Dimension 20 Season 5

A Crown of Candy

Starring: Brennan Lee Mulligan as Dungeon Master

Ally Beardsley as Liam Wilhelmina; Brian “Murph” Murphy as Sir Theobald Gumbar;
Siobhan Thompson as Princess Ruby Rocks; Lou Wilson as King Amethar Rocks;
Zac Oyama as Cumulous Rocks; and Emily Axford as Queen Saccharina Frostwhip

Episode 13: Family Ties

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(dramatic music)

Brennan: Welcome, one and all to another exciting episode of A Crown of Candy. I'm your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our Intrepid Heroes. Say hi, Intrepid Heroes.

Ally: Hi, Little Dot.

All: Hi, Intrepid Heroes.

Zac points at Ally with an exaggerated angry face.

Siobhan: We're feeling silly today.

Brennan: You can't drop an inside joke from before the cameras were rolling!

Emily: Zac is Little Dot now—  

(Heroes speaking over each other)

Murph: Zac had a little something in his tea.

Emily: Don't explain it.

Brennan: The most Ally move of all time to be like, you know what's gonna make you feel included? Here's something you-

Ally: Me saying Little Dot.

Siobhan: We're bullying Zac and it's fun, get on board.

Brennan: Get on board. Guys, last we left our Intrepid Heroes off, they were in transit.

(Heroes giggling)

Zac: Yeah, whatever. They were in transit.

Brennan: Yeah.

Emily is laughing so hard she’s nearly crying.

Murph: Emily's having a meltdown.

Brennan: Oh, doctor. All right. This is episode 13?

Ally: 39.

Brennan: Episode 13.

(dramatic music)

Brennan: Our heroes arrive, (whooshing) in a flash of light app— (wheezing in laughter) --earing. We gotta rein it in. Back at the Order of the Spinning Star in the teleportation chamber. The chamber is filled with-

(Heroes giggling)

Zac: I'm sorry.

Brennan: I mean, it's-

Siobhan: I'm really crying.

Brennan: It's incredible.

Emily: [wiping tears] I'm sorry. It's just really funny and-

Brennan: We are professionals.

Emily: I was embarrassed.

Brennan: You arrive back at the Order of the Spinning Star. As you arrive, townsfolk are shocked and flee, and begin to thank you guys. Some of them are weeping, crying. Spearia Mentha is here with… Joren Jawbreaker's on the floor next to Liam lying down.

In the background, Murph passes a tissue to Emily who has to wipe her face clear of tears.

Brennan: Still with the fresh marks of the gallows noose around his neck. The rest of you are here, having just dived in at the last possible moment before Caramelinda returned you all to the monastery. As the people spill out, monks of the Spinning Star begin to shepherd people to the infirmary and places where wounds can be tended to, people that were maybe attacked or jostled or hurt by the Ceresian soldiers. And you guys are carrying… Well, Swifty and Gooey are carrying a load of magical weaponry. You have a book filled with letters from the Archbishop Oliver Onionpatch filled with alchemical notes from the Primogen Alfredi, as well as personal correspondences of the Archbishop. Ruby, you are carrying troop movements, supply lines, maps of the Ceresian forces, and a tremendous amount of correspondences to Keradin Deeproot concerning inter-army chatter between the forces of the Church here and the Ceresian military. And of course you have rescued both Joren Jawbreaker and his wife, Spearia Mentha. What do you guys do?

(Siobhan sighs)

Zac: Is Snickersnack around?

Brennan: Yeah.

Cumulous: Snickersnack.

Brennan: You see he goes,

Snickersnack: There are more people here than there have been in some time.

Cumulous: Yes.

Snickersnack: I don't know if we have enough towels.

Cumulous: We will find towels.

Cumulous and Snickersnack engage in another strong, brotherly hand clasp.

Snickersnack: We will find towels.

Brennan: He looks at someone and you see that another monk bows, centers himself, and leaps into the sky. (whooshes)

Cumulous: Fly on.

[Brennan wheezes in laughter]

Murph: I just whisper to somebody,

Theobald: I bet you he's off to find something really cool.

Zac: Is there- I just wanna make sure that the… Do we know… Do we feel like that they will be able to operate these runes in any way? I wanna secure how safe this-

Brennan: Give me either Arcana or Religion.

Zac: Again? I am zero for zero. Wait, Religion I'm 4. I'll do Religion.

Murph: Yeah.

Zac: 12.

Brennan: You believe that it is possible. They would need somebody who was a member of the Sweetening Path there. It's possible. What they would need would be a druid of the Sweetening Path, or a witch of the Sweetening Path to know how to operate that rune circle to potentially get here. That would probably be a, I don't know, a fifth or sixth level spell. So they would need someone- It couldn't even be just a random passerby-

Zac: Is Spearia around?

Brennan: Spearia's here with you.

Zac: Spearia's here.

Brennan: And also, they would- Even with the ability to teleport somewhere, they would need to know where you were going.

Zac: Okay, so we feel-

Murph: Yeah, there's really-

Zac: Relatively secure.

Murph: Is there any way to close the teleportation circle, or?

Zac: Can I make a check on that?

Brennan: Yeah, give me a Religion check.

Siobhan: Can I do a check? I have good Arcana.

Brennan: Yeah, you can do Arcana.

Theobald: Saccharina, would you know if there's a way to-

Zac: I got a 23.

Siobhan: I got an 11.

Brennan: This thing, as I've said before, is a little bit wonky. One of the stone circles, one of the concentric stone circles that moves in the candy stone of the floor can be lifted up out of the teleportation room and just removed from here. It's a little risky because it means that you might not be able to place it back in correctly, but it effectively makes this room impossible to arrive at.

Zac: And also, that means that if we had to leave here, it might impede our exit to try to put that back, as well.

Murph: Okay.

Ally: Where are we gonna go right now?

Zac: We don't know. I don't know.

Murph: Maybe we should ask one of your parents if there's anybody from Candia that could work with them, because they'd need somebody of the Candian-

Zac: Yeah. Spearia?

Ally: Yeah, let's talk to-

Brennan: You see that Joren is being fed. You see that Spearia is holding out her hand, and just from the leaves of her wrist this like sweet green juice is trickling into Joren's mouth. She goes,

Spearia: There there, this is healing. It's healing you.

Brennan: And he goes,

Jawbreaker: Urgh, I like to drink that wrist milk.

Cumulous: Beautiful.

Ruby: This explains so much.

Brennan: You see, you go up, and for the first time Spearia gets up and she goes,

Spearia: As the beloved of Joren Jawbreaker and a priestess of the Sweetening Path, I extend to you our most sincere thanks. We will never be able to repay what you've done for us. My sweet boy-

Brennan: And you see she comes over and gives you a kiss on the cheek. She looks at you, looks into your eyes, looks around the room and looks back and says,

Spearia: Oh, Liam, I'm so sorry.

Liam: [quietly] Preston.

Brennan: She gives you a hug, and it's this warm leaf, it's like a perfect hug, and you can tell that she locks in and you're like, this is gonna be a three to five minute hug. We're in this for the next chunk of time, just like pat pat, very still, pat. Pat pat. Pat pat pat. And honestly, it heals your soul.

Ally: Right. (laughing)

Brennan: This is like an A+ mom hug.

Siobhan: I have never had a hug like that from either of my parents, but especially my mom.

Brennan: You see, standing up, getting to his feet, colossal jawbreaker mace at his side, is the Duke Joren.

Jawbreaker: (groans) Hey there, kid.

Brennan: And he comes over to you, Amethar, and claps you in an embrace.

Amethar: Hey, what's up, Unc?

Jawbreaker: (groans) All right, been better. (nods at Theo) Sir Gumbar.

Theobald: Good to see you, Duke Jawbreaker.

Jawbreaker: I'm seeing some of the folks from back in the day.

Cumulous: It's been many years.

Jawbreaker: Yeah. You're one of Lazuli's, right?

Cumulous: Yes.

Jawbreaker: Are you, what is it? You're a robot?

Cumulous: Am I a r—

Jawbreaker: You're a golem, or you make-

Cumulous: No, I'm-

Jawbreaker: Share a spell-

Amethar: He's our cousin.

Theobald: He's just a person.

Jawbreaker: Right. Right, sorry, that's right.

Cumulous: Robot? What is a robot?

Jawbreaker: You're, you know, I thought you were a fake man, you know, magic man.

Cumulous: No, I wish. I wish.

Liam: Dad, were you asking if he's a robot?

Jawbreaker: Hmm?

Liam: Did you just ask a human if they were a robot?

Jawbreaker: You know, he's got those eyes. Anyway, the umm.

Liam: (to Cumulous, very quietly) I'm sorry.

Jawbreaker: Cloud. Cloud?

Cumulous: Cumulous.

Jawbreaker: Cumolors.

Theobald: Yeah.

Jawbreaker: Cumulor. The important thing is—

Liam has his face in his hands.

Jawbreaker: They tried to kill my ass.

Cumulous: That is a important thing, yes.

Jawbreaker: Yeah, and we're gonna get 'em. We're gonna get 'em.

Theobald: Right. Duke Jawbreaker, (laughs) in your esteemed opinion, is there anyone that attacked you that would be capable of teleporting troops here?

Cumulous: Do you know of any druids?

Jawbreaker: Yeah.

Theobald: That would work with them.

Jawbreaker: My wife-

Theobald: Under duress, perhaps?

Jawbreaker: Spearia, yeah, Spearia, she could do that, probably. What is it?

Amethar: She's here.

Jawbreaker: Okay, great, good.

Theobald: Right, you were drinking her wrist milk.

Cumulous: Do you wanna lay down?

Theobald: Spearia.

Jawbreaker: Nah, I've layed down plenty-

Liam: Yeah, let's talk to Spearia. Mom?

Theobald: Spearia.

Spearia: I'm gonna be out of this hug in another minute or two.

Liam: Okay.

Theobald: Could we talk to you during the hug?

Spearia: If you get in this hug.

Cumulous: Theo, I don't know.

Murph: I get in the hug.

Theobald: Are there any other-

Brennan: [imitates Spearia patting Theo’s armored back] Clank clank, clank.

Ally: I'm just in the middle.

Theobald: Are there druids of your circle who might work with the Ceresians or the Empire under duress and put this place in danger?

Spearia: (sighs heavily) In Buzzybrook, no. I do not think there are any that know of secrets that powerful. There are many still that keep the old ways of the Sweetening Path, but none that have treaded so diligently, or with the blessing of such powerful spirits that they would be able to transport here to the monastery.

Liam: So, are you saying that maybe somewhere else there would be?

Spearia: Potentially.

Theobald: The Sugar-Plum Fairy, right?

Ruby: But the Sugar-Plum Fairy's on our side, I thought.

Theobald: I thought she wasn't.

Cumulous: Not necessarily.

Saccharina: She's absolutely not on… Well, I don't know what your side is. She's absolutely not on the side of magic being freed.

Liam: So, she'd probably work with the Church to suppress magic.

Theobald: I-

Saccharina: The Sugar-Plum Fairy is not… The Sugar-Plum Fairy derives her power from The Bulb, and yes, she has-

Cumulous: She derives her power from The Bulb?

Ruby: Then why is the Sugar-Plum Fairy banned by The Bulb?

Saccharina: Because what better way to distract people? The Sugar-Plum Fairy is sort of like a folk deity, and so, The Bulb does not wish for various counties and estates to have their own access to power. They wish to consolidate the power and be the sole source of power.

Ruby: Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

Theobald: Your Aunt Lazuli believed something similar.

Saccharina: Yeah, I gotta be honest, Ruby, just, you can walk away.

Ruby: Well maybe I will!

Siobhan: I walk away.

Brennan: You see Spearia looks over and goes,

Spearia: Mm, okay, okay. You're half sisters and you just met in the past week, you're half sisters, how old are you?

Cumulous: Did you just intuit that?

Spearia: I'm an empath.

Saccharina: I think it's a little more complicated than that.

Spearia: You're like a witch queen from the Dairy Sea?

Saccharina: Yeah.

Spearia: Okay. She's, I don't know, some kind of shadow sorceress.

Saccharina: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Spearia: Yeah, it's hard. That's hard.

