The fourth season ended without a Deathmatch. It ended with a coup. Fil returned Vythorn, the Arbiter, to the Void carrying a new power, and he walked into the old Coliseum to settle things with the Shadow King. By the end he had shredded a tyrant’s body, made a deal with a god, and taken the Void for himself.
The Story
Waking at Home
Vythorn woke on soft ground under a sunset. He was no longer with his companions and no longer in Giant’s Breath. Around him he heard rustling branches, birdsong, the hum of bugs, and far off the familiar roar of a crowd. “There’s a warmth to it,” the narration offered. “You’ve found home, Vythorn.” He dug his hands into the dirt and grass. Then Fil shook him awake: “Get up, Vythorn… Wake up.”
He lay a short way from an old arena he had shared with the Grandmaster time and time again. This time it was not empty. The Acolytes were cheering the end of yet another Deathmatch, Elusia was there as always, and in the sky above hung a figure who did not belong: Agdrel, the Shadow King.
Fil whispered that she had kept her promise. “I brought you here as promised. A gift, you could say. We’ve placed our bets on you, Vythorn.” She pointed him toward the arena and his fate. Vythorn needed no persuading: “I am more than ready to kill Agdrel.” Fil sensed how hard his mind was burning and warned him that once he started down this path, he was “not to deter.”
The Book and the Storm
As the sun went down, vicious chaos storms rolled in. The book that had come with him, the testaments of Morir’s Cataclysm, floated up in front of him and flipped open in a flurry of pages to one particular passage. Its words could not be read. They lit up, lifted off the page, circled him, and then burned their way into his flesh and into his essence.
The power was intoxicating. “This book matches your anger,” the narration said: his frustration, his fury, his “unbridled rage to have what you want and take it away time and time again.” It was “not chaos, but something powerful” that completed him. Looking down at the words seared into his hands, Vythorn felt the new power mix with the chaos energy of the storms now that he was home. He raised a hand and pulled the storms closer until they filled the sky.
He stepped out of the brush onto the battlefield just as the Shadow King’s throne descended from the heavens. Lightning cracked across the field. “Agdrel!” Multicolored bolts blew the arena’s ornate structure to pieces and singed the trees around it.
The Confession
“You’re going to die for what you’ve done to me,” Vythorn said. “And for what you did to my family.”
The Shadow King only smiled. He didn’t deny a thing:
The Shadow King: “Well, it only took you about a thousand years to put it together, but you got there. Good for you.”
He admitted all of it, and told Vythorn not to feel special: “You’re not the only orphan that I’ve created.” He had killed many parents of children with a gift for chaos, raised the orphans “under my tutelage,” and planned one day to “feast upon the fruits of their labor,” siphoning off the chaos energy they spent years refining. Vythorn, though, was the prize. “A certain aptitude for chaos. I was saving you for last. Like a dessert. Oh, thank you for serving yourself up on a platter for me.”
Lightning Against Shadow
Vythorn’s rage boiled over in a burst of energy from the words on his skin. He moved with a speed nobody had seen from him before, jumping through space and time and hurling lightning bolts. The Shadow King answered with blades of shadow and ethereal energy that grew from his arms. Lightning scorched Agdrel’s flesh, and his shadow blades went straight through Vythorn’s side.
Mortally wounded, Vythorn turned back time. He retraced his steps and learned Agdrel’s movements until he was always one step ahead. The two locked together, lightning against shadow, blinking around the field faster than the Acolytes could follow. The words on Vythorn’s arms burned brighter as his rage went white hot.
Then he remembered what Master Skreca had told him, the testaments, and “the teeth that were gnashing in the hellscapes.” He ripped open portals shaped like teeth and maws. Through them lay hellscapes of ash, fire and death, and the tears in reality closed in around the Shadow King.
“What? What is this?” Agdrel demanded.
“This is your fate.”
The maws tore off the Shadow King’s arm, leaving only a shadowy limb. They bit into his neck and face and stripped away his flesh, his sinew and finally his whole physical being. All that remained was a shadowy figure with yellow eyes: the soul of the Shadow King. Vythorn bound it in place, imprisoned “in this coffin of light.”
