D&D Season 3

Wait, we're already doing a third one of these? Maybe when this is all over I'll put this into a book or something, as I'm sure the general populace would just adore all the inside jokes and copyrighted references.

Regardless, welcome back to D&D for its third season, straight off the heels of Season 2. Here are the links to Season 1 and 2 if you somehow got to this page first. What started with a simple trio of mercenaries coming together to defeat some mystical evil has evolved into a globe-spanning quest rife with political turmoil, an impending extraterrestrial threat, and nuclear warfare. And at the center of it, a humble dragon, human, and dwarf. Let’s see where their exploits will take them this season. Knowing them, probably somewhere very bad.

## Episode LII: Aftermath

Seconds passed aboard the boat as the LBG surveyed the destruction. But they quickly came to a realization -- they needed a bigger boat. Not because of a shark in the water, but because this boat was in no way, shape, or form an ocean-faring vessel that could get them to Hydraco. Quickly and awkwardly they made their way back to shore, to see mass panic in the streets. Droves upon droves of elves were running for their lives towards the water, scrambling into boats to get the hell out of the city.

Our "heroes" arrived ashore and docked, and right as they did, their boat was claimed by a swarm of people. There were only so many ships, and elves were fighting each other for them. The LBG noticed one in particular large enough to get to Hydraco, but two parties were fighting over it. The trio raced over there and removed the gangplank, sneaking behind some barrels to take out the victors of the bout.

Eventually, one side came out on top, with 5 people still alive. Gralak drew his weapon, ready to fight, but before anyone could act, the group had put the gangplank back up and called their companions to board, and the LBG saw that it was women and children scurrying aboard the ship. Not wanting to kill innocent women and children (again (again (again))), Gralak sheathed his weapon and emerged from cover with his hands up. Tedcrag and Gulliman did the same.

Gralak claimed to be the owner of the ship, and the group thankfully believed it. An agreement was made that the LBG would drop this group off at the nearest city, after which the LBG would be free to book it back to Hydraco. They set sail before anyone else could try to board. They surveyed the damage behind them as they got the hell out of this shitshow.

The LBG convened into the captain’s quarters and, after a few minutes of lamenting the horrors they’d just committed, cursing Prahringerr’s name, and just generally being traumatized, the trio went off to do their own things. Gralak brooded, Tedcrag sat and huddled in the corner of the room, and Gulliman went onto the deck to steer the ship. While steering, Gulliman noticed ash falling. Curious at this strange material, he inquired the VI about it and the VI beamed information about nuclear effects and fallout into Gulliman’s brain. Gulliman quickly scrambled to get everybody below deck, cleaning ash off of the LBG with water.

Eventually, the ship made it to another city, and the LBG exchanged solemn farewells with the group of elves who’d unknowingly travelled with the people who had nuked their city. With them off-board, the ship immediately set sail to the ocean towards Hydraco. The three, now free to vent their frustrations in non-hushed voices, got some drinks and bitched about Prahringerr and their predicament. Despite Gralak’s wanting nothing to do with him anymore, Tedcrag and Gulliman insisted it would be wise to return and be rewarded, and then probably high-tail it back to Pernimius.

Days later, Tedcrag spotted quite the sight on the water -- thousands of ships in formation heading in their direction towards the elven nation. Tedcrag alerted the others, and as the ships got closer they saw the ships were from Hydraco. Prahringerr, that motherfucker, had clearly betted on the LBG succeeding and was sending a massive fleet to finish the job. The fleet hailed their ship, but upon recognizing Tedcrag and the others as the strike ops team, they were welcomed with open arms, and were brought to the admiral.

Admiral Sandalwood had one eye, and wore lots of medals upon his armor. Tedcrag noticed the man’s features seemed very familiar, almost like his father’s, but not quite. Due to the stress of everything that had transpired earlier, Tedcrag wrote it off as him just seeing things. Sandalwood gave them some Arnold Palmers as they talked. Sure enough, Sandalwood explained that they were going to strike at the heart of the elven nation. He didn’t seem to believe it when they explained just how devastated the capital was, but he was nonetheless grateful for their work. Tedcrag was given another new trinket (his third one while the other two were still rocking their originals), and they were also given basic armor and shortswords, as well as a better ship equipped with its own crew.

Thanks to the assistance, they were able to make it the rest of the way to Hydraco much faster. Word must have reached the Hydraconian capital, because when they arrived, they were greeted by a carriage which brought them swiftly to the palace. Tedcrag was brought straight to Prahringerr’s room, where he explained everything that had gone down. This included, of course, the radius of the explosion and its aftermath. Prahringerr *seemed* shocked, like he couldn’t believe such a thing to be possible. While Tedcrag had a good feeling he was lying, he truly didn't know what to think.

Tedcrag had a second briefing with Prahringerr the next day, where the emperor told him that his next mission for them -- after giving them a few weeks to recuperate -- would be to go to the Flivoni Federation of lizards, and finding the missing Fifth Fleet, led by none other than Tedcrag’s old mentor and foster father Rakavist.

Tedcrag went back to Gulliman and Gralak, and explained everything he’d learned from the emperor. Right as he finished explaining however, the entire world vanished. The three LBG members were left just floating in an empty black void. Seconds later, Gralak vanished as well. It was just Gulliman and Tedcrag left inside the void, having no idea what just happened.

“*The world as you know it is no more,*” voices from the void rang out and echoed around them from every direction. “*It belongs to Comcast now. You two shall embrace nothingness forever...*”

Time passed as Tedcrag and Gulliman lay there helplessly in the void, no one else and nothing else in the universe save the two of them, but after a few minutes everything was suddenly restored, and everyone’s memory of the incident vanished along with it. Tedcrag resumed explaining everything to the other two.

Learning it was Rakavist they would be sent to find made Tedcrag want to accept the mission, but Gralak was adamant that he wanted to go back to Pernimius, see his wife and child, and have nothing more to do with the damn dragon emperor.

Tedcrag suggested the option that, if the mission seemed too dangerous or deadly like the last one was, they could simply abandon it partway through. Tedcrag brought up one more point, which was something Prahringerr had told Tedcrag -- that if their mission was successful, the emperor would tell them everything he knew about the secrets of this world. Those secrets, of course, were their entire reason for coming to Hydraco in the first place. Gralak wasn’t happy about it, but he accepted and stormed out of the room, sad at his return to seeing his wife and child delayed once more. At this rate *The Winds of Winter* would be out before he saw them again… no... I'm sorry, that's not true. *The Winds of Winter* will never be out.

And that was how this chapter concluded. Enjoy the next chapter where someone loses their ability to shoot crossbow bolts and the plot takes a dramatic turn in a shocking new direction.

## Episode LIII: Fuck You, Sun

While chilling in Hydraco, the LBG stocked up on supplies, since they’d lost almost everything back in the Elven Capital Disaster. Note that I’m not referring to the nuke going off-- no, the *other* disaster, where they were imprisoned, tortured, and almost died multiple times before even getting ashore.

As usual, Gulliman spent the most time shopping of the three. He got a new crossbow, explosive bolts, some chainmail, an archer’s helmet, and a very sharp and powerful battle axe. Gralak bought some armor, and also a crossbow with explosive bolts, and finally Tedcrag bought both a gold sword and some steel armor; it was a far cry from his platinum sword-and-armor combo of the past, but for now it would do.

After a third and final briefing with Prahringerr, Tedcrag formally accepted the mission. He also made sure to mention Zenith, ensuring that the dragon would be given the highest posthumous honors and that his surviving family would be well cared for. With their affairs settled, the LBG set off once more, this time to the Flivoni Federation on the island of Delphora.

Delphora being part of Hydraco, this voyage wouldn’t be as long as the others. Gralak went back to his usual shenanigans, renaming the ship the SS Z-Dog. When the crew protested, he made a cliche speech about how Zenith “gave his life, nay, *serviced* his life for the cause.” With a lot of reluctance and some sass, the ship’s lieutenant agreed, and the business was settled. Many days later, the SS Z-Dog arrived at Delphora.