Liam: That's crazy that you knew that, mom. That's really cool.

Saccharina: Well, yeah.

Brennan: Rubs your cheek.

Spearia: Wow. Well, it seems that we have finally met Saccharina Frostwhip. From one witch to another, may I just say that the power of the spirits of the world in me recognize the power of the spirits of the world in you, and-

Saccharina: Thank you. And the power of the spirits of the world in me also recognize the power in the spirits of you. Did I do it right?

Spearia: It's impossible to do it wrong.

Cumulous: The power... of the spirits.. in me recognize the power... in the spirits-

Spearia: I think we should all hold hands while this is happening.

Cumulous immediately puts his hands out.

Amethar: I’m gonna go- I'm gonna go chase my daughter down. You all can stay in this.

Murph: I'm gonna stand at a distance between those two situations.

Emily: What two situations?

Murph: Him chasing down his daughters and the group hug.

Spearia: Liam, I'm gonna finish up the hug now, sweetie, okay?

Liam: Okay, cool.

Brennan: She taps your arms. She looks over to you, Saccharina, and says,

Spearia: (sighs heavily) Saccharina, I'd like to ask your permission for something.

Saccharina: I mean, of course. Anything.

Spearia: Can I lightly touch your forehead and hum?

Saccharina: Um, yeah. (laughs) Okay.

Brennan: She takes these little green thin fingers, holds them to your head, just goes. (humming)

Saccharina: Is this a sound bath?

Spearia: Always.

Saccharina: Oh okay. Very cool. Let me change into my yoga pants.

Brennan: She goes,

Spearia: Wow. There is a storm within you.

Saccharina: Yeah.

Spearia: And thus, there is a storm within the world. [deep inhale] This monastery needs to be saged from the very bottom of the basement all the way up to the top. It may take days, it may take weeks, but I'm gonna get that started right now.

Liam: I'm on it, mom.

Ally: And I have a bunch of sage that I'm rolling that's dried.

Zac: Can we look at these magical weapons?

Brennan: Yeah, absolutely, you guys take a look.

Siobhan: Cumulous' favorite thing.

Cumulous: Look, I cannot help it. As a monk of my faith, I do not long for possessions.

Brennan: You see that Swifty's standing on a little pile of them and says,

Swifty: Hey, yeah, if you wanna buy one, go for it.

Cumulous: Come on.

Swifty: Come on, what?

Theobald: Come on, Swifty.

Cumulous: Can I just look at what you've got?

Swifty: Oh, you got them out of the building?

Cumulous: I was-

Swifty: They're yours? You're standing on the pile of them?

Saccharina: Swifty, I dispatched you to get them, now I order you to let Cumulous play with them.

Swifty: (whispering) I'm gonna rip your nuts off.

Cumulous: You better try.

Brennan: You see Swifty (whooshes) tears out of there, and you may hold as many of these weapons as you like.

Zac: Cool. Can I just make an Insight?

Brennan: Yeah, go ahead and make an Insight check.

Zac: Eh, 10.

Brennan: You-

Zac: Oh, no, 17.

Brennan: Oh, 17, damn. You garner from a lot of these weapons that they are magical, which is great. None of them look like high artifacts. These were, after all, culled from a remote mountain village in the Great Stone Candy Mountains, so a lot of these are probably taken from like barrows or burial places, and stuff like that. And in game mechanical terms, a lot of these would probably be +1 to attack and damage with no additional magical powers.

Zac: Cool.

Murph: So better for troops than us.

Brennan: Yes, correct.

Murph: Probably.

Brennan: Absolutely.

Murph: Cool.

Brennan: You see that Joren Jawbreaker walks after you, Amethar, as you leave. And I think Theo, you were going with him?

Murph: Yeah. Yeah, I'll follow that gang for now.

Brennan: You go over, you see that Joren goes.

Jawbreaker: (groans) All right, well, first off, I'm glad you're alive. I don't know how the hell you made it here.

Amethar: Me neither. (chuckles)

Jawbreaker: All right, so, people tell me I'm the King of Candia. Is that true?

Amethar: It was. You were king for like, two weeks. But not anymore.

Jawbreaker: Who's king- Who’s king now?

Amethar: My daughter. Saccharina.

Jawbreaker: That's true what they're saying, the marauders?

Amethar: [quietly] Yeah.

Jawbreaker: (sniffs) Well, shit. I guess that's better than me being King, huh?

Amethar: I mean, fuckin' leaving Castle Manylicks was dumb as hell.

Jawbreaker: They were torching the villages!

Amethar: Oh, come on!

Jawbreaker: I had to get out there!

Amethar: Come on, Unc.

Jawbreaker: Look, I got Chin Seeker here, and he's hungry for chins.

Amethar: Come on. I mean, hey, if there's anything I've learned in the past couple of weeks, it's, I don't know, sometimes you gotta know the smart thing from the other things that you wanna do.

Jawbreaker: The hell? You sound like your damn dad.

Amethar: No, all right? I'm not, okay? I'm not my dad, all right? But Jet's dead. (pause) And things are different now.

Jawbreaker: Oh, hell.

Brennan: You see he rubs his crystal beard on his massive jaw and he puts a hand on your shoulder and goes,

Jawbreaker: I'm so sorry, Amethar.

Amethar: Hey, I mean, the best thing we can do now is just make sure we do the smart thing and the right thing. (sighs heavily) And right now, that means getting behind Saccharina.

Jawbreaker: (sniffs) She's not in open rebellion, the crown goes to her, and then—

Amethar: There ya go.

Jawbreaker: Well, we already got Ceresians and paladins of the Church in our land, so we're gonna have to make a pretty big damn show of it. Is there anyone that can vouch if we come out and say that this is true? Do we have any allies anywhere?

Amethar: Dairy Islands are with us, and then, I don't know, we got some crazy gamble that involves getting a book that makes you tell the truth, belonged to my sister.

Jawbreaker: Well, that's right. Well, shit, I guess if it saves people's lives it's the thing we gotta do. Let's go talk to this kid of yours. You know, if you just followed your old Unc's lead and taken that milkmaid back to the castle with you, a lot of this could've been avoided.

Amethar: Yeah, all right, well I could've changed a lot of things and a lot of things would've been different.

Jawbreaker: Yeah, I know that for sure.

Brennan: And he turns to walk back into one of the chambers of the monastery overlooking (whooshes) the clouds, the cotton candy clouds moving over the Great Stone Candy Mountains. Saccharina, you look to see Amethar and Joren approaching you. I don't know if anyone else is here as well, but at least Amethar and Joren approach.

Murph: Yeah. I think I was kind of walking at a safe distance between the two, and I think as those two guys turn around I just kinda wanna say to Ruby,

Theobald: I think we... Especially in times like this, we all need to stick together.

Murph: And then I follow Amethar and Jawbreaker.

Brennan: Awesome.

Zac: I think Cumulous wants to go like... It's a tower, right?

Brennan: Yeah, it's a monastery. So, it's on the peak of this great mountain made of pure white sugar rock, and it is a very… It's weird, 'cause it's an arcane order of monks, so it is very solemn and austere and reflective, but there also are runes and libraries and places where scrolls are kept here, and there are halls where magical artifacts are being kept as well. There's an old private laboratory of the Archmage Lazuli here near the teleportation room.

Zac: I want to see if we can see if any monks here can help us peruse this book to see if we can make anything that can help us.

Ally: Oh, cool.

Brennan: There's a number of scholar monks here that would be able to help you with that, for sure.

Cumulous: Do you mind if I borrow the book?

Liam: Yeah, of course.

Brennan: Are you borrowing just the stuff that Liam has, or Ruby's stuff as well?

Zac: Well, I kinda don't know that (laughs) Cumulous would be great at like, strategizing for the war overall by himself, but yeah, if people wanted to-

Ally: Well, I would love to hear about it, too. I would go with you.

Zac: Yeah, you wanna come with-

Ally: Yeah, yeah.

Zac: Yeah.

Brennan: Cool. So, Liam and Cumulous head off to the library with a bunch of the scholar monks here. Joren, Amethar, and Theo approach Saccharina on a balcony standing with Gooey overlooking the Great Stone Candy Mountains, and below it to the south, the sweeping plains and forests of Candia.

Amethar: Your Majesty (stammering).

Theobald: We're at your service.

Amethar: Yeah, something like that.

Theobald: We believe in your cause, and we want peace for Candia. We want to be unashamed of who we are, and we want the spirit of magic to roam free.

Saccharina: (in tears) Thank you for your endorsement. I'm very aware it does not come with enthusiasm. (sniffs) But, today's not about my pride, so I am very excited about what it will mean for the future of magic. I am going to go celebrate (sniffs) with those who have stood by me. I will see you another time.

Brennan: Gooey wraps your cloak around you, Saccharina, leaving a hand on your shoulder and walks with you from the balcony. Joren stands there looking out.

Jawbreaker: (groans) Well. What the hell.

Brennan: And turns to walk back into the monastery. Ruby, you see Caramelinda walks off into the monastery. Manta Ray Jack goes to reckon with the rest of his soldiers, and this place now has the monks of the Order of the Spinning Star. So yeah, monks of the Spinning Star are here, Saccharina's people are here now, and then Jawbreaker and your father, but the majority of people running around are Manta Ray's crew, the monks of the Spinning Star, and Saccharina's people, and then a smattering of townsfolk from Buzzybrook.

Siobhan: I wanna talk to Liam.

Brennan: Okay, awesome.

Siobhan: I'm gonna go find Liam in the library and just pull him aside.

Brennan: Cool.

Ruby: What they're planning with Saccharina and making her Queen, nobody's talked about it, but what that means is, we go back, even if we get some concessions with magic, we go back to the same status quo and the people who killed Preston and the people who killed Jet get to just carry on with their great fucking lives.

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Ruby: And we just have to live with it.

Liam: I mean, I think that's true if it works out. I mean, look at where we just teleported from. They have huge plans in motion.

Ruby: Yeah, and even if it works out, it sucks. We lost- My sister died, your best friend died.

Liam: I'm just saying, I don't think it'll work out. I think we're gonna be at war for a really long time. I don't think there's any sort of peace brokering. I mean, we're trying to figure out what's in these maps and plans and stuff, but-

Ruby: I just wanna tell you-

Liam: I think we'll be able to ice the carrot.

Ruby: Even if we make this alliance with these people and we just go back to how it was, I'm not gonna let them live it down.

Liam: No, I know. I'm gonna ice the carrot.

Ruby: Okay.

Liam: I'm gonna fucking-

Ruby: And the bread.

Liam: Get the carrot.

Ruby: And the broccoli.

Liam: Yeah, and we're gonna kill the Broccoli.

Ruby: And that onion guy.

Liam: Oh, I killed the onion guy.

Ruby: You did?

Liam: I killed the onion guy, and I looked like the onion guy while I did it.

Ruby: That is really cool.

Liam: Yeah, I-

Ruby: Liam-

Liam: I can't imagine dying that way.

Ruby: You looked so cool.

Liam: Can you imagine? (laughs) Grief had a positive effect on me.

Ruby: You know what? I think you're taking it really well, and I feel like I can learn a lot from you.

Liam: Yeah, thanks. I will say, I got the most closure about my pig at your sister's funeral, and that can't be healthy. But it was just the vibe of loss, you know? She was way more important than my pig, I'm aware. So, she got a whole funeral, and I- I kinda hijacked it.

Ruby: No, I-

Liam: And I'm sorry.

Ruby: You don't have to apologize for-

Liam: But the next funeral I'm at-

Ruby: Being sad about your-

Liam: I'm gonna think about Jet.

Ruby: Great, and I'll think about Preston.

Liam: Aw, thanks. [shakes Ruby’s hand] Okay, let's find out what this carrot is up to.

Ruby: Oh, yeah.

Siobhan: Is it on the… Can we look at these maps?

Ally: You can roll-

Brennan: Yeah, you can. Yeah, absolutely. You guys can do the rolls. Snickersnack- So if you guys are looking at the map stuff, the monks are looking at the Archbishop stuff, at Oliver Onionpatch's stuff.