The Moment of Doubt
Vythorn held the soul with clenched fists and white knuckles. Behind him, Fil’s small voice asked, “Vythorn, what will you choose?”
The question cut through his fury, and his clearer thinking came back. He turned a hateful look on her. “I’m trying to decide if these are my own actions or if you’re somehow pulling my strings.” Fil asked whether feeling powerful wasn’t what really mattered. He had made these choices, “as far as you know.” Vythorn would not settle for that: “It’s not enough to just feel in charge. I need to control my fate.”
That flicker of doubt was all the Shadow King needed. Agdrel, now “an empty soul squirming to survive,” slipped between Vythorn’s fingers in ethereal shadow form, darted past the gnashing maws, and shot up into the chaos storm clouds. “No, no, no, no, no!” Vythorn cried. Fil chuckled. The Shadow King’s dark, corrupted energy was gone.
The Grandmaster
“Arbiter!” The Grandmaster ran toward him across the debris, still in chains, and called him by his name. It was strange for him to hear it in this place. “Vythorn! You’re here. You’re alive. Quick, help me.” She showed him the choker sunk deep into her throat. “Please, you have to release me now.”
Vythorn’s eyes stayed fixed on the sky where Agdrel had fled. When he finally looked down at her, it was with pure hatred. With one hand he pulled her close with his energy. With the other he put a dagger to her throat.
Goblins and chinchillas stormed the field to help her, scrambling over the wreckage. “Vythorn, what are you doing?” “I’m doing what’s necessary.” He raised a hand and, as Elusia had seen before, the goblins’ eyes went white and empty. They stopped a few meters away and formed a ring around the two of them, their minds now his.
The argument that followed was bitter. Vythorn claimed he had done what she could not and defeated the Shadow King. The Grandmaster shot back that he had been killed, and that she had defeated the Shadow King first, back in Skypiercer, before somebody brought him back to life. “You only defeated him because I brought you here,” Vythorn said. “Every step of the way, I opened every door for you.” She asked who had actually walked through those doors, and where he had been when Agdrel took its place and when she led the charges to change the Void for the better. He called her Void “weak, easily manipulated,” too blind to see the threat he posed. She replied that “just because a threat exists doesn’t mean you destroy any hope for anything to exist.”
He pushed the knife in and began to cut her flesh. For the first time, he saw fear in her eyes.
The Contract
Time froze. Raindrops hung in the air and the goblins stood like statues. Fil was done with talking. “You’ve made your decision. These talks mean nothing. Don’t let her dissuade you. I feel it in you, the potential. Who is it that you want to be? Who are you going to become?”
Vythorn closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Vythorn: “I am the Lord of Fate. And this is my domain.”
Fil sealed it. Their contract was written and the bets were placed. The Void would be his to play with and to practice on, with his own bets to make, under his full command, and “we will be watching to see what you make of it.” There was a catch: “Don’t fall short of the fate that you have promised us or it will all go away. Because we can do that.” She laughed.
Asked what world he would build, Vythorn described a unified Void, a strong nation that would push past its own borders to new planes of existence and challenge champions from every realm. “We will conquer them. We will conquer them all.” Was he ready to make it so? “It already is.”
Where Her Story Ends
Time started again. Vythorn stopped the blade. In Elusia’s frightened face he saw a friend, even if they stood on opposite sides now. Sure that he had already won, he signaled the goblins. “I won’t kill you today. But this is where your story ends. This is where your fate leads you.”
“My fate, my fate!” The Grandmaster fought back, but the goblins locked a second set of chains on top of the first. They were Vythorn’s own old chains, the heavy, clanking ones he had worn as punishment for his last attempt on her throne. She had to be dragged from the arena.
Then Vythorn’s eye fell on one goblin in particular: a scrawny one that ran on four legs, had a short snout and obviously struggled to breathe. He lifted the imposter off the ground with magic, spun him around and stripped off the goblin outfit to reveal Doug, the Grandmaster’s missing pug. “Agdrel’s too stupid to notice, I suppose, but I’m not. You can join her.” Doug was shackled and marched off with his mistress.
