by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 14 “Dawn of Justice”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“Isn’t it kind of funny that Helio chose you, and you were the one to bring the daytime back?” - Mac Applebees (Brennan Lee Mulligan)

We begin where we left off, with Kristen (Ally Beardsley) going to her first class under the high priest of Sol, Bobby Dawn. With an Insight check, it’s clear that Bobby Dawn is doing a fair amount of proselytizing, which Kristen wants to keep an eye on.

In the rest of their downtime, Ally rolls for academics, popularity, relationships, and mystery. They do well on academics, and want to focus their popularity roll on Gertie, the president of the beekeeping society who hates Fabian (Lou Wilson) but who also made out with Kristen earlier. Kristen flirts with Gertie and it’s all very cute and funny. Kristen asks her to dinner but is doing reconnaissance about the devil’s honey that she’s been making for Kipperlilly. Gertie shows Kristen the logs of all her deliveries since it’s being done for school and is public knowledge. The first batch was from before spring break of junior year, but the Bad Kids cannot recall what the Rat Grinders might have been doing.

At Krom’s Dinner, Kristen meets with her parents and siblings. It’s… tense, but somewhat civil. They’re, obviously, deeply happy about Bobby Dawn taking over as the cleric teacher. Kristen tells them that she might pop back into church with them, just the once, to see what’s new and for her cleric classes. They’re happy to hear that and relay the information that the church lost a lot of members during the summer because of the darkness the Night Yorb brought upon the land. Kristen’s little brother, Bucky, reaches forward when she pulls out Cassandra’s shards, which her father rebuffs. They go back to eating and eventually split up, her parents having paid the tab for lunch.

As Kristen continues her campaign at school, it becomes clear that the reaction the Bad Kids had to Kipperlilly is the way a lot of people react to her, which is driving her into a state of rage. Especially when Ally rolls a natural 20. Kristen is acing cleric classes with a dead god—she’s the coolest person alive.

When Kipperlilly comes over to the party’s table during lunch, she congratulates Kristen on how good her slogans are, since they seem to really be working. Riz (Brian Murphy) throws out that he’s in a bunch of the clubs, like Kipperlilly, and that they know about the orders she’s been placing. Kristen, in a moment of Ally being the boldest person on the planet, asks Kipperlilly what she’s trying to forget, getting a 21 Intimidation as the words leave her mouth. Kipperlilly bites back, though, and all the Rat Grinders square up with the Bad Kids. Oisin tries to keep the peace, while Fig (Emily Axford) Messages Mary Ann that she’s better than the Rat Grinders. The entire interaction is very tense within the world, but it’s also goofy as hell. It’s bits on bits of teen angst, anger, and silliness. The kinds of interactions that only exist with teenagers in high school because of the very weird environment—especially in America, and Aguefort is clearly based on an American school.

Next up in the downtime is Gorgug (Zac Oyama), who does really well in Academics. In fact, he does so well that he officially unlocks the Barb-ificer subclass for him. He’s got battle gadgets now, which is fun! He can keep concentration when he goes into a rage, though he cannot cast spells. He can, however, drop rage as a free action to cast reaction spells and the like. He does use some of his downtime to investigate Henry Hopclap, the Artificer teacher, about his connection to his nephew and the business with Grix. He overhears Henry and Jace (the vice principal) outside, which is tense and perhaps a clue to whatever is happening at the school.

Gorgug also quits the Owl Bears. It’s a sad moment between him and Fabian, since that was a time, they would hang out in a way that doesn’t involve saving the world. Gorthalax is also very sad about losing Gorgug from the team but takes it in stride. They pull Riz from being the equipment manager and now he’s on the team!

Riz goes next for downtime. He rolls amazingly in academics, hitting a 31. Which is, keen minded viewers might remember, higher than he needs to roll to find the rogue teacher. Brennan holds onto it for later, but he cracks it. He really cracks it! He also rolls for mystery in order to find more information about the Rat Grinders, both what they were doing and also why they renamed themselves. When he talks to Gertie, she tells him the history of devil’s honey and that the original use of it was to lie in prayer.

Riz ends up talking to Jawbone about the Rat Grinders and Kipperlilly. He finds out that Kipperlilly “found” (although, as revealed she was found by) the rogue teacher at 8:01 on the first day of school. Confounded by this new information, Riz manages to steal her file from Jawbone’s office with a natural 20. He also rolls for the Owl Bears where he comes up short by one on the roll, even with all kinds of help from his friends, until Siobhan gives him one of her portent rolls, which gives him the additional point he needed and he just makes it, to the delight of everybody at the table.

During her downtime Fig goes down to the Bottomless Pit and writes a new song, realizing that music is her way back to herself. With a performance of +20, Emily rolls a near 40 on her check. She writes “Dawn of Justice,” and the song is so powerful that a light starts to shine from the center of the Bottomless Pit. Fig, worried that she’s made something worse, calls in Kristen who recognizes that she hasn’t. Ankarna's former domain has remained empty and unclaimed… until now. Fig also uses a new spell to make one of the fire horses that Ankarna once had carry her chariot.