Zac: I wanna find out if there's any way… I want to explain the bread golems and the corn c-

Cumulous: The cutest corn thing I've ever seen.

Liam: It was so cute.

Ruby: Oh my god, it was so cute.

Liam: Right?

Snickersnack: It doesn't sound from the description like it would be that cute, it sounds-

Cumulous: It was massive.

Ruby: I mean, I got pretty close to it and it was like-

Cumulous: Somehow that made it cuter.

Ruby: Like a parade balloon.

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Ruby: That kind of a cute.

Snickersnack: It had metal plates on its face, it had huge claws-

Liam: You know what I think made it so cute? Is you know when something is so small and cute, someone makes it small?

Snickersnack: Right, but this was enormous.

Liam: But then when you see him, it's like seeing a big teddy bear. You're like, that's so cute.

Cumulous: Do you ever- Are you familiar with the concept of the-

Snickersnack: Me and all the monks and all the townsfolk had a vote and we all agreed it was scary.

Cumulous: Interesting.

Liam: Oh great, just now?

Snickersnack: Yes.

Ruby: It's actually not a democracy, it's a monarchy, so-

Cumulous: Interesting that you got a vote while you-

Brennan: All right, we cut from this scene to something else.

Zac: No, wait, wait, wait.

Ally: Wait, I need a roll. I need a roll to find out about this.

Brennan: Snicker-

Siobhan: Is this a History check on this map?

Brennan: Yes, you guys give me either… Well, you can interpret the maps with whatever skill you want, but probably History is gonna be the best.

Siobhan: Can I just do raw Intelligence?

Brennan: You can do raw Intelligence.

Siobhan: Great.

Zac: Oh.

Siobhan: Oh, I got a nat 1.

Zac: Can I do the check for the stuff-

Brennan: Yes, go for it. You can do a Religion check if you'd like.

Zac: Okay.

Ally: Would Nature work for this?

Brennan: Potentially, yeah. You can-

Zac: Only got a 10.

Brennan: Troop movements and stuff. You can do Nature, yeah.

Ally: Yeah, 14.

Brennan: 14? Okay, cool.

Zac: Only got a 10.

Brennan: You guys are having a hard time deciphering the stuff you have, but there are other monks here, people that could take a look at it, and there's also just letters and correspondences here.

Siobhan: Oh, okay.

Ally: Cool.

Brennan: Snickesnack comes up to you as the monks are looking at this stuff and says,

Snickersnack: Brother, did you behold the battle, you were fighting alongside the sea witch, yes?

Cumulous: I was. She's enormously powerful.

Snickersnack: Hmm. The teleportation circles, the arcane defenses of the monastery, many of our oldest artifacts are worn down, if not fully broken. Our order has been lost these past 20 years and dwindling, with only those of us who are elders still remembering the words and face of the Archmage Lazuli herself. Do you think that this Sundae Sorceress might assume the mantle of Archmage? I've heard it said that one of her titles is the Archmage of Lost Sucrosia. Do you believe our order… In the absence of the Archmage Lazuli, is there some chance that our order owes its fealty to her as Candia's perhaps last best chance?

Cumulous: I think there's a definite chance of that. We… No one will be able to replace Lazuli and do what she did, but I think that we must adapt, and this is the brightest light I've seen in a long time.

Snickersnack: You were chosen to rescue the royal family. You are the most elder monk left standing of this Order. We are behind whatever decision you would make, but I believe that she does represent hope. We are behind you, if you would swear our Order to her service.

Cumulous: Thank you.

Brennan: Awesome. You guys… So, the monks take a look at a lot of this stuff. For the rest of that day, you guys… It's night time. Are you guys gonna take a long rest, probably?

Siobhan: Yes.

Brennan: Yeah.

Murph: Yeah.

Brennan: Cool.

Ally: Should one of us stay-

Murph: I'm a little concerned. I guess I wanna mention to… I guess I go up to Saccharina.

Theobald: Queen Saccharina, are you at all concerned that agents of the Sugar-Plum Fairy might be working with the Bulbian Church, that we might be in danger here of somebody ambushing us in the night?

Saccharina: In the night? I'm not concerned at this night, but I am concerned that agents of the Sugar-Plum Fairy are working with The Bulb.

Theobald: Okay. We don't think we need to move any of the teleportation-

Saccharina: I'll stay up and I'll watch. I guarantee no one can get past me. (bitterly) Now go back to your family.

Brennan: You see that Swifty jumps up on the table and says,

Swifty: That's right, we're having a party.

(lively music)

Brennan: Gooey puts another tankard of ale in front, and all these marauders continue to sing songs and play music. They've got a-

Saccharina: Oh, yeah, not to mention they'll be up all night.

Brennan: You see that Jon Bon looks over and says,

Jon Bon Oh, I will go and keep watch on the monastery wall. I have to piss.

Saccharina: (laughs) If anyone tries to teleport in, they'll teleport into Jon Bon's piss. It's kind of a thing we do a lot.

Theobald: We actually talk a lot- I don't specifically do it, your father loves pissing in front of people.

Saccharina: Yeah.

Jon Bon: I piss once every four or five weeks-

Theobald: Oh, well that's-

Jon Bon: For about six to eight hours.

Theobald: Oh. I'm sorry. I was trying to-

Jon Bon: That's-

Theobald: Find sort of a thing we could talk about.

Jon Bon: That's how I keep watch.

Theobald: He sounds like a good watchman.

Saccharina: Mm-hmm, yeah, he's the best.

Jon Bon: It feels great, if you're wondering.

Saccharina: He pee shivers the entire time.

Theobald: My goodness. Right, okay. Well.

Swifty: I'm only the second most fucked up person in this crew.

Theobald: Apparently.

Swifty: Jon Bon's a freak.

Theobald: Yes, I'm quite hurt. But thank you for helping us save the Duke. I know you have business at the temple. We appreciate you diverting your plans.

Saccharina: If you wish to show me your gratitude, you can help me at the temple.

Murph: I nod.

Brennan: Long rest, HP maxes are restored. The next morning you awaken, and Snickersnack the monk comes down with a report from the scholar monks that had been poring over the Archbishop's books, the maps, the correspondences, everything else. [funky accent] I'm gonna tell you guys a lot of stuff right now.

Murph: Cool.

Brennan: I'm not gonna make you roll for this because you already rolled for this in the last battle episode when you grabbed all this shit.

Siobhan: Hell yeah.

Murph: Cool.

Brennan: Today marks the sixth day of Harvest Dawn. The fall has begun and the days are getting colder. First thing you find is military movements all throughout Candia. The south of Candia, so the lowlands of Candia, are completely taken over by House Cruller, right? House Cruller holds Castle Candy. And basically in the rogue state of Candia flies its flag over Castle Candy, and the embassies and heads of state of Fructera, Vegetania, Ceresia, and the Meat Lands have all recognized House Cruller. The Dairy Islands have not, apparently, according to correspondences, declared a recognition of anything.

Murph: Okay.

Brennan: They've just been silent. You also see that the push from the south of the army trying to cross the Cola River fell apart, as was predicted in Lazuli's vision that she sent to you in Port Syrup, because of a disagreement between House Uvano and the Church. Basically what's written in these correspondences between- 'Cause these are Keradin's correspondences, there's a lot of juicy shit in here, there's some stuff directly from the Pontifex, but basically, Plumbeline maintained that the Concord… Oh sorry, the Pontifex maintained that the Concord couldn't exist without its constituent states. Everything that was signed in the original Concord was signed by Jadain of the House of Rocks, Amethar's father, right? And Amethar as well.

Siobhan: And Uvano is Plumbeline, right?

Brennan: Plumbeline, yes. So basically, before they got to the Cola River, Plumbeline withdrew her troops because she was basically like, if the Church is saying that there is no Concord, then we don't have alliance with anyone. And it kind of fell apart, diplomatic relationships fell apart, and they sort of withdrew. So, that fell apart, even as Cruller was cementing his reign over the majority of Candia. The troops that are left, therefore, are only like Cruller's people and some Vegetanian forces, and stuff like that, which I'll get into in a second, in the south, and then the main army of House Rocks is also in the south of the Great Stone Candy Mountains. They were coming on their way to liberate Jawbreaker. And then all of Duke Jawbreaker's forces are here as well, and then Ceresian Imperial forces. Basically, the empire didn't invade Candia. The Imperial forces are like peacekeepers. Grissini was there to capture, you know, enemies of the Concord.

Really what is happening, is Ceresia was taken over by Ciabatta. He literally left Comida after the tourney, went home, and apparently was able to assassinate all of his political enemies with the information he stole from Alfredi. Like, when he was robbing Alfredi he wasn't just getting stuff to clear his name, he was finding out who knew shit, who had dirt, and who he needed to make moves on. So, Ceresia's invading Candia because Candia doesn't have any alliances anymore, right? So, it's just a sitting duck, and it lets him be Imperator by just taking over the military and saying, “we're gonna go, I'm gonna win you guys a war,” and rule Ceresia and be another war hero, and erect triumphal arches, and shit like that. So, there's tension between all these people.

There's even a letter from Ciabatta that looks like it was intercepted by one of the Pontifex's spies saying that there's no lost love between Fructera, Ceresia, and Holy Vegetania, to be wary of each other. And you see that the biggest thing here, which you get from the Archbishop's notes, is that you're looking at like the scattered forces that are in Candia, and they don’t look- It looks a little bit weird, their placement right now. You're just trying to see what is the- What's motivating this army, like what's motivating the invasion. The Pontifex has called a holy crusade on Candia because she has instituted the Ramsian Doctrine as official Church doctrine. So, she finally made that move. So, the Church's official position is that there is such a thing as junk food, as unholy people. And so, the like, scattered armies that are here are Ciabatta's loyalists, and a lot of Vegetanian and Fructeran lords who are just engaging in a crusade. Like, it's not so much a nation going to war as the Pontifex has said: It is holy for you to take fighting men, go to Candia, and loot and sack the place. There's literally a thing where it says, “If you can kill a Candian heretic, your soul is saved. If you can destroy a Candian Standing Stone, you and your family's souls are saved”. Almost just like a transactional Church papal bull kind of transactional thing. Sir Keradin has been given the title “The Mace of the Faith” and is leading the crusade into Candia. The other big stuff you find here is that because of the tension between Ceresia, the Church, and House Uvano, a missive has gone out from Calroy Cruller, and basically what he has said is that he renounces his pagan ways, that he agrees that a crusade is needed to scourge the wicked from Candia, and that he would like to be re-baptized into the Bulbian faith and saved.

Ally: Wooooow.

Brennan: You see missives from some of Grissini's stuff that basically says that Cruller is saying a crusade in Candia is needed, and as a result of that crusade to save the soul of Candia, which would satisfy the Pontifex's needs, a new Concord could be formed if another nation were to conquer Candia, and if Candia were to become a part of Ceresia. And it looks like you see another piece of correspondence from Ciabatta responding, this is another intercepted missive, where he's basically sent something to Cruller being like,

Ciabatta’s Letter: There could be a very real future for you as the governor of Candia as a province of Ceresia.

Brennan: So, it looks like that's what Cruller is angling for. And the missives between him are, “If Candia were conquered, a new Concord could be created, and the Concordant Empress”, which is the wording he uses, “could be anyone's heir or daughter”. So, it looks like Calroy has basically sent this little web out to satisfy the Pontifex's need for a crusade, to satisfy Ciabatta's need to win a war and conquer new territory, and satisfy Plumbeline's desire to be Concordant Empress in the new Concord that would be created after that war, ending up with him on the throne of Castle Candy as a Ceresian governor. You see all of this-

Siobhan: I'm sharpening Flickerish as I read. (sharpening noises)

Brennan: You see that there is a missive from Ciabatta saying that he does not wish to meet in the City of Comida, nor to meet in Vegetania after the events of the massacre at Saint Arugula where his name in particular was spoken by Plumbeline and then denied and said to be false. So, he's basically said, I will not come to Vegetania or Fructera, and Calroy has said, as a land currently being occupied under a holy crusade, he has opened Castle Candy to a meeting between the Pontifex and the heads of House Uvano and Ciabatta to broker a resolution to the conflict between these invading forces.

