Ambush on the Sucrosi Road

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* Partial Synopsis

## Ambush onthe Sucrosi Road

The members of House Rocks come under attack from Carnish brigands...but not all is as it appears.

### Overall

5
2
70

### Runtime

2:05:19

TRANSCRIPT

## Credits

### Executive Producers

**Sam Reich**David Cyr Kearns

Brennan Lee Mulligan

Micheal Schaubach

Adam Frucci (Co-)

## Episode Guide

### Next

There is Strength
in Sweetness
Keep Sharp

**Ambush on the Sucrosi Road** is the second episode of season 5, A Crown of Candy.

The Taste Buds are ambushed on the Sucrosi Road on their way to Comida. It's an assassination attempt on King Amethar, carried out by Dairy Island marauders disguised in meat. Amethar is knocked out several times, but Lapin does his job well and keeps him—and Ruby, to Jet's relief—standing. Miraculously, everyone survives, even the Tartguard. Commander Constano Grissini arrives with Imperial army reinforcements to escort them the rest of the way to Comida.

## Recap

> "*The caravan of Candia's diplomatic envoy to the capital city of Comida is well on its way down the Sucrosi Road to meet their Imperial escorts to go to Comida at the behest of the Concordant Emperor, Gustavo Uvano. The emperor has grown sick, and has called on his old friend, Amethar, to come because, according to the laws of the Concord, he must choose an heir from the head of state from another nation in order to keep the peace between the six kingdoms of Calorum. On your way, you're traveling through the borderlands of Candia, peppermint trees, you see the Sucrosi Road and its many bright colors stretching ahead of you. It is a beautiful Fruitday on this, the 23rd day of Highbright, getting into almost late summer.*"
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## Synopsis

(Synopsis written by jq37 and edited for the wiki by Morgan E. Lavandowska.)

**You’re Dead and Here’s Your Mini**

At the end of the last episode, the Candia Caravan had stopped in the road because of a fallen tree–the universal fantasy fiction indication for an impending ambush–and Ruby was unceremoniously dropped to zero HP. But don’t worry! Brennan is here with all the missing ceremony at the top of this episode! And by ceremony, I mean we get the most graphic, visceral, bloody description of bodily harm we’ve ever gotten in an episode of D20 as the arrow pierces her neck and she goes unconscious. In her unconscious state, she’s on a trapeze, swinging from one bar to another that seems to be either getting closer or farther away. A voice in the inky black that surrounds her tells her to bring it towards her. We fade out from the vision and that brings us into the combat proper.

With Ruby down, everyone else springs into action. Liam does his ranger thing and reveals a hidden enemy. Jet tries to snatch Ruby into the carriage but when she loses her grip, she opts to instead threaten Lapin, "Heal my sister or I’ll reveal you’re working for the Sugarplum Fairy" and hops on top of the stopped carriage to use herself to shield her sister from any further damage. She also activates the Locket of the Sweetest Heart (a split friendship locket the two of them have which gives advantage on saving throws if the other person is within 5 feet) so she’ll have help on her next death save which happens right away. She gets a success with two 13s, which gives her 1 save, 1 fail.

In her mind, Ruby uses Mage Hand to bring the trapeze bar closer to her and, as she does so, she sees a pair of smiling purple eyes and hears a voice say, “You are gifted in the ways of the arcane. It seems that my brother has made quite a family for himself.” Ruby gasps, “Are you my aunt?” The voice tells her to take good care of her bow. She’ll need it.

On Amethar’s turn, he clocks a bunch more hidden archers and hears that they’re speaking Carnish (the meat language) but (and Jet especially notices this because she speaks Carnish) they’re speaking it brokenly and with weird (vaguely French-y) accents. And the arrow that hit Ruby is baconsteel, but the archers look weird. Like, it’s less that they’re made of meat and more like they’re "wearing" meat, and it smells like it’s rotting.

Amethar, charges out and goes into a rage, pouring cola onto himself and letting the pop rocks of his body explode out, doing 2 points of damage to anyone in the immediate vicinity. Jet, still over Ruby’s unconscious body, narrates this all to her, because Emily Axford never lets a moment for an emotional gut punch go to waste.

Amethar gets a Nat 20 with his first attack and hits the nearest enemy hard enough to cut through the meat. Underneath, he smells stinking cheese.

But then, it’s the enemies’ turn and Amethar is absolutely beset. A couple of enemies go after the others’ but five enemies go for him and all hit, bringing him down to less than a third of his HP in one round of combat (down to 10). They are not messing around. They are really and truly trying to murder him specifically.

Thank the Sugarplum Fairy, or the Bulb if you prefer, that Lapin’s turn is next. He scrambles to the top of the carriage and casts *Cure Wounds* on Ruby which brings her back to full. Lapin goes through the Bulbian motions but Jet, who is closeby, can smell the sugary magic energy from his true patron. She doesn’t much care though since it means Ruby’s back and she promises her silence. Lapin also tosses Amethar a d6 of healing with his bonus action.

