had provided earlier. “I present to you, Raw Power.” The shadow was delighted, since its Game Boy had been dead for three weeks. Atlas’s prize was Kenny’s missing arm, small and green, which attached itself to the middle of his chest. “He’s not gonna be needing it anyway.” Killy answered by placing a bright red, extra-corrosive Double Sun in the new hand, and it detonated. Thrown next to the box, Killy reached in and felt another hand touch his, soft and warm. He wished for Atlas to have a mouth. He let down a surprisingly lovely mane of long blonde hair and handed over his hat. The shadow put the hat on and started sucking the cola through its straws, then reported that it was “all out of mouths.” It gave Killy smelling salts instead.

The Bald Spot

Killy was aghast that the chest logo was gone. His second ad told viewers to “just go and sell your parents for a pack of this soda.” It failed, and everyone hugged their parents a little closer. “You can’t just slap logos all over our shit,” the Lord of Fate protested. Thea quietly admitted she had one on the back of her clipboard.

Without his hat, Killy revealed a shiny bald spot that briefly blinded Atlas. Killy smashed bottles against Atlas’s chest, hoping to dissolve it so no corporation could ever brand it again. Atlas caught him in a hug instead. “It is okay. Being bald isn’t that bad.” “They told me if I drank it, it would grow back,” Killy confessed. Atlas tried to list cool bald people, and the Acolytes helpfully shouted “Stone Cold Steve Austin!” Thea then stole another die and set off her very own chaos event, a screeching swarm of bottle rockets.

A Mouth at Last

The hug had a second purpose: Atlas had been recharging. He rebooted with a rising chime and turned the embrace into a German suplex aimed at the bald spot. “My only weakness!” Killy cried, and then he rolled a natural 20 to escape it. “You thought I actually care that I’m bald? Have you seen my face? I’ve got bigger problems.” His last sponsor break painted a logo on top of Atlas’s head: bald spot on bald spot.

With his head still stuck in the dirt, Killy hugged back and made his most sincere pitch yet. Atlas admitted his deepest sorrow: “It is a great source of misery and contention that I do not have a mouth. I cannot enjoy such things as the water of the tuna, or the shrimps from the hibachi, or the delightful taste of double-sun cola.” Killy hooked his fingers into Atlas’s port (“Port denied,” said Thea, “Exit only”) and simply pulled. The port split open into a crude mouth. Angelic choirs rang out as Atlas realized he finally had one. As the first drops of soda seeped in, Thea screamed, “Atlas! Don’t you dare give up! I believe in you!” Atlas crammed the hole shut. “I cannot disappoint Thea."

"I Appear to Have Made an Error”

Desperate to get the logo off his head, Atlas ripped off his own head plate to smash it into Killy’s face. He rolled a natural 1 and pulled far too hard. Wires and his cybernetic brain tore loose from the skull housing. “I appear to have made an error,” he said. His fists dropped and his body collapsed, and from the canister at his core poured bright golden liquid instead of oil. Atlas had been running on Double Sun Cola the entire time.

“What have I done?” Killy wailed. Thea lifted him up and told him that together they had shown everyone what Double Sun could do. Killy picked up the broken core and drank the whole thing down his shirt. “Now Atlas, it’s inside of me too. And together, together, we will sell more soda than we ever could apart. This I swear to you.”

The Lord of Fate declared Killy the victor of the season’s first Deathmatch, then fumbled the closing (“Well, it’s not blood”). Thea told him he kinda sucked at this and took over. Goblins appeared and hauled Atlas off on a canvas while Thea promised the crowd, “Atlas, we will have you return!… And we will rebuild them!”

Dried Blood

In the locker room behind the Dread Fortress, a small horde of goblins was busy rebuilding Atlas, a towel slung over his shoulder, while Killy hung around nearby.

Notable Moments

• The Lord of Fate created Thea from an arena worm and, within half an hour, gave her the title of Arbiter.
• The Grandmaster was “laid off,” with a severance package that was “a little beheading joke.”
• Tuna juice was banned throughout the Void, though the Lord of Fate does not govern the fishes.
• Thea chopped off her own thumb to fix a hand signal and fed it to the Acolytes.
• The Lord of Fate tore off his own shadow to give the empty Box of Chaos a new soul, which was thrilled to get a battery for its dead Game Boy.
• Atlas finally got a mouth, refused to use it, then ripped out his own brain and was revealed to be full of cola.

Memorable Quotes

• Atlas: “It appears as though you woke up this morning and ate a big bowl of little bitches.”
• Killy Yesman: “There are some advantages to having grown up with the world’s most punchable face… you’re gonna have to try At-more.”
• The Lord of Fate: “I’m not going to be questioned by someone who was a worm 30 minutes ago.”
• Thea: “Holy macaroni! And there is such thing as holy macaroni. I’ve been to the temple.”
• The shadow in the Box of Chaos: “I’m all out of mouths. Sorry, but I found these in my pocket.”
• Atlas: “It is a great source of misery and contention that I do not have a mouth.”
• Atlas: “I appear to have made an error.”
• Killy Yesman: “Now Atlas, it’s inside of me too. And together, together, we will sell more soda than we ever could apart. This I swear to you.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat). The ruler of the Dread Fortress, sitting on its throne; he is the former Arbiter (he is called “the Arbiter” by slip at 0:31:59 and 1:12:51, and Atlas says “I’ll ask the Arbiter next time”).

• In this episode:

  • He made Thea from a worm and named her the Arbiter.
  • He had the Grandmaster “fired… laid off” and made a beheading joke about her “severance package.”
  • He banned tuna juice throughout the Void.
  • He ripped off his own shadow and threw it into the Box of Chaos as its new soul.
  • He has white wings and wears new Italian leather boots. He “can see all through time and space,” “can control fate,” and calls himself humble.

