| Champions and players | versachiko (Sachi) as Akumu; smokingglueguns (Whitney) as Jinx |
| Result | Akumu (Jinx is revived once by Chinchilla the White, then killed for good by Eldritch Blast) |
| Arena | an orange asteroid in deep space, with a large planet behind it and a distant sun (inferred to be the Ether Drifts |
| Hosts | Caustic Phoenix (Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer); Mudcat narrates and plays the Arbiter |
| Watch | YouTube |
What happens
Opening: Stuart’s closet
- 0:00:53 The Arbiter’s Italian leather boots clack through the deep halls of the Dread Fortress. He reaches a small, humid, hot closet full of screens and stands over a small figure: Stuart. “Stuart, we need to talk. The last couple of deathmatches. Listen, you’ve dropped the ball.” The music was weird, the visuals were weird, and the Acolytes “weren’t having it.” He says the job isn’t in danger, but he has it “on good authority from the Grandmaster” that if Stuart doesn’t shape up, “we might be looking to make some cuts around here again.”
- 0:01:48 The Grandmaster’s voice bellows down the hallways of the basement dungeon where the Arbiter has hidden Stuart. Her wings flare and her heels clack as she searches for him. “Where are you?”
- 0:02:13 The Arbiter claims he’s just “working a couple things out” with Stuart. The GM says the issues are “on your plate,” and the Arbiter quickly switches to teamwork and “any resource that he needs.” The GM says she’ll be there for the extra-long hours. She adds that Stuart has PTO to use up: “We don’t have any PTO to go to waste at this company.” The Arbiter: “Stuart, you take as much time off as you need.”
- 0:03:05 The GM waits for the portal to open on its own, then realizes: “no, that’s your job. Open the portal.” The Arbiter claps, rips a portal to the throne room, and closes it behind himself, leaving Stuart behind.
- 0:03:12 The Arbiter: “I got Thea on board, I whipped her into a shape, and we have champions tonight.” GM: “Finally.” Thea sent the GM a small profile of each champion. The GM is sure “there’s going to be a lot of blood.”
The champions
- 0:03:47 The Arbiter shines his rings, claps, and opens a portal: “Akumu versus Jinx.”
- 0:04:19 — Akumu. “Hi, my name’s Akumu. I fell asleep in a ditch, and now I’m here, and I’m really confused about it.” GM: “I wish I could say this for the first time… This is the Dread Fortress… Do you need water?” Akumu: “Does the water have vodka in it?”
- 0:04:50 The Arbiter produces a full 12-ounce goblet of vodka. A history check to judge its quality comes up 8: “It tastes like vodka. You don’t fucking know. But it is the one that Thea tasted earlier.” Akumu: “It’s potato water.” (The player says Akumu is an alcoholic and wouldn’t know good vodka from bad.)
- 0:05:56 — Jinx. The Arbiter asks whether she’s an alcoholic too. Jinx wears a full unicorn onesie, LED gamer headphones with little cat ears, and blue hair in pigtails. She talks to an invisible chat: “Just like chat, we’re just gonna get right back to… where the hell am I? Oh, I’m sorry if we interrupted your game… I was playing Underview and I was like top ranked plat.” GM: “Such small stories. It’s time to broaden your horizon, Jinx. Welcome to the Dread Fortress. Apparently none of them know about the Dread Fortress.”
- 0:06:49 — The marketing problem. Akumu: “How much do you pay your marketing guy?” GM: “We don’t have a marketing person. That’s our problem.” The Arbiter says she cut the budget: “Remember when I was in charge, I levied all those taxes when you were absent and then you cut those taxes back?” The GM says the money went to a foam pit for the goblins: “We’ll get a marketing person next year.”
- 0:07:18 — The Arbiter’s land. “I had a marketing person… I had lots of land and I had plans for that land. But you took all of the funds.” Akumu: “If you don’t have plans for your land, why even have the land?” The GM bans the topic: “No more plans for lands… What is this? Some Hinge profile… No one would swipe right on that.” Arbiter: “If you don’t own any land, who wants to date you?”
- 0:08:11 GM: “I just want to hear the sound of someone’s blood coming up through their throat as we murder them.” Jinx is startled that it’s real blood. The GM warns it would stain the onesie, and suggests Tide as a sponsor for the marketing person “next year.” Arbiter: “We exist out of time and space… the marketing doesn’t really write itself.” They float billboards and a brand awareness campaign.
- 0:09:05 GM to Jinx: “You look like a killer on a video game.” Jinx: “If you put a controller in my hands, I’m going to crush it.” Akumu boasts, “I have big sword. Big sword is good. Bigger than your axes.” The GM is unconvinced: “Seems about the same.” Jinx: “If you’ve played Person with Sword in a video game, I’m sure it can’t be that hard to figure out.”
- 0:09:54 — Not in the throne room. GM: “I already told the Chinchillas we are getting no blood in here. Last time it took forever to get it out of their furs.” Arbiter: “the union rules have changed and they’re no longer allowed to clean up biohazard.” The GM says it would raise their insurance rates, and she’s already trying to get premium insurance for everyone: “That’s why we go to a different place and we ruin it there.” Akumu suggests Florida.
- 0:10:30 — The arena. The Arbiter flares his glowing white wings. Reality shifts into the depths of space: a large planet behind them, asteroids and rocks strewn about. The champions stand on one asteroid. Overhead, the floating grandstands hold “maybe millions” of Acolytes, already throwing blue slushies, ripping their shirts off and chanting their names.
- 0:11:19 GM: “This will do.” She flies up through the circling Acolytes. Below is an orange asteroid riddled with rock and rubble, the bones of champions long gone, “maybe a few worms as well.” “Oh champions, in space, everyone will be able to hear you scream.” From her throne-seat above: “This is your moment. Afterwards, glory, stories, power, they will all be yours should you ask for it. But first, you must survive.”
