by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 19 “Ragenarok (Part 1)”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“Well, I do really like her but, on the other hand, she is an absolute lunatic ghost haunting my life at every turn.” Ruben Hopclap (Brennan Lee Mulligan)

Welcome to the beginning of the end! Part one, of course.

Gorgug (Zac Oyama) is still flying the ship, which is still up in the air. However, the cloud rider engine doesn’t actually make it fly, so Fabian (Lou Wilson) needs to decide where he wants the flying carcass of his former home to now be. As Brennan counts down, Zac makes the decision that they’re going towards the gym, regardless of what Fabian wants.

Because of British!Kristen was destroyed at the end of the last episode, Brennan brings up that Kristen (Ally Beardsley) now has the opportunity to obtain one of a few things because of the Divine Intervention and the help from your god. Ally, the chaotic player that they are, thinks (and I think they’re correct) that Kristen would have wanted British!Kristen to not be destroyed. He leaves Ally to that choice, but we all know what’s about to happen.

Seacaster Manor crashes near the Bloodrush field and all the students begin to pour out of the ship and toward the gym. Jawbone takes all the votes and goes with Mazey, but she isn’t allowed to count the votes until midnight. So, they have a little under two hours and it seems like the school, and all of Elmville, is being blanketed by the red aura of what the Rat Grinders and the teachers manipulating them are trying to do, with pure chaos seeming to run rampant.

The Bad Kids decide to throw up Leomund's Tiny Hut so the party can do a short rest and heal up, generally, and a few people can regain spell slots. They send Ragh and Jawbone back to Mordred Manor to make sure everybody at home is safe. Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) casts fly on both of them, to allow them to absolutely zip off into the sky. Adaine ritual casts Detect Magic on the bag of votes that Jawbone gave them, just to confirm everything is good. The party has a few longer spells that they wait until after 11PM to cast, just to have them going until the time that everything should pop off, aka midnight.

Nearly everybody has See Invisibility up exciting the Tiny Hut. Kristen casts a homebrew spell from Brennan called Ice Feast. It’s a balanced spell with some bad (a level of exhaustion and 7 cold damage) and some great (immunity to fire damage and being stunned, advantage on constitution saves, and a boost to max HP). This is also the actual moment that British!Kristen comes back. So, between both Kristen’s they can cure basically everyone’s level of exhaustion (Adaine opts to not be cured and Fabian reluctantly agrees to not take Greater Restoration, as well). Which is great! It’s actually a very cool homebrew and I love when Brennan and the players bring these types of things in and actually use them!

Adaine casts a higher level Fly, allowing her, Gorgug, and Fabian to have a better range of movement. Mazey also eats the Ice Feast, agreeing to fight against the Rat Grinders with the Bad Kids. Kristen handcuffs the votes to Mazey, as she rides into the gym with Fabian on the Hangman. The rest of the party sets all their buffs up before they enter.

Riz (Brian Murphy) has See Invisibility up, as well as Mage Hand. Gorgug has cast Haste on himself, drank the energy drink potion to get yoked, before going into a Rage. Fig (Emily Axford) has disguised herself as Wanda Childa (to lie to Ruben about coming back and being healed, as well as lying about Fig dying in the crash of Fabian’s house). She’s got Sacred Weapon and Spirit Guardians up, as well as the two vultures with their Go Pros on. Adaine’s got See Invisibility and Mirror Image up. Fabian has called in the rats with his pipe. Kristen’s got Twilight Sanctuary and Steps of Night up, while British!Kristen has both See Invisibility and Great Invisibility up. Finally, the party calls Squeem, who’s been walking around for the last 10 months but is shockingly close to the gym.

As they enter the gym, they are greeted by the Rat Grinders and the two teachers who have manipulated teenagers into joining their insane cause—aka, Porter and Jace. However, even with multiple people having See Invisibility up, they realize Kipperlilly is missing from the group, and they do not see her around the gym.

Porter goes into a Rage, glowing with the red light and becoming 15 feet tall. It sends stunning energy across to the Bad Kids, except they’re immune due to Kristen’s Ice Feast (which Ally actually had British!Kristen cast). The gym begins to crack and surge as the ritual is incomplete and unstable. The dimension that the body of Ankarna is in begins to melt into Spyre. Kristen casts Bless on everyone before combat properly begins, giving them a little bit more of a fighting chance.

Riz hides and casts Slow, which ends up messing with Ruben and Mary Anne. It knocks their armor class, makes it so they cannot use reactions (huge since Ruben has Counterspell), and limits them to an action or a bonus action—they cannot use both, like they normally would be able to. They also cannot make more than one attack, even if they would be able to otherwise. Very cool!!!

Fig attacks Oisin and Ivy, hitting them both. She commands the vultures to grapple Oisin, trying to pull him out of line of sight to stop him from Counterspelling people. The second vulture attacks, which causes him to lose concentration of whatever he had up. Fabian realizes that the Rat Grinders cannot kill Mazey, since she’s the one who has to count the votes. He uses his tattoo from Fig to turn into a ghost and goes to attack Ivy. He absolutely downs her. Fabian uses his remaining attacks to hit Oisin.