The LBG went to shore, and Tedcrag gave the other two a brief synopsis of the goings-on here ~~that he had read from Gene’s wiki~~ that he inherently knew from being born in Hydraco. Lizards used to be slaves on this island, just as they are on the mainland, but recent reforms here had made them a free people. However, dragon/lizard tensions were still naturally very high, escalating into the free lizards forming the Flivoni Federation. Walking through the city to investigate, the LBG noticed that lizards and dragons kept a wide berth from each other.

At one point, Gralak thought he saw a crossbow in a tower window, but they paid it no real mind and moved on with their lives. After aimlessly walking for a little while, they searched for a military base for the people in command at this location, and found it. The guards there said they had been expecting them, and they were brought to the man in charge. From him, they learned that Rakavist had gone to assault the Flivoni capital of Saoola, but hasn’t been heard from since. The LBG were pointed in the right direction, and given a more up-to-date map. They promptly returned to their ship and sailed off towards Saoola.

Along the way, while following the coastline, Tedcrag noticed the wreckage of many ships, which they found to be Hydraconian. Way off in the distance, they spotted a cove with many ships in it. The lizards, perhaps? Before making their way there, they went to investigate the shipwrecks, and found many dead bodies along the coastline - some dragons, but mostly lizards. They formed a landing party of seven soldiers plus our heroes, and they split up into two groups.

Shortly into the search, Gralak spotted some enemies in the distance preparing to strike. He subtly mentioned this to the other two, who recklessly drew their weapons. Seeing this, the enemy started launching arrows at them. Gulliman fired back with an explosive crossbow bolt, heavily wounding three of the lizards. Tedcrag ran up to cover and yelled out, in a not-at-all-intimidating voice, “surrender now or die!”

Gralak went to a nearby rock for cover, and pulled out his trusty crossbow he had just bought. Now was the time for action, he thought, a chance to really show off his skills. He aimed, but something must have went wrong, as he leaned back and shot upwards towards the sun. The bolt had a huge arc upwards before falling down in the trees well past the enemy, apparently killing a woodland creature.

Meanwhile, Tedcrag felt a sharp pain in his back. He looked back and saw that an elf he thought was a corpse was alive! It seemed like several of the dead lizards here were lying in wait to ambush, and this one had really hurt Tedcrag, who howled out in pain. Two other lizards attacked him as well. Seeing this, Gulliman rushed to Tedcrag’s aid, slashing Ted’s stabber in the back and giving him a taste of his own medicine. It grievously wounded him but not enough to kill. Tedcrag went for a few wild swings at the ones attacking him but missed them all, his aim probably being off thanks to losing almost half of his health to the backstab.

More arrows came from the trees, not killing anyone but denting Gulliman’s helmet. This really pissed the dwarf boy off, and he took it out on the backstabbed backstabber, who tried to run. Before he could, Gulliman stabbed him in the ankles and then severed his head. He and Tedcrag kept fighting the other two lizards there. Tedcrag slashed one in the throat multiple times before eventually decapitating him.

Behind another rock, Gralak reloaded his crossbow, tightened his grip, and fired again……. but once more, his aim faltered at the last second and he fired at the sun. Gralak could almost feel the disappointed looks of the dragon soldiers next to him, wondering why this human who couldn’t even shoot straight was leading them. Gralak could feel his hands start to sweat as he hastily reloaded again and fired. He couldn’t keep letting his fellow soldiers down. He focused all of his energy on not shooting at the sun, and to his credit he didn’t. Instead, his fingers twitched at the last second and he aimed way off to the left, hitting no one at all.

Time seemed to stand still for Gralak. He could feel the looks that the other soldiers were giving him, and could swear he saw one of the lizards pointing and laughing at him. *They’ll see*, Gralak thought, reloading his crossbow. *They’ll all see just how good I am*. For a fourth time, he aimed at the lizards. And for a fourth time, he completely missed.

Gralak was about to bust a vein. He felt an intense sinking feeling, as if he was being crushed by immense shame and disappointment in himself. Gralak collapsed to his knees; there was only one other way to help him. And for possibly the first time ever, he knelt and prayed to the God of the North. The God who had once appeared to him and shown him the way of the lightning rod, the God who had proved to him that their quest was divine. Full of newfound determination, Gralak stood up. He gripped his crossbow tighter than he ever had before. He reloaded it quickly and efficiently. He aimed at the lizards, perfectly lining up his shot, and accounting for wind, distance, and vertical falloff. He didn’t even so much as look at the sun. He fired…

… and he missed. Gralak’s mind went numb. He wanted to die, but he couldn’t. So instead, he stopped thinking. He just stood there as if he’d fallen asleep while standing. Up in Heaven, the God of the North simply closed his eyes and shook his head. He wasn’t mad at Gralak. Just deeply, *deeply* disappointed.

As Gralak was having a mental crisis, the other two were finishing off their fight. The last of the three soldiers they’d been fighting had been knocked out, but there were still the few in the trees. Gulliman looked out from behind the rock and saw them. He was confused as to why Gralak hadn’t shot at them yet, and even more confused as to why they were rolling on the ground in laughter. But he shrugged, loaded his crossbow bolt, and hit them dead-on, killing them instantly and knocking their mangled corpses forward and into the sand.

The dragons all convened around Tedcrag and Gulliman, praising their heroic efforts in the fight. They had lost one of their own to the lizards, and wanted vengeance. Tedcrag and Gulliman insisted that they keep one alive to interrogate, pointing to the one knocked out. They had one other surviving prisoner, and asked what to do with them. Tedcrag allowed them the choice, but Gralak, who had slowly shambled his way over to them, made the choice instead.

He reloaded his crossbow bolt for the sixth time, and shot the prisoner on the ground point-blank in the neck with a regular bolt. The lizard painfully started choking and bleeding from his neck, and Gralak didn’t put him out of his misery. Gralak, highly distraught at this point, claimed that he had connected the final explosive shot earlier. Everyone else knew it was Gulliman, but Gulliman could see the despair in Gralak’s eyes and decided to play along with it. Everyone went back to the ship and they started advancing towards the group of ships in the cove.

Upon getting closer, they saw the ships were Hydraconian! They met up and boarded, and were brought to the man in charge. The man, of course, was Rakavist! Upon seeing each other, he and Tedcrag embraced and had an emotional reunion. Rakavist explained that he had sent for reinforcements, but clearly that word had never reached Prahringerr. Tedcrag agreed to help Rakavist without so much as consulting the others, and the LBG plus Rakavist went to the captain’s quarters to catch up. But they would end up doing much more than that…

In the privacy of the quarters, Tedcrag was free to explain everything that he and the others had been up to. Tedcrag started from the Gentle Lute all the way to the present, the only major details that were left out being Olgierd, the elven capital nuke, and all of the VI / extraterrestrial secrets. When Rakavist asked Tedcrag why he was partaking in the emperor’s strike ops missions (being such a free spirit and all), Tedcrag formulated a blatant lie about there being many more liches throughout the world and needing Prahringerr’s help to take them out. Rakavist saw right through his foster son's words, and implored him to tell him what was truly bothering him.

And, trusting Rakavist like a father, Tedcrag took a deep breath and did just that. He explained the secrets of the world he'd learned, the extraterrestrial threat, the virtual intelligences, and everything in-between. As most people would, Rakavist had a hard time believing it at first, but he slowly came to see the truth in Tedcrag’s words and was deeply troubled by them. And after Tedcrag explained the truth of Prahringerr’s nuke and its horrifying effects, Rakavist changed his tune entirely.

Previously, Rakavist had trusted Prahringerr a great deal. He had even played a part in helping him rise from peasant to emperor by having him challenge the previous emperor in combat. When Prahringerr asked him to come out of retirement and help his cause, he had accepted. But this revelation he received from Tedcrag instantly changed his perception of the emperor. He saw now that Prahringerr was a threat to the lives of millions upon millions of innocents, and he had to be removed from power.

In Rakavist’s eyes, there was only one suitable candidate to replace him, and that candidate was sitting in the same room as him. When he told Tedcrag this, Tedcrag was initially very reluctant and outright rejected the idea, but Rakavist was insistent. The tipping point was the bombshell reveal he dropped to Tedcrag about his father. He explained that Iorveth was originally of the noble line Sandalwood, but had left the nobility after coming to despise their elitist and hateful ways.