Murph: All our enemies in one place.

Siobhan: How fun.

Brennan: You see that in Oliver's stuff, he's got a lot of communiques from bishops and archbishops basically objecting to the institution of the Ramsian Doctrine, saying like, this will not, like- Both Candian bishops and archbishops, but also bishops and archbishops of other lands being like, “This is not something that we can- Our flocks wail in anguish at the institution of this law”. It's not like every archbishop or bishop of the world, but there's a significant amount of pushback from within the Church. Of course, that pushback is very carefully worded 'cause any of them could be killed for pushing back too hard.

Siobhan: Is there any in particular, maybe in Candia, that we can-

Brennan: Yeah. I mean, obviously there's so many… Every important priest. Obviously Lapin was the most important priest you knew in Candia, but every archbishop and bishop within Candia is saying please don't come massacre all the fuckin' people here. And in so doing, have put a target on themselves to be just labelled apostate and heretic and killed. Belizabeth has sent something to Keradin. You guys really snatched up all the good shit in that fight. Belizabeth sends- This is actually to Oliver Onionpatch, which is a private missive in a hidden cipher. This is not even written openly. The hidden cipher of this is her writing to Oliver, basically saying, “I worry for this meeting at Castle Candy because I do not wish for the Concord to be reinstated so quickly that the Church cannot call a crusade against the Meat Lands after Candia is destroyed”. You see she talks again about the Archbishop Raddica Rutabagans, who was killed in the Meat Lands, which is something she mentioned off-hand back when you guys were in Comida. And so, she's talking- She’s telling Oliver that if she comes to Castle Candy, she wants the full crusade guard and Keradin there to protect her, and will also be bringing the book of Saint Citrina so that she can ensure that Ciabatta and Cruller are not working with Plumbeline. That's the politics- [to the camera] This is just a big ol’ info dump. [to the players] Oh, the money that was in the side building was for paying Meat Lander mercenaries. So, they're getting contracted to get Meat Landers to come in and fight for them.

Murph: Got it. So, just to clarify, the person from the Meat Lands- This is a religious Bulbian person from the Meat Lands? Or they were afraid of being- The Meat Lands being crusaded afterwards?

Brennan: Basically, it seems that the Pontifex wants the Bulbian Church to well and truly rule this world, and that Candia represented a obstacle to that, but also the Meat Lands, who are sort of, openly pagan. And her archbishop was killed in the Meat Lands. So, she's basically saying like, “The reason I'm fucking with Plumbeline and not just recognizing her as the new Concordant Empress is because I don't want the Concord to exist so that I can-”, she wants the Concord to crumble at least long enough to eradicate the Meat Lands.

Murph: Got it. Okay, so that's potential allies there.

Brennan: That's the politics stuff. Looking at Oliver's alchemical notes: they still can't crack how to make water steel. It looks like Alfredi had some hidden knowledge that she died with. Even with their schematics they can't figure out how to make water steel, but they certainly figured out how to animate these- There were old Ceresian statues, they figured out how to alchemically animate looking into Alfredi's notes. And so, you see there's a ton of stuff there. There's also a lot of her notes coming from a section of the Bulbian Church called the Sanctus Putris, which is an order of the Church that did not subscribe to the Prophidian Heresy at all. It looks like they are not about the Ramsian Doctrine and causing the apocalypse. But the Sanctus Putris basically felt that to keep the Hungry One at bay, it was necessary to have a certain amount of rot in the world, to have mold and putrescence in the world enough that the Hungry One could not devour it. You also find notes there that say… The correspondence between the Archbishop Oliver Onionpatch and the Sanctus Putris saying the Sanctus Putris has located the home and high temple of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, and have found the Ice Cream Temple. The date they give, they say that their expedition should arrive there the morning of Harvest Dawn the seventh, and it is Harvest Dawn-

Zac: That's tomorrow?

Brennan: Tomorrow, it’s the sixth. Let me see if there's anything...

Theobald: Well, we certainly can't let them get their hands on it.

Ruby: No.

Brennan: That's a tremendous amount of information. Are there any questions about anything I just dropped on y'all?

Zac: Can you just repeat it one more time?

(laughing)

Murph: Is Ceresia on board with all the Bulbian stuff?

Brennan: It- From all the correspondences you've stolen and inferred, it seems like an unholy alliance. It seems like Plumbeline cares about getting her dad's throne and having the Concord survive and being Empress. It seems like Ciabatta cares about being Imperator and having a country outside of the Concord that he can wage war against and conquer. It seems like the Pontifex cares about a global Church, and it seems like Cruller cares about just weaseling his ass up, brick by brick, as far as he can get.

Murph: Alright.

Ruby: I'm gonna kill him. Or I'm gonna help my dad kill him.

Amethar: Hey, whatever works.

Ruby: Both of those would feel good.

Liam: Maybe I'll kill him accidentally.

Ruby: You know what? That would be fine. Or on purpose.

Liam: Or on purpose.

Amethar: Honestly, I'd be satisfied by stabbing his dead body.

Ruby: Oh yeah.

Liam: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I could see that, too.

Ruby: Kicking him a little bit.

Liam: Have we changed?

Amethar: I think we're full war guys.

Liam: I think we're war guys.

Amethar: There you go.

Liam: [cheerfully] I'm gonna stab a dead body.

Amethar: Yeah, it's gonna feel great.

Ruby: I'm gonna crumble that little shit into the ground.

Brennan: You see Joren Jawbreaker slaps you on the back, Liam, and goes,

Jawbreaker: Yeah!

Liam: (laughs) Yeah.

Jawbreaker: I love it. It changes you.

Liam: Yeah.

Jawbreaker: You can't be the same.

Liam: No, you cannot go back!

Jawbreaker: I remember when I was a kid I was different, but then, I don't know, I used to love music but now my favorite sound is teeth hitting the floor.

Liam: (laughs) That's a new one.

Jawbreaker: Yeah, yeah. You get- You can catch somebody on the side of the chin and you can get 'em all out and they'll be alive. You can get all 32, it's like a strike in bowling.

Liam: Wow.

Amethar: Hey, now that you're like, up and about, you gotta show this kid how you piss.

Liam: Uhhh,

Jawbreaker: Watch this.

Amethar: Okay, we can walk out of here. I mean, you have to see this at some point.

Ruby: I wanna see it.

Amethar: It's pretty incredible.

Liam: All right, let's do it. Field trip!

Brennan: He goes onto the wall of the monastery and he goes,

Jawbreaker: Call it.

Amethar: Go!

(loud whooshing)

Amethar: Stop.

(whooshing stops)

Amethar: Ah! God damn.

Liam: Is there a valve in there?

Jawbreaker: No, it's just about control, it's about discipline.

Amethar: All right, now should we talk about all the crazy stuff?

Liam: Yeah, yeah, right, right. Okay.

Theobald: Cumulous, I think the monks here are in danger. If there's a holy crusade.

Cumulous: They'll come to purge this area.

Theobald: They'll try to destroy the holy places.

Liam: It's true.

Siobhan: Where's Liam's brothers?

Brennan: Back at Manylicks.

Theobald: Okay, well-

Cumulous: I know we must- We have to go to the-

Brennan: Jawbreaker looks and says,

Jawbreaker: Well look, we got armies, and right now they're scattered. I mean, all the troops that are in Candia are you know, lords and their retinues that are on this crusade, right? Because-

Brennan:  I'm sorry, the last thing you guys find is that there are rumors that they're talking about there, of rumors of Saccharina, of like, “is there an heir?” And basically, the thing is like, it's like “find and kill her before her claim can be legitimized”. That would present like… There's something from the Pontifex being like, “If that claim were to be legitimized by either the Dairy Islanders or the Meat Lands, both the Dairy Islands and Meat Lands would certainly claim that we had abandoned the Concord, and would likely join Candia and go to war, and then we'd be fighting half of Calorum”. So, basically it's like, “assassinate Saccharina Frostwhip as soon as you can”. And there's even a thing in it about, “Is it true?” And someone else being like, “It doesn't matter if it's true, just kill her”. So, you see that Jawbreaker says,

Jawbreaker: Well, I think, they're on their heels right now, their big southern push fell apart and now they've got to all get on the same page about how they're gonna carve up the cake, no pun intended. So, seems like the best thing we can do, get our armies together, have everybody gather out in front of Manylicks and take the knee to Her Majesty, and-

Ruby: All of these people are scattered, they're raiding parties. We know where they are, they don't know where we are, and we can teleport. Maybe at least some of us should be going out destroying these raiding parties, coming back, before they know that we can do that.

Jawbreaker: That makes sense. I mean, if you just wanna go pick off the smaller contingents of crusaders in Candia, then that sounds fine by me. But I mean, how do we go knock this Cruller asshole off the throne? And that, we're gonna need armies for.

Theobald: Yes. I think we need to get all of Candia on the same page, and then we need to stop the rest of the world from getting the Sugar-Plum Fairy's secrets, or magic. We need to get to this Ice Cream Temple.

Ruby: I don't think that we should enter in any alliance where we have to be an ally of Ciabatta, who killed my sister.

Theobald: Why would we be an ally of Ciabatta?

Ruby: If we enter back into the Concord-

Cumulous: We're not saying that.

Theobald: We're not entering back into the Concord, we're defending Candia. We're trying to get The Bulb out of here, from crusading, from killing everyone.

Liam: So, they get there tomorrow, right? We need to try to maybe get to this castle to save her.

Theobald: Yeah, we're not talking about being on Ciabatta's side. Ceresia, The Bulb, they're the enemy.

Brennan: Spearia speaks up and says,

Spearia: I know what Ruby means, though. I think what you're saying, if it makes sense, is part of getting maybe our allies in the Dairy Islands to recognize Saccharina's legitimacy is that we're playing their game, right? Is that kind of what you're saying?

Ruby: Yes.

Spearia: Okay, I understand that. Well, right now, the whole world is against us, and we're out of the Concord. If we play their game and get back in the Concord and say that Saccharina is, you know, she's great, then we're back in the Concord, and then-

Ruby: And then we kill Ciabatta.

Spearia: And then we just leave the Concord again, if we want.

Ruby: And then they go to war with us again.

Spearia: Right, but then we're back where we started, but fighting from Castle Candy-

Theobald: And the Meat Landers and the Dairy Islanders are on our side. And who says we can't kill Ciabatta when we march on Castle Candy, and take out anyone who would betray us.

Brennan: Yeah, so Gooey speaks up and says,

Gooey: You said something before, Theo, about all of them being somewhere at the same time.

Theobald: Yes, there was mention of a meeting between Ciabatta and the Pontifex at Castle Candy. That would be Calroy, that's Ceresia-

Liam: (realising) The book is gonna be there. What if we could get someone from the Meat Lands to be there and press the Pontifex, and she would have to say that after her crusade on Candy she was gonna go for the Meat Lands.

Saccharina: I have allies in the Meat Lands.

Amethar: Fantastic.

Jawbreaker: All right. Well, we can't do nothing without an army. It sounds like what we're saying we need to do, is get back to Manylicks and rally the troops, try to gum up the works of the people trying to destroy Candia by just letting our allies know that there is a true Queen that reigns in Candia so that at least they'll have to deal with the Dairy Islands and the Meat Lands, and that'll also stop the Imperial troops from marching on us. If there's a legitimate claim the Imperials would have to leave, so it'll just be Ceresians and you know, holy warriors. And then y'all wanna save these artifacts at this temple, and then it sounds like there's gonna be a lot of people we don't really cotton to all at Castle Candy at the same time. Yeah.

Saccharina: (sighs heavily) I hesitate to speak because I know that my words in this company are- Usually put me in worse standing than when I started speaking, but I would like to make it clear that I have no interest in working with Ceresia. My entire intention of taking this throne is so that I may occupy it, use it as but a tool to bring about an age of magic. They can declare a crusade against us, but I already declared a crusade against them. If I'm the Queen, The Bulb will not be in Candia. And eventually, it won't be in the Dairy Islands, and then after that, it won't be in the Meat Lands. So, that's where I stand.

Liam: Cool.

Brennan: You see, Ruby, Caramelinda catches your eye after that.

