35: One Shit of a Buttler

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The 35 th episode of The Magical Monster High School Drama! series. After Ishkandar, Móts and Yassi finish exploring the wooden spaceship, Kiereniel and Violet on the Research Blimp, calls to the Rator for pick up. The pilot, Eric causes a cock-up cascade.

## Plot

After deciding to leave Icarus to his own devices, everyone goes to find 'magical Colin’s' room, where Akio said someone powered the ship, and head towards the bow where the “engine” is located. There is a door that says “Colin’s room, keep out”. Iskandar remembers that there is a bounty for this ship and its contents. He argues briefly with Icarus about the dragon leaving the ship so they can tow it away. Icarus fails the engage as he wants to have a nap, so Ish will have to come back later. Over by Colin’s door, Akio goes to open the door, but its locked so he, being the invincible zombie ninja he is, kind of splats against the reinforced wood. Yassi expresses concern, but he does it again and the lock is broken.

Around the room is various magical paraphernalia, while in the middle of the room is a giant stone pedestal carved with runes. Above this circle floats a vortex of swirling colours. Móts orders Akio to touch it, and he puts one hand in it. He loses that arm, and then he sticks his other arm in it. Now he’s ‘armless. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Ish then goads him into sitting and losing both legs. Yassi is quite concerned about this apareent mistreatment. Móts pulls him away before he takes the suggestion of putting his head in it.

The quote-unquote *sane* members of the party cursorily examine the vortex, but discover they know nothing about it, though Ish remarks that the buyer probably knows something about it. Ish also contacts Violet and Kiera aboard the Blimp and and shows them the strange devices through his head camera. They understand this better than the space farers, as a mana pool, a giant battery of magical energy. Violet explains this, while Kiera says he might be able to recreate the apparatus.

Ish radios through to the Raptor that they found the pool and that he’s going to the head of the whale to examine the other mana source. Yassi goes with Ish as they think it’s better to move in pairs. Móts takes a book off the shelf and begins perusing the volume. His HUD begins attempting translating this gibberish, highlighting words as he flicks through it, but he can’t understand it, so eventually he puts it back. There is a stange disturbance, while Akio finds a key.

Ish and Yassi make their way back to the deck of the ship, to see the raptor with its open cargo bay moving away. They ping the bridge to ask what’s happening, and Eric assures them he’s just going to pick up Violet and co. Over at the research vessel, Violet calls for the Raptor to pick her, Boris and KFC up. They make their way to the docking bay and watch the Raptor approaching… very fast. Too fast. There is a violent collision as part of the Raptor penetrates the research vessel. Violet and Kiera manage to dodge most of the shrapnel as the docks lose pressure. Boris, however has been pinned under a girder that crashed into the wall. Droplets of blood float in the vacuum.

On the Raptor's bridge, Eric gets a beep from Yassi querying why she has so many remote reports that the ship has been damaged. He replies he has “...done goofed”. Yassi is yelling how, and asking if the party is okay. Eric now can detect several lifeforms approaching through the research vessel, while the coating covering the vessel completely disappears all over it. Iskandar calls for Móts so they can return to the Raptor. Móts picks up the old diving suit for Akio as a makeshift spacesuit, while the latter swallows the key they found. Everyone makes ready for attaching to Móts, and Akio runs into a wall for funsies. This damages the spacesuit slightly with several hairline fractures that Yassi quickly repairs, then everyone leaves on Móts, who activatea his Sword and Board form.

Kiera and Violet on the research vessel yell at Eric for his monuental fuck up, but he is ashamed to respond. Clarence clarifies to everyone that fourteen or so skittery versions of Icarus are converging on the docks. Docking will not be at all easy, neither will tractor beam due to the damage done by Eric. Violet, wearing a mythral exoskeleton under her suit, says she’ll handle it and attempts to move the girder from Boris. She helps some, though Boris after a little rest, bench presses the girder off himself. However, he is still bleeding heavily.

Violet radios the Raptor and says Boris is alive despite Eric’s best efforts, though he still needs urgent medical attention. Eric replies he doesn’t have far to go, and Yassi interjects that Eric doesn’t have the right to snark right now and should remain silent until she arrives to fix his mess. Eric begins turning around the ship to give a better target to the Raptor’s rear end. Kiera realises he can actually see the scalies approaching along the side of the ship, pinpricks a couple of kilometres away. Violet prepares to throw Kiera and Boris at where the ship *will* be, using her lightning fast mental mathematics.

Everyone manages to catch up to the ship except Móts and Kiera hanging on the outside, ready to repel the scaly creatures. The Throw is a success, Violet is on board. By the time Móts and the rest arrive, though, and as Eric turns the ship to leave, the critters arrive. They leap from the research ship to follow the Raptor. They seem to have some space flight, but very limited. Kiera conjures his signature explosion that blows them off course, and they wing importantly. Ish makes his way to the bridge on Clarence’s order, while Yassi leaves the backpack and skitters off to repair the Raptor’s damage. Clarence asks Iskandar to relieve Eric and take him to the brig. Eric isn’t stupid enough to resist, and is put in a cell.

