S5 Ep17 — Vythorn's Return Part 4


Champions and players	Mudcat as Vythorn / the Arbiter
Result	none (story episode)
Arena	none (no Deathmatch). Scenes are the abandoned dungeons of the Dread Fortress (Season of Fate vision), then the storm-lashed memory scene left unfinished at the end of Part 3
Hosts	Caustic Phoenix (narration, Fil, Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer)
Watch	YouTube

What happens

Season of Fate (Vythorn’s vision): the dungeon visit

The post-show (0:22:31–0:23:48) states that this whole scene, like the whole of Season 5, takes place inside Vythorn’s vision. Only Vythorn experiences it.

0:00:12 — The forgotten halls. Bec narrates a rarely travelled part of the Dread Fortress. It is abandoned and cold, with cobwebs on the walls and corners, and “only spiders call this place home.” Vythorn, “our new Lord of Fate,” walks down into the dungeons on steps he has not used “in ages.”
0:00:51 — Vythorn’s mood. He walks the halls in deep contemplation. His newly crafted leather boots clack and echo. The deeper he goes, the more solemn and sad he becomes. He thinks over:
- the last season of Deathmatches and the time since he took power;
- the frustration of his new assistant;
- the challenges of leadership;
- the constant infighting and rebellion;
- being responsible for so many bickering people.
He feels nostalgic “for the way things used to be.”
0:02:14 — The door. He stops before a door with “only one face” behind it: a prison holding someone he has not seen “in a season’s time.” He hesitates, unsure whether he should be there. Then, moved by “this feeling of almost sorrow,” he unlocks it and pushes the chamber open.
0:03:24 — Elusia in her cell. The light is dim, and the prisoner squints at him. Her first word is “Agdrel? No, what am I saying? Vythorn.”
0:03:41 Vythorn hopes the accommodations “haven’t been too terrible.” She answers with her old sharp tongue: “my stay has been delightful.” The cell is dark and damp but has candlelight, books in the corner and a humble bed mat. Vythorn notes to himself that she looks worn and tired. He admits he doesn’t really know why he came.
0:04:49 She invites him to sit, since she hasn’t had company in a long time. He magically pulls a chair over, smooths his robes and preens a little, then sits “like a lord.”
0:05:16 — The chains. Up close he sees that Elusia is still in chains, but she moves freely in them, as if they were “bangles jewelry.” She asks what could possibly bother the Lord of Fate.
0:05:48 — Loneliness. Vythorn admits he is lonely and misses their conversations. She points out that he controls everyone’s fate and could twist anyone into a friend or mentor. He replies that his acquaintances are “all hollow.” He can never truly know who is a real friend and who is under his influence. He corrects himself: he does know, but “it’s not as fun when you have to force it.”
0:07:05 — Elusia’s judgement. She seizes on the word “fun.” His friends are hollow “because they’re not real.” When he became Lord of Fate it was never about real relationships. He had a plan, and when you make your will that of everyone else, “it’s going to be lonely.”
0:07:49 He wonders what she would do in his place. She says she understands the temptation, and would have expected herself, not him, to crave such power. He was a victim of fate being controlled: “Have you not become what Agdrel was to you? A controlling mastermind who decided how you’ll fit in at the void of the role that you will play.”
0:08:00–0:09:06 — Why she trusted him. “I know that you will overthrow me time and time again. I let those risks grow. They’re opportunities for you to have choice.” Being around others with their own will is a risk, but it is also how they can shape your future “to become something greater or better that you couldn’t envision on your own.”
0:10:18 Elusia: if he can’t accept that people make mistakes, he will be lonely, his success minimal and his impact meaningless. She chose to take in the flaws along with the beauty and joy of letting everyone choose their lives “side by side rather than alone.” She asks how that loneliness feels.
0:11:27 — “A prison for us both.” “I feel trapped. I feel more trapped than I ever did when I was your arbiter.” He tried to take fate into his own hands so that neither he nor those around him would suffer again, “but it seems I’ve made a prison for us both.”
0:12:12 — The bed. Elusia: “Yours does have a comforting bed that is nicer than mine.” Vythorn: “It is very nice. In fact, it was yours.”
0:12:25 She concedes they may not have communicated well or been the best for each other. If she could go back she would change some things, “but I wouldn’t change my trust in you.” She would also “deck out all the dungeons with comfortable beds in case I ever found myself here.” Vythorn: “Very wise.”
0:13:01 — The exhale. Vythorn hangs his head and lets her words cut to his core. He realizes he is “the architect of his own fate.” “Well then I know what I have to do.” He opens his eyes and exhales.

