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With protesters chanting outside the Dread Fortress and the Lord of Fate too busy brooding at a window to remember it was Deathmatch day, Thea took matters into her own tiny hands. She kidnapped two champions and rented a cut-price wedding venue for the fight. On top of the Crimson Keep, King “Man Frog” Bofus, a British frog king who fights by pulling frogs out from under his mask, faced Richard Knottley, a banned-from-Denny’s Peloton instructor in a tinfoil hat. The result was a war of insults, fake mustaches and orifices, and it ended with nobody left standing.

The Story

A Protest at the Fortress

The episode opened on an unusual crowd outside the Dread Fortress, yelling, stomping and waving picket signs. Inside, the Lord of Fate stared out a window until Thea crept up behind him with a notepad. She explained she had been waiting for him to finish “that thing that you do where you look out windows and you breathe heavily for a while.” The signs were about the Grandmaster being in prison, which Thea pointedly called “that big thing that you did at the very start of the season.” The Lord of Fate was baffled. “They’re protesting me!”

He asked Thea to name ways he hadn’t been a good leader. She complained that she hadn’t earned as many stars as she wanted, so he took her pen and carved another into her forehead. She added that the cookies were sometimes stale, “like you didn’t even remember there was a deathmatch.” In fact he had forgotten. When he said he’d be ready “in a few days,” Thea had to tell him: “It’s today!” He insisted that watching people was his job. He also made a plan to win over the crowd: “We’ll give them blood and violence to distract them from how terrible their lives are.” Thea noted this had happened “in another plane in a time of history” and that she was sure “that empire is still around.”

Two Kidnapped Champions

Pink dust flew out of Thea’s butt in a fart and left a purple, glittering portal behind it. Out of it came the two champions she had been keeping in the back locker room. Richard Knottley’s first question was a fair one: “Who are you people and where is my horse?” Thea admitted she hadn’t told them anything. She had “just kind of kidnapped them.” The Lord of Fate sighed that they didn’t do that anymore. “We used to do that, but then we got a lot of complaints.”

Richard introduced himself as a former Peloton instructor. “I’m not allowed in a couple of counties anymore.” He revealed that the online classes are a conspiracy and that Peloton instructors really meet at Denny’s, where the bikes “are not stationary.” His online name was Dick Twist, “on account of my dance moves,” though he declined to demonstrate because he wasn’t wearing pants. His opponent introduced himself in grander terms:

King Bofus: “I’m a king, you see. King of the frog people, man people frogs. 50% man, 50% frog, and 100%… something else.”

Bofus wore a green frog mask with two cartoonish hand-drawn eyes. He promptly nicknamed Richard “Mr. Tinfoil.” The pre-fight chatter wandered into the Fortress gym, where the chinchillas and goblins lift weights. The Lord of Fate had never visited it, because “I like to work out in privacy.” The chinchillas, he added, are the Fortress’s security and “highly unionized.” Bofus noticed something chinchilla-like on Richard’s lip, and Richard insisted it was “a very real, very legitimate mustache.”

Then Thea opened the portal to the arena. She bent over and released a thunderous fart, far too loud for a two-foot imp, which tore open a hole a whale could swim through. Bofus had seen enough: “I vote we join the rioters and we overthrow these two.”

The Crimson Keep

Past the smell of old Oreos, burritos and nacho cheese, they arrived on top of a crumbling crimson castle. Bats clung to its silhouette waiting for sundown, and a cold wind blew across the roof. Thea was proud of the deal: “I got it really cheap because apparently other people keep dying here.” Cleaning was included.

Thea’s mood soured when she mentioned the PTO she had booked for February. The Lord of Fate explained that she was a worm he had turned into an imp and given a bedroom, which made her a 1099 independent contractor at best, with no paid time off. When the subject turned to taxes, Bofus pointed out: “I am a king. I do not pay taxes. I receive them. Your taxes probably.” Thea flew to the stands with drooping wings, and the Lord of Fate gave her “the afternoon off. No pay.” Then he flared his white wings. The acolytes went wild, throwing beers and punching each other, and one was tossed over the rail. He landed between the champions and splatted into a million pieces.

Snickers, Frogs and Cheeseburgers

Richard struck first, and he began with a sponsor plug for his conspiracy webinar. Then he hurled a half-eaten Snickers at the frog. Bofus answered with a retort so crude, “But what if you suck both of these nuts?”, that it took shape as a shield and deflected the candy bar. Richard needed a stretch, so Thea did jumping jacks beside him. Then she volunteered to be his weapon. He threw her face-first like a javelin. Bofus’s tongue shot out from under the mask and caught her mid-air, soaking her in drool. “I guess I needed a shower. Thank you.”

