220: Turtles Are Highly Flammable

## Summary

Gwen lies on the floor, pretending to be dead, having taken a glancing *Eldritch Blast* from Will. The rest of the party battle Crumplemeyer and his army of disembodied hands, until Gwen kills him in a rage, finally releasing the town from his magical influence. Will learns the truth about Selenia, and Batthwack tries to put out a fire with his *Eldritch Blast*, setting half the factory ablaze in the process.

## Synopsis

Crumplemeyer floats in the air outside the shattered office window. Behind him the sun is just starting to stream into the factory. The factory machines are sitting idle. There's nothing whirring or turning, it's quiet beneath. Crumplemeyer is preparing to cast a spell and Will is about make like he's finishing off Gwen, who is lying prone and pretending to be dead. Batthwack rushes over to Gwen, brandishing his sword and snarling at Will to make him back off. Will jumps back terrified and crashes into the wardrobe. Batthwack kneels down, sword still raised at Will and does a health check on Gwen. There are visible signs of severe damage, but he can tell she's basically alright. He realises that Will's *Eldritch Blast* had all been for show. Batthwack looks Will right in the eyes. He turns his head away from Crumplemeyer and winks at Will.

Will's mad and embarrassed that Batthwack scared him. He casts *Dimension Door*, transporting himself into the factory room, somewhere behind Crumplemeyer where he can get cover and still see what's going on. A portal appears and he steps through, looking disappointedly at Batthwack as he vanishes. At the same time, Raphina launches herself out of the window at Crumplemeyer, casting *Fog Cloud* as she flies through the air. The fog engulfs him and a large portion of the factory as she flies towards him. Crumplemeyer tries to duck out of the way but doesn't react quick enough, because he was focusing on his spell. Raphina clings on to him, clutching at to his legs as she dangles over the factory floor below.

Crumplemeyer flies out of the cloud, with Raphina still hanging on. He looks down at her and casts *Thunderclap*, clapping his hands together and causing a burst of thunderous sound to emanates out. The noise is so great that Raphina is forced to clap her hands to her ears and she falls to the floor below. In the office, Captain Clockface rushes towards the window and hops up on top of the cabinets. Pulling out his hip dagger, he brandishes it at Crumplemeyer. Gwen continues to play dead, not wanting to reveal the charade just yet. Batthwack goes over to the window and leaps down next to Raphina. Crumplemeyer looks down with a sneer. Batthwack raises his sword hand to his head and makes a throwing gesture, sending three *Eldritch Blast* beams slamming into Crumplemeyer.

Will has been watching these events unfold from his vantage point, his view partially obscured by the fog cloud. He casts *Fly* and swoops over to Raphina and grabs her, pulling her into the fog cloud. *"Careful with me, I think I cracked my coccyx!"* she yells. Will tells her to pretend like he's killing her, but before anyone can act they suddenly sense movement all around them, and hear the sound of things skittering around. A horde of disembodied hands start climbing onto their legs, then chest and then shoulders and set about digging into their flesh. Batthwack is also beset by a swarm of disembodied hands that emerge from the fog and start finding weak points in his armour. Raphina casts *Spiritual Weapon* in the form of a giant pair of nail clippers, which immediately fight back, clipping away at the hands.

Crumplemeyer looks down at the struggling Batthwack who then feels some sort of magical force invading his mind and trying to dominate him. He struggles against it and luckily manages to shake it off. Captain Clockface jumps down next to Batthwack and starts stabbing at the hands attacking him. Above, in the office, Gwen hears the commotion down below, and decides it's time to risk getting up and having a look. Seeing her comrades all battling against swarms of disembodied hands, she decides it's time act, calling out to Crumplemeyer *"I'm gonna burn all of your paper!"* Crumplemeyer looks back towards the stack of paper behind him just as she casts *Flame Strike*. A huge column of flame descends from the heavens. Crumplemeyer just manages to duck out of the way, but is caught by the edge of it. The stack of paper catches alight creating a roaring bonfire at the end of the assembly line. The flames are much greater than they would be with normal paper and they also burn in variety of colours, even clear and black flames are produced at times. Hearing the burning paper from his position inside the fog, Will sighs knowing that a potentially lucrative spoil is going up in smoke.

Batthwack casts *Dispel Magic* on Crumplemeyer and he falls to the ground. Inside the fog, Will grabs Raphina and drags her away from the attacking hands and behind some machinery near the edge of the fog for cover. He's lost sight of Crumplemeyer so flies straight up for a better view, spotting him lying on the ground near Batthwack, looking scared and injured. He blasts him with his *Eldritch Blast*. Crumplemeyer looks up in the direction the blasts came from and sees Will. *"You double crossed me!"* he cries. *"You are a moron. That was the worst performance I've ever given in my life."* replies Will.

