D&D Season 4

Welcome one, welcome all, to the fourth and (presumably) final season of Dungeons & Dragons: The Gene Campaign.

Tedcrag Sandalwood of Hydraco. Gralak Braun of Senten. Robute Gulliman of Meriven. Together, the three adventurers have overcome many trials. They've laughed and cried over sixty-seven sessions of successes, failures, plot twists, and inspiration AUs. But they're not done yet. Season 1 was the Lich Arc. Season 2 was the Hydraco Arc. Season 3 was the Recruitment Arc.

And Season 4? The War Arc, coming soon to a Tabletop Simulator near you.

## Episode LXVIII: Gralak and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Sidequest

*Editors note: These next two episodes are guest written by Jack AKA Gralak. The party had split for two chapters so Beecher was not present to witness the events that transpired. Enjoy Jack's first attempt at longform somewhat original writing? Maybe it's somewhat more of an adaptation rather than original writing. Anyways, please enjoy!*

Gralak was at a loss with how to deal with Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten. His master, his friend, his mentor, his master, and the finest sword of Senten, was still unconscious. Gralak was growing more and more concerned as each day passed. He had Vittorio’s men, the men of the finest sword in Senten, send out feelers to find out any information on rogue mages or any other magic people. Eventually, the feelers returned - they had not found any rogue mages. But! But, they heard whispers of a witch giving trouble to a nearby town and a rogue wizard attacking elves near the Kingdom of Gamullius in a town called Basen. Gralak, naturally disrespecting women/broads and hating forced diversity, chose to go see the MAN wizard in Gamullius. After a conversation with the head guard, Gralak had managed to convince him to send with one of his men for support. Gralak was very relieved, as having someone to bounce his stupid ideas off of would be extremely helpful in his quest to not die.

Gralak had a few days until the boat would take them off towards Gamullius. In the few days off, Gralak checked out the old Braun Estate - looking for any sign of Nesi perhaps. He approached in disguise and checked it out from afar - it had seemed as if they had begun construction on the repairs Gralak had asked them to make and then suddenly stopped - probably on account of Gralak being the number one enemy of the town. The door, however, was ajar. Gralak shuddered at the thought of yet another side quest within this sidequest and immediately paid it no attention - plus it was probably a trap and he’s not making that mistake again.

Finally, the boat arrived after a day or so and Gralak and the guard, Jesse, headed out. As they walked toward the docks, Jesse was sure to remind Gralak that he was NOT to order him around. Jesse was 16 years old, aka a literal child, so Gralak paid him no attention. Their cover story, if asked by the guards, said that they were siblings - Jack and Lucas Cunningham, off to visit their uncle Jeff in the area. Gralak had chosen these names for no reason in particular, they just seemed like nice, solid, really good names that would be held by some great people. The captain asked only for Gralak’s fake name and immediately let them on the boat. The journey to the River Keltzer was a three day ride, so Gralak and Jesse chilled on the boat. This was the River that would take them towards the Kingdom. For some weird reason, Jesse kept his distance from Gralak and seemed to be keeping an eye on him despite there being nothing suspicious for Gralak to do/go. After three days, they were dropped off at the river in a smaller boat and they began their way upstream.

The journey up the river took a few days. Gralak and Jesse alternated twelve hour shifts, so for hours on end one of them would be piloting while the other sleeping. On his second shift, Gralak felt like something was watching them… but he couldn’t make out what. He talked it over with Jesse, who also felt like something was watching them. Gralak noticed something in the sky - perhaps a bird, but he couldn’t make it out. Eventually, he noticed several ships and watchtowers. He didn’t recognize the flag, but he figured it was just a checkpoint into the kingdom. Not wanting a repeat of “just food and things you find in your living room??” he talked it over with Jesse and had their cover stories solid. Jesse suggested docking and inspecting the ships on foot, but Gralak declined figuring this to be a quick and easy stop. As they approached, the ships came closer and yelled out in a familiar language to drop anchor immediately. Gralak obviously recognized the elven tongue and gulped internally. They hadn’t had the best of luck with the elves. The ships that encircled them had rows of elves all with their bows drawn and aimed at them - they clearly weren’t fucking around. One elf boarded their ship and asked some basic questions. He demanded they surrender their weapons, which they did.

“All seems to be in order,'' the elf said. “Let me just go get a form for you to fill out”.

Upon walking back to his ship, the gangplank was immediately raised and Gralak heard the same man yell “FIRE!”.

Instantly, dozens of arrows were loosed upon Gralak and Jesse. The arrows felt like knives as arrow after arrow pelted him - his leg, his chest, his side, everywhere. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold.

The elves burned Gralak’s ship, dumped him and Jesse’s bodies overboard and then went about their business. Meanwhile Ted and Gulliman on the other side of the world had no idea what had happened to their friend who had sunk to the bottom of the sea. They waited and waited for Sentanian support to arrive from across the ocean, but it never came. Without the additional troops, Ted was forced to challenge Prahhringer to a 1 v. 1 for the throne. However, without the support of his loyal and very handsome friend, Ted lacked the determination to win and was defeated easily. Prahhringer, wanting to quash rebellion, sent out his grand army and completely eviscerated everybody leaving no survivors.

Months had passed, and King Dorvoth had given up. The day of reckoning had come and the extraterrestrials were due to arrive the next day. Dorvoth was sulking on his throne ready to die soon, when one of his guards rushed in. “You better come take a look at this sir!” the guard ejaculated loudly.

Dorvoth rushed outside to see an enormous spaceship floating above the city - they had come early! A beam of light burst down as Dorvoth saw two figures descending. As they reached the ground, Dorvoth saw a humanoid figure who appeared to be made of stone and a weird insect thing.

“Hey min,” the creature said in a thick, strange accent. “The name’s Korg and this is Miek. We’re gonna get on that spaceship and get out of here. Wanna come?”.

Dorvoth was aghast. He sputtered out “wha- what are you?”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said.  “My name is Korg. I'm kind of like the leader here. I'm made of rocks, as you can see, but don't let that intimidate you. You don't need to be afraid, unless you're made of scissors! Just a little Rock, Paper, Scissors joke for you.”

Dorvoth had no idea what Rock, Paper, Scissors was but nonetheless, this strange rock man Korg seemed so genuine and friendly that Dorvoth  was willing to trust him immediately and thus agreed to his plan. Korg simply tapped a button on his wrist and Dorvoth, along with everybody on the planet, were instantly teleported onto the ship. Korg was able to gather everyone’s attention and explain that he was there to save them from the extraterrestrials. He managed to beam information into everyone’s head, instantly making the situation make sense to everybody. The ship left and departed for the unknown regions of the galaxy, saving the entire planet of Venus. The extraterrestrials arrived the next day to an empty planet, shrugged, and left without a fight.

On board the ship, Dorvoth was talking to one of his guards. “What did we learn? You know, I’m sure there is a moral in all of this” Dorvoth asked. The guard shrugged replying that he didn’t know. “I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. I’m fucked if I know what we did. Jesus fucking christ”.

The ship continued making its way across the galaxy. Dorvoth talked things over with Prahhringer and they were friends now! Prahhringer realized his error and that he should’ve given up his throne for the good of the world. He remarked he missed Ted, a man who he considered to be like a brother. Korg was listening and remarked that “It sounds like you had a pretty special and intimate relationship with this dragon and that losing him was almost comparable to losing a loved one”. Prahhringer, tears in his eyes, agreed.

Vittorio was also on the ship and managed to meet Nesi. She had had not just one child with her - nor two children. She had triplets - two boys and one girl. Nesi managed to give birth to three kids right off the bat. How unlucky. Their names were Jotaro, Yasuho, and Speedwagon. They were old friends of Gralak and Nesi growing up and she chose to honor their memory by naming her children after them. Vittorio and Nesi grieved for Gralak and knew that he died trying so hard to save them all from certain doom. Little did they know he died as he lived - like a fucking moron.

   On the 97th day of the long voyage through space, Korg decided to play some inflight entertainment for the passengers. It was an old film from earth about a young boy who gets adopted and learns to love his new family. Twenty or so minutes into the film, the patriarch of the family yelled out to his (dumb) wife, “Little high, little low!” to which she replied “Little hey, little ho!” as she was departing the house.

If only Director Rob Minkoff and screenwriters M. Night Shyamalan and Greg Brooker knew the power of those words. Instantly, Korg, Dorvoth, Prahhringer, Gaz, Z-Dog (who was still alive), Nesi, Vittorio, and every single passenger onboard the ship was warped back in time. As they began falling into the time vortex, the last thing that Korg, Prahhringer, and every single passenger on the ship saw was a little white mouse who was chosen to be adopted over literally every other child what the fuck imagine being in that orphanage and having a rat chosen over you that’s so sad fuck you mouse.

In a blink of an eye, Dorvoth, Prahhringer, and every other person on Venus was warped back in time over a year. Why this date in particular to warp back to, nobody knows. Nobody remembered their trip with the sacred rock man or the time they spent in space. However, the reversal in the space-time continuum allowed one specific man to come back to life as well…

"What do you think sir? Should we sail through those boats or dock and investigate them further?” Jesse said. Gralak, still completely unaware that him and Jesse had been turned into swiss cheese in a different timeline, said with a renewed sense of vigor and metagaming “Fuck that! No way in hell we’re approaching that boat! Are you fucking nuts????”. They docked the boat off to the side, hid it in the trees, and set out. Only, Jesse decided to stay with the boat ~~because he’s a pussy~~ he wanted to protect it in case anything happened to them.

Gralak decided to set off through the jungle immediately. Gralak eventually stopped to rest for the night. It was at this time that a snake decided to hiss at him. Gralak was puzzled, but the snake continued on its way. Somewhere, a blond god sighed that he was forced to make this noise by a brown haired nerd. But that was unbeknownst to Gralak. Morning came and Gralak managed to make it to a small nearby town of Parvos. Parvos was surrounded by a stone wall and adorned with green flags of which the like Gralak had never seen before. There were men with green cloaks stationed around, along with boats flying the same flag in the waters. Gralak got in line to get into the city only to be rejected for not being a trader. It seems the story of a traveler looking for lodging wasn’t working as much as he had hoped. He got out of line, only to be nagged by a small child. In an alternate universe, perhaps Gralak would’ve shot this child in the head despite having been told not to by several people. However, he listened and was taken to the girls mother nearby. The mother asked Gralak if he had enough gold to bribe the guards for her and her daughter. Gralak felt like an idiot - he never once tried to bribe the guard. He would keep a mental note of this and was confident if he had to bribe a guard on his own some other time it would go off without a hitch. He agreed to give the sickly woman and her daughter money to get in if she would bribe the guard for Gralak as well. For a measly 10 gold a person, the woman was able to get all three of them into the city with ease. Gralak felt bad for the woman and her daughter, and upon departure gave them 30 more gold to take care of themselves with. With many thanks, the two left him and set off into the unknown.

Gralak was now left alone. He had to hope Basen was nearby. He had earlier asked the guard in line if he knew where Basen was, but the guard didn’t have a clue. Gralak looked around the docks for a trader or seaman of some sort. He found one being harassed by a guard in green and waited until the guard left to talk to him. The man seemed to be less than forthcoming, but was willing to part with what he knew for a few gold pieces. When Gralak asked about the men in green, the seaman said “oh yeah it’s on account of all the elves and whatnot.''

Gralak was puzzled. “What elves?” he replied.

“Well, the Halavac Empire came in a few months ago shortly after the fall of the Twin Cities to protect us from the elves. They just kind of rolled in and nobody questioned it”.

Gralak was taken aback. Had he heard right? The TWIN CITIES? The cities where Gulliman had lost his balls, and they had all been tortured? Surely Gralak hadn’t been stupid enough to return anywhere close to this awful city that they had been banished from?

   Nope. He had. Gralak is a fucking moron who kinda forgot that the Twin Cities were the Kingdom of Gamullius. The seaman went on to explain that the elves came in and attacked the Twin Cities. For what reason, Gralak was unsure. He bought a map of the area off a man and discovered the location of Basen. The seaman laughed at him, saying “Nobody gets in or out of Basen. The elves control it and anyone who goes there ends up dead. '' The man went on to explain that Elves were killing any humans on sight - hence, why the Halavac Empire had come in for protection.

Ideas were racing around in his head. Should he try and find the local head guard to convince them to attack Basen? Should he try and hire a mercenary team to attack Basen with him? Gralak was sad that he had no friendly allied NPC’s controlled by the blond god to bounce ideas off of. He was close to giving up and heading back to Jesse empty handed. Vittorio’s life, the finest life of the finest sword in all of Senten, was on the line, so Gralak eventually decided he would sail there himself and see what he could find. He found a nobleman and his wife and seemed to scare them with his very raggedy appearance.  After some short negotiations, he rented or like bought?? (it wasn’t clear) the nobleman's boat for 100 gold pieces.

It was now 4 a.m. Gralak had waited for the most random and early time so as to pass by the least amount of guards possible. He began sailing to the gate that all boats must pass through to enter and exit the city. The nobleman had said he might have to bribe the guard out of the gate, so Gralak was ready with 10 gold. Lo and behold, a few minutes later he arrived at the gate to be greeted by a single guard.

“Halt!” a squeaky young sounding voice said. Gralak looked up in the darkness and saw a young teen-ish boy guarding the gate. “You can’t be here!” he said.

Gralak replied “uhhhh I think I can, I have something uhhh nice and golden for you if you catch my drift?”. (Nailed it, Gralak thought). “Oh uhm in that case I'll be right down!” the manchild squeaked.

The guard came down and Gralak handed him the 10 gold. “This is for being such a great guard” Gralak said smirking. He winked at the guard as he put it in his hand. “Gee, thanks mister!” The guard replied. And then he walked away. And kept on walking. And kept walking. And kept walking……

Gralak realized he never specified what he wanted the guard to do and had indeed just given the man a gift. He yelled “wait, can you open the gate for me??”. The guard seemed taken aback. How dare this strange man ask him to do something for him after giving him free money? The guard said that they weren’t allowed to. Gralak tried to convince him that they were such good friends and he would appreciate a favor. Somehow, against all odds, the guard complied and opened the gate. Gralak was off now sailing toward the other side of the sea to get to Basen. He was worried about both elven and Halavac ships, but luckily managed to avoid all. He landed somewhat around the area he was looking for, hid the boat under some conveniently placed fallen branches, and began his walk to Basen.

Looking at his map, he realized Basen should be southwest of his location. He set off along a road in that direction. However, he was not stupid enough to walk on the road for the general fear of getting murdered by elves. He walked close enough to see where the road went, but far enough where he could drop at a moments notice and hide in the brush. He didn’t encounter much trouble besides a pair of elves riding horseback who passed him. Gralak also luckily found a sign that pointed him in the right direction. What luck! He continued walking towards the city. As he thought he got closer, the road became more and more unkempt. He had a bad feeling about this. He finally arrived at the city only to find the town completely abandoned. Gralak was heartbroken. It seemed he had to go back to the drawing board. What shitty luck he had. He was checking out the city for any signs of stragglers when suddenly he felt a presence behind him…

Gralak spun around to find two men approaching him - instead of running away, they were coming right toward him, with their swords out. Yare yare daze, Gralak thought to himself.