On the bridge, Iskandar, Clarence and Violet discuss whether to now preemptively destroy the ship and the rest of the baby dragons. Violet recommends not destroying the ship entirely due to the possible presence of experimental fusion reactors. Instead, they will commence a strafing run to take out the dragons. Yassi runs diagnostics and notes several damaged areas on the hull. She also checks whether the crash was due to malfunction, but can see only pilot error. Akio wanders the Raptor and then is found, still in bell suit, and taken to his own cabin.

Violet heads down to the brig. She finds Eric lying on the bed, and asks him what happened. He has no answer. She asks what he thinks his life is worth right now, and he says not little. Violet tells Eric that she will have Eric handed over to the Zenithan Empire, where he will be tried, and tortured. She leaves the room, then looks up at the monitor showing the cells. She initiates telepathy, and creates a little rover-esque robot illusion. The nasal voice of Enrico pleads with Eric that it can help the helmsman escape. That Eric will be executed without the robot’s help.

Enrico confesses it’s robotic love; Eric expresses revulsion and despair. Eric says that he will certainly die if he tries to escape. Enrico counters that he will die if he stays, that Clarence will sell him. The robot illusion shows several fabricated projections of the other crew members insulting Eric and Clarence agreeing to hand him over to Violet. He deliberates.

Akio looks around his room, then leaves to continue exploreing, going down a ladder and coming out near the bridge again. He goes to engineering and finds Yassi there. He proceeds to make a nuisance of himself being completely ignorant, and then moves to turn a valve on the fusion reactor. Yassi calls for Iskandar’s assistance while attempting to pull Akio away from the dangerous reactor. Akio manages to turn off one of the coolant valves before teleporting, with Yassi in tow, to the kitchens. He narrowly avoids meeting the wall. Iskandar begins making his way to engineering and sees this en route.

Yassi looks very confused, then skitters off back to engineering to fix the problem. She finds alarms going and has to switch all systems to battery power while she slowly reintroduces the coolant. Iskandar tells Akio not to play with the fusion reactor. Akio retorts that he says he’s bored. Clarence orders a comms attached to Akio and Ish nails it to him. Ish then goes to argue Eric’s case to Clarence, stating that they would need to leave early without a helmsman. Clarence states he values the lives of the customers and crew more than a commission. However, he will pose both sides of the argument to the customers.

Yassi and the four armed dude repair the outside of the ship and then Yassi creates a forcefield around all of the important and dangerous things in engineering. Then she goes to sleep.

Akio begins wandering the ship, **AGAIN**, and encounters Violet, who tells him there is a criminal in the brig and Akio definitely shouldn’t go in there. Akio teleports in there as soon as Violet leaves, ripping an arm off in the process. He meets Eric for the first time and Eric is suitably creeped out. They converse, Akio tests the forcefield(it’s very effective) then Akio remembers he has a key and cuts it out of his stomach, then uses it on the electronic lock. Surprisingly, the key passes through the keypad and can be turned, and the bars turn to mist. He walks through it without being harmed, and Eric sees Akio’s insides as he passes through and disappears. He decides to just sleep that freaky encounter off. Akio finds himself in a stately home, and just sleeps there.

Everyone else has the same idea to sleep. When they wake, Violet, Kiereniel and Móts read a message from the captain and go to the bridge to discuss Eric. Violet argues that given Eric fucked up a standard, non combat manouver enough to almost kill three people, she doesn’t trust him in a combat situation. Móts says that where he is from, there would be a court marshal. Kiera asks for the alternative, and Clarence reiterates that they could rely on their AI, Jezebel, but that would cut about 24 hours from the trip. The captain is also a little worried that the Juraian vessel hasn’t responded yet to hails, but will be rehailing. He also says that the crew has expressed a desire to tug the pirate galleon spelljammer, though he doesn’t understand the ship’s systems. Kiera says he may be able to study its magic and possibly get it running.

## Cast and Crew

* Game Master - Terry
* Akio - Marco
* Eric Withakay - Ben
* Ishkandar - Salem
* Kiereniel - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)
* Lysandryl - Damien
* Mótsognir - Rory
* Violet - Kitto
* Yassi - George (Drake1000)

* Script Supervisor - George (Drake1000)
* Publication Editior - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)

### Production Notes

Kitto's magnificent vocal work voicing Enrico is a major highlight of this episode. We still think that this scarred Eric's VA to this day as he did not return for any further sessions. Also he thought it was me, TheRealWiredUP, who did the voice when i met him around town a year later until I corrected him.

## References

1. ↑ Because he is not so secretly a masochist and loves pain
2. ↑ Using pure soviet muscle from Mother Russia. *soviet anthem begins playing...*
3. ↑ Predictably, and was this Violet's intent here?