by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 17 “The Name”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“You didn’t see the storm coming? Must not be a very good oracle.” Oisin Hakinvar (Brennan Lee Mulligan)

The party continues with downtime, including Riz (Brian Murphy) rolling to see if he’s successful in helping the Owl bears to victory—which he is! However, looming over the start of the episode is the knowledge that this one is both called “The Name” and is a little over three-hours long. Riz investigates if he can figure out, based on all the other information he has on the people they know, if they know the person who brought Buddy Dawn back.

Gorgug (Zac Oyama) spends some time with his parents, fixing up the Hangvan. The intention, other than some lovely family time, is to remember that the Night Yorb is sealed on the top of the van and if the Bad Kids could build or use something that might help them against the solar entities that they seem to be up against this year.

Fig (Emily Axford) writes a song about Ankarna and has a dream vision of the goddess. She tries to bring Ankarna back to herself. Brennan confirms that Ankarna’s voice was the one that Kristen (Ally Beardsley) heard. When she wakes up, Fig has now written two world changing songs and she releases them both as singles. Fig goes into one of Ruben’s dreams, disguised as Wanda Childa, and she tries to figure out if there’s a way to get him away from the Rat Grinders—which would also tell them if corrupted people can be saved. Except, he’s got something on him that doesn’t allow her to speak to him. So, she is allowed to ask questions about the state of his dream.

Emily, ever the chaotic force, has a plan. “Forgive me,” she whispers, as she asks for an accomplice at the table to shoot her with a crossbow. British!Kristen (aka the Kristen Simulacrum) steps up to the plate and we get treated to some new art, which had me falling out of my chair. Amazing! She ends up with a little group to put on this masquerade. They all go down to Ruben’s place, where Fig (as Wanda) starts to throw rocks at his window. The window opens, but Fig doesn’t see who opened it. She gives the cue (“Kipperlilly?”) and British!Kristen shoots her with the crossbow. Fig casts Feign Death on herself and sets it up to act like she’s been killed, that Wanda Childa might be brought into the fold. Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) casts Enlarge Reduce on Gorgug with a cloak to seal the deal. She also has the rogue teacher draw up a design tattoo for Fabian’s birthday. (Emily rolls a 6 on the d6 and is able to take both of her stress tokens off.)

Kristen goes to talk to Jawbone about noticing that students have been unreasonably angry. She ends up telling him about how the Bad Kids think there’s a rage contagion going around that might be what’s messing with all the other teens. Kristen thinks that all the infected people’s homes might form the 24-point star and that the center might be the location.

Kristen goes to visit Bobby Dawn because he’s distraught over Buddy being missing. She tells him a version of what happened to Buddy, it’s truthful but held back. She regroups with the rest of the Bad Kids, and they all think that Bobby is trying to get Kristen to say the goddesses name, perhaps to channel the power into Helio. They also finally look at the bylaws to see what changed at the school. It looks like there was a change to the bylaws that whoever wins student body president takes over that role immediately, no interstitial period. And it’s noted as being a facility request. There’s no name listed, but the Bad Kids have some pretty strong theories (aka Jace).

Kristen also checks in on her little brother, Bucky. He’s living in the same space that Kristen was in during her freshman year, questioning everything and not quite vibing with the zealotry that their parents raised them in. Ally also rolls a relaxation track, on top of Kristen’s relationship one and is able to get rid of all the stress tokens that had been accumulating over the school year. Kristen sees visions of Bucky, happy and light, and Cassandra speaks to her. Her goddess tells her that the King might come again, and that her bride was lost and has a champion of her own.

The party scrambles to figure out who Ankarna’s champion might be. Riz uses basically all of his downtime to do mystery rolls, trying to figure out if he can hone in on who that champion might be. The Bad Kids go out to Shimmerstone Lake, where the Rat Grinders were potentially doing some sketchy stuff. Fabian (Lou Wilson) calls in the rats with his gifted pipe and they talk to the rats (again) about what was happening to them. They get more general info, but nothing specific, before the rats scurry off.

Sandra Lynn takes the party into the Mountains of Chaos. They head directly to the Temple of the Fallen Sun, a place where they think Ankarna might have been born and where Lydia’s adventuring party stopped on their adventures. Fig realizes that it’s a temple dedicated to Ankarna, her new goddess, and they enter the temple. It’s clear that someone is trying to bring the goddess back, but simply didn’t know her name.

The Bad Kids enter, armed with True Sight and See Invisibility, and Emily rolls a natural 20 on perception. Because of this, she sees a vision of the past: a figure who beheads a few worshipers. They recognize this as the corrupted priest of Ankarna destroying the old priests. This was during the domain shift of the goddess. Adaine uses Legend Lore as she sees tons and tons of spirits in the temple. Murph rolls a natural 20 on his investigation into his notes on Ragh, which Brennan is stunned by and is clearly going to circle back to.