“Stop where you are and lay down your weapon! We have an archer with his bow trained on your right now!” the man yelled. Him and his friend both looked like peasants. Gralak laughed and said “oh really? I’m willing to call your bluff”. Gralak however was not willing to call their bluff. He said that he was just a human traveller looking for some wizard and on their side against the elves, but the two men were not willing to hear it. They explained that the elves routinely sent human enforcers into groups of surviving humans to look for this mysterious wizard who had been killing Elves. Gralak had his hands bound after surrendering and was brought upstairs to the nearby tavern for interrogation.

When he reached the top, he soon found their third man with a bow and arrow already there. It appears that they weren’t bluffing after all. They began interrogating him and denied the wizards existence. However, they also made a point to say that maybe Gralak was an enforcer looking to kill the wizard. These dumb peasants couldn’t even keep their stories straight, and soon Gralak tried turning the interrogation around on them for information. After some convincing, he managed to get one of them to take him to the wizard. He remained bound and was taken by boat across the river to the wizard. After a brief journey up a mountain, Gralak and the peasant who accompanied him saw a man sitting by a fire. The peasant unbound Gralak and immediately fucked off, leaving Gralak with this stranger. He began slowly approaching with his hands in the air and loudly said “Hello there!”.

“Ċ̸̤̖O̸̭͖̍M̸̰͉̋̽Ḛ̷̘̀ ̸͖̗̀C̵̣̜̈́̍L̵͔̮̉Ó̸̪S̵̜̍E̴̲̜͗̅Ȓ̸͙̂” a demonic voice snarled in his head. Gralak nervously approached the fire, careful to go opposite

to the man so he could see him face on, yet far enough away he wouldn’t get immediately murdered. “C̸̼̪̲̎͗͆̌̈́̚O̸̘̠̱͔͑M̸̙͇̳̪͎̥̟̾̿̈́̾Ȇ̴̼̬̍̈́̿̉̽́ ̴͕̠͇͍̊

C̴͖̹̘̗͇̯̀̈́Ḷ̵̢̟̯̗͎̠͈̅̌̎̉̿̎̇O̴̡̮̝̭̻̩̫̓S̷̠̍̌Ề̷̡̱̍̕R̵̡͇̬̝̩͙̘̖̓̌̿” the voice said inside his head again. Gralak obliged and said “Mr. Wizard man, I need your help”

“C̸̼̪̲̎͗͆̌̈́̚O̸̘̠̱͔͑M̸̙͇̳̪͎̥̟̾̿̈́̾Ȇ̴̼̬̍̈́̿̉̽́ ̴͕̠͇͍̊C̴͖̹̘̗͇̯̀̈́Ḷ̵̢̟̯̗͎̠͈̅̌̎̉̿̎̇O̴̡̮̝̭̻̩̫̓S̷̍̌-, wait Gralak is that you?” the voice said returning to normal.

Gralak was stunned. Who the fuck would he know out here? He came closer and the figure took his hood off revealing the face of the man, the myth, the legend, ~~Scott Beecher~~ ESIR! Gralak rejoiced, but far away in a distant land a glasses-wearing brown haired nerd literally leapt out of his chair, punched the sky, and celebrated so loudly he woke up his elderly grandmother who had to get up early to hunt wild boar. Returning to the mountainside, Gralak and Esir began talking. He quickly tried explaining why he was searching for a wizard, but Esir didn’t have time for all this at that moment. He explained to Gralak that he had found another Virtual Intelligence nearby (!) and that he needed help to get to it. “It’s probably easier if I just show you…”. With that, Esir took him further up the mountainside and into an opening where he showed Gralak the inside of a volcano. “Somewhere under all this mess… is another Virtual Intelligence. This one could be the key to everything. Will you join me?”. He extended his hand toward Gralak, still reeling from the shock of this revelation, as Gralak suddenly was plunged into yet another sidequest.

## Episode LXIX: The Master Awakens

Gralak was stunned. A VI? Here? In this conveniently placed volcano? Now? At this time of year? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within ~~your kitchen~~ a volcano? Gralak felt as if he had to get back to Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, and go on his way to Tedcrag - but this was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. He immediately accepted and him and Esir began their descent into the volcano. They perched on a ledge where Esir explained the plan. He showed Gralak some sort of magic compass that showed him their proximity to the VI. Trouble is, it only showed the horizontal distance - not vertical. So, this means that they had no idea how far down they had to go into the lava.

“Wait a second,” Gralak said. “Into the lava? How the hell are we going to do that?”

Gralak had of course forgotten Esir was an extremely powerful mage. Esir explained he would use a forcefield to cover the two of them so they could descend together. He would also be levitating a box down with them (for whatever reason Gralak forgot). His job was to put hooks into the rock and lava to keep the rope from burning up when they returned upwards. They began their descent and Gralak put his hooks in with ease. Esir was using nearly all of his might to protect the two of them while levitating a box downwards. Eventually they reached a surface they could walk on and started towards where the compass pointed them towards. They came across some weird rock that seemed to be withstanding the heat of the lava. Gralak tried pulling it out but it wouldn’t budge. He made a mental note to return to it later as it seemed as if it might make a good material for a sword (spoiler alert: Gralak would forget about the weird metal almost immediately). Suddenly, as they neared the VI, four automatons came through the lava! These were similar to the ones they had seen before, except these ones were entirely jet black and looked hella cool.

It was all up to Gralak to defeat them as Esir was busy protecting them. Gralak did some basic maneuvers at first, slashing them and trying to just hit them at all. One of them landed a hit on Esir to which he screamed out something along the lines of “uhhhhh try to protect me dumbass??” to Gralak. Eventually, Gralak tried just straight up stabbing his sword through its brain. It killed it almost immediately. Realizing he now had a dominant strategy, Gralak began doing this to all of the automatons and they were all killed pretty easily. However, one ran away back into the lava and Gralak didn’t think it worth it to pursue it. He was perplexed that it ran away, but didn’t pay it much mind as him and Esir began to push onwards. They walked a bit more and found a large door made of obsidian. There wasn’t a doorknob, so by normal door conventions Gralak was at a loss for how to open it. For shits, he put his hand to the door and it opened immediately. Him and Esir quickly ran into the room and shut the door behind them.

The room was circular in shape and almost empty. In the center of the room was a single pillar with a bright, angelic figure. It was standing there motionless - it looked humanoid, yet had no facial features of any sort, almost like a mannequin. Suddenly, Gralak heard a voice inside his head.

“Calibration successful” a soft, smooth female voice said.

With that, the angelic figure began morphing and shapeshifting. Suddenly, Gralak saw before him his girlfriend/wife/mother of his kid(?) standing before him. He knew this was not the real Nesi, but just the sight of seeing her made his heart skip a beat. He missed her so much and had no idea where the hell she was living while he was on this quest.

“Hello there” the VI said.

“Why do you look like… her?” Gralak replied.

The VI responded that it took the form of the person that one trusted most in the world. Suddenly it changed into a red dragon - Tedcrag! Almost as quickly as it became Ted, it then shrunk a considerable amount before Robute Gulliman was standing before him. It then morphed into some creature that Gralak had never seen before - a humanoid species that had deep dark blue skin and white hair. Gralak realized this was probably who Esir trusted most in the world. Esir explained this was the person that Dorvoth had sent to rescue him, which is a pretty good candidate for whomever you trust most. The VI went onto say her name was Sherry, and out of thin air a chair appeared. She then made the conscious choice to sit down, which was weird considering she was a virtual lifeform who likely didn’t get tired from standing for too long.

Sherry began by saying that the extraterrestrials are only a mere 290 days away. This is about how long Gralak expected, but still hearing the exact time frame made him anxious. Gralak immediately then asked about Stellaris and Mei Lu and whatnot, to which Sherry replied “we’ll get to that”. She explained she wanted to see if were worthy enough, and for us to tell her what we knew. Gralak then pretty much gave a huge rundown of the first encounter with a VI after defeating the lich, Prahhringer, and then the Earth arc. Sherry seemed convinced and then responded to almost every question Gralak asked.

She told Gralak that in the year 2350, after humanity discovered faster than faster than light travel, thousands of unknown signatures appeared and obliterated the planetary defense stations. These were the ET’s. It was unknown why they did this, but popular theory is that they believe they believe they are the only species that deserve to exist. Sherry was unable to provide an image of what they looked like - only their machines and monsters (of which are spiders, dragons, and other beasts the crew fought - but we already knew that).

   Gralak asked about how to access the ships in the hangar they found. He explained that they were hoping that the VI in Prahhringers palace would allow them access to the spaceships. Sherry then simply snapped her fingers and said “done”. Gralak and Esirs trinkets lit up - they both now had access to the entire armada! She also put the two men into a UN training program which was beamed directly into their heads, so the two pretty much canonically played a flight simulator for a few hours in their brain (1 second in the real world).

Continuing her exposition dump, Sherry went on to explain that there is a monitoring station above the planet that should be their first priority. This station has some sort of countdown which, if not destroyed before reaching zero, will send out a fighter to gather reinforcements AKA we’re fucked. Gralak thought to himself that this new information is a top priority - but first they have an entire war to fight! This was going to be perhaps the hardest challenges ever faced by anybody in the entire continent, nay perhaps history of the universe. Gralak asked about Stellaris, and Sherry didn’t really have an answer. If Stellaris was a dead end, maybe they were fucked too. But, that would then make the entire Earth arc entirely pointless and would be a subversion of expectations akin to a certain 8th season of a show that a parallel universe Lich Burning Group despise.

Continuing to give Gralak new powers, she also gave him and Esir the power to open any UN military base and listed a few locations - three on Pernimius, and one on Hydraco. On Pernimius, one was near Bastir past the Twin Cities. One was near the Kingdom of Maldeer, and the 3rd was under control of the Eastern Dwarvish Kingdom. The base on Hydraco was surprisingly very close to Ted’s hometown, directly in a lake nearby.

After some more exposition, Gralak and Esir realized they had a whole other quest they had to get to. They bid farewell to Sherry who told them they could contact her via trinket at the top of the mountain. Just then, in a surprise cameo, entered ~~Z-Dog~~ CP3! Everyone’s favorite plucky droid from the Earth Arc. Gralak loudly exclaimed “CP3 old buddy!” to which he was met with a blank “...” from the droid. As Gralak continued to forget the weird metal he wanted to get (and now having access to a droid that could probably do it) the droids took him and Esir back to the top. He tried convincing them to take them back to Senten but was met with a staunch “nah” from Sherry.

As Esir and Gralak began heading back to the boat he used to arrive at Basen, him and Esir began finally catching up. Esir explained that he took the rod back to the Elves but it was too late - they waged war on the Twin Cities and have started massacring any human they can find. This is why he’s begun his own personal war on the elves. Gralak felt shitty, as he once again realized their actions had massive consequences across the world. Esir felt sad that Gralak and the others didn’t bother looking for him - Gralak tried defending the LBG by saying that they never knew he was alive. They thought he was dead, and even if he was alive, they didn’t know where on the entire planet to find him. Esir kind of understood and the men continued walking.

They eventually reached the boat and saw three elves were inspecting it. Esir asked if he should use lethal force, to which Gralak immediately replied “hell yeah” cause he wanted to see Esir do some cool magic shit. Esir rolled up on the elves and literally and actually said ingame “GOOD MORNING GENTLEMEN!”. The elves said something akin to “hey wait you’re not supposed to be here” to which Gralak actually ingame replied “Haven’t had your morning coffee yet? You look cranky!” (another classic Gralak one liner nailed). Esir began to choke them from afar with magic, and then went up to each one individually and slit their throats. Esir must have seen some serious shit in wizard jail. The two men set off and arrived at the other side of the lake/sea/body of water. Gralak was pretty sure they landed where they were supposed to and they set off walking towards the river they needed to find. An hour passed and Gralak was pretty sure they were where they needed to be. However, he wanted to double check so he started sprinting along the coast to find the river. Two to three hours passed and eventually he saw the giant obelisk of the Twin Cities in the distance. This idiot HAD ended up going the wrong way so now he had to run two to three hours back to Esir to tell him they had more walking to do.

Eventually, they found the mouth of the river and linked back up with Jesse. They took the boat back all the way to Senten which took like, awhile. So far this entire side quest had taken about thirty days total. Gralak was pretty sure he had blown past the date he was supposed to have linked up with Tedcrag. Oops. They docked their boat and then walked on foot for a day or so to arrive at Senten from land. Esir disguised him and Gralak so they could sneak past the guards at the entrance while Jesse went ahead. However, trouble was waiting when they rolled up. These weren’t just any ordinary guards, no sir that would be too easy for poor suffering Gralak. Posted at the gate were TWO BLACK MAGES. They looked super dope and had an aura of badassery about them. But, they were the enemy so they had to be dealt with. Gralak and Esir tried to talk their way into the city, when suddenly….

“IT’S THEM!” one of the guards shouted. Gralak was instantly knocked out. As he started to sink unconscious, he heard the sounds of a cool fight breaking out with Esir. He would’ve liked to have seen that, but ah well. Gralak eventually woke up, tied to a chair in a large office. He looked to his right and saw Esir there as well, bound as well. Suddenly, in walked a familiar face… THE HEADMASTER. He chuckled when he saw the two of them and said “well well well, when my Black Mages told me they had caught the two of you I thought them to be liars! I thought that there was no way in hell you two idiots would actually come BACK to Senten, but I have been proven wrong!”. Esir gritted his teeth and snarled “Headmaster… you bastard!”. The Headmaster laughed and said “Gentlemen, I have a proposition. In the spirit of a good competition, I will allow one of you to challenge me for your freedom. If you kill me, you both go free! But if I kill whoever I am fighting, rest assured I will torture the other one for months just for my own pleasure”.

“You sick sadistic fuck!” Esir shouted. That’s when Gralak coolly said “I’ll fight you”. The Headmaster replied, “As you wish.'' He lifted a hand, snapped and the ropes came undone from Gralak’s chair. He calmly stood up and he started glowing a bright orange - Esir had never seen this before! Gralak’s entire body now had a magical aura surrounding it. The Headmaster suddenly had this same aura as well! Sensing confusion, Gralak turned around and explained to Esir “this is one of my magical abilities I had been saving for a special occasion… just watch and see.”

The two men began approaching each other. Rather than run away from each other, they continued getting closer. They had an intense staring match before the Headmaster revealed his power - a purple, humanoid figure suddenly appeared next to him. Esir gasped harder when a similar, greenish figure appeared next to Gralak!

“BEHOLD! This is my Stand, 「DOOM DAYS」!” Gralak said triumphantly. “My Stand has the power to move earth, stone, and metal around me as I bend it to my will! My special ability MILLION PIECES has the power to turn you into, well, a million pieces!”

The Headmaster cackled as he brought out a somewhat familiar looking Stand. “This is MY Stand, 「WEEZER 」! I have the power to teleport, blind people, and other fearsome abilities!”

The two men then began to have an intense fight. The Headmaster teleported ~~behind you, nothing personnel kid~~ all around the room making it hard for Gralak to pinpoint his location with his earth bending powers. He would land a hit, then the headmaster would land a hit, and so on and so forth. Just as Gralak was about to bring a giant slab of stone down on top of the Headmaster, he just cackled.

