S01E24 - Spin Cycle

Spin Cycle is the twenty-fourth episode of season 1 of Top of the Round.

A life-, and perhaps world-, altering question has been posed. Now fate rests in Chaz's hands? Oh Gods...

## Detailed Synopsis

Chaz leads Talice and Se’ku to the north of the Evergrove to see the stone throne where the statue of the Earth Mother is. They approach from the back of the throne.  In front of the throne is a sheer drop-off of some 500 feet. Below is a constantly churning whirlpool.  In the center of which, floats a glowing blue gem which appears to have some kind of fluid inside it.

Talice is immediately taken by the sight of the gem, assuming that it may be the Ocean’s Soul that she was secretly tasked to find.

The Earth Mother is a elf who appears to be carved of the same stone as the throne in which she sits. She has long pointed ears. When Se’ku looks at her, he is struck by a vision:

*Se’ku is six years old and walking down a dirt path, his mother and father on either side of him. His mother asks him if he’s excited to have dinner at Lord Vulkar’s?*

*The vision shifts and suddenly Se’ku is seated at a large dinner table, his mother sits on his left and father is on his right.*

*In front of him is a fair Elven woman with long blue hair that sways in the air as if it were underwater. She has sea foam green eyes. She wears a dress that is dark blue at the top, but ombres into lighter blues then white at the hem of the dress.*

*To the left of her is a red skinned woman with very similar features. She has four horns on her head. Her black hair is braided around her horns. The tips of each horn seem to glow like embers.*

*To the left of the red woman is a brick of a dwarf. He’s bare-chested with a long brown beard with gold and silver beads worked into it.*

*To his left is a drow woman with kind blue eyes and a light purple skin and long black hair. She wears a royal purple silk kimono with silver and black spider web filigree worked on the sleeves. A pale blue lily is on her collar. The drow woman is at the far-left end of the table.*

*To the right of the water elf is a small gnome with short brown windswept hair. His left eye is light blue, his right eye is a foggy yellow. He wears fancy leather garment.*

*To his side, at the other end of the dinning table is a pale, snow-white skinned elf. With glowing red eyes, serrated black lines run from under his eyes to his jaw. He wears a black kimono gilded with gold trim. Under his jawline, what little his kimono reveals is a chromatic glassy color that shifts from blue to purple to red to green. Under that the bones of his spine and clavicle are visible, but no organs.*

*All the people are eating and celebrating, when the dwarf calls them all to business. Se’ku’s father tells him to go play outside with little Zek.*

*Se’ku obediently gets up and runs outside. As he goes, he spots another person sitting on a pillow away from the table. It is a human man with pure white hair and gold eyes wearing a simple clean tunic that starts as light gray at the top and ombre's to dark gray and then black at the hem.  He has a tomb in his lap and is writing/drawing in it with a quill.*

*Outside Se’ku finds Zek, a small elven child a little taller than Se’ku. With snow-white skin and glowing blue eyes with black dots under each eye. He has shaggy black hair and is wearing a black kimono with silver details.  He’s practicing katas.*

*Zek notices Se’ku and instantly stops and happily greets him. The two spar.*

Meanwhile Chaz realizes that Se’ku has frozen in place and is staring off into the middle distance. Chaz calls his name, drawing Talice’s attention away from the Ocean’s Soul. She touches Se’ku to find him burning with fever.

Chaz shakes Se’ku by the shoulders. As he does, his own vision suddenly tunnels and shifts so that he’s looking at the Earth Mother statue behind him. His vision then shifts down to look at the cliff wall where it’s covered in ivy and moss.  The ivy and moss are pushed to the side as if they were a curtain and Chaz is presented with three concentric circles of different languages. This then transitions into another dark room with a water orb that is constantly shifting between liquid, solid and gas states. The orb is floating above a half dome on the floor which is marked with a cross.

Talice, seeing both her friends lost in trance-like states, whirls on the Earth Mother statue and demands it release them.

Behind Talice there is a crash of water, and when she turns to look, she sees an enormous hand made of water reach up from the cliff and grab the side of the cliff. It then lefts up a giant body made of water. The body has elven features like the Earth Mother statue. The Ocean’s Soul floats in the middle of the forehead.

Talice gapes in astonishment.

The water from the giant pools on the ground next to Talice, then reforms into the same figure, but now the same height as Talice. The water elf figure reaches out and brushes a hand through Talice’s hair.  In her mind, a female voice says, *“Oh sweet child. What you think is your greatest strength you will come to find is your greatest weakness.”*

Talice blinks, and the figure is gone.  Behind her, the Earth Mother statue suddenly has cracks running down from its eyes with water seeping out.

Chaz snaps back to reality.  He approaches the statue telling it that he doesn’t understand his vision. He notices the new cracks.

Talice timidly peeks over the side of the cliff to find the maelstrom and Ocean’s Soul are still there, unchanged. She is baffled.

Se’ku finally snaps back to reality as well. He has a mild headache now, and can now recall these new memories of being a child with his parents. Yet, he also still has his memories of growing up an orphan in the monastery. These two conflicting memories are all mixed up.

Se’ku collapses to his knees and looks to his companions, deeply confused. Talice and Chaz are equally lost and confused.

In his head, Chaz hears the Earth Mother’s voice again, “*Dearest Chaz, your return has come at a fortunate time.*” Chaz attempts to communicate with the Earth Mother via his thoughts, but when no response comes, he speaks out loud, asking her what she means.

Talice and Se’ku, who could not hear what the Earth Mother said the Chaz are still confused. Se’ku relays his vision to Talice.

The Earth Mother statue cracks further. Chaz gets the feeling that there’s something else there, something that isn’t a statue. As he watches the cracks grow, Chaz whispers a name from the deepest part of his mind, “Mizula?”

“*Chaz, my power is fading. What little I have left goes to protect this place from the curse that has begun to plague our woods. I need a new champion. Do you accept?*”

Chaz rubs his face, grits his teeth, then quietly answers, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Behind them, there comes a grating sound of stone on stone. Steps appear out of the side of the cliff face, leading down. Chaz goes without hesitation, but Talice and Se’ku both quibble briefly before reluctantly following.

The stairs lead to a small plateau about 5 feet above the water’s surface. As they descend, the stairs retract back into the cliff so they cannot go back the way they came.