Kristen, with Aura of Vitality cast on herself, dives under the broken-up floorboards of the gym. Porter hits Fabian, knocking him prone and dealing a good amount of damage to him. Ruben casts a high level (9th) spell, and Fig attempts to Counterspell but realizes that while Ruben cannot use a reaction, two other enemies can. So, Ruben’s spells hits most of the Bad Kids. Half of them save, only taking 30 points of damage. The ones who failed take the full 60 damage, but no one’s down yet on their side. Well, none of the PCs. The Hangman and the vultures all go down—for now.

Kipperlilly hits Riz, having just been stealthing around the gym. He gets an opportunity attack and pops her for over 20 damage. They have a little yell at each other before she disappears. Mary Ann, unable to really get anywhere with Slow on her, just goes over to Jace and Brennan gives her the funniest little line of, “Jace, I don’t feel good.” Buddy casts Dispel Magic on Ruben to take Slow off of him, until Fig Counterspells. She also owns his ass as both Emily and Fig. Siobhan realizes that a lot of their enemies are clustered and has Adaine cast Synaptic Static. She is out of the range for Counterspell, which rules. Everybody, except Oisin and Mary Ann, ends up failing, which gives them a negative to a lot of their rolls for the next minute and hits them for 30 damage.

On his turn, Jace splits himself (seemingly casting Mirror Image at a higher spell slot). Adaine hurting him before the split, however, means that all of them have 30 damage on them. He casts Detect Thoughts on Fig, who fails her save, and then he has the name to finish the ritual. As the gym splits apart more, revealing more of the rage dimension and the lava there, Emily asks about rolling to see if she falls in. “Not yet,” Brennan responds. As he sets up more stuff on the board, Emily reminds everybody with a whisper that they have immunity to fire, too. So, actually… everybody should be okay.

Fig and Fabian both go down as the Jace copies attack them both. Gorgug ends up taking Oisin down before pushing Porter away from his friends’ bodies. Riz goes looking for Kipperlilly, but cannot see her, so he jumps down between the broken floor of the gym. He zips around and can see Porter from where he is, hitting him for a collective 43 damage. Since he cannot hide, Riz submerges himself in lava, reminding Brennan of the party’s immunity. It rules and is such a fun use of the abilities of that spell.

“Wait, this is only a hazard to my guys!” - Brennan Lee Mulligan

Kristen does a Mass Cure Wounds to her party, bringing everybody who went down back up, and giving them all 26 healing. British!Kristen also uses Mass Cure Wounds, healing everybody for another 10 HP. Ruben casts Dominate Person on Mazey to get her to throw the votes into the lava. Fig, now back up and armed with a reaction, casts Counterspell, cutting his spell short. Until one of the Jace’s Counterspells her, so Ruben’s spell does hit. So very unfortunate.

On Porter’s turn, he takes Gorgug down with a flurry of hits (one nearly a critical hit before Adaine Silvery Barbs him). He moves to Fig and Fabian, which seems a bit scary but okay! Kipperlilly pops Adaine before disappearing. Buddy uses Dispel Magic on Ruben, taking Slow off him. Adaine, slowly turning into stone, tries to figure out her best move, since she cannot move and her roll to stop turning to stone until the end of her turn. She casts Dispel Magic on Mazey, which drops Dominate Person off her, saving the votes. On Mazey’s turn, she hits Porter and brings Gorgug back up, still protecting the votes.

Except that Gorgug lost Haste, which makes him lose his turn, and Porter crushes him to bring him back down. The gym floor changes more, as the rage dimension rips through more. As a Legendary Action, Porter uses an ability to call anybody with a rage token to join his side… except all our intrepid heroes got rid of their rage tokens long ago. Yay! That would have been rough.

Riz moves to a place where Kipperlilly could see him, since he doesn’t know where she went off to, but it’s also a place where she would have to melee him, thus making her visible to him if she were to attack. Fig fires off a fireball, which hits a large group of people, however she’s trying to get out of Counterspell range and leaps past Porter. There was a possibility that he might take her down, but he doesn’t do quite enough damage. As she falls, Fig tells Porter that he doesn’t know Ankarna like she does. As she hits the lava, Fig speaks to Ankarna before she fires off Fireball, dealing 45 damage. Buddy loses concentration on whatever nightmare he was holding. Ruben goes down with the fireball, and Emily describes him falling into the lava. So… it really seems like he’s gone forever. Except, as we know, death is not the end. Ruben’s in the Bottomless Pit.

What the hell that Buddy was holding his concentration on? Banishment of the ballot box!

Okay, this has been much discussed by Dimension 20 twitter, but also by D&D fans across the world who have moved into other systems, but unfortunately the system of Dungeons & Dragons often thrusts upon its players the belief that all your enemies must be slain. The path of least resistance in the large (and often horrendously long) combat encounters is to kill first and ask questions later. So, while the Bad Kids are very likely willing to help these teenagers who are being manipulated by adults, it’s just easy to take them down and potentially deal with the consequences later. I don’t rule out that they might be able to bring them back up and help them, but part of D&D’s problem in these kinds of situations is that it’s a game born out of war gaming. Even multiple iterations away from its original form still has war gaming in its veins. Also, I give the Bad Kids a pass because it does feel distinctly “teenager” to not see others as full people who might need your help. To see them for their actions and not dig into the root of those actions. It feels like the entire world is against you as a teenager, and I think it’s embodied in the fact that the Bad Kids are willing to absolutely body the Rat Grinders, no questions really asked.

We’ll just have to see what the party does in the finale, and if they’re willing to save their peers, despite their trespasses against them.