Richard charged to rip the mask off, and Bofus simply stepped aside. Then Bofus reached under the mask with both hands and began flinging frogs. The first volley missed. The second fumbled badly and left him winded. The Lord of Fate reminded everyone that a champion worn down too far simply dies. The third volley landed: tiny multicoloured frogs “like skittles with arms and legs and slime.” One went down Richard’s throat and briefly blocked his windpipe. “Many, many perish in war at the will of kings,” Bofus declared. “I’m British. I’m allowed to say this.”

Bofus refused to rest, calling that “for coward.” Instead he pulled cheeseburgers out of his boots and built a fortress of them to distract Richard, on the grounds that “he recognizes his own kind.” More frogs followed, aimed at “any orifice.” Richard was rattled: “I no longer know if I’m the heel or the hero anymore.” The Lord of Fate thought they were both heels. At the end of the round Thea tried to pass off a bad roll as a good one. She muttered: “Now I know why everybody wants the Grandmaster back.” The Lord of Fate snapped his fingers and twisted her into a pretzel.

Mustaches and a Bully Ghost

Richard washed down the cheeseburgers with a Double Sun Cola, which left his stomach “so bubbly.” Then he tried to start a revolution. He told Thea she was a sentient being and that it was time to rise up against the Lord of Fate. Thea turned to the crowd and declared, “I’m a people!” She ran straight to the hot dog stand and stuffed about nine hot dogs into her mouth. “This is what happens when you give the masses power,” Bofus observed. “They immediately crave hot dogs.”

When the Lord of Fate asked Manfrog to “hit him in the face for me, please,” Bofus obliged and knocked off Richard’s mustache. Richard had brought spares. Goblins rushed out with a tiny curtain that covered only his mouth while he changed. Bofus climbed a jagged perch for his signature frog splash, but Richard caught him one-handed, anime-style: “It’s a new Richard Knottley, baby.” As Richard tossed him back, Bofus’s tongue whipped out and took the new mustache too. By the end of the round both of Richard’s ears were blocked by frogs.

The acolytes then summoned a chaos event. A white wisp, one of the many who have died in the Crimson Keep and “quite the bully,” seized an appendage of each champion. It made them hit themselves while it chanted “Stop hitting yourself.”

Beard Powers and the Box of Chaos

After a short break so “old Dick” could catch his breath, Richard returned with a full beard. “I did what all great Americans do. I grew a nice beard to take on your mustache.” He warned that the chinchillas were buying up the food supply and that “we’re going to have to start eating our neighbors.” The Lord of Fate replied, “Actually, the chinchillas work for me.”

Richard ripped off Bofus’s crown and discovered it was just yellow fabric sewn to the mask. “You have exposed me, sir! How very dare you?” Richard apologised loudly and patted it back on crooked. Then he challenged the king to a best-of-three Dick Twist dance-off. Bofus won 2–1 with a perfect natural 20 “by literally doing fuck all… gently undulating.” The win left him “feeling real fucking good.” His second frog splash landed. He wrapped Richard in a “slightly too oily” and surprisingly ripped body, which threw every part of Richard’s personality out of order for a round. The mask was deflating now, its eyes pointing in different directions. A headbutt ended in a tie that wore both men down further.

The Lord of Fate clapped, thunder cracked, and the Box of Chaos slammed down. A shadowy figure with yellow eyes clawed out over the lid. “I can hear you and I can see your shitty beard,” it told Richard. Richard fed it something very sweaty from his Peloton classes that smelled of cheeseburgers. In return he got a small blue pill that would let him last longer before exhaustion killed him. When Thea explained it was a suppository, he threw it back: “I only take red pills!” His next offering earned him a blue ring that once belonged to the Arbiter. It made him master of time and space for a round. He wrapped a mustache around it to claim it, while the Lord of Fate grumbled, “I want that back when this is done. I’ve been looking for that.” Bofus saluted a frog for its service and dropped it in. The figure chomped it like a shark and gave back a screaming vial of black liquid, which Bofus never used. He spent the rest of his turn oiling the floor with his body like a flopping seal. “Americans love slip and slide,” said Richard.

The Peloton

Richard revealed he hadn’t come through a portal at all. “I drove here on my Peloton bike.” Then he threw it at Bofus. Bofus caught it with another natural 20, and Thea remarked that he had more fight in him than anyone she had ever seen in the arena. He held the bike out of reach, until Richard climbed onto Thea’s shoulders to grab it back (“My head is flat now”). Bofus answered with an insult: “You keep your peloton. You’ll never go anywhere on it anyway.” It ended in another tie that left both men one step from collapse. Bofus finished the round by tearing off Richard’s sunglasses, “Minsc and Boo style.”

