Ding Dong (episode)

*No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.*

## Summary

The party is still in mid-air from being launched out of Danica Town. They reach high enough that Cheddar possesses Stirfry and Bellow to contact Cordelia, realizing she has flown high enough to leave the borders of Ruleshaven. Cordelia asks if she can trust Cheddar, and while he insists that she can, he can only advise her to leave Ruleshaven as soon as possible. She asks if it involves the Witchhunter, and he refuses to confirm it. Cordelia takes this as all the confirmation she needs.

The party safely crashes into the belltower, just short of the actual bell. Bellow casts Jump and Shillelagh to leap onto the bell and slam it with his staff, but the bell barely makes a sound. A giant bat creeps out from inside, introducing herself as Regina Dentata. She quickly attacks the party for intruding on her nest, which has blocked up the bell and muffled its ringing. The party fights off Regina while Bellow rings the bell louder with each stroke, triggering minor acts of rebellion and lawbreaking in the nearby area.

Stirfry and Frederick fight with the monster as Albee leaps to help Bellow, but the two fall off in their efforts to hit it. Bellow summons roots to catch them and leaps back up onto the bell while Cordelia draws a large spider out from inside the bell. Frederick uses Cloud of Daggers to shred the remaining nest and Bellow lands a final, fateful strike and rings the bell. The bell is repaired, its laws are removed, and people around the kingdom begin to realize their freedom as celebratory anarchy takes over. Regina Dentata turns back into a human as she hears the bell, halting her attack and scurrying off into the shadows.

With the bell at his command, Bellow finds that his voice carries across the city and he is free to declare new laws. He creates several lax laws that include 5 weeks of vacation for everyone, freeing anyone to come and go from Danica Town freely, making being a Witchhunter within Ruleshaven cause for imprisonment, and that anyone who bullies someone’s father on the day of their birth is only the child’s uncle and not their legal father. Hot Roddy quietly sulks in Danica Town over the last one.

The party celebrates and begins to leave the bell tower as Frederick and Stirfry rest and recover from their battle. Stirfry helps straighten Frederick’s clothes before offering him his old, soiled wig one last time. Frederick is disgusted by it and Stirfry finally discards it down the clocktower, admitting he should have brought this up a long time ago. Cordelia looks over the city and decides that she wants to visit the prison in Ruleshaven.

After the outro, music plays as we see somewhere “far from the love of the gods” with a window looking over a lake of blood. Someone sitting at a large wooden desk with a picture of a wife muses “There you are…”

## Link

https://rudetalesofmagic.simplecast.com/episodes/ding-dong