• Running bits:

  • He keeps a performance review for Thea and dangles a half-percent raise.
  • He wants a therapist on the payroll.
  • He “doesn’t govern the fishes.”
  • He doesn’t normally do the closing speech.

• Who she is:

  • She drank champions’ spilled blood and lived among their bones, so she knows their injuries, weaknesses and strengths.
  • Her flesh goes gray when she meditates or seeks people. She opens portals by clapping, with no control over it, and summons chinchillas (towels, AA battery, hibachi chefs).
  • She carries a clipboard, which now has a Double Sun logo on the back.
  • She says she has a mother.

• In this episode:

  • She is named “the Arbiter” by the Lord of Fate.
  • She steals Acolytes’ dice for the end-of-round rolls.
  • She chopped off her own thumb and fed it to the crowd.
  • She is bad at counting and math. She is bloodthirsty (“blood cannons”).
  • She takes over the closing speech.

Atlas (Dag). A large robot.

• Body:
  • Heavy iron boots, gyros and an ejecting chassis.
  • Floating fists the size of goblins, which work gyroscopically, by magnetic repulsion and with rocket turbines.
  • Four eye sockets and a faceplate. Electricity turns yellow when he’s charged.
  • A chest window that plays audio clips (“your mother,” “Nice hat, bro”).
  • An antiseptic-spray finger and a port that takes AA batteries.
  • No mouth, which is “a great source of misery.” His voice runs over Bluetooth.
  • Powered by a Double Sun Cola canister core.
• “Defender of the innocent, breaker of bones and bitches.” His autocorrect is aggressive. Abilities: repair protocols and Unbreakable Force.
• Gained Kenny’s missing arm (a small green goblin arm out of his sternum).
• Died after ripping out his own brain. He was carted off by goblins to be rebuilt; in Dried Blood he is being rebuilt in the locker room.

Killy Yesman (Yang). A Double Sun Cola salesman found on his billboard.

• Look: twig legs; enormous undulating balloon pecs; the logo on his chest and shirt; a hat with soda cans and two straws; long blonde hair with a shiny bald spot; “the world’s most punchable face” with an immovable chin.
• Powers: heals by sipping soda; exploding and corrosive bottles; cola as wound sealant; butt cushion.
• Sponsor breaks: the giant logo in the sky, and logos painted on Atlas’s chest and head.
• Lore:
  • “Consider[s] my life to be worthless.” Has a girlfriend with a five-year-old iPhone.
  • Was told drinking cola would regrow his hair, but says he doesn’t care about being bald.
  • Gave his hat to the Box of Chaos and got smelling salts.
• In this episode: he drank Atlas’s core and swore they would sell more soda together. He is the winner.

The shadow in the Box of Chaos (Mudcat). A soul newly formed from the Lord of Fate’s own shadow, with yellow eyes and hands that creep over the lid.

• It took Atlas’s Void battery for its dead Game Boy.
• It took Killy’s hat, put it on and sipped the sun cola.
• It was “all out of mouths.”
• Its touch is soft and warm; Caustic Phoenix suggests it has wanted human contact.

Kenny: the owner of the missing arm. He is small and green (a goblin arm) and “pretty useless”; “He’s not gonna be needing it anyway.”

Acolytes named:

• Lady Magdala, McBloft, Julia and Lox (dice taken by Thea).
• Acolytes in ponchos.
• Acolytes summoned from their homes and toilets.

Chinchillas:

• One that inserts an AA battery.
• Towel-bearers.
• Chef chinchillas who run a hibachi grill.
• One that provided “a battery from the Void.”

Goblins, “showing up for the first time”: they carry Atlas off on a canvas and rebuild him in the locker room.

The Grandmaster: mentioned only. “Fired / laid off”; “She’s going to get [a severance package] soon enough. It’s a little beheading joke.” (Caustic Phoenix’s OOC note: in prison and potentially about to lose her head.)

Places

• The Dread Fortress: entered through a skull’s open mouth in the lava field. It is subterranean, with dew-wet walls, pictures of “what used to be the Arbiter,” and blue tabards everywhere. It is now silent and “straight-laced.”
• Throne Room (Dread Fortress): the Lord of Fate’s seat.
• The front lawn / garden of the Dread Fortress: this episode’s arena, with fresh-cut grass, a garden shed with a pitchfork, and a skull lawnmower.
• The storage below the fortress full of tuna cans.
• The locker room backstage behind the Dread Fortress (Dried Blood).
• “The temple,” which Thea has visited, where “holy macaroni” exists.

Items

• Double Sun Cola:
  • Glass bottles with two sun-like balls at the bottom. It tastes “like science.” It is sticky, an adhesive and a paint stripper, and corrosive in its red variety.
  • Banned in at least three countries. It “reminds you of food.”
• The skull lawnmower (Harley pipes, buzzsaw jaw).
• Killy’s soda-can hat with straws, given to the shadow in the box.
• The Box of Chaos: pink and yellow heatless fire. It had no soul (“leftover essences” only) until the Lord of Fate’s shadow was put in.
• Kenny’s missing arm: +Instinct; it goes dead on a defense roll of 1.
• Smelling salts: “enough to wake your ancestors up from the dead”; they clear a status effect.
• The battery from the Void (“Raw Power”).
• Thea’s clipboard, whistle and hatchet.
• The shadow’s Game Boy (dead three weeks).

