Episode 1 - Fire Squad 8

## **Episode Synopsis**

### **Episode Summary**

After playing their table top role playing game, space master James decides to take a break. Norman, Zippy and Dracken try again to explain to Dariun how to play now that he is replacing Yogurt. Pepper gets frustrated and runs all over the table and ends their session.

The team are onboard the Sparrow and they are flying away from Aurum, over the water between Aurum and Liik's Garden. Zippy is steering the ship and Dariun and Norman are looking out over the sides. Norman looks out with his telescope and can see Bayside. The Ammow conference looks like a tornado has ripped through it, destroyed it further from when they were last there. They continue to fly towards the jungle lands of Liik's garden.

Norman and Dariun remain on deck and admire the view that few will ever see. Dariun asks when Norman is ready, they would like to know what happened in the Deep and make sure he is okay. Dracken pipes up, jump scaring Dariun as he forgets he is there a lot, and asks Norman if he can do that demon thing often. Norman tells Dariun that when the time is right he can try to open up but asks Dariun if there is anything from his past he wished he didn't know. Norman tells Dariun that the ignorance he has should be enjoyed while he can. Dariun seems okay with this but Dracken is suspicious about Norman's new found wisdom. Norman walks off and Dracken asks Dariun to change his water so they go below deck. Zippy is behind the wheel and reflects on Yogurt, who has now left the team for now but is happy they are all together.

As they continue, they start to see the jungle trees of Liik's garden with the super dense areas of greenery, the bowls of water on the tree tops and giant dinosaurs jumping bowl to bowl. Zippy turns the ship, looking for a giant garden of leeks. Dariun comes up and asks what's going on and tells Zippy the giant forest is Liik's Garden. Zippy is suspicious but takes Dariun's word on it. They look around for any cities. Zippy and Dariun can see a ways off south of them are towers and structures peeking out from the tree tops but they also notice to the west is a fire. Smoke is billowing out and animals running away.

Zippy tells Dariun to take the wheel and get close to one of the bowls. Zippy runs to the bath tub and bursts into the room where James is bathing. Zippy tells him to get out of the way so he gets out and wraps a towel around him. Zippy pours the pink Level slime in the tub and runs to the side of the ship and asks for Norman's help. They fly down to a tree bowl and see one of the large dinosaurs who is sitting in the pool and looks up to the gang. Zippy asks the creature if it's okay to take the water seen as there is a fire. The dinosaur is afraid of the fire so goes down and jumps out of the bowl and to another bowl.

Norman holds Zippy over the edge by his feet and he puts the bucket in the water. The water starts flowing into the bucket until it is full. Norman pulls Zippy back up and sees Dariun, who has never flown the ship, doing a pretty decent job. They all agree to fly over to the fire but Dariun accidentally puts it into reverse and Zippy spills a fair amount of the water. After Dariun figures it out, they fly over to the out of control fire. They look over the edge and Dariun and Zippy can see the animals running around away from the fire. In the center of the fire is a humanoid insect person with four arms with an ant head. In their top two hands are torches flailing about and their bottom hands hold a scimitar each.

Dariun calls out and asks Zippy if he is going to dump the water but he asks Dariun to move out of the smoke. Norman uses thaumaturgy to use a small amount of wind to blow some of the wind out of Zippy's face. Dariun sees what he is doing so he throws Norman the wind fan which he uses to make a hole in the smoke cloud. Dariun moves the ship and Zippy pours the water over the fire. He pours out half of the water and most of the fire is extinguished. They all look down and the ant person slipped due to the water. They all see a glint in the leaves and they all dodge as two bullets go flying by Norman and Zippy's heads.

Norman pulls out his crossbow and tries to aim for where the attack came from but can't tell if he hits. Dariun swings the ship around again for Zippy to extinguish the rest of the fire. He gets the core of the fire and it goes out. Zippy and Dariun see another glint from another spot and two more bullets fly. Zippy dodges one but it flies past him, smashing through the cockpit and into Dariun's shoulder. The other bullet goes right through Norman's leg and he stumbles and loses his balance, falling off the side of the ship. Norman goes smashing through the trees until he lands on the ground. Norman's skin begins the blacken ever so slightly and the water on him starts to steam.

Zippy asks them to land to get Norman so Dariun calls out to James to pilot the ship. James comes on deck, butler uniform soaking wet from the water Zippy spilt, and begrudgingly takes the wheel. Meanwhile Norman looks around and sees the ant person with the torch looking around and sees another glint in the distance. Norman starts making his way towards the glint and begins to sing his theme song, allowing his medallion from Valentine's shop to activate. A quasit appears, materializing from his tattoos. Norman instructs the quasit to keep the ant man occupied as he goes for the hidden threat.

James lands the ship in a tree and Zippy goes to the bathtub to collect his Level slime before meeting up with Dariun to get down into the jungle and find Norman. They notice the trees and branches appear hollowed out and there are small houses attached to them. Norman sees the ant man chasing the quasit through the forest as he comes up to a tree and finds another ant man holding two rifles crouching looks up to where the airship was. They turn and notice Norman.