“You fool! I have activated my third ability, SAY IT AIN’T SO!”. Gralak was confused, when suddenly he noticed he and the headmaster had somehow switched spaces.

“NANI!?!?!!” Gralak yelled before the piece of slab completely crushed and covered him.

The Headmaster approached the giant piece of slab. “You had grown so much. I am satisfied. I haven’t had such a fight in ages… warrior of STANDS. And it was a close one too. If my Stand didn’t have the power to switch our positions, I have no idea how I could’ve stopped the stone slab. And if a different mage, one who cannot use Stands, had met you here first… and met your power…”. The Headmaster shuddered at the thought.

The Headmaster thought again of Gralak. Even if he had won… he would have been in worse shape than he himself was now. Such a shame he didn’t win, as the headmaster had Nesi in jail below. If Gralak won, he would’ve gotten to finally see his wife after so long. Maybe they even would’ve boinked or 69’ed or something who knows? As to why the headmaster was thinking of Gralak’s sex life, it was for no particular reason. Especially not the fact this is Chapter 69. Literally no reason. Taunting Esir, he released him from his chair so he could mourn.

Esir leapt from his chair and ran to where Gralak was crushed. However, what Esir didn’t know is that Gralak was still alive! But just barely… He just needed Esir to-

Suddenly, Gralak felt a hard slam on the stone. Esir had pounded the stone in pain while crying. Gralak had survived being crushed by the stone slab, but Esir pounding on it was the final nail in the coffin. Gralak was killed by one of his dearest friends, and he didn’t even know it.

    Esir rose up. He started pulsating orange and his Stand was brought out. He sniffled and said “Gralak didn’t know… but I have my own Stand too. This is 「RIAN JOHNSON 」and it has the power to subvert expec-”

Not wanting to deal with another Stand battle, the Headmaster immediately killed Esir. Or, so he thought. As Esir fell to his knees, he used the last of his strength to yell “This is the Hitallon family spirit, from the past to the future! It’s the human spirit! Gralak, this is the last of my power! Take it!”

The Headmaster was visibly confused and said “Son, Gralak is dead. Nothing can happ-”

Esir screamed “LITTLE HIGH LITTLE LOW, LITTLE HEY LITTLE HO!”.

“NO!” the Headmaster yelled. But it was too late. Time began reversing and suddenly Gralak and Esir were standing at the gates of Senten ready to enter completely unaware they had both just died in an alternate reality.

“Should we try and talk our way past the guards?” Esir asked.

Gralak, definitely not metagaming again, yelled “FUCK THAT!” and told Esir they should wait till night and then jump over the wall in a part that wasn’t as manned. They did exactly that and quickly found themselves in Senten again. They rushed to Vittorio’s estate, the finest estate of the finest sword in Senten, and met with the guards. Esir saw Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, and realized he would have a hard task at hand. He tried several things yet failed at them all. He told the room he had one last idea, before placing his hands near Vittorio’s head, the finest head of the finest sword in Senten. Lightning shot out of Esir’s hands and passed into Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten. Just before he collapsed to the ground and fainted, suddenly, Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, shot up and panted heavily. He was awake!

Gralak ran to his friend and cried happily. He threw his arms around him and started explaining what had happened. He told Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, that he attacked him, claimed he killed all of his men, and that it seemed everyone in Senten believed that as well.

“What? Thats preposterous,” Vittorio, TFSIS scoffed. “You’re a hero Gralak, you led the expedition against the orcs and were run out of town by the College! Men, stand down. Gralak is a war hero and a dear friend.”

The men looked a bit more at ease, but confused as to why they all believed the same story. If anything good came out of this, it's that the college had a few more enemies. Gralak caught up Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, on their adventures and his quest to revive him before giving him Tedcrag’s letter. Finally, the moment he had waited for had come. Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, decided they needed to sail at once and demanded to see the Doge. He could barely walk, yet with the assistance of his father’s old cane he was able to manage just fine.

Esir woke up in a cold sweat and pretty much immediately went to get some more rest. Gralak and Vittorio headed out to see the Doge and were let in by the palace guards. Being Vittorio Stoclan, the finest sword in Senten, really did have it’s benefits. They walked all the way up to the Doge’s chambers. Gralak, confident in his impeccable disguise, walked in and was recognized immediately.

“Oh shit,” the Doge said. “Guards! Get in here!”.

Gralak tried to restrain the Doge and the door burst open as several guards spilled in. The Doge managed to escape and Gralak and Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, were left with their pants down.

“Uh, meow?” the men said in unison. The guards, confused, looked at each other before drawing their swords and killing the men. As the sword pierced Gralak’s heart, he started saying “Little high, little low…”. Time seemed to slow. In a far away land, a man sitting at his computer in Mansfield, MA received a call.

“Um, hello?” Scott Beecher said.

“Hey buddy, hello my good friend,” Jack Cunningham said. “I’m kind of in a situation right now and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh might need some inspiration”.

Scott Beecher sighed. He was too good a person to deny Jack his request for inspiration, yet he was mildly annoyed. After all, Jack is usually the inspiration king and has to borrow them out to other people.

“Yeah sure, take it” Scott chuckled.

“Sweet thanks bro” Jack said before ending the call.

“Little hey, little ho!” Gralak concluded. The men were warped back in time and Gralak, again totally not metagaming, told Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, that he should go in alone. Gralak waited and after a few minutes met back up with his master. The Doge would only give them a few thousand men sadly. Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, had to lie about the nature of the mission. He also revealed to Gralak that now the story is that Gralak was responsible for the FIRST Orc Attack about 25 years ago when he was just 18. What the fuck? Gralak was outraged his good name was being slandered in his own hometown. The College would pay for this, Gralak thought.

Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, also said that people believed Ted was responsible for the attack - so it might be pertinent to have him go by his regal name instead so the Sentanians don’t rise up like the gamers they are. Vittorio, the finest sword of Senten, said that he would do some reconnaissance and talk to people to try and gain more fighters. Gralak returned to the finest estate in Senten and took a well deserved rest.

Vittorio, the finest sword in Senten, returned and told Gralak he managed to convince a few other nobles to send their men and help in the fight. They were about 5,000 men strong now, with about 25 ships. They began loading the boats the next morning and were soon about to head out. As they just finished, Esir came up and told Gralak he wouldn’t be joining them.

“I’m sorry but we’re one of two people who can pilot the spacecraft necessary to get to Stellaris. I’m going to return to Dorvoth and try and teach other people. One of us needs to stay alive. I’m sorry Gralak” Esir said bluntly.

Gralak understood and told Esir he would let Ted and Gulliman know he was alright.

“Oh, one other thing I should tell you,” Esir said. “I looked for Nesi and she might be missing.''

Gralak’s heart skipped a beat. He had barely had time to think of his wife and didn’t even know where she was.

“Missing?” Gralak said nervously.

“I went to her home outside New Loreth and she wasn’t there. It looks like she might have left in a hurry. I had talked to her once or twice before. I even got to meet your son Gralak”.

Again, Gralak’s heart skipped two beats. He smiled, despite the circumstances, of knowing that he was a father to a little boy.

“Tell me Esir,” Gralak said with a hint of a sad smile. “What is my sons name?”

“It’s a name that Nesi said was meaningful to the two of you… she named your son Blarnvak”.

Gralak looked at Esir dead in the eyes. The man who was responsible for Gralak being run out of his own town was now the namesake of his son. Irony is a cruel bitch. Gralak began maniacally laughing at this misfortune, yet was dead inside all the same.

Esir and Gralak bid their farewells, promising to meet back up with Dorvoth as soon as possible. Gralak boarded his ship and stood at the bow. He looked out proudly at his fleet and the reinforcements they would be bringing Ted. They were about five months late already, and by the time they made the journey they would be even more. Still, Gralak was filled with determination. He figured the good news of Esir, and the fact they have access to ships now would be good enough of news for the LBG to forgive his absence. Vittorio blew a horn, and the ships began sailing out. As the boats left the docks, Gralak thought of the hardships he was about to endure. It’s not crazy to say the fate of the universe rested on their shoulders. Standing at the bow and looking at the horizon, Gralak rested while finally on the way to link back up with his friends. He couldn’t wait to see them finally - he was absolutely confident that nothing would go wrong on their next mission all together. Nothing could. Right? ....right?

## Episode LXX: Rakavist the Boomer

It was time for a strategy meeting. Tedcrag, Gulliman, and Ashenborn sat around an old map of Hydraco, discussing their plans for the future. Topics discussed included where they would go, how they would divide the army, whether or not they wanted to parley with the elves, and so on. They decided they would first settle on a southern continent only populated by savage giants, then Tedcrag and Gulliman would go meet Rakavist. Eventually, they would start things on the eastern border, where Tedcrag’s potential vassals and House Sandalwood lived.

After much sailing, they arrived at the southern continent as planned. Ashenborn sent some scouts, who indeed found the giant natives, as well as steady sources of food, water, and lumber. Tedcrag and Gulliman bid a temporary farewell to Ashenborn, before setting out with a small crew to the Flivoni Federation to meet Rakavist. After some more sailing, they eventually spotted Hydraconian ships. Being careful in case these were Prahringerr’s men, Tedcrag made sure he would be the first person spotted. The ship threw down a ladder for them to climb, and at the top was none other than Rakavist.

Rakavist and Tedcrag embraced. Rakavist was eager to hear how many men they had recruited. Excitedly, he listened as Tedcrag told him about the 10,000 men from Mariven and the hopeful second 10,000 coming from Senten.

"That’s a great start. Who else?”

"...that's it.”

For the next few seconds, you could cut the tension with a knife. Rakavist’s disappointment was clear as day on his face, and he took a second to compose himself. “Let’s discuss this inside, Ted.”

And so, our two thirds of the LBG plus Rakavist met inside a private room. Rakavist wasn’t happy with the amount of men, and Tedcrag explained that it was all they could do and that they were running short on time thanks to the extraterrestrials. Rakavist begrudgingly accepted that this is what they had to deal with, and shared some news on his end. Some strange things had happened with the Flivoni: after months of raids, they suddenly seemed to get their shit together and ask for an audience with the emperor… and the emperor alone. Sounded like a trap if they ever heard one. Definitely not just gonna walk into that one, no sir. They wondered if they could still deal with the Flivoni, perhaps having Tedcrag pose as an emperor candidate. But that was for later, as for the time being they decided to wait for Gralak to hopefully arrive with his Sentenian recruits.

They waited for 30 days, and at that point Rakavist grew impatient, telling Tedcrag that his friend might not be coming. But Tedcrag was insistent they wait, having faith in his good friend Gralak. Sure enough, five days later, they saw strange ships on the horizon. These were very large ships, and they hailed Rakavist upon sighting them. Hoping it was Gralak but being cautious, Tedcrag and the others slowly advanced towards the new ships. They lowered the gangplank, and a few hooded men boarded the ship. At their front, the lead man unhooded himself, revealing himself to be…

... Zenith, alive and well!...... I wish. Instead, it was equally good news: Gralak! “Gentlemen, you look like you’re in desperate need of help,” he said, in a way that definitely didn’t seem like he’d spent the entire voyage workshopping it. Though Gralak had taken far longer than planned, he had succeeded in his mission after all! Tedcrag and Gulliman were overjoyed, and the three of them plus Rakavist returned to the private room to discuss things further.

Except *sike*, because less than a minute in, Gralak less than delicately told Rakavist to leave as he wanted to discuss things with solely the LBG. A bit annoyed and also probably offended, Rakavist left, and it was then that Gralak dropped some major info bombs from his adventure to the LBG.

"Esir’s alive!!” he cried out as if this was news to Tedcrag and Gulliman.

"Well, yeah, we found out from Dorvoth back in Episode 59, remember? He told us that Esir was trying to make peace with the elves after we started that war by stealing the rod.”

"Oh, right,” Gralak said. “Duh. Well anyway, I met him! It was crazy!” He then went on to explain that he and Esir had found a **fucking VI** and learned that there was a **monitoring station above Venus** that if it wasn’t destroyed would signal the extraterrestrials to arrive **in 220 days**. Oh shit, they were really on the clock now. On the plus side, the VI had taught Gralak how to fly a fucking spaceship, meaning they didn’t need coordinates anymore. Furthermore, it had pointed out the locations of various UN bases throughout Venus, including one just south of Ted’s hometown in Hydraco, containing a large carrier ship. Perfect! That’s where they were headed anyway.

He also said Esir was waiting for them back in Mariven. So now the LBG had decide what the hell to do next. They had gathered all these allies for the war on Prahringerr mainly for the coordinates in the emperor's palace, but now they didn’t need those anymore. But they still had 1600+ men ready to do battle with Hydraco. Could they be convinced to abandon this cause and fight an enemy they’ve never seen or heard of before?

As they would soon find, the answer was a resounding no. They called Rakavist back in and did their best to explain to him the situation. Being as old as he was (I believe they call his generation of Venusian citizens “voomers”), Rakavist did not take this very well. When Gralak brought up the possibility of using the carrier to force Prahringerr to surrender, Rakavist took this as Tedcrag going down the same path as Prahringerr. Tedcrag found that to be a bit of a reach and defended himself, saying it would only be used as a threat and they wouldn’t actually rain terror on Hydraconian citizens. Rakavist fairly retorted asking what would happen if Prahringerr called the bluff, and Tedcrag didn’t have a good answer.

As such, Gralak proposed the alternate plan of avoiding war entirely and instead heading straight for the monitoring station. About three or four times, Rakavist then asked Gralak what his medieval-technology men could hope to do against such an advanced technological threat, and Gralak never really seemed to understand the question, so Rakavist wasn't pleased. Rakavist then spouted a few voomer lines such as “Hydraco is all I know” and “The extraterrestrials are beyond our control.” When Tedcrag defended Gralak, Rakavist went off on Tedcrag, saying how disappointed he was in him.

When Tedcrag’s real-life counterpart created the character of Rakavist, he had intended for him to be a loving and trusting father figure that had raised him in his parents’ stead for over a decade, meaning that he knew Tedcrag like a son and they could trust each other with their lives. Tedcrag reminded Rakavist of this fact, but Rakavist then said Prahringerr was also like a son to him too (which was news to Tedcrag) and Prahringerr had betrayed his trust as well, which meant Tedcrag was equally capable of such horrible deeds? The logic didn’t really seem to fit, but to be completely fair, Tedcrag’s creator also hadn’t intended for his childhood friend to become a warmongering tyrant, so sometimes things just end up that way. And his creator also *fully* recognized that he had left significantly large gaps in Ted’s backstory that had allowed for these interpretations, so Tedcrag had no choice but to accept the fact that Rakavist wasn’t as trusting of him as he would have liked.

During one of Rakavist’s rants, Gralak muttered under his breath “coward”, but Rakavist heard him, and nearly demanded a duel, but a bit of “little hey little ho” magic kept that interesting sight from happening. Instead, they agreed to, at least for now, head to the UN base and then figure things out from there. Rakavist privately spoke to Tedcrag, and solemnly told him “Don’t fail me, son.” Tedcrag vowed he wouldn’t let him down, swearing on the lives of Iorveth and Saskia, his parents.