Lore statements

• The Lord of Fate rules the Void from the Dread Fortress. The Grandmaster has been removed (“fired / laid off”), and a beheading is implied.
• Thea was created by the Lord of Fate from an arena worm and named the Arbiter.
• The Box of Chaos’s soul is now the Lord of Fate’s own shadow. Before that, it held only fragmentary essences.
• Tuna juice is illegal throughout the Void, except as bait.
• Sunday is Deathmatch Day. At five fatigues a champion dies in the arena.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the Dread Fortress under the Lord of Fate

1. 0:06:07 Mudcat stumbles over the opening (“That was rough. We’ve been out of the game a while”) and restarts. The camera soars “through the open mouth of that skull in this lava field” into the Dread Fortress. Its subterranean castle walls are wet with dew.
   • “Pictures of what used to be the Arbiter now hang on the walls with blue tabards hanging everywhere.”
   • The fortress is oddly silent: “no merriment… no shenanigans… Everything’s very… straight-laced.”
2. 0:06:59 In the throne room, the Lord of Fate slouches on his throne, picking his teeth and looking extremely bored. He mumbles that there was something he needed to do today. Then: “Deathmatch!” He stands and exclaims it to nobody. He is alone in the room. “This is not going to do. I’m going to need an assistant.”
3. 0:08:09 — Thea is made. The worm grows to about three feet and sprouts wings and a small face. It is “less worm-like and much more like an imp, but still glittery pink… almost like a very ugly fairy.” She grovels at his feet: “Oh my gosh, you chose me!… I’m not worthy!”
4. 0:08:43 He lifts his new Italian leather boots out of her grasp: “I absolutely agree, you’re not.” He had expected “a mindless automaton.” Since she isn’t one, he feels obliged to ask her name.
5. 0:09:06 — “I am Thea.” She bursts into the air, her wings poofing open in a cloud of pink dust, and bows low.
   • She has “drank from the blood of champions as it spilled along the ground into the dirt… withered amongst the bones.”
   • She knows the champions’ injuries, weaknesses and strengths. “I have been raised in the arena. I know everything about it.”
   • She shakes with excitement. Told to calm down, she collapses her wings and drops to the ground, shivering “like a small Chihuahua.”
6. 0:09:54 — The clipboard. “An assistant needs a clipboard.” She produces one out of nowhere (“probably her butthole”).
7. 0:10:25 The Lord of Fate: “it is Sunday, and Sunday is Deathmatch Day.”
8. 0:10:35 — Thea summons the Acolytes. She claps, “as if granted additional magic powers,” and portals open all over the Void. She has zero control over it, so every clap opens more portals. Acolytes are pulled in from their houses, living rooms, bathrooms and toilets.
9. 0:11:16 — The arena. Thea realizes she didn’t plan a place: “What about here, the front yard?” He was about to say the same. Thea: “we’re both the same mind.” Lord of Fate: “I created you, so I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense… we’ll just do it on the lawn, old school.” She writes “front lawn” on her clipboard.
10. 0:11:54 — Finding champions. When Thea was a small worm, she heard people “talking shit” and saying they could fight better than the arena’s champions.
    • She meditates. The pink drains from her scaly flesh to a deep dark gray, and she sits “almost too still for a very uncomfortable time.”
    • She slips and calls him “Arbiter… Oh, sorry, Lord of Fate.”
    • She claps open two portals: Atlas, “large in size,” and Killy Yesman, “with charisma oozing from all armpits, I assume.”
11. 0:13:15 — Atlas introduces himself: “Salutations, Lord of Fate. I am Atlas, defender of the innocent, breaker of bones and bitches.” Thea hears “witches” and is corrected. Atlas: “Apologies, my autocorrect is a bit aggressive today.”
    • Thea praises the little sparkly things coming off him.
    • Lord of Fate: “Short notice, this is like an 8 out of 10.”
12. 0:14:01 — Atlas’s thumbs-up. His gyros whir. His chest cavity expands and shoulder pads eject from his chassis. Lightning crackles as both fists hover into the air and gyroscopically align around his body, each “the size of a goblin,” and he gives a thumbs up. Lord of Fate: “Like 75%. Good job.”
13. 0:14:53 — Killy Yesman’s pitch. Thea drags him forward by the hand. “My name is Killy Yesman, and I’m here to prove that I am just as unbeatable as the delicious, thirst-quenching taste of Double Sun Cola.” He points at the big logo on his chest. His pecs thump “like two balloons, undulating back and forth”, faster and wider than chest muscles have ever moved.
    • Thea hides behind her clipboard: “I’m feeling many things.” Lord of Fate: “That’s not really my thing, but I’m sure some of the acolytes could be interested.”
    • Killy: “once you get a taste of this frosty tip in your mouth, you will change your mind, my lord.”
14. 0:15:59 — The billboard. Thea found him on his billboard: “if you can have a big billboard, you can probably do a really big kind of attack.” Killy: “I consider my life to be worthless, so I am ready to fight to the death to sell this soda.” Two thumbs up: “he’s willing to die.”
15. 0:16:40 The Lord of Fate calls it “more of a compliment to me because I created you.” Thea: “I mean, I was technically alive.” He asks: “Was that living?” She freezes, head tilted, “the gears… have found a small glitch.”
16. 0:17:13 Thea wants “blood and guts coming up like fountains everywhere, blood cannons,” soaking the Acolyte fan base. Lord of Fate: “Unrelated, remind me to put a therapist on our payroll.”
17. 0:17:28 — To the lawn. He claps and rips space apart. They now stand on the lawn in front of the Dread Fortress. The ethereal Acolyte stands appear high in the sky.
18. 0:18:13 — The Grandmaster “laid off.” The Lord of Fate floats up on his white wings: “Welcome to a new season of Deathmatches. I know things have been tense in the interim since the Grandmaster’s… Since she’s… fired. I guess she got fired, right? I fired her?”
    • Thea offers to put out bulletins and have the newspapers record it as a firing. He settles on “Laid off. It’s more dignified… a no-fault situation.”
    • Thea: “Did you get a severance package?” Lord of Fate: “She’s going to get one soon enough. It’s a little beheading joke.”
19. 0:19:19 He hands the start of the match to Thea and goes up to sit on his throne.
20. 0:19:42 Thea floats between the champions, pink dust everywhere: “We’re gonna set the bar so high, it’ll be impossible for anyone else to reach.” Atlas: “Affirmative.” Killy sticks his two straws in his mouth and sucks soda, and his pecs bulge even larger. Thea flies up “like a small, tiny rocket” with a whistle to call anything out of bounds.

