Ep. 27: Petals to the Metal - Chapter Ten

"Can our heroes reach out and take a bite of that sweet checkered flag? It's the final lap of... The Adventure Zone!"

Synopsis
''This is it. Our heroes are in a dead heat with The Raven, the finish line in sight. Who will emerge victorious? Who will end up with the mighty Gaia Sash? More importantly, is there any prize money for this thing? Taako does some sunbathing. Magnus gets shredded. Merle executes the weirdest brag ever.''

It's time for some NOS!
After Merle pushed the little red button, Hurley's battle wagon transforms: the horns rotate out 90 degrees until they're like wings, and blue flame starts streaking from all the tailpipes and the tips of the horns, rendering it into a car missile.

Nearing the finish line, Taako, Hurley, and Sloan are neck and neck. Sloan and Hurley are trading paint, laughing, and having a good time, but Sloan pulls ahead. It's okay, Taako has a plan.

Taako takes his time putting away all his items, then pulls the emergency brake on his (Klarg's) motorcycle, and uses the Wand of Switcheroo to switch places with Sloan.

Sloan loses her balance on the motorcycle and takes a tumble. And that's enough! Taako crosses the finish line, wins the race gets swarmed by a metric ton of confetti, and asks for some milk!

Post Race Celebration(?)
A bunch of Goldcliff Militia battle wagons are waiting at the finish line, sirens blaring. Capt. Captain Bain offers his congratulations.

In the distance, Sloan appears on the motorcycle, and she doesn't look good. She's shuddering and holding her chest. All of a sudden, lighting starts to crackle all around, and vines begin to shoot out of the ground. The ground beneath begins to shake and crack.

Without slowing down, Sloan drives the motorcycle off the cliff. "Sloan, no!" Hurley calls out.

There's a gust of wind that knocks back the looky-loos at the edge of the cliff. The sky immediately turns black and a tornado suddenly appears about a dozen feet from the edge of the cliff. Thousands of ravens circle it.

Hurley takes off her mask, and there's a gasp from the crowd.

She climbs back into the driver's seat and says, "I've asked you boys for too much already." Magnus immediately hops in, followed by Weaselman, er, Taako. Merle reluctantly goes along, but first goes around and fixes some stuff on the battle wagon. Hurley throws the car in reverse, revs the engine, and drives directly off the cliff. They are immediately caught up in a tornado.

Definitely not Kansas
Inside of the tornado is a 10-story pilar made entirely of vines with a boss-fight-style platform on top. Sloan is standing half-submerged in vines. Her legs are encased in vines, her mask is off, and her skin is mottled gray. Her eyes are glossed over. She looks bad -- reminiscent of Gundren Rockseeker.

Hurley is psyched to be going so fast around the tornado, but doesn't know how to slow down. Magnus decides to harpoon the vines and tether-ball in, which works. The battle wagon smashes into the pillar, wheels first.

Magnus climbs up easily, and Magnus clambers up with Hurley's help. Merle has a plan to free Sloan: he casts Zone of Truth and asks how to free her. She (or really, the Gaia Sash speaking through her form) says it is already too late. Sloan points her finger and a scaly vine shoots out and smacks all of them.

Sloan's body becomes completely enveloped in vines, but a vine torso, vine head, and two vine arms extend upward 20 feet to create a scary whacky inflatable tube man. Made of vines.

Boss Fight!
Taako casts fireball at the vine head, which ignites immediately and turns to ash. Merle casts Prayer of Healing on everyone. Magnus runs up to the vines and tries to pry it open. Luckily, he's super good at things, so he just smashes through like the vines were old saloon doors.

Magnus runs into Sloan's little vine clubhouse and socks her in the jaw. She just laughs and spits out green blood, and then sends some vines at Magnus. He feels like he's being stabbed and electrocuted at the same time.

The vine monster's head regrows and a raincloud puts out the rest of the fire. Hands grab at Merle and Taako.

