Season 5 Episode 25

**Synopsis:** The episode opens with the might Qweep flying into a rage and flinging his dual blade at the beast, though it zooms harmlessly in an arch around its body. Fizzbort-the-once-Mallerthil zaps the worm with his staff, and Bunk slices into the worm, knocking off a section of its carapace. Jolly hops out from behind a pillar, the poor confused hero still thinking he's flying, and blasts the worm with a fireball in just the right place so as not to hurt their new plant friend, then hops back behind the pillar for cover, feeling an extra through undeserved dash of exhilaration, since he fully believes he's zipping around in the air.

The worm's attention was caught by that fireball. He turns his massive body and smashes through the pillar Jolly was hiding behind, swallowing him whole and giving Bunk a poisonous smack with his tail for good measure. Ronnie hops away from the action and only just manages to pull his armblade out of his shoulder without worsening the injury, though with one arm dangling lifeless and the other occupied with applying pressure to the wound, the group will have to survive without their fearless leader for who knows how long!

But just as we feel our hopelessness begin to build, Winnifred steps forward and blasts the foul worm with a shimmering lance of psychic power from her forehead! Insults that mock us to our core, flattery that lifts us to the moon, and now shimmering psychic lances! What can that head of her's not do?! The worm, we see, has been badly blasted and is currently incapacitated. Dr Uid continues zapping the worm with his lightning, and Qweep continues missing the beast with his dual blade. Fizzbort-the-once-Mallerthil sends a smokey green bolt crashing into the worm, and Bunk hacks heroically at it's belly, inside of which Jolly is enjoying a damaging acid bath.

Ronnie is still occupied with keeping his arm attached, so calls out for help and holds his action. Turning our attention to the worm, if we look carefully it seems as if something is struggling to get out of its stomach. The incapacitated beast's body wobbles a bit, and then its jaws burst open in a plume of flame as Jolly rockets out, nearly smashing into a pillar on the far side of the room.

Winnifred, heading the call of their great leader, dives out of the way of an opportunistic smash of the beast's tail and runs to Ronnie. Shooting that psychic lance from her forehead must have drained much of her concentration, though, as her hand slips while attempting to stich him up and she cuts off three of her fingers on his armblade! Maimed but still thinking clearly, she wraps up the fingers to be reattached later. Dr Uid provides some healing for Ronnie, and Qweep finally manages to hit the worm, though cuts his finger when catching his boomeranging dual blade. Fizzbort-the-once-Mallerthil misses with a bolt and Bunk whiffs with a swing, sending his blade flying out of his hand. The tide of battle seems to be turning against our fair heroes!

Jolly smashes another fireball into the worm's body, but the worm ignores the damage and crashes its mouth down upon Bunk, presumably swallowing him as it burrows down into the ground. Ronnie fails to stich up his wound. He's a leader, not a doctor, dammit! And Winnifred, arms outstretched like a soaring bird, hops over to the hole the beast create, gets a glimpse of its stinger, and sends another incapacitating lance of psychic energy piercing into the beast's rear end!

Suddenly, like a bubble popping, the group looks around, realizes they were never flying but were only hopping around, arms outstretched and flapping like birds' wings. Their group psychosis has passed! Dr Uid is so distraught that he produces his flame blade and dives into the hole after the creature, though like a pancake being dropped on a spike, only manages to impale himself of the frozen beast's stinger. Not sense that dark, fateful night when his wild magic experiment went awry has the good doctor's future looked so bleak.