266: Mr. Mace

## Summary

The group battle the ibish on the stairs, who are unlike any they've encountered before, truly unhinged and savage. A couple of wayward *Eldritch Blasts* from Will seem to unsettle what's left of the staircase and the party realise they need to get off quickly before it collapses. Raphina hastily magics up a stone cup on the side of the dam for them to hide in, but Gwen is left behind as she hungrily disembowels the last ibish in an all-consuming *Rage*.

## Synopsis

Batthwack casts *Divine Smite* as his *Thunderous Smite*-charged sword strikes the normal-looking barn owl ibish, killing him and sending his lifeless body hurtling over the railing.

Will flies Raphina over to the stairs and drops her off on the landing where Gorbis had been before he had so rudely departed. He then fires three micro glitter *Eldritch Blasts* at the stretched out ibish and flies down to duck out of view under the landing. While the battle rages, Batthwack makes chit-chat with Raphina, calling out to ask where her house is. She says it's right on the river but now with the river being so tiny, it's not even close to it. She idly wonders if there's a museum there now as she whips out her telescopic mace again, but still can't hit with it. *"Mr. Mace, I'm gonna have to get you repaired,"* she says sadly.

Gwen is still *Raging*, so much so after the affront from Gorbis that she completely misses when going in to bite an ibish. One of the other ibish who had been perched on the railing hops down, making another weird gravelly audible growl, making Will wonder if he really is an ibish at all. He tries to wrap his feathery arms around Batthwack, but the dragonborn just shrugs him off. The ibish that Gwen tried to bite, laughs at her telepathically and then turns and launches himself at Raphina with his hatchet. His dive is so emphatic that he actually sails right over the top of her and she swings Mr. Mace and sinks it into his feathery belly as he flies past.

Batthwack bares his teeth at the ibish who tried to grapple him, yelling *"Run for your life!"* The ibish's eyes widen in fear and his growl is cut short. His head turns away, followed by his body, and he runs down the stairs. Gwen lashes out at him with the amethyst claws on her feet, but narrowly misses the retreating ibish, instead cutting through the wooden railing like butter. Batthwack vaults a railing to land with a boom on the level below in front of the stretched out ibish. Casting *Branding Smite*, he says *"Run! Don't make me kill you!"* and strikes it with his sword, the spell causing the ibish to glow with astral radiance.

Will's eyes peek out from under the landing where he's taking cover and sees the stretched out ibish near him looking very wounded. Feeling a bit helpless, he grumpily *Quickens* his *Eldritch Blasts*, and reaches his hand over and fires off three blasts in quick succession, one of which hits the ibish squarely in the chest. It staggers around in a daze, still not quite dead. One of the other blasts smashes into the staircase above it and a worrying creaking sound begins to emanate faintly from above them. Feeling like his magic is completely useless compared to Batthwack's, Will looks over annoyedly at the dragonborn as he reaches his hand over to fire three more quickfire *Eldritch Blasts* at the same ibish, hitting with two of them and disintegrating its head into glittery nothingness. The third of these blasts flies through where its head used to be and smashes into the staircase beyond. The creaking sound intensifies and Will realises that the staircase may be about to come down.

Only one ibish remains. Raphina yells to Gwen *"Are you ok?!"* She replies *"Oh I'm fine. This guy isn't,"* though in her *Raging* state it only sounds like a lot of gnashing teeth. Raphina calls out to Will, *What was that creaking noise?!"* and Will does his best to blame Batthwack as Raphina *Sacred Flames* an ibish standing behind her. Gwen shouts up to wherever Gorbis is above her, *"It's not safe! Get down here by me! It's gonna fall!"* Faintly in response she hears *"What?! I can't hear you over the sound of me winning!"* Instead of running after him, her *Rage* instincts get the better of her and she bites a chunk out of the ibish in front of her.