Hurley hops off the platform and grabs the arcane core. She smashes it into the platform, spewing out tiny blue flecks that the Umbra Staff turns inside out and snuffles up like a dog. All of Taako's spell slots have returned.

Taako casts fireball, and a fireball does indeed begin to emerge from the Umbra Staff. But this one is very, very big. The sun basically pops out of the Umbra Staff. There's a blast of heat and the vine monster is completely consumed. The remaining ash is whipped away by the tornado. The platform (and Sloan buried within it) is still intact.

Sloan laughs and says, "Impressive," in the voice of the Gaia Sash. She begins to regrow the vines, only these are black with silver thorns: a highly poisonous variety called silverpoint.

Hurley's got a plan. She has everyone walk to the edge of the platform, and has Taako kneel. She gives him a big hug, secretly wrapping her harness around him. She thanks them for everything, then claps her hands and blows them backwards off the platform. Their bubbles deploy as they are sucked into the tornado, and they see clap again, wrapping herself in pure white light, and see her run headfirst into the vines. The white light begins to shimmer throughout the vines and the platform, and then the three blackout from the G-forces.

Discovery and Recovery
The boys wake up to find themselves in the center of Goldcliff, in the shallow pool. About 20 feet away, they can see the Raven, who looks a lot better. Hurley, unfortunately, looks really bad. They hear the sound of sirens in the distance.

Hurley coughs weakly and says, "You're in trouble."

Sloan laughs a little and says, "This whole time I was looking for something more powerful than this fucking belt. I'm such a fool."

Hurley says, "Haha, yeah."

Sloan asks the boys if there are any more of these powerful objects out in the world, and they say yes. She tells them to not let this happen again, and then whispers down to Hurley. Begin transcript:

''And then you are blinded by another flash of light, an explosion of force that sort of throws back some of the water in this pool back on your face. and you’re blinded for just a moment, but as your sight returns, you realize you’re being buffeted by this thick whirlwind of these light pink petals. and they settle somewhat, and the wind settles somewhat, and thousands of these petals are floating weightlessly through the air. and you can see, in the middle of this pond, a beautiful towering cherry blossom tree has appeared. it’s where these petals are just sort of flying off of, and as far as trees go it’s the prettiest one you’ve ever seen. and at it’s base you see these roots and knots that are forming two vaguely humanoid shapes. one is sort of a shorter figure, lying in the embrace of a taller figure. and on the ground, in the water in front of them, you see a raven mask and a ram mask, and tucked neatly in between the two of them, you see the Gaia Sash.''

Taako grabs the Gaia Sash, but critically fails his first wisdom saving throw. Luckily, Hurley and Sloan reach out from beyond the veil to knock some sense into him, allowing him to roll again... which also fails. Taako begins to put on the belt.

Magnus punches Taako in the face for five damage. Merle grabs the belt and it begins trying to entice him. He won't have any of it (see below for weirdest brag), having succeeded his wisdom saving throw. He stashes it in his fanny pack.

Betrayal!
Capt. Captain Bain comes up with a lot of militia and whisks them away to his office for a debrief. The gang is recalcitrant. The tell him that Lieutenant Hurley is a tree now, and that they secured the relic. Oh, also, they have some questions about expense reports.

Bain pulls out a decanter with a thick brown liquid and pours a toast to Lt. Hurley. Captain Bain looks nervous and encourages them to drink the liquid. They don't. Taako tries to Charm Person, but Bain resists, and it's almost like Taako's charm spell was overpowered by another spell. Merle encourages Magnus to kill him immediately.

Bain starts glowing and flips out, smashing the glasses to the ground and drinking one of them. It's poison, of course, and he dies.

Mystery! (of the Red Robe variety)
Behind Bain is an incorporeal Red Robe. Magnus tries to punch it, twice, and chop it with RailSplitter, but nothing connects. Inside the robe is a black void with a tiny speck of white light that pulses as it speaks.

'''"ARE YOU AFRAID?" '''the Red Robe whisper-shouts. The boys hedge that everyone is a little afraid sometimes. "YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BE AFRAID," they state.