- 0:12:24 — Eye level. Jinx is “a five foot two little human person” (then says 5’1”). Akumu is a half-elf. They try to look each other in the eye, and one ends up looking at the other’s forehead and the other at a shoulder.
- 0:14:49 Jinx wins initiative by a wide margin (25 to 4). GM: “Choose your controller of choice. Turn on the Xbox… The turn is yours, oh Echo Knight.” Jinx: “I’m a PC gamer?”
Round 1
- 0:15:31 — The rat echo. Jinx manifests an echo behind Akumu: a copy of herself that is “rat adjacent,” “kind of like a rat.” The GM first pictures her swinging a rat as a weapon and dubs it “the Jinx rat.”
- 0:16:22 Unleash Incarnation: three scimitar swings. The first misses. The second rakes across Akumu’s chest, and Akumu “almost looks confused when it makes contact.” Then the echo swings. Arbiter: “Go, little rat!” The echo’s swing also lands (“little rat-ico”).
- 0:18:04 Jinx slashes back and forth with two scimitars while the echo cuts across Akumu’s back. Jinx is shocked by real blood: “Oh, oh, oh… I’m sorry, my apologies.” The GM pounds her armrests: “Jinx! Don’t you apologize! What you did was phenomenal! Do it again!” Jinx: “Your wings are very pretty.” GM: “Someone give me a blue slushie.”
- 0:18:47 Akumu: “It’s a good thing I’m so drunk… my blood is half vodka.” Someone at the table says she’s half elf and the other half is vodka.
- 0:19:35 — Vow of Enmity. Akumu “holds my vodka blood in my hand” and uses Channel Divinity: Vow of Enmity (advantage on attacks against Jinx for a minute). Since they’re the same size, she puts her hand on Jinx’s head and holds her back: “Just stop. Uh-uh.”
- 0:20:22 — Thea brings the weapons. Akumu has no weapons equipped. Behind her, a small pink impish character, Thea, runs across the asteroid shouting “I got your weapons!”, trips, and sends them flying. Akumu catches them on an athletics check: “I’m so good at catching things.”
- 0:20:51 — “Drunken Sword style.” Two greatsword attacks with advantage. The first “comes in right at your teeth”: she slices down the side, lifts the sword back up one-handed “because I’m like so strong,” and brings it straight down again for the second hit. Jinx considered a reaction but was too late.
- 0:21:40 — Heroic surge for Jinx. The Acolytes scream Jinx’s name and spill beer and blue slushies on themselves. The Arbiter grants her a heroic surge: “go kind of plus ultra… break the rules… You can ask for anything and most likely we’re going to say yes.”
- 0:23:26 Akumu: “I want to say I’m sorry, but you started it. Do you want some vodka?” Jinx: “I can’t have vodka because you can’t drink on stream. It’s against the rules. I don’t want to break TOS.” GM: “Would you like a mocktail instead?” Akumu: “I’m going to kill you. I have to kill you now.”
- 0:24:08 — Thea’s champions. GM: “Arbiter, I told you, these two were fantastic. I read their profiles.” The Arbiter claims he always backs up “most of what Thea does.” He then snaps: “For weeks I’ve been saying Thea’s been in charge of the champions and you have done nothing but ride my ass.” GM: “I’m supportive of Thea. You are the one who is supposed to support her and you’ve been doing a terrible job of it. That’s what leadership does.”
- 0:25:28 GM: “Do you need a blue slushie right now? You look angry.” Arbiter: “I should have left you in Cor’thun. I should have just left you there. I should have just never come.” GM: “I’ve saved your life more than once. You’re as good as Doug.”
- 0:25:50 — Doug. A small group of chinchillas parades Doug the pug out on a cute little wagon. He sits at the end, looking at both champions, and approves of them. GM: “I believe he would like to see round two, Arbiter. That’s clearly what he said.” The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is 17. GM: “It is sufficient.”
Chaos event: the freezing chinchillas (0:26:28)
- The Acolytes trigger a chaotic event; the arena chants “Chaos!” The Arbiter explains to the champions: “We could help you, we could hurt you, mostly hurt you.” Akumu: “My parents didn’t do that… be involved.” Arbiter: “We aim to be better parents than your parents.” On vodka: “It’s hard to be a better father than vodka can be… It gives you self-confidence. It’s always there when you need it.”
- 0:27:23 — Drink break. Jinx asks for boba. The GM claps, and two chinchillas pop out of tiny holes in the ground with serving trays, one holding the vodka and one the boba tea. But their paws shake and the trays wobble: it is freezing in space. “The Chinchillas, or Chinkillas, who are freezing to death.” With every step their paws turn bluer. Anyone who wants to help has to roll to keep them warm.
- 0:28:36 Jinx: “Can I just tuck a chinchilla inside my onesie with me?” Akumu: “Can I tuck a chinchilla into the sun?” She assumes “in this universe, chinchillas are invincible, so therefore the sun won’t kill it, it’ll just warm it.” Arbiter: “That’s an assumption you’re making, and it’s definitely incorrect.” He frets: “The Chinchilla Union is going to just murder us.” The GM leaves Akumu’s chinchilla to him.
- 0:29:39 — Results. Both roll high and take only half damage.
- Jinx: the tiny freezing paws hit her skin as the chinchilla snuggles into her onesie. Because she kept it safe, it will take one hit on her behalf.
- Akumu: the chinchilla scratches her as it clings on, and then she drop-kicks it toward the sun. “You get no protection and may God have mercy on your soul.”
