261: I Popped SO MANY Water Balloons!

## Summary

Will unleashes a whiskey-fuelled tirade against Batthwack, feeling betrayed that Batthwack didn't honour the promise they made to each other, and ends up storming out onto the street. He *Polymorph*s into a fish and drunkenly scours the riverbed for the orb Batthwack had discarded, but cannot find it. The others eventually track him down, and he tries to grab his own orb back from Raphina, but it crumbles into dust in her hand as an otherworldly scream rings out into the night.

## Synopsis

Raphina's pretending to sleep, but Gwen and Will want another drink, so Batthwack pours them both one. There's a silence for a few moments before Batthwack's strange calmness gets too much for Will and he just can't hold his frustration in any more. He demands to know what Batthwack is so happy about, saying *"Didn't a dark force of some kind just infiltrate this hotel room and then talk about my family and ... I guess yours? Somebody named Altiyde?"* The dragonborn is typically evasive and suggests there's no point worrying because these gods are probably everywhere.

Gwen's feeling really concerned about all this and needs another drink. Noting that Batthwack's almost out of whiskey she retrieves her own bottle, the one she'd "refurbished" from Crumplemeyer's office. She asks Kowl to have another go at summoning Moondreamer and he hops up onto the bar, rubbing himself on Batthwack's outstretched hand. Try as he might though, nothing happens. *"Nope, not working!"* he says. He explains that it's more like there's no answer than not being able to talk.

Will doesn't want to let his original question to Batthwack go unanswered. Batthwack says he's smiling because the orbs are gone and because the voice talked about them being able to see their families. Will fumes; Batthwack clearly doesn't understand the dangers of being tempted by these dark powers and he completely disregarded their agreement in the woods. He's angry because Batthwack chose to "protect" him and deny Will his role of protecting Batthwack. Gwen feels she should probably leave, but Batthwack refills her and Will's glasses with the last of his whiskey. Will reminds them that he's older than Batthwack. *"And married!"* calls out Raphina, still lying down with her eyes closed. *"No, I don't have a wife!"* says Will with a little more disgust than is necessary. *"Altiyde is Batthwack's wife?!"* says Raphina, clearly confused. *"Aren't you asleep Raphina?"* says Batthwack, sounding annoyed.

Suddenly Will's glass is empty, and he doesn't remember drinking it, he's so incensed. The drink is clearly starting to get the better of him and he launches into an ill-considered mockery of Batthwack's daughter, transforming temporarily into a smaller version of Batthwack with golden hair. It's all Batthwack can do to avoid punching Will at the sight of this. Still trapped in the crossfire, Gwen's eyes are wide as she starts swigging right from her whiskey bottle. *"We have a signed contract, for one thing. The deal we made in the forest was just fucking between FRIENDS,"* shouts Will. Batthwack tries to say again that he thought he was doing the right thing, but Will's not having any of it; their agreement was for Batthwack's protection. Gwen points out that her and Aleister were friends, but they didn't have to have agreements and handshakes about it; they just looked out for each other.

Will says *"I thought that was a gesture of friendship in the forest. Fine, I don't need to shake anyone's hand. I'm going to go out and get drinks somewhere else,"* and he stands up from the bar and walks out of the room. Gwen tries to persuade to him to go with her, but Will isn't interested. He's in a fit as he storms down the corridor, thinking *"I'm not gonna call Curtis, I hope my letter gets there and I hope that what I did in Morrow's Inlet works."* He sees Gwen following and dismisses her, hastening down the stairs. She hurries after him. In the room, Batthwack turns back to quietly cleaning his sword and working on his cards.

Will and Gwen reach the lobby. Calliope music is playing. Will turns and screams *"Why are you following me?!"* Gwen tells him how concerned she is about him and about all the stuff that's going on. Will's definitely drunk now, as he shouts back *"Why don't you go concern over Batthwack!"* and warns her not to meddle in anything criminal that he might get up to while he's gone. He's walking backwards as he's shouting, heading towards the exit. The person behind the registration desk is looking at Will concernedly. *"Sir, I would appreciate it if you could keep your voice down in the lobby. Our clients are trying to sleep."* Gwen embarrassedly herds Will towards the door. Realising that she's not leaving him alone, he makes his way outside, straightens his clothes in an attempt to be more dignified, and then he casts *Invisibility* and hurries away.