Round 1

22. 0:20:49 — Initiative. Atlas rolls 18 and Killy 6. Atlas goes first.
23. 0:21:12 — The lawnmower. Atlas is big and not fast, but powerful. He feels fresh-cut grass under his heavy iron boots. Nearby he finds a lawnmower with a death skull, Harley Davidson pipes and an industrial carpentry buzzsaw whirring around the skull’s lower jaw. “It is time to cut the grass.” He swings the engine down two-handed onto Killy’s “stupid face.” It hits.
24. 0:22:28 — The boomerang fist. He launches one fist 90° away. Turbines bring it back around like a boomerang to grab the back of Killy’s head and force it into the lawnmower again. It hits (17 vs 7). Thea: “That’s embarrassing!”
25. 0:23:29 — “Little bitches.” Atlas drops the dented lawnmower. His levitating fist hauls Killy up by the shirt. “It has been brought to my attention that organic life forms tend to be that which they consume. And it appears as though you woke up this morning and ate a big bowl of little bitches.” A punch to the jaw: natural 20. Atlas regains a fighting spirit and an adrenaline.
26. 0:24:31 — The punchable face. Killy doesn’t react, and his chin has no give. He sips soda and his wounds begin to heal (he mends a fighting spirit). He pushes the fist back with his chin: “there are some advantages to having grown up with the world’s most punchable face. You’re gonna have to do better than that, At-less… you’re gonna have to try At-more.”
    • Lord of Fate: “you had me with the first half.” Thea explains the pun.
27. 0:25:40 — Thea throws a punch. Thea says his face is very punchable, then admits “I’m not very good at fighting.” Asked whether worms fight, she throws a fist at the Lord of Fate. Mudcat rolls a natural 20 for the Lord of Fate.
    • She shrinks onto “the very tip of your Italian leather stupid boot”: “I clearly don’t know how to fight! I’m sorry!”
    • Lord of Fate: “I can see all through time and space and I am the Lord of Fate. So obviously I know what’s going to happen.”
28. 0:27:09 — Killy’s elbows. He dashes “as fast as his twig legs will take him” and elbows Atlas’s chest. It hits (19 vs 6): “Oh, wow, my friend, you’re slower than my girlfriend’s five-year-old iPhone.” He squirts around behind him for a second elbow to the back, which misses.
29. 0:28:15 — The shaken bottle. Killy pulls out a glass Double Sun Cola bottle, Coca-Cola-like, with “two large balls at the bottom that remind you of suns.”
    • A detour on shaking technique follows. It can be two-handed: “You could even hold both balls while you shake it… extra panache.” Thea: “I am not mature enough for this conversation.”
    • He tosses it to Atlas: “Hey, enjoy that bottle.” Atlas catches it. It explodes in his hand. Atlas rolls a natural 1 on defense: he loses two fighting spirit and gains a fatigue.
30. 0:30:17 The soda runs down Atlas’s hands, and sparks fly as his hands glitch and twitch.
    • The flavor is “scientifically created to… remind you of something that tastes delicious.” Atlas: “It tastes like science.” “I love science.”
    • Thea starts “Atlas is made of science… covered with your own stuff.” Atlas: “Don’t praise it like that… I’m covered in Killy stuff.”
    • Ruling: covered in Killy’s sticky stuff, Atlas may find it hard to move, and anything he touches is harder to remove.
31. 0:31:59 — Thea becomes the Arbiter. Thea keeps calling him Arbiter. Lord of Fate: “Just so there’s no more confusion, I name you the Arbiter.” Thea: “Thea the Arbiter?… I’ll be the second best Arbiter there ever was. After yours, of course.”
32. 0:32:36 — Why “Lord”. “Self-explanatory, right? I can control fate?” He chose Lord over Emperor, King or Master of the Universe “because I’m a humble man… the King of Fate, the God of, but that’s… ostentatious. A little humility has never hurt anyone.” Atlas: “Some of the most humble people I know are known as Lord.”
33. 0:33:25 — Score check. Atlas is at 15. Killy is at 16 thanks to his sip. Thea: “When you drink your own juice, you really just felt yourself better… a secret power I didn’t know existed.”
34. 0:34:39 — The stolen die. The Lord of Fate asks for a roll. Thea plucks the d20 from the Acolyte Lady Magdala, rolls it, and yeets it back at her. The roll “means nothing” for now: “I’m going to teach you a little bit about drama tonight.”
    • Thea complains he revealed it too fast; you’re meant to build anticipation. He claims it was a test, and she passed.
    • “Does that mean I get a cookie?” “Sure.” Thea promises cookies for everyone “on the Lord of Fate.” Her “Round number two!” “could use some work, we’ll workshop it.”

