Season 5 Episode 12

**Synopsis:** We rejoin our heroes and find them attempting to cull useful information out of their new traveling companion, Lucas. If they make a left at the tree they will encounter a guards' tower where the lower levels are for infantry and the upper floors are for wizards and warlocks. If they make it through there and head right they will eventually come upon a door which leads into the inner city where Lucas lived. Further on from there, through many doors and passage ways, they'll eventually arrive at the king's keep.

Not wanting to delay any further, the group heads out. As they pass the tree they see that a glowing pink bulb has sprouted in the short time since Dr Uid broke off the dead branch. The unnaturalness of this cursed growth so unnerves Dr Uid on a plant level that without concern for the consequences he reaches out and casts Produce Flame. Granted, they are forced to flee down numerous corridors and past countless doors as scarlet flashes of light fire away at their heels, but one must always trust Dr Uid's intuitions when it comes to plants.

The insane scarlet plant madness receding behind them at least, they slow down in front of a large door on the right. It's frame is covered in pink glowing mushrooms which continue through the passage, completely covering the floors and walls. Bunk chooses to use his teleportation skill to scout ahead, and bampfs across the fungal expanse, though he kicks up clouds of spores, forcing the rest of the group to find another way across. Luckily, Lucas points out a nearby door leading to a dining hall which they can cut through.

Winnifred picks the lock, and as they walk through the dining hall, Lucas can barely contain his dislocation and sadness. In what seems to him the blink of an eye, a space that was full of life, soldiers carousing with citizenry to make merry, is now a place of death and dust. Everything has fallen to decrepitude. Winnifred, showing emotional maturity beyond her years, calms him with a hug.

On the other side of the dining hall they find the door which will lead to the kitchen and eventually back to Bunk on the other side of the fungal field. The door is locked, and what a daunting lock it is. By far, this is the greatest obstacle our fair heroes have faced thus far. Hero after hero tries to get the door open in vain, and just as it looks like our adventure might end here, Winnifred successfully gets it open with a Knock. Just like the dining hall, everything in the kitchen is covered in dust and cobwebs, though the group notices a faint green glow from a cabinet against one wall.

As fate would have it, the cabinet is also locked, and once again it seems our heroes might well have met their match. One after the other tries valiantly, but unsuccessfully, to open it until finally, seemingly hours later, Winnifred once again prevails. Inside they find a glass terrarium which contains a floating brain! The brain pulses with a bright yellow green light and seems to be glitching in and out of existence.

Winnifred casts Message and learns that it's not just any brain they've found, but that of a king, Eldred the 3rd! Lucas, in awe, tells them he was a fair and firm king who cared very much about justice, and that there was one king between Eldred the 3rd and the arch lich Valux. It takes convincing, but eventually Eldred accepts his bodiless state, and the episode ends with the group agreeing to help find him a body.