The Final Blow

Bofus greeted Round 6 by calling himself the beast. Richard had quietly put on reading glasses. He revealed he had been pedalling the whole time everyone was talking, building up a charge. Lightning poured off the Peloton and blasted them both. Bofus could not escape it: “Electricity is my only weakness. Classically… Frogs and lightning. It’s no bueno.” The strike tied again, and it finished them both. Richard’s heart gave out (“Oh no! Pulmonary! Too many cheeseburgers!”), and Bofus succumbed to exhaustion. “Look at the two of them,” said Thea. “Well, what’s left of the two of them?”

Then a recording began to play. It was Richard’s “live man switch”: “As in, if I die, it goes live.” It announced that Walt Disney is still alive and gets unfrozen every eight months to be fed small Cuban children, that the moon is a hologram, that Earth is flat “but so is every other planet. It’s called pancake space,” and that every snowflake is a microchip from Santa to track you. It closed with a posthumous offer of anti-tuna juice for $37.99. “I had nothing to do with that!” Thea cried. The Lord of Fate lectured her: “This is the things you have to know when you choose a champion!” Thea boiled over, with steam pouring from her ears and her pink cheeks puffed. She signed off by yelling that she had to go to D20 Deathmatch.

Dried Blood

After the match, Bofus’s player offered a half-apology for the smack talk, which mostly turned into more facts about Americans. The two players then traded jabs over black pudding and turnips. The hosts promised that both champions would return for Deathmatches later in the season. Bofus’s player admitted he’d kept falling back on “wave after wave of frogs,” which the hosts called overwhelming, delightful and worth repeating. For the Acolytes at home, Bofus left a public service announcement that Kraft Singles are “a pasteurized cheese product,” not cheese. Richard left simpler advice: “Safety first, but also be dangerous.”

Notable Moments

  • Thea opened a whale-sized portal to the arena with a single thunderous fart.
  • Richard threw Thea like a javelin, and Bofus caught her on his tongue.
  • Thea declared herself “a people” and raided the hot dog stand.
  • Goblins wheeled out a mouth-sized curtain so Richard could change mustaches in private.
  • Bofus won a best-of-three dance-off by doing nothing at all.
  • Richard died of a cheeseburger-induced heart attack after electrocuting both champions with his Peloton, then spoke from beyond the grave through his “live man switch.”

Memorable Quotes

  • Richard Knottley: “Who are you people and where is my horse?”
  • The Lord of Fate: “We’ll give them blood and violence to distract them from how terrible their lives are.”
  • Thea: “That way I know every time I wake up and look in the mirror that I’m worth seven stars.”
  • King Bofus: “I am a king. I do not pay taxes. I receive them. Your taxes probably.”
  • King Bofus: “This is what happens when you give the masses power. They immediately crave hot dogs.”
  • Richard Knottley: “I did what all great Americans do. I grew a nice beard to take on your mustache.”
  • The Box of Chaos’s shadowy figure: “I can hear you and I can see your shitty beard.”
  • King Bofus: “Electricity is my only weakness. Classically… Frogs and lightning. It’s no bueno.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

King “Man Frog” Bofus (guest, unnamed in metadata).

  • Self-described “King of the frog people, man people frogs. 50% man, 50% frog, and 100%… something else.” He is British.
  • Wears a green frog mask with hand-drawn cartoon eyes and a fake crown of yellow fabric sewn to it. The mask deflates as he pulls frogs from under it.
  • Long tape-measure tongue. Skittle-colored frogs live under the mask (“my froggy brethren”). Keeps cheeseburgers in his boots.
  • Ripped, muscular and oily: is it sweat or a frog oil gland? “Stuff can be two things.” 5’2” with arms reaching below his knees.
  • Receives taxes, doesn’t pay them. Loves half-eaten Snickers.
  • “Electricity is my only weakness.”
  • Signature move: the frog splash, which scrambles the target’s stats for a round.
  • From the Box of Chaos he got a screaming vial (swap bloodlust and instinct); he kept it unused.
  • Gained more fighting spirit than Thea thinks anyone has ever had. Appears to die on the final tie (inferred).

Richard Knottley, “Dick Twist” (guest, unnamed in metadata).