After that stressful ordeal was over with, it was time to deal with the Flivoni. Tedcrag would pose as emperor, and woule be accompanied by Gralak, Gulliman, and a few Hydraconians. They would head there with the intent of meeting on relatively neutral ground. When they arrived, the lizard man there was acting incredibly fishy, making them suspect a trap, but what harm could a couple of lizard savages do? Foolishly, they followed him for a while before coming upon a tent. Exceedingly nervous, the lizard man with an accent that may or may not have been offensive told them to meet the king inside the tent.

Tedcrag was naturally cautious. After asking the lizard to lift the tent cover, they saw only a lizard king inside. And after some contemplation, he again figured, what’s the worst a couple of lizard savages can do? Still, they had their hands on their weapons and he told them to be ready for anything, and they entered the tent.

Upon stepping foot inside, an illusion suddenly disappeared in front of them. Instead of the goddamn lizard king were two mages, in white robes. They snapped their fingers, and suddenly the LBG were petrified into stone. They would no doubt be killed or captured, but their consciousness soon faded as they all became one with the rocks. All thought faded from their minds, until only the rocks remained.

"You think we got the right emperor?” the first mage asked the other. “We didn’t really bother to verify.”

"Man, dragons all look the same to me. But I’m sure he was Prahringerr,” the other one said. One of them prepared a portal, and the two carried Tedcrag's petrified body through it, teleporting him and him alone.

After an unknown amount of time, Tedcrag’s rock body was placed in front of an altar. An old man made some sort of incantation and Tedcrag was slowly depetrified. Aztec music could be heard playing in the background as Tedcrag emerged from the stones, coughing and gasping for breath.

"Emperor Prahringerr, it is great that you stand here before us,” the old man said. “I am the headmaster of the college of Bizkor, and I need your help to eliminate the College of Zanko once and for all!”

"But I’m not---” Tedcrag started, but then realized the situation he was in. “I mean, yes! It is I, Emperor Prahringerr. To what do I owe the pleasure, dear headmaster?”

"I need your help, my good emperor. The headmaster of Zanko has betrayed the other colleges of the world for his own personal gain... something about a drink he likes... and he needs to be stopped. I need the support of your pyromancers to deal with Zanko.”

"So you petrify me, kidnap me, and then demand the use of my most powerful mages?” Tedcrag asked. “You son of a bitch, I'm in. And what can I expect in return?”

The mage laughed. “Well, for starters we hear you’ve got a potential rebellion on your hands, and it's led by an old friend of yours… Tedcrag, descendant of House Sandalwood?”

"*Nooooo,*” Tedcrag said. “Ted? He's my boy. He wouldn’t dare oppose me, the great and indomitable Prahringerr.”

"It seems his father figure Rakavist has convinced him. He knows what you did to the elven capital, as do we, and we are impressed. But it seems Ted is having second thoughts, and is gathering allies to usurp the throne from you. But anyway, by the sacred laws of Bizkor, we of the college agree to help you unconditionally as long as you in turn help us. All we have to do is shake hands.” The headmaster extended his hand.

Tedcrag couldn’t believe his luck. They way he heard it, even if he immediately revealed himself as Tedcrag right after, the Bizkor mages would still be sworn to follow him as soon as he shook hands with their headmaster. A whole college of mages would prove a most valuable ally. Tedcrag reached to shake the headmaster’s hand, but suddenly…

"*Wait!*” a young female voice yelled and a mage stormed into the room. The headmaster quickly turned towards the door, and asked “What is the meaning of this, Ellie?”

The young woman stopped short. “This man… is not Prahringerr!” She was several years older, but Tedcrag immediately recognized her as none other than Ellie from way back in Season 1. “Shit…” he said under his breath.

"Not Prahringerr?” the headmaster was confused.

"No, headmaster.” Ellie angrily pointed at Tedcrag. “This dragon is Tedcrag, not Prahringerr.”

"An outrageous accusation!” Tedcrag stood up, looking very offended. “How dare you confuse me, the great and honorable and illustrious Prahringerr, with a lowly peasant such as Tedcrag?”

"Ellie,” the headmaster chided. “We talked about this. It’s racist to assume that all dragons look the same.”

Ellie shook her head. “No, no. It’s Tedcrag. As long as I live I’ll never forget the faces of the three men who abandoned me to be attacked by that shadow monster in the desert. Tedcrag, Gulliman, and...” she shuddered and expressed clear disgust at this last name: “*Gralak.*”

The headmaster turned to Tedcrag. “Is this true?” he asked.

"Whaaaat? Nooo…. I’m Prahringerr! The, uh, great and beautiful emperor!” Tedcrag said in a very unconvincing manner.

"Well, the guy says he’s Prahringerr, Ellie. Sorry.” The headmaster again motioned to shake hands. Tedcrag reached for it again, but was stopped short by a sharp pain in his chest.

Ellie had cast some sort of spell on him, and many magical daggers started piercing his chest. Realizing he was about to die, he reached for his pocket and grabbed something. But he was too slow, and he could barely even let out a “fuck you, Ellie,” before he collapsed on the headmaster’s desk, dead.

"Ellie, what have you done?!” the headmaster bellowed. “You killed the emperor of Hydraco!”

Ellie spat on Tedcrag’s corpse. “For the last time, that was Tedcrag. And I will not rest until I kill the other two, as well. Can I go now?”

The headmaster sighed deeply. “Fine, Ellie. If you’re so convinced, I guess I must believe you. Someday, Ellie, you will be the last of us mages, so I have no choice but to entrust things to you. You are excused, Ellie.”

Ellie was about to turn to leave, but then noticed something clutched in Tedcrag’s hand. She grabbed it, and it appeared to be a personal note of his. Out of pure curiosity, she started reading it aloud.

"*Tedcrag’s To-Do List:* --- see, I told you it was Tedcrag,” she continued reading. “[X] Pick a house name [ ] Become emperor [ ] Defeat the extraterrestrials [ ] Deal with the college of Zanko [ ] Find my father again [ ] Go back to Rakavist’s estate and ask his maid if she’s single [ ] Reunite with my spider friend [ ] If I’m dead and my killer happens to be reading this aloud, little high little low little hey little ho. Get fucked bb”

"What a strange man,” the headmaster said. “I wonder what that last part meant...”

But before Ellie could respond, time suddenly reverted as Ellie had inadvertently triggered an ancient keyphrase, reversing time.

Back at the Flivoni Federation, Tedcrag and the others stood outside the tent, and out of nowhere they decided it would probably be best to turn back as this was clearly a trap and they had no idea what they were getting into. As they started to run, the lizard man started to walk inside the tent to alert the people inside of this. Thinking on his feet, Tedcrag tried to use a command spell to order the lizard man to "*stop!*"

"**No!**” a heavenly voice boomed from the skies at Tedcrag. “You must be touching the person for the spell to work!”

"Really? But then what about all those times I used it at a distance in the first three seasons?” Tedcrag yelled back.

"Never happened!” the voice yelled back. “You were doing it wrong the whole time, so we'll say that you were touching all of them, even the Balrog. Don’t argue with God!” And so, Tedcrag shrugged and tried to leap towards the man to touch him and trigger the spell, but he was too slow. Suddenly, a magical force emanated from the tent, and everyone fell to their feet, being dragged towards the tent by some powerful magnetic force.

Thankfully, Gulliman had prepared himself for this. He had his crossbow loaded with an explosive bolt, and here there was no sun in his eyes to mess up the shot. He fired it straight inside the tent, blowing up the whole thing. The magnetic pull stopped, and the LBG breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to continue running. But out of the tent came a magical shield, and inside it were two mages who were quite pissed. One of them pointed at Gulliman and snapped his fingers.

Gulliman was dead. In an instant. No roll to react. Nothing. Only death. These mages were clearly not to be fucked with.

"Gulliman!!!” Tedcrag and Gralak yelled out dramatically.

"Where’s Prahringerr?” the mages yelled out angrily. “Our headmaster would very much like to meet him.”

But the LBG wasn’t having it. “You killed our friend!” Gralak yelled.

"Prahringerr’s a Hydraconian, right?” one mage asked the other, who nodded. He then snapped his fingers, and Gralak too was suddenly killed.

"How about you?” the mage asked Tedcrag. “Are you Prahringerr?”

"No!” Tedcrag said angrily, tears in his eyes. “You killed my closest friends!”

"Hey, you fucks started this by shooting a crossbow bolt at us. You know what? Fuck this, I’m killing all of you.”

He snapped his fingers three or four more times, killing Tedcrag and the others, even the poor lizard man. The mage turned to his friend. “I’ll just tell the headmaster that Prahringerr didn’t agree to fall into this easy trap. Let’s go home.”

"Works for me,” the other one said. He performed a spell and a portal appeared, presumably to take them back home.

"You ready to go, Littlehighlittlelow?” Littleheylittleho asked.

"Sure thing, Littleheylittleho.” Littlehighlittlelow replied.

And so, the two mages walked back into the portal, but unbeknownst to them, their unfortunate names caused a rift in the space-time continuum, and time reverted. This time, perhaps because of the names of the people saying the words, time went back even further than usual. The LBG were back just setting ashore at the Flivoni Federation, long before reaching the tent. In front of them was the nervous lizard man.

"Are you the emperor?” he asked in his fake-sounding accent.

"No,” Tedcrag said, and all three members of the LBG turned around and high-tailed it back to the ship, setting sail and leaving a very confused lizard standing there.

On the next episode of D&D, the LBG plans to set sail for the UN base and then figure out what to do next about their various impending enemies. With any luck, they wouldn’t waste any more inspiration on blatantly obvious traps... but perhaps I’m being too optimistic. Because if *this* was how they handled a simple trap, then they were right fucked as soon as any actual war began. But we’ll get to that another day...

## Episode LXXI: The Illustrious Joseph Sanchez

It’s finally time. You probably forgot about this, didn’t you? Well, there’s no combat or inspiration this time around so expect a relatively short chapter, but there's still some good shit to be had, don’t worry. I delayed doing this for so long assuming we’d do the next chapter pretty soon after, and I’d be able to bundle them up like usual. I was so, so wrong...

Leaving a very confused and embarrassed lizard man behind, the LBG and their accompanying Hydraconians walked with purpose back to their ship. Rakavist and the others asked why they had suddenly turned tail. It turns out that, shockingly, all three members of the LBG had had a disturbing premonition of the future and deemed the whole thing too dangerous. More importantly, it was the most blatantly obvious trap right from the get-go, so they would have been absolute *buffoons* to actually follow that lizard all the way into the trap. Thank god they weren’t *that* stupid.

With the Flivoni situation “resolved”, the next mission would be to head for that UN base in Hydraco. But before that, some internal politics. You see, this little army had become a bit of a miniature melting pot, containing a healthy mix of Hydraconians, Sentenians, and dwarves. None of these groups had ever really interacted before, so there was an interesting clash of cultures. For example, when Tedcrag’s and Gralak’s respective father figures Rakavist and Vitorio met for the first time, Rakavist bowed whereas Vitorio extended his hand. Now imagine a whole fleet of people having similar interactions.

Anyway, as he was the only one not fully in the loop, it was time for Vitorio to get the extraterrestrial lore infodump from the LBG. He believed it about as much as Rakavist did, but was less confrontational about it thankfully. Speaking of Rakavist, Gulliman at one point asked him about a cure for malaria. Rakavist did not know what that was, and Gulliman didn’t seem to know either. Rakavist deduced Gulliman was talking about the disease caused by mosquitoes.

“Well, you can ask one of my pyromancers, but they’re all dead.” Rakavist replied.

I’d like to take a quick moment to highlight that quote, as I believe it is the current best quote of Season 4. That’s some good fucking food right there. Now, picking up where we left off…

There was one social obligation that remained before they could set out: a party, that would be filled to the brim with Sentenian nobles. And much to Tedcrag’s horror, it was clear that the emperor would be expected to attend. Anyway, the LBG began preparing for the party until it began.

When Tedcrag, dressed in his imperial garb, entered the room, there was a brief moment where everyone dropped what they were doing and stared as he walked in. Tedcrag was still not used to this level of attention, so he shrugged it off and walked over to grab a drink. Gralak also grabbed a drink; he was feeling much more comfortable since the party’s entire vibe was Sentenian in nature. The drink, even, was very nostalgic to him.

Meanwhile, Gulliman and a handful of dwarves walked in, and they could immediately tell that they were severely under-dressed for the occasion. He wasn’t really a fan of the Sentenian alcohol, either.

Not wanting to just stand there and drink all day, Tedcrag motioned to make a speech that he had been preparing for ~~the past thirty seconds of playing D&D~~ the past few hours. He had to awkwardly cut off the band playing music, who were visibly annoyed.

Tedcrag’s speech had been prepared more for an audience of soldiers, but his audience had ended up being mostly snooty nobles instead. Still, it was too late to change things so he rolled with it. He explained, vaguely, that there was a threat beyond Prahringerr, and he needed help on a secret mission to defeat them. Thankfully, Rakavist and Vitorio would recruit some men behind the scenes. Capping off his speech, Tedcrag revealed that he had abandoned his name of birth, instead adopting one he had been deciding on ~~for literal weeks~~ for the past few days: Emperor Raymond of House Harper, his way of honoring the man from centuries ago whose shoes he had once been in.

[In the writeup, and amongst his closest peers such as the LBG and Rakavist, Tedcrag can and will still be referred to as Tedcrag, but this was now his official name and title to anyone else.]

After Tedcrag’s speech, a couple of the dwarves got into an argument with some snobby Sentenian nobles, but Gulliman put a stop in it. Not wanting to start any more shit, the other dwarves left the party. Meanwhile, Gralak talked to a noble who he wanted nothing to do with, “the illustrious Joseph Sanchez.” This man was the king of the snobs, and fit just about every stereotype you could imagine. He transparently cared about little more than being rewarded gold from the emperor, and also had zero cultural knowledge of Hydraco, calling the Hydraconians “fish people” at one point.

Tedcrag meanwhile, was experiencing some social anxiety as he was approached by various nobles, to the point where his real-life counterpart was experiencing a bit of it as well. There were two of note, the first one being real interrogative and asking him some tough questions to which Tedcrag bullshitted some responses. The noble accused Tedcrag of not really planning that far ahead, which Tedcrag admitted, but reminded the man that there was quite a lot that an emperor needed to keep track of and he needed to stay focused on the present.

The second man of note that Tedcrag talked to was none other than the illustrious Joseph Sanchez. Tedcrag could barely stomach this guy, and at multiple points attempted to leave the conversation but was stopped every time. Sanchez wanted to join in on Tedcrag’s mission, and Tedcrag knew he needed to avoid this fate at all costs. He subtly reminded Joseph of the dangers this mission would bring, at which the weasel quickly abandoned the idea. Tedcrag assured him that he and the others would be well paid when all was said and done, and finally managed to escape the conversation.

There was also another man who tried to talk to Tedcrag, one who wore a creepy mask. “I know your mission tonight,” he began to say, but Tedcrag was so socially exhausted that he ignored him and went back to drinking. The rest of the party passed without incident, and the LBG went to bed and woke up the next morning.

The next day, the LBG was ready to depart. For the mission, all the dwarves had volunteered, plus five Sentenian soldiers, and a ship full of Hydraconians. This would be a good crew, hopefully. They bid farewell to Rakavist, Vitorio, and the rest, and went on their way. Gralak, because he is Gralak, started organizing gambling-free poker nights throughout the journey.