All of this made Tedcrag the inheritor to a vast noble estate. That doubled with the noble rights that Prahringerr had given him earlier during their missions gave Tedcrag quite a sizable noble claim, one that they could use to their advantage. It seemed that the best way to usurp the throne would be to have Tedcrag challenge Prahringerr in combat, in a true TvP bout for the throne. But Rakavist warned that Prahringerr was an incredible swordsman; just like in real TvP, Prahringerr was imba, blizz pls nerf.

After all this discussion, Tedcrag hesitantly accepted the role that had been thrust onto him. But now what? They needed support. Rakavist insisted that his own Fifth Fleet would remain loyal to him, but the fact remained that no matter how they planned to take the throne, they would need allies. The four sat and brainstormed a few ideas.

Rakavist suggested the Flivoni Federation of lizards right nearby could potentially be turned against Prahringerr, perhaps with promises of better rights and freedoms for the lizard people. It could be risky, though, sending Tedcrag into hostile territory... and it was possible Prahringerr would have some spies situated there as well. Rakavist also brought up Tedcrag’s hometown as well as the people in his land, who could be swayed quite easily, likely towards the end of this recruitment effort.

The other three thought back to Pernimius, and potential allies from there. Gralak suggested Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten -- in fact, perhaps many people from Senten would support them if they could somehow be convinced to assist. Similarly, Gulliman brought up his brother Horace and the people with him. He and his brother weren’t on the best of terms, but it could still be worth a shot. There was also his old mercenary band. Oddly, Gulliman even brought up the twin cities, which the others adamantly shot down, reminding him that they were exiled from there. Rakavist suggested they receive aid from Olgierd, the dragon ambassador in the twin cities, to which the others nervously changed the subject.

There were other possibilities, to be sure, but they already had a decent foundation going. Just like that, the story had taken a sharp turn from helping Prahringerr to attempting to usurp him, and so the Attack on Dragon: Uprising arc began...

## Episode LIV: "Uh, Lich is Dead"

The LBG’s plan was afoot - overthrow Prahringerr, defeat the headmaster and the extraterrestrials, have a nice cold pint, and wait for everything to blow over. They continued to strategize with Rakavist, discussing the various options for where they could go next. They could attempt to gain lizard support from the Flivoni Federation, but there were many risks involved. After much contemplation, Tedcrag decided that they would head back to Pernimius and gather allies there, starting with Senten.

Before heading off, Rakavist entrusted Tedcrag with his family sword. After having lost his thunderbolt hammer in “The Incident” (read: Episode 49), Tedcrag had been sorely lacking in the weapons department, but this sword more than made up for it, as you will see in a few chapters. Rakavist and Tedcrag had an emotional farewell, and he gave the LBG a faster ship, the SS Arthakas.

While sailing, they spotted something strange on the ocean, a weird swarm in the sky. They paid it no mind, though, and they stopped in town to get a better sail. Tedcrag and Gulliman disembarked, and the two found a sail and made their way back. On the way, Tedcrag spotted another strange sight in the sky - this one just an odd speck. Gulliman also saw it, but before they could even process what they were looking at, the speck warped through the sky until it was just above the city. Without warning, a beam of light came crashing down, exploding much of the city.

Thankfully, the two of them and the ship were out of the blast radius, but they nevertheless booked it back to the ship and sailed away posthaste. Yet another city they had visited had been blown up beyond recognition, but at least this one wasn’t their fault. After freaking out for a bit, they determined that these were most likely the extraterrestrials. Sadly there wasn’t much they could do about them, so they continued their journey to Senten.

During their journey, they passed by New Loreth, which seemed to have similar devastation to where they had been before. They wondered if it was another alien attack, but they couldn’t be sure. And after 30 days at sea, they arrived back in Gralak’s hometown. Gralak stepped off the ship onto land, taking in the cool breeze and almost slipping on some ice before recovering.

“So, where’s Nesi?” Tedcrag asked, getting straight to the point.

It was at this moment that Gralak realized that he had never asked Nesi about where she was going to go. As if not asking her about what had happened in the twenty-year gap wasn’t bad enough, now he had no idea where to find her, not to mention their child. Well, they were in Senten regardless, so Gralak returned to his now-abandoned family estate, breaking into it.

Walking through his old home must have triggered something in Gralak, as he started ~~farming inspiration by dramatically role-playing~~ having serious concerns and troubling thoughts about his past and present. There was his brother’s presumed death all those years ago, his turbulent relationship with Nesi, doubting that he was good enough for her, and coming to terms with the thought that he might not be able to leave Nesi again if he saw her. To comfort him, Gulliman put his hand on Gralak’s shoulder. Please take a moment to visualize that before continuing.

After a heart-to-heart with the others, Gralak spotted his family safe. He never knew the combination, and started entering various dates and years, such as birthdates. He almost gave up, but Gulliman suggested trying the anniversary of his parent’s wedding, which ended up working. Inside the safe was another lightning rod, and more importantly, a document that listed the whereabouts of the white-faced orcs that had been the cause of his suffering 26 years ago.

Armed with this knowledge, Gralak immediately wanted blood. Tedcrag and Gulliman agreed to help him; they’d all had their own wacky adventures in their respective homelands and now it was Gralak’s turn. First, they decided to visit Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten. After they almost got turned away by guards, they found him, and he was shocked to see Gralak in the flesh.

As he and Gralak hugged, Gulliman let out a flat “Uh, lich is dead,” which threw everybody for a loop, especially Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten. He invited the trio inside and they sat down and talked a bit. Gralak showed him the document. He read it, looked up at Gralak, paused for dramatic effect, and said: “We ride at dawn.”

Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, walked away to start preparing and gathering forces. Left alone, Gralak told the others not to tell him anything about the lich or the extraterrestrials so as not to distract from the orc killin’. Eventually, he returned, and they went to meet with Timothy Dalton, the doge. For a moment, Tedcrag braced himself for another fight, but then remembered that it was elves, and not Dalton, that they had encountered at sea.

Meeting with Timothy and asking him to spill the beans, they could easily tell he was a sleazy man with a funny voice, but he didn’t have any real knowledge about this document and was more of a bumbling idiot who was likely being manipulated. However, he did say that his mage might know more. Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, left to organize the troops and start formulating a plan of attack, whereas the LBG set off to investigate this mage...

## Episode LV: Never Skip Leg Day

It was time to see the mage. They walked inside, and who was it? It was Blarnvak the Wise, Gralak’s old magic master! Gralak’s hostility dissipated in an instant, and told him about their raid. However, learning about this seemed to deeply trouble Blarnvak. Instead of investigating this, Gralak simply played dumb and left. Outside, they happened to run into the finest sword in Senten, Vitorio.

He asked about what they had learned, and upon finding out that they hadn’t learned anything, he gave Gralak a pep talk and told him to march back in there and get some answers. Rejuvenated, Gralak led the LBG back into the office to confront Blarnvak… who wasn’t there.

Gralak started to panic. The window was open, so he couldn’t have gotten far. Tedcrag theorized that he was going to warn the orcs of the attack. They raced off to the stables to intercept him, but the confused stable boy hadn’t seen anyone take a horse. Still with no leads, the LBG shamefully went off to meet with Vitorio, but had to wait 5 hours before the war council would begin.

During those 5 hours, everyone dozed off, and Tedcrag and Gralak continued a recurring dream…

**Histoire 2 Chapitre 3: Pensez-y un peu**

Ils ont continué à voler dans les airs sur le membre de Jean. Le sel a continué à pleuvoir. D'une certaine manière, Jack a été transporté dans un univers utopique, l'Ultimate Timeline, où la France n'existait pas, Spider-Man était dans le MCU et le cerveau de Weezer avait été mis dans un ordinateur pour une musique éternelle. Mais l'autre moitié de Jack était encore en train de se faire pilonner par le sel.

Beecher a commencé à glisser du membre. Jack essaya de l'aider, mais finit par le repousser puis se laisser tomber. Les deux se sont effondrés vers le désert du Sahara. Jack a crié "ZA WARUDO" mais rien ne s'est passé ... jusqu'à ce que ça arrive! Cela a créé des parachutes, mais celui de Jack n'a pas fonctionné et il est tombé au sol, mort, alors que Beecher l'observait avec horreur.