Fig also aces her paladin classes and asks Porter about the Mountains of Chaos while they’re training. She asks who has gone, since her party hasn’t. The Seven and, of course, the Rat Grinders have both been. Her mystery roll is her trying to get into her former manager (who is now Ruben’s manager) dreams. She sees that Lola is looking at emails, including an email from Jace. She doesn’t seem as… involved with the actual larger mystery.

As the downtime wraps up and report cards are sent out, everything looks fine and good. Except… Kristen has failed cleric class and is being expelled. Which, as faithful viewers (and readers) might recall, is absolutely antithetical to how Ally rolled on their checks. Fucking Bobby Dawn! The party goes to Jawbone to talk it through. Basically, since Kristen’s god is dead, Bobby Dawn has rescinded the allowance that Yolanda gave to her to continue in cleric classes. Without that allowance, a dead god is a failing grade—even if Kristen can still use her cleric magic.

Kristen goes to Bobby Dawn, crying and absolutely lying. Siobhan gives Bobby one of her portent rolls (a 1) on his check against Kristen’s Deception roll. Perhaps the prodigal daughter returns? However, even if she were to return to worship Helio… she has still failed out of class. There’s no fixing it, other than the Last Standard exam. It’s an optional exam that allows students in a desperate position (like one of their party members is failing and therefore the whole party would fail) that involves fighting monsters while answering questions on a test.

And thus begins the Last Standard exam!

As they look around the arena, there are many, many versions of Arthur Aguefort populating the stands. Gavin Pundle, who works for the superintendent office, is their test proctor (they also need to keep him alive, it’s a minus 30 if he dies). Kristen casts Death Ward on him while Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) summons Moggy the Doggy to protect him as well. And, for their cleric volunteer, Buddy Dawn is on the sidelines. The party sets up all their spells and affects before the exam actually begins. Kristen casts Bless and Circle of Power on the party, Adaine summons dust mephits and ritual casts Rary’s Telepathic Bond, in addition to casting Mirror Image on herself. Riz casts Haste on himself before hiding, while Fig disguises herself as the Gavin, casts Armor of Ayda on herself on her fiery steed, and summons Spirit Guardians. Fabian, riding the Hangman, uses his pipe gift and summons three swarms of rats. And, finally, Gorgug puts up a Warding Bond between him and Kristen before casting Jump and Cat’s Grace on himself.

With that… the last stand of the Bad Kids truly begins. (With some amazing work from the art department at Dimension 20, who work tirelessly to keep the party in correct minis!) The party gets clarification, before the monsters start to flood the arena, that the exam will go until they are all dead—or until the monsters are all defeated. They may be the first party to ever not die during the Last Standard exam, should they keep their wits about them. For Zac rolling natural 20s on past academic downtime tracks, he was promised academic resources and Brennen delivers. There are 12 questions (2 for each player) that must be answered as part of the exam. For 2 of those questions, the party may say “fuck that” and auto complete it without having to actually answer. The party readies attacks as the timer starts to go off for the incoming monsters.

As the monsters roll in, Fabian’s rat swarms do some solid damage to two of the four monsters (well, three creatures plus a bunch of skeletons). Adaine puts three of the skeletons to sleep. Riz hits the otyugh as three ochre jellies emerge from the gate behind it. Adaine, using a reaction from one of her mephits, slashes one of the jellies… which splits it in half. Fig tries to use Booming Blade, but it’s clear that Emily got her husband’s dice curse, and she rolls two natural 1s (one of which was a luck point re-roll) before rolling a 3 from her steed’s help action. All three of which fail to hit anything at all. Gorgug cleaves one of the hydra’s heads off and Adaine uses a fire spell to cauterize the wound and stop heads from growing back.

As they begin the actual first round, it’s time for tests! Brennan is a mad genius and literally has fucking high school exams for the party members. It’s that same sickly off-colored paper with the worst texture in the world, and the terrifying weird markings for a test scan machine. Riz is up first, and he answers the Investigation and is met with “Bony Girth.” They must rearrange the letters and Kristen eventually realizes it’s “Night Yorb,” allowing them to mark one of the twelve questions off as complete!

Fabian stops blowing his rat pipe and goes to open his desk. It’s a mimic, however, and it attacks him. It does have the two folders he needs, though. He reaches into its mouth, taking the damage. He takes the Athletics question and it’s a multiple choice, timed (for one minute) question about what the opposing bloodrush team is. The answer is, of course, The Hellions, which the party gets correct! He takes the rest of his turn and has the Hangman turn into its hellhound form, so it may do fire damage to the hydra. Fabian, himself, attacks the hydra with radiant damage and he cuts off the rest of the heads while the Hangman breaths fire on it to stop it from reconstituting. An absolute powerhouse of a turn!

Fig fires a fifth-level Fireball, killing the otyugh and the two split jellies (as well as the dust mephit in the area). The remaining jellies reduce, but do not split because of the fire. Gorgug attacks the gorgon, critting on two of them, pulling the creature into a badly bloodied state and knocking it prone. Kristen pulls out Cassandra’s shards, prays to them, and uses the uncertainty that her god gives her. She casts Turn Undead and destroys all the skeletons.