- 0:30:56 Arbiter: “The chinkilla just flies… It becomes like a meteor. It hits the distant sun.” Akumu: “Oh my god, an adventure. It’s exploring the sun now.” GM: “It lives there now.” A nature roll decides whether chinkillas are sunproof (16). Arbiter: “In the distance, another chinchilla with a hard hat on, smoking a cigarette, takes it off, holds it to his heart. He had six children.” Akumu: “They are rodents. They proliferate, like, a lot.”
Round 2
- 0:32:20 — The surge. Jinx spends her heroic surge “vibing off of the crowd” to use Strike of the Giants (extra fire damage) on every hit this turn. The Arbiter allows it with shrinking dice on each hit.
- 0:33:19 Jinx chugs the boba (“with a mouth full of balls”), then ties the slash-ripped seam of her unicorn onesie into a cute little bow. “That was not very nice. You were discriminating.” She picks her swords back up. Akumu: “I hate you.”
- 0:34:01 “Fuck it, we ball”: Unleash Incarnation again. The first two fiery scimitar hits land. Jinx roars as the incarnation swings again. The GM asks to hear the roar; it’s a sound the table finds gross (“No hate crimes”).
- 0:35:45 — The fireball shield. Akumu casts Shield. “I just open up a bottle of fireball and I splash it… like a wall… fireball shield.” A beautiful amber wall absorbs the blow.
- 0:36:17 Jinx uses Second Wind and is “basically almost fully healed again.” She smiles at Akumu and scritches the chinchilla in her onesie.
- 0:37:02 — Adrenaline. The Acolytes go crazy at “this Molotov shield.” Both champions have five adrenaline, so each one’s next hit will be critical. Jinx Action Surges: “I need to swing two more times.” The first swing crits.
- 0:38:21 — The chinchillas take sides. Akumu: “This is what I get for killing chinchillas, actually.” A section of the crowd is covered in gray fur: a horde of chinchillas cheers, and a bunch of tiny middle fingers pop up in Akumu’s direction.
- 0:38:56 Jinx takes another deep breath, lets out another loud roar, and swings twice more. The first makes “a really gross, really gross, like jagged cut.” Akumu: “What if that’s the last sound you hear before you die? I hate it.” Another boba tea is served next to Jinx: “Oh my god, thank you, you’re so cute.”
- 0:39:49 — Drink your shield. GM: “You poor little thing. Why don’t you drink that fireball shield? As that’s your blood, isn’t it?” Akumu drinks it and heals a little. “This is what dreams are made out of, guys.”
- 0:40:34 — Lay on Hands. Akumu now has a heroic surge too. She spends it on an extra turn and heals with all 30 points of Lay on Hands, “the way I heal myself is I pull out more fireball and I do just chug it.”
- 0:41:45 The GM reminds everyone that Jinx has a chinchilla in her pocket. Akumu: “I’m not aiming for the chinchilla, I’m aiming for their head.” Jinx uses Shadow Martyr, so the echo dives in front of her. Akumu rolls a nat 20: “Akumu hones in, the light of the fireball in their eyes now,” and with greatsword in hand slices the Jinx rat (with her adrenaline crit). The echo disappears, “which is kind of sad.”
- 0:44:42 — More alcohol. “I want more alcohol.” Thea throws a bottle at Akumu from a distance: “No one’s getting close to you now, they’ve learned.” Akumu catches it with ease: “There’s one thing you always have an eye out for, and it’s alcohol.” The GM whispers to the Arbiter: “Should we be supplying this much to her? Like, this is starting to get into our budget.” Arbiter: “I’m more worried about supporting her rampant alcoholism, but we’re really not parents.”
- 0:45:49 Akumu: “My oxygen is vodka.” The Arbiter compares it to “when we’re depleted of health I drink blood… that’s science.” Akumu: “I yearn for approval and I don’t have chat to give me approval.”
- 0:47:23 — Doug’s snack. The GM asks the Arbiter to open a tiny portal and grab Doug a snack. Arbiter: “I’m not his caretaker. I don’t even like Doug… Make a portal for his fat ass?” GM: “It’s for your fat hand.” Arbiter: “This is where I’m drawing the line.” She asks politely. Arbiter: “Thea, get Doug a snack.”
- 0:48:04 — Cheese Prof. Thea looks around desperately, plucks the cheese-wheel head off Cheese Prof’s shoulders, and offers it to Doug. GM: “Thanks, Cheese Prof. You’ll get your head back maybe at the end if it’s not finished.” Cheese Prof is now headless while Doug devours it. Akumu: “If head is being devoured, then there is head.”
Round 3
- 0:49:52 Jinx swings twice (“Way to hold back”) with fire on one hit, “slicing and dicing.” Arbiter: “You’re like cut real bad.”
- 0:51:09 Akumu: “It smells like really alcoholic in here.” Jinx: “You should like drink water. I don’t think you drink enough water.” Akumu: “That will literally kill me. Do you want me to die? Oh, you do actually.”
- 0:51:24 — Plat one. Jinx: “She said I’m supposed to do a murder. And like, it’s not like this is real anyway. I just want to beat you so I can get back to farming plat… plat one. And if I get like two more wins, I’m going to go up to diamond.” Akumu: “I think you already lose.” Arbiter: “Plat is basically Diamond and Diamond is basically Grandmaster… And Grandmaster is just a step away from top 500.”
- 0:52:00 Jinx plans to switch to a game called DC Competitors once she’s diamond in Underview. Akumu: “Don’t you dare speak ill on my… Marvel Rivals. I love my little gooner game.” Jinx: “I wasn’t talking about Marvel Rivals. I was talking about DC… Competitors. Totally different.” She mentions “the thick, juicy Batman butt skin.” Akumu: “You could never be Luna Snow.”
