The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 2

Synopsis
''Our heroes take one step closer toward their joined destinies, and learn the truth about the woods outside Kepler in their own ways. Aubrey visits the Lodge. Ned shoots a fan film. Duck gets a visit from an old friend.''

Duck Newton
Duck continues to follow the trail of black spots supposedly left by the bear that attacked campers Pidgeon and Pete. About a half hour in, Duck finds a dropped flashlight lying on the forest floor and half-submerged in mud. In this area surrounding the flashlight, Duck notices large patches of blackened, burnt grass arranged in a strange pattern on the forest floor, and a general lack of any kind of sound in the entire area. Suddenly, Duck hears a voice speak to him.

Standing before Duck is a figure he saw some number of years ago. She is completely featureless and outlined by a faint blue light. The only features of hers Duck can make out is that she's roughly six feet tall, and that she has a long neck ending in a large, seemingly bald head.

Duck received his first vision of his destiny on his eighteenth birthday. These visions continued to come to him for the next few weeks, and, afterwards, occasionally once or twice a month, becoming more ephemeral and somewhat dreamlike the longer Duck continued to ignore them. Eventually, Duck managed to convince himself that these visions were just dreams.

The figure tries to tell Duck that there are events in motion that require his immediate action but Duck ignores them and walks away. The figure disappears and reappears next to Duck and asks him where his chosen weapon, the instrument of his destiny, is. Duck explains that the design aesthetic creeped him out so he had a friend, most likely Ned, hold on to it. This conversation is suddenly interrupted by the sound of a large branch snapping and a deep, monstrous sigh followed by steady breathing that's starting to come closer and closer to their location.

Duck Reads a Bad Situation: Duck flashes his light in the direction of the figure and catches sight of the creatures multiple eyes, which it has in various areas around its body. The creature roars at Duck and he, Acting Under Pressure, readies his hunting rifle... and chucks it at the bear's head and sprints away. Unfortunately, he is not fast enough and the bear collides into him and swipes him with their paw, swatting him about ten feet away from it. Luckily, Duck is Invincible so he doesn't take any damage, but, in the process of being tossed, he does lose his radio and flashlight, which lands near the other flashlight and illuminates the scared face of a young man wearing coke-bottle glasses and a blue sweater hiding out in a nearby bramble patch.
 * Q. What's the biggest threat? A. The first thing Duck notices as he turns his light towards the sound is a clear picture of the pattern of burnt grass on the ground he saw earlier. This time, Duck sees that these aren't just random splotches of burnt grass, but are almost what looks like the shadows of animals, such as deer and wolves. The other, much more relevant thing Duck notices is the hulking, eight-foot shape of the creature coming towards him.

The bear doesn't see this person in the brambles and Duck, seeing that the bear now has its back to him, runs up to it and kicks it in the ass. With that, the bear turns to face Duck and he is forced to, again, Act Under Pressure in order to get to his radio and contact help. Duck rolls out the way of one of the bear's swipes and manages to grab the radio, only to be hit by another swipe. Although Duck isn't damaged, the swipe sends him twenty feet away this time. Duck sprints further away from the bear and attempts to call for help on the radio. However, he only gets static in response, forcing him, once again, to Act Under Pressure as he attempts to tune the radio and run from the creature at the same time. After messing around with the squelch knob, Duck finally hears a voice.

Duck trips over a branch and loses his radio, for good this time, and he continues to run in the dark away from the monster still pursuing him. Eventually, the sound of the pursuing bear gets quieter and quieter, eventually disappearing altogether and Duck finds himself in a clearing.

Duck stands before the stone archway for the first time in his life, the moonlight shining down on it as the moon reaches its zenith overhead, nearly full. The presence appears to Duck once again, and begins inspecting the stone gate. Duck hears the monster getting closer, and the presence instructs Duck to enter the gate, and explains that the people beyond will be his friends. The presence disappears and Duck, not having many other options left, runs through the gate. As he does so, the moon overhead reaches its absolute zenith, and the forest beyond the archway is replaced with a solid plane of dazzling white light. Duck, slightly rattled from the sharp wind blowing away from the gate in every direction, continues his approach with his hand nervously outstretched, and his fingers graze the light.

Aubrey Little
Dusk falls as Aubrey and Mama leave Snowshoe and head towards Kepler in Mama's truck. Mama assures her that she won't have to worry about any police bothering her as she has ties with the owners of the hotel she nearly burnt down. Aubrey is more concerned, however, that Mama is driving her out in the middle of nowhere so she can kill her.

Mama reaches into her breast pocket and pulls out a bag of weed baby carrots, which she feeds to Dr. Bonkers as a sign of goodwill. Mama asks if Aubrey is human, and she confusedly answers yes, on her mother and father's side. Aubrey asks if that's an option, and Mama explains that she'll learn lots of stuff tonight, and one of them is that it is definitely possible to have human parents and still be able to use magic.

As she says this, the two of them finally enter Kepler. Along the way to their destination, they pass Kepler's many sites and attractions, such as The Cryptonomica and a Giovanni's. Eventually, they reach the end of the road and Mama takes a turn onto a small, secluded, dirt path leading into a forest of pine trees, once again stoking Aubrey's suspicions that she's about to be murdered. Mama parks the truck at the end of the dirt road in front of a large building with a wooden sign hanging over the entrance reading, "Amnesty Lodge".