**Fin**

Finally, Vitorio, la meilleure épée à Senten, returned, only to be disappointed by Gralak yet again. “You *did* search his office top-to-bottom, didn’t you?” he asked. Gralak came up with a lie, not wanting to disappoint him further, but insisted that he go back and check… "again". In the meantime, Tedcrag and Gulliman would fill in for him at the war council, which was about to begin.

Gralak sprinted full-stop back in, passed the very confused receptionist, and barged into the still-empty office. He found a letter from the college of Zanco, and then found a secret passage behind a bookcase. Tearing out every book, he eventually found the one that triggered the mechanism, and it opened up to a dark cave below. Gralak went in to investigate and walked through the long, winding tunnels. He found another entrance eventually, and saw that it led to the doge’s office, fortunately empty. “How high does this go?” he said aloud to nobody.

Going back through the caves, he continued down, but soon found that this continued to far beyond Senten. He decided he would come back later with more people; first, he needed to go back and tell everybody about this.

Back at the war council, master tactician Gulliman raised some good points and came up with some battle strategies. Tedcrag, not really being in his element here as more of a “I hit things with my sword” kind of guy, passively listened until he was directly called upon, at which he supported Gulliman’s point about splitting the troops and volunteered to be in the vanguard.

Eventually, Gralak returned, out of breath. He explained everything he had found. The LBG + Vitorio, la mejor espada de Senten, promptly left to investigate and returned to the cave. Gralak eventually found an even bigger tunnel, heading in a straight line way outside of Senten. The four began running through it for about an hour, still with no end in sight. Vitorio, лучший меч в Сентене, suggested they come back later with a larger force of men. Gralak agreed, but Tedcrag and Gulliman volunteered to keep going. They all agreed to meet up before setting out to defeat the orcs, and the two pairs split up. Gralak and his old master went back to finish the battle preparations, and Tedcrag and Gulliman continued jogging through the tunnel for another *six hours*.

At the end of those six hours, they reached the end. There was another staircase here leading into a house. The two carefully tiptoed their way up the stairs and tried listening in. They heard Blarnvak’s voice, and that he was talking to someone. Peeking in, they saw him talking to somebody in the mirror: none other than the headmaster of Zanco!

“I am sure it was them, the three that you put the hit out on!” Blarnvak told him. “Send a force of black mages immediately! We’ll have to take care of the orcs…” but as he finished saying this, Gulliman stepped a little too forcefully on one of the floorboards, and it let out a classic horror movie creaking sound. Blarnvak instantly turned around as the two hid darted behind the bookcase entrance.

The next few events happened very quickly. The headmaster disconnected the FaceTime call, and Blarnvak vanished into thin air. The two prepared to fight; Tedcrag drew his sword and peered out again, but suddenly, he was blind! He could feel an impending doom drawing near him, as if the Grim Reaper himself was about to strike.

Tedcrag had to do something, or else something very bad was about to happen. He thought to himself, “You know, fuck it,” and gripped his sword in a different manner than one normally would. His other senses heightened, he heard the slightest change in the air, and without wasting a breath, Tedcrag threw his sword like a javelin towards the sound. There was a sound of metal hitting flesh, and he then heard Gulliman jumping up and down in amazement.

From Gulliman’s perspective, Tedcrag had lost his eyesight, then thrown his sword in a random direction. Then, appearing right in the sword’s path, was Blarnvak, who had no doubt been brewing a deadly magic spell. But instead, the sword ran clean through Blarnvak’s head before he had time to react, and it killed him instantly.

“Tedcrag, that was incredible!” Gulliman said in disbelief. “You beat him!”

But Tedcrag’s vision hadn’t returned. Blarnvak was clearly dead, but something was wrong. Tedcrag had an idea, and he stumbled over to his sword, picked it up out from Blarnvak's head, and pointed its bloody end in the direction of the mirror.

“Hey, headmaster!” he yelled. “I know you’re still listening! I’ve got a proposition for you!”

Sure enough, the headmaster reappeared in the mirror. “I… you... of all the dumb luck! Damn you, you killed… you killed... uh, what was his name again?”

Tedcrag and Gulliman shrugged, and offered a few guesses. “Glorback?” “Steinbeck?” “No, no, it was Farnsack.”

The headmaster shook his head. “No, it's none of those… wait, I remember. To think Jarnhack would go down in such a way… such a terrible loss.” He paused for a moment. “Well, you win some, you lose some. So humor me, what sort of proposal do you suggest?” he asked with much amusement in his voice.

“It’s a simple deal, one that works out well for both of us,” Tedcrag said. “First, our terms. You stop sending mages to kill us! We’re getting really sick of it.”

Gulliman nodded in agreement. “Also, Esir!” he piped up. “Is Esir still…” he hesitated for a moment, then continued. “Is Esir still hopping around the world?”

The headmaster was visibly confused, then figured he must be asking if Esir is alive or not. He gave a condescending grin and said “I think we both know the answer to that question,” before turning his attention back to Tedcrag.

“So, you want me to stop trying to kill you. Why on venus would I do that? What could you possibly have to offer me in return?”

Tedcrag grinned, and pointed his sword dramatically towards the headmaster… although because he was blind, he ended up just pointing at the wall instead and talking to it.

“Well, first of all, we stop *slaughtering* the mages you send to kill us.” The headmaster was visibly angered by this, and Tedcrag continued. “But more importantly, I’m currently undergoing the process of becoming the new Hydraconian emperor. To you, that could be both a powerful ally and a dangerous enemy.”

The headmaster pondered for a moment. “True… but I have no reason to believe you, and you’d still pose no threat to me. I admire your gumption, son, but you’re in way over your head. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

Tedcrag smiled once again. He had one more ace in the hole up his sleeve. “Hydraco’s a vast land full of many resources. If you agree to our terms, as emperor I will *ensure* that you and your entire college receive a lifetime supply of Arnold Palmer!”

The headmaster gasped. Gulliman could see that he was clearly taken aback by this, right down to his very core. “You… you dare tempt me with the elixir of the gods?”

The headmaster thought about things for a minute. Eventually, he replied: “Your offer is quite generous, but I’m afraid I must decline. I’ll kill you, then Prahringerr, and then I’ll take *all* of Hydraco’s Arnold Palmer for myself!” He let out a maniacal laugh typical of villains.

“Damn...” Tedcrag said, sighing and sheathing his sword. “Well, Gulliman and I are going to leave now. But can you at least tell me how to undo Hornflack’s blindness spell?”

At this, the headmaster laughed even harder. “Cornshwack’s blindness spell? You must be joking. The one who blinded you…”

The headmaster in the mirror disappeared. The lights in the house started to flicker rapidly, and the two could sense danger once again, this time far more intense than earlier. Tedcrag made a move to redraw his sword, but then he felt something behind him.

“...was *me*,” the headmaster finished, and a magic dagger was thrust into Tedcrag’s back, piercing his heart.

Tedcrag coughed up blood. Looking behind him, he saw the headmaster, and realized what had just happened. He had to let Gulliman know, and fast.

“Gulliman, he can telepo--!” Tedcrag yelled, but the headmaster swung his dagger, this time at the neck, and it decapitated Tedcrag whose body and head fell to the ground with a thud.

Gulliman, in a sort of psychological fear, had stepped a few feet back towards the bookcase. As he did so, he felt a sharp pain in his hand, and saw that something had fallen from the top shelf and nicked him on the way down. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it was a golden arrow with a strange design. He felt a bit woozy, but he gripped his axe tightly and stared at the headmaster.

The headmaster simply stood there, continuing his laugh from earlier. “I’ve already taken care of Tedcrag. Gralak must be hiding somewhere… ha, but it doesn’t matter.” He pointed a finger menacingly at the dwarf. “You’re next, *Gulliman*!”

Gulliman clenched his fist, angry at the man who had just killed Tedcrag. “You bastard... *headmaster!*” and, full of anger in his heart, he started walking towards the headmaster.

The headmaster stretched out his arms to either side, as if welcoming the challenge. “Oh, you’re approaching me? Instead of running away, you’re coming right to me? Even though your friend, Tedcrag, told you about my teleportation ability, like an exam student scrambling to finish the problems on an exam until the last moments before the chime?”

Gulliman kept walking, unfazed. “I can’t beat the shit out of you without getting closer.”