Main timeline: the choice

0:14:05 — Back in the memory. He is back in a familiar scene: disrupted ground, angry clouds and a downpour of rain. It is “a memory that has not yet been completed.” Fil, the God of Fate, whispers in his ear and asks again: “Who are you going to become?”
0:14:45 — The answer. “I will be who I have always been. I am the arbiter of the Grandmaster. I am the other side of her coin. And together we will overcome fate.”
0:15:09 Fil objects: “That’s not what we outlined. That was not your desire.” Vythorn says he thought it through to its logical conclusion. Controlling his own fate means choosing for himself, “whether I kill the Grandmaster or join her.” “You will not tempt me, pull the strings… This is my choice.”
0:15:59 Fil mocks him as “a man of titles.” She asked him so many times who he is, he wanted to become something greater, and he chose “to stay with the Arbiter”? Vythorn: “The only title that matters to me is friend.”
0:16:32 — The debt. “Okay, friend. Interesting. Well, we had our deal. The book was given. The void laid out in front of you. Vythorn. We will have to come to collect.” Vythorn, looking at the frozen Elusia: “We’ll be ready for you.”
0:17:02 Fil chuckles with a Cheshire Cat smile. The laugh echoes as she disappears. With her gone, the rain starts to fall again, soaking Vythorn’s clothes and hair. Elusia starts to move. She is still in that moment of fear, holding on to the choker.
0:17:44 — The dagger. Seeing her fear, Vythorn draws the dagger downward, channels chaos energy through it and shatters the shackles around her neck. “It’s good to see you.”
0:18:05 Elusia: “I hate to admit it, but I didn’t know what you were going to do there for a second.” Vythorn: “That makes two of us, I think.” “What?” “Nothing.”
0:18:16 — The embrace. She is glad he is back by her side. “The Shadow King at least is not here, but we have so much we have to do and I cannot do it alone.” She runs to hug him. The narration notes that a surprise hug “is not something that has occurred often between the two of them, typically cold and stature,” but it is welcome. She pulls back: “We are going to change things. We are going to be ready.” She has noticed many threats in the Void.
0:18:58 Vythorn: “There are even more threats beyond the void that you aren’t even aware of yet.” They agree they must prepare, and Vythorn says “together we must be ready to fight fate itself.” She likes the phrase.
0:19:13 — The Acolytes. The Acolytes have watched the fight, the Shadow King’s disappearance, and the Arbiter putting a dagger to Elusia’s throat only to free her. They wait cautiously, unsure what to make of it all. Elusia opens her wings and addresses them:
- “The time of corruption is over. Chaos for chaos sake is not enough anymore.”
- Chaos is what binds them and draws them to the Void, “but we are not victims of it. It is in our blood, in our essence.”
- “This chaos energizes us and it is ours to wield, not for others to wield over us.”
- She declares “a new era.” Together they will strengthen their ranks, minds and bodies so that, looking at the Arbiter, “we may be the masters of our own fate.”
0:20:19 Sign-off: “Welcome and good night.”

Post-show

There is no “Welcome to Dried Blood” opener. The sign-off is at 0:20:19, and the YouTube length (0.36 h ≈ 21:36) matches where the talk begins. Everything below is out of character.