Ruby raises an eyebrow and shrugs slightly.

Brennan: Cool. So, you see that Joren says,

Jawbreaker: Well, great. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Theobald: Yeah.

Liam: Yeah.

Jawbreaker: Yeah, yeah.

Theobald: Yes. Let's all get on board.

Brennan: You see that Jawbreaker looks over at you, Saccharina, and you see he says,

Jawbreaker: Your folks and my folks, we got a little rowdy in the mountains.

Saccharina: I understand, it was a pissing contest.

Jawbreaker: Oh, if it was a pissing contest-

Saccharina: Okay, let's go, right now. Let's go right now. (piss noises)

Cumulous protects his face from the piss.

Brennan: You see he pisses so hard that the table flips.

Emily: I piss so hard that I rise.

Brennan: He goes,

Jawbreaker: God damn, we are related.

Brennan: You see he goes,

Jawbreaker: Alright.

Brennan: He takes a huge horn of thick syrupy cola, it's like a sludge,

Jawbreaker: To Her Majesty, the Queen Saccharina of the House of Frostwhip, First of her Name, long may she reign.

Theobald: Long may she reign.

Liam: Long may she reign.

Brennan: Smashes the horn on the ground.

Liam: I do wanna tell you, though, that King Amethar, everyone tried to kill him. It was like, not even funny. So, once we announce that you're queen, I would just want you to know that around every corner is a brand new type of food wearing the skin of a different type of food that's gonna try to kill you.

Saccharina: Yeah, it's gonna be confusing. Liam, I grew up in a nunnery where I was meticulously abused by nuns for years. My entire life has been an assassination attempt.

Liam: Bulbian nuns?

Saccharina: Why do you think I am the way I am? Yeah.

Liam: That makes a lot of sense, you do carry a lot of guilt.

Cumulous: Queen Saccharina-

Saccharina: Yeah, oh I have some-

Cumulous: I would like to officially pledge the Order of the Spinning Star to you.

Saccharina: Wow. (laughs) That is-

Cumulous: We’ve been lost without Lazuli and we feel that you are the rightful heir to this place.

Saccharina: That is an honor I could never have anticipated, and all I can say is that in return, I pledge that I will return the magic of Lazuli and the Lost Sucrosi to this land as far as I can extend it.

Brennan: About five dozen monks that still remain of this order all leap to the top of their staffs, they're all just balancing on the point of their staffs, and do a deep bow standing on top of their quarter staffs.

Saccharina: I mean, Lazuli just- She just did everything right. She just did everything right. [excited] Everything right!

(laughing)

Theobald: Yes, she really did.

Brennan: Your guys' war council is concluded. The immediate plans are that Jawbreaker and Spearia and these townsfolk are going to head off to Castle Manylicks to find Liam's other brothers and rally the troops of both House Rocks and of House Jawbreaker, and try to get them together so that a new coronation can happen, a new Queen can be named, and that some allies of Candia can be invited there to be able to speak on behalf of Candia.

Saccharina: I just wanna make sure that if we're gonna do a formal coronation, it's very in my spirit, much more of a hangout party at a bar kind of thing.

Jawbreaker: Oh.

Saccharina: Yeah.

Jawbreaker: You wanna do a… Well, I was thinking the castle, but there's some nice barns up in the countryside. You wanna just do a barn and like a, I don't know, we'll just get some barrels.

Saccharina: Barn and a keg, that sounds wonderful.

Jawbreaker: Barn and a keg. (laughs) I gotta be honest, I love your style. I can't believe we were fightin'.

Saccharina: I'm just trying to set some precedents. You know, honestly, I kind of cringe every time someone says Her Majesty still, so-

Jawbreaker: Yeah, well that's good. If you were a president, then you wouldn't have to be a Queen.

Saccharina: (laughing) Oh my god. That is too good. Pissing contest, right now!

(whooshing)

Brennan: He blasts back to the wall and knocks himself out. (laughing) So, Spearia, Jawbreaker, and the townsfolk are gonna head back to Manylicks. Spearia goes,

Spearia: Liam?

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Spearia: Could we have some escort? Obviously your father doesn't have any of his soldiers here. If there are people that could escort us through the mountains-

Liam: I wonder- Let's ask Theo.

Theobald: Perhaps Manta Ray Jack.

Amethar: Yeah, makes sense.

Brennan: Manta Ray swishes his cutlass and says,

Manta Ray: Right, Amethar, I'll keep your uncle safe.

Amethar: Yeah, do that.

Brennan: So yeah, and then Manta Ray and the crew of the Bel Baby head off to Castle Manylicks. Spearia gives you a kiss on both cheeks, Liam. Your dad comes over and says,

Jawbreaker: Mhh. (pause) Liam.

Liam: (nods and smiles) That's my name!

Jawbreaker: Yeah. Way to go, kid.

Liam: Thanks, dad.

Jawbreaker: It's- (pause) It's not easy because… I think about it like your mom, you know? She's soft and sweet and kind, and there's a lot of hard, sharp motherfuckers out in the world that would be happy if she were dead, and it feels kinda backwards in the head sometimes because even if you love the soft things, you gotta be hard to protect 'em. And sometimes it feels like you're all turned around.

Liam: Yeah.

Jawbreaker: It's okay to be turned around, even if you wake up one day and you find out you're not soft anymore.

Liam: I think that's already happened.

Jawbreaker: Yeah.

Liam: I keep- I keep killing people really fast.

Jawbreaker: Yeah, I heard-

Liam: And sometimes in existentially psychotic ways, like turning into them first and kinda having them kill themselves.

Jawbreaker: Yeah. I um- The first time I ever was in a fight like that, I was 14 and I didn't wanna hurt anybody, but there was a knight who was attacking a villager who had dishonored him or something, and he was gonna kill this villager, and I leaped off my meep and I ran over, and I took him off his meep, you know? Just slash it down, and I took out a mace and I started pounding away at his head, you know? Gotta cave his head in. And in my head, I went 'I have to start liking this right now, or I'll fall into myself forever.'

Liam: Totally, yeah.

Jawbreaker: Yeah.

Liam: 'Cause if you hesitate a little bit, then they'll just kill you.

Jawbreaker: They'll kill you. (sighs) Good luck at the Ice Cream Temple.

Liam: What?

Brennan: And he takes off. (laughing)

Liam: Well, he got my name right, that's so cool. You're not calling me my dead pig's name anymore, so, what a day!

Murph: I think Theo being kind of a flunky just immediately walks next to Saccharina and goes,

Theobald: Now, Queen Saccharina, just to let you know, I am technically captain of the King's Guard, or in this case, now the Queen's Guard, so I don't know where Gooey and I- I would see me as kind of being here (puts his hand out), and Gooey being like, there (puts other hand out underneath), so technically I would be able to give orders to Gooey in that situation. Whatever you think, though.

Murph: I bend the knee.

Saccharina: You're forgiven.

Theobald: Yeah. Yes, Your Majesty.

Ally: What's my role again? What did I win in that tournament?

Brennan: You have a seat on the Cornucopian Council, which is part of the Concord.

Ally: Got it, cool.

Cumulous: Queen Saccharina, I-

Saccharina: Could everyone just stop saying Queen?

Cumulous: Yes.

Theobald: Yes, my queen.

Saccharina: Okay.

Cumulous: You. I have to… I'm concerned about the Spinning Star, where it stands here. I don't necessarily want to keep everyone here just because it feels almost like this might be a target.

Theobald: Should we-

Cumulous: Maybe-

Emily: The Spinning Star is different than my hideout in the mountains, right?

Brennan: Yeah, you have your marauders that are separate, yeah.

Emily: Yeah.

Cumulous: Maybe they should join your marauders for the time being, and take as much as they can out.

Saccharina: Absolutely. We put a lot of work into our guest rooms, and we have more than enough towels.

Cumulous: They do?

Brennan: You guys hear (wind whistling) Bam. And a horrifically injured monk lands with huge arm-fulls of blood-soaked towels. He goes,

Chocolate Chip: Did I just hear that you have towels now, or?

Cumulous: Yes, Chocolate Chip-

Theobald: We could always use more towels.

Saccharina: Yes, we have-

Chocolate Chip: More towels?

Theobald: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The wind whistles as Chocolate Chip vanishes again.

Cumulous: We'll never see him again.

Liam: Is a towel that big of a deal to everyone?

Amethar: Yes.

Liam: I feel like sometimes I just use a dirty towel.

Ruby: I'd like a towel.

Amethar: It's essential.

Saccharina: What we do, is we actually have a geothermal vent, so we get the towels hot before you put them around your body-

Liam: Okay, now that. Okay, that does sound nice.

Saccharina: We're in the mountains, but we like our luxuries.

Liam: The other night I spilled a beer in my room and I cleaned it up with a towel, and today I used that after the shower without realizing.

Ruby: Liam, that's nasty.

Cumulous: Is that why you smell like old beer?

Liam: Maybe, yeah.

Ally: Now, this was a story about Liam.

(laughing)

Brennan: Cool. So, the Order of the Spinning Star collects all the artifacts. You see that basically Snickersnack looks at you and says,

Snickersnack: We will send you as best we can to the location of the Ice Cream Temple. If we are to truly make this monastery safe, we will need to disassemble the rune here, which means you will not be able to come back. But you will be much closer, within two or three days travel, to Castle Manylicks.

Cumulous: That sounds fine.

Liam: So, when we leave you'll move the rune?

Snickersnack: We'll move the rune. There will not be a return available to you.

Brennan: Your marauders look at you, and look at all the gear, and loot, and scrolls, and Gooey says,

Gooey: Your Majesty, you should take some of us with you, yes?

Theobald: Yes, should you, Your Majesty? Probably.

Saccharina: Yes.

Gooey: Yeah, I got it.

Theobald: No, it's okay. Co-captains, so.

(laughing)

Saccharina: Yes, I think so. Perhaps Sir Theobald can sort through and decide you know, some things that we wanna bring.

Theobald: Busy work.

Brennan: You see Gooey says,

Gooey: Sir Theobald will decide who is accompanying you?

Saccharina: Oh, you meant people.

Gooey: Yes.

Saccharina: I thought you meant cool weapons.

Gooey: No, Your Majesty.

Saccharina: Yes, okay. Yes, perhaps you could sort of run a fitness test (laughs) of the marauders.

Theobald: Yeah, okay, everyone-

Liam: I would love to participate in that.

Theobald: Liam, get in a line.

Liam: Cool.

Murph: I run a very short fitness test and pick the best people.

Liam: How do I do?

Theobald: Liam did great. Liam was number two.

Liam: Cool.

Brennan: Give me an Athletics check real quick.

Liam: Oh, hell yeah. (rolls dice) 20, but not nat.

Brennan: Cool. Yeah, Liam does great.

Murph: Yeah. It was all very herky-jerky because Theobald is not flexible, so it was like, real labored jumping jacks.

Liam: Sundae mama, if Theobald is here (puts hand out), where am I? Like here (moves other hand up and down), or?

Theobald: We're really into rankings.

Saccharina: I know. Again, I feel like-

Ruby: I'm not into rankings.

Saccharina: Sure. I feel like I tried to make it clear that the whole hierarchy thing, I'm taking the throne so we can get rid of hierarchy. So, again, you know what? I think you tell me where you rank.

Brennan: You see Swifty looks and says,

Swifty: Okay, can I be queen?

Saccharina: For a day. Everyone can be queen for a day!

Swifty: Yeah! Yeah! All of you kill yourselves! I order you, behead yourselves!

Murph: I take out my sword.

Liam: No, no, Theo, Theo!

Saccharina: Gooey, definitely you should come. Swifty, Bon Jon, and I believe I may need backup for me personally. I think that I'm perhaps more of a target than ever.

Brennan: You see they nod. Caramelinda is, I think over with Ruby and Amethar. What have you guys been up to? What have Ruby and Amethar been doing?

Lou: Just a lot of looking out over parapets, thinking about everything.

Siobhan: Just real silent. Not looking at each other. Occasionally going,

Ruby: I know.

Amethar: Yeah.

Ruby: Yeah.

Amethar: Yeah.

Ruby: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Amethar: Mm-hmm.

