The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 17

Synopsis
''The Pine Guard welcomes and interrogates their new companion, and has another brush with the intangible, unlucky forces that seem to be conspiring against them. Duck teaches talking. Aubrey throws a drink. Ned threatens a book.''

After Aubrey casts her spell and the goatman says Duck's name, the three are briefly at a loss for what to do. Duck tries to ask him what he's doing here in Kepler; the goatman, however, still only says Duck's name, even after they take its handcuffs off. Aubrey asks the goatman point-blank if all the bad things happening in Kepler are his fault, and he nods. Ned asks it if he's doing those things accidentally, but the goatman is confused.

Then Aubrey asks if the goatman has a good reason for what it's doing.Apparently, the goatmen stole the tools from Rick Dannon's car in order to help something grow, but the goatman doesn't want to show them what it is. The goatman does confirm, after prompting from Duck, that he doesn't want to harm any of them. The goatman seems to be pretty nice, so they decide to name him Billy.

Barclay comes down the stairs, a bit nervously, and asks what the plan for Billy is. He's not entirely sure that taking Billy on the team is a good idea, but Duck reassures him that he doesn't mean them any harm. Aubrey reveals that she cast a spell on him that would let him talk. Barclay's surprised, even though Billy's vocabulary seems a bit limited.Barclay asks them what they're planning on telling the rest of the Lodge. Before they can come up with a solid plan, the phone rings upstairs; Dani answers it, and says it's for Duck. Duck goes up to answer the phone. While he's gone, Ned decides to go look through Thacker's notes and see if there's any information in there about goatmen, and Aubrey keeps an eye on Billy.

Aubrey starts trying to interview Billy, but only gets so far; he can really only get his point across by nodding or shaking his head. She does gather that there were only three goatmen, and none of them were from Sylvain.Ned investigates Thacker's book and sees some interesting things. There are notes about the spectral beings, that appear when someone dies in the presence of the crystal in Sylvain, as well as notes on the physiology of humanoid and beastlike Sylphs. According to Thacker's notes, the beastlike Sylphs are ones that wandered through open gates and transformed, relatively quickly, into sapient bipedal beasts. It takes a couple of generations for an Earthly animal to evolve into something on the level of Vincent, for example, but it does happen.

Upstairs, Duck is on the phone, and Indrid is on the other end. Indrid has some interesting news.Indrid brushes him off and says that it's alright; the goatman is going to be relatively important in most of the futures he's seen. He asks Duck and his friends to bring Billy out to his Winnebago, but interrupts himself before he says why.Downstairs, all hell has broken loose. Part of the net keeping Thacker separate from the rest of the cellar has fallen down, and Thacker has climbed onto the ceiling and out through the gap. Black slime is dripping from his mouth into his beard, and he is smiling a wide, abnormal smile. Ned immediately grabs the book and runs to the safe room, making it very clear that he's protecting himself and not the book. Aubrey tells Billy to go follow Ned, and Duck tries to pull Thacker off of the ceiling. He succeeds, but Thacker scratches him in the side of the neck with his dirty fingernails.

Aubrey hunts around for a potion to knock Thacker out, but has trouble identifying the right one. She throws a vial and it shatters at Thacker's feet; Thacker breathes in the fumes from the vial, struggles to remain conscious, and becomes angry, even though he's been tranquilized. Duck punches him in the face and shoves him towards the panic room, which Ned and Billy are inside. Ned threatens to feed Thacker's book to Billy if Thacker comes any closer to them, and manages to slip out of the safe room. Thacker appears to be somewhat lucid for a second and lets Ned and Billy past, but once they're out and Aubrey slams the door, he throws his body against the door in an attempt to get out. When that fails, he sits down cross-legged again, like he's been doing ever since he returned, and starts staring at the ground.

[Money Zone]

After Thacker is subdued and locked in the safe room, the three hunters and Barclay agree to not tell Mama about the fact they let Billy into the Lodge. Ned and Aubrey lie to Barclay and say that they're going to show Billy around town, to see if anything gets a response from him. Duck is silent.Immediately cut to Indrid's Winnebago. Billy is with them disguised to look like a Krampus, in line with Ned's promotion of Saturday Night Dead, so the townsfolk wouldn't get too suspicious. Indrid invites everyone in and gives them all some nog to warm them up, with mixed results.Indrid watches, amused, and explains to Aubrey and Ned what he already told Duck: there are new futures, and Billy the Goatman features prominently in every single one. It is crucial that they keep Billy secure, in order to keep the future from getting even more unstable. Aubrey, in no uncertain terms, tells Indrid to cut the bullshit and tell them what he thinks he knows. Indrid, now serious, agrees.

While he explains, he roots around in a chest looking for an item to charm to disguise Billy. Ned attempts to smoothly convince Indrid to hand over a spare pair of glasses - again, trying to fulfill Heathcliff's bounty - but Indrid decides to leave that up to Billy to decide. Indrid explains that they're definitely getting close. The fact that they're all being targeted is a good thing because that way they know that it's not random: the abomination is trying to get them specifically. He asks them if Billy looks like he's capable of changing time, but Duck doesn't think so.

They boil it down to this: getting Rick Dannon's tools, crashing the funicular, and making the Pizza Hut sign fall into the General Store were all crucial to the success of whatever forces are messing with fate in Kepler. After they reach this conclusion, Billy shuffles in, holding what looks like a broken metal watch. Indrid starts tinkering with it, preparing to charm it and says that he is unfortunately not going to be of much help here, so it's up to the three of them to come up with a solution.

Aubrey asks Billy if he can take them to whatever he was trying to "grow" in the woods; Billy looks nervous and doesn't want to do that at all. Duck, though, tries to convince him.Before Billy can really answer - though he does look like he's coming over to Duck's side - Indrid finishes the enchantments on the watch and hands it to Billy. Being a goat, Billy promptly puts the watch in his mouth. Duck puts it on his wrist for him, and Billy immediately transforms into a human man.Indrid seems embarrassed, saying that he "must have had your Earth's Ryan Gosling on the brain" while he was making the enchantment. Billy, nonplussed, and now wearing Ryan Gosling's face, examines his body and continues to talk; he is still limited to saying "Duck," "pizza," and "grow," but now with a normal human voice.

Featured NPCs

 * Barclay
 * Billy
 * Indrid Cold
 * Thacker

Featured Locations

 * Kepler
 * Amnesty Lodge