Ep. 39: The Crystal Kingdom - Chapter Eleven

"But wait, they already killed the big skeleton thing! What else could be left in this arc--two skeletons? It's The Adventure Zone!"

Synopsis
''After a climactic victory, our heroes have a few loose ends to tie up before moving on to their next adventure. Will Lucas and Maureen get Regulated? Will Kravitz claim his undead bounty? More importantly, how are they going to get that big, magic rock out of Magnus' tummy? Merle does prank medicine. Magnus tells a fib. Taako just twerks it out.''

The Tres Horny Boys have just finished having a climatic final battle with Legion, a giant skeleton made up of souls. Magnus is still trapped under the weight of the sapphire mirror, and NO-3113 and Carey Fangbattle do a high-five for the sick stunts they did during the fight. Suddenly, The Director's voice comes through the boys' and Carey's Stones of Farspeech, and she asks them if the Philosopher's Stone has been secured.

Magnus explains to the Director that the Stone is safe inside his tummy, and that, no, he has no good reason as to why he swallowed a Grand Relic. The Director tells them that she's glad that they managed to survive this ordeal and accomplish their mission, and asks if Lucas has been detained. Magnus decides to cover for Lucas by telling her that he was killed by a giant, silver skeleton, a story he'll tell her about later.

Magnus reveals to Lucretia that Lucas wasn't just tampering with the Philosopher's Stone, and that he was also messing with the laws of nature. The Director is obviously shocked by this news, and Taako chimes in to ask if they can bring a "super cool" robot, referring to NO-3113, they found back to the base with them. She okays their decision and tells them to finish what they need to finish. Meanwhile, Maureen is attempting to tend to Lucas's wounds, and she turns and asks if any of them have any medical training.

Magnus calls Maureen over to him while Merle heals Lucas. He clarifies that the only reason he bailed out Lucas was because he promised Maureen that he would protect him, and that if sees them again, he won't be as merciful. Maureen tries to explain her actions by saying that she didn't know that Legion would leave with her when she escaped the Eternal Stockade, but Magnus interrupts her and says that he "don’t give two shits." As this sidebar is happening, Taako goes over to Merle to have another sidebar. He expresses to Merle his confusion as to why Magnus would help Lucas, seeing as he was clearly pissed at him earlier. Merle reassures Taako that he's "just that kinda guy."

Lucas runs up to Magnus and Maureen after regaining consciousness, and he admits to having absolutely no regrets for the action he took to save his mother. A rift opens up in the room, and a small white light comes out and lowers itself into one of the trashed robots. The robot stands up and introduces itself as Kravitz. After praising Merle for banishing Legion, he once again conjures up his book, and tells the boys he's willing to make a deal. Since the boys saved his bacon and, by extension, his career, and seeing as the boys never escaped the Astral Plane, because they never visited it in the first place, he will call off their bounty.

Kravitz also calls off the bounty on Lucas, figuring that his necromancy days are far behind him. However, NO-3113 and Maureen are both ghosts and must be taken back to Astral Plane. Magnus interjects that both were integral in defeating Legion, but, unfortunately, Kravitz cannot allow exceptions. Slippery Slope and all that. The boys start negotiating with Kravitz, and, eventually, he suggests they settle it by playing a game of their choosing. Magnus choose a simple high card draw. Magnus draws a five of clubs, and succeeds on his sleight of hand roll. Kravitz draws a jack of diamonds, and he admits defeat. Kravitz warns the boys to stop running afoul on the rules of nature, and heads back to the rift he opened up. Maureen also walks towards the rift, and explains that she can't stay because she saw something when she entered the Cosmoscope. Something that destroyed her mind and killed her. The only way she was able to recover was by partitioning her memory of it into the internal memory of robot body's conduit. If she stays in the living realm any longer she'll be in danger of remembering the horror she saw and losing control again. She asks to boys to promise that they'll keep Lucas safe while she's gone, and Merle calls for a quick team meeting with Magnus and Taako. He tells them that he got revenge for Lucas's previous actions by stitching the words "dickhead" onto to him when he was healing him.