Ruby: Mm-hmm.

Ruby and Amethar: Yeah.

Brennan: You see Caramelinda walks over to you.

Caramelinda: I'll be accompanying Spearia and Joren back to Castle Manylicks.

Ruby and Amethar: Okay.

Ruby: So, how long have you known how to do magic?

Caramelinda: (sighs heavily) Lazuli taught me, a bit here and there.

Ruby: And in all the lessons that you were so anxious that we attend, you didn't think about teaching us any?

Caramelinda: I was going to start after you matured. I didn't wanna give you more tools to run away.

Ruby: Well, maybe if you trusted us we wouldn't have run away so much.

Brennan: She just takes that right into the heart, and it hurts.

Siobhan: Good.

Emily: I look at Caramelinda with a knowing nod of what it feels like.

Amethar: Honey, can I? Would you give us a second?

Caramelinda: Yeah. Actually, a second with Saccharina or a second with Ruby?

Amethar: A second with Ruby.

Brennan: She nods and turns to walk away. And she walks past you and looks at you with a look of… I don't know what emotion Saccharina would take with this, it would either be further pain, or it might be a moment of comradery as you watch someone who is living a life that they also did not ask for, and walks away.

Lou: I take a knee.

Amethar: Um, hey.

Siobhan: I also take a knee, this makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Amethar: All right, honestly, fine. These are all results of the fact that, I'ma say it, I'm a bad dad. Not a good-

Ruby: No.

Amethar: No, no. I'm a bad dad. Great general, incredible warrior, decent king, bad dad.

Ruby: Really into ranking, this family.

Amethar: Okay, it's been my whole life, okay? I have not given you the attention, or the availability, the emotions, any of it, in dealing with Jet. And I feel like you've been on your own, and I've been watching, and it's affecting me every day, and I don't know what to do. And the truth is, I don't think any of us know what to do.

Ruby: I don't think you're a bad dad. I think... no matter what you do, I'm always gonna be alone. I was never alone, and now I'll always be alone.

Amethar: No, you won't, 'cause I'll always be there. And Jet will always be there, in a different way, but she's not gone, and I'm not going anywhere. They tried to take me away from you, and I'm not going anywhere, alright? All we have is each other, and I can't stand to watch you push your friends away. So, please be here with me. Be here with us, because you're not alone. And you never will be.

Ruby: (crying) I had to run away from the most important person in my life as she died. And I'm never gonna be able to live with myself for that, and the only way that I can even (pause) live a half life is by getting revenge on the people that did it to her.

Lou: I put my hand on the back of your neck, I say,

Amethar: Yeah, we're gonna kill all of them, and then there's gonna be a lot more life to live after that. And that, that we're gonna do together.

Ruby: Okay. (sniffs)

Siobhan: And I give my dad a big hug.

Lou: A big. I took notes yesterday from Liam's hug, and I do my best.

Brennan: You think that this hug, if this family's into rankings, then this is the best hug there's ever been.

Emily: I watch this from afar.

(wind whistling)

Brennan: Cold wind whips around you.

Saccharina: Must be nice.

Brennan: And you guys prepare to head off. You know that the notes of this weird cult of the Bulbian Church are getting there tomorrow morning, so you guys will probably have to go tonight if you're gonna teleport there and get there. Jon Bon, Swifty, and Gooey are all coming with. They're sending the rest of the marauders with the Order and all the Order's treasures and everything, so Snickersnack is gonna lead everyone else back.

Saccharina: Did anyone else from the fitness test stand out?

Theobald: No, Swifty started kicking everyone in the legs, and everyone got very hurt, and-

Swifty: (puffs) Not fit now, bitch! Not so fit now!

Amethar: What are you smoking?

Swifty: (screaming) A cigarette!

Saccharina: He's got a vicious habit.

Swifty: Yeah, as I said, I'm a 43-year-old divorcee.

Theobald: Surprisingly fit-

Saccharina: Twice divorcee.

Swifty: Yep! I can't keep it together!

Amethar: But you murdered both of them, right?

Swifty: Oh, sure.

Amethar: Or was it an amicable divorce.

Swifty: No, the first one was a botched murder suicide, and the second one- The second one she was an addict and she came after my stash. She was in just a rage.

(laughing)

Amethar: Okay, I think you- I think you-

Ruby: Wait, she came after your stash, and she was the addict?

Swifty: Yeah, I wouldn't share. She was an addict, and so am I, 'cause you're never- You’re only ever in recovery, (puffs) And then she came after my stash, and I said, 'Hey, knock it off,' and she went for the throat and I went for the stomach and I got there first 'cause [truly ear-hurting pitch] run, run as fast as you can! (puffs)

Amethar: Anyway, just to clarify, I think you're a widow, or a widower, not a divorcee.

Ruby: Yeah, that does seem like a pretty clear distinction.

Zac: Cumulous is squatting in the teleportation circle.

Brennan: You see he looks at you and says,

Swifty: No, no, we got legally divorced during the fight.

Amethar: Okay, got it.

Swifty: (puffs) Yeah, there was a judge present.

Amethar: Oh, okay, yeah.

Swifty: It was in a courthouse.

Cumulous: (gesturing to go) Can we?

(laughing)

Swifty: Alright.

Brennan: Throws it, stamps the butt out. You see that you guys head into-

Ally: So, are we going into a forest? Do we have to keep a low profile, or?

Brennan: It seems that you guys will not be doing what you did last time and appearing in a circle of Standing Stones. This is a nearby circle of standing stones that's still about two or three hours from where this temple is supposed to be. So, it's the closest circle of Standing Stones to where you need to kinda get to.

Saccharina: Oh, again, I want to reiterate, we sent several parties to check out this temple and they still have yet to return. So, everyone, if you could just sign this waiver.

Theobald: And that was under Gooey's watch, or?

Brennan: You see Gooey looks over at you. She does that thing. You see that she's just counting little kind of like, prayer beads of the Bulbian Church that she's got hanging from a loop on her belt that are like partially blood-stained on them. They look like trophies that she's taken. You see she just comes over to you and does that thing where she puts her face on the other side of your face to talk in your ear and just goes like,

Gooey: You're a real soft, squishy little bear, aren't you?

Theobald: Yeah, I'm the squishiest, and I heard the Queen likes 'em squishy.

Gooey: Yeah, real squishy.

Theobald: Yeah, I'm a squishy bear.

Gooey: I bet a little axe would have no problem getting into that soft little tum tum.

Theobald: Yeah, it probably wouldn't. What are you gonna do about it, huh? You gonna put the-

Gooey: You take that armor off sometime-

Theobald: Yeah, I might.

Brennan: You see that she- There's a pause.

(laughing)

Murph: It's like breathing-

Brennan: There's a pause and she goes,

Gooey: Are we gonna- Are we gonna fuck? Are we gonna fuck?

Theobald: That would be inappropriate, but-

Gooey: Yeah, I know, that's what makes it good.

Theobald: Yeah.

Gooey: What are you-

Theobald: Against our orders, I don't usually-

Amethar: [quietly to Cumulous] Theo needs this, all right, let this happen.

Cumulous: Everyone here is insane.

Zac: Cumulous breaks the neck of a chicken.

Brennan: Boom! You see- (thundering) You guys appear, [laughing interrupts his speech] you guys appear in the midst of the… An intimidation match that gets too hot for everybody is so fucking funny.

Murph: And that Theo to him being like, the most amenable person, is like intimidating, being like, “Yeah, I'm more subservient than you are”. “I bet I could dominate you”. “I bet you could”.

Brennan: I bet you fucking could. You guys arrive at this circle of Sugar-Plum Fairy's Standing Stones. (whooshing) Everyone immediately is freezing fucking cold. This is in the high, high mountains. You guys are in something kinda like the Rockies right now. This is the fucking Himalayas. You can tell, actually, that the peaks soar up here, and probably like… It would take you, you know, days to travel what on a road would take you, you know, a couple of hours. It's so jagged and craggy here. And even with that, you know that just on the other side of these tallest… These mountain peaks are three to five miles tall, just enormous sky-rending peaks of deep red and blue candy stone (whooshes) with ice cream swirls and flurries on tops of the peaks. And you see, covered in partial ice cream snow, steps leading up from the circle of Sugar-Plum stones (whooshing) up into the mountains, stones glow, and you know that the teleportation rune behind you has been sealed. You begin to wind your way single file. What is the order you are traveling in, bearing in mind that you also have Gooey, Jon Bon, and Swifty here with you.

Zac: Can Jon Bon go first?

(laughing)

Siobhan: Is it dark?

Brennan: It is dark, but it's incredibly moonlit and starlit here, it’s like- And there's snow on the ground everywhere, so it's this weird otherworldly, almost like bright as day in the middle of the night from all the reflections of the stars.

Ally: Is there a way-

Emily: I think I'm gonna cast Invisibility on myself.

Brennan: Okay, cool.

Ally: Is there a way for me to travel not quite on the steps with everyone else, but a little bit off the path, kinda keeping watch and keeping very alert.

Brennan: You are back home. Not only mechanically does your character not be affected by difficult terrain, but this is like, you grew up doing this.

Zac: Can we do Pass Without a Trace?

Ally: I can, yeah. Do you think, yeah?

Siobhan: It seems worthwhile.

Murph: Okay, so right now-

Siobhan: Can I also send Yak up and see if there's anybody hiding or anything to be seen?

Murph: Good call.

Brennan: Go ahead and give me a Perception check.

Siobhan: Is it [French accent] advantage?

Brennan: No. Oh actually, I believe as a falcon he does have advantage, yes.

Siobhan: What is- Hang on.

Brennan: You can use your Perception.

Siobhan: 22.

Brennan: He flies. These mountains are deserted in between your path to you to where you are going. Do you want him to fly further afield? Or do you want him to stay… Do you want him to fly out past where he will be able to rejoin you, or do you want him to just look at between you and the mountain?

Siobhan: I just wanna make sure that there's no ambushes or anything waiting for us behind.

Brennan: He spots nothing.

Siobhan: Okay.

Brennan: You see steps leading up and as you round the bend, and again, give me your order. So, Jon Bon goes in the front, this huge viking-like chocolate warrior heads to the front.

Murph: I guess I'll go up front as well.

Saccharina: I'm actually gonna cast Invisibility on myself, so I'll go up front. I know that I'm not supposed to be in the front now that I'm the queen, but I'm used to being in front, so I just cast Invisibility and I go to the helm.

Brennan: Take off, cool.

Zac: I wonder if there's any traps.

Theobald: Should we try-

Zac: I have Evasion, so maybe I could be towards the front, too, just in case they trip.

Siobhan: Oh yeah, I also have Evasion.

Theobald: Should you run up the steps first? Maybe I could tie a rope to you, or something.

Cumulous: Yeah, you wanna tie a rope to me?

Murph: I tie a rope to Cumulous.

Saccharina: This will be very fun if it ends up being just steps.

Theobald: If he just falls down.

Amethar: I'm in the back.

Murph: Alright, so I think I'm gonna tie a rope to Cumulous. He is in front of… He's in the way front line, then there's another line, and if something gives with the steps or something I'll catch him and pull him back.

Siobhan: I'm gonna be in the back with my dad.

Brennan: Cool. Amethar in the very back, Ruby in front of him. Liam off to the side. Cumulous in the very front, and then behind Cumulous by a distance is Saccharina, Theo, Gooey, and Jon Bon, and then Swifty behind them. So, you three are kind of in the middle.

Murph: Cool.

Brennan: You begin to head off. Steps all ascend. I'm going to need a group survival check. A group Survival check.

Lou: (singing) It's a group survival check y'all.

Murph: Oh no, 7.

Siobhan: 3.

Ally: 21.

Zac: 14.

Lou: 10.

Murph: Yikes.

Emily: 9.

Ally: Fuck!

Siobhan: Yikes indeed.

Murph: Oh wait, can I roll with advantage 'cause of Princess?

Brennan: Sure.

Murph: Oh, can I roll with-

Ally: Yes!

Murph: Nat 20 for Princess.

Siobhan: Can I roll with advantage 'cause of Yak?

Brennan: Sure, yeah.