- 0:53:07 — The smites. Akumu hits with advantage and “pumps” a 2nd-level smite into it (“Pump up the jam”). Her second hit carries a 1st-level smite.
- 0:54:30 Akumu licks the blood off her arm: “it’s kind of like recycling.” GM: “I love that you’re so eco-friendly here.” Akumu: “I also control the chinchilla population. I’m really like an ecologist… I don’t know. I’m drunk.” GM: “You’re doing great, though, sweetie.” Akumu: “That’s not what my mom ever told me, you know, because she’s vodka.” GM: “Please don’t imprint on me.”
- 0:55:15 GM calls an official drink break so the champions can rest and warm up. Arbiter: “the Acolytes could use a blue slushy break.” The GM wants to look into DC Competitors; the Arbiter “would go hard and heavy with a Poison Ivy” skin.
Ad break (0:56:17–1:08:01, still in the mp3)
- Excluded. It contains pre-recorded segments and clips from earlier episodes, not this episode’s story.
After the break
- 1:08:01 Arbiter: “Back to these two beating each other senseless, drinking their own blood. Hunting chinchillas into the sun. You know, classic stuff for a Sunday night.” GM: “Dr. Pepper is great.”
- 1:08:19 — Acid in the Grand Canyon. GM: “Arbiter, where were you? What, doing acid in the Grand Canyon or something?” Arbiter: “When you control all of time and space and can go anywhere at the whim, like, why wouldn’t I be doing acid in the Grand Canyon?” GM: “Like at the Big Bang or, you know, Woodstock.”
- 1:08:46 — The motto and the tattoo. The Arbiter’s motto: “When you can, you should.” He has it tattooed right across his nipples: it starts in his armpits and goes through the nipples. GM: “I guess when you can get a tattoo across your nipples, you should.” Arbiter: “Now you’re getting it.”
- 1:09:22 — Vietnam. Jinx asks whether he’d time travel to a sad historical event. Arbiter: “I can time travel and the place that I find myself frequently reliving and revisiting is Vietnam.” At any point in time? “Yeah, any point… I just have one rule and it’s I don’t go to Vietnam in the present.”
Chaos event: the chinkilla in the hamster ball (1:09:55)
- The Acolytes beg for chaos, and Akumu rolls 15. A soft rumbling grows louder, like plastic hitting rock. A tiny clear sphere bounces along the horizon toward them, growing larger: “a clear giant plastic ball with a chinkilla inside, ready to run the two of you over.” Dex saves.
- 1:11:34 Akumu’s save goes badly: “You put a ball-shaped chinkilla in front of me.” Jinx uses Indomitable, rerolls and saves.
- 1:12:15 Akumu: “I’m gonna punt it into the sun.” The Arbiter gives her advantage on the strength check “because you’ve done this before.” Akumu: “You made it ball-shaped. That’s perfect punting.” Meanwhile, Jinx’s shadow dog hooks her up in a hug and pulls her further away from Akumu. GM: “Oh, my sweet baby.”
- 1:13:04 Akumu succeeds (21): “you kick this ball so hard, and it’s just like a rocket ship, just terminal velocity… it spins.” Akumu: “I’m starting a colony on the sun. Here goes Denny.” Arbiter: “Inside the ball, the chinkilla is literally just slammed to the back of the ball with the G-forces as it just, ah!” Into the sun.
- 1:13:31 The Acolytes pile fatigue on Akumu (“a new fatigue record”). She now has over five fatigue, so the next hit she takes will be critical.
Round 4
- 1:14:19 The shadow dog sets Jinx down. “I can attack from the shadow.” The shadow runs in “all up in your grill” with Jinx’s final Unleash Incarnation. The first swing misses. The second is a critical hit with fire on top.
- 1:16:10 — The whiff. On the far side of the asteroid, Jinx is button-mashing a full-on controller to direct the shadow. The chinchilla in her onesie nips her (“a little nib nib”), she misses the button combo, and the swing goes wide. GM: “So you blame the chinkilla.” Akumu: “Well, you should really punt it into the sun, you know.” Jinx: “I don’t know how to do that. And it’s not like any of this is real anyway.”
- 1:17:18 Jinx asks the crowd: “Chat, you should really empower me to be better.” The Acolytes stomp, cheer and throw blue slushy after blue slushy. Jinx has five adrenaline.
- 1:18:04 Akumu: “I’ll continue to lick my own vodka. I mean blood, sorry.” “It just feels like recycling.” The shadow stands in front of her, and the real Jinx is about 15 ft away. Akumu chooses to move past the echo and take the attack of opportunity: “I made a choice.” It’s a critical hit.
- 1:19:28 Akumu: “It’s fine. She’s dead. Listen, she’s dead. She has no brain cells… Not a thought behind those eyes. But the eyes are pretty… They’re about to, like, close forever.” “I am like looking good, like aesthetically… when you’re in a coffin, people are like, damn.”
- 1:20:01 — Captain Morgan. Akumu hits with a smite. The GM asks which deity this paladin follows. Akumu: “Captain Morgan is my deity… I think he’ll find the One Piece. I’m really proud of him.” GM: “No spoilers. I’ve not seen season two.”
- 1:20:50 Her second hit, with a 2nd-level smite, lands. Jinx falls to her knees.
- 1:21:42 — The kill, as Akumu describes it. “Bleeding out your blood… the air smells like a dive bar in the arena right now… so alcoholic… Just vodka mixed with blood. As she calls upon her deity Captain Morgan and you hear the sounds of beach and ocean waves in the background as you see your last goodnight. And you feel like maybe you’re gonna have a hangover. As I bring my sword down and I break your controller in two. And you.” Jinx is bisected.