Eventually, they reached the shoreline. The LBG plus twenty good men began heading into the jungle by going through a river. At this point, it became clear that Gralak had little idea of how to actually find the base. All he knew was that it was in a lake, and he could point to roughly on the map where it was. But navigating through the jungle was a different story entirely, so the LBG’s current plan was to keep following the river and hope it leads them in the right direction. No way *that* could go wrong.

Deep in the jungle, they noticed some Hydraconians armed with bows peering at them through the brush. They seemed to be natives not associated with a particular city. After some debate, it was decided that Gulliman would fire a warning shot, at which they dispersed. And so, as they continued down the river, the sun set on an uncertain future, with them having no idea what was to come.

And when would the next episode happen? Well, it’s been about two weeks already. Ask the thirsty midterm boi when the next episode is, or the Facebook-movie-loving movie buff when the images are happening. Until next time!

## Episode LXXII: The View from Halfway Down

Aboard the boat, the LBG was awoken by sudden arrow fire on the ship. Each member grabbed armor and weapons, and ran up to deck to see complete chaos. They prepared to counterattack. Taking a peek, they saw that it was only a few natives, and once the counterattack began they quickly scurried away upon seeing the superior firepower. Only one of the men was injured, pierced by an arrow. Gulliman hurried over to him and healed him… but didn’t take the arrow out first. The man, with mixed feelings about this, gave Gulliman a look, to which he replied: “We’ll remove the arrow in due time.”

Everyone then went back to sleep. Before heading back down, Gulliman borrowed Tedcrag’s night vision goggles and scanned for about 15 minutes, but saw nothing and went back to bed. A few days later, they reached the end of the river, coming into a large sea. Gulliman tasted it, and noticed it was fresh water. “It’s not salt,” he said.

At this point, the crew was more or less flying blind as to where this UN base was. This quest through the jungle was becoming a bit of a jape. All they had was Gralak’s general idea of its location on a lake. Gralak had received this crucial information not long ago that the fate of the entire world depended on, but he couldn’t seem to remember anything specific. To be fair, for his real-life counterpart, the amount of time between then and now had been much greater, so he genuinely couldn’t remember. Tedcrag pulled out the map that they did have, and ballpark estimated the locations of where they were and where the base supposedly was, and reasoned that they needed to head east.

Heading due east, they came across a small island. Gralak used his locator spell to try to find something from the base, but was met with nothing in response. They also sent scouts to search the island, but they returned having found nothing. They did notice traces of a boat being here earlier, so they cautiously continued on. They continued east until they reached a second, much larger island.

Using the spell again, Gralak could still find nothing. But this was a much larger island, so he probably needed to be further inside. Tedcrag suggested Gralak and a team of five or so quickly scout and head deeper in the forest, try using the spell again, and then come back. Gralak did not raise any objections whatsoever and completely agreed to this plan, which is something I’d like to point out and have on the record.

All five Sentenians would accompany Gralak on this mission. Their names were Mel, William, Jason, Ben, and Joel. Gralak made one of his speeches about how this mission was one of the most important of their entire lives, and this seemed to rouse the men well enough. Before setting out, Gralak took one last look back at the ship. He could see Tedcrag and Gulliman and the others talking. A dark sensation stirred within him, but he couldn't quite place it, so he set out into the dense jungle. On the boat, Tedcrag and Gulliman felt a similar sensation. They turned towards Gralak, but at that point he was already gone. Shrugging it off, they continued to wait aboard the ship for Gralak’s speedy return.

Gralak led the way, cutting a path through the forest, swishing and swacking the many vines and other natural obstacles in his path. He cut his way through for a long time, until he noticed that some of the vines in his path had already been cut. He realized, to his horror and great embarrassment, that he’d been going in circles. Gralak looked back up towards the sun, and did mathematic equations in his head. With a (hopefully) better idea of the center, he charted a new course, and the Sentenians followed him onward.

Eventually, Gralak came upon a wooden bridge leading across a ravine. On the other side was a ballista. Gralak thought here would be a good point to try; he took out his trinket and said “open UN base.” Immediately, he heard a loud screeching noise inside his head. This shocked him greatly, and he tripped and fell to the ground. He decided to start heading back. After all, it was getting dark, but if they headed back now they might be able to make it before…

Gralak’s train of thought was brought to an abrupt end. From both sides of the jungle, many arrows immediately came soaring through the air at Gralak and the Sentenians. Everyone got hit by at least one or two arrows. “Sir, what do we do?” a panicking Mel asked Gralak, desperate for leadership.

“*...RUN AWAY!*” Gralak yelled and started booking it at full Joseph Joestar speeds. The men sort of looked at each other for a moment in disbelief, then started running as fast as they could after him.

Arrows continued to whiz through the air after them. William was hit in the head twice, and he fell to the ground, dead. Mel, too, was hit in the back, and he fell to the ground as well. Gralak and the three others kept running as fast as they could. Gralak didn’t look back, but the three panicked voices behind him dwindled and eventually there was no one behind him. After a long time, Gralak stopped to catch his breath. All of his companions, who had looked to him for leadership, were dead. Gralak continued to stand there, refusing to accept this reality. He would go down fighting.

Gralak pulled out his ancestral sword, and the rage and determination inside him made it glow purple as it had many times before. He was approached by a team of Hydraconian warriors clad in black armor, demanding he lay down his weapon and surrender.

Gralak clutched the sword in his right hand. It was a good sword, but he was vastly outnumbered. He needed a trump card, and he thought deep into the recesses of his memory for some solution. At last, a thought came to his head, a most clever thought indeed. He rummaged his free hand through his bag, and sure enough, it was in there; he clutched it and pulled it out, gripping it in his left hand. He smiled sadly as the five dragons, swords drawn, began to charge at him.

The Hydraconians were not ready for what came next. Gralak swept his ancestral sword in a sideways arching motion, cleaving two of them in half and cutting through their armor and bodies like butter. The other three saw this and attacked to avenge them, but Gralak parried their blows. Gralak could see Hydraconian archers emerging from the trees to assist, and knew he needed to be quick. With another arching motion, he killed two more of the sword-wielding Hydraconians, but the last one dodged and then overpowered Gralak for a second, knocking his ancestral sword out of his hand.

Gralak was not going out without a fight, however. In his left hand he still had the object he had grabbed earlier. The Hydraconian did not notice this, and raised his sword with both arms above Gralak. But before he could bring it down, Gralak raised the object, pointed it straight at the Hydraconian’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Gralak’s lightning rod shot the Hydraconian in the head, killing him instantly. Gralak silently thanked his father for it, as he had found it in his father’s safe back in Senten. It still had two more shots left, and he wasted no time firing it at two of the archers, killing them as well. But sadly, there were far more than two archers, and having seen seven of their men die, they recognized Gralak as a major threat and fired. Their arrows pelted Gralak repeatedly. Gralak collapsed to his knees as life faded from him. He closed his eyes as he began to die. But instead of a bright light, he saw a little cartoon mouse, and he instinctively knew what he had to do.

In his last moments, as his knees gave out and his upper body fell to the ground, Gralak uttered the famous words: “Little high, little low, little hey, little ho.”

Time reverted, but not far enough. Gralak was back with his five Sentenians just as the first arrows began coming from either side of the jungle. “Sir, what do we do?” Mel asked him again.

“*TAKE COVER! BEHIND THOSE ROCKS!*” Gralak shouted. He didn’t know what they were up against, but he was determined to fight. All six of them ran for the rocks, and all of them made it.

Another Sentenian asked Gralak for advice. Gralak’s mind raced; he had no idea what he was up against. Perhaps Prahringerr’s men had been sent here, or they were stationed guardians of the UN base. Either way, they were the enemy. Gralak told his men to ready their crossbows. “They seem to prefer ranged combat,” he said.

With perfect comedic timing, five Hydraconians decked out in black armor with obsidian swords emerged from the trees. The armor looked oddly familiar to Gralak, as if his real-life counterpart had died to an enemy looking just like that while playing a notoriously hard video game. But this was no time for games, and Gralak yelled “attack!” and they fired their crossbow bolts. Gralak rolled a nat 1 and missed, but the others got a few stray hits in.

In retaliation, one of the Hydraconians yelled “fire!” and Gralak and the others prepared for a crossbow volley. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the “fire” that they meant. They did what Gralak had seen Tedcrag try and fail to do many times before, and prepared to breathe fire at the rocks. Two of them Tedcrag’d it and were impotent fire breathers, but the other three were successful, spewing flame at the rocks. The rocks weren’t enough protection, and three of the men were scorched. Jason, Ben, and Mel were all ablaze, screaming pain and they all quickly burned to death.

Realizing that they were no match for opponents of this level, Gralak swallowed his pride and went back to his original goal. “*RUN AWAY!*” he yelled to the two surviving Sentenians, William and Joel, who raced after him. Gralak fired a bolt while fleeing, but the archers had prepared another volley. William was hit in the heel and slowed down severely. Realizing his fate, William laid his sword down and surrendered. Instead of binding him and capturing him, the Hydraconians in pursuit simply decapitated him while still running and kept up their pursuit of Gralak and Joel.

Joel, tears in his eyes, desperately looked to Gralak while running. “Sir, I don’t want to die out here like this!” he cried. Just as desperately, Gralak called back to him “Keep running son, please!” and the two kept running for a good long while. The Hydraconians started slowing down, out of breath, and for a moment it seemed like they would escape. But their hopes were dashed when out of the brush came more Hydraconians armed with bows, directly in their path. “Halt or we’ll shoot!” one of them yelled.

Gralak and Joel stopped in their tracks. No way out. The archers demanded they throw down their arms. Joel immediately did just that, and Gralak reluctantly did as well. They surrendered, and the Hydraconians swiftly knocked Gralak out...

Back on the ship, it was getting very dark and Tedcrag, Gulliman, and the others were starting to get worried. One of the lieutenants asked Tedcrag what his orders were. Even though he wanted to, there’d be no way to find them in the dark. He said that if the team didn’t return at night, then himself, Gulliman, and a team of ten would set out at first light to search for them. Nervous about their friend’s disappearance, Tedcrag and Gulliman tried their best to sleep. They waited for first light...

*Meanwhile, in a dark room...*

...Gralak woke up in a cold sweat. The room was pitch black from the bag over his head, but he heard the scared sounds of a young boy - Joel, the other human who had accompanied him. The bag was removed from Gralak’s head and he looked down and saw that he was completely naked. The head Hydraconian began torturing the two of them - without even asking any questions. After enough time passed, he asked Gralak,

“So, who sent you and why are you here?”

Gralak had a shitty cover story in mind that he had no faith in - but he tried it anyway.

“Look, we’re explorers, okay?” Gralak cried. “The doge of Senten sent us to this side of the world because he has a fascination with this unknown territory. We’re just explorers I swear!”

“*Liar!*” the man snarled. “The doge of Senten would never send a man this far out!”

The dragon paused. A smirk appeared on his face. “Tell me the truth now or I will kill your underling here.”

Gralak knew Joel was dead no matter what. He could only think of the greater good now. He had to survive to open the UN Base and to pilot the ships to Stellaris. Gralak solemnly cleared his throat.

“I have nothing more to tell you,” Gralak grimaced.

And with that, Joel’s throat was sharply slit by the cold steel.

Gralak felt the pit in his stomach drop. This was all his fault. Joel was just a boy, he didn’t deserve or sign up for any of this. Gralak felt like he was going to be sick.

The man’s face twirled with confusion. “Hmmm…. Your ashen hair color is unique among your race, no?”

Gralak’s heart skipped a beat. He knew who he was. There was no doubt about it now that these were Prahringerr’s men.

“What do I look like, some hair expert to you?” Gralak replied sarcastically.

“You’re Gralak Braun,” He stated as a matter of fact. The way he didn’t pose it as a question all but confirmed Gralak’s suspicions.

“Who?” Gralak simply replied.

And with that, Gralak was immediately waterboarded for hours. He pretended to pass out so they would stop, which actually worked for a bit. Soon after though, they were right back to it.

Gralak actually passed out this time, and upon being woken he was given an ultimatum by the dragon man.

“Son, either way there is no way out of here for you. You are going to die. It’s only a matter of if it’s a quick painless death, or a slow and painful one.” The man took a slight pause, sighed, and continued. “Tell me the truth or you will die the most painful death you could have ever imagined.”

Gralak stuck to his morals.

“You can go to hell!” Gralak said defiantly.

“So be it,” said the dragon man.

With that, he entered a stance that was all too familiar to Gralak. The dragon roared an intense fire from his mouth as started burning Gralak’s skin off, starting at his hand. As he was getting burned alive, a sharp sense of disgust filled his mind when he thought this must be how Ted’s victims feel. Gralak soon blacked out.

However, he was not dead yet. He came to into pitch blackness once more. He felt an immense and new pain in his hands.

-or, rather, where his hands were. The bag was removed from Gralak’s head and he saw that his hands had been chopped off by those cruel Hydraconians. He barely had time to go into shock, as he heard a voice from behind him.

“We changed our mind. You’re free to go!” the head torturer snickered.

Gralak turned and saw all ten men gathered staring at him. In front of Gralak lay a bridge - the rope bridge they had spotted earlier. One that Gralak assumed would lead to the UN base. Beyond the bridge was a cave - Gralak suspected whatever was in there, would not be good. This was largely assumed due to neat piles of skulls dormant around the cave’s entrance.

“Oh yeah, you’ll need this!” the head torturer yelled. He threw out Gralak’s trinket towards him. Gralak instinctively reached to grab it with his hands, only to see, once again, two awkward stumps reach out. However, hands were not necessary to catch the trinket. As it approached Gralak, it must’ve recognized it as his user as it effortlessly floated around Gralak’s neck.

Gralak stepped out onto the rope bridge. It quietly creaked as he put his weight onto the first rung. He looked below him and saw a rushing river. After taking a few more steps, without hesitation Gralak immediately leapt into the river.

Time seemed to slow as he began falling. He heard sudden sounds of commotion above him, he assumed from leaping into the river. He heard the sounds of crossbows being fired, but no bolts seemed aimed at him. He heard an eerie screeching from something new, some magical beast who guarded the cave, he presumed.

Gralak snapped back to reality. He had mere seconds to try and survive this great fall into the unknown depths below. Somewhere in an alternate dimension, a brown haired man with glasses began pacing around his room trying to figure out how the fuck to survive a fall. It was here that this man said out loud to the blonde god, with a completely straight face,

“I magic the pants off!” Jack Cunningham said in desperation.

Gralalk’s pants came off. His plan was to try and use them as a sort of parachute to slow his descent. He managed to clasp it with his stumps, and it seemed to slow them down a little bit. However, not enough. Gralak tried free casting many spells - make him lighter, teleport away, grow wings and fly away, but none seemed to work. Gralak’s last hope was to use his Stoneskin spell to turn Gralak’s skin as hard as rock. He closed his eyes and braced himself for impact.

CRASH! Gralak hit the water and a massive splash of water erupted all around him. He felt every single bone in his body break in agony. He felt as if his body was on fire - he tried to scream in pain but no sound came out. Gralak was immediately swept into the current and was taken away from the scene in an instant. About half a mile away, Gralak managed to exit the river and climb onto shore nearby. He slowly crawled and laid his back to the cliffside. He was barely staying conscious. His mind wandered and he thought of his friends, Tedcrag and Gulliman, safe back at the boat, completely unaware he was on the brink of death.