“Oh ho!” the headmaster was impressed. “Then come as close as you like!” And he too started walking towards Gulliman. The dwarf and the old man both continued their advance.

They were only a few feet from each other, when appearing from behind the headmaster came a strange figure. It was a humanoid blue figure floating in the air, with a strange “W”-looking emblem on its chest.

“Behold my Stand, 「WEEZER」!” the headmaster cackled. “Weezer is the ultimate Stand, and it is capable of teleportation, blinding people, and many other fearsome abilities!”

Weezer, the strange blue figure, teleported a few feet until it was just in front of Gulliman, who couldn’t lift his axe quick enough to defend himself… instead, another strange figure had appeared from behind Gulliman, this one defending him and blocking Weezer’s blow.

Upon seeing him, Gulliman instinctively knew. This was his own Stand. Confidently, he told the headmaster “This is 「EMPIRE OF THE SUN」, and it has the ability to read one’s soul and determine where fate’s many “stock trends” will take them in the future, and I can then change those stock "shares" and replace them with my own shares! You’re finished, headmaster!”

“Impressive!” the headmaster said. “But even so, against the almighty power of Weezer, it is useless! Useless! *Useless*! You see, I can use Weezer’s hidden ability BUDDY HOLLY to erase…”

The two went back and forth like this for several minutes, having an intense battle of physical stamina, mental wits, spiritual prowess, and posing. But eventually, after unveiling his ultimate secret technique, the headmaster sealed his victory when Gulliman tried to re-grab his axe, but it instead lit his hand on fire and he collapsed to the ground in pain.

“You fool! Weezer has already touched that axe. Prepare to die, dwarf!” the headmaster yelled triumphantly to Gulliman, who was on his knees with a dagger to his throat. “You should have realized someone like *you* will never win against me and Weezer. Not back at the college of Zanco, and not even if you assemble a global-scale army! You did not defeat me back then, and you most certainly will…”

As the headmaster started monologuing, Gulliman gathered the last of his willpower and looked up at the headmaster, fierce determination in his eyes. With his burnt hand, he pointed towards the headmaster as he was still speaking. “Your next line is… *not today!*”

“...not today!” the headmaster finished his monologue, before realizing what had happened. He gasped dramatically as the entire world’s color palette changed, and time immediately reverted back to before all of this had occurred.

[Author’s Note: I’m deeply sorry to everyone besides Jack who had to read this. We now continue our scheduled writeup]

After hearing everything that Blarnvak had just told the headmaster, the duo quickly but quietly descended back down the steps, making sure not to alert him to their presence. They needed to let Gralak and everyone else know about this. And so, they started running the 7+ hour jog back the way they came.

While all that had been going on, Gralak had been rallying the forces together to prepare for the attack. Atop a wall, Gralak made another *Revengers: Endmatch* speech which inspired the troops greatly. As he was finishing up his speech, Gralak saw Tedcrag and Gulliman who had just been running for ~14 hours with minimal breaks and were somehow still standing.

The two explained to Gralak what they had learned. Knowing that Zanco would be involved complicated things. It was possible they might have to fight orcs as well as mages at the same time. They set off down the wall to regroup with the rest and prepare their assault, as Tedcrag’s and Gulliman’s legs howled out in excruciating pain as they were forced to keep going...

## Episode LVI: Mysteries All Over the Place

At the foot of the wall, they met Vitorio, la migliore spada di Senten, and told him about the mages. It was decided that Gralak would lead the vanguard, and it was here that Gralak’s real-world public speaking anxiety crept in to D&D. He asked Gulliman what to say pretty much verbatim before giving the speech himself. As soon as someone in the crowd asked Gralak a question, Gralak’s entire rhythm was thrown off and he asked Gulliman, his “deputy”, to step in and answer it.

Gulliman explained things quite clearly, but he had trouble getting some respect and proper attention given his dwarven stature. Gralak repeatedly calling him different military titles didn’t help, either. At one point he was called commander, and someone yelled out “I thought he was a captain!” Gulliman just sighed and continued on, and eventually everything was explained clearly enough.

Everyone got on their horses (and Gulliman on his pony), and they set off after Gralak signaled the charge with a “Hoo-rah!” cheer. They rode in formation without incident, eventually coming across a forest. They stopped for a while, and sent a team of five scouts to investigate. The scouts came back and explained that there weren’t *too* many, and that they definitely wouldn’t have to worry about number advantage. And so the charge continued, the LBG leading the vanguard. They rode up to the camp, drew their weapons, and prepared to completely destroy them harder than Jaime’s character arc.

But just as they entered, there was a wire trap set up that clearly didn’t care much about the innocent, as all the horses became tripped up and flung their riders into the orc camp. What’s more, orcs came streaming out all with obsidian weaponry, much more powerful weapons than what they should have. The LBG and two other Sentenians were in the worst position, surrounded by at least twenty of the things.

They started by slicing Tedcrag repeatedly; though the wounds were shallow, the power of the weapons ensured that the damage they did was devastating. Tedcrag was heavily wounded, but could still fight.

Gralak was full of a fierce, primal rage. These orcs had taken everything from him all those years ago, and now was the time for vengeance. Gulliman used a magical spell to turn both him and Gralak to stone, increasing their defense. He did this ignoring Tedcrag who was bleeding all over. But even with the stone defense, the obsidian weapons did massive damage to Gralak, hitting some arteries.

Tedcrag gripped the sword Rakavist had given him. He swung it and its aim was true. Despite their advanced weaponry these orcs went down easy, and he killed a few with one hit each. After a particularly powerful swing, Tedcrag’s sword caught on fire. In-character, this must have come as a surprise, but the person controlling Tedcrag’s fate was already well aware of this ability, and put it to great use. He plunged it into the ground, creating a shield of fire around the LBG and a few others. The battle continued, with Gralak and Gulliman cutting down a few orcs, Gralak being especially bloodthirsty given the circumstances. Tedcrag did another fire sword attack, this time swinging it like a baseball bat and shooting out fire in an arc, burning several orcs. Gralak meanwhile did some jump kicks, with Gulliman letting out barbaric roars.

As insult to injury for the orcs, it was then that arrows rained down and the cavalry from the other flanks arrived, cleaning up what was left of the orcs and ending the fight. Tedcrag and Gulliman went looking for prisoners. Tedcrag found a tent filled with women and children and stood guard at the entrance to make sure they weren’t killed in all the pillaging going on. A few Sentenians tried to get through, but Tedcrag said they were under protection. “On whose authority?” one asked, to which Tedcrag flashed his still-flaming sword in front of him and said “*Mine.*” The soldiers walked away, clearly intimidated.

In contrast, Gralak watched the pillaging going on around other tents and actively let it happen. He was kind of stumbling around the camp in a daze, then he dropped his sword and collapsed from the mental exhaustion. Gulliman found the camp’s two elders, and protected them from some bloodthirsty soldiers. Gralak eventually noticed this and walked over to interrogate them.

“26 years ago, you attacked our town. *Why?*” he asked them. But they claimed to not remember. Obviously, Gralak thought they were lying, and continued his questioning. He threatened them, claiming only one of the two who gives him information will live, but both were willing to sacrifice themselves for the other.

Gralak eventually calmed down and got some genuine information out of them: 1) there was another camp to the north, 2) they had been visited for years by people whose descriptions were similar to that of the mages, who would take humans and orcs and do god-of-the-north-knows-what with them, and 3) they had been warned about this attack and supplied the obsidian weaponry by another, larger orc, who was (possibly) in cahoots with Blarnvak and the mages.

Gralak took some time to talk with the others. He eventually decided that he would take the two elders as hostages to the northern camp, and hopefully get some answers there. Gulliman and Tedcrag would accompany him, leaving Vitorio, das schönste Schwert in Senten, to keep all the lieutenants in line.

LBG + the elder prisoners rode north and found the other camp. Earlier, the scouts had informed them that it was comprised of only women and children, and this seemed to be true. They walked in to some fearful looks and glares, and the elder came out to meet them. She explained that all of their men had been taken, by people who once again sounded like the mages.

