Episode 9 - Mammoth Bowl 2K19

## **Episode Synopsis**

### **Recap**

Dariun and Peterson enter the pink floor which turned out to be a giant monster that could speak telepathically to Zippy and is named Level. Level made a deal with Zippy that if Dariun and Peterson could kill an orc within a time limit, they would get treasure and information on Felix but if they failed, it would cost them their lives. They completed the challenge and they won a large amount of treasure and a book about Felix. The team left Lundy in the Sparrow travelling to Manasnow.

### **Episode Summary**

Dariun, Zippy and Peterson are flying in the Sparrow heading south to Manasnow now equipped with the Fur Balls Fur and Accessories banner on the airship alongside Asop's advertisement. Peterson looks around in the airship, taking in the view of the land form the sky. He asks for a tour and Dariun gives him a look around. He sees the three levels, on top is the cockpit and the balcony, below is the engine room and the crew quarters and the lowest level is a storage area. They see Yogurt napping in a room, James' room has a sign saying '*Do not disturb*', there are some other rooms for Dariun, Zippy and Peterson. Dariun shows Peterson another room with Norman's comatose body resting.

When they enter Norman's room, the air in the room is still. Norman's body is scratched and his left arm looks broken. Peterson pulls down his mask and looks into the ethereal plane. When he looks at Norman, it has some greyness about it and over his chest where his medallion used to be, there is a small blue flicker. He puts his mask up and commends their skills at keeping Norman alive. Peterson offers to help set Norman's broken arm but he only moves it slightly and doesn't do much else. They finish up their tour and Dariun heads off to do some maintenance.

As they travel across the open land, Zippy can see there should be a tower coming up on his map. Zippy looks off in the distance and can spot someone holding a light flashing it to the ship, signalling to park the ship next to the tower. When they get there, an older human man is trying to speak to Zippy. When Zippy gets in hearing distance, the man compliments the ride and says he flagged down the ship to ask is he could catch a ride. The man explains that this tower is a place that people take a pit stop before crossing the cold line. By this time, Dariun comes up and joins the conversation, learning that this cold line means a massive drop in temperature. Upon closer inspection, Zippy can see the man is carrying two bags of presumably gold and probably does not work here. Meanwhile, Dariun is thinking about the possible effect of the cold on the ship. He figures that the cold will likely cause them to travel slower and they will have to fly closer to the ground to prevent the engine from freezing.

Zippy asks the man about the bags and he openly admits he stole this gold and ran up to the top of this tower to get away from some guards who were chasing him. Dariun asks what this place is called and the man informs them it’s basically a huge tavern. Peterson comes up on the deck and Dariun thinks to himself that the man is probably telling the truth. Zippy and Dariun contemplate if it would be okay to help the thief in case it burns any bridges for them. Zippy offers to help him go down but he will need to pay them some gold. The man is not so keen so pretends that he will jump off the tall tower if they don't help him. The team are okay with that and Peterson suggests getting Pepper to take a bag of gold when he falls. When he figures he can't win so the man throws a bag of gold on the ship and Zippy commands the magic carpet to help the man down. After they help the man, they start to fly away and see some guards come to the top of the tower and they wave to the airship. Dariun waves back and tries to point to the forest the man ran to but the guards can't hear him. They look in the bag to find 250 gold, which they feel was hardly worth the effort.

As they start to pass through the cold line, Dariun ensures he has told Zippy about what they need to do. Zippy puts the airship just above the trees and start to notice snow on the tops of these trees. As they head closer to Manasnow, their vision becomes more and more obstructed by the snow that is falling heavily and they begin to fly through the Ice Walk, an open field with no trees and heavy snow. It still feels cold despite their heavy coats so they huddle in the cockpit for warmth. Dariun can see a darker grey spot on their left that is getting closer and closer. Peterson pulls down his mask and can see they grey spot is a giant mammoth that is running towards them. Zippy pops one of his Ammow pills and goes full speed. He throws a pill to Peterson and Dariun and asks them to try to heat up the engines to help the ship move up faster. They all take the pill and Zippy takes up his spot on the wheel, Peterson is lookout and Dariun heads down into the engine to keep everything going.

Dariun sees some ice forming on the pipes but they are okay for the moment. Peterson can spot the mammoth coming towards them and spots another mammoth behind that one. Zippy casts plant growth to stabilize the wheel and levers placements. The speed starts to increase and Dariun sees one of the pipes starts to come loose but he is able to fix it back into place. The mammoth gets closer and it's tusk just misses the ship and the mammoth behind runs into the one in front, causing a cloud of snow to explode from the mammoth being thrown on the ground. Peterson can see more mammoths coming in from both sides looking like they're getting ready to collide and fight each other. Zippy sees two in front about the clash so he zips up his parka and casts speak with plants and asks the plants wrapped around the wheel and levers to follow his instructions.