When Gwen gets outside, she's surprised to find Will missing. She scans the skies for bats, but seeing nothing she's casts *Detect Magic*, but can only detect a faint presence of magic behind her in the hotel. Realising she's beat, she throws her hands up and goes back inside. She apologises to the receptionist, and then asks if they have a kitchen she could use to whip up a few candy supplies. They explain that the kitchen isn't for public use. Then there's a pause and their eyes narrow as they say *"Maybe... can you pay the kitchen rental fee?"* holding out a palm. Gwen puts two gold pieces in the receptionist's hand. *"Would that help?"* she asks. *"Right this way, ma'am,"* says the receptionist and immediately leads her back out of the lobby, through a few backdoors and into a gleaming kitchen. It's empty, having been cleaned for the night. She's told the "rental" expires at 5am and before Gwen can say anything else, she finds she's alone. Gwen sets about blowing off a little steam and alleviating her worries by making some truffles, candy, and some hard candies too. She finds that actually her new amethyst talons are an improvement on her previous ones, finding that they cut through the hard candy even more effectively.

Meanwhile, Will, seeing that Gwen has finally stopped following him, stays invisible as he makes his way over to the river and tries his best to judge which part is opposite the hotel window. He *Polymorph*s into a fish, swimming down to the bottom of the river to hunt for the orb. After looking around for a while, all he can find is a lot of trash and a sludge-covered skeleton, but no jewellery or anything exciting and no orb. He continues to swim around for a while before eventually drunkenly and confusedly flopping out onto the shore.

Back in the hotel suite Batthwack is sitting quietly, trying to relax, but feeling dejected and tired. Raphina suggests they go out and look for Will. He's not keen, but she won't take no for an answer. They find no sign of him in the hallway, so head out of the hotel onto the street, Raphina ask the while keeping her eyes closed and insisting that she's still sleeping. They wonder where Gwen has got to as well. Raphina's keen sense of hearing detects some very faint splish-splash sounds coming from the river and going to investigate they discover a fish flapping around on the dirt by the river below them. Unaware that this is Will in fish form, Raphina is initially excited to think it could be the Rainbow Trout, but on closer inspection finds that it isn't. Suspecting that fish is in distress she immediately grabs it and hucks it back towards the water. Just as it's leaving her hands, she notices that the fish's face markings look distinctively like a moustache and there's a distinct whiff of Bufflin whiskey. Something about being vigorously thrown through the air causes Will to transform back into human form and they are all treated to the sight of Will cartwheeling through the air, landing in the river with a loud ker-sploosh!

Will flails his way back to shore, shouting at them about the state of the river. *"I hope this sobers you up a little bit,"* calls out Raphina. Batthwack is briefly caught between Raphina insisting *"Tell him you're sorry for hurting his feelings,"* and Will yelling back, *"I don't have feelings! Shut up, Batthwack. Don't even say you're sorry, I don't want to hear it."* Will goes under the water just as Batthwack does apologise, so misses it completely. He casts *Dimension Door* under the surface, stepping out on dry land.

Batthwack asks Will if he saw the orb down there and he tells them he didn't, patting himself exaggeratedly to show he's not hiding anything. Batthwack's unsure if this is sarcasm or not. Raphina pulls out Will's orb, which she had pick-pocketed earlier, and tells everyone this was Will's. He instinctively denies it at first, but then says *"I told you that there was a... thing attached somewhere... something..."* Batthwack is feeling confused about why the voice had asked him to take his orb to Will when he already had an identical one. Raphina says she's mad at Will for not being truthful about his orb and Will tells them it had nothing to do with him, it just came to him in the prison cell. Raphina pushes him back in the river.

Will demands his orb back, but Batthwack notes that they need to be very careful not to break it. Raphina decides the orb is safer with her and says she's going to find Gwen and see if they can melt it down, skipping away merrily and ignoring Will's yells. He casts *Mage Hand* to try and lift it out of her hand, but she dextrously spins the orb on her finger, and backflips out of the way. When she grabs the orb to stop it spinning though, her fingers sink right into it and it crumbles to dust in her hand. An otherworldly scream of anguish rings out into the night as the dust of the orb runs through her fingers.