Siobhan: Oh, thank god. Well, that's an 8.

Brennan: Okay.

Emily: Can I roll with advantage because of Swifty?

Brennan: Yes, you may.

Emily: Oh, I actually got worse.

Lou: It tracks.

Brennan: Okay, how many… So, we need at least three successes here.

Siobhan: What's a success?

Ally: (pointing to Murph) He got a nat 20.

Murph: I got a nat 20.

Brennan: Nat 20.

Zac: What was it over?

Siobhan: Oh, I got an 8.

Brennan: 15 or higher.

Siobhan: No.

Zac: (sighs) Got a 14.

Brennan: 14. (looking at Ally) 2, cool.

Ally: No, no, I got a 21.

Brennan: 21, and (looking at Murph) then a nat 20 here. Everybody here takes-

Ally: Fuck.

Brennan: 11 points of cold damage.

Emily: Would I take cold damage?

Brennan: Oh, I think the Winterscoop makes you either resistant or immune to that.

Emily: Yeah.

Brennan: Resistance. So, you take 5.

Emily: Yeah.

Murph: Okay.

Brennan: You guys take that damage just getting to the top. This is a lifeless area, and you guys are- (wind whistling) As you head to the top of the mountain. Cumulous, I'm going to, as you ascend, you arrive at the gates. Huge ancient Sucrosi pillars, (whooshes) pink, like strawberry pink, chocolate brown, vanilla white scoops in a huge arch, ancient primordial ice cream temple. And a hallway with a huge locked door in front of it. And you see that there is a symbol of an ancient spoon in the front of the door.

Liam: Is that for your spoon?

Saccharina: Yeah.

Emily: Can I walk up to it?

Brennan: Yes, you can.

Zac: Did you say that I needed to do something?

Brennan: No, this is gonna happen first, sorry.

Emily: I walk up to it with my spoon and I say,

Saccharina: Lazuli, watch over me.

Emily: And first I hold it over like a hotel keycard.

(laughing)

Brennan: You hold it over like a hotel keycard and you hear… (low humming, rumbling) (whooshing) Light, sugary, lavender, plum light spreads throughout the door. (door creaking) And a blast of freezing mist (blows) begins to descend down the stairs, snaking down the mountainside. You cannot see the floor here, the walls, the ceiling, natural caverns. Although, shaped so conveniently, almost as if people here shaped the mountain with something other than their hands. (whooshing) Cavern opens up, the hallway extends. Who goes down the hallway?

Emily: I definitely just walk right in.

Brennan: Yeah.

Murph: You're invisible, right?

Emily: I'm invisible.

Theobald: Queen Saccharina, where are, uh.

Saccharina: Oh, I'm inside, everyone come!

Murph: Oh, okay, I rush in.

Zac: I walk in in the same order I was in.

Brennan: So, you try to go off ahead of Saccharina.

Zac: I still have the rope.

Brennan: Cool. You were in the front. Awesome. I'm gonna need a Dexterity saving throw for you.

Murph: Whoa.

Zac: With Evasion, I just-

Siobhan: You take half damage on a failed and no damage on a-

Zac: I just, but no advantage. Cool. That's... Dexterity saving throw. I hit a 14.

Brennan: 14?

Zac: Oh wait, advantage versus spells within, yeah.

Brennan: Oh, this is a spell.

Zac: Okay.

Brennan: So you would roll advantage here.

Zac: Then, okay. Same roll.

Brennan: Same roll, okay.

Murph: I yank the rope. In the way that hurts you.

Brennan: You take-

Lou: That's what the damage is from.

Brennan: You take 15 halved from Evasion to 7 cold damage.

Zac: Okay.

Brennan: (whooshing) You see- (crumbling) Out of the way, as just a trap goes off, just a pure (whooshing) of freezing cold.

Murph: Liam or Ruby-

Saccharina: Sorry. I think that my enthusiasm for the magic place got in the way. Shouldn't have stormed in.

Cumulous: I honestly should've had that.

Theobald: Yes, I should've tugged on the rope, I'm sorry. I thought you were gonna fall through the stairs.

Cumulous: I got hit by this thing, and it hurt and it was cold, and then I felt my stomach get pulled back a little bit.

Theobald: Yeah, no, that was probably a lot of it. You have rope burn all over your waist now. I'm so sorry. You know what? I'm just gonna give you the rope back.

[chiming, icy music]

Brennan: You guys begin to walk through hallways that are crystalline and icy with those like freezer burn style ice crystals. And you begin to look in and see various reflections as you walk through this next hallway that glows with luminous icy white light from behind the ice cream, such that this place is sort of, in dim illumination. Mist again covering the floor, you hear, as the Winterscoop approaches, that you can hear things in the walls, like traps, (metal clanking) Disassemble and stop.

Cumulous: I will let you go first.

Saccharina: Oh, yeah, that's a good call.

Emily: I go first.

Brennan: You begin to head out in the front. Everybody here make a Perception check for me. Let me know if you got a 20 or higher.

Emily: I got a 27.

Murph: Whoa.

Lou: 20.

Murph: 18.

Ally: 11.

Lou: 21, sorry.

Brennan: 21 and 27.

Emily: 27.

Zac: 11.

Brennan: Saccharina, as you are walking through this place, are you still invisible, or no?

Emily: Yeah.

Brennan: You see many eyes, golden and eyelids of deep purple and plum, and you hear a voice in your head going,

Sugar-Plum Fairy: (whispering) I can't see you, but I know you're here.

Saccharina: I can't see you either, but I can hear you.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: You've come here with the Winterscoop. Storm Captain and Sorceress of Sundaes, this temple was made by those very much like yourself in ages long past, and yet my fairy feet have been the only ones to tread here in quite some time.

Brennan: And you see that her pupil narrows vertically like some kind of animal. (looking at Lou) With a 21, you look and you see a smile of blue in the icy crystal, and you see your sister Sapphria's face. She smiles.

Sapphria: Long way from home, brother. (vanishes with a whoosh)

Lou: I try and see if anyone else saw that.

Brennan: Doesn't look like they did.

Zac: Do we know… What do we know about Sapphria?

Siobhan: She's the second youngest.

Lou: She's the-

Brennan: The rogue.

Siobhan: Ah.

Lou: Yeah.

Siobhan: Right, yes.

Brennan: What did you roll?

Siobhan: I rolled a 10.

Brennan: A 10. The luminous light here, and the fact that it's coming from everywhere, warm and diffused, means that you do not currently have a shadow. You guys move through the space. Liam, give me a Nature check.

Ally: Let's see. That's 18.

Brennan: You (sniffs) smell something. It's all cream here, it's all ice cream, sugary, frosted, and the cold keeps smells from traveling, but for a second, (sniffs) hot chocolate and the smell of cinnamon, (sniffs) somewhere.

Liam: Whoa.

Brennan: You guys arrive at a three-pronged fork. There is a staircase ascending up that has the symbol, the Sucrosi symbol of the Sugar-Plum Fairy on it, and it is an ancient name. Anyone can make an Arcana check that wants to, but Saccharina, you know this by heart because it is one of the actual names of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, not her title, one of her actual names up on this door.

Zac: Can I do a Religion check?

Siobhan: I got 22.

Brennan: Yeah, you can do Religion.

Murph: I got a 21.

Brennan: 22, 21. (pointing at Siobhan) You recognize this immediately. You see in the wall, you get your first vision in the crystals and you see your Aunt Lazuli, and says,

Lazuli: Her name, the fairy's name, she's close now. All your cunning will be needed.

Brennan: You got a 21, right?

Murph: Uh-huh.

Brennan: The last time you saw this rune, it appeared abruptly in the sky moments before a hail of arcane arrows won the Battle of Thinolia when Lazuli fell.

Emily: What is the name? So I can know it.

Brennan: It's not pronounceable. You've only ever seen it written. Those people were lost a long time ago, so it's like a unspoken, what's the word I'm looking for? Dead language.

Emily: Yeah.

Brennan: But you know it means Sugar-Plum Fairy.

Zac: I got a 13. I didn’t—

Brennan: To your right, the pronged… So, that central one is the Sugar-Plum Fairy. To your right you see more ice crystals and a flickering of light, almost like you could go down there and some of the things you've seen out of the corner of your eye feel like they might be down there. But it also feels, to those that got a 20 or better on Arcana, it feels like maybe there's illusion magic there, but also conjuration. Like maybe some of the things you would see there would be true and others wouldn't be.

Murph: Okay, I pass that along.

Brennan: And you see, to your left, you see ice cold and many, many more traps. And at the end of that passage, way down deep, that actually gets dark and you see that there is a locked steel door, and it has a symbol on it in Sucrosi that you recognize that means armory.

Emily: I hold Swifty back.

Zac: Could you-

Swifty: I gotta get it in there. That's payday, I mean, that's all of us retiring.

Siobhan: Which one?

Zac: Could you Mage Hand through the traps with your thieves’ tools, the ones still left, if it's just all traps?

Emily: The armory.

Siobhan: To the armory? Yeah, I can do that.

Zac: I don't know if that would work with it.

Siobhan: 'Cause I mean, if the Mage Hand flips a trap it doesn't matter.

Brennan: Yeah. Go ahead and give me a thieves’ tool check.

Siobhan: Great. (rolls dice) 20, not nat.

(whooshing)

Brennan: Spikes of ice, icing and ice cream, cream, traps go off as the door opens. Behind it in the dim reflected light from your little antechamber here, you see the most enormous library you've ever seen. Books, scrolls.

Ruby: Ah, one of those kinds of armories. One of my mom's kind of armories, all right.

Theobald: [emotionally] It's an armory of the mind.

Murph: Theobald cries.

Brennan: A single tear.

Cumulous: Yes, it's... okay.

Theobald: Oh, you don't like this? You won't cry for these?

Cumulous: No, no, no, it's-

Amethar: No, this is disappointing.

Cumulous: It's awesome.

Amethar: This is disappointing.

Cumulous: It's awesome.

Ruby: Yeah, I thought it would be cool.

Theobald: What?

Amethar: I'll say it, I'll speak to it.

Ruby: Yeah.

Saccharina: Even I'm a little disappointed, yeah.

Amethar: It would've been to have-

Theobald: You know what? Actually, I'm disappointed as well.

Amethar: Alright.

Theobald: Now that-

Saccharina: Theo, you know, I want you to defy me sometimes because that will keep me in check.

Theobald: All right, Your Majesty.

Amethar: Hey, Saccharina, get used to it. He's also gonna stand very close to you very often.

Saccharina: Oh yeah, his- Feel the warmth of his body.

Theobald: Sorry.

Brennan: Gooey leans over and says,

Gooey: You're standing a little bit close.

Theobald: Yeah, you're standing a little too close to me.

Gooey: I'll stand a little close to you.

Theobald: Yeah?

Gooey: Uh-huh, how close to you want me to get?

Theobald: Yeah, well I'm not gonna be able to do anything about it.

Amethar: I wish this didn't happen so much.

Saccharina: Okay, this is a problem for me, because guess what? I'm an assassination target and the two of you-

Gooey: Right.

Saccharina: Have very obvious sexual chemistry.

Gooey: Your Majesty, can I just talk to you for a second?

Saccharina: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Gooey: I've been bunking with Jon Bon for a long time.

Saccharina: Right.

Gooey: This is my shot.

Saccharina: Yeah, okay.

Gooey: I just need to-

Saccharina: You just want to-

Gooey: I just, I'm gonna-

Saccharina: Your thing. By this your mean-

Gooey: I'm gonna be so much more present if I just get this done.

Saccharina: Right. (loudly) Theo, I command you to fuck Gooey, I guess.

Gooey: Whoa.

Amethar: Whoa.

Gooey: The Queen.

Theobald: I mean, if-

Amethar: Damn.

Theobald: That-

Emily: I put my crown on.

Saccharina: Yeah, well, you know?

Cumulous: Can we do it later?

Theobald: It sounds like a time thing.

Amethar: All right, we're all gonna go in the library and if Gooey and Theobald wanna find-

Theobald: No, no, that would be weird!

Amethar: Dark corner.

Theobald: Or would it be? I don't know! Gooey, what do you think?