Dariun and Zippy are running through the forest and find a very large tree. They see Norman face to face with the ant person 50 feet in front of them. Dariun runs forwards and shoots two arrows with his black bow to the ant. One zips by and the other hits them in their forearm. The ant pulls out the arrow and aims one gun to Norman and the other at Dariun. It hits Dariun on the side of his torso but the other shot goes wild towards Norman and they trip backwards. Zippy casts hold person on the ant person and they stiffen up. Norman draws his rapier and activates psychic blades and quietly says to the ant person that they all must go the Deep before shoving the blade through the ant. The ant person is not dead but looks very wounded and as Norman pulls his blade out, a part of its breast plate comes off and they see to the right of the wound is a blue flower. Norman calls out and lets the others know of the blue flower. Dariun looks around and hears the sound of the quasit and the other ant person. He starts to run and sees the quasit being hit by the ant's torch as it bites on the ant's arm. Dariun pulls out the black bow again and lands two arrows into the ant person.

The ant that was just run through is coughing up green blood and Norman sees the blue flower moving. Thorns starts spreading out but the ant person can't get out of the hold person. Norman can tell that this ant person has become more powerful. Zippy moves forwards towards Norman and continues to hold person. Norman gets his medallion of detect thoughts and kneels down in front of the ant person and asks where Lou Blonger is. Norman hears a familiar noise of static that he heard when trying to detect thoughts on Ferryn and can't gather any thoughts. Norman once again stabs the ant person using psychic blades this time in the flower. The vines retract and the ant is dead. Norman uses mantle of whispers to gain the ant persons shadow. With the shadow, Norman learns from the ant person *snake scary, Tikul go* and *Moon island is home.*

The remaining ant person shrugs off the quasit and runs to Dariun. It misses their first hit as the quasit nips at its heels but the second and third swings both hit Dariun. Dariun activates his bubble cloak to create stronger armour and draws his dancing blade. He cross slashes across the ant person leaving four separate chunks on the ground. The quasit looks at Dariun sad but perks up when Dariun says he can eat it. Zippy completements Norman and notes how brutal he was. Norman points out the blue flower as he loots the body. He finds two lever action rifles with a pack of 30 ammo. Dariun looks at the other body and does not find a flower.

Zippy sits down and uses commune with nature. Zippy can tell there is a lot of vegetation with glowing mushrooms under the ground that light up caves and dangerous plants that look like a dead animals as a trap to catch its prey and eat it. There are dinosaur like beasts and two tailed panthers, velociraptors with a flower crown on their face and lizards that resemble vines. Zippy can tell there are beings like leonin and apelings further ahead and there are also tiny spirits in this jungle. He also learns everything here is from another plane of existence, guessing that this place was probably from another plane and brought to Ome and placed here. Lastly, Zippy examines buildings and can sense the tiny houses in the trees around him.

Dariun re-joins the group and Zippy tells them this place is not very normal. They suddenly see little black specs with white dots are coming from the jungle. They move up the trees and they go into the house structures. They hear happy chirps of these small black creatures, standing at about 2 inches tall with unique white masks. The team see a cluster of them carrying small bone necklaces for the team. Norman recalls hearing rumors about little animated creatures normally extremely shy that live in the trees, rivers or rocks. He knows them as chwingas, small elemental spirits. They each take the bone necklaces and thank the chwingas for the gift. They move on the ground to form a happy face.

Dairun lists off all the languages he knows to try to communicate with them and learns that they know primordial. Dariun thanks them in primordial and they move and thank the team for extinguishing the fire. Dariun asks about the ant people and they chwingas say they are not welcome and are from another island. Norman tells them all about the moon island and Dariun asks the chwingas if this is where the ant people are from and they confirm this is correct. Dariun asks if they happen to know of Randy Domino. They seem confused for a second and after Zippy prompts Dariun to say sing song man and they know who he is asking about and are happy to lead to the team.

The chwingas form into music notes and create a path. Dariun radios to James and instructs him to level out the ship and hover. The team follow the path, through the jungle as the chwingas point out the dangers along the way. The come to a flat cliff face and the chwingas jump down. There is a river down and a cave illuminated with blue glowing mushrooms. They make their way down the cliff and the chwingas point them to the cave. Dariun thanks them and they leave.

Down the cave, they hear some humming deep in the cave. Norman decides to take the lead, sensing a bit of bardic competition. There are patchworks of rugs on the floor and there are some jars lying about. They hear a jovial singing getting closer and they smell cooking meat. The cave starts to light up brighter and a curtain opens up into a bigger room. Zippy is not too keen to be part of another musical but the others feel it's going to be fine.

Dariun calls out to the voice saying they are friendly. When they open up the drapes, they see a bachelor pad like room and a massive, dragon sized dragon born singing. They are at a makeshift table and they notice the team. They lock eyes with the scrappy, green dragon born who is spooked. He tells them they can't just barge in but when they see Zippy, they back up to the wall and refer to Zippy as Coco, one of the first Greeders.

## **Quotations**

* Norman "*Sometimes ignorance is a fleeting thing and it's meant to be enjoyed while you can. So let's just enjoy this while we can.*"

* Dracken "*Norman's gotten like … wiser maybe and its off putting...*"

* Zippy "I*f anything bad happens this entire arc here I'm gonna hold you* [Dariun] *responsible*"

## **Featured Characters**

### **Main Cast**

* Norman D
* Dariun Branch
* Zippy Westborrough

### **Returning Characters**

* James
* Pepper
* Dracken
* Randy Domino

### **New Characters**

* Tree dinosaur
* Quasitmotto (Norman's quasit)
* Chwingas

## **Locations**

* The Sparrow
* Liik's Garden
* Randy's Cave