"You can see soldiers in the torchlight over here. You're deep in darkness in the field." ― Brennan Lee Mulligan
Blood & Bread is the tenth episode of season 5, A Crown of Candy.
Recap[]
"Welcome, one and all, to another episode of A Crown of Candy. I'm your dungeon master, Brennan Lee Mulligan, with me are some of our intrepid heroes. Say hi, intrepid heroes. We are going to not start by rolling initiative. You see before you Castle Candy, the town of Dulcington beneath and we see all the various peoples and you see that in fact, the environs of Castle Candy extend not just in our board, but at the borders of it as well. We're gonna resolve some stuff before we jump straight into battle. Let's go ahead and start with Theobald."
Synopsis[]
Theobald, having burst from Sir Toby's room, surprise attacks the muffin soldiers, dropping all three before they are able to draw weapons. He runs towards the king's quarters looking for Amethar and the princesses, but instead finds Queen Caramelinda who is unaware of the imminent danger present inside the castle. Muffin soldiers turn the corner and draw crossbows at the queen. Theo jumps in front the queen to save her. The two run away from the approaching soldiers while being fired upon. They hide in a secret passageway as Calroy calls after her, boasting about King Amethar's fall. The two race down a spiral staircase, not taking Calroy's bait.
An invisible Ruby races up from Dulcington. Having just felt Jet pass, she runs to the stone circle. She passes Cumulous on the way there, but he is completely unaware of her presence. Ruby begs the Sugar-Plum Fairy to bring Jet back. The Sugar-Plum Fairy appears and tells her that she cannot do that but that there may be a way to bring all of them to her and to Jet if they go north in the Great Stone Candy Mountains before she disappears. Ruby rushes into the castle, still invisible and sneaking around. As she approaches, she sees the carrot paladin with 30 knights. Cumulous feels the presence of the Sugar-Plum Fairy briefly returning before Ruby moves away invisibly. However, Cumulous sees glowing deep burning red footsteps as someone passes. Ruby gets to the the castle and sees her father's body where it landed by the parapet and runs to him. Cumulous sees this as well and stealth to his side as well, not knowing it is Ruby with him.
Liam still in the lingerie store still in the Rope Trick with Jet's body. Two of the Ceresian assassins have already left. One remains with an injured Ciabatta. Ciabatta knows that someone darker than darkness attacked him and suspects that Liam is responsible. He also mentions that they don't have anymore water daggers and that they cannot make anymore. Once Liam watches them leave, he reemerges from the Rope Trick and investigates the glowing chest. Inside is an alchemically treated rock. He takes Jet's body and places her in a cabinet to keep safe but takes the locket, sword, and all hardware he thinks Ruby would want to keep. Once done, he stealth's off into the night using the locket to follow Ruby through town to Amethar.
Amethar crawls out of the crater and sees dull red footsteps approach. After Ruby reveals herself, he gives her the warmest hug possible. Liam announces his presence to them, and they bring him into the hug. Amethar tells them that Calroy has betrayed them. As they say they need to gather the rest of their group, Cumulous surprises them with his presence. Ruby tells Liam to keep the locket because it only is useful if someone else has the other half. A secret door opens on the side of the wall, and Theobald and Queen Caramelinda walk out. Ruby and Liam tell them that Jet is dead after investigating the lingerie shop and that Ciabatta is responsible. Above in the castle, a commotion is heard. Caramelinda tells them that all of the Tartguard and House Rocks guards were sent north to Jawbreaker at Calroy's insistence. Liam wants to go after the carrot paladin, but the group keeps him from going on a suicide mission. As horns are blown and they hear dogs barking, Ruby hides their scent. Using another secret passage, the group escape to outside the castle walls. They see House Rocks banners being cut down and replaced by House Cruller. Soldiers rouse in the tents.
The group move through the field just out of vision between the castle and the tents. Cumulous lags behind to attack the hunting dog. One yelps as it is attacked and alerts the soldiers. As the rest keep traveling forward Liam sees that both bridges ahead are crawling with alert soldiers. Cumulous kills most of dog before a vegetarian chariot approaches. The soldiers ask if he is a part of House Cruller before Cumulous attacks them. Liam hears the commotion behind them and uses his crossbow to rapid fire shoot and kill the two soldiers. At this point Cumulous is discovered.