The hands clamber onto Batthwack to protect their master. Raphina sends her *Spiritual Weapon* in the direction of Crumplemeyer's voice. Batthwack's on the ground being overcome by the hands, and Crumplemeyer is brewing up something nasty with which to attack the prone dragonborn, when suddenly the giant, monolithic nail clippers emerge from the fog and bear down on him, spiritually chomping at his flesh. Crumplemeyer is borne to the ground. He is laying on the ground, bleeding out, his screams echoing around the factory. Raphina starts making chanting like noises, in an attempt to drown out the sounds. Captain Clockface runs up to help Batthwack, stabbing at the hands to try and get them off him.

From her vantage point above, Gwen witnesses everything going on and cannot contain her rage any longer. She jumps down from the window, runs straight for Crumplemeyer and plunges her jaws into his neck, sending huge spurts of blood into the air. Suddenly from the office room above, the group here Mo's voice calling out *"What? What's going on?"* At the same time, Gwen notices the feeling of disdain she held for the "Backsiders", that she's felt her entire time in Morrow's Inlet, evaporate completely. The whole group also become aware that the overpowering terrible sulphurous odour that they've been assaulted with ever since arriving in town (somewhat mitigated by Gwen's special marshmallow nose plugs) is completely gone. Mo comes jumping out of the window, dagger drawn, shouting *"Who? What? Where do I stab?!"* He spots the hands surrounding Batthwack and starts attacking them. Batthwack runs over to Crumplemeyer to try and stabilise him, much to Gwen's surprise/annoyance, but he's too late anyway. Crumplemeyer's dead.

Batthwack asks if they should raise him, but Gwen is adamant that Crumplemeyer should not live after what he did to the town. Batthwack backs off, recognising that this is too important and personal for Gwen. She says she can use her magic talk to Crumplemeyer while he's dead, but before they can discuss it further the hands scurry over and attack Batthwack and Gwen. The two set set about finishing them off.

Will flies up to the office room and finds Hilula and Selenia having just woken up, a little disorientated. Hilula having just wandered to the window, asks him what's going on. Will barely acknowledges her and walks straight for Selenia. He casts *Detect Thoughts* on her and asks directly *"Who are you?"*. She confused, and replies *"I'm Selenia!"* Will reads her surface thoughts as *"What time is it? Where did everybody go? This room is empty. Everybody was here before and we were stuck. The window's broken! Is everybody okay?"* Probing deeper into her mind, Will can detect her reasoning as *"I need to stay safe. Everything seems very dangerous to me."* and her emotional state as scared and confused. Finally he is able to uncover something looming large in her mind: *"I need to hide who I am from this guy."* With that, Will pushes her against the wall and accuses her of lying. She insists she isn't. Will's losing his temper and as a result he isn't coming across as very intimidating, but just at that moment a shaft of sunlight strikes a piece of broken glass and casts a shadow behind him just as he shouts *"Who the fuck are you?!"* She gabbles *"Okay, okay, okay, don't hurt me. Don't kill me. Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"* She explains she is from Tivoli, but it was her that worked for Caspar, not her husband. She says she dealt drugs for him, and Will is visibly relieved. *"Oh man, you have no idea who I am. Okay, we're good."* He taps her on the shoulder reassuringly. He's still suspicious of her but satisfied she's telling the truth about who she is. That was not the reaction Selenia was expecting.

Meanwhile, Batthwack makes his way to one of the doors on the side of the factory near the burning paper. He opens it to let in some fresh air. Sunlight streams in. Outside is a loading dock area in a little alley. The breeze from the open door disperses the fog cloud and seems to fuels the fire of the burning magic paper; colourful flames shoot up even higher than before, though fortunately there doesn't seem to be too much risk of the whole building going up in flames.

Raphina is checking on everybody and trying to calm Gwen down with breathing exercises. Gwen says she just wants Kowl and Raphina hands her Pippa while she goes and looks. Batthwack's wondering how to put out the fire and thinking about some way to scatter the paper a bit. The voice in his head is suggesting he should blast it with all three beams of his *Eldritch Blast*. Taking careful aim, the beams of magical crackling energy strike the centre of the bonfire of magical paper and it explodes outwards. Batthwack and Gwen are hit by some of the fire and flying debris, but Raphina manages to dodge nimbly out of the way. That entire section of the factory is now ablaze. Mo dives out of the fire, slightly singed, followed by Captain Clockface who falls out of the fire, burning and motionless, straight into Batthwack's arms.

## Trivia

* The episode title quotes Alex. After Denise casts *Flame Strike*, Alex excitedly asks *"Oh! He catches on fire? Please! He catches on fire?"* Not realising he was referring to Crumplemeyer, Abby asks *"Who? Batthwack?"* *"Batthwack wants to be caught on fire!"* laughs KT. *"Turtles are flammable. True fact! They're flammable. Turtles are highly flammable."*

## References

1. ↑ He scored a zero on his intelligence check, rolling a nat 1 with a bonus of minus 1!
2. ↑ As KT correctly points out, *"This is a horrific fact."* And yes this wiki editor googled it and didn't find any evidence that it's true. In fact I found some suggestions their shells may even be partially fire-resistant!