By this point, it was quite clear to Gralak that the white-faced orcs weren’t the true culprits of the attacks 26 years ago, but the orcs, and Senten itself, had been merely puppets, with someone else - most likely the mages - pulling all the strings. He let them go and promised to get to the bottom of this. As a show of good faith, he even went back to the first camp and escorted their prisoners north to the new camp, leaving only a few men as prisoners just in case.

Returning once more to the first camp, the LBG and Vitorio, ดาบที่ดีที่สุดใน Senten, discussed what they should do next. At both camps, they had discovered two halves of a set of coordinates on a map. Put together, they were solved, and the scouts once again went on a scouting mission. When they returned, they explained two points of interest: one was a Senten-designed house in the middle of the forest, which was a particularly odd sight. The other was a large mine.

After some more strategizing, it was decided that the LBG and a small force of twenty good men would head to the house, which Tedcrag and Gulliman believed was likely Blarnvak’s hideout they had been to earlier (as they spoke, their leg muscles were forming a collective suicide pact), while everyone else would head for the mines.

Everyone set off, and the Senten/orc arc continued straight onward towards its fourth episode. Will there be a fifth or even more? We’ll have to wait and find out.

## Episode LVII: Magma, Meat Hooks, and Murder

Everyone had their mission. The LBG, after meeting up with their twenty good men, rode towards the lone house in the woods. The twenty encircled the area as the LBG, not wanting to sacrifice any lives needlessly, volunteered to head in first. First things first, they had to get through the door. They prepared to decimate that door harder than Daenerys’ character arc.

But the door couldn’t hide behind small mercies - whatever the *fuck* that means - and upon Gralak touching the doorknob, it lit off a chain reaction that ended up setting Gralak on fire! Gralak panicked, but then remembered what he’d learned in Senten Public Schooling, and he stopped, dropped, and rolled. Gulliman in turn remembered his Mariven Public Schooling, and he assisted Gralak with the “dropping” part by forcefully shoving him to the ground.

Gralak was put out, and at this point, the gang let it slip that it was Blarnvak, the wizard they were after. “No, not our very own Splarnthwack,” one of the twenty good men lamented. The soldiers were all very intimidated at the thought of fighting a powerful wizard. But once again, the LBG volunteered to lead the charge. Gulliman thought of a clever idea, and he borrowed a shield from one good man. He started banging it against the door, to confused looks from everyone else. “It’s a magic trick,” he explained.

The door wasn’t budging, though. They had to resort to drastic measures. Tedcrag huffed, and he puffed, and he burned Blarnvak’s house down. “But wait,” he pondered as the house instantly lit up. “What about his secret escape tunnel?”

Everyone then suddenly remembered that the tunnel existed, but now they had no way of accessing it what with the burning house on top of it. Even if Blarnvak was in there, he could have easily escaped through there during all of their loud talking outside and they had no way of following him through it. So they all stood there like dopes, wallowing in their stupidity as per usual.

Eventually, they had had enough. Gulliman kicked the door down… except he wasn’t strong enough, so Tedcrag kicked the door down instead. They could see that everything inside had been burnt down already… so much so that it looked like things had been prepared to be set ablaze beforehand. It appeared that Blarnvak had foreseen this and destroyed the evidence.

The LBG took a minute to examine just how badly they had fucked this up. First, they had made him aware of their plan to deal with the orcs, then left without interrogating him. Second, they had let him escape into his secret tunnel, which they didn’t find themselves until over 5 hours later. Third, Tedcrag and Gulliman ran through the tunnel for over 14 hours, hearing his conversation with the headmaster, and not really getting any useful intel from it. Fourth, their fumbling with the doorknob alerted him to their presence (if he was even there in the first place). And fifth, they burned the house down, destroying any evidence and negating all chance of chasing him through the tunnel (again, if he was even there in the first place). It wasn’t so much a “We’re Bad” as it was a “Blarnvak Can’t Believe His Consistently Tremendous Luck.”

During this pondering of failure, Gralak and Tedcrag went back to the Sahara for a hot sec.

**Histoire 2 Chapitre 4: Littéralement, Laissez la Pierre Tourner L'autre Joue**

Jack était mort. Beecher a été laissé seul au milieu du Sahara, le sel coulant toujours. Quelque chose d'étrange est arrivé à Gralak et il a évolué pour devenir un énorme schlong sensible. Il a "éclaté", Beecher rampant à peine.

Beecher avait besoin de l'arrêter avant de consommer le monde entier. Il l'a frappé, mais une veine a commencé à le tirer. Tout est devenu violet. Jack rit, remplissant Beecher de détermination. Il a tiré vers la Tour Eiffel avec une précision extrême. Tout à coup, Beecher fut empalée par la tour Eiffel qui avait fait le tour du monde!

Beecher s'accrochait à peine à la vie alors que les gens adoraient Jack le schlong. Beecher savait ce qu'il devait faire. Il souleva la Tour Eiffel et la brandit comme une épée, coupant Jack. Cela a creusé un trou dans le continuum espace-temps, absorbant tout, y compris Beecher.

Il y eut un éclair de lumière blanche brillante, et Beecher humain et schlong Jack se réveillèrent dans un environnement inconnu...

**Fin**

Schlong became human, and human became dragon, and everything was restored to normal. Well, the LBG had completely botched the Blarnvak Investigation, so they decided to head to the mines instead. The good men remained there to see if they could salvage any evidence from the fire. They insisted on doing so, which made the LBG think that some blonde god intended them to find something there. Regardless, they set out, and as they approached the mine, everything started to feel colder.

Eventually they reached the other group’s perimeter, who had been conveniently waiting for them to enter. Gralak made a step towards the cave, and everyone prepared to follow suit. But something made Gralak freeze in his tracks. He became pale as a ghost, started stuttering, and pointed towards the cave. The sight he had seen was the same as in his vision back in Season 1. Tedcrag thought about his dream where his father had been crowned in a ceremony and then tried to kill him, but he kept it to himself. Gulliman may or may not have thought about his dream about his zombified brother, but if he did, he also kept it to himself.

Fearful, Gralak decided Tedcrag would lead, and so he did. They entered the mine in groups of 2 or 3 at a time. “Maybe groups of 3,” the God of the North told Gralak, and Gralak, accepting this as a completely normal thing, complied. They made their way deeper still, down a spiral slope with many holes, until eventually reaching dirt at the bottom. They came upon a mysterious hallway with doors on the floor. Upon putting his ear to one, Gulliman could hear breathing in one of them, which Gralak also noticed after having it pointed out.

Everything was getting spooky and scary, but there were no skeletons in sight so Gralak took a deep breath and took back the lead from Tedcrag, deciding to face his fears. He lockpicked through a giant door and came across a strange branching pathway. He heard the screams of a child, and without thinking, used Sprint Burst down one of the pathways towards the sound.

Inside, Gralak saw what was happening. There was a courtyard with many aqueducts filled with molten material, and more importantly, about three hundred children were being used as slave labor by a group of orcs with whips. Gralak rushed in, attempting a heroic entrance, but he tripped on something, falling face-first into the floor, knocking a tooth out, and to add insult to injury, his ancestral sword slid over to the foot of a pair of orcs.

After taking in that unusual sight, a couple of the orcs chuckled and walked over to the fallen man. “Uh, am I lost?” he asked them, looking up from the ground. He had never said this before, but the situation did seem quite familiar to him for some reason. The orcs laughed some more and started whipping him on the ground, reminding him of when Nesi had done the same back during their fight, except this time it was not nearly as enjoyable for him.

Gralak started rolling to dodge the whips, somehow managing to get up and loading his crossbow in the process. Unfortunately, one of the obsidian axes reached his chest and he coughed up blood. After hearing everything that had just happened, the Sentenians started charging in after him through both passageways, backing their leader up and killing a few orcs. Just like before, these orcs went down quick despite their powerful weaponry. Gralak took the opportunity to pick up his axe.

Gulliman and Tedcrag were not to be left out of the action, however. Gulliman lopped off some arms and bashed in some heads as was his wont, reveling in the bloodshed. Tedcrag, on the other hand, had an amazing idea. The only way he could quickly reach the other orcs was if he vaulted over one of the aqueducts. A dangerous stunt, to be sure, but if he was going to rally support for his cause, he’d need to inspire them with a heroic action.

