295: I'm the King of Beartoggle Lake!

## Summary

While Raphina and Batthwack sneak up behind the Anglerfish, Rosco makes a nuisance of himself and wakes up the dragon. Will *Polymorphs* into a crab as a distraction, but the dragon becomes sufficiently irritated by Rosco evading his questions that the dragon covers him in a jet of mucus. At that moment, Batthwack smashes the orb incarcerating the Anglerfish.

## Synopsis

Raphina and Batthwack get into position and from his hiding place in the shipwreck, Will's mind is racing, coming up with as many ways to avoid death as he can. He studies the huge dragon, looking for some part of it's physiology that he could pin with his *Immovable Rod*. The sight of Rosco riding Raphina's tiny bicycle in little circles in front of the sleeping beast causes him to question their plan all over again. *"What are we doing? We're the bait?!"* he cries in a *Message* to Rosco. *"Yeah!"* Rosco yells back and the dragon shifts its body a little bit.

Rosco grins over his shoulder at the figure of Will in the shipwreck, and bicycling a little closer to the dragon he starts loudly singing a mournful spiritual song. Wobbling unsteadily on the bike, Rosco finds himself in view of the dragon's head. One closed eyelid briefly lifts half open, enough for Rosco to notice that there's just a blank void, an empty nothingness, where an eyeball should be.

*"I saw dat! Somebody's wakin' up! Wakey wakey..."* The dragon slowly unfurls its wings, stretches, and rolls away from the butte. It settles on its back, belly up, and lifts its head to look at Rosco. *"...eggs and bakey?"* finishes Rosco, having somewhat lost his bravado. The dragon speaks in a voice surprisingly somewhat similar to Rosco's. *"Eh, who are you?"* it says. *"I'm Rosco LaFleur. Who are you?"* The dragon doesn't answer this and instead asks *"What are you doing here?"* Rosco tries to dodge the question, but the dragon doesn't budge. Rosco says he was just riding his bike and can't remember how he got down on the lake bed. At this the dragon beats it's wings, sending sediment swirling, and begins to lazily, and menacingly, propel itself about in the water, circling Rosco.

Watching intently from their hiding place, Batthwack and Raphina wonder if they should proceed, now that the dragon has moved away from the butte. The swirling sediment has given Will an idea. He *Messages* Raphina to suggest they try to do the same to obscure the Anglerfish so that he can conjure a decoy fish and lure the dragon even further away. Raphina and Batthwack begin to swim as stealthily as possible towards the butte.

Rosco is doing his best to avoid the dragon's questioning, explaining away his being under the lake as just *"the latest in a series of unfortunate events."* *"Yeah, I'd say you probably got that right,"* replies the dragon ominously. The dragon is clearly tiring of Rosco's prevarication. The dragon says *"I got important things goin' on down here. So let's just get you out of the way and I'll go back to doin' what I was doin'. That sound good?"* At this, the dragon begins to inhale. Rosco doesn't hang around to find out what's about to exhaled. He blusters an apology as he turns the bike around and retreats. He quickly ditches the bike, but in doing so, the chain catches on his swimsuit and in his desperation to keep moving, he rips the lower back portion of the suit clean off, leaving him sporting something that looks more like a fetching pair of assless chaps.

Meanwhile, having successfully drawn the dragon's attention away, Raphina and Batthwack reach the base of the butte undetected. Raphina suggests she use her *Fog Cloud* to obscure the Anglerfish. The pair begin to make their way to the top of the butte while Will racks his brain for the best spell to conjure his decoy anglerfish... *Major Image*?? *Polymorph*? Should he *Polymorph* into an anglerfish or into something else that can stir up the sediment? He's seen eels in the Bufflin River back in Tivoli, but then he's suddenly reminded of the fish markets there, and instead transforms into a bright red crab, scuttling out towards Rosco just as he's running away from the dragon towards Will. Will is just able to kick up enough sediment to partially obscure Rosco as the dragon rears back its head and fires a powerful cone jet of mucus from its mouth. The viscous mixture coats Rosco and annoyed by the sudden appearance of Will's crab, the dragon beats his wings to blast away the sediment to reveal them both.

Arriving at the top of the butte, Raphina and Batthwack find that they can easily see inside the air-filled orb, the Anglerfish laying on its side at the bottom, weakly flopping around. The occasional drop of water drips down onto the fish from the top of the orb. *"Maybe it can't breathe,"* suggests Batthwack. Raphina casts her *Fog Cloud* and it pops up in front of the orb, between them and the dragon. Will and Rosco see it. Batthwack reaches out to touch the orb. It feels hard and glass-like. His first instinct is to try and heal the orb, but Raphina urges him to cut to the chase and break it. Still laying limply on its side, the Anglerfish's face turns towards them, a hideous maw of weird, scary-looking teeth. The dimly glowing creature manages to turn itself to face them and says, *"Heeey, who are you guys?"*

Raphina introduces herself and says they want to help it get out of the orb. *"I don't know, like, I can't... I'm weak. I'm really weak. But if you can help me, I'll try to help you,"* says the Anglerfish. Batthwack reaches back with his sword, one-handed. As he swings as hard as he can towards the orb, the Anglerfish's blue lure glows a little more brightly, and Batthwack's sword glows with a similar energy. Instead of a hard impact, the power-imbued blade slices clean into the glass as if it were butter, leaving a large arc. Batthwack slashes back the other way and leaves another arc, forming an X, and water begins immediately spraying into the orb. After a few seconds, cracks start radiating outwards, and more water sprays in through more gaps. There's another pause, and then the entire orb shatters.

The deafening crash reverberates around and the dragon's head snaps around to see what's happened to the orb. Rosco tries to keep the dragon's attention on him, saying, *"Alright, alright! Just don't sneeze on me again. I'll tell you. I came through the door for four!"* No sooner has he spoken, Rosco realises he may have inadvertently revealed the presence of his fellow party members.

## Quotes

* Adam: *"Look, I used to be a bottom but now I'm a top and that is my secret."*
* Rosco: *"I've heard about rip tides, but this is ridiculous!"*

## Trivia

* The episode title is a quote from KT. Rosco and Will (*Polymorphed* into a crab) are rolling dexterity saving throws to avoid the dragon's mucus projectile. KT rolls two 19's (with advantage), plus modifier, plus a bonus for being obscured by the sediment cloud, plus another bonus from Will's *Luckstone*. KT: *"28, baby! Nobody can see me ever. I'm a burrowing crab. I take Rosco with me, I eat him, I forget I was ever Will. I'M THE KING OF BEARTOGGLE LAKE!!"*
* The *"Give me back that Filet-O-Fish"* McDonald's commercial: https://youtu.be/csrPT9ClVUc
* *The Ref* (1994), starring Denis Leary, Judy Davis... and Kevin Spacey: https://youtu.be/avqzNZdoIoE
* This week's episode description describes the Pork Fried Dice wiki as: luscious.

## Gallery

*Main article: The Art of Pork Fried Dice*

## References

1. ↑ Eric confirms the dragon is, in D&D terms, a "huge" creature.
2. ↑ Eric's voice for the Anglerfish sounded like a Californian surfer dude.