Ruby uses Mage Hand to move a thief's lantern away from the party and into the night as a diversion which works, and castle archers shoot after it and not them. Cumulous extinguishes the torches and commandeers a chariot to drive it off the cliff while hard candy spears are launched at him. Liam cloaks the party (except for Cumulous) in shadow as they keep moving forward. Cumulous from a far feels the call of something similar to the Hungry One. As Cumulous launches the chariot over the edge of the crevasse, he turns into a little cloud of pink mist and doubles back before reconstituting near his original position. Liam hears the grass tell him they will keep his secret and will not make a noise as they run to the river bank. Ruby uses Mage Hand on the lantern to throw it into a tent by the bridge to light it on fire.
The group jumps across Cola River and rushes into town square and are met with Ciabatta's warriors. Before a single one of the occupying militia's army can raise a weapon, the remains of the royal family obliterates them. Liam does not hesitate and shoots an arrow into Ciabatta before using Bursting Arrow to kill him and injure a few others around him. Ruby hides behind Liam and she finishes off the injured warrior. Amethar steps forward and rages as he slices through three others in front of him. Caramelinda admits that "he is good at what he does." Theo then steps forward and kills the last warrior.
With the help of the wind, Cumulous dashes halfway across the field without being noticed by the soldiers traveling down the road towards the on-fire bridge. Theo, Caramelinda, and Ruby continue running to Manta Ray's ship while messaging him to get ready to go. Amethar and Liam go up to the lingerie shop to retrieve Jet's body. Amethar gently carries his daughter and exits the shop with Liam. Soldiers start crossing the bridge, shooting at them. Cumulous suddenly leaps on top of a nearby building. Manta Ray meets them at the dock. Amethar pushes the boat from the docks which snaps the ropes holding it in place. The entire party climbs onto the ship as the sailors desperately try to unfurl the sails. Ruby uses Mage Hand to unfurl them, and they sail up the river to escape Candia. Silence descends. Amethar stands at the front holding the body of Princess Jet as the night envelopes them all.
Locations[]
Featured Characters[]
The Taste Buds[]
- King Amethar of House Rocks
- Princess Ruby Rocks
- Sir Theobald Gumbar
- Liam Wilhelmina
- Cumulous Rocks
- Princess Jet Rocks (†) (mentioned)
Returning[]
- Imperator Augustus Ciabatta
- Lord Calroy Cruller
- Queen Caramelinda of House Rocks
- Sir Keradin Deeproot
- Sprinkle
- The Sugar-Plum Fairy
- Yak
- Ceresian Gladiator
- Manta Ray Jack
Mentioned[]
- Archbishop Fettucina Alfredi (†)
- Sir Toby (†)
- Dracoria Azucar (sensed by Cumulous Rocks)
Trivia[]
- Two rejected titles for this episode were "The Grains of Calorum" and "The Bread Wadding."[1]
- The initial ending for "Blood & Bread" was Emily Axford rejoining the table as Queen Saccharina in the last thirty seconds of the episode. Brennan Lee Mulligan had wanted to have the full cast to celebrate, as a family, the completion of filming ten episodes of A Crown of Candy together before a two week hiatus.[2]
- The day after filming the initial ending, both Brennan and Emily decided to give Saccharina a more dramatic, drumroll-like entrance in a later episode. When filming resumed two weeks later, the ending of "Blood & Bread" was reshot. However the footage of the re-shot ending became corrupted, but its audio had not been.
- To make up for the corrupted footage of the re-shot ending, A Crown of Candy's character artist Samir Barrett was commissioned to create an illustration for the end of the episode.
References[]
- ↑ Twitter. 17 Jun 2020. (Archived 17 Jun 2020). @dimension20show. "Rejected titles include…"
- ↑ Adventuring Party. Brennan Lee Mulligan. See Season 1, "The Wild Childs" starting at 00:37:25.