- 1:22:56 Jinx’s final thoughts: “You know, my hair’s been blue for like a really long time and I should maybe try pink.” Akumu: “There can only be one.”
Chinchilla the White (1:23:21)
- Jinx falls in two halves on either side. The asteroid feels cold and lonely, and Akumu stands alone under the shining stars. One star seems to be getting closer and warmer: a familiar small furry face. The chinkilla, “once gray, kicked to the sun, comes back.”
- 1:24:22 “Staff in hand. I am no longer Chinchilla the Gray. I am Chinchilla the White.” It returns shining in platinum. It looks to the one who sheltered a chinchilla “in the coldest of times” and offers Jinx a small fuzzy white paw.
- 1:24:29 Jinx is repaired, stitched back together up the middle. She opens her eyes to find the small gray chinchilla she kept earlier finishing the final touches: changing her hair to whatever color she wants. Akumu: “If you do pink, I’m going to sue you.” Jinx: “off magenta… not quite pink, but from a distance you might call it pink.” Lawyer jokes follow (“Fun fact: he’s also my lawyer.” “Mine too.”).
- 1:25:48 Chinchilla the White restores Jinx to some health.
- 1:26:04 — No more revives. GM: “You are awakened! But that does not mean that this fight is over! You got that once!” She banishes Chinchilla the White back to the Dread Fortress, “at least temporarily.” “There shall no more be any resummonings, no more restitching, no more revives. I want the two of you to actually fight to the death now.”
- 1:26:30 Jinx: “Did you fix my controller too, or just me?” GM: “What, do we look like a Radio Shack?” Arbiter: “I’ve been spending a lot of time in 1950s Vietnam.” When Radio Shack’s founding is looked up (1921), the Arbiter adds, “I knew that because of history and stuff and master of time and space.”
- 1:27:16 Jinx’s new hair is specifically Pantone 238, “Baskin Robbins,” “a slightly lighter shade of pink”, and “It’s not the same!”
- 1:27:54 — Riding the chinchilla. Akumu misty-steps. Before Chinchilla the White is sent back, she lands on the shoulders of the 15-foot chinchilla, “like Groot and Rocket.” GM: “Normally, though, you do that with things that you’ve not killed.” Akumu: “I feel like I sent it on a journey and it came back better.” Arbiter: “Technically, she’s the Balrog here.”
- 1:29:05 A persuasion check (27) shows Chinchilla the White is grateful for the journey and heals her a little. GM: “It is grown and it sees that without a strong opponent, it would never become strong itself. That’s kind of actually a nice metaphor for this Deathmatch.”
The Box of Chaos (1:29:43)
- The Arbiter notes “we really haven’t seen much of the Box of Chaos recently.” GM: “Well, as your tattoo says, if you can, you should.” Arbiter: “That is what it says right across my nipples.” GM: “Across all three of them.” Arbiter: “Yep… We already said it out loud, it’s canon.”
- 1:30:33 The Arbiter stands, his white wings glowing in the sun’s light. The Box of Chaos streaks down from space like a shooting star and slams onto the battlefield: a chest of pinks and purples. The lid flips open and a column of fire shoots into space. It gives off no heat, because it’s magical fire. A shadowy figure with long, tendrilly claws and yellow eyes peeks out: “What’s up?” Sacrifice something on your turn, for free, and get a magic item of unknown rarity.
- 1:31:21 What counts? GM: “We’ve had hair, we’ve had their opponent’s arm, they’ve had a bottle of vodka… anything.” Akumu: “My grandmother is a bottle of Bailey’s.” GM: “We do have a legacy of sacrificing grandmas in this arena. Also, Bailey’s is delicious.”
Round 5
- 1:32:00 — Jinx’s sacrifice. Jinx runs to the box: “I want to sacrifice 396 channel points… I worked very hard to earn those.” She watches her own channel “so I can boost the numbers.” Arbiter: “That’s fucking sad… Why don’t you just do what the top guys do and viewbot?” Jinx: “Because I’m not a pussy.” “Fair enough.”
- 1:33:36 The box shuts, rumbles and shakes, then flips open with another column of fire. The shadowy figure floats her a small vial: a potion of resistance to fire. GM: “Alcohol, it can be burned, can’t it?… Like when there’s a big explosion.” Akumu: “Are you planning a big explosion?” GM: “I just love a good bonfire… Whatever happens after that is not my fault.” Jinx shotguns the vial.
- 1:34:50 — The name. Akumu objects to being called “Akuma”: “it is from, like, Miraculous Ladybug.” “Akumu! Mu, like cow!”
- 1:35:14 Jinx runs 30 ft and manifests a new echo on the giant chinchilla’s other shoulder: “One on each shoulder.” She pulls the controller back out (“Plug in, gamer”). The first swing misses. The second, with the last of her fire-giant strike, is stopped by Shield: “More fireball just comes right out.”
- 1:36:03 Jinx: “Thank you, Captain Morgan. Just come down here and kill me like a fucking adult instead of being like a little pog bad face. Go outside and touch grass.” Akumu: “You just called me pog.” GM: “This is a deathmatch, not BFF night.”
- 1:36:48 — Akumu’s sacrifice: her grandmother. She tosses an item into the box with an athletics check. “I’ll throw my grandma, Bailey… Her name is Bailey and she’s also a bottle of Bailey’s. It makes her easy to pick up and travel with… I carry her with me wherever I go.” She asks her: “Is it your time? Is this like how you want to go out? Yeah, she says yes.” (The GM mentions that “Waffles is offering a self-sacrifice as well” as a backup.)
- 1:37:33 The bottle goes right into the box. The shadowy figure catches it, uncorks it, and pours it down his gullet: “Ah, yeah. Your grandma is silky smooth… Feels good on my tongue.” Akumu: “It’s where I get it from. I feel uncomfortable. I need an adult.”