Maureen kneels down over a sitting and visibly upset Lucas, and tells him that they'll see each other again someday. She whispers something to him, and leaves her robot body, along with Kravitz. Before they leave, Magnus makes one last request. Merle also has one last question to ask.

Kravitz and Maureen disappear into the rift, and Lucas walks over to a console, punches in a few buttons, and the lab comes back to life. NO-3113 helps Magnus get out from under the mirror, and congratulates Carey and the boys for their bravery. Lucas tells them that, while he was able to stabilize the lab and stop the crystallization, the interior systems have been compromised, leaving them without a escape route. However, he does have another way out, and, like an angel descending from the heavens, comes Mr. Upsy.

Upsy's face-door opens up and a bit of slime falls out, grossing everyone out. Everyone reluctantly enters Upsy, and, as they prepare to leave, Lucas pops out the central fuse that contains the memory of what Maureen saw out of the Maureen-bot. He gives the fuse to the boys, and tasks them with keeping it safe. Lucas promises Magnus he won't trouble him again, and Upsy's face-door closes.

[Money Zone]

The group makes it back to the Bureau of Balance HQ at four in the morning, and are met with wide, somewhat drowsy, applause. As they walk towards the Main Hall, Killian, still in her Null Suit, runs up to Carey and swoops her up in a big ol' spinning hug. Cut to the boys - along with NO-3113, Killian, and Carey - at the Main Hall standing in front of the Director. Standing in the corner is a half-asleep Angus who gives the boys a thumbs-up. Taako responds with a thumbs-down and a raspberry, and Magnus does that thing "where you put your hands together and then you put two fingers through and twist it around and then you wiggle the two fingers." Angus is amazed by this, and asks if Magnus has been learning wizardly magics. Magnus then pretends to steal his nose, and Taako casts Prestidigitation to make it look like his nose has disappeared.

Angus tells the boys that he's proud of them, and walks back to the corner he was standing in. The boys get the Director up to speed on the events of the arc, and she asks, specifically, how Lucas "died". The boys give a half-truth and tell her that Lucas was blasted away in an attempt to stop a terror he had created, and that his mother took his body. Fortunately, The Director believes their lie. She says to them that she heard a lot of robot fighting over their Stones of Farspeech, and N0-3113 responds that was her making that noise. Taako, curious, asks if NO-3113 is hearing any static when they talk about Bureau of Balance-type stuff, and a confused NO-3113 asks what he means.

The Director and the boys come to the conclusion that the living dead have an immunity to the Voidfish's powers, and Magnus asks if this means the Red Robes are also undead, to which Lucretia responds by telling him they'll have a debrief about that subject later. Killian and Carey decide to make NO-3113 a member of their Regulator team, seeing as Boyland is dead and all, and NO-3113 agrees as long as it means she can stop like this from happening again. The Director decides to skip the Rites of Initiation for NO-3113, and welcomes her to the Bureau of Balance. Now comes the trouble of getting the Philosopher's Stone out of Magnus. Merle comes up with the suggestion of using Stone Shape to alter the shape of the stone so it can "pass through" easier, but Taako suggests that they instead use Stone Skin on Magnus and alter his shape instead of the Stone's.

Taako casts Stone Skin on Magnus, who begs that they knock him "the fuck out" before they start operating. Taako complies and casts Sleep on him, and Magnus starts dreaming of large woman. Merle uses Stone Shape to turn the lower half of Magnus' body into a spirally coil-like thing, and, like a child going down a water slide, the Philosopher's Stone comes out. Carey begins to fall under the Stone's thrall and attempts to grab for it, but Taako is able to knock it away in time with his Umbra Staff, and it lands towards Davenport, who catches it perfectly. Carey falls towards the floor and shakes her head and looks back up the the boys. Davenport looks down at the Philosopher's Stone, his eyes in a daze, but is snapped out of it by Magnus, who tells him to put it on the tray. Davenport tosses the Stone into one of those lead balls and shuts the hatch on it. A couple of guards start to wheel it out of the room, back into the back room. A few seconds later the Director draws a curtain and they see the guards lift the ball up into the central pillar of the chamber. The Director taps her white oak staff on the ground and, like they've seen three times now, huge columns of light stab through the ball. As they do, the boys can faintly hear the Stone say:

The pillars pierce the ball, and the room goes dark. The guards come and fetch the lead ball, and they wheel it out of the chamber. A few seconds later they appear back into the main hall and they open up the now empty ball. The Director calls for Davenport, who comes back into the room holding six burlap bags, containing 2000 gold pieces each, and tokens for Fantasy Gashapon. The Director dismisses everyone except the boys, and she asks for them to meet her in her office. The boys make it back into her office, where there are three seats pulled up to her desk. She sits down at the seat behind her desk and invites the boys to sit with her. Once they sit down, the Director tells them that she heard them on their Stones of Farspeech parlaying with a Red Robe, even though she explicitly told them not to, and she asks them what she's done to lose their trust.

The Director does not pull out a gun, but, instead, she produces a small glass orb and a small wand, which she touches to the orb. Suddenly, three dimensional images sprout out of the orb, and she shows the boys:
 * The settlement of Armos where a seven year old girl found the Philosopher’s Stone and turned the city into peppermint candy. Death Total = Seven hundred and fourteen people


 * The village of Greenhold, where a warlord used the Oculus to manifest a small black hole, which annihilated the entire town. Death Total = Eleven hundred and fifty two people


 * The Archipelago of Moonshae, which drowned in three minutes under the weight of a storm summoned by the Gaia Sash. Death Total = Two thousand, five hundred and twelve people


 * Phandalin, and the other seven cities that have been destroyed by the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. Death Total = Eight cities and twelve thousand people

The Director assures the boys that she is to be trusted, and asks them if they're with her or against her. Taako explains to Director that them talking to the Red Robe had nothing to do with them distrusting her, but was instead just a simple case of them forgetting what they were told, something they've done a lot. The Director chuckles to herself, having realized this was all a big misunderstanding. Merle asks how she was able to spy on them, and she points out that their Stones of Farspeech have a mute button that they forget to switch on. This revelation shocks them.

Epilogue
Cut to a post-credits epilogue. The boys have retired to their now upgraded bedroom suite, where they begin cleaning up some left over Candlenights decorations. As they clean, the boys hear a voice coming from the fuse Lucas gave them.

[Theme Tune Plays]

Money Zone
Personal message for Kira, from Kira's mom: Happy thirteenth birthday to the most brilliant, gorgeous, talented, snarky geekling and junior delicate flower a mother geek could ever hope to spawn. I love that we can enjoy so many fandoms and shows together, including The Adventure Zone. Remember, when all else fails, “Accio giant piece of plywood.” Love you bunches.

Personal message for Steven the Crazybot, from Garrett the Night-shift Knight: Hey homie, happy birthday! Man, we've been on so many crazy-ass adventures, huh? Let's hope sometime this year we can actually try playing D&D ourselves, and if not, more Adventure Zone adventures to adventure the adventure.

Personal message for Caverin White, a Templar, from Northern, a Dungeonmaster: Tristan, Synthetic, as you move into this next season of your life with the wonderful partner you found, I want to congratulate you and wish you the best. May you two grow deeper and greater together. If you change your mind, we can still live the dream we once held, so meet me with Vixie at the OPH off Bass Lake on Sunday.

Personal message for The Dread Pirate Ian, from Katie: To my dashing rogue: I can't believe it's been four years since we had that epic sword-fight and then got married. What a crazy day! Since then, it's been nothing but adventure and quoting Magic Brian, and I wouldn't have it any other way. You're the Elan to my Hailey, the Merle to my vines, and I'm settling this once and for all: I love you more.

Featured NPCs

 * Davenport
 * Kravitz
 * Killian
 * Carey Fangbattle
 * Angus McDonald
 * Maureen Miller
 * Lucas Miller
 * Lucretia
 * NO-3113

Featured Music

 * See You Later
 * A Candlenights Miracle!
 * Madam Director

Featured Locations

 * Lucas's Lab