Gralak, with his last thoughts before he passed out, wrote three letters in the sand.

> FU T
>
>

Gralak meant to write out “F U TED” in a final act of cynicism, but passed out before he could finish the word. He figured if they found it, it would be a funny joke that could give them some levity upon seeing his mangled, disgusting body. And, if they found him dead, it could be one last gut punch to make them feel extra guilty.

Battered, bruised, broken, and soon at death's door, Gralak’s last thoughts before he passed out were hopes that his friends would find him and save him in time. Surely they couldn’t let him down. Right? right? ………...right?

## Episode LXXIII: Gralak of Senten

Tedcrag and Gulliman were awoken by a lieutenant. The search team had already been assembled: 8 dwarves and 2 Hydraconians. As dawn broke, they wasted no time at all and set out immediately... not caring a bit about their friend Gralak, they headed straight for the UN base. Just kidding. Of course they went to look for Gralak and the others first and foremost.

Fortunately, Gralak and his team had left behind a fairly visible trail, since they had been cutting through the vines. The group followed this for some time, until they came across an odd fork in the road. These tracks were confusing, and almost looked as if Gralak’s team had gone in circles. The team shrugged this off, deciding to continue down the straight path, as they knew Gralak would have headed towards the center.

As they traveled deeper and deeper into the forest, Gulliman used his stealth field to help them be more quiet in case they were being followed. He would re-apply this a few times throughout their journey. They eventually reached a few rocks, but something seemed off, as if they had been burnt. Signs of a battle, perhaps? From this, the group assumed that Gralak had encountered opposition. But since there were no bodies that they could see, the logical assumption was that Gralak and the others had been captured. But if they were captured, where were they taken? Well, they reasoned, if the UN base was indeed on this island, that’s probably *why* Gralak was attacked in the first place, and the UN base made sense as the place they would take him to imprison and interrogate him. They resolved to head deeper inside the jungle still, searching for further clues.

They came upon a bridge and ballista. Tedcrag recognized the ballista as a Hydraconian design. They felt that going down the bridge would spell certain doom, as whoever attacked Gralak might be watching them, and therefore they’d be vulnerable to attacks from all sides. Wanting to remain hidden, they thought to go around by following the river, but which way would they go down the river? Before they could make a decision, the dwarf lieutenant piped up and pointed out that the water was flowing from the right side. Perhaps the base could be at the source of the water? It was worth investigating, and the group promptly turned right and headed upstream.

They didn’t realize it then, but that decision back there marked a crucial turning point in history. No one truly knows what could have happened had they turned left and gone downstream, but Tedcrag and Gulliman had no reason to ignore the lieutenant’s sound advice. “Good call,” they told the lieutenant, and so they took that fateful path upstream...

Traveling along the river’s coastline, they hacked through the jungle and eventually came across a waterfall which originated from a pond. They went up and all the way around the pond until they were on the other side of the river. They reached the bridge and ballista once again, but this time they didn’t have a bridge to cross. They saw more arrows… perhaps the fight had continued deeper inside the jungle? Still maintaining their stealthy formation, they headed deeper inside through the jungle.

The next point of interest was when they noticed that the trees around them were broken. Something big had knocked them over, and it was nearby. They soon saw that big something, and Gulliman very carefully moved to approach it. It was a giant flying beast, with gigantic wings and a very oddly-shaped head. Fortunately for them, it was dead, with many arrows loosed in it as well as burn marks. While this sight made them even more confused, it also meant that there was a group strong enough to take this large beast down, which only meant more danger for Gralak and the others. Time was of the essence as they continued further still.

At long last, they reached the edge of a hill, and at the bottom of it they saw a very large structure. It was a series of buildings, made out of obsidian and blacked-out glass, surrounded by trees. Nearby there was another area, with large black cylinders sticking from the ground as well as signs of battle and a dead Hydraconian body. This must be the UN base, and Gralak must be inside, Gulliman and Tedcrag surmised. But this place was probably well guarded, and they circled the perimeter of the facility while staying inside the forest, searching for any entrances as well as any signs of activity. Along the way, Tedcrag fell to the ground and bit his lip on impact. Owie.

They reached a point where they were very close to a door. This was probably their best chance of getting inside without being visible. Before emerging from the forest, Tedcrag advised that two people stay behind and keep watch, and the two Hydraconians (Nasi and Arid) volunteered. Tedcrag told them that if things looked bleak and they were outnumbered, he recommended that the Hydraconians use their best judgment and either jump into the fray and help fight, or go back to the ship and get more reinforcements. They nodded, and Tedcrag, Gulliman, and the dwarves emerged from the forest and made their way towards the door.

Getting close, Gulliman decided now would be a good time to take out his trinket. “Access VI,” he told it. Just as with Gralak before him, he heard a loud screeching sound that deeply startled him, but he remained on his feet. As if on cue, six automatons came down from above, towering above the dwarves being 8 feet tall. They were standing there ready to fight.

Just at that exact moment, a cold chill could be felt through the air. Tedcrag and Gulliman felt that same dark sensation again from back when Gralak had departed, only this time a hundred times more intense. It was impossible to articulate exactly what they felt, but from the pit of their stomachs, they know that something was wrong, very deeply wrong, and something terrible had just happened.

*Minutes ago, by a riverbed...*

Gralak weakly opened his eyes. He knew this was the end. His chapter in this story was over, but it was far from completion. Gralak felt like he let his friends down. He would never get to help them defeat the extraterrestrial threat to the universe, the fight they had been in for years of their lives.

A tear came to him and he looked upwards. He looked up and saw the bright, beautiful, blue sky above him. The clouds were small and scattered throughout and the sun was softly shining down on him. The sound of smooth, rushing water relaxed Gralak and helped put him at ease.

*All things considered, this isn’t a bad place to die*, Gralak thought to himself.

Gralak’s mind then wandered off to a million places. He remembered all the good times he had had as a child, frolicking in the dandelion fields of Senten. He thought of his caring mother and father. He thought of his young friends, Seive, Strickland, and Kirkreed and how they would all play together. He thought of his friend and mentor, Vittorio Stoclan - the finest sword in all of Senten. He thought of Nesi. He thought of her beautiful face. He thought of her pretty short ashen hair. He thought of their reunion after 19 long years apart. He thought of how he felt like a missing piece of his heart had finally come back to him. He thought of the time he first found out he was going to be a father. He thought of how he would never get to meet his son, Blarnvak, and how he would never get to tell Nesi how bad of a name choice it was. He thought of them, hopefully together living peacefully somewhere, alone with each other.

His mind turned to Nesi herself again. He thought of the night they first made love under the starry night sky on the banks of a lake. He thought of her smile, the way her eyes would light up when they were together. He softly smiled as he thought of his life, his lover, his lady, his Nesi.

His mind turned to Gulliman and Tedcrag. It was almost destiny they would meet, as they would change each other’s lives for the better forever. He thought of their adventures together - the good and the bad. The way they humored his multiple mandatory no-gambling poker nights. The way they always had each other’s backs in a fight. The way they would always manage to make each other laugh, even during the most inappropriate times like during battle or serious investigations. He thought of how they unequivocally believed him when he told them his leg broke because of a magical guard dog and how they didn’t question that it was simply a high fall.

To Gralak, they were the best friends a man could have ever asked for. In a million, billion lifetimes, Gralak wouldn’t have traded his time with them for the world.

He looked up into the sky once more. He saw a faint, angelic figure appearing in the clouds as the sky turned a warm yellow hue. He saw the God of the North, beckoning towards him and welcoming his son home at last. Gralak softly smiled. His mind turned to somewhere once more as he softly whispered “Nesi” for the last time.

Gralak Braun of Senten drew his final breath. His pain, his suffering, his trial in this universe had ended. Alone on the banks of a river in an enemy territory, Gralak passed into the next life as he was welcomed with open arms into the unknown...

...

Back at the base, Gulliman and Tedcrag turned towards each other. They had just felt… *something* somehow. While they didn’t exactly know why yet, they both felt each other’s pain as their friend, comrade, and brother-in-arms Gralak perished from this planet. Their eyes met each other, pain filling their heart, as they felt their worlds come crashing down all around them.

But just as fast as the sensation had appeared, it was gone, and Tedcrag and Gulliman solemnly turned their attention back to the front. With no choice but to focus on the fight in front of them, Tedcrag, Gulliman, and the dwarves prepared to do battle with six hulking, deadly automatons.

## Episode LXXIV: The Message

“Surrender now or we will engage,” one of the automatons ordered. A lightbulb appeared above Gulliman’s head. He pulled out his old and mostly faded ID card he had acquired from the carrier in Basdun, and stated that his name was “R.W. Johnson”. He tossed his card over to the automatons who scanned it. The card went through, but they still needed facial recognition to enter, and this time, they didn’t have any unconscious generals in the bathroom to use.

The robots were about to begin hostilities, when Gulliman pulled out another card. “Sorry, I gave you the wrong card. This one will match.”

The automaton, visibly annoyed despite being a robot, snatched the card and read it aloud. “Hm… R.R. Minkoff. Beginning scan. Wait, what’s this line at the bottom say?” The automaton recited the words: “Little high, little low, little hey, little ho?”

“You betcha,” Gulliman said as time reverted.

“Surrender now or we will engage,” one of the automatons ordered. Gulliman signaled the dwarves to begin getting into position to fire at the robots, but the automaton was not having it. Realizing the jig was up, Gulliman pulled out his crossbow from his bag, loaded an explosive bolt, and fired straight at one of the robots, damaging it pretty well.

Alarms around the facility started blaring as the other automatons charged. Tedcrag turned his attention to one of the robots on the right. Grabbing his trinket, he remembered when Gulliman had brainwashed the second lich to follow his orders. He attempted the same, combining it with his command spell, ordering the robot to “shutdown”. Inside Tedcrag’s head, math equations started hitting him in the face. He could see the code in front of him, and in that moment, he was the one and only Hacker Man. Miraculously, it worked! The robot curled up, and shut itself down, going into the Episode I deactivated Battle Droid stance. One less to worry about!

Feeling confident, Tedcrag jumped ahead forward towards two other robots, and he huffed, and he puffed, and… to absolutely no one’s surprise, the fire was impotent. A sharp sense of disgust filled his mind as he realized there would be no victims to feel the pain of his fire. The two robots took advantage of this opportunity, surrounding him on either side and slashing away at him. Impressively, Tedcrag parried both their blows for the most part, but was eventually nicked in the arm.

The other three robots were fighting Gulliman and the dwarves. The dwarves fired a volley of arrows, and seemed to damage all three of them a little bit. Gulliman threw a grenade, but he misjudged the weight of it and threw it a bit far. However, this ended up working to his advantage. Past the robots were some crates, and the grenade blew those crates up. Wood and shrapnel exploded from the crates, hitting all three of the robots and damaging them further. The robot Gulliman had shot earlier was now barely hanging in there, but the other two were still going strong.

Tedcrag meanwhile was still fending off the two robots. He sword slashed one, cutting its arm off and heavily wounding them. But Tedcrag couldn’t secure his kill, whiffing his next shot. The other robot took advantage of this and slashed Tedcrag, injuring him quite a bit.

Gulliman finally put his crossbow away, pulling it inside of his sling… until he remembered that he didn’t have a sling, so he just dropped it on the ground. Pulling out his axe, he went into a baseball stance and swung at the injured one’s head. The head came off and flew right into another robot. With another swing of his axe, he killed the next robot by slicing it through the shoulder. As his axe lay embedded in the robot's shoulder, Gulliman looked into its cold metal eyes, and said “hu hu hu hey hu”, finishing it off. The last robot in this group was then killed, completely overwhelmed by several dwarf axes.

Two robots remained, both on Tedcrag’s side. Tedcrag finished off the injured robot on his side by stabbing it in the neck and sawing its head off. Then, half of the dwarves ran over to assist him against the last robot. Before they could finish it off, however, they all felt an ominous rumbling.

Had something triggered the rumbling? In fear, they turned towards the source of the rumbling, and atop the facility’s roof, they saw a sight that was all too familiar to Tedcrag and Gulliman. It was a Class B Defense Drone, or as the cool kids call it, a lich. It floated down from the roof and moved both of its arms forward, charging some sort of attack. Before anyone could react, it fired a powerful beam of red light from its hands at Tedcrag and the dwarves, who were conveniently grouped up in a straight line.

Tedcrag dodged, but not fast enough. Though it only grazed him, the blast was so devastating that it knocked him unconscious. From the void, he could hear Michael J. Fox’s alluring voice calling out to him, and Tedcrag promptly Stuart Little’d time back about ten seconds. The lich fired the beam attack once more, but this time something was just *slightly* off.

Even though Tedcrag had actually been worse at dodging the second time, the beam this time was slightly less powerful, so it still heavily injured Tedcrag, but allowed him to remain conscious, if barely. The beam blast had also hit the dwarves, and they were all knocked out, scorched and on the ground, either dead or close to it. On the plus side, the last remaining automaton had also been in the beam’s path, and it was killed by the blast, leaving only the lich to deal with.

Gulliman, hoping to dominate the lich like he had the last one, attempted to override its mind. There was a battle of wills, and the lich would not go out like its Port Merton brethren; it resisted, and Gulliman was forced out. The dwarves ran into the jungle for cover. Tedcrag was too far away to get to the jungle, so instead he grabbed one of the burnt dwarves, and took cover behind the loading dock in front of the facility’s large door. He healed the dwarf (named Otgrock) a bit, to the point where he was conscious again.

Gulliman, too, tried picking up a dwarf. But he felt a cold chill down his spine as he bent to pick one up, realizing that he was the only one not in cover and that the lich was right behind him. There was another battle of wills, as the lich was now trying to dominate Gulliman. How the tables have turned. Luckily, Gulliman was able to resist, backing up and throwing another grenade at the lich. The lich wasn’t damaged, though. Just like the first lich from Season 1, this one had an invisible energy shield protecting it.

Seeing the shield, a lightbulb appeared above Tedcrag’s head. Next to him and Otgrock was another group of crates. He had a plan, and he explained it to Otgrock. The plan was for Otgrock to signal Gulliman to fire at the crates once the lich was near them. Hopefully, the resulting explosion would greatly damage the shield. To lure the lich over, Tedcrag ran out into the open to get its attention. To do this, he would need to yell *very* loud. He took the deepest breath of his life, and…

...nothing came out. In front of him was a gargantuan terror, and pure instinctual fear overtook him, and instead of a booming war cry, nothing came out. The lich looked amused, if that was even possible, and instantly disintegrated him with a death beam, erasing him from this world...

Tedcrag awoke in a dark void. He could faintly feel Kulichi calling his name from above as light shone down on him. He stretched his hand towards the sky, but was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.

Behind him was a hooded man. “Gentleman, you look like you’re in desperate need of help,” a familiar voice said. Removing the hood, which seemed to only exist for dramatic purposes, the figure was none other than Gralak of Senten, who was looking alive and well, in fact the best he’d ever been.

“So, you too, huh?” Gralak said to Tedcrag, with a faint smile. “Man, today is really not a good day for the LBG. This goes right up there with the twin cities and the elven capital, huh?”