Recorded in secret, in advance. This was “the surprise recording of episode four.” The series was billed as three parts “because we like lying to you all.” It was recorded about seven months before release, before the rest of Season 5 aired, and planned for release after the season ends “in December.” They had to avoid referencing anything that would happen in the meantime, apart from generic things: “Of course, the assistant. We know her place in here. We know that the season was going on under the reign of Vythorn.”
Ruling on Season 5: the whole season is “a mere imagination… Unreal.”
- Drew: a dream sequence. At the end, or in the middle, of Part 3, Vythorn closes his eyes to consider who he will become, and the entire season happens in that moment, “in kind of the blink of an eye.” He imagines what would happen if he overthrew the Grandmaster and became Lord of Fate. “This entire season is nothing. It’s all non-canon.”
- Bec: “It doesn’t matter, but it kind of does matter… it’s not real to anyone else except for Vythorn… This is the longest breath he’s ever taken. Inhale, starts the dream sequence, exhales all over.” It’s real to him because he lived it.
- Drew: the dungeon scene was “very nice… even though it wasn’t really her, it was just him talking to himself.”
- Bec asks whether to call it a dream or “a glimpse into the many pathways of future that a God of Fate in the Void would have.” Drew: “we could call it a look at a possible future, perhaps.” Bec: “We’re not multiversing this… I don’t have the energy to write a multiverse story.”
- Bec: as a user of time stepping into the Lord of Fate role, Vythorn can see the options in front of him, and this was one of the major choices. Drew: “especially with this new power from Morir’s Cataclysm,” it may fuel his ability to see through choices across time and space. Bec: it isn’t enough power to see all options, but the one “he was doting upon becomes a reality for him to experience.”
- Drew: whatever it was, it influenced his decision not to betray the Grandmaster and to see the two of them as “two sides of a coin.” He was “ultimately a loyal friend.” He expects “a whole season of everyone hating the Arbiter.” Bec: “People are going to be taking back their sentences.”
Threats ahead (Bec): “a new villain, villains, on the horizon. Shadow King is up in the air. His pieces of body scattered around the hells. Phil, Philomena, our God of Fate. They will be coming for Vythorn and the Void.” Deathmatches will continue “for a new and revised fresh reason.”
Drew: the Shadow King “is weakened and gone, but he’s still out there somewhere, could come back.” He looks forward to the old dynamic between the Arbiter and the Grandmaster and how they face the new threats.
Story philosophy:
- Inspirations named in the Kickstarter: WWE for the Deathmatches themselves, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the overall story, where “there is movement, but also nothing ever changes.”
- They must keep returning to “our core of Grandmaster, Arbiter energy,” telling a story “in a circle… more like a spiral.”
- Drew: the aim is to reskin the formula, introduce lore beyond the Deathmatches, and not become predictable (“the Arbiter is going to betray the Grandmaster every season… that gets old”).
Bec thanks the community and the guest talent. Drew: “See you. Get out of here. Go away.”

Who and what appears

Characters

Vythorn / the Arbiter (Drew)

Season of Fate (vision):
- He is the “new Lord of Fate.”
- Wears newly crafted leather boots and robes.
- Has a frustrating “new assistant” (unnamed).
- Faces constant infighting and rebellion.
- Keeps Elusia imprisoned in the Dread Fortress dungeons and sleeps in what was her bed.
- Admits he is lonely and feels “more trapped than I ever did when I was your arbiter.”
Main timeline:
- Rejects Fil’s path and chooses to remain the Grandmaster’s arbiter, “the other side of her coin.”
- “The only title that matters to me is friend.”
- Frees Elusia by shattering her choker shackles with a chaos-channelled dagger.
- Warns of threats beyond the Void.
- Vows to “fight fate itself.”
Elusia’s vision-self says Agdrel once decided Vythorn’s role in the Void (0:08:00).

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Bec)

In the vision:
- Chained, but the chains hang on her like bangles.
- Kept in a candlelit cell with books and a bed mat.
- First mistakes Vythorn for Agdrel.
- Says she always knew he would overthrow her “time and time again” and let the risk grow to give him choice.
- Wouldn’t change her trust in him.
- (Drew, post-show: this was Vythorn talking to himself, not the real Elusia.)
Main timeline:
- Frozen in fear holding the choker until Fil leaves.
- Admits she didn’t know what he would do.
- Hugs him, which is rare between them.
- Declares to the Acolytes that “the time of corruption is over” and that they will be “masters of our own fate.”

Fil / Philomena, the God of Fate (Bec)

Whispers “Who are you going to become?”
Had a deal with Vythorn: “The book was given. The void laid out in front of you.”
Says “We will have to come to collect.”
Leaves with a Cheshire Cat smile and an echoing chuckle.
Her departure lets the frozen rain fall and Elusia move again.

The Shadow King

Mentioned only. “Not here” after the fight.
Post-show: weakened and gone, “his pieces of body scattered around the hells.”

Agdrel

Named by vision-Elusia as the controlling mastermind who decided Vythorn’s role.