As the party waits for Legend Lore, which takes ten minutes, Fig and Kristen realize that this temple is where their gods got divorced—likely because of how much Ankarna’s followers were changing her. As Legend Lore goes off, Brennen gives the information dump of all information dumps. The spell tells the history of the giant clans, including Lucy’s family, and how they all fell following the wedding (and eventual divorce) of Cassandra and Ankarna. The truth, something that the party has believed, is that the humans who worshiped Sol (who shared domain with Ankarna) became disturbed by the split of the domain and proceeded to bring war.

It is then that Brennen turns to Murph, to Riz, and resolves the natural 20 he rolled. He does so by bringing up the question that has remained in the air since Fantasy High: Sophomore Year. How did Ragh get the curse that allowed him to see Kalina? It’s then that videos of Brennan’s original explanation pop onto the screens behind the players in the dome.

It was fucking Porter.

Fig’s been right since their freshman year.

Fig casts Atonement on the image of Ankarna in the temple, playing her one of the songs she wrote for her goddess. The walls start to fall and an original, uncorrupted and ancient version of Ankarna (with Cassandra). This is, ultimately, what they’re fighting for and it’s so beautiful.

The party, trying to decide what the right course of action might be, let Jawbone know that Porter and Jace are corrupted. Fig wants to give Porter a false name, since it seems like what he (and Jace and, yes, Bobby Dawn) are looking for is the true name of the goddess. The party questions Mazey’s intentions of trying to have a polling place at Seacaster Manor for his birthday. Riz points out that if Mazey was actually bad, then they wouldn’t need all this rigamarole of trying to get Kipperlilly to win the presidency, since she’s already student body president.

As Fig goes to bring the fake name to Porter, Riz goes Invisible and records the interaction. Adaine casts Detect Thoughts and everybody else is hanging around to jump in, if they’re needed. Fig tells him, trying to be nonchalant about the whole thing, and he takes the paper. Adaine’s Detect Thoughts on Porter, after he grabs the paper, is “got it,” and then he stomps down on the ground. Everyone, except Riz, is stunned. Riz, having succeeded on a luck check, hears another invisible creature near him move slightly.

They don’t enter combat, though, as Porter goes to pick Fig up and treats her like a student who hasn’t done a move correctly—like he’s always done. As he’s talking to Fig, Riz Misty Steps into Porter’s office. Fig decides to be so herself that she’s a distraction outside the office. Inside, Riz clears out the entire office, finding everything the room has to offer. It unravels all the things the party thought was likely true, including Bobby Dawn and Porter’s relationship. Including the devil’s honey and its many uses.

Adaine also realizes that Kipperlilly Copperkettle was the invisible creature next to Riz on the lockers. She pops into the hallway with Riz and casts Sickening Radiance. There’s also ambrosia in Porter’s office and the party knows that mortals will eventually die from taking it, because it truly is the food of the gods. From the notes in Porter’s office, they know that Ruben’s is the Rat Grinder homebase.

The next day, the Bad Kids make a plan to go to Ruben's house. They have Gorgug set up a fail-safe that if they don’t check in, that the various videos they’ve taken over the school year get sent out. Adaine asks Aelwyn to set up some protective wards on Fabian’s place. They go over during the day (the correct choice) and Brennan rolled luck to ensure that no one was there. Riz has True Seeing on him, and he breaks into Ruben’s house easily. He clocks that there are about a million spells protecting the house, but since no one’s home it’s just a matter of time for them to fully get through and never being seen on the cameras.

As the party makes various rolls, it’s a reminder that once you get characters to be as high level as our Intrepid Heroes are, it’s kind of a miracle to watch.

Gorgug is able to get onto the encrypted server that the Rat Grinders were using to talk and they find that Kipperlilly has already written out her first executive order as student body president, which would slot into place the second she’d be elected, which is to disband the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, indefinitely. This is because one of the things keeping Elmville stable in its location is the agreement that while Aguefort is in session, the town cannot be moved to any other plane. They find all the information they need for exactly what their plan is. Porter is going to ascend and become a god, himself, taking on the ultimate power of a dead god.

When they go back to school the next day, Porter isn’t there. It’s also the night of the party, the election, and Fabian’s birthday. Riz realizes that the Rat Grinders have some kind of air situation and that they’re in a boat. Sure, it’s a house now, but it’s ultimately a boat. The party matches Adaine’s visions… until it doesn’t. A Sending message comes to her as it starts to storm. It’s Oisin’s voice parroting back to Adaine what she said in the very first episode about the elven oracle, who died on a ship in a storm. As it clicks into place, all the ping pong balls from that first party, the ones that Oisin missed during beer pong, start dropping around the house. They’re filled with spells and suddenly Seacaster Manor is lifted into the sky.

So, while the party of the century is happening, the world might also be ending—which is marvelous.