Tedcrag was in too much of a daze to accurately process any of this or respond. He just stared at Gralak with a dumbfounded look.

Gralak put his hand on Tedcrag’s shoulder, very forcefully. “Ted, I am actually very fucking pissed at you right now. But, considering what just happened to you, I’ll let it slide just this once.” He sighed and let go of his pincer grip. “Ted, I’m about to go somewhere with the God of the North,” he pointed back behind him, and the God of the North was chilling off to the side, minding his own business.

“Go where?”

“Hell if I know,” Gralak shrugged. “But apparently it’s full of poker nights, Quen-dog plays, ashen-haired women, and whole crowds just waiting for me to give them a rousing speech. But listen, Ted, I have a sinking suspicion that the gods have become angry at us for abusing our time travel powers so often. I used up what little I had left back on my solo mission to Senten, so I had nothing left in the tank for what happened to me today… and I did *not* have a good time, I can tell you that much.”

Gralak went on. “But while my road ends here, you still have a role to play. The God of the North told me you still have a decent amount of time travel energy still saved up… he said something about a ‘Dantooine’, but I have no idea what that is. The point is, you still have time. You can actually make a good war cry this time; I know you can do better than that, Ted. Now go back and beat those extraterrestrials back where they came from. Don't make mistakes; you won't get many do-overs, so you and Gulliman must be careful. Look out for each other. This will be the fight of your lives.”

“And we’re gonna win,” Tedcrag finally spoke, determination in his eyes.

Gralak nodded in approval. “Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

Gralak turned his back to Tedcrag and walked away, waving back at him as he left. As he did this, Gralak and the God of the North quickly began to vanish. Tedcrag could hear the God of the North chanting some cryptic ancient verse, which ended with “little ho.” Tedcrag desperately extended his hand towards Gralak. He wanted to talk with him more, but before he could speak, Gralak was already gone, and the void started to disappear all around Tedcrag...

Tedcrag was back in front of the lich, with no memory of what had just occurred. Tedcrag took the deepest breath of his life, and this time he nailed it. A war cry to end all war cries could be heard, and the lich’s attention immediately snapped towards him. Realizing the kind of shit he was now in for, Tedcrag ran for cover behind the edge of the building. While he had been doing this, Otgrock had signaled Gulliman the plan, and the two now ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

As ill luck would have it, the lich seemed to have seen through their desperate ploy. The lich used Force Levitate on the crates, lifting them up and placing them on the roof. Their plan foiled, Tedcrag and Otgrock were right fucked; the lich quickly caught up to Tedcrag, who all of a sudden noticed he wasn’t breathing, and collapsed to the ground, gasping for a breath that would not come. The lich was clearly playing tricks with his mind. Gulliman knew it was now or never. Even if the crates were on the roof, the shrapnel may still fall on top of the lich and hurt him. Gulliman fired at the crates atop the roof, and his aim was true. The explosive bolt detonated on contact, and the crates exploded. But this was no ordinary explosion…

Gulliman and the dwarves were pushed back by a powerful wind and a bright flash of light. Picking himself back up, Gulliman saw a horrific sight. Those crates had apparently been containing something a lot more powerful than the ones from before. The resulting explosion had the power of a nuke much like that which devastated the elven capital, but this one was much smaller in scale.

But sadly, not small enough. Tedcrag and Otgrock had been completely and utterly vaporized. And though the explosion had severely damaged the lich, it was still standing. Gulliman didn’t want to lose anyone else today. He concentrated deeply, and he little hey little ho’d time back a minute.

Gulliman was about to fire at the crates, when he second-guessed himself. He figured he should give Tedcrag and Otgrock more time to run away, just in case. In the meantime, Gulliman shot at the lich, but it again only damaged the shield.

Luckily for Tedcrag, this bought him enough time to resist the lich’s mind powers, and he quickly picked himself up. He began to ran, and he nat 20’d the sucker. With the speed of an Olympian, he bounded away, leaving the lich-- and Otgrock-- in the dust. With his short legs, Otgrock was lagging behind, and the lich viciously impaled him through the heart with a black rod.

Gulliman knew the time was now. He fired at the crates, and his aim was true. But he was in for a shocking surprise. The crates were loaded with something extremely powerful, and what was effectively a mini-nuke exploded from the roof. The lich, Otgrock’s corpse, and a few of the unconscious dwarves were caught in the blast radius; they were all incinerated, but Tedcrag had escaped the blast radius.

The explosion created a small mushroom cloud. But Gulliman saw, to his horror, the lich's silhouette appear as the cloud dissipated. The lich's jaw was unhinged, its legs had basically melted off, there was black fluid spraying everywhere, and only the skeletal husk remained. And yet, it was still standing and functional. And angry. It started floating straight towards Gulliman… but it couldn’t seem to find him, or anything for that matter. Its visual sensors must have been heavily damaged. Gulliman and the dwarves retreated deeper into the forest, then fired a volley of arrows at the lich. One arrow hit the lich straight in the eye, which revealed that the lich’s shield was now completely gone, leaving it more vulnerable than ever!

The lich wasn’t giving up, however. It managed to locate Gulliman, and tried to dominate him once again. It was another fierce battle of wills, and Gulliman remained conscious… but at a cost. Looking down, Gulliman saw his trinket explode before his very eyes. Well, if he couldn’t use magic, there was only one recourse left. Gulliman loaded his crossbow once again and fired it at the lich, hitting it square in the chest.

That shot had seemed to seal the deal. The lich collapsed forward to the ground, but the light in its head was still active. With its arms, it crawled towards Gulliman with killing intent, inch by inch, but not far enough. The remaining lights fizzled out, and the lich’s head softly slumped and landed on the grass. The lich had stopped moving. It was finally dead.

The dwarves, after taking a few moments to collect themselves, pumped their fists up in the air victoriously. “Chester the God-Killer!” they all chanted together. But Gulliman wouldn’t take the credit all for himself. “Silimuoid the God-Killer! Bundrawm the God-Killer! Robute the God-Killer!” he said, crediting them all for this victory as well.

There was one dwarf, Takmir, who had been burned but had run away before the nuke occurred, and he returned now after seeing that the lich was dead. The burns were still severe though, and Gulliman tried to heal him before remembering that his trinket was gone. At this point, Tedcrag had made his way back to the group as well, so he healed the dwarf as best he could.

Gulliman pulled out a glowing green orb from the lich’s remains (after dropping a leaf and a worm on top of it, as you do, to make sure it wasn’t dangerous) and pocketed it. They looked around, but saw that the dragons Arid and Nasi had run away a while ago, understandably so. But they had more pressing matters to attend to: finding Gralak, and getting inside the UN base. With any luck, Gralak was still somewhere inside the UN base. They headed towards one of the doors. Gulliman tried using the keycard, but sure enough, needed facial recognition. They tried this on multiple doors of the facility, but none worked. Suddenly, they remembered the dead Hydraconian from earlier. Perhaps he had a keycard and they could also use his face. They headed over and searched him. No keycard, but he had an obsidian sword and shield that they looted, and lots of scratches and burn marks on the body.

Gulliman reasoned that perhaps Gralak had been in a battle here or at least somewhere near. Between this dead Hydraconian and that dinosaur creature they had seen earlier, something strange was definitely afoot. It didn’t seem likely that the Hydraconians were inside the base, otherwise they would have come out during the commotion with the lich. This meant Gralak and the others must be somewhere else. Near the body was a trail, and they headed back down it to search for further signs of Gralak and his team.

Along the path, Tedcrag found a lone arrow. Curious, he went to investigate it, and found an attached note. This note was a warning from a Hydraconian, telling him to lay down his arms and parley or they would be attacked. Tedcrag told the others of the note’s contents. Given everyone’s exhausted and battle-weary state, they were in no position to fight, so Tedcrag and Gulliman agreed they would all lay down their arms. Ideally, they would go with a (partly true) cover story that Tedcrag and Gulliman had concocted earlier: that they were here on a secret mission from Admiral Rakavist, the other dwarves being hired mercenaries known as the Sons of Basdun.

After laying down their arms, a single battered and bruised Hydraconian emerged from the forest. He demanded Tedcrag step forward, state who he was, and why he was here. Tedcrag explained he was here on Rakavist’s orders, showing him Rakavist’s seal as well as the noble papers Prahringerr had given him. He seemed to buy the story, and it turns out that the Hydraconians were also here on a secret mission from Prahringerr, and needed to get inside the base as well. Tedcrag learned some news from home as well: Prahringerr wanted Tedcrag to return at once (it seems, as least as recently as these men last saw him, Prahringerr did not know of Tedcrag's betrayal), and also the more shocking news that Hydraco’s capital had been attacked by the extraterrestrials! Most of the inhabitants had been killed!

This news shocked Tedcrag to the core, but he had no time to dwell on it. Tedcrag and the other dragon recognized that their two teams had interests that aligned, and perhaps they could help each other get inside the base. But first and foremost, they needed to find Gralak. Tedcrag asked if the Hydraconian if he had seen any humans matching his description. He answered that he hadn’t, but since Tedcrag was still weary from everything that had happened today, he couldn’t really tell if he was telling the truth or lying. Still, they were given permission to keep searching, and Tedcrag and the others picked their weapons back up and continued down the path.

They reached the river once again. Since they hadn’t encountered Gralak on any of the paths, or by following the river upstream, the only recourse left for them was to go downstream. They followed the river downstream, staying at the top of the ravine and scanning the area. It was getting too dark to see, and the dwarves were on the brink of collapse, so they set up a makeshift camp and waited the night out. At dawn, they resumed their search, and it wasn’t long until they saw something down by the riverbed. It was a human, laying on the ground. Gulliman pulled out his spyglass to get a closer look.

The human was naked. The lower half of their body was deformed, there were many visible broken bones, their arms were heavily bandaged, and they were face-first on the ground. They couldn’t quite make out any distinctive features to tell who this was, except for…

...the ashen hair.

A heavy pang of dread surged through both Gulliman and Tedcrag. That man there was none other than Gralak Braun. But he wasn’t moving. Their minds went into panic mode. Maybe he was just unconscious, and he needed medical help urgently. As fast as their bodies could allow, the two started making their way around to him. But they couldn’t just jump down into the ravine and parachute down with their clothes, so they were forced to run all the way around until they could make their way down across the river and finally to Gralak. In their panic, the two had gained a significant lead on the dwarves, who were far, far behind them.

They ran up to Gralak, and their worst fears were confirmed. Gralak wasn’t moving. He had no pulse. Panicking, Tedcrag flipped him over to his front, and saw to his horror that Gralak’s eyes were wide open, completely devoid of life. Several seconds passed. Then, Tedcrag's and Gulliman's eyes lit up with a desperate fire.

*No.* They refused. Gralak couldn’t die like this, he just *couldn’t*. Gulliman asked to borrow Tedcrag’s trinket, and he hastily fumbled it and gave it to him. Gulliman tried to cast Cure Wounds, but nothing happened. The trinket didn’t light up.

This couldn’t be happening. This could *not* be happening. Tedcrag snatched his trinket back, and pointed it towards Gralak’s face for a command spell. “I command you… *revive!*”

Nothing happened. The trinket didn't even pretend to light up.

Tedcrag’s legs gave out. He collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees. His eyes welled up and tears started to roll down his face. He felt responsible for this. He shouldn’t have let Gralak go alone. He should have gone with him. He could have stopped this. He could have done… something. *Anything*. But now, Gralak would never reunite with Nesi. He’d never meet his son. He’d never play poker again, never paint another ship, and never make another inappropriate joke… and worse, it was Tedcrag’s fault. Back in the day, Gralak had saved him from Olgierd. He had saved him from the elves. But Tedcrag couldn’t save Gralak when he needed him most. He clenched his fist and pounded the ground. Words escaped him as tears continued to stream down his face, and he was flooded with ceaseless feelings of sorrow and guilt.

Gulliman felt a little differently. He was extremely sad, of course, but even more than that, he was… *angry*. Gralak deserved better than this. He deserved so much more. Gulliman wanted to find whoever had done this and make them *hurt*. He pulled out his axe, frantically looking around. He needed to channel this aggression into something and fast, and he settled on a nearby tree. Yelling out in rage, Gulliman hacked and slashed away at the tree, harder and harder, until his hands went numb and his axe split apart.

“Maybe…” Gulliman searched his soul for an answer. “...maybe there's technology inside the UN base that can heal him. Maybe there’s still a way to bring him back. Maybe... maybe we can still...”

“Robute. Stop.” Tedcrag spoke for the first time in minutes, standing up. “Gralak... is gone."

“I…” Gulliman choked on his words. “You’re right, Ted.” He clutched his chest, an empty feeling there reminding him that his trinket had been destroyed not long ago. At that moment, the light from the sun shone down in such a way that a shiny object on Gralak’s chest was illuminated. In fact, it was the only article of clothing he had on.

Gulliman walked over and grabbed Gralak’s trinket, snatching it off of his cold corpse. A part of him felt dirty for doing this, but he was sure that Gralak would have wanted him to have it, considering the circumstances. Tedcrag bent over and picked up Gralak’s body. “We need to bury him,” he said, voice cracking, with dried tears and a solemn look on his face.

Just as Tedcrag picked up Gralak’s body, Gulliman noticed something on the ground next to where his body had been. It was a message, written in the sand. “There’s something written here,” he said. “Ted! Gralak left us a message!”

“A message?” Tedcrag’s mind raced at light speed as he slowly looked down. What could Gralak have written? Perhaps a warning of the dangers they were sure to face, or maybe a final farewell to his companions, or it could be his last will and testament, or...

> FU T
>
>

“Fut?” Tedcrag wondered aloud. “What does it mean? Is it some sort of code? What were you trying to tell us, Gralak?”

Gulliman, on the other hand, had figured it out instantly. He let Tedcrag flounder for a few moments before saying it straight-out. “It means fuck you, Ted.”

There were several seconds of silence. No, it wasn’t possible, Tedcrag thought. Gralak wouldn’t waste his final breaths on such a spiteful message. The three of them had been together through thick and thin for many years now, helping each other in both good times and bad, saving the world together and pledging to defeat Prahringerr and the extraterrestrials. They were the Lich Burning Group. With all that in mind, Gralak wouldn’t. He *wouldn’t*.

But he did, and Tedcrag had to come to terms with that. He breathed deeply. He felt hurt, betrayed, and the smallest, tiniest part of him wanted to chuck Gralak’s body in the river right then and there. But he calmed himself down. Gralak’s death was his fault, and so this was Tedcrag’s cross to bear. For the rest of his life, Tedcrag would forever be haunted by those three letters written in the sand, an eternal reminder that he had let his best friend down.

“Come on,” Tedcrag said numbly. “Let’s bury him.”

The dwarves had been keeping their distance this whole time, recognizing that Tedcrag and Gulliman had clearly lost someone very close to them. The LBG now felt like an empty void, always feeling one-third incomplete from here on out. The two surviving members walked forward, looking for a good place to bury their closest friend, as the humid jungle air beat down on them hard and the cold riverside wind chilled them to the bone.

