Out of Paradiso (Worlds Beyond)

GM
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## Recurring NPCs

Riley

Ronan Wise

*Out of Paradiso* is the eighth episode of the second season of Worlds Beyond.

## Summary

### Back home

The group make their way back to Earth and the Estate without any further incidents.

Dale meets Laura Wilson in her new lab: she could use his help with computers. Also, Dale brought a gift: the sample of fundament he took in the Strange.

Dale is not sure he is from Earth anymore, Laura can tell that he is not from Earth.

Laura would like to meet Jade. She soon has another topic on her mind: Oz proposes, and she accepts to marry him.

Pine messages Inan with help from the woman — Siri — trapped in his phone: he asks her to join him in Lincoln Park.

### Doctor appointment

Jade goes to the doctor: she cancels her appointments and starts running tests on Jade, including a full-body MRI, to assess the extent of the damage on her right side. The inkling that kept her alive has consumed more of her since last time. Jade is tired, needs something to sleep. The silver lining is that Jade could grow a new arm in the suitable recursion.

### Looking for Wise

Inan has a chat with Riley. She asks about Jade's condition, he talks about his own scars from the Strange.

Riley inquires about Inan's family, gets nothing specific: her parents stopped talking to her when she started recursing rather than becoming a politician. Inan came to talk about Rowan Wise, whose story she’s read in the Library. Wise made a bad reputation for himself at the Estate: he stole cyphers, among other shenanigans. And then he just disappeared. Riley will track Wise's location, and share his results with Inan.

Pine, whose reaction to Inan's allegation was understandable and rather mild, considering, still believes Wise is his Sage, and shan't be told about this.

Meanwhile, the Estate still has to deal with the September Project, and Inan offers to help deal with the psychic from her world. After losing Carmin Sandiego — whom Inan knew as a delightful person — and Light, the Estate shall be more cautious.

### Apologies

Inan heads to Lincoln Park, to meet Pine at sunrise. Pine likes this place because it's always very cold, never crowded, and the trails are made by the pedestrians. She joins him in a spot near a tree and water. They walk together to a picnic area where Pine has laid out well-wrapped boxes: Pine needs to apologize and to put weight behind his words. Inan is nervous at first; inside the boxes are dozens of scarves or objects that look like scarves, like table cloth.

Pine apologizes for reacting like a child when Inan has shown only kindness; he goes on explaining why he likes this place, how he can climb trees because the only person who scolded him didn't fight well. Inan's opinion about the Sage is incorrect, but Inan is not incorrect because she was merely incorrect. That's why it was wrong of him to say inconsiderate things.

Inan is moved by this gesture; she's also proud of Pine because the news she gave him didn't shatter him. She hopes he'll always remember that *No matter what I do, I'm wishing you the best*.

Pine fails to convince Inan that he won't try to kill her next time. Quake, who's already run past them and runs very fast, butts in: *Pine couldn't kill you if he tried, I, on the other hand ...*

Pine looks like a complete Seattleite now, he wears tight running pants, which means Inan stares at his shapely legs.

Inan collects the gifts before they leave.

### Alien Dale

Dale calls his parents — a paranoid father with a collection of tinfoil hats and an overprotective Jewish mother —; his mother confirms that she adopted him when he was a couple months old because he looked like a drowned lizard.

Dale, who doesn't call often, has news to share with his dad, too: he's discovered *them*.

### Jade's choice

Inan checks in on Jade at the hospital. She'll have to rest a lot which, Inan says, *sounds right up your alley*.

The doctor is concerned because Jade is the first person returning from The Strange like this. There is even talk of naming a condition after her, which is not how she thought she would leave a mark.

Inan remarks that *It's an odd bunch we have here, all of them agreed to come* free Jade. It's the first time Inan is in a group that stays together after their leader left. She thinks it says something about Jade's leadership; Jade retorts it may also mean they've all moved on and don't need her anymore.

Jade, hooked up to a machine as she is, perceives sass in Inan's *I won't get in the way if you want to stay for more tests*.

The doctor comes in, and stays at a reasonable distance lest Jade assault her as she's done in the past. Jade doesn't mind Inan hearing the results of the tests: a good portion of her pancreas and almost all of her spleen are gone, and she has just one kidney left. Jade has to make dietary and lifestyle adjustments: stop smoking, reduce alcohol intake, start a pre-diabetic diet ...

Bounding another Inkling to her is not an option: it would just kill her faster. On the plus side, the Strange interference is gone, Jade can translate again.

From Jade's admittedly sassy point of view, that's the only good news she's heard. What if she didn't change her lifestyle?

In the short term, the doctor thinks she'd probably find it harder to be in the field.

*Shit*, Jade replies, *those are the things I like about life*.

Inan keeps the same, not so nice, tone: she can understand why Jade would like to stay hooked up to this machine, with is lights and sounds.

Jade gets it: *Nobody was around to provide the snark, so you decided it was your job*. She really doesn't like the changes she sees: *And I have to do all of this entirely sober: fantastic!*

Inan wonders what the doctor would think of the body-altering things they have on Atom Nocturne.

Jade thinks The Estate will want to keep a close eye on her. Besides, when trapped in The Strange, she resigned herself to dying there, made a list of things she had to let go; now it looks like a to-do list. Still, she shouldn't be so sour: she got her life back.

Joking aside, Inan understands that Jade needs time. She updates Jade on the team; she's especially proud of Dale, who is now asking for consent before taking things, while holding true to who he is. All in all, the team seems to be doing pretty good.

