by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 15 “The Last Stand”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“High school is a hard time and figuring out who you wanna be is one the biggest, most important jobs there is.” - Brennan Lee Mulligan

The only way out is through, and boy do our favorite intrepid heroes have their work cut out for them as they continue with the Last Standard exam!

We open with Ally finishing their turn, having Kristen (Ally Beardsley) grab the religion question out of her desk. It’s an instant success as Kristen names the dwarven god of shredding, Ollie. Brennan explains why he named the god Ollie: it’s a skateboard Lord of the Rings pun. It’s a delightful way to start an episode that I’m certain will be tense and, given the two-and-a-half-hour runtime, will be intense.

Fig (Emily Axford) goes to grab her first question (performance) and it’s a three-minute timed one (where the other ones have been roughly one-minute timed ones). Emily makes a joke that, should it be to write a song, then they all have to do it together. She’s wrong about the specifics of the question but correct about Brennan’s diabolical intent. She must write a limerick, sonnet, or haiku about Fig’s emotional state whilst taking the exam! Fig and Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) end up writing it together and it’s very cute and sweet.

There was an exam that was hard
But luckily I am a bard
The demons are slayed because of how we played
They’re hoisted by their own petard

And then it is finally time for all the monsters to go, since their initiative is lower than all the Bad Kids… not to mention how badly they kicked the other monsters’ asses. Adaine opts to take a test, picking the elven option. It’s the first question with an extra credit component (of course it’s Adaine’s!) and she’s meant to translate an elven phrase into common. It was another reference to Lord of the Rings as the phrase was the famous “Speak friend and enter” from the door to the Mines of Moria. The extra credit was to name the weakest form of magic, per Arthur Aguefort, which is “friendship.” A reference to the very first episode of Fantasy High when the would-be party told him that friendship was the most powerful magic—a statement he was deeply offended by. Answering the extra credit question allows everybody to regain a 1st or 2nd level spell slot, which is a great mechanic!

Adaine does some great business to the gorgon, blinding it with Fig doing some solid Spirit Guardian damage. The gorgon decides to use one of its monstrous abilities at the center of the ring, forcing both Gorgug (Zac Oyama) and the Proctor Gavin Pundle to make constitution saves. If Gavin dies, even if the Bad Kids revivify him, they will still lose a lot of points on their final score for the test. With an 18 on the die rolled into the Box of Doom, Gavin saves. As does Gorgug, who is given one of Adaine’s divination rolls.

Riz (Brian Murphy) is up again, and he takes his second question: history. They pass the main question but miss the extra credit. On his attack, he kills the gorgon as the alarms start going off to signal another set of monsters. Fabian (Lou Wilson) delays his initiative until after the next round of monsters. Fig, still disguised as the proctor, must roll as every single monster emerges from their gates to see which of them (her or the real Gavin) they believe to be their target. All the flying creatures believe it to be Fig, which is great, though more than not know it to be Gavin.

Fabian, having delayed his turn, reaches into the mimic, and pulls out the common question. It’s a five-minute timed question—which seems outrageous to both me, and all the players at the table. He must write a 300-word essay about the changes the school could make. The party tries their best, with Fabian and Riz taking turns writing the essay, but it’s just not enough time. The Bad Kids use one of their auto-passes to complete the question, having written about 100 words or so.

Fig answers a quick driver’s ed question (sure!) before absolutely wrecking the hell out of the giant shrimp dragon. Gorgug also brains it on his turn with a natural 20, a natural 19 (a crit for Gorgug) and a general hit, all amounting to over 60 points of damage. Kristen’s up next and she answers a medicine question correctly. She then takes her turn and casts Banishment on the manticore, sending it away from this fight.

Because the swarm of stirges think that Fig is the proctor, they fly right to her, unknowingly all heading into their deaths because of her upcast Spirit Guardian. It’s a truly triumphant economy of player powers and it’s the kind of moment that Emily Axford is truly known for, in the best kinds of way. It’s always charming and one of the great joys of watching people play and be good at playing!

The shrimp dragon is nearly dead, but he uses a breath weapon which hits Gavin, Fig, and Gorgug. Everybody saves, taking only half damage. Gavin still has Death Ward on him, which would stop him from dying… just the once. He’s fine with his HP currently, though, so the party decides they need to heal him up. Adaine does her final question, leaving Gorgug as the only one who hasn’t answered all (or any) of his questions. It also has an extra credit question, which they get correct, and everyone regains a third level spell slot, or lower. On her action round, Adaine moves the proctor to the highest spot in the arena. She then moves Fabian to keep him from being attacked again by the creature that’s holding him. She moves Kristen near Buddy Dawn, as well.