The Red Robe projects a holographic series of familiar faces and narrates through them:

"GUNDREN ROCKSEEKER. MAGIC BRIAN. JENKINS. SLOAN. CAPTAIN BAIN. THIS IS THE TRUE NATURE OF MAN. THE WANT, THE HUNGER. IT CONSUMES EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES. IT CAN'T BE STOPPED OR CHARMED. IT IS THE END OF EVERYTHING. THIS IS YOUR FIRST LESSON."

And then it disappears in a spout of flame.

Loot!
Hey, check it out: on Bain's desk are two briefcases, one marked 1 and one marked 2. In the first briefcase are 3,000 gold pieces and in the second are 1,500 gold pieces. Magnus also takes Captain Bain's badge and Merle takes the vial of poison. Having finished looting the body, they return to the moon.

END OF EPISODE!

Featured NPCs

 * Hurley
 * The Raven
 * Capt. Captain Bain

Featured Locations
Goldcliff

Money Zone
Personal message for Jess, from Kenny: Eee~aaahh! (Griffin's phonetic pronunciation for a smiling face with heart-shaped eyes emoji)

Personal message for RJ, from Sam, Ryan, and Billy: Happy birthday, RJ! We know that it's hard being such an abnormally tall basic b-word in today's rough and tumble world. We hope that the PSL (?) we know you're holding, and a message from the McElroys, will ease your pain. Love, the brain trust and Ryan.

Music

 * Discovery and Recovery

But Magnus can punch really hard

 * TRAVIS: I've got this thing called disarming strike...
 * GRIFFIN: No, you can't punch somebody's belt off.

Meow

 * GRIFFIN: Hurley takes off her mask, and there's a gasp from the crowd.
 * TRAVIS: I take off my mask!
 * MAGNUS: I've been Magnus this whole time!
 * GRIFFIN: There's not as big of a gasp, like, you aren't a lieutenant in the militia in this town, but you hear some chatter, like, "Oh. Yeah."
 * TRAVIS: That's fair.
 * CLINT: I take off my mask and say:
 * MERLE: And I'm Bruce Wayne.
 * GRIFFIN: The crowd says, "Oh, okay Mr. Wayne."
 * TAAKO: I'm actually a Mongoose. Meow!

The Adventures of...

 * TAAKO: "No adventure would be complete without Weaselman!"

Meow

 * MAGNUS: Wait, can we get an extra harness for Taako?
 * HURLEY: No, those are the only ones we have.
 * MAGNUS: Okay, let's go! Oh wait, Taako, take my harness.
 * TAAKO: No, don't worry about it. Alfred made me some mongoose wings. I just extend 'em at any point, it's no problem
 * MERLE: Are you sure you know what a mongoose is?

Weirdest brag

 * GAIA SASH: There's no vine you won't be able to not fuck. I'll give you sexual conquest over anything. What do you want to fuck? An onion?
 * GRIFFIN: But you have beaten this thing in a test of wisdom.
 * MERLE: I don't need your help, pal!
 * GRIFFIN: Fucking an onion?
 * MERLE: ...to have sex with an onion.
 * TRAVIS: I can fuck any onion I want!
 * GRIFFIN: I get all the bulbs I need.
 * MERLE: Bermuda, red, it doesn't matter. Onion rings? They're mine. You open the door, I walk through.

Dummos

 * CAPT. BAIN: How do you manage to resist the thrall?
 * MAGNUS: We're pretty dumb.
 * MERLE: We are dense.
 * TAAKO: As a box of rocks.

What are you afraid of?

 * RED ROBE: ARE YOU AFRAID??
 * TAAKO: I think we all are, sometimes. It's natural.
 * MAGNUS: Yeah, you get lonely and you think, 'What if I never meet the right person?' Oof. There's a lot to worry about, you know.
 * RED ROBE: YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BE AFRAID
 * MERLE: Well, probably not. If it's a smartness thing, no.