Round 2

35. 0:36:40 — Repair protocols. Atlas plants both fists in the dirt and stands up by magnetic repulsion, dripping Double Sun Cola. He heals with lightning surging over his body and succeeds (16).
    • Thea: “a tiny little chinchilla comes out with an extra AA battery and just like sticks it up your butthole.” Atlas: “It is the exact right size.” His electricity turns from blue to yellow, and his four eye sockets glow.
36. 0:37:57 — The drag. Both fists try to grab Killy and drag him across “the Lord of Fate’s front garden.” It misses (4 vs 8). Killy is grabbed but relaxes and sips, and his butt expands into a cushion too hard to hurt.
37. 0:39:15 — The garden shed. Atlas twists, and his armless torso stays put while the fists haul Killy 10, 20, 30 ft up, then spiral down in a vortex into a garden shed at the edge of the garden. It hits (16 vs 9).
38. 0:40:05 — The pitchfork. When the dust clears, Atlas stands over Killy with a pitchfork through his shoulder.
    • Atlas: “Who left this here?… This is an active battle zone. It’s like they’re trying to kill us.”
    • Thea: “Sorry, Killy, I forgot to clean the battlefield.” She adds that pitchforks are “really great if you have to do a lot of s’mores all at once.”
39. 0:41:09 — Antiseptic. A finger on one of Atlas’s hands twists open and sprays antiseptic on the wound: “I do not wish for you to die from an infection. You will die because I will tear you to pieces.”
    • Killy: “Could you wait till I pull this out?” Atlas warns against removing impalements (“may open up an artery… You should seek medical attention. The more you know.”).
    • Thea: “There’s no medical attention until the end of the fight!”
40. 0:42:19 — Cola as sealant. Killy pulls the pitchfork out and pours cola on the wound, which coagulates instantly. The first heal fails (“that pitchfork is girthy”). “I swear this works.” The second pour works.
    • He flexes his pec to show it’s healed. Lord of Fate to Thea: “I just don’t see why that’s necessary… Who is he trying to impress here?” “Never, never, never mind.”
41. 0:44:05 — The leg sweep. Killy tries to sweep Atlas’s legs. It misses (5 vs 18) with a clang: “You are really made of some real sturdy metal… My hat’s off to your maker.”
42. 0:44:48 — “Your mother.” Thea: “Who is your maker? So we can all take hats off.” A window opens in Atlas’s chest and he scrolls “like your Spotify list” to play an audio clip: “your mother.”
    • Thea: “Don’t make fun of my mother that way.” The Lord of Fate asks whether Thea has a mother. “I do have a mother.”
    • Thea: “Suck it, Atlas!” Atlas: “I cannot. I have no mouth.”
43. 0:45:42 — The port. Killy sneaks under Atlas to the port where the chinchilla put the AA battery and tries to kick a bottle up into it. It misses (5 vs 7). Atlas: “I’m sorry, but that device is not compatible with my port.” Killy: “You’ve got plenty more ports to try.” Thea rambles about always plugging things in the wrong way first.
44. 0:46:55 — Performance review. Thea steals a d20 from the Acolyte McBloft and rolls a 2. Lord of Fate: “That’s got to go on your performance review.” She asked him to overlook it, “I got to write that down as well.” Thea: “If I’m a little shorter, will you be able to overlook it then?”

Round 3

45. 0:48:03 — The paint-can shaker. Atlas turns 180° at the hip and plays a chest clip: “Nice hat, bro.” His fists grab the soda cans on the sides of Killy’s hat. He goes all in: all three status effects, a power up, a heroic surge and his Unbreakable Force ability, sacrificing six fighting spirit.
    • Thea’s brain explodes over the math. Atlas’s voice cuts out: “I was still set to Bluetooth and somebody in the audience had my vocal cords.”
    • Thea: “Holy macaroni! And there is such thing as holy macaroni. I’ve been to the temple.”
    • It hits (16 vs 3).
46. 0:51:30 — The explosion. The vibration starts like a neck massage, then intensifies, with lightning rising off Atlas’s shoulders. Killy’s head blurs and the cans swell and burst. A deafening, shell-shock wave ruptures Killy’s ears. He is sprayed with sticky concussive force “almost like a blood spratter.”
    • Acolytes wearing ponchos are glad of it as Double Sun soda rains everywhere.
    • Atlas is at 10 and Killy at 7. Thea claps, and chinchillas hand out tiny towels to the Acolytes.
    • The permanent status effect means Killy loses a fighting spirit at the end of each turn until he clears it with a heroic surge.
    • Killy, irises spinning in whirls: “Oh, thanks, bro. Everybody, how’d you like your free sample of double sun cola? Is it delicious?” The Acolytes scream with mouths open, “begging for more of your juice.”
47. 0:54:17 — Cooldown. Atlas vents steam and spends two actions healing. One succeeds. The other is a natural 1: he loses that spirit again and gains a fatigue as sun cola seeps into his circuits and sparks shoot out. Thea: “everyone’s laughing at you now.”
48. 0:55:21 — The scoreboard. Thea tells the Lord of Fate to update the scoreboard (Atlas two fatigues, Killy one adrenaline).
    • Lord of Fate: “It’s a new system, would you just, don’t embarrass me in front of the Acolytes.… If anything, you should be running this thing… I should be sitting here sipping a Sun Cola.”
    • Thea: “it takes two hands to hold a clipboard.” Lord of Fate: “That’s my fault for making you defective.” Thea asks for four arms, not just four hands. Atlas, with his floating fists: “I seem to manage just fine.” Thea: “Not everyone is as cool as you, Atlas.” “That is fact.”
    • Thea turns on Atlas: “It’s no longer your turn. So suck it. Gilly, it’s yours. You’re clearly now my new favorite.”
49. 0:57:14 — A true champion. Killy weakly lifts a bottle to Atlas: “You can suck this if you want. You deserve it after that. I recognize you as a true champion.” Atlas takes it but reminds everyone he has no mouth. Killy: “We’ll figure out some way to get it inside you, bud.” Atlas: “I saw your previous attempt.”
50. 0:57:52 — Heroic surge. As Killy passes the bottle, an inner light glows from the Double Sun Cola logo on his shirt, starting in the two suns at the bottom. It fills the bottle shaft and explodes outward over Killy, clearing the permanent status effect with his heroic surge. Thea: “you had to just let it go all over yourself.” Lord of Fate: “He definitely heroic surged all over himself.”
51. 0:59:07 — The sponsor break. “Can we cut to a commercial break? Oh no, a sponsor break.” Killy channels power into his fists and unleashes it, and a giant Double Sun logo appears in the sky.
    • Lord of Fate: “Who authorized this?”
    • Thea: “There was once one sun, but now there’s two more and they’re bigger.”
52. 1:00:22 — The ad. “Listen, kids. Double Sun Cola, go steal your parents’ wall[et] and get some. They’ll thank you later.” It is “a food, a super food, a supplement. It reminds you of food, and it’s a pretty good adhesive.” It has “been banned in at least three countries. So you know that those governments don’t want you to get the good stuff.”
53. 1:01:29 — Branded. While everyone looks up, Killy paints a Double Sun logo decal on Atlas’s chest. It hits (8 vs 6) and lowers Atlas’s Mettle until he spends an action to clear it.
    • Killy: “Drink up, bud. You’re part of the family now.” Thea: “You’ve been branded!… it is waterproof.”
    • Atlas: “I have branding potential. Fear me!”
54. 1:02:33 — Cheers. Killy pulls two more bottles from behind his back and refills his hat. He clinks a third against the one in Atlas’s hand, flicks the cap off and drinks it, spending all three actions to heal. “Cheers, buddy.” One heal lands. Atlas is at 9 and Killy at 8.
55. 1:03:18 “That commercial break honestly got me a little thirsty.” Thea rolls a 16. Lord of Fate: “the economy’s been tight, but you could be looking at a half a percent raise, maybe.” Thea asks for a chaos event. “Acolytes, when we return, chaos will be served.”