- 1:38:27 Another column of fire, and into Akumu’s hands shoots Thaneater: a legendary +3 battleaxe. On a 20 it deals extra necrotic damage and heals the wielder. Akumu is proficient with it.
- 1:39:19 Jinx to the box: “Why don’t you just tell me to go fuck myself?” The box figure: “You gave me like 300 channel points. What the fuck do you want?” Akumu: “I gave you my grandma.” Jinx: “I’ll throw a crowd member into you. I have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. They’re just people.” “Deal’s a deal.”
- 1:39:54 — Eldritch Blast. Jinx is more than 30 ft away, so Akumu reveals: “I’m also a Warlock, so I do have Eldritch Blast.” GM: “Just been holding on to that in your back pocket.”
- 1:40:56 All three beams hit with advantage from the Vow. The second beam takes exactly Jinx’s remaining health. Jinx: “Cat, I might be cooked.” “I’m being bullied on the internet. It is not fair. I cast gun. I need to go get a white outfit, make an apology video for losing.” GM: “It’s super effective. You feel the first hit, then the second. And you feel those hit points, once given to you by the grace of Chinchilla the White, seep from your body.”
- 1:43:19 — Jinx’s last act. “I’m gonna have the shadow dog crawl over the head of the Chinchilla and just wrap its arms in a comforting hug around Akumu. And then it’s gonna lean into their ear and stick their tongue inside it and just make it nice and wet. And then it’s gonna whisper” (the whispered sound isn’t in the transcript). GM: “The worst thing you could have done.”
- 1:43:48 — Jinx falls. She collapses, and tiny worms come out and pull her body underground. “For why, who knows?” “But you will be remembered.” The GM opens her wings and flies down: “A champion has fallen.”
- 1:44:21 “And while death can be a terrifying thing, we know it is just one more chapter in our books. And when that page comes, we will not hide from it, but we will take our own pen and write our ending. But for one champion, their final chapter is not today.” She holds out her hand to Akumu.
- 1:44:54 Akumu: “I killed my grandma for this, so, you know. It was worth it.” GM: “You made the sacrifices needed! You’ve bled all over this asteroid and somehow, in some miraculous way, you have managed to survive! And that is a story that reminds us of our own struggle that we should never give up!”
- 1:45:33 Akumu’s words to the Acolytes: “Hey, drink water, not vodka. I’m built wrong. Go be built right.” The Acolytes raise their drinks in a cheer and pour them out, making a waterfall that cascades down and floods the area. “Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”
Dried Blood (after-show)
In-character / canon content
- Jinx’s chinchilla is named Wicked (1:52:02). The GM says Jinx essentially adopted it by keeping it safe and giving scritches, “a clear sign that they have now bonded to you.” Whitney shows a plush chinchilla as Wicked. He needs a haircut, can barely see, and has one visible eye. Wicked: “Mom, why am I here? Oh, but scratches though… I guess it’s okay, mom.” (voiced by Whitney; in-character status uncertain).
- Akumu’s grandmother: Sachi says Akumu carried her “my whole life… She’s been with me since I was a wee one.” Drew jokes about a Kickstarter for a printed genealogy tome of Akumu’s lineage needing “four or five million.”
- Akumu’s final word: “Where’s the vodka at?” Jinx’s final word is the same sound she used in the fight (not transcribed).
Out-of-character, creator notes
- Drew: “We lose track after, like, 200 episodes… They’re not all technically episodes. Some are like limited series.” Bec: “Expanding universe.”
- Jinx’s inspiration (Whitney): a running bit of poking fun at Sachi. Jinx is an e-streamer, “Sachi-coded,” inspired by Mei’s new e-streamer mythic skin in Overwatch. The rat echo plays off Sachi’s community turning her into a rat.
- Akumu’s inspiration (Sachi): nothing was planned. She went for “the worst thing I could do,” alcoholism: “I woke up in a ditch because I’m alcoholic.” A friend built the character sheet. She plays to the stats: low INT means “the first bad thought that pops into my mind is the thing I will do.” Her other ideas were to put the chinchilla in her armor, build it a fire, or give it alcohol.
- Builds: Akumu is 6 paladin / 4 warlock; Jinx is 10 fighter. Jinx picked scimitars (d6) for “lots of little cuts” so the fight would last longer. Jinx would redo her as a fire giant lineage for more fire strikes. Sachi would smite sooner; the brief said not to go hard out of the gate. Drew was “beefing you guys up the whole time,” with +3 or +4 to rolls most of the fight. A min-max fight is planned someday.
- Sachi is “really good at playing cards”; Bec says a card chaos event exists and would have given her advantage. “Next time.”
- Bec: “This cannot be the last time the two of you all fight.” What they’d do differently: Jinx, “Bigger sword”; Akumu, “use smite a lot sooner… I’m sorry, Captain Morgan.”
- Plugs: Smokingglueguns has a “Reparations” listing on her website. Chat (Cookiemon Steve) asks for chinchilla dice, and a D20 collab is floated. Versachiko is “everywhere on the internet.” Sachi: “please drink water.” Whitney: the first ingredient in Dr. Pepper is water (“not sponsored”).
- Sachi mentions a past PvP battle royale where the two POC players allied (table talk).
Who and what appears
Characters
Akumu (versachiko). Champion and winner.
- Who she is:
- A half-elf, about Jinx’s height.
- Paladin with Vow of Enmity, smites and Lay on Hands; also a warlock with Eldritch Blast. Fights with a greatsword (“Drunken Sword style”).
- Intelligence −1 (“I’m not smart”).
- Arrived after falling asleep in a ditch, confused. Had never heard of the Dread Fortress.