The last remaining ibish rears back its hatchet and tries to bury it in Raphina, but cannot find its target. It swirls the axe all round its head disconcertingly and everyone hears it screech telepathically *"Rip my intestines from my gut!"* Batthwack suddenly begins to feel pity for the creature, who does not seem at all well. Gwen, on the other hand, is kind of excited and she thinks to herself *"Challenge accepted."* Batthwack casts *Commmand*, shouting at the crazed ibish behind Raphina *"I told you to run... Flee!"* However, his outstretched hand instead sends an *Eldritch Blast* smashing directly into the back of Raphina's head. She screams in pain as Batthwack stands shocked, smoking energy still lingering in the air around his hand. Irritatedly, Raphina says *"I just brushed my hair!"* as she gingerly feels her head and discovers her ponytails are singed. Will launches into a tirade about deals with gods before realising there are more urgent matters. *"Guys, let's get off the stairway!"* He flies back to see if he can work out exactly how the structure might fail, but there's nothing immediately obvious, though the creaking is getting louder. He flies back and grabs Raphina, who's a little stunned, and tells the others to get out of there.

The last ibish has its back to Gwen, who despite Will's warnings can only think of one thing. She pounces on the ibish, gripping him with her jaws and whirling him around. The ibish actually begins to laugh maniacally at this and reaches round with a free hand to grab the back of her head and pushes her jaws even further into this gut. With his other hand, he buries his hatchet into her back, still laughing. Deeply concerned now, Batthwack attempts to heal the ibish before grabbing him and throwing him down the steps. The ibish though keeps a hold of Gwen and they both go tumbling down, her jaw still locked onto and biting at him.

From Will and Raphina's vantage point a little further out, it seems the entire staircase is now shuddering. Will looks down, wondering how far the ground is. They're still about halfway up the dam, around 800 feet from the ground, so there's no way he can get Raphina to the ground before his *Fly* spell runs out. He starts to brainstorm manically, *"I have the* Immovable Rod*! Should we hang from it? Should we put it under the stairs, try to keep it up? What do we do?* Immovable Rod*! Er... I can put Raphina in a bag and hang her from the* Immovable Rod *and then I can* Fly*, and Batthwack..."* Raphina's interrupts him, *"I can make a structure out of the stone!"* and indicates to Will where to affix the *Rod* so it's poking out perpendicular from the dam. Raphina then casts  *Stone Shape* and touches a section of the wall that instantaneously transforms into a dark brown liquid very reminiscent of twig tea, which then solidifies around herself, Will and Batthwack, forming a huge coffee cup-like bowl sticking out of the dam, with the *Immovable Rod* right above it.

*Raging* Gwen however is oblivious to Raphina's stone creation, her snout still buried in blood and feathers, She heard some shouting about rods, or something, but right now nothing but destroying this ibish matters to her, and she sinks her teeth in even deeper. She feels her incisors snagged on something and when she rears back, a coil of intestines is pulled out from the stomach of the ibish, who collapses dead, suspended from her jaws.

With no more foes to vanquish, the *Rage* now lifts enough for her to become suddenly aware how unstable the stairs under her feet are as they shift and buckle. She glances over and sees the rest of the party peering out from the dark brown stone whatever-it-is in front of her, waving and yelling to try and get her to snap out of it. The strangeness of this seems to bring her fully back to her senses. She glances up to where Gorbis might be, briefly considering heading up to find him, before turning back to the cup. She shakes her head and blinks her eyes to clear away any remnants of the *Rage*, and then runs and leaps off the stairs for the cup. Unfortunately, a tangle of intestines pulls her back and as her purple crystalline talons reach out for the edge of the cup, it's clear she's going to come up short. Suddenly Will and Raphina are pushed aside and Batthwack lunges forward to grab Gwen, but her razor sharp talons only shred his fingertips as they try to grasp him. Gwen is left scrabbling at the side of the cup as the stairs fall away beneath her.

## Trivia

* The episode title came from Abby. When Raphina was trying to hit a one of the Sooty Gang with her mace (which had failed to hit in the previous episode), she said *"Raphina climbs the stairs toward red eyeball... well, red dot... and pulls out her mace again. Because she's determined to vindicate herself. The mace didn't work last time. She untelescopes him... it... I guess she calls it a "him"."* Eric: *"What's his name?"* Abby: *"Mr. Mace!"* KT: *"It's like Mr. Coffee!"*
* Arrested Development - Mr. Manager on YouTube.
* This week's episode description describes the Pork Fried Dice wiki as: utopian.

## References

1. ↑ All the ibish the group have encountered thus far have all communicated telepathically.
2. ↑ Batthwack's acid *Breath Weapon* is discussed here.