After the break — tuna juice is banned (1:04:15)

56. “I cannot condone drinking tuna juice… Drink Double Sun Cola instead.” The Lord of Fate proclaims: “tuna juice is now banned throughout the Void. It is illegal to own or drink tuna juice. You can use it for bait… I have spoken.”
    • Thea says there’s “a whole storage down below where we just only have tuna cans.” He orders it drained and eaten dry.
    • Thea asks whether the fish will drink it. Lord of Fate: “I don’t govern the fishes… It’s the people I’m concerned with.”
    • Thea: “Are you ruling the Void or are you not the ruler of the Void?” He replies: “I’m not going to be questioned by someone who was a worm 30 minutes ago.”
    • Thea: “Would we be embarking on a form of cannibalism?” Lord of Fate: “Do you know what fish love to eat?… Worms!” “I don’t like that idea.”

Round 4 — the Box of Chaos and the hibachi

57. 1:06:08 — Box of Chaos. “Acolytes, you have triggered the box of chaos.” Thea interrupts excitedly (“a little creepy crawling guy that comes out of it”). Lord of Fate: “You’re kind of cramping my style.” He waves a half-assed hand.
    • The Box of Chaos slams onto the field, its lid flipping open and a column of pink and yellow fire shooting up, producing no heat.
    • Using it costs one action and gives a roll for a magic item.
58. 1:07:22 — Chaos event: the hibachi. Thea swoops down and grabs a die offered by the Acolyte Julia. She rolls a natural 20: “I’m really really really good at this.”
    • Chef chinchillas roll out carts and build a flaming onion volcano on a flat grill. They toss an egg down a spatula (an “egg roll” joke), toss noodles, divvy rice, and catapult shrimp into the fighters’ baby-bird mouths. Failing to catch costs fighting spirit “out of embarrassment.”
    • Atlas: “Once again, Atlas will remind everyone. That he has no mouth.” Atlas rolls a natural 1. Killy also fails. Both lose a fighting spirit and take a fatigue. Atlas loses an extra one of each “from the embarrassment of not having a mouth.”
    • The count is argued and settles at about 7 each, with Atlas on three fatigues. Lord of Fate: “at five fatigues, you die. In the arena.”
59. 1:10:27 — Thea’s thumb. Thea holds up five fingers by mistake for round four. She pulls out a small hatchet and chops off her thumb: “Now I have four fingers only.” Lord of Fate: “There is something very wrong with you.” She throws the thumb to the Acolytes to eat: “My gift!”
60. 1:11:06 — Atlas clears the brand. Visibly stalled by the thumb, Atlas breaks the neck of the bottle with his big metal thumb. He pours the soda onto the decal, which fizzles and melts: “You know what? You’re right, you can use it for anything.” His Mettle returns. He vents steam to clear a fatigue.
61. 1:12:32 — No soul in the box. Atlas cracks open the box. Lord of Fate: “I totally forgot. There’s no soul in the box.” Thea: “there’s some leftover essences, but none of them are whole enough to be anything of use.” Lord of Fate: “Yeah, those guys suck.”
62. 1:12:51 — The shadow fuels the box. “I’m not using this thing anyways.” The Lord of Fate reaches down, rips his own shadow off the ground and pulls it to its feet, separating himself from it. “You should be powerful enough to fuel the box.” He throws it in and the lid slams. Pink and yellow fire explodes, and a newly formed soul crafted from the shadow of the Arbiter creeps its hands out, yellow eyes peeking over the lid.
63. 1:13:44 — Atlas’s bargain. The shadow: “Well, what is it that you want?” Atlas: “I seek victory… I would like to be bigger, please.” The shadow asks what he’ll trade.
    • Atlas asks it to turn around; the shadow spins in the box. Atlas squats, and he is described as biting his hand. Thea: “How did you bite?” Atlas: “Oh, dang it. Great point… I’ll ask the Arbiter next time.”
    • A thunk falls out. He presents a battery from the Void, provided by a chinchilla earlier: “I present to you, Raw Power.” Shadow: “My game boy’s been dead for like three weeks.”
64. 1:15:38 — Kenny’s missing arm. Atlas rolls 19. Thea reads from her clipboard: “Small and green, the arm magically attaches itself to lend you a hand. Don’t feel bad about using it. He’s not gonna be needing it anyway.” It gives +1 Instinct, but if he rolls a 1 on defense the arm goes dead, “because it’s Kenny. Kenny is pretty useless.”