## Episode LXXV: Just a Man

Without missing a beat, Gulliman picked up Gralak, “accidentally” touched his dick, and dropped him out of shock. Tedcrag tried to catch Gralak’s body before it hit the ground, but rolled a nat 1 and fell on top of him, breaking a few more of Gralak’s already broken bones in the process. No, really, this all actually happened. It was fascinating, I could actually *hear* Gene dying inside as it happened. I really have no idea what John was thinking given the seriousness of the situation; ask him, not me. And then tell him to write his character bio while you’re at it. Let this sink in: Gralak *died* before Gulliman’s bio was written. Anyway, with all that nonsense aside, time to start Chapter 75 proper.

Sorrow in their hearts, Gulliman and Tedcrag carried Gralak’s limp corpse back up the cliff. There was a nice spot atop the ravine, overlooking the river in a nice, melancholy view. Gulliman and Tedcrag began digging with their hands, and the dwarves eventually assisted, digging with what tools they had. It took some time, but a grave was eventually dug. Tedcrag picked up Gralak, closed Gralak’s eyes, and laid him to rest. It took time, but they finished burying him.

A brief period of time passed, with everyone standing around the grave sullenly. The silence was broken when Tedcrag began to speak. He lamented how Gralak deserved better. He was the man who’d been there for Tedcrag time and time again, rescuing him from captivity more times than he could count. Gralak was a good man-- he could be pretty strange every now and then, often doing things that were mildly to severely psychotic, but at the end of the day, Gralak was an honorable and dependable man that Tedcrag could always rely on. Tedcrag vowed that he would finish Gralak’s mission in his stead, to make this a safe world for everyone Gralak held dear, particularly Nesi and Blarnvak.

“Would anyone else like to speak?” Tedcrag said sadly after some silence.

Gulliman began a eulogy of his own. He reflected that throughout their journey, the LBG had survived many a daring feat and countless dangers, and they would have all died long ago if not for Gralak’s heroics over the years. Gulliman clutched Gralak’s trinket in his hands, the wolf medallion humming and wind howling around them. Gulliman solemnly made a pledge to Gralak: that someday, once the extraterrestrials were defeated, he’d go find Nesi and return this trinket, Gralak’s last possession, to her. He also pledged to find a way to give her a comfortable life if she didn’t already have one.

“It was a tough and dangerous adventure, Gralak, but I couldn’t be more proud to have shared that adventure with you,” Gulliman finished.

The dwarf lieutenant then spoke up for a quick final eulogy. He admitted that while he hadn’t known this human long, he felt that he was remarkably courageous and headstrong. He finished by saying that this "Jack Cunningham" seemed like an honorable man, but now he has returned to the earth.

As the eulogies concluded, everyone sat there wondering if Senten had any customs or practices that they should be doing. Though they couldn’t think of any customs, Gulliman delved real deep into his memory and pictured the religious symbol of Senten. Grabbing a few sticks, he made that shape and placed it atop the grave. They all stood there mourning for a few more minutes.

“So long, Gralak,” Tedcrag said, taking one last look at the grave before walking away. Gulliman did the same, and then and there, the LBG was forever separated, never to fully reunite.

But even with one of its lead actors dead, the show must go on. Tedcrag and Gulliman together discussed what their next plan of action should be. The injured dwarf, along with another dwarf carrying him, headed back to the ship, and the rest decided to take their chances with the Hydraconians and work with them to get into the base.

They headed back along the path, and sure enough, they were met once again by the Hydraconian from before. He asked Tedcrag if he’d decided to work with them, and Tedcrag agreed. He said that he’d found Gralak’s body and buried him. The Hydraconian seemed shocked, and though Tedcrag once again scanned the Hydraconian for his reaction, he still could not tell if he was genuine.

Once it had been established that they were working together, four more Hydraconians emerged from the brush, all armored. The one they were speaking to also spent a few minutes armoring up, and then the two groups headed together towards the base. Upon arriving there, they saw things were as they had left them. Wasting no time, Gulliman contacted his trinket telepathically, telling it to disable defenses.

“[DEFENSES DISABLED]”, the trinket replied inside his mind. Gulliman then tried accessing the intercom. When he realized anything he thought would be played on the loudspeakers, his mischievous side took over. The intercom blared out many seemingly nonsensical things to the Hydraconians and dwarves, and even Tedcrag had no idea what was causing this. Gulliman had to walk over and whisper to him what was going on.

Among the nonsense heard on the intercom was the US national anthem at max volume, the word “bogahleh”, the intercom creepily telling them to come inside and saying that “this isn’t a trap”, the “hu hu hu hey hu” laugh, and more. But amidst all these shenanigans, Gulliman had actually managed to open the doors, allowing them entry.

Visibly nervous, our heroes plus one Hydraconian all waited outside while the other four Hydraconians scoped the place out. Tedcrag and Gulliman thought literally nothing of this, waiting around twiddling their thumbs for the coast to be clear… even though Gulliman himself knew for a fact he had already disabled the defenses. That’s a big yikes in hindsight.

After fifteen minutes, the men came back out, saying the coast was clear. Everyone stepped inside. The base’s interior was pristine, made of a reflective black material. There were strips of light all around, which served to create natural-looking sunlight throughout the base. Gulliman asked the trinket where the armory was, and he, Tedcrag, and the dwarves began walking in that direction.

“Don’t move!” the chief Hydraconian barked, stopping all of them in their tracks. Turning around, they saw all five Hydraconians standing in a line, each armed with lightning rods. And though our heroes didn’t recognize it, the lightning rod in the leader’s hands was none other than Gralak’s, the one he had picked up back in Senten and never used until his dying breath.

“Why’d you do it, Tedcrag?” the chief Hydraconian asked. “Why did you betray your country?”

Tedcrag looked around the room. There was nothing resembling decent cover, and even if they tried to run into another room, the dragons would have a window of several seconds to shoot them. They were stuck there. Tedcrag dropped his sword and trinket on the ground. The dwarves did the same, though very reluctantly. Gulliman meanwhile was clutching his trinket, seemingly deep in concentration. Tedcrag knew he had no choice but to try and settle this with words.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Tedcrag said firmly, staring the chief Hydraconian down. “But if you go through with this, you'll be letting powerful extraterrestrials beyond comprehension come to kill us all!”

“Don’t you think we know about them?!” the Hydraconian yelled back. “Why else do you think we’d be here? Prahringerr will want to speak with you.”

Tedcrag stood his ground. “If you know all that, then you must realize that this is all a massive waste of time. They are coming, very soon, and if you go through with this, not just Hydraco, but the entire world, is doomed.”

While this conversation had been happening, Gulliman meanwhile had been frantically communicating with his trinket trying to figure some way out of this situation. He tried re-enabling the defenses, but oddly the trinket said the defenses wouldn’t work anymore. He tried faking an intercom message warning them to leave, but -- surprise, surprise -- the dragon had overheard Gulliman whispering to Tedcrag earlier and knew it was a trick. Finally, he tried to use a magical wall spell to force the Hydraconians out of the base and lock them outside, but he had no spell slots remaining, and promptly blacked out while trying to cast it without spell slots.

While unconscious, Gulliman used the super-secret Stuart Little time travel technique... except he actually didn’t. The gods later realized that the trinket wasn’t supposed to work inside the base, so he would never have been able to attempt the spell in the first place. Gulliman was reimbursed one Stuart Little ticket, and the plot resumed as normal.

The dragon had heard enough. Gulliman, realizing his trinket wasn’t going to save him, also surrendered, and all of our heroes were knocked out...

Gulliman woke up in a dark room, tied up and gagged. Sensing his surroundings, he saw that the other dwarves were all in this room with him, along with two Hydraconian guards. Not long later, two more prisoners were brought into the room. To his shock, Gulliman saw that these two prisoners were dragons, and Gulliman felt a sinking feeling of dread when he realized who they were: Nasi and Arid, the two Hydraconians loyal to Ted who had run back to the ship to get help.

“They were pretty headstrong and loyal,” one of the guards boasted as they tied up the prisoners. “It really took some doing, but we broke them eventually. We captured them a while back in the forest and after some torturing, they told us everything we needed to know.”

That’s right: back at the UN base, Tedcrag had sent these men back to the ship to get help, just in case things went south. And to pay Tedcrag back for having the gall to come up with a fallback plan, the universe decided to reward him by A) having Nasi and Arid be captured, causing them to B) be tortured and tell the Hydraconians everything about the rebellion, leading to C) Tedcrag and the others being betrayed and imprisoned, and finally D) causing them to lose 50 days and counting on their already short window to stop the extraterrestrials. And all this happened on the same in-game day that they lost Gralak. That’s a high season 4 difficulty spike right there if there ever was one. I say this all mostly in jest, of course. Sometimes life really do be like that, and honestly too much of it is our own damn fault. Hell, most of seasons 3 and 4 is basically a massive butterfly effect originating from Gralak not confronting Blarnvak properly. In the end, though, we reap what we sow...

Anyway, back to the plot. Tedcrag was being detained in a separate area from the others. Comparatively, he was being treated better than Gulliman and the dwarves, but not by much. He was tied up to a chair somewhere in the jungle.

One of the dragons interrogating him slapped him. “Tell us, traitor! Why did you betray your country?”

“I did what I had to do,” Tedcrag spat. “But I never betrayed my country.”

The two went back-and-forth like this for a while, but it was clear that their debate wasn’t going anywhere. Tedcrag was imprisoned, and for the first time in the LBG's long journey, there was no Gralak to come save him this time. While they stopped interrogating him, Tedcrag was kept there for many days. Days became weeks, and weeks became months. He was forced to sit in that chair the entire time, being fed there and shitting into a bucket. After about 50 days had passed, Tedcrag could hear loud horns in the distance. He heard footsteps which became louder and louder over time. It sounded like an army had arrived.

A few minutes later, into the tent walked someone familiar.

Prahringerr’s face upon seeing his lifelong friend in there was one of surprise. He had been briefed on Tedcrag’s betrayal, of course, but he didn’t want to believe it until the evidence was right there in front of him. He sighed, the disappointment on his face palpable.

“Why, Ted?” he asked sadly. “I need to hear it from you. Why did you betray me?”

Tedcrag’s mind flashed back 24 episodes, to the ruins and devastation of that fateful day. “Prahringerr, you didn't see what I saw in the elven capital that day… the countless lives taken, *by my own hand*… and you knew what you had made me do. On that day, I saw you as a threat to world peace equal to or greater than the extraterrestrials.”

Prahringerr stood tall in front of him, looking down at him with an expression of mixed rage and pain. “Ted, I thought you of all people knew the threat that the extraterrestrials pose. Why, then? Why start a long, drawn-out rebellion with that colossal threat looming above us?”

Tedcrag was disgusted at this. “I could ask you the same thing, Prahringerr. Launching a full-scale war with the elves? You knew they were coming long before I did, and instead of working together with the other races, you--”

“***THEY WERE CHEATING!***” Prahringerr cut him off, roaring at a volume Tedcrag had never heard him yell in his life. “All the nations had agreed long ago to abide by the rules, and yet the elves didn’t care. They added cannons to their ships, and they--”

“So your response to a few cannons is nuking their capital city full of civilians?!” Tedcrag angrily retorted. “Then sending a massive fleet to finish the job?”

“I… Ted, I didn’t know the bomb would be that powerful,” Prahringerr responded. Tedcrag couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not, but at this point it didn’t really matter to him; it had still happened. “But you could have talked to me, Ted. Confronted me about it. Instead, you conspired behind my back with random humans and dwarves, and now I ask you again, *why* go through with a rebellion with the extraterrestrials right on our doorstep?”

Tedcrag knew neither was going to sway the other. Despite everything, Prahringerr had been his friend for many years, so this conflict was very difficult for them both. “For what it’s worth, Prahringerr, I was never a fan of the idea of a long, drawn-out campaign. Many times I told them I wanted to settle things with you peacefully, or at worst a 1-on-1 duel. The whole gathering support and amassing armies was mostly just me going along with the flow of things. I never wanted to become emperor, I just knew you had to be stopped.”

Prahringerr did not care. Or maybe he did, but he couldn’t allow himself to show it. “Well, regardless of your intentions, as of today your rebellion is officially over. Write a letter to your conspirators. Tell them that the emperor will not pursue them if they leave immediately and go back to wherever they came from.”

Tedcrag didn’t respond. He just sat there sadly, confined to the chair. Prahringerr sighed, and turned to leave.

“There’s one last thing I need to know,” Tedcrag spoke before Prahringerr could walk out the door.

Prahringerr didn’t dignify him with a response, but he did pause to hear what Tedcrag had to say.

“I’m sure your men briefed you on everything, so I need to know…...... Gralak. Was that your men's doing?”

Despite everything, perhaps just as a favor to the friend he once thought he knew, Prahringerr said he would find out and come back, but warned Tedcrag that he probably wasn’t going to like the answer. Tedcrag waited, and Prahringerr soon returned with an answer.

“...Yes, my men killed him. You must understand, Ted, my orders for them were that if they found the man, or the dwarf, or anyone else here without you accompanying them, they should immediately be considered an enemy to the empire and killed without mercy. I’ll spare you the details, but they followed my orders and did their duty.”

“I understand,” Tedcrag said, not fully realizing that the ghost of Gralak was listening intently on this conversation, analyzing his every word. But even if he hadn’t been, there wasn’t much else Tedcrag could have said. He had no power here, and after losing one of his two closest friends and then being tied up to a chair for months on end, all the fight had been taken from him. He didn’t like it or agree with it, and it made him sick to his stomach, but in a fucked up way, he understood Prahringerr’s warped perspective.

...Of course, if Ted's real-life counterpart had had fifty days to prepare and formulate his thoughts, he probably would have said something else in response, or just nothing at all, but in the end that was what he said in canon.

“But it shouldn’t matter much to you, anyway,” Prahringerr said coldly. “He was, after all… *just a man*.”

At those last three words, the fire and fight inside Tedcrag reignited instantly. He wanted to stand up and breathe fire to burn Prahringerr to ash, lack of trinket be damned. But Ted's body, which had literally been stuck sitting for 50+ days non-stop, didn’t have the energy to move. All he could do was look up at Prahringerr and give him a piercing glare with eyes full of rage.

Prahringerr didn’t react, or perhaps he didn’t notice. He walked over to Tedcrag, and put a firm hand on his shoulder. Without even looking at him, he said: “Tedcrag, if you ever betray me again…”

Prahringerr’s voice trailed off, him being unwilling or perhaps unable to finish the thought. But both of them pretty much knew what the rest of the sentence would have entailed. With that, Prahringerr stormed out of the room, his emperor garb flowing behind him as he disappeared into the light and out of view.

[We here at Beecher Writeups apologize if the above conversation was not 100% accurate… it’s been nearly two weeks. But this covers all the key points and arguments that were made, with a little dramatic flair. What’s a writeup without a little dramatization, anyway?]

Over the next several days, Tedcrag would be further questioned by Prahringerr’s pyromancers, but details on that will be kept secret for now. He didn’t even know what had happened to Gulliman and the others, and they likewise didn’t know his own situation either. As Tedcrag and Gulliman sat their in their separate prisons, still coming to terms with their current predicament (not to mention the death of their friend), and while elsewhere still, a blonde man painstakingly scrapped a whole half-season’s worth of plans, and all any of them could do was wonder...

… what happens now?