### On to Paradiso

Riley buzzes Inan: he's found a location. Inan holds back information at first, but gives Jade a completely truthful update on Rowan Wise.

Jade knows Wise, he makes it easy to underestimate him.

Inan doesn't hide that, if Riley finds Wise's location, she'll go there. She suspects that Riley won't involve The Estate in this.

Back in Riley's office, Riley gives the location: Paradiso, a lovely, beautiful beach resort location; a place where recursors take time off ... until they reach whatever their allotted time is, and the recursion boots them out.

Speaking in hypotheticals, because nobody is going there anyway, Riley strongly recommends that Inan go with a full team; he also insists that Pine must confront Wise to get closure.

Inan doesn't intend, and doesn't need, either, to bring Wise back. At any rate, she texts everybody. Pine, like the others, agrees to come after the Sage.

They all meet at Jade's unexpectedly well-decorated place, outside the campus. Quake can't come, all the exercise she does hampers her recovery. Oz shares his own insights about Paradiso.

The translation to the paradisiac Paradiso is easy; the island holds its promises: blue sky, teal blue waves, messenger dolphins clicking, and an impeccably dressed British personal assistant with a tray of beverages. Pine inquires about the most valuable people in existence; It doesn't make sense because everybody is important here. Jade is here looking for the fiancé who dumped her before their wedding. It takes persuasion to get the attendant to breach a guest's privacy So that these guests find peace and relaxation.

As usual, the group's looks fit the place: Dale is a castaway with an open shirt and khaki pants; Pine has trunks on, a long half buttoned-down shirt and sandals: he'd belong on a yacht; Jade looks like a divorcée: Prada backpack, very large timepiece, bikini top and sarong; Oz wears a colorful tracksuit jacket that has the finish of a shiny Pokémon card and FUBU written on the back, short trunks and boat shoes; Inan wears a bikini and a sarong, cute little flip-flops, what she thinks of as minimal jewelry and a tan.

The attendant leads the group to Wise and disappears as soon as Wise signals he is ready to meet them. Pine at first doesn't recognize the person in his forties, with cropped salt and pepper hair, a manicured goatee who sits up and takes off his sunglasses to reveal his gold eyes. It takes Pine several seconds of eye contact to realize he is in presence of the Sage. Rowan Wise addresses Pine: *I thought I lost you, I thought you were gone*. Pine is breathless, goes on one knee. Wise embraces him, whispers to him and wipes away the tears of his knight.

Jade has none of it; she tries to drag Wise by the shirt, because she senses she can't let him talk to Pine, but only manages to put a hand on his shoulder. Dale reads in Wise's mind: *Oh no, how did they find me?*

Pine introduces the group as those who helped him find the Sage.

Inan wants Wise to *cut the charade* and tell Pine the truth about his past. Wine, who has recognized Jade, tries to quiet her and Inan, while remaining the Sage to Pine.

Inan lays out Wise's deception; still, for Pine, *This is time for celebration: we have found the Sage, the Sage can fix Sanzut as prophetized*.

Wise himself intervenes: *Pine, you should go home, you can't help me anymore*. He also advises that they all enjoy Paradiso, only elsewhere.

Pine still insists that Sanzut needs him.

### Reckoning for Wise

This is when an arrow lands near Wise's feet: The Royal Huntsman from Astoria has come to arrest Wise for treason and take him back. The Royal Huntsman looks uncomfortable is his Paradiso-appropriate Hawaiian print shirt and camera.

Jade, Dale and Inan are happy to help in the arrest. Pine, for his part, attacks the Huntsman with his glaive, which has turned into a stick with a fish.

Astoria is familiar to Jade; Inan knows it's a recursion.

Jade manages to fling Pine onto the ground, while Wise, stunned by Dale, with an arrow through his thigh, gives up. He is soon restrained by the Huntsman.

Pine still tries to free the Sage; Dale body-checks him, and tackles him: both end up lying next to each other *like true bros*. Dale acknowledges that he is a liar, but Wise is on a wholly different level; he's just as bad as Anthony.

Pine has just lost his purpose in life:

> *If he is not a Sage, what am I now? A breaker of the oath that I made? A broken arrow? A spear with no shaft?*
>
>

Dale reminds him that he has saved his life many times — *We do not have fingers to count*, Pine reckons — and that Pine's purpose is to be his friend. They shake hands; Pine stays on the sand when the water comes.

Meanwhile, Oz assesses the motives of the Huntsman: he is here on an important mission for someone else, not for revenge.

The Huntsman is ready to bring back Wise for possible beheading. Pine pleas for his former Sage:

> *His name was the name of hope in our kingdom. To hear his death would shatter their drams. My oath is still with him, I do not wish him to die*.
>
>

But Pine will no longer interfere with the arrest.

They will all go to Astoria, to serve as witnesses. The Estate is also interested in Wise's fate.

They all introduce themselves.

### Astoria

They translate into a throne room with a vaulted ceiling and stone pillars. The queen and king sit next to each other.

Jade says *Oh, no!* when she recognizes the king, who only looks at her and answers : *Jade Atwood*.

Jade adds: *I'll show myself out*, turns around and walks out. The king is quiet for a minute. Jade and Inan exchange a look as Jade leaves. Inan is *not judging*.

Meanwhile, the queen welcomes the group. The trial of Ronan Wise will begin shortly.

## Notes

1. ↑ *NftE*: @Kol\_Drake noted in chat that *'Dale' has now been used as a noun AND a verb tonight.*
2. ↑ Here, Lauren whispers that he actually can't.
3. ↑ *NftE*: This title is actually only revealed at the end of the episode. At first he is just a *Hunter*.