Zippy commands the wheel plant to go right and he heads to the left balloon and uses enhance ability. The pipes are starting to rattle and burst with the increased pressure and Peterson can see a different figure, a giant in the distance. It is wearing patchwork clothing with a beanie on their head. The giant is wrestling with a mammoth in front of them. Zippy runs over to the right balloon and also casts enhance ability causing the pipes to rattle even more. Peterson remembers when he was in the wizards tower being trained, some animals will fight every now and again to see who is king of the herd and this mammoth battle may reflect this. Dariun is able to get the pipes fixed by hitting them with a wrench and suddenly the speed of the ship increases very quickly. Dariun runs back up to the top deck and Zippy makes his way back to the captains quarters and asks the plants to steer back to the way they were heading before.

They can see now a mammoth is coming at them head on and there some mammoths wrestling to the left. Peterson advises Zippy to go up and shoots a fireball at the mammoth in front of them. Zippy veers the ship up and Dariun goes back to the engine to prevent the pipes bursting with the new direction. The fireball shoots out and hits the mammoth in the face. The fire doesn't faze the mammoth and it keeps running. They can’t get the ship up in time and the mammoth hits the bottom. Peterson is caught off guard and goes flying off the top of the ship and he sees the ship goes in front of him as he falls. He summons a giant owl and lands on his back but it struggles to fly in the blizzard and they glide down to the ground. Beneath him, Peterson sees a giant hand scoop him up and he is now in the hand of the giant. Peterson sees the giant is wearing a scarf that is covering his mouth but he can tell the giant has happy looking eyes.

Zippy looks over to see Peterson is gone but thinks they need to keep moving. He levels the ship then sees the face of the giant come next to the airship who calls out and says hello while holding up Peterson in their palm. Dariun runs up after hearing the voice of the frost giant who has now pulled down his scarf and they see he has a moustache. As Dariun asks if they can have their friend back, the frost giant trips over a mammoth and his arm swings and hits the airship. Beneath them, they see giant fell on his face but he was able to hold Peterson safely. The giant gets up and tries to catch back up. Zippy asks the plants to slow down and the giant runs up the the ship and puts Peterson back on.

The giant explains they shouldn't be flying through here especially not during mammoth fighting season and he was trying to become their leader. He tells them he is from the outskirts of Manasnow and is happy to lead them there. Dariun asks his name and the giant introduces his shortened name witch is Harry. When Dariun asks what his full name is, Harry tells them it's Harryhillblongerclemarthersens. They decide to follow Harry to Manasnow who explains that the mammoth's fighting season is sometimes called mammoth bowl or super mammoth fight club. Harry reckons Crampos or Einhart are the top two bets for this season but Harry is the only one who really watches. Zippy asks who is doing well this season and Harry tells them Lightfoot is a real up and comer this season.

After not too long, the snow starts to fall less and they are coming closer to Manasnow. There is a town with some smoke rising from cottage houses. Harry tells them Felix came through about 8 months ago and left south into the mountain areas, possibly to check out the red lights. Zippy asks who he went to for a guide and Harry tells them is was Shamus who is a mountain guide. Harry tells them he is part of the Greeters Guild of Manasnow.

When they get to Manasnow, Harry leads the town with a greeting song introducing some of the towns folk, including Valentine who made his way to Manasnow just for their team. Dariun and Zippy wonder how Valentine even knew they were coming to this town. Harry points them the Shamus' mountain guide shop which is where Shamus will be. Zippy has an idea so he runs back onto the ship into Norman's room. He looks at Norman, and tells him "*soon my friend*" and grabs the ring of communication from his left hand.

Peterson offers to look at the items they got from Level to check for magical properties. Dariun grabs the wand of detect magic he got from Norman's body and uses it on the items. The things he didn't expect magic on includes the robe of scintillating colours, the golden mask, the ring with the red eye and the sword with the white steel line. Dariun tosses the items with magic to Peterson to use an identify ritual to discover what kind of magic it had. Dariun also throws Zippy the goblet which he wanted. Peterson learns about the items and describes what they can do, advising them to keep away from the cursed mask, ring and sword but tells them the benefits of the robe. Peterson asks for the cloak and Dariun decides to take it and get back to him later.

