Description
The Dragon Friends are faced with a quest; retrieve a dragon egg that can power their enchanted sleep. With Baston's progeny in toe, they set out to restart their journey back home.
Synopsis
The Dragon Friends and Byron head to the Vallaki Gorge, now overgrown with weirdly horny vegetation. Philge is entranced by the pollen of a Body Taker Plant, and Bobby leaps to the rescue. The plant is defeated when Freezo uses one of his new spells, polymorph, to turn it into a small “dungeon master” named “The Dave”. Despite its new form, Philge retrieves a magical gulthias staff from it. Byron is nervous and not much use in the fight, a situation not helped by Baston’s ill-thought attempts at parenting, including bullying him into nearly punching Freezo, but he continues to track the dragon through the jungle.
The tracks lead to a damaged magi tower, one of the few left. Strahd and the Free Folk have destroyed the others in the 25 years since the fall of the Netherese empire. This one seems abandoned, with no guards, it’s top knocked off, and much of it reclaimed by the jungle. The group go inside and Baston and Byron climb the stairs to the next level. Freezo realises the tower is being used as a nest and uses another new spell, fly, to go to the top in search of a dragon egg. This leaves Philge and Bobby alone for a moment, and Bobby tries unsuccessfully to get Philge to discuss them waking up together after the victory celebrations (in “Do You Like Diddling” (8.01)). Upstairs Baston plays with a corpse to impress (or tease?) Byron, provoking a living but decrepit mage who severely injures Byron. Byron doesn’t give a good showing in the fight, but Philge ends it by smashing the mage with her new staff, and claiming a spellbook he was carrying, written in goblin.
As Byron deals with how his father led him into danger, the Netherese mage gasps - somehow still alive, it tells the Friends that “we all heard the chorus” of something called the “Blank Note”. He describes it as a “roar that sounded through time” that “showed us the truth and the way”, and says some of the other mages didn’t hear the note. But angered by Philge’s stupid comments, he dies without saying all he wanted. At that moment, Freezo comes running down the stairs with an egg chased by three young red dragons. The Friends leg it back through the jungle back towards La Rune’s Landing...
Cast
Dragon Friends
Guest NPC's
None.
NPC's
- Byron Vowell (Dave used the portmanteau Byron Indrurovowell for this episode)
- 'The Dave', a humanoid actively describing the world, actions and situation (result of Freezo's polymorph)
Ham's
Bestiary
- Various horny plants
- Big, one-eyed creature-eating plant with the ability to wink seductively
- It is polymorphed by Freezo to become 'The Dave'.
- One of the last remaining Netherese Mages (according to Byron)
- Red dragons
Places
- Barovia (the past, new timeline):
- Bellenok Mountains
- Vallaki Gorge (Svalich Woods)
- La Rune's Landing
- Abandoned Netherese tower of the Magi
Themes, tropes and running jokes
- The audience drew a disturbing amount of horny plants as a result of Dave's weird taste in jungle design.
- When Freezo casts polymorph, the group is conflicted on whether or not to turn the plant into the latest model of iPad. When Dave mentions it has to be a creature, Freezo morphs it into a version of Dave who's Dungeon Mastering. It's lovingly called 'The Dave'.
- Polymorph can only work if you have seen a creature before - something Hing isn't entirely sure about that they have. They have met a version of Dave in season 4, however.
- Philgecake? - when they’re briefly alone in the magi tower, Bobby tries to talk to Philge about waking up in her arms after the party in “Do You Like Diddling” (8.01). They both say they don’t think anything happened, but Bobby also thinks it’s weird that he could “summon the strength of a mother lifting a car above her toddler” to save her from the plant. The conversation is cut short by a fight breaking out above.
Trivia
- Scott Edgar of Tripod provides the musical accompaniments for this and the next episode.
- Both Ben and Alex manage to roll the same outcome twice in a row on the same turn - a 2 and a 20 (!!!), respectively - a 1/400th chance! It grants Philge a spellbook written in Goblin and Byron a number of painful moments.
- It's not the first time this happens with a natural 20 and especially not for Alex - in season 4, she achieved the same feat, resulting in Philge killing Lady Casilda.