The Acolytes

Witnessed the fight, the Shadow King’s departure and the freeing.
Addressed by Elusia.

Vythorn’s “new assistant” (vision)

Unnamed. A source of frustration.

Places

The Dread Fortress: abandoned, cobwebbed upper halls and the dungeons below. Elusia’s cell in the vision.
The memory scene: disrupted ground, angry clouds and rain. It is where Part 3’s choice was left unfinished.
“The hells”: named in the post-show as where the Shadow King’s pieces are scattered.

Items

The dagger Vythorn used to shatter Elusia’s shackles.
The choker (shackles around Elusia’s neck).
“The book” given in Fil’s deal. Drew names “Morir’s Cataclysm” as Vythorn’s new power in the post-show. That the book and Morir’s Cataclysm are the same thing is inferred from 0:16:32 together with 0:27:22.
Elusia’s former bed, now Vythorn’s (vision).
Vythorn’s newly crafted leather boots (vision).

Lore statements

Season 5 was experienced only by Vythorn, in the moment of his choice: “the longest breath he’s ever taken” (creator note).
Fil intends to “collect” on her deal with Vythorn.
There are threats beyond the Void that Elusia doesn’t know about (Vythorn).
Elusia: chaos “is in our blood, in our essence… ours to wield, not for others to wield over us.”

Quotes by character

Vythorn / the Arbiter

0:05:48 “Well, to be honest with you, I’m a little… I’m a little lonely, as it were. It’s just not the same. I miss our conversations.” (Season of Fate)
0:06:25 “I can never truly know who is my real friend and who is just under my influence.” (Season of Fate)
0:06:58 “It’s just not as fun when you’re, when you have to force it, you know?” (Season of Fate)
0:11:27 “I feel trapped. I feel more trapped than I ever did when I was your arbiter.” (Season of Fate)
0:11:27 “It seems I’ve made a prison for us both.” (Season of Fate)
0:12:17 “It is very nice. In fact, it was yours.” (Season of Fate)
0:14:45 “I will be who I have always been. I am the arbiter of the Grandmaster. I am the other side of her coin. And together we will overcome fate.”
0:15:20 “You will not tempt me, pull the strings… This is my choice.”
0:16:16 “Well, I suppose when I think about it, the only title that matters to me is friend.”
0:16:55 “We’ll be ready for you.”
0:18:11 “That makes two of us, I think.”
0:18:58 “There are even more threats beyond the void that you aren’t even aware of yet.”
0:19:06 “Together we must be ready to fight fate itself.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer

0:03:24 “Agdrel? No, what am I saying? Vythorn.” (Season of Fate)
0:04:04 “Yes, my stay has been delightful.” (Season of Fate)
0:07:05 “You’re right that they’re hollow. It’s because they’re not real, Vythorn.” (Season of Fate)
0:08:00 “Have you not become what Agdrel was to you?” (Season of Fate)
0:08:00 “I know that you will overthrow me time and time again. I let those risks grow. They’re opportunities for you to have choice.” (Season of Fate)
0:12:12 “Yours does have a comforting bed that is nicer than mine.” (Season of Fate)
0:12:25 “I wouldn’t change my trust in you. And then I would make sure that I deck out all the dungeons with comfortable beds.” (Season of Fate)
0:18:05 “You know, I hate to admit it, but I didn’t know what you were going to do there for a second.”
0:18:16 “The Shadow King at least is not here, but we have so much we have to do and I cannot do it alone.”
0:19:13 “Fight fate. What an interesting phrase. But I like it.”
0:19:13 “Acolytes. The time of corruption is over. Chaos for chaos sake is not enough anymore.”
0:20:19 “This chaos energizes us and it is ours to wield, not for others to wield over us… May be the masters of our own fate.”

Fil, the God of Fate

0:14:05 “Who are you going to become?”
0:15:09 “Overcome fate? That’s not what we outlined. That was not your desire.”
0:15:59 “A man of titles. How many times did I ask you who you are and you wanted to become something greater and you decide to stay with the Arbiter?”
0:16:32 “Okay, friend. Interesting. Well, we had our deal. The book was given. The void laid out in front of you. Vythorn. We will have to come to collect.”

Canon notes

The hells exist both inside the Void and outside it, because realms have collided. “Scattered around the hells” and “scattered across the Void” are both true.

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