The team head into Valentines shop and have a look around. Dariun grabs the gauntlets of ogre power while Peterson has a look at the void chest. Peterson goes for it and pulls out a shimmering bar of soap which produces a wild dire weasel whenever he believes in himself. Peterson believes in himself and a dire weasel appears around his neck and starts to crush him but as he starts to stress, the weasel disappears. Peterson also purchases a fobeard while Dariun sells Valentine the cursed mask and ring for 10 gold. Dariun also goes for a void chest pull and gets a terribly ugly shoe that can make him shrink down to the size of a mouse when he is bitten. Peterson also purchases a cricket statue that chirps softly in the dark but stops when an invisible creature comes within 10 feet. He also pulls one more time out of the void chest and gets a wristband that causes huge migraines whenever you are being hunted. Peterson puts it on and as he does, his head begins to hurt. He checks his new cricket statue that remains chirping so takes it off the wrist band with a sigh of relief and puts it on his belt. Dariun does one more void chest pull and gets a hammer to causes homicidal rage whenever you frown and he immediately sells it to Valentine for 10 gold. Dariun asks Peterson to identify the shrinking shoe to make sure he can get back to normal size after being bitten and learns if he gets bitten again when he small, he will go back to normal. Dariun tries it out and it seems to work. Zippy purchases the gloves of sharing and doesn't want anything else. Dariun grabs the wand of web on his way out and they all leave.

The team are back out in Manasnow square and they decide to meet Shamus but before they do, Dariun grabs the black bow from Norman's body. They head into Shamus' mountain guide shop and meet Shamus. Dariun asks about Felix and Shamus tells them Felix wanting to go up the heaven reaching track to the top of the mountain. After they reached the top, Felix continued on to the red lights. Dariun asks about the red lights as this was the second time they heard this. Shamus tells them there are red lights beyond the mountains, rumour has it that if you die up there, it's so cold that not even your soul gets sent down to the deep. Shamus admits that he has not seem the red lights but people say they are the souls of adventurers that died on the mountain. Shamus tells them their airship won't be able to get them over the mountain as it will be too cold. They decide to stay at Fritz's tavern overnight and be guided up the mountain by Shamus in the morning.

Shamus informs them that it'll cost 1000 gold to get them up the mountain but as they discuss, they hear rustling behind them as a teenage tiefling boy, a little rotund with a bowl cut pops up. He asks Shamus if he, Leslie, could take them up the mountain for free. Zippy looks at Dariun and nods but Dariun is not so keen to have a newbie take them up the mountain. Leslie starts to plead with song telling them he is chasing after a dragon girl who was with the Greeders, up the mountain. Zippy is very keen to have Leslie telling Dariun they need to have Leslie take them. Leslie tells them Felix came through with the whole Greeders guild including the love of his life, a dragon born girl. Against Dariun's better judgement, he agrees to take Leslie.

## **Quotations**

* Zippy "*Just cause people are different doesn't mean that you should think that we're not real people.*"

* Zippy "*He's* (Valentine) *like one of those NPCs that will follows until our journey's end!*"
* Dariun "*Or maybe he is our journey's end..*"

* Zippy "*If you remember me what did I take from you last time?*"
* Valentine "*Everything.*"
* Zippy "*No no no! You remember...*"
* Valentine "*My doorknob?*"
* Zippy "*Annd?*"
* Valentine "*My carpet?*"
* Zippy "*Aaannnndddd?*"
* Valentine "*My self respect..*"
* Zippy "*Booya!*"
* Valentine "*Yeah you did! I feel like sh\*t!*"

* Dariun "*Every part of me that wants to make the logical decision is screaming no but this is just too interesting...*"

## **Featured Characters**

### **Main Cast**

* Dariun Branch
* Zippy Westborrough
* Peterson

### **Returning Characters**

* James
* Yogurt
* Pepper
* Valentine

### **New Characters**

* Tower Thief
* Harry (friendly frost giant - full name Harryhillblongerclemarthersens)
* Fritz (Manasnow barkeep)
* Selina (Manasnow potions salesman)
* Taylor
* Shamus (Manasnow mountain guide)
* Arizona (Peterson's dire weasel)
* Leslie

## **Locations**

* The Sparrow
* Baroger Spier
* Ice Walk
* Manasnow
* Valentine the Cursed Curiosity Collector
* Shamus' mountain guide shop

## **Trivia**

### Music

* Manasnow's Greeter's Guild song is played at 1:19.15