Mama leads Aubrey into the lobby, which has the room layout of a geodesic wooden dome, where a few guests are seated in handcrafted wooden chairs. One is reading a newspaper, a couple are laughing over a game of chess, and another is dusting the surface of a piano. A young blond man dressed in snowboarder’s gear comes running out of one of the lodge's guest wings and towards the entrance, and is intercepted by Mama who asks him, Jake Coolice, to make a room for Aubrey.

Mama calls for the guest reading the newspaper, Dani, and she looks up from the newspaper, revealing a young, earthy, and crusty looking woman with long blonde hair, and stares at Aubrey. Mama walks over to the hearth in the center of the room and removes the grate surrounding it and tells Aubrey to show Dani her magic, the real kind.

Aubrey produces a bit of flash paper with her spark gloves, and a little flash of a flame appears and hits the logs in the center of the hearth but doesn’t really ignite it. Mama sighs and reiterates that she wants Aubrey to use real magic, not "the David Copperfield shit". Aubrey extends her hands out in front of her and attempts to cast some magic, and, while doing so, catches Dani in the corner of her eye. This makes Aubrey nervous for a second, and, because her magic is tied to her emotional state, a big blast of fire appears in her hands and ignites the hearth, causing Dani to sit up in her chair.

Mama nods and swiftly walks to the front door of the Amnesty Lodge and bolts it. She turns back toward Aubrey and everybody in the lobby stops doing what they’re doing and starts looking at her also.

Aubrey incredulously asks Mama if magic is real, and she answers, yes, magic is real and it comes from another world, one that is connected to our own. Mama explains that this connection has popped up in many places around the world throughout time, its current location being Kepler, and that humans have been crossing over into this other world for as long as they've been around, bringing back with them stories and folktales of what lies on the other side.

However, Mama explains, people from this other world can come into our world too, and she nods to the guests in the lobby and, one by one, they reveal themselves to be various monsters. The guests playing chess turn into werewolves, the man dusting the piano becomes a ghost, and Dani's skin starts glowing slightly, her eyes turn dark orange, and her teeth become long and pointed. Aubrey takes all of this new information pretty well, which she chalks up to having watched a lot of movies and tv shows before.

Edmund "Ned" Chicane
Ned's car, a Lincoln Continental Mark III, comes to a halt in the Monongahela National Forest in an area where he can do his work in peace. After surveying the scene a bit to make sure no ones around, Ned gets to work on creating "evidence" for his new Bigfoot exhibit. In order to do this, he has brought with him the following items: After getting into costume and spreading the Bigfoot "scent", Ned sets the camera on video mode and, thinking back to his dramatic training, attempts to get in character for his greatest performance yet.
 * 1) A Wookiee costume
 * 2) Great big boots with a mold at the bottom made to look like and create giant footprints.
 * 3) A camera and tripod that Kirby lent him.
 * 4) A big vat filled with sewage and other gross stuff that Ned got from the cesspool in his backyard. Used to create Bigfoot "scent".

Having psyched himself up, Ned hunches up his shoulders and starts growling and lumbering across the camera's view. However, Ned is not satisfied with his motivation and voice during the last take, so he makes the camera's view more blurry and lumbers and growls a bit more threateningly.

Satisfied with this take, Ned pops off his mask and reviews the footage. As he does, he sees a tall, burly, and bearded man wearing a flannel shirt emerge from the woods. Dangling from his clasped hand, Ned sees a chain with a faintly glowing orange crystal at the end of it. The man also notices Ned and clumsily tries to nonchalantly hide the crystal back up in his hand. Both of them nervously greet each other and the bearded man asks why Ned is dressed up like Chewbacca so Ned comes up with the cover story that he's shooting footage for a fan film. The man seems to believe this and Ned gets the sense that this man, like him, did not anticipate seeing somebody this late at night.

The bearded man asks Ned if he plans on sticking around much longer and he tells him, no, he's just gonna put his equipment in his old trunk and get the hell outta here. As they prepare to go their separate ways, the bearded man tells Ned his name is Barclay, who Ned recognizes as the cook from the Amnesty Lodge who once fixed him a delicious Monte Cristo. Ned gives his name and occupation as the owner of The Cryptonomica. As they are talking, Ned notices a figure skulking towards them and, as it does, he sees the crystal that Barclay’s trying to hide in his fist shine through the cracks in his fingers.

Barclay gestures for Ned to stay back with his non-crystal holding hand, and slowly tells him to get into his car and go. Ned responds, also very slowly, that he'll go, but he'll have come with him by hiding in the trunk to his car. The two of them start walking backwards to Ned's car, but Barclay steps on a twig and the bobcat charges quickly towards them.

Barclay starts running towards the bobcat, and he pulls up his shirtsleeve, and Ned sees him untie a hempen bracelet. And in the blink of an eye, this gentle, bearded man disappears.

[Theme Tune Plays]

Featured NPCs

 * Barclay
 * Dani
 * Dr. Harris Bonkers
 * Jake Coolice
 * Mama
 * Minerva
 * The Beast

Featured Music

 * Amnesty Lodge (Sunrise)

Featured Locations

 * Amnesty Lodge
 * Kepler