The Cave and The Mistress

*Captured! Desperate! And...Deadly? The gang races, and riddles, to save their friends from the completely reasonable consequences of their own actions. Missions are accepted and secrets are, you guessed it, revealed. Can justice be averted? Can the group dynamic ever heal? What's YOUR Hungry Boy Score? All this and more, NOW!*

Episode 8 of Rude Tales of Magic. It follows the party while separated after de Bonesby and Cordelia's arrest from fighting with the guards.

The previous episode was Brother's Keeper. The next audio on the feed is TEASER: Rude Tales LIVE at Union Hall 1/24/20, however that was a teaser for a live show that wouldn’t have been canon. The next canon episode was Buggin' Out.

## Summary

Cordelia wakes up in jail, having been beaten and arrested for the chaos she and Frederick de Bonesby created. Her guard Draco claims they were simply going to shake them down for money until they saw her demonic magic. Since they are unsure what she is, he explains they called in The Witchhunter to dissect her and they are going to execute de Bonesby.

Cordelia’s new familiar Junior appears at her window. He gains Cordelia’s permission to go fetch her friends to help. Albee, Bellow and Stirfry have been searching for the rest of the party until morning, when Junior reaches them with the news of Frederick and Cordelia’s arrest. Given the choice of being arrested or crawling through the sewers, the party decides to use the sewers via The Delighted Wife’s largest bathroom. They are warned of “freaks” that live down there, who turn out to be guardians who ask them to solve riddles. Albee grows increasingly frustrated, but they finally reach the prison’s basement. They find a guard waiting there with Junior in a cage, declaring they are all under arrest for breaking into jail.

We see a flashback to a 7-year-old Frederick where he is called upon by his father. He is scolded for being too kind to the family’s gryphons, with the source of their fortune coming from breeding and racing the creatures. His father commands him to kill the gryphon he had named with his bare hands before Frederick wakes up from his dream in prison.

Frederick discusses his situation with his cellmates Grandpa and The Sack, an elderly human and a blindfolded bugbear. They explain that he’ll certainly be executed for having killed so many guardsmen, and that his spells are canceled out by a nearby pig they call Spilled Milk that cancels out magic in his vicinity. The prisoners explain that they’re only in the cell by order of Moira Thousand for being too rough during the bar brawl, and upon their request they’re casually released by the guards.

De Bonesby tries to negotiate with the guards and manipulate Spilled Milk, but all attempts result in failure. As he runs out of ideas and scolds himself for getting into this mess, time freezes around him. Cheddar appears to him in the body of a cockroach to urge him to rescue Cordelia. Cheddar actually recognizes Frederick, showing him his true face in a mirror. He tells Frederick that the denizens of Hell often laugh while watching his failed attempt at lichdom in a loop. Cheddar ends up picking the lock while he berates de Bonesby for being a cold and selfish person, but de Bonesby begins to realize that he does care about Cordelia. Cheddar tells him to start acting like it and free her. Just before he vanishes, Cheddar tells de Bonesby that the failure in his ritual was in the blood of someone he loved. Contemplating these revelations, Frederick prepares to leave hiscell.

## Trivia

* The episode's title comes from the riddle posed by the guard that arrests Albee, Stirfry and Bellow near the end of the episode.

## Link

https://rudetalesofmagic.simplecast.com/episodes/the-cave-and-the-mistress