The Lord of Fate Addresses the Void
The Acolytes were furious. Hauling off the Grandmaster while she was still in chains struck them as unfair, “not in the spirit of chaos, not in the spirit of honor.” They poured out of their seats, dropped down from the Coliseum, jeered, threw things and charged at him. Vythorn raised his hands and froze them all in place.
Then he spoke to them. The Grandmaster was weak, he said. She could not defeat the Shadow King, and he had. “By the rules of our Deathmatches,” by everything the Grandmaster herself proclaimed, he was the rightful ruler. He promised to carry the Void’s power beyond its borders, promised splendor and glory, promised to be fair. Under the Lord of Fate, he would decide for all of them.
Vythorn: “You don’t have to love me. You don’t even have to like me, but you will all serve me. Welcome and good night.”
Notable Moments
- The Testaments of Morir’s Cataclysm burned their words into Vythorn’s skin and fused with his chaos power.
- Vythorn, mortally wounded mid-duel, simply turned back time and fought again until he was one step ahead.
- Toothed portals into hellscapes, almost like living beings, ate the flesh off the Shadow King down to his yellow-eyed soul, and the soul still escaped in the moment Vythorn spent wondering whether Fil was pulling his strings.
- The Grandmaster was led off in the Arbiter’s own old chains.
- Doug’s goblin disguise had fooled the Shadow King, but not Vythorn. At the table, the Grandmaster’s player admitted she had hoped for “a doggy rescue situation,” and the Arbiter’s player replied, “I spotted Doug a mile away.”
- An entire crowd of outraged Acolytes was frozen mid-charge for the new ruler’s first speech.
Memorable Quotes
- The Shadow King: “Don’t feel special. You’re not the only orphan that I’ve created.”
- The Shadow King: “I was saving you for last. Like a dessert. Oh, thank you for serving yourself up on a platter for me.”
- Vythorn: “It’s not enough to just feel in charge. I need to control my fate.”
- Elusia Skypiercer: “You defeated the Shadow King? You were killed! I defeated the Shadow King first and somebody brought him back to life!”
- Vythorn: “You only defeated him because I brought you here. Every step of the way, I opened every door for you.”
- Fil: “Don’t fall short of the fate that you have promised us or it will all go away. Because we can do that.”
- Vythorn: “Agdrel’s too stupid to notice, I suppose, but I’m not. You can join her.”
- Vythorn: “You don’t have to love me. You don’t even have to like me, but you will all serve me. Welcome and good night.”
Who and What Appears
Characters
Vythorn / the Arbiter (Mudcat)
- Returned to the Void from Giant’s Breath by Fil.
- Gained the Testaments of Morir’s Cataclysm’s power. The words burned into his flesh, and he combines Morir magic with chaos energy.
- Powers shown this episode:
- space-time blinking, lightning, turning back time, and control of storms
- Morir portals that open toothed maws into hellscapes
- a “coffin of light” prison
- mind control that turns eyes white and void (goblins), and mass paralysis (Acolytes)
- Says the Shadow King killed his family. Agdrel confirms he orphaned him and was saving him “like a dessert.”
- Declared himself Lord of Fate under a contract with Fil.
- Imprisoned Elusia rather than killing her, using his own old chains.
- Proclaimed himself the Void’s rightful ruler “by the rules of our Deathmatches.”
- Stated aims: a unified Void, travel to new planes, challenging and conquering champions of every realm.
The Shadow King / Agdrel (Mudcat)
- Appeared in the sky over the arena on a descending throne.
- Admits killing many parents of chaos-gifted children, fostering the orphans and siphoning their refined chaos energy.
- His body was torn away by the Morir maws, leaving a yellow-eyed shadow soul. He escaped into the chaos storm clouds during Vythorn’s hesitation.
- Fights with shadow blades from his arms and an ethereal shadow form.
- Per the post-show, he doesn’t know the goblins’ names.
Fil / Philomena (Caustic Phoenix)
- She and her side have “placed our bets” on Vythorn and brought him home as “a gift.”
- She froze time to urge him on. She wrote the contract making him Lord of Fate with full command of the Void.
- “We will be watching… or it will all go away. Because we can do that.”
