by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 16 “Untapped Rage”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“Whatever you do, keep on your guard.” - Eugenia Shadow (Brennan Lee Mulligan)

As the Bad Kids finally arrive back home in Elmville, they look at the video trap they put on Buddy Dawn’s body back in the arena. About 10 minutes after they left the arena, a giant being in a cloak comes into frame. Fig (Emily Axford) puts forth the idea that it might be Jace, the sorcery teacher, in his true form. There’s a red light glowing as the figure brings Buddy back to life and he now worships Ankarna. In an instant Buddy and the figure are gone from the arena.

As the Bad Kids try to figure out what they just witnessed, they throw out lots of ideas for what might be going on with the Rat Grinders. Hoping there might be something in Kipperlilly’s file, they tear through it once again. As everybody pulls through to help Riz (Brian Murphy) get over a 30 on his check of the file, it becomes abundantly clear that Kipperlilly’s hatred of the Bad Kids, and Riz specifically, is that she’s boring. Her life is deeply uninteresting and so far from as tragic as our Intrepid Heroes’ lives.

Before Lucy’s death, the Rat Grinders went back to the Mountains of Chaos with a school chaperon (Jace, of course). It’s clear from Jawbone’s notes that after Lucy’s death (and whatever happened in the Mountains of Chaos) that something truly changed in Kipperlilly. Her language went from being angry about her perception of the “fairness” of the Bad Kids doing so well and having tragic stories to outright hatred. She went from hating them in a juvenile way to wanting to straight up murder them.

Kristen (Ally Beardsley), with no rolls necessary, figures out that the markings on Lucy and Yolanda’s bodies were from the figure from the tape trying to resurrect them. However, since they rejected worshiping the rage filled god, they were not brought back like Buddy Dawn (and likely the other Rat Grinders). The party then speculates that if they’re able to uncorrupt Ankarna, maybe all the people who have been corrupted by her will be free.

Riz asks his mom to investigate Bobby Dawn. Sklonda asks if Fig knows Bobby Dawn is teaching at the school, which confuses everybody except Emily. Ever the genius, she realizes right away that Bobby Dawn must have been the older adventurer that her mother was in a relationship with, which resulted in her getting kicked out of school. Imbued with this knowledge, they decide to talk to Sandra Lynn about Bobby Dawn.

Gorgug’s parents have fixed up the Hangvan and give him back the keys. He also uses the time to talk about the Frostyfaire and why it ended up at their home. The communication between his parents and the festival organizers were things that both seemed horribly normal, but also obviously very suspicious. Gorgug (Zac Oyama) is very worried about the soil in the town, especially after learning that the Thistlespring Tree is the “root warden” for the greater Elmville area.

The Applebees ask Kristen to check in on Bucky, to make sure he’s going to classes. Additionally, Aelwyn takes a job at the Compass Points Library since they need someone still and, after Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) invites her back, she moves back to Mordred Manor. Adaine makes a Simulacrum of Kristen and casts Legend Lore to see if she can gain any more insight into Kipperlilly. While Kipperlilly isn’t of any legendary importance… Riz is. Given the Night Yorb of it all. They also realize that the Rat Grinders are completely off the grid.

With that, the party finally goes to the graveyard to find the rogue teacher. Which they do! She’s stupidly cool and funny, which rules. The rogue teacher found Kipperlilly because Kipperlilly is fucking crazy, and she was just gonna dig up the teacher’s body. So, Eugenia appeared to her to stop her, thus allowing Kipperlilly to ace her classes for the year and focus on the campaign and trying to kill the Bad Kids.

As they leave the graveyard and start spring break, it’s time for downtime! They’re trying to plan a campaign party and Fabian (Lou Wilson) asks Mazey on an official date. She agrees and he buys out Crom’s Dinner, filling it out with planted kids. He’s trying to control her seeing as the Maximum Legend and they have a wonderful date. Lou also goes to Gertie to try and mend their relationship, especially because of how much he knows Kristen likes her. They fight one-on-one and they’re all good.

Adaine starts her downtime with a mystery roll to try and discover more about the Astral Realm. She wants to know how things work, as best as possible. As she researches about dead gods and the Astral Plane, Adaine is reminded of how the voice that spoke to Kristen was coming from deep within it. She decides to start looking into spells that might help them survive the Astral Plane, should they end up there. For funsies, Adaine plans an ice cream party at Mordred Manor, and everybody has a very lovely time to reconnect and decompress.

As the downtime started, Brennan had all the players at the table fill out teacher evaluations for their teachers. He proceeds to read through them and they’re all such a wonderful and funny way to expose the truth of how each player at the table views their character and actively plays them.

One of the last things that Adaine does is scry on Jace. He’s looking up podcasts, including Fig’s secret Complicated Women pod. Jace takes off his iconic scarf and for a moment Adaine sees a deep, ragged rage scar. His eyes flash red and Brennan takes us out on the question and an answer of the mystery.