    • Atlas attaches the small green goblin arm to the center of his chest, coming out of his sternum. He imagines it still has a bit of soul attached and is trying to work out where it is.
    • He uses its extra action to heal and succeeds (8 vs Killy’s 7).
    • Thea: “Because eight is greater than seven.” Lord of Fate: “I know what eight is greater than seven. Why are you talking to me like this?” A vein in his head is about to explode.
65. 1:17:58 — The red bottle. Killy admires the arm (“Nice. Nice new addition”) and puts a bright red Double Sun Cola in its hand. It vibrates and explodes into corrosive soda, “three times as damaging.” Thea: “So like six suns?”
    • It’s a tie (7 vs 7). No damage to the chassis, but the exertion gives both a fatigue.
66. 1:19:38 — Killy at the box. The blast knocks Killy next to the box and he reaches in. Caustic Phoenix begins: “another hand touches yours very softly gently just like on the fingertips…” She hands the scene to Mudcat, who is “trying to shake that image out of my mind.” Caustic Phoenix: “the shadow’s been wanting… human contact for a while… it’s warm.”
67. 1:20:41 — The mouth wish. Killy points at Atlas: “I want that robot to have a mouth.” Shadow: “I don’t know if I can do mouths.”
    • Killy takes off his hat, and long blonde hair unfurls down his back, “oddly pretty.” He puts the hat in the box.
    • The shadow puts it on; the tubes whip out and it starts sucking the sun cola. “I’ll be right back.”
68. 1:21:41 — Smelling salts. Killy rolls a 4. Thea reads: “These bad boys are enough to wake your ancestors up from the dead. When sniffed, you can also clear one status effect for free.”
    • Shadow: “I’m all out of mouths. Sorry, but I found these in my pocket.”
    • Killy: “Should have just kept my hat.” He stuffs “it” into the rear of his pants (inferred: the smelling salts).
69. 1:22:38 — The second ad. Killy is aghast at the melted logo: “bro, what are you doing?… I know you want that logo on your chest.” His second sponsor break: “This time, what I’m telling you is to just go and sell your parents for a pack of this soda. That way, you’ve got two less mouths in your household.”
    • Lord of Fate: “You can’t just slap logos all over our shit.”
    • Thea: “Thea also has one on the back of her clipboard.”
    • Killy offers a logo deal; Lord of Fate: “I don’t want a logo unless they’re paying us.” Someone answers “If you win the fight, we can talk about that” (speaker uncertain, probably Killy).
    • It misses (2). “Everyone hugs their parents closely saying, no, we’re going to keep them.”
70. 1:24:44 — The bald spot. Without his hat, Killy’s head is cold. There is a shiny little bald spot on top. It catches the light and blinds Atlas for a moment.
    • Killy spends all three status effects smashing soda bottles on Atlas’s chest, one between every knuckle: “if Double Sun Cola is not going to get there, then I’m going to try to dissolve your chest… so that… no corporation could slap a logo there ever again.” It misses (5 vs 18).
71. 1:26:06 — The hug. Atlas rushes in and wraps Killy up as the bottles miss: “It is okay. Being bald isn’t that bad.” Killy: “They told me if I drank it, it would grow back.” Atlas: “Bald people are cool.”
    • Atlas lists “Din Vizel,” “Woos Billis,” “Mr. Cleans,” “Florence Lishburn.” The Lord of Fate objects that two isn’t a list, and the Acolytes scream “that’s three!” and “Stone Cold Steve Austin!”
72. 1:27:59 — Thea’s own chaos event. Thea steals a die from the Acolyte Lox, rolls 19, and chucks it back at his head. That triggers her very own chaos event (number 16): “a small projectile hurls towards you, screeching like a bat swallowed a whistle,” then a swarm of bottle rockets.
    • Killy saves and Atlas fails. Both take a fatigue, and Atlas takes two fighting spirit as the second chaotic event.
    • Counts: Atlas 5 with four fatigues, Killy 7 with three. “I’m really bad at counting.”
    • Thea’s pep talk (“take care of yourselves”) gets four eyeballs staring at her. She throws up her clipboard. Lord of Fate: “When you’re in a leadership position…” Thea: “I am very personal.”