- Vodka and blood:
- Severe alcoholic. “My blood is half vodka.” “My oxygen is vodka.” Water “will literally kill me.” Her mother “is vodka.”
- Licks her own blood as “recycling.”
- Her deity is Captain Morgan.
- Her grandmother, Bailey, is a bottle of Bailey’s that Akumu carried her whole life. She sacrificed her to the Box of Chaos with her consent.
- Her Shield spell is “fireball” from a bottle, splashed into an amber wall. She drinks fireball to heal.
- She kicked two chinchillas into the sun: one in the freezing event, one in a hamster ball (“Denny”?). One returned as Chinchilla the White, and she rode on its shoulders.
- Gained the legendary +3 battleaxe Thaneater from the Box of Chaos.
- Insists on “Akumu, mu like cow,” not Akuma.
Jinx (smokingglueguns). A 5’1”–5’2” human Echo Knight fighter and e-streamer.
- Look: unicorn onesie, LED cat-ear gamer headphones, blue pigtails. After her revival, her hair is Pantone 238 “Baskin Robbins” off-magenta, not quite pink.
- Gaming: plays Underview at “plat one,” two wins from diamond. Wants to play DC Competitors. Watches her own channel to boost numbers and refuses to viewbot. Talks to an invisible chat and won’t drink on stream (TOS).
- In the fight: two scimitars, with fire-giant strikes, Unleash Incarnation, Second Wind, Action Surge, Indomitable and Shadow Martyr. She steers her echo with a controller.
- Her echoes: first a rat-like copy of herself (the “Jinx rat”), then a dog, “a right proper good boy.”
- Sheltered a freezing chinchilla (Wicked) in her onesie. In return, Chinchilla the White revived her.
- Sacrificed 396 channel points for a fire-resistance potion.
- Killed by Eldritch Blast. Worms pulled her body underground.
Chinchilla the White (Bec). Formerly Chinchilla the Gray, the chinkilla Akumu kicked into the sun (which one isn’t certain). It returns shining platinum, staff in hand, about 15 ft tall, revives Jinx, and is grateful to Akumu for its journey. The GM banishes it to the Dread Fortress “at least temporarily.”
Wicked: the chinchilla Jinx kept warm. It bit her mid-combo, then helped finish her revival by changing her hair. Named in Dried Blood.
- Workers in the Dread Fortress with a union. They bring drinks, pull Doug’s wagon, and complained that blood takes forever to get out of their fur.
- Under the new union rules they no longer clean up biohazard.
- A hard-hat chinchilla mourned a sun-kicked chinchilla who “had six children.” A horde of them flipped Akumu tiny middle fingers.
Stuart: works the stream’s screens from a hot little closet in the Dread Fortress basement. The Arbiter blames him for weird music and visuals. He has PTO.
Thea (Bec): the pink imp, now in charge of champions, who wrote the champion profiles.
- Tasted the vodka first.
- Tripped while bringing Akumu’s weapons, then threw her a bottle from a safe distance.
- Gave Cheese Prof’s head to Doug.
- Played darts with the GM.
Doug the Pug: has one good eye and one metallic cyborg eye with a red infrared scanner. He approves of champions and claps on two feet (“It’s a bone day today”). The Arbiter “doesn’t even like Doug.” He ate Cheese Prof’s head.
Cheese Prof: an Acolyte or staff member whose head is a cheese wheel; currently headless.
The Box of Chaos figure (Drew): a shadowy figure with long tendrilly claws and yellow eyes. Drank grandma Bailey (“silky smooth”).
The Arbiter (Drew):
- Motto “When you can, you should,” tattooed across his nipples, of which he has three (“Across all three of them.” “Yep”).
- Was doing acid in the Grand Canyon during the break. Revisits Vietnam at any point in time except the present; has spent “a lot of time in 1950s Vietnam.”
- Says he once “was in charge” and levied taxes while the GM was absent. Had land, plans for it, and a marketing person.
- Resents the GM’s praise of Thea: “I should have left you in Cor’thun.”
Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Bec):
- Wears an eyepatch after scratching her eye playing darts with Thea; a memo told everyone not to mention it.
- Bought the goblins a foam pit. Wants premium insurance for staff. Promises a marketing person “next year.”
- Says she has saved the Arbiter’s life more than once.
- Bans revives after Chinchilla the White.
Places
- Dread Fortress basement / dungeon: Stuart’s screen closet.
- The GM’s throne room: no fighting there, so the chinchillas’ fur stays clean.
- The orange asteroid: in space, with a big planet and a distant sun. Rubble, old champions’ bones, and worms that drag the dead underground. Inferred to be the Ether Drifts (Drew’s Dried Blood remark).
- The sun: two chinchillas were kicked into it, and Akumu claims a “colony.” Chinchilla the White came from there.
- “Tinkula / Chinkilla Forest” (unclear, mentioned by the GM).
Items
- Thaneater: a legendary +3 battleaxe (on a 20: extra necrotic damage and the wielder heals).
- Potion of fire resistance, drunk by Jinx.
- Grandma Bailey (a bottle of Bailey’s), sacrificed.
- 396 channel points, sacrificed.
- Akumu’s bottled “fireball.” The Arbiter’s 12-oz goblet of vodka. Boba teas. Jinx’s controller (broken in two by the killing blow, not repaired). The chinkilla hamster ball.
Lore statements
- The Box of Chaos has taken hair, an opponent’s arm and a bottle of vodka as sacrifices, and there is “a legacy of sacrificing grandmas in this arena.”
- The Arbiter “controls all of time and space” and can visit any time (Big Bang, Woodstock, Vietnam).
- There is no marketing person; the money went to the goblins’ foam pit.