- She speaks as “we” throughout (the identity of the others is unstated).
Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix)
- Present at the arena, still chained and wearing a choker sunk deep into her throat. She begged Vythorn to release her.
- Says she defeated the Shadow King first and “somebody brought him back to life,” and that Vythorn “was killed.”
- Shows fear for the first time.
- Dragged from the arena by goblins in Vythorn’s old chains. Caustic Phoenix says she will stay “only in the dungeon.”
- A four-legged, short-snouted dog with breathing problems, disguised in a goblin costume made by goblins.
- Agdrel never noticed him. Vythorn exposed him and shackled him to go with Elusia.
The goblins (and “chinchillas”)
- They served the arena and rushed at Vythorn when he drew the dagger, then fell under his mind control.
- They saw the overthrow as unfair, “not in the spirit of chaos, not in the spirit of honor.” They tried to rush Vythorn and were frozen in place.
Master Skreca (mentioned)
- Vythorn recalls “what Master Skreca said” about the testaments and teeth gnashing in hellscapes.
Places
- Giant’s Breath: where Vythorn had been with his companions before this episode.
- The old arena / Coliseum:
- Surrounded by woods and brush, with an ornate structure that Vythorn’s lightning destroyed.
- The field is left strewn with debris.
- The hellscapes seen through the Morir maws: ash, fire and death.
- The chaos storm clouds, where the Shadow King escaped.
- “The dungeon,” where Elusia will be held (post-show).
Items
- The Testaments of Morir’s Cataclysm: a floating book whose words burn into the reader’s flesh.
- Elusia’s choker and chains.
- Vythorn’s old chains, now used on Elusia.
- Vythorn’s dagger.
- Doug’s goblin costume.
Lore statements
- Agdrel orphaned many children with chaos aptitude to farm their chaos energy.
- Vythorn took “about a thousand years” to work out that Agdrel killed his family.
- Fil and her side bet on fates and can grant and revoke domains (“it will all go away”).
- Vythorn claims rulership by Deathmatch rules for defeating the Shadow King.
- The Morir maws seem to act like living beings (creator note).
Full Round-by-Round
Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)
Waking at home
- 0:00:11 Vythorn is no longer with his companions and no longer in Giant’s Breath.
- He lies on soft ground under a sunset. Around him are rustling branches, grass, birds and bugs, and far-off yelling, screaming and cheers.
- “There’s a warmth to it. You’ve found home, Vythorn.” He digs his hands into the dirt and grass.
- Fil (Philomena) shakes him awake: “Get up, Vythorn… Wake up.”
- 0:01:29 He is some distance from an old arena he had shared with Elusia time and time again.
- This time the arena is not empty. The Acolytes are cheering the end of yet another Deathmatch.
- Elusia is there “as always.” In the sky is a figure who should not belong there: Agdrel, the Shadow King.
- 0:01:55 Fil whispers that she has brought him here as promised: “A gift, you could say. We’ve placed our bets on you, Vythorn.” She points to the arena: “your fate lies before you.” Vythorn: “I am more than ready to kill Agdrel.”
- 0:02:42 Fil senses the intensity in his mind and warns him that once he starts down this path “you are not to deter.”
Morir’s Cataclysm
- 0:02:55 The sun sets. Chaos clouds, vicious and angry storms, roll closer.
- The book, “those testaments of Morir’s Cataclysm,” floats before him. It flips open in a flurry of pages and lands on a particular passage.
- The words are unreadable. They light up, lift off the page and circle him, then embed themselves in his flesh, burning into his essence.
- 0:03:45 The energy is described as intoxicating. “This book matches your anger”: frustration, fury, “unbridled rage to have what you want and take it away time and time again.”
- 0:04:03 “This is not chaos, but something powerful completes you.”
- 0:04:24 Vythorn looks at the words burned into his hands.
- He feels this new power mixing with the chaos energy of the storms, now that he is back in the Void.
- He raises a hand and draws the storms closer until they fill the sky.
- He walks out of the brush and woods onto the battlefield. The Shadow King is standing on his throne, which is descending from the sky.
- A crack of lightning hits the field. Vythorn screams “Agdrel!”