Round 5 — the suplex

73. 1:30:19 Thea holds up four fingers on one hand and one on the other for round five. The Box of Chaos will stay on the field tonight; using it again costs a fatigue.
74. 1:30:53 — Rebooted. Atlas has been unresponsive because, while hugging Killy through the sponsored ad, he was recharging. He spends three actions to clear three fatigues, with a rising CPU wake-up chime.
    • His fists squeeze. With a power up and Unbreakable Force, sacrificing two spirit, he turns the bear hug into a German suplex aimed at Killy’s bald spot. Killy: “My only weakness!” Atlas: “his Achilles heel, I guess?”
    • 21 to hit against a natural 20 on defense. Killy regains a fighting spirit (9) and an adrenaline (two total).
75. 1:32:53 — “You fell for it!” A low chuckle: “You thought that this was my weakness? You thought I actually care that I’m bald? Have you seen my face? I’ve got bigger problems.” With his last sponsor break he draws another logo, this time on top of Atlas’s head. Thea: “bald spot on bald spot.” It’s 21 to hit.
76. 1:34:01 While Atlas resets his dice, Thea calls it “the anticipation.” Lord of Fate: “See, I’m learning.” “It was still pretty short.”
77. 1:34:35 — The pitch to a robot. Head still stuck in the ground, Killy hugs Atlas back: “I know you’re a robot and you have no mouth, but I think the delicious taste of double [sun] cola will even reach those cold hard circuits inside of you… I think you deserve to have a couple of extra bottles inserted into your ports, my friend.”
78. 1:35:35 — Atlas’s confession: “It is a great source of misery and contention that I do not have a mouth. I cannot enjoy such things as the water of the tuna, or the shrimps from the hibachi, or the delightful taste of double-sun cola.”
    • Atlas rolls a natural 1. Cola seeps in, his fans slow, his cold circuits warm.
    • He loses a fighting spirit, gains a fatigue, and gets “a nice logo,” which lowers his Mettle.
79. 1:36:25 — Port denied. Killy hooks his fingers around Atlas’s port: “I’m gonna help you turn this to a mouth, my friend.” The golden logo channels his last power up. It misses (4 vs 17). Thea: “Port denied… No entry. Exit only.”
80. 1:37:19 — The crude mouth. The glow fades and Killy simply pulls. It hits (21 vs 5). The port splits open into something like a crude mouth.
81. 1:37:41 — “This one is for you.” Killy pours a bottle into the port. Atlas is at one fighting spirit. Thea: “Atlas! Don’t you dare give up! I believe in you!”
    • Angelic choirs: Atlas realizes he has a mouth at last. As the first drops seep down, he crams the hole shut so the soda drips off his faceplate. “I cannot disappoint Thea.” He defends (17).

Round 6 — Atlas’s end

82. 1:39:30 Atlas tries to erase the mark on his head drastically. He rips his head plate off to smash it into Killy’s face. Natural 1.
83. 1:40:08 — The brain. He pulls too hard, and wires and his cybernetic brain rip loose from the skull housing. “I appear to have made an error.” His arms fall, the lightning fizzles, and the metal body collapses.
    • Instead of oil, a canister at the heart of Atlas pours out bright golden-yellow liquid: Atlas had Double Sun Cola inside him the entire time, as his secret fuel.
84. 1:41:20 Killy: “What have I done? What have I done?”
85. 1:41:32 — Thea consoles him. She swoops down and lifts him: “You pushed Atlas to the brink to pull themselves even apart to be able to challenge you… The two of you together showed us what double sun can do.” Atlas (dying, in character): “I feel like my work is now unfinished.”
86. 1:42:16 — Killy drinks Atlas. Killy picks up the broken core spilling orange juice, puts it to his lips and glugs the whole thing, down his shirt. “Now Atlas, it’s inside of me too. And together, together, we will sell more soda than we ever could apart. This I swear to you.”
87. 1:43:09 — Victory. Lord of Fate: “Well done, champion. You are the victor of the first round of combat in season five. Acolytes, is this not the… Well, it’s not blood.” Thea: “Internal bodily fluids… Lord of Fate… You kinda suck at this.” He admits “I don’t normally do this part” and asks her to take over.
88. 1:43:46 — Thea’s closing. She spirals up like a comet in a pink dust cloud.
    • “This has been chaos… This is the fight that we started with season Five!”
    • “Atlas, we will have you return!” Small goblins, “showing up for the first time,” toss Atlas onto a canvas and haul him off: “And we will rebuild them!”
    • To Killy: “how you have stood for your brand through it all… inspired our hearts to drink all that we can of life so we may also spill our juices everywhere.”
    • Lord of Fate: “Can you wrap it up here?” Thea: “Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!” (1:44:50)

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In-character framing (canon, Dried Blood):

• 1:48:40 Mudcat: “a new season… of dried blood as we find ourselves in the locker room backstage behind the Dread Fortress as Atlas is being rebuilt by a small horde of goblins with a towel strewn across his shoulder as Killy is also here.”

Out-of-character creator notes:

• 1:47:48 Caustic Phoenix riffs on a future arc where one of them “breaks free or gets bought out by another brand and now you’re… enemies.”
• Dag:
  • He was “in like the early playtests of the first few seasons.”
  • He found the new system easy to learn. “Atlas is not as unbreakable as it used to be.”
  • Atlas “in season one” was “the D&D character built to have just massive AC and not go down”. “He literally would tank hits from like an enlarged barbarian hill giant that critted on him and dealt zero damage.” He started “I played against poor freaking…” and didn’t finish the name.
  • He is a big fan of Yang from Dungeon Scrollers and joined without thinking (“We’re bungee jumping. Fuck it, let’s go”).
• Yang called the show one of his favorites on Twitch and praised the “little funny videos in between.” He liked the layered peril of fatigue and fighting spirit. Caustic Phoenix: “Kind of like a shaken soda can.”
• Mudcat: the season is meant to be “about the dice rolls and about that dramatic… contested roles… that opportunity cost,” so ending the first match of the new system on a nat-1 self-kill “was spectacular.”
• Dag improvised the cola core when Killy tried to pry him open. He reasoned that Atlas’s power core being “the raw syrup” of the cola “explains why it does so many weird things like peel paint.”
• Caustic Phoenix says Killy and Atlas will return later this season against new opponents, now with shared history.
• On Thea, Caustic Phoenix says (OOC): “Am I happy the Grandmaster is in prison and potentially about to lose her head? No, but Thea brings a new energy.” Thea shows the perspective of the Acolytes, the long-time fans.
• Last words:
  • Yang: “more chaos, more chaos surges… Bring it on.” Caustic Phoenix: “Always, always more chaos.”
  • Dag: “you never know who you’re gonna role play with… lean deep into that yes, take that yes… in both hands and give it a good shake.”
  • Caustic Phoenix worries the hand gestures will be clipped out of context. Mudcat: “I’ll be the one clipping it all out of context.”