- “Without a strong opponent, it would never become strong itself”: the GM’s metaphor for the Deathmatch.
Quotes by character
Akumu
- 0:04:19 “Hi, my name’s Akumu. I fell asleep in a ditch, and now I’m here, and I’m really confused about it.”
- 0:04:40 “Does the water have vodka in it?”
- 0:09:19 “I have big sword. Big sword is good. Bigger than your axes.”
- 0:18:47 “It’s a good thing I’m so drunk… my blood is half vodka.”
- 0:23:57 “I’m going to kill you. I have to kill you now.”
- 0:31:03 “Oh my god, an adventure… It’s exploring the sun now.”
- 0:51:19 “That will literally kill me. Do you want me to die? Oh, you do actually.”
- 0:55:11 “That’s not what my mom ever told me, you know, because she’s vodka.”
- 1:13:16 “I’m starting a colony on the sun.”
- 1:20:25 “Captain Morgan is my deity.”
- 1:23:20 “There can only be one.”
- 1:37:00 “Her name is Bailey and she’s also a bottle of Bailey’s. It makes her easy to pick up and travel with.”
- 1:44:54 “I killed my grandma for this, so, you know. It was worth it.”
- 1:45:33 “Hey, drink water, not vodka. I’m built wrong. Go be built right.”
Jinx
- 0:06:05 “Oh, I’m sorry if we interrupted your game… I was playing Underview and I was like top ranked plat.”
- 0:09:15 “If you put a controller in my hands, I’m going to crush it.”
- 0:18:04 “Oh, oh, oh… I’m sorry, my apologies.”
- 0:18:29 “Your wings are very pretty.”
- 0:23:47 “I can’t have vodka because you can’t drink on stream. It’s against the rules. I don’t want to break TOS.”
- 0:28:36 “Can I just tuck a chinchilla inside my onesie with me?”
- 0:33:19 “That was not very nice. You were discriminating.”
- 0:51:24 “She said I’m supposed to do a murder. And like, it’s not like this is real anyway. I just want to beat you so I can get back to farming plat.”
- 1:16:44 “It bit me. It did a little nib nib.”
- 1:23:09 “My hair’s been blue for like a really long time and I should maybe try pink.”
- 1:26:30 “Did you fix my controller too, or just me?”
- 1:36:03 “Just come down here and kill me like a fucking adult instead of being like a little pog bad face. Go outside and touch grass.”
- 1:39:28 “I’ll throw a crowd member into you. I have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. They’re just people.”
- 1:42:43 “I’m being bullied on the internet. It is not fair. I cast gun.”
The Arbiter
- 0:00:53 “Stuart, we need to talk. The last couple of deathmatches. Listen, you’ve dropped the ball.”
- 0:03:12 “I got Thea on board, I whipped her into a shape, and we have champions tonight.”
- 0:06:58 “Remember when I was in charge, I levied all those taxes when you were absent and then you cut those taxes back?”
- 0:08:01 “If you don’t own any land, who wants to date you?”
- 0:24:59 “For weeks I’ve been saying Thea’s been in charge of the champions and you have done nothing but ride my ass.”
- 0:25:33 “I should have left you in Cor’thun. I should have just left you there.”
- 0:27:11 “It’s hard to be a better father than vodka can be.”
- 0:31:46 “Another chinchilla with a hard hat on, smoking a cigarette, takes it off, holds it to his heart. He had six children.”
- 0:47:27 “I’m not his caretaker. I don’t even like Doug.”
- 1:08:30 “When you control all of time and space… why wouldn’t I be doing acid in the Grand Canyon?”
- 1:09:51 “I just have one rule and it’s I don’t go to Vietnam in the present.”
- 1:37:33 (as the Box figure) “Ah, yeah. Your grandma is silky smooth… Feels good on my tongue.”
Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer
- 0:07:46 “No more plans for lands… What is this? Some Hinge profile?”
- 0:09:58 “I already told the Chinchillas we are getting no blood in here. Last time it took forever to get it out of their furs.”
- 0:11:23 “Oh champions, in space, everyone will be able to hear you scream.”
- 0:18:20 “Jinx! Don’t you apologize! What you did was phenomenal! Do it again!”
- 0:25:07 “You are the one who is supposed to support her and you’ve been doing a terrible job of it. That’s what leadership does.”
- 0:25:50 “I’ve saved your life more than once. You’re as good as Doug.”
- 0:30:32 “You get no protection and may God have mercy on your soul.”
- 0:46:19 “There is a higher power I must answer to in this moment.”
- 0:55:15 “Please don’t imprint on me.”
- 1:26:04 “There shall no more be any resummonings, no more restitching, no more revives.”
- 1:29:25 “Without a strong opponent, it would never become strong itself.”
- 1:40:37 “There was a memo that went out to everyone that said don’t bring up the Grandmaster’s eyepatch.”
- 1:44:21 “While death can be a terrifying thing, we know it is just one more chapter in our books.”
- 1:44:59 “You’ve bled all over this asteroid and somehow, in some miraculous way, you have managed to survive!”
Chinchilla the White
- 1:24:22 “I am no longer Chinchilla the Gray. I am Chinchilla the White.”
Thea
- 0:20:22 “I got your weapons! … Here you go!”
Doug
- 0:46:19 “Ruff ruff.”
Canon notes
- The eyepatch is canon and temporary (darts with Thea).
- The taxes line was a slip. Ruling: the Grandmaster sometimes lets the Arbiter run the taxes.
- Chinchilla the White is the chinchilla kicked into the sun in Round 1.
- The Arbiter’s three nipples and the tattoo are canon.
- “I’ve saved your life more than once” stands as said; the Arbiter’s side is his death protecting Doug from the Shadow King.