Theobold hits a nat 20 to do a good bit of damage then action surges and casts *Compelled Duel* with his sword, Battlepop the Broadsicle, to force the Captain of the attackers (who rolls a Nat 1 save) to 1v1 him to take some heat off of the king.

Ruby and Jet are forced to confront the possibility that Lapin and Theobold might be…cool? Really, all the old dudes this fight are kinda badass – Calroy also hits a nat20 and is kicking ass all fight (also, his pants are on point–I think this is only the second time in d20 pants have ended up being "A Thing" (John Feathers) but that still feels like a lot for "pants").

The fight continues!

Jet fights alongside her super proud dad and does a bunch of damage but doesn’t quite get a killing blow which she blames on Theobold’s refusal to teach her one last episode. The brigands continue to strategically try and take out Amethar and Lapin judiciously uses his precious few heals to let him drop and then bring him back instead of blowing all his heals at once – stressful but effective. Also, Sir Theo comes in clutch and uses his shield. Swirldwarden. to, as a reaction, take one of the attacks that would have F’d him up.

Ruby shoots the leader of the cheese brigands–at this point everyone knows that these are cheese people disguised as meat people–and, spurred on by some new, hazy awareness from her near death experience, uses her once per day grasping arrow (an Arcane Archer ability) to hold the captain in place and make him take damage if he moves. Amethar goes back into a rage after having gone down, teaching us that when he does that, it hits enemies and allies alike. On the baddies’ turn, the captain tries to move and gets obliterated by Ruby’s arrow. This is super clutch, not just because he was going after Amethar, but he also gave +1d4 to all attacks to all of his guys of which there are/were many.

Amethar goes down again and, on his turn, Lapin heals him, and then wrecks some of the brigands with a very un-Bulbian blast of candy energy, though he continues to insist that it’s all above board. On her turn, Jet gives her half of the locket to her dad in case he drops again (not how it really works since it requires attunement but Brennan allows it this time since it’s her dad). One of the attackers tries to hit Jet but between her once-per-day *Shield* with Flickorice and Theo imposing disadvantage, she’s unscathed.

**Our Daily Bread**

You’ll remember from last episode that the caravan was on their way to meet an Imperial escort. Well, they finally show up to help, led by a young Ceresian Centurion Commander, **Commander Constano Grissini**. Ruby (very conspicuously) casts *Fog Cloud* around her dad to try and make it harder for anyone to hit and drop him again. Brennan makes her roll an Insight check and on a 12, tells her nothing which is the most maddening thing a DM can do to you.

With the extra help, they’re able to end the fight pretty quickly after that without any casualties. Theobold wanted to keep one enemy alive for questioning but the Tartguard didn’t quite get the memo and skewered the last guy. Lapin is very suspicious of Grissini but his 23 Insight check tells him this is a straight up guy who would have been ruined if anyone here had died. However, he also notices that Grissini won’t look Ruby in the eye. Calroy quietly comes up to Ruby and tells her that, while she did a good job this fight, things are about to get very complicated and she should be a lot more careful with any future magic she does. She seems confused by her own abilities and mentions she saw her aunt Lazuli while she was passed out but Calroy shushes her before she says anything else incriminating. It seems we didn’t get the full picture of how frowned upon non-Bulbian magic is outside out Candia.

Lapin rolls to cover for Ruby with Grissini and says that her magic is Bulbian and Brennan rolls in the Box of Doom to see if he buys it. 10 or higher and he knows something’s up. We don’t get the result (though it \*looked\* like a 1) but he either buys it or plays along.

Theobald investigates the area (with help from his living sprinkle, Sprinkle, who also gives him the help action in battle) but doesn’t find any info they didn’t already have. However, he does notice that there aren’t any steeds around, which he interprets to mean they didn’t get there through outlaw means (ie: ride in on your horse, steal a bunch, ride out).

Calroy pulls aside Lapin and Theobald and says that even though they may have been able to convince Grissini, all of his men also saw Ruby doing forbidden magic and if word gets out it’ll be a problem. They need to make a plan and they need to be very careful about how they tell Amethar because if he finds out they “know how he’ll solve the problem.”

Ominous!

## Featured Characters

###  The Taste Buds

* Sir Theobald Gumbar
* Chancellor Lapin Cadbury
* Princess Jet Rocks
* Princess Ruby Rocks
* King Amethar
* Liam Wilhelmina

### New

* Commander Constano Grissini
* Cheese Marauders
* Archmage Lazuli (†)
* Master Dippins
* Cranberry Tallcake

### Returning

* The Tartguard/Quincy
* Herald Poncival Pishpuff
* Lord Calroy Cruller
* Peppermint Preston
* Limon Longhalls
* Sprinkle
* Lord Finnegan Swirlie
* Licorina Loghead

### Mentioned

* The Sugar-Plum Fairy
* Saint Citrina (†)