Emily remembers that she has Hellish Rebuke and that, since the shrimp dragon damaged her, she could have used it. Her use of her reaction retroactively kills it—which rules. The alarms sound, indicating another round of monsters. Riz grabs Gorgug’s test questions and throws him the math question. It’s one of the worst things in the world: a math word problem about fucking trains!!! Adaine says fuck it and the party uses the final auto-pass. With no academic resource left, they must answer the final question all on their own.

Fig goes after the wyvern, which knows who the real proctor is, and with a portent natural 20 from Adaine, she absolutely wrecks the monster. She doesn’t kill it, but she does over 80 points of damage before healing Fabian a bit for good measure. Gorgug goes back into a rage and goes after the purple worm, hitting it twice (including with a nat 20). He knocks it prone and does 45 damage to it as a rockin’ instrumental rendition of the season three theme song plays.

The swarm of rust monsters head to the stairs in the middle of the battlefield, attacking one of the dust mephits, which explodes and causes blindness when it dies. The umber hulk is one of the creatures blinded and it knocks out its stupid magical eye effect, which is great for our favorite heroes. Kristen casts Mass Healing Word. She then eats the eye of the vulture king, which gives her True Sight.

The pentacorn tries to cast Banishment on Fig, but she uses a 6th level Counterspell. The purple worm attacks Gorgug and hits him twice, hitting him for 25 damage after halving it on a successful save. The umber hulk burrows into the ground before the last two dust mephits sacrifice themselves to try and blind the other monsters. It only works on the wyvern, but that’s huge news!

Adaine then casts Bigby’s Hand at a high level, attacking the purple worm for 34 damage. Then she pulls out the final text from Gorgug’s desk. Biology is the final question, which they answer correctly and officially pass the writing exam with flying colors! However… they still have tons of monsters to fight and kill to officially finish this thing, though no new monsters will be added to the field. As the wyvern tries to move to attack, it takes damage from Fig’s Booming Blade, dying.

Fabian is in the crab’s clutches; he attacks and does a good amount of damage before the Hangman crits on a bite attack and kills the crab monster. Fig goes after the pentacorn. It then attacks Adaine, but between Adaine’s Shield and Fig’s Cutting Words it doesn’t actually hit. Gorgug does 48 points of damage, knocking it prone again. He’s basically soloing him and it absolutely rules.

As the True Sight from the eye of the vulture king kicks in at the beginning of Kristen’s turn, she sees Kipperlilly (invisible) pointing a crossbow at Gavin. She looks at Kristen, making eye contact, before slitting Buddy’s throat. Oisin’s hand touches Kipperlilly’s shoulder and Plane Shifts her out of the arena. Ally reminds everybody that the Rat Grinders would move to pass/fail if someone in their party dies, but the rest of the Bad Kids agree that they should try to Revivify Buddy. Except that Kristen’s diamonds for Revivify are gone and Buddy isn’t making Death Saves… he’s just fucking dead. Kristen attempts to use Divine Intervention to bring him back, but it doesn’t work. Cassandra is much too weak to perform that kind of miracle.

As the umber hulk pops up from burrowing next to Gavin, still blinded, Riz takes his held action and shoots the monster dead, exceeding its HP by 1. A miraculous move from Murph and the kind of action the whole party has been doing that really allows us, as the audience, to see that this group of people are the best at what they do. It’s a showcase for absolutely tearing the house down and it rules!

Adaine finally gets hit by the pentacorn and the mimic takes out one of her mirror images. The Hangman recharges its breath weapon and attacks. Fabian uses his turn to bring the pentacorn nearing death’s door, while Fig’s turn kills the pentacorn and mimic, leaving the purple worm as one of the only remaining monsters on the field. Gorgug takes his turn and hits three times (including another crit), doing 60 damage and knocking the worm prone again as he kills it. The Spirit Guardians take out the final rust monsters as Kristen searches Buddy’s pockets and finds that his gems for Revivify are gone too. She then jumps down, using her magical pullup bar to, very gracefully, get to the ground. Then she casts Word of Radiance on the two remaining ochre jellies—the final monsters left in the fight—ending their Last Standardized exam.

Which also means that the Bad Kids are the first students to ever pass the exam without anybody in the party going down. A pre-recorded message from Arthur Aguefort begins which pronounces them to have passed their junior year with A+ in all their classes.

“My wonderful, absolutely reckless, unhinged, violent, wild, untamable Bad Kids.”

Gavin inspects Buddy because the standby cleric dying has never happened. Gavin takes notes on what the Bad Kids report to him and believes that they didn’t attack Buddy. He records all their scores, to try and ensure that hopefully Gavin isn’t in anymore danger. They Plane Shifts him to the Council of Chosen at Bastion City and Riz is recording everything on his necktie. Fig also leaves her phone to record Buddy’s body as they leave the battlefield, in hopes that it might reveal something.