So he decided to risk his life in a meaningless display of athleticism. *It'll be fine*, he thought, *I have +8 on this damn skill so even a low roll should cut it*. He took a deep breath and charged. However, his arms betrayed him. Instead of grabbing the edge and vaulting over, his arms instead hanged limply in front of him and smacked into side of the aqueduct. He still had plenty of momentum though, which unfortunately carried over into the upper half of his body, which sent his head straight into the lava. He screamed out in pain and his body flailed as everyone looked on in horror. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Gralak, Gulliman, the Sentenians, the children, even the orcs were appalled by the sight. They had all stopped what they were doing. After a long bout of flailing, Tedcrag’s body went limp. Hydraconian’s potential future emperor, dead in seconds.

The children started screaming. The Sentenians were at a complete loss for words. The orcs even questioned their villainous slave-driving ways. Gulliman apparently took this really hard. Without Tedcrag, could he and Gralak really handle their triple antagonist threat of Prahringerr, the headmaster, *and* the extraterrestrials? He answered his own question by immediately impaling himself with his axe, collapsing to the ground, also dead.

“Where the hell did you find these people?” one of the lieutenants asked Gralak, who was looking at his companions who had just brutally killed themselves. Gralak could hardly believe his eyes. He dropped his sword to the ground. He closed his eyes and said the two words that the author really wish he could change given the sad fate of its series of origin, but knew that it was now far too late to change: ~~*“Bite Za Dusto”*~~ *“Not today.”*

Time reverted as Tedcrag prepared to vault over the aqueduct. All of a sudden, he had a thought. Perhaps risking the rest of his life wasn’t worth the danger, so he instead went over to laddercamp the orcs who would have to make their way down it to reach them. On cue, one fell down the ladder in front of him, and he effortlessly just stabbed his sword through its head to kill it.

“For Senten!” Gralak said in the least motivating way possible. Tedcrag said it with quite a bit more gusto, as he and another Sentenian continued their laddercamping strategy. Tedcrag’s sword lit on fire, and he used its ability to give everyone a fire shield. This made the Sentenians and the children panic for a second after being set on fire, but they calmed down after realizing it was a shield.

Gulliman loaded his crossbow and shot a bolt at an orc, but his aim slipped and he hit a child. You heard me right. They were dead, at Gulliman’s hand. Tedcrag gasped. Gralak gasped. The Sentenians gasped. The 299 other children gasped. Even the remaining orcs gasped.

As everyone stared at him in utter disgust, Gulliman couldn’t live with the shame, and prepared to impale himself. But just before he could do so, there was an ominous laugh that came from the body. The laugh grew deeper and deeper, and the corpse stood up, full of life again.

“*To think my disguise would be uncovered,*” the child said in an adult voice as it pulled the crossbow bolt out from its forehead. “*And to think it would be you, Gulliman, who found me out.*”

The child stepped forward towards Gulliman and continued his monologue as everyone remained speechless. “*You, who took everything away from me. You, Robute Gulliman! I shall have my revenge!*”

“Who… who are you?” Gulliman stammered.

The child laughed, and as it walked forward the body started transforming before his very eyes… into that of a dwarf who looked extremely similar to Gulliman! “*Oh, Robute.* You see, I, a reputable dwarf businessman such as myself, was traveling the world through various important cities and nations to establish my business into a franchise. But at some point a few years ago, cities all over the world stopped allowing me inside! They claimed some other dwarf already had that name and face, and that *I* was an impostor! Laughable, to think *I, the world’s best businessman, Tim Higgins,* would have my identity stolen so shamelessly!”

Gulliman was shocked beyond words, and frantically reached through his pockets and pulled out his fake ID. Sure enough, the face matched the man standing in front of him.

“Because you had stolen my identity, I lost everything! My hometown of Mariven wouldn’t even let me back in. My wife believed I was dead, selling off everything I owned and remarrying. My entire business, my life’s one great accomplishment, went bankrupt without its founder there to run things! I had nothing left. With nowhere else to turn, I made a deal with some strange humans dressed in black robes who found me one day. I would allow them to perform gruesome experiments on me. In return, they promised I would be granted my revenge. And sure enough, here you are, Gulliman! I’m astounded you uncovered my secret identity as one of the children, but now *I, Tim Higgins, shall strike you down!*”

Tim Higgins suddenly leapt forward at inhuman, er, indwarf speeds, pulling out a dagger which Gulliman barely managed to deflect. But just as he was in business, Tim Higgins was ruthless in combat, and his second strike pierced Gulliman’s heart.

“And the cherry on top is that you too aim to be a successful businessman. Don’t make me laugh. If that word that you repeatedly said in your private Dwarfscord server got out, you’d get cancelled faster than that famous play actor Kevin Timey!”

“Dwarfscord server…? Kevin Timey…? What are you talking about?” Gulliman asked, before coughing up blood.

“...look, I don't know man, I think the author got a bit carried away there,” Tim Higgins sheepishly admitted. He sighed. “Now just say the magic words and reverse time already. But some day I’ll have my revenge in the real timeline, just you wait!”

“Oh, right.” Gulliman remembered. “...Not today,” he said in a very half-hearted manner, and time reversed.

Gulliman aimed his crossbow, and this time really tightened his grip, remembering when Gralak had had that completely embarrassing showing recently against the lizards, and this time his aim was true, hitting an orc dead-on and killing it. The one next to him fell down into the lava out of fear.

Gralak shot an explosive bolt at the ceiling above the orcs, and most of them fell into the lava. At this point, only one orc remained. Tedcrag charged up the ladder and across the catwalk, stabbing the last one, then picking him up and throwing him into the lava with the rest of his companions. Another day, another victory for the LBG.

There were a couple doors to investigate, but first order of business was the children. Sadly, almost none of them understood his known languages, except for one of the older ones. She didn’t believe him at first, thinking it to be some sort of trick, but he managed to convince her with some emotional role-playing and she went and got the others to cooperate. The soldiers gave them what clothing they could and led them outside. Gralak accompanied them and talked to the woman in charge, and they gave the rest some clothing.

“Is that everyone?” Gralak asked as they had gathered the kids and prepared to head back to Senten.

“Yes,” she replied. “Well, all except for one. We turned our backs for only a second, and the kid ran off, yelling something strange about businesses and revenge. We couldn’t find him after that. Weird kid. Feel bad for him, but we’ve got to worry about the other 300-some first and foremost.”

“Right,” Gralak agreed, and saw them off. He then returned down to investigate the two doors with the others. The first one was a traumatizing sight. It was some sort of freezer with infants on meat hooks. It was truly horrid, and Gralak vomited quite a bit and ran out. How does Gene come up with this shit? Anyway, everyone braced themselves for what kind of horror could be behind the final door.

They opened it up. It was dark, but then lights turned on from above. Although Tedcrag, Gralak, and Gulliman didn’t recognize it, Beecher, Jack, and John sure did. It was none other than a tank. The three characters stood there in confusion, and the three players fantasized about rolling up to Prahringerr and/or the headmaster in a tank. So concluded the campaign for at least a week, as Jack had made up some lie about going to New York to procrastinate doing six chapters’ worth of writeup images. Well, see you all then. Tanks for reading!

## Episode LVIII: Gralak, Man of the People

The LBG stood there, examining the tank, in a few moments that felt like they lasted for weeks. Eventually, Gulliman took a look inside it; it seemed pretty empty and non-functional on the onside. After some deliberation, they decided that they’d haul it out of there (pour one out for the guys who have to lug it up that spiral staircase somehow) and hide it in the forest -- even if they can’t get any use out of it, neither can the mages if it’s hidden.

On their way out, they were reminded of the existence of the hall of doors. Remembering the voices he heard earlier from one, Gulliman had a chilling thought. With some help, they pried open one of the doors, and saw yet another disturbing sight. A sickly, malnourished child was inside a tiny coffin. Gralak was visibly disturbed and enraged by this, promising that Blarnvak and the others would pay. The hall of doors, by the way, was about three football fields in length. Gralak requested some men come down and start opening the doors and helping the children.

After a few hours, all had been opened. Sadly, only 20-30% of them were actually still alive, and furthermore, none of them were inclined to leave their holes, fearing some sort of trick. They fed and clothed them as much as they could. Gralak did his best to persuade one to leave, but unlike before, they weren’t as trusting. Gralak learned Vitorio, optima arma Senten, had requested his presence back in Senten, but Gralak said “Fuck the main quest. For today, we’re being humanitarians” (paraphrasing here).