  • Former Peloton instructor, banned from a couple of counties, from Denny’s (where the Peloton instructors meet with non-stationary bikes) and from Zumba; “the IHOP saw me coming.”
  • Online name Dick Twist, after his dance (also his signature move).
  • Wears a tinfoil hat (against Wi-Fi radiation), sunglasses, fake mustaches (he carries spares), American flag pants, later a fake beard and reading glasses.
  • Runs the conspiracy webinar/podcast “Knottley’s Real World”. Conspiracies: the Chinchillian government, the chinchilla/vole/mole cabal, the Nintendo Switch, lunar moths eating the ozone, eating our neighbors.
  • Financial advisor: Cricket, an old guy in Montana.
  • Claims six foot; actually 5’10½. Afraid of heights. Says he’s “very clearly a hot dog.”
  • Drove to the arena on his Peloton bike.
  • Rejected the blue pill (“I only take red pills”). Wore the Arbiter’s blue ring wrapped in a mustache.
  • Died of a “coronary”/“pulmonary” after his Peloton lightning heroic surge. Left a dead man’s switch recording.

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). An imp, formerly “a virginal worm.”

  • The Lord of Fate made her an imp and gave her a bedroom. He calls her a 1099 independent contractor with no PTO. She got a 1099-NEC, with the acolytes helping her with the paperwork.
  • Has stars carved into her forehead by the Lord of Fate (she claims seven). Still missing her thumb.
  • Opens portals by farting (pink dust, purple glitter; a whale-sized portal smelling of Oreos, burritos and nacho cheese).
  • Booked this week’s champions (she kidnapped them) and rented the Crimson Keep, a wedding venue with a cleaning crew included.
  • Planned PTO for February. Briefly declared herself “a people” and ate nine hot dogs. Has a notebook (“Get more eyes”).
  • Was thrown as a javelin and caught by a frog tongue.

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat).

  • Watches protesters from windows and breathes heavily. Insists watching people “is my job.”
  • Admits he forgot the Deathmatch day.
  • Has white wings. Twists Thea into a pretzel with a snap.
  • Works out in private, avoiding the Fortress gym. Wants a microphone “because I have some thoughts.”
  • The blue ring from the Box of Chaos “once belonged to the Arbiter, aka the Lord of Fate”; he has been looking for it and wants it back.

The Grandmaster: not present. Imprisoned by the Lord of Fate “at the very start of the season”; protesters’ signs are about her. Thea: “everybody wants the Grandmaster back.”

The Box of Chaos’s shadowy figure (voiced by Mudcat): yellow eyes, claws out over the lid, chomps a sacrificed frog like a shark. Critiques Richard’s beard.

Bully ghost: a white wisp, one of many who died in the Crimson Keep. It made both champions hit themselves.

Chinchillas: Dread Fortress security, “highly unionized,” work out in the gym with the goblins. “The chinchillas work for me” (the Lord of Fate).

Goblins: Dread Fortress staff, “getting a little fat”; they ran out a tiny curtain for Richard’s mustache change.

Cricket: Richard’s financial advisor (an old guy in Montana); off-screen.

Acolytes: protesting outside the Fortress; called taxpayers. One was tossed from the stands and splatted.

Places

  • The Dread Fortress: protesters outside; a gym (weights, no Pelotons); Thea’s bedroom; a back locker room.
  • The Crimson Keep: a dilapidated crimson vampire castle, dark, with bats waiting for sundown and a cold wind on top of the keep. It’s a wedding venue, rented cheap because “people keep dying here.” It is haunted by many ghosts, most friendly.
  • Denny’s and IHOP (Richard’s backstory; real-world).

Items

  • The half-eaten Snickers; cheeseburgers / double quarter pounders; Double Sun Cola.
  • Richard’s Peloton bike (only one wheel spins), tinfoil hat, fake mustaches, beard, American flag pants.
  • The blue pill (raises the fatigue limit to six; a suppository), returned to the box.
  • The Arbiter’s blue ring (master of time and space for one round, disadvantage on the foe), now wrapped in a mustache.
  • The screaming vial of black ethereal liquid (swap bloodlust and instinct for one round), held by Bofus.
  • Richard’s sweaty Peloton item, sacrificed to the box (unnamed).
  • Bofus’s fabric crown and frog mask.
  • Anti-tuna juice ($37.99), advertised posthumously.

Lore statements (Season of Fate timeline)

  • The Lord of Fate imprisoned the Grandmaster at the start of the season. Acolytes now protest him at the Dread Fortress.
  • Champions used to be kidnapped for Deathmatches; it stopped after complaints. Thea did it anyway this week.
  • The Void has taxes (“Too many taxes”).
  • The Box of Chaos contains “those who have died in there.”
  • The Arbiter’s blue ring had been lost until it came out of the Box of Chaos.

Full Round-by-Round