Thinking that the scream was Raphina's, Will and Batthwack run towards her as cats and dogs begin howling and barking in the streets at this terrible sound, which was apparently loud enough to be heard some distance away. Will and Batthwack interrogate her. Is she ok? *"I'm asleep!"* she replies. Did she make a deal with anything? *"What? No!"* Does she have any voices in her head? *"Er... No new ones."* They're relieved to find no amethyst spikes protruding from her body either. Will wonders if Raphina could have actually killed whatever god out it is that's been bothering him all this time.

Having heard the scream from inside the hotel kitchen, Gwen suddenly bursts out of the fire exit and onto the street.

## Trivia

* The episode title came from Alex. Will is soaking wet, having been swimming about in Beartoggle River as a fish. When Gwen bursts out of the hotel to see what the terrible sound was, she says *"I thought it was something you were up to since you just kind of disappeared and ... were gonna do criminal activities."* Will jibes back at her saying *"Yeah, you don't even know I killed 20 people while you were gone. You failed! You failed to stop all the crime that I did! Look how wet I am! It's blood! Clear blood!"* Alex: *"I popped SO MANY water balloons!"*
* The fish that Will *Polymorph*ed into was the American shad, sometimes described as *"the fish that fed the (American) nation's founders."*
* The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) trailer on YouTube. The film is about a man named Henry Limpet who turns into a talking fish and helps the U.S. Navy locate and destroy Nazi submarines!
* *That's What Makes the World Go Round* from "The Sword in the Stone" on YouTube, sung by Merlin and Arthur Pendragon as they swim in the moat as fish.
* This week's episode description describes the Pork Fried Dice wiki as: awe-inspiring.

## Recap

Denise did an incredible Mad Libs recap, fuelled by suggestions from fans (see the PFD Discord for details!):

"So last week, Will turned himself into a **shih tzu** and flew over to the Warrens to scope out the **Circle K**, as the rest of the gang were discussing their next steps. Will noticed that the Warrens were much darker compared to the rest of Beartoggle. He spied a bunch of **tabaxi** standing in a circle with two in the middle screaming at each other, with the rest cheering them on. As soon as they spied Bat-Will they started throwing **vaccines** at him and chased him. Will quickly escaped and turned into **Elvira** and returned to the party. Gwen knew it was Will right away because of his **possum**. He advised the party to avoid the Warrens for now and Batthwack ushered everyone back to **Tan-y-grisiau**. After some discussion about what Will saw in the Warrens, and the race the next day, Gwen and Will retired to their **cats**, leaving Raphina and Batthwack in the bedroom. Then everyone had some private time. Gwen went back to her room with Kowl. She relaxed and enjoying some **revere**. She used the **Eiffel Tower** to call **Monty** but there was no **bathtub**. Batthwack sat down and had a nice glass of **Sydd Afal**. He found **floccinaucinihilipilification** in the room and **bathed** it out the **beach**, but it returned. Raphina was tired and slept on the **boomerang** and dreamed about **the 10 incredible things Raphina keeps in her lanky pack (number seven will shock you)**. Will did whatever Will does when he's alone, which probably consisted of **fishing** and **running**. Raphina and Gwen both sensed **defenestration** and came back to the main room of the suite to see Will and Batthwack **slinking** together. It was getting pretty **sunburnt** in there. Batthwack was holding a **fart**, filled with purple **thief**. He said it had spoke to him and told him to bring it to Will because he needed it to have some **rest and relaxation**. Raphina realised Will also had one in his **kilt** and stole it from him without him knowing. Batthwack through his ball out of the **tacos** into the river. At this point everyone noticed Gwen had **platypussies** popping out around some of her **belly button** and her beautiful sharp **fibulas** were now **sapphires**. After some discussion of a name for the group, including **Guardians of the Goodberry**, the **Menacingly Good Company**, **Pretty Fabulous Defenders**, the **Misty Mob**, **Castaway Cuties**, Sheemie went to sleep."

## References

1. ↑ See episode 218: Sure, I'll Consider It: A Phil Lompion and Fatmack Story
2. ↑ See episode 242: Tones of Loam
3. ↑ See episode 194: Pineapples and Foreign Policy
4. ↑ See episode 223: Don't Smell The Past, Smell The Future!
5. ↑ Eric describes the Beartoggle here as *"not a very clean river."*
6. ↑ See episode 260: Batthwack Yells And Then Smashes... \*gasp\*
7. ↑ See episode 210: Does Anyone Need a Soup Tureen?
8. ↑ which is apple juice in Welsh!