DBA Episode 141 - The Little Witch

Episode 141 was a long time in the making. James had started work on the episode a bit prior to the airing of Episode 99. 
== Base Plotline ==
The episode opened on Oz in their room, copying sigils from the book they stole from Grimm’s Library in episode 99. As they were working, a citation in the book caused them to become upset. However, shortly after, one of Oz’s mom’s called their name and Oz hid away their melancholy expression.
After this cut scene, the scene shifted to Grimm’s Library shortly after Oz and their moms arrived at the location. A storytelling-based event was being held in the library, and Oz had invited the party to go to it with them. The party, sans Adelaide, were waiting near the check-in desk when Oz and their mothers arrived. 
The party joined Adelaide to watch one of the guest storytellers, Syrup. They pulled out a snow globe and as they spoke, images appeared on it. The story was about two witches who lost their entire village to a tragedy. The younger witch became traumatized by it, so the older tried to find a spell that would help them. The younger witch was afraid of the spell, but the older one insisted they try it. While at first the ritual seems to be going as planned, it backfired and killed the young witch. The older witch was left on her own, swearing to hide the spell and protect other witches from her mistake. The children watching the story were upset by the downer ending to the story, and the party took it as a bad omen for the rest of the episode. 
Immediately after storytime, Oz pulled the party aside to ask for a favor. After finding a quiet corner of the library, they explained to the party that they needed help stealing a book written by Ophelia, the first Earth witch. The party protested against this, especially Xharia and Cadence, who are heroes. Oz pleaded with them, insisting that they only needed to read it, that they wouldn’t take it out of the library, and that it would be to help them break a curse they were under. Eventually they managed to get the party to begrudgingly agree. 
In the backroom of the library, the party ran into Grimm and Rapunzel, who had been waiting for them. 
After the fight, the party demanded Oz explain what was going on and how they knew so many of the summons they had just fought. After some prodding, Oz relented, and told them their epithet and troubles. Oz was the younger witch from the story. Oz’s epithet was rebirth, and spell cursed Oz to become one and the same with their epithet. Every time the epithet rebirth reenters the cycle of epithets, Oz is reborn as well. For as long as witches had existed on Earth, Oz had been around. 
The party entered the exhibition room, and Ophelia’s grimoire was in the center of the room. Grimm had unlocked the case ahead of time for the party. Oz let Adelaide read the book first, as that was a part of their witch’s promise. As she flipped through the book, it was mostly the average higher-level spells; nothing too much of note, but she did come across two important pages. The first was an oddly specific spell for exorcising ninjas. Adelaide immediately performed this spell and executed it flawlessly, freeing herself of the ninja curse that she had been stuck with after a particular bound she had been in. However, the second section of note was that, around halfway through the grimoire, the pages stopped. There was a notable tear in the book where a page had been ripped out, and after the page, someone had written over and over that it had been a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. Oz was devastated by this, realizing that Ophelia had gotten rid of the spell. The party tried to comfort them, but Oz refused their attempts and used one of the spells in the grimoire to temporarily regain their original form and powers. 
Throughout the ensuing combat, Oz’s epithet manifested into shadowy forms of some of their previous incarnation, each associated with a specific tarot card. This each have a glimpse into a few of the past lives Oz lived, as well as how they died each time. Vis also managed to summon a secret Arcana, The Fool, who represents Oz’s current incarnation.
After all of their summons were defeated, Oz activated their Overclass and Outclass, which set the entire party to one HP, removed buffs and debuffs, removed all stamina costs, and prepared an all out attack that would deal every instance of damage that the current Oz incarnation had even dealt (well over 300 damage). Cadence and Vis worked together to bring Oz down, dealing a significant amount of damage and allowing Vis to command Oz to listen. Sara tackle hugged Oz. Oz asked why they were all trying so hard to stop them, to which Sara yelled that it was because they all loved and cared about Oz, despite how much of an idiot they were being. Adelaide, in a moment of pure genius, turned Oz into a mongoose, because how are they going to do an all out attack as a mongoose? Lastly, Xharia used her epithet to examine Ophelia’s Grimoire, discovering that the missing pages were somewhere near the city, which she immediately told Oz about. All of this combined caused Oz to break down, crying and cancelling out their attack. After turning back into their human form, The Fool approached Rebirth Oz before they returned to their original state, still crying. 
The party had a heart-to-heart with Oz. Oz questioned why they cared so much, stating that they are a bad person who had killed many people. To prove their point, they mentioned how they had been intending to kill Caesar Faedelcrane at the Masque right before they were killed by X. Despite this, Oz and the party reconciled. 
As the party was moving to leave the room, Grimm entered, followed shortly by Prim, Roma, and Azula. Prim and Roma hugged Oz before Prim asked the party they knew Oz’s epithet was rebirth this whole time? Apparently during the fight, Azula had told Oz’s mom’s everything. Prim and Roma apologized to Vis for blaming him for the events of 109, since Oz REALLY should have known better, and they agreed that Oz should go back to therapy with Vis. As Vis fell to his knees in relief, Oz walked over to comfort him.
== Technical Difficulties ==
* Iris was the streamer for the episode, and a few times her connection cut out. Partway through the final combat, it cut out long enough to split the video in two parts
== Trivia ==
* Originally, the episode was made with the intent to allow players to sign up for it, like with most DBA episodes, but as the release date was pushed further and further back, more specific characters became invested in Oz, so James decided to just made it an invite-only session.
* If James had run this episode when he had originally intended, Oz would not have had Nepenthes and none of the characters would have known Oz's epithet before hand.
* Originally, Kitty was intended to appear as an NPC in the episode, but after the events of the Color Out of Space arch, she has been out of commission.
** This was the reason why Kitty got a job at Grimm's Library in episode 99.
Category:Episodes
Category:DBA Episodes