- Multicolored lightning blows apart the ornate structure and singes the trees and forest around the arena.
The confession
- 0:05:24 Vythorn: “You’re going to die for what you’ve done to me. And for what you did to my family.”
- 0:05:35 The Shadow King smiles: “Well, it only took you about a thousand years to put it together, but you got there. Good for you.”
- Vythorn asks whether he denies it. Agdrel: “Yes, of course I admit all of it. Don’t feel special. You’re not the only orphan that I’ve created.”
- He explains that he killed many parents of children with a proclivity for chaos and fostered the children “under my tutelage.” His aim was to one day “feast upon the fruits of their labor,” siphoning off the chaos energy they developed and refined over years.
- 0:06:41 “But you, you were special… A certain aptitude for chaos. I was saving you for last. Like a dessert. Oh, thank you for serving yourself up on a platter for me.”
The fight (fully narrated by Mudcat)
- 0:07:09 Vythorn’s rage boils over in a burst of energy from the words on his skin.
- He moves with “a speed we haven’t seen before,” jumping through space and time and hurling lightning bolts.
- The Shadow King deflects them with blades of shadow and ethereal energy growing from his arms.
- Lightning singes Agdrel’s flesh. Shadow blades pierce Vythorn’s side and pass through his body.
- 0:07:55 Mortally wounded, Vythorn turns back time.
- He retraces his steps and learns Agdrel’s movements until he is one step ahead.
- The two lock up, lightning versus shadow, blinking around the field faster than the Acolytes can follow.
- The words on Vythorn’s arms glow brighter as his rage turns “white hot, searing his mind.”
- 0:08:40 — The maws. Vythorn remembers what Master Skreca said, the testaments, and “the teeth that were gnashing in the hellscapes.”
- He rips open portals that form teeth and maws. Through them are hellscapes of ash, fire and death.
- The tears in reality close in around the Shadow King. Agdrel: “What? What is this?” Vythorn: “This is your fate.”
- 0:09:20 The teeth tear off the Shadow King’s arm, leaving only a shadowy arm. They bite into his neck and face, ripping away his flesh and sinew and his whole physical being.
- What remains is a shadowy figure with yellow eyes: the soul of the Shadow King.
- Vythorn binds the soul in place, imprisoned “in this coffin of light.”
Hesitation
- 0:09:54 Vythorn holds him with clenched fists and white knuckles. A little voice behind him, Fil’s, asks: “Vythorn, what will you choose?”
- 0:10:18 The question cuts through his rage and his critical thinking returns. He turns a sinister, hateful look on Fil: “I’m trying to decide if these are my own actions or if you’re somehow pulling my strings.”
- Fil: “But don’t you feel in power? Isn’t that what matters? You made these choices, as far as you know.”
- Vythorn: “It’s not enough to just feel in charge. I need to control my fate.”
- 0:11:21 His doubt is a moment of less than full focus. Agdrel, “an empty soul squirming to survive,” takes it.
- In ethereal shadow form he slips between Vythorn’s fingers and past the gnashing maws.
- He zips up into the chaos storm clouds and escapes. Vythorn: “No, no, no, no, no!”
- 0:12:16 Fil chuckles. The Shadow King’s dark, corrupted chaos energy is gone from the space.
Elusia
- 0:12:34 A voice: “Arbiter!” The Grandmaster runs toward him across the debris and calls “Vythorn!” It is odd for him to hear his own name in this space.
- “You’re here. You’re alive. Quick, help me.”
- She shows him the choker, sunk deep into her own throat: “Please, you have to release me now.” (She is also described as still in chains.)
- 0:13:19 Vythorn’s eyes stay on the sky where Agdrel fled. When he looks down at her, it is with “pure hatred and rage.”
- With one hand he pulls her close with his energy. With the other he puts a dagger to her throat.
- 0:13:51 Goblins and “chinchillas” (as transcribed) storm the field and struggle through the wreckage. Elusia: “Vythorn, what are you doing?” Vythorn: “I’m doing what’s necessary.”
- He raises a hand. As Elusia has seen before, the goblins’ eyes go white and void.
- They stop mere meters away and form a circle around the two, their minds under his influence.