Cumulous: What is this, college? You're just in a library.

Theobald: What is this, college? What is this? Let's go look at the books.

Ally: Classic college. Your boss tells you you have to fuck.

Saccharina: I must admit, the thing that intrigues me the most is the staircase with the rune of the Sugar-Plum Fairy.

Cumulous: I'm wondering if your spoon will let us go through this hallway. Maybe, I don't know if the traps have been set off already. Could we walk through it?

Ruby: Mm-hmm.

Saccharina: Yes, we could take a detour.

Theobald: Would it be worth going to the library just to see if there's anything that would-

Ruby: Help us defeat.

Theobald: Help us figure out what's going on?

Emily: I make off toward the library.

Brennan: Awesome.

Emily: Swinging it like a metal detector.

Brennan: You go into the library, and anyone here that wants to can make an Arcana check.

Lou: Oh yeah, I'd love to. Yeah.

Emily: 18.

Lou: Nat 20, come on. Fuck.

Siobhan: I got a 15.

Brennan: 15.

Lou: Flat 7.

Murph: I also got a 15.

Brennan: Cool. Got an 18 here?

Emily: 18.

Brennan: You look at this. What you see here are just ancient texts of Candian magic. All the rich wonders of this land kept here, the making of arcane weapons, enchantments, conjurations, abjurations as far as the eye can see.

Saccharina: See, does anyone else wonder why someone would want to secret this away?

Ruby: No.

Ally: Can I make a check, or a Perception check or something to see if there's anything from any other land?

Brennan: Yeah, go for it.

Ally: Okay. So close to a nat 20. Let's see. Perception. Oh yeah, hell yeah, that's like, 23.

Brennan: Okay. You go and look. You find a thing in Bulbosi here. It is a bestiary that includes Candian stuff in it.

Ally: I speak Bulbosi.

Brennan: Yeah. You read it. You see it's a Bulbosi book, and it has a list of spirits, gods, and monsters that were proven to be false idols and destroyed. You see the Vegetanian legends of the Jolly Giant. (chuckling) You see the Meat Lander legend of the amazing house spirit, the Hamburger Helper. You see that there are a list of- (looking at Zac, who has his head in his hands) no, Zac, this is good. Zac, this is good.

Emily: Can I scan it for Wonder Bread?

Brennan: The incredible legend of Wonder Bread.

Murph: Those were just comic books.

Brennan: Saccharina, you notice Liam looking at this and you see that the fact that this is here is probably the only thing that means it still exists. Like, these- What you recognize, Liam, is that what Cumulous said when he first arrived was correct, that all the lands of Calorum have had these spirits, these beings, whether they were aligned with the celestial light of The Bulb, or with the dark powers of the Hungry One, that spirits, and gods, and deities, and the fae, have always existed, and they have been everywhere. And as Cumulous said, the only reason that it has stayed in Candia is that it has been fought for. And you look at a graveyard of these spirits that were lost from other lands.

Ally: Is there anything in here about the cinnamon smell that I keep smelling, or like?

Brennan: Yeah. You see at the very last page, it gets to, you open it, there is that word again, the Dracoria Azucar, and you see in the roiling there is an inverted version of the Sugar-Plum Fairy's rune covered in spikes and surrounded by magic, and you see a dark chocolate egg at the center of that page. The book slams shut, in a blast of sparkling lavender magic the book is sucked down the hallway out of the library and vanishes. (whooshing) And you hear the central door slam open up above.

Amethar: Someone's-

Emily: I think I wanna say,

Saccharina: That's what we're here for, Liam.

Liam: The big dragon?

Saccharina: Or the egg.

Liam: Cool. Should we get out of this room before this giant metal door closes?

Saccharina: Yeah.

Ruby: Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Brennan: You guys walk forward, you get back to the center, you see mist pouring out of the now open door at the top of the stairs.

Ally: Can I hide?

Brennan: Yes, you may.

Siobhan: Can I use Prestidigitation to- You can do a puff of wind with Prestidigitation, can I get rid of some of this mist?

Brennan: Yeah, you-

Saccharina: Oh, if you want, I can control the weather.

Ruby: (sarcastically) All right, well, good.

Saccharina: So, just where do you want it?

Ruby: This actually isn't weather, it's mist.

Saccharina: Where do you want the mist?

Ruby: This isn't weather-

Theobald: More effective.

Ruby: We're inside.

Cumulous: It's working so well.

Ruby: This isn't weather, so.

Saccharina: I can just do the, do you wanna make it rain? No, no, no, no, that's too far.

Ruby: I'm actually doing it as well 'cause I also have magic, you're not special.

Theobald: Everyone's doing so good, we should all be friends.

Brennan: (laughs) You watch the mist part in front of you. As you get to the top of the stairs you enter an enormous chamber. You are in the heart of the mountain. Up above are endless, enormous icicles, just reaching down. This place is so vast. It's one of these things where it's almost like the walls have the faint illumination of all the ice cream here, but the distances get so great and the luminosity of the ice cream is so dim and fae that you're looking at light and still, somehow, almost darkness begins to manifest as you look all the way down. And the mist roils and (whooshes). So, it's just all like dim light and mist.

Zac: Sorry, looking down?

Brennan: So, you get to the top of the stairs, you get to a platform, like a balcony, underneath this columned arch, and then it is just open emptiness and mist. And you see that the mist is rising up, but just from the auditory quality of being in here you can tell it's a long way down. In the center of this massive empty heart of the mountain a tower of ice cream scoops frozen over for a thousand thousand years spires up like a massive column of stone, or a tree trunk, and in the center of it there is a small opening. Everyone here can give me a Perception check.

Lou: 23.

Emily: 18.

Siobhan: 23.

Ally: Hey, there we go. Oh yeah, like a 26.

Brennan: Okay. Amethar and Liam, also give me a Stealth check.

Ally: Do I get advantage on that?

Brennan: No, just regular.

Ally: With, oh. Oh, right, but it's gonna be crazy high.

Siobhan: Yeah, plus 10.

Ally: 36.

Brennan: Cool. You both look, and in the center of that… You also see, by the way, on the mist that orbiting this column are enormous, like 20 and 30-foot long or wide popsicles and ice cream cones that just are crusted over with rime and frost, just (whooshing) in this strange spinning mobile of giant ice creams. (whooshing) Floating around the center column of ice cream scoops. You both notice that lodged deep in the top of that spire, frozen by the coldness of the ice cream scoop column is a dark chocolate egg. You see that there is a stain or smear or sludge of melted ice cream that must have melted, even at this freezing temperature when the egg was first put there, and then frozen as it dripped down the side of the freezing column. You see twinkling into existence in front of you about five feet in height, beautiful purple leaves in her skirt, two large eyes, two small eyes, six dragonfly wings. That image, and Amethar, you see this, that image flickers a little bit. And you know that this is a glamor, not the true form of this being. She appears in front of you smiling, and holds out two hands, one of which has a mended teacup that has been fixed, put it back together, and has a peppermint heart seed that you left in the grotto at Castle Candy. In her other hand, she holds a note. “Lapin. For Candia.”

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Sweet and wonderful gifts, beautiful.

Brennan: She sets them down on the platform and says,

Sugar-Plum Fairy: (sighs heavily) It has been so long, and now you're finally here. (to Ruby) Thank you for coming to my glade. Thank you for being here. I'm so sorry that I couldn't bring her back, but now I can bring you to her.

Ruby: What do you mean?

Brennan: In the mist, (whooshes) you see shapes. You see, four women, four adult women, and a younger adult woman in front of them, and the four women have their hands on that younger woman's silhouette in the mist. Behind them you see other shapes, one of them looks like a smaller Candian king, with a little hint of green, just like your father, Jadain. And you see a brightly-colored road made of pure illusory light stretching away from the platform going down into the mist, curving away from that central column. You see the Sugar-Plum Fairy says,

Sugar-Plum Fairy: I can take you to a pure place. I can take you where I took all the hungry spirits that were sweet and syrupy. I can take you down a road that goes to a land of only candy where all of our magic lives forever and ever and ever, and all the people that you miss will be there waiting for you. I've been working so long and so hard. The Bulb… The Church, it's going to burn everything sweet and syrupy out of the world forever, unless we can bring it here, and I've been bringing everything here that I can for so, so long. And now, finally, I get to bring you.

Ruby: Bring me where?

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Down the road, into the mist. She's there.

Amethar: And where are you?

Brennan: She curtsies and says,

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Right here, I think.

Amethar: I know that's not true.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: You calling me a liar?

Amethar: I am.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: That hurts my feelings. I'm just wearing this shape 'cause it's nicer, and it'd make you more comfy, I thought.

Saccharina: I'd love to see your true shape.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: I bet you would. [to Saccharina] See you got the Winterscoop. I know why you're here. You're a lot like your aunt. She wanted to take everything special about Candia and just leave it lying around where anyone could come and ruin it. And she wanted to put it into spells and put it into weapons, but if something's special, you don't leave it out where it can be ruined.

Cumulous: Why is it up to you to choose who gets to have it?

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Because if I don't take it away, then…

Brennan: You see she points to the book in your arms and says,

Sugar-Plum Fairy: You could ask the Jolly Giant, or the Hamburger Helper. You could ask them how well they fared not having a plan of getting away.

Siobhan: I'd like to say to this… I'm just looking at this image of Jet, and I'd like to say in our special twin language,

Ruby: Are you real?

Liam: Who, me?

Ruby: Shh.

Brennan: ...I'm going to throw a curveball at you, Emily. The figure in the mist, Ruby's new shadow, knows a lot about the other side of this mist, and that the Sugar-Plum Fairy is telling the truth, that she has taken all of the magic that she can gather up and taken it away. What does the shadow in the mist say… Or, it can't say anything, but what does it do in response to Ruby's question?

Emily: I can't say anything?

Brennan: Or, you speak in twin speak, right?

Siobhan: Mm-hmm.

Brennan: A faint whisper comes back.

Jet: It's true, but I don't know if it's good.

Liam: Whoa. Did you hear that?

Saccharina: I actually speak wind, so I did hear that. But it was like twin speak, or something.

Liam: Well, I think this is really nice of you to bring me this teacup. That means a lot, and I would love to go down there and see what's there.

Theobald: Liam.

Ruby: Liam. Hang on. No.

Saccharina: Theo. Tie a rope to his waist.

Ruby: Here's what I think. Thank you for looking after us, and thank you for looking after the magic of Candia, but now we need it.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: For what?

Ruby: To protect Candia.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Mm, that's what I'm doing.

Ruby: No.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: You're Candian. If you go into the mist you'll be safe.

Ruby: No. If we go into the mist we'll be dead. Those people are dead.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: ...But safe.

Ruby: No.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: Are you mad at me?

Ruby: No.

Sugar-Plum Fairy: I've only ever tried to help. I sent my little bunny, Lapin, and I knew that he would die to protect you, but that you'd lose everything, and I knew that you wouldn't come here unless you'd lost everything.

Ruby: ...Did you kill my sister?

Sugar-Plum Fairy: ...Would you have come here if she was still alive?

Siobhan: (seething) I fuckin' pull my bow.

Brennan: I'm going to need everybody here to roll initiative. And that's all for this week on A Crown of Candy. Tune in next week as we see the showdown between the House of Rocks and the Sugar-Plum Fairy.

Siobhan: That bitch.

[NEXT EPISODE - Episode 14: Encounter in the Ice Cream Temple]

[NEXT ON DIMENSION 20]

Brennan: We see our Intrepid Heroes poised on the edge of this platform. You feel the presence of a candy road going to a realm of pure sweet candy dreams on the other side of the mist.

Ally: I just run straight forward and I jump off the edge.

(whooshing)

Zac: I think we're about to get fucked up.

Murph: Oh, fuck me.

Siobhan: Oh no!

Murph: Just have to not roll a 1, which is-

Brennan: Yeah, you have all of her attention.

Ruby: Please stop hitting her, it's killing me.

Brennan: At the beginning of your turn, you begin to fall.

Transcribed by  Kyber Bonsai and Tillie the Paladin

Edited by Tillie the Paladin, Kyber Bonsai, gluegunshots, kindlestuck, solsys