In fact, he was given multiple opportunities to head back to Senten, but he refused them each time, wanting to oversee this project to completion. While admirable, he effectively ensured that the Senten arc would go on for a fifth and final episode. At this point, the LBG was completely sleep-deprived and exhausted (remember Tedcrag and Gulliman had yet to rest since their 7-hour trip to Blarnvak’s and 7-hour trip back in the tunnels, not to mention the attacks on the orc tribe and the slave mine). Gulliman and Tedcrag, the latter unable to really help with the children anyway since he’s a big scary dragon man, went outside to a cave where they could guard from, and promptly slept the night away. At one point throughout the day, Gralak too passed out from exhaustion.

At Gralak’s request, monks and women arrived the next day, in an attempt to help coax the children out, as he refused to do so by force. The women were clearly of the upper class, the pearl-clutching sort, and were horrified by the sight. The monks, however, were soulless husks; because they were unable to speak, they were unable to emote or feel things. No, not really, but that’s what Gralak thought at first for some reason.

With the help of the monks and women, the children finally started to leave and began to be brought back towards Senten. There was still the issue of the bodies of the remaining 70-80% of children; Gralak wanted to bury them immediately, but was advised to wait and send a party to do so later, as the men had been through enough, and the bodies would be protected from the elements where they were.

After Gralak had thoroughly ensured he would be receiving the Sentenian Nobel Peace Prize, the LBG returned to Senten. The pony that had carried Gulliman on the way here suddenly remembered its own strength and the laws of physics, and was unable to carry him on the way back, so he hitched a ride on Tedcrag’s horse.

Upon arrival in Senten, wasting no time, they headed straight to the estate of Vitorio, 千天で最高の剣. He congratulated Gralak, giving him a formal deed to the Braun family’s estate. He told him that there were plans for a triumph in Gralak's name in 4 days, where among other things, he could be “dictator for a day.” With his tendency towards psychopathy, who knows what Gralak would be capable of on such a day.

With the white-faced orc case settled, at least for now, there was nothing standing in the way of Gralak telling Vitorio, החרב הטובה ביותר בסנטן, the secrets of the world that they’d uncovered over the past few years. He was understandably skeptical, but at the same time trusted Gralak immensely. The topic turned to the threat of Prahringerr as a whole, and Tedcrag explained his and Rakavist’s plans. Perhaps as a testament to his trust towards Gralak, Vitorio agreed that Tedcrag could count on his help in the event that it was needed.

[Tedcrag obtained **SENTENIAN SUPPORT**. Main quest log has been updated, **MARIVENIAN SUPPORT** quest now active]

It was also suggested that they speak to the doge before leaving. They agreed and went to Gralak’s new estate to sleep. Along the way, a farmer that claimed to be from Gralak’s past appeared and recognized Gralak. Gralak did not remember him, and was suspicious of another Esir switcheroo, but the interaction passed without incident. After spending the night at the Braun house, they were woken up by loud knocking on the door. Gralak raced out of bed and found Vitorio, Geriausias kardas Sente, frantic and out-of-breath. He rushed in, closing the door behind him and making sure the windows were covered.

When they asked what was wrong, Vitorio explained: the mages were here. *Shit*, the LBG realized. They had clearly forgotten that Blarnvak had said as much was going to happen back when talking to the headmaster. He explained that the mages were ordering Gralak’s arrest, blaming him for many things -- some of which were true, to be fair, but others not, such as blaming him for being in charge of the slave operation in the mines.

Gralak was pissed that these assholes were getting away with this, and realized that this could have been avoided if they’d handled Blarnvak differently. But now was not the time for regret, it was the time for action. They fortunately still had their horses with them, and Vitorio urged them to leave immediately. They gathered their things and took off immediately. Gralak requested Vitorio try to find Nesi, whose whereabouts were still unknown (lol), and bring her back to Senten if possible. Gralak tried to exchange further farewells, but there was no time. “Gooooooo”, Vitorio yelled, and they were off.

They rode to the city of Amule, Senten’s archrival. This fact wasn’t really relevant to their quest as they just stopped by there and bought a ship, but was some nice lore and world-building nonetheless. Tedcrag was the only one who still remembered he had gold -- the other two’s gold had vanished from their memories as well as their persons -- and paid for the ship. They also bought some wheat as a trade cover story (promising no more “mostly food” incidents), plus some rations. They sailed straight towards the dwarven territory, as that was the only other place they could really think to go for support at the moment.

As they grew closer to the port of Delkiin, they decided on false identities: Tim Higgins was too worn as a name, so Gulliman changed his name to Guido Mista, the name of a lucky traveling merchant Tedcrag had met when he first arrived in Pernimius. Gralak would be Bruno Bucciarati and Tedcrag would be Banjo Ridley, names the two of them seemingly drew from nowhere. These names ended up being useless, however. As soon as their ship was hailed and a dragon was spotted on board, he would have to be taken in and detained.

Gulliman agreed to this a little more easily than Tedcrag would have expected, but he had no choice but to go along with it. They took Tedcrag, who had definitely been imprisoned the most out of the LBG in this campaign, and brought him into a wagon, headed straight for Mariven. The other two decided to tail the wagon, fearing the worst. Did Mariven really hold a grudge against a single dragon for seven years, or was something else afoot?

Mariven had clearly been rebuilt. There were crystals in the ceiling that were effectively the sun. New stone houses had replaced the slums, and were expanded and repaired. Without delay, Tedcrag was brought all the way into the palace gates and forced into a seat. While there, he felt like he was about to be put on trial and would have to feign innocence and accuse the dwarves of racial profiling. There was a large seat in the back of the room, essentially a throne, and he also saw a strange dome in the ceiling where he could see “dwarf and goblin feet.” And finally, he saw a familiar face -- that of Horace, Gulliman’s brother.

Horace sighed, and Tedcrag knew his entire fake cover story would be blown. He prepared for the worst, but Horace walked up to him and calmly spoke to him. Horace mentioned that Tedcrag would not be killed or anything like that, he simply wanted to speak with him, and Tedcrag explained Gulliman was here with him. During this conversation, Horace sat down upon the throne, which threw Tedcrag for a loop. He asked Tedcrag if, if he let him leave, he would return with Gulliman, and Tedcrag agreed. Tedcrag left to find the others.

Not far outside, Gulliman and Gralak had been sneaking around the capital or something, I wasn’t there for the details. Luckily, Tedcrag happened to see them when he emerged. They were quite surprised to see him free and unharmed, and he beckoned them over. Instead of explaining, he thought it would be better for the two of them (and better dramatically) if they saw for themselves instead, and he led them back inside.

Inside, they entered the same room Tedcrag was in. There, Gulliman was reunited with his brother. “Hello, Robute,” Horace said, dropping the metaphorical mic, before walking over and sitting on the throne just like he had done with Tedcrag. He was no longer Horace, but King Dorvoth II.

## Episode LIX: Tedcrag Fucking Dies

The brothers Gulliman proceeded to have a heart-to-heart, though it was pretty one-sided as Dorvoth monologued and explained everything that had happened since. He’d actually learned quite a bit since the last time they’d seen him; he’d deduced his brother was actually responsible for the goblin attack, but understood the importance of his mission. He knew of the extraterrestrials, of the mages, and more. How, you ask? One factor was Esir. As Dorvoth explained it, Esir was apparently alive and kicking; Esir had given him an orb, and said that it could help find in Basdun “the power” to defeat the aliens. Naturally, who else to go there but our resident Basdun experts the LBG?

Horace/Dorvoth also warned them about the newly-appointed mage in Mariven, and the LBG resolved to deal with him after their business in Basdun was settled. As their business with Dorvoth concluded, Robute reached for a hug, but his brother had already left. With no reason to delay, they promptly headed towards Basdun for the third time in the campaign.

Entering inside, they encountered a lone goblin, but they effortlessly defeated it. Alone, a single goblin poses no threat. They eventually came across the cart section, dredging up memories of riding the cart back in Episode 5 and dooming Mariven to a goblin attack. Good times. Then they came across a stealth section where they had to sneak past