- 0:14:39 — The argument:
- Vythorn: “I’m doing what you cannot do. I defeated the Shadow King.”
- Elusia: “You defeated the Shadow King? You were killed! I defeated the Shadow King first and somebody brought him back to life!”
- Vythorn: “You only defeated him because I brought you here. Every step of the way, I opened every door for you.”
- Elusia: “But guess who’s the one who walked through the door? Where were you when Agdrel took its place? Where were you in leading all the charges to change the Void for better?”
- Vythorn: “Your void is weak, easily manipulated. You couldn’t even see the threat that I posed to you.”
- Elusia: “There are threats all around us at all times, Arbiter.” Vythorn: “Yes, and you were too weak to do anything about it.”
- 0:15:39 He pushes the knife in and starts to cut her flesh. For the first time he sees fear in her eyes.
The contract with Fil
- 0:15:44 Time freezes. Raindrops hang in the air and the goblins stand like statues.
- Fil: “Oh, come, Vythorn. Enough chit-chat. You’ve made your decision. These talks mean nothing. Don’t let her dissuade you. I feel it in you, the potential.”
- “Who is it that you want to be? Who are you going to become?”
- 0:16:40 Vythorn closes his eyes and breathes deeply: “I am the Lord of Fate. And this is my domain.”
- 0:16:57 Fil seals it: “Our contract is written. The bets are in place. Your fate now determined. You shall be the Lord of Fate as you so desire.”
- “The Void will be your realm for you to play with, to practice, to have your own bets. You will have full command over this domain. And we will be watching to see what you make of it. So don’t disappoint.”
- “Don’t fall short of the fate that you have promised us or it will all go away. Because we can do that.” She laughs.
- 0:17:50 Fil asks what world he will create. Vythorn: “I will create a unified void.”
- “A strong and powerful nation will push beyond the barriers. Our limits traveling to new planes of existence. Challenging champions from across every realm. Showing them our power and our might. We will conquer them. We will conquer them all. That is the fate I have decided.”
- Fil: “Then are you ready to make it so?” Vythorn: “It already is.”
The overthrow
- 0:18:58 The raindrops quicken and time unfreezes.
- Vythorn stops the blade. In Elusia’s fear he sees “the face of a friend, though they may be on different sides of this conflict.”
- Feeling he has already won, he signals the goblins. “This is where the Grandmaster makes her leave.”
- “I won’t kill you today. But this is where your story ends. This is where your fate leads you.”
- 0:20:10 Elusia protests and fights: “My fate, my fate!”
- Her chains are still on. The goblins add a second set: Vythorn’s own old chains, heavy and clanking.
- Elusia has to be dragged from the arena.
- 0:20:30 — Doug. Perception check: 19 (the episode’s only roll).
- Behind the goblins Vythorn sees a scrawny “goblin” that runs on four legs, has a short snout and clearly has breathing problems. He recognizes the imposter.
- He lifts Doug off the ground with magic, spins him around and strips off his goblin clothing: “Agdrel’s too stupid to notice, I suppose, but I’m not. You can join her.”
- Doug is shackled in chains and sent off with the goblins and Elusia.
- 0:21:50 — The Acolytes revolt. The crowd is furious at the overthrow. Taking Elusia while she was still in chains “rings unfair to them. Not in the spirit of chaos, not in the spirit of honor.”
- They pour from their seats, drop down from the Coliseum, jeer, throw things and rush at him.
- Vythorn raises his hands and freezes them all in place.
- 0:22:39 — Vythorn’s address:
- “Acolytes! I know this is very upsetting for all of you, but the Grandmaster is weak. She could not defeat the Shadow King, but I have.”
- “By the rules of our Deathmatches, by everything that even the Grandmaster proclaims to be true, I am the rightful ruler.”
- He promises to push the Void’s power and influence beyond its borders: “You all will live in splendor and glory. Under my reign, under the Lord of Fate, I will decide for all of us. But I will be fair and you will be well taken care of.”
- “In time, you will all be my disciples. You don’t have to love me. You don’t even have to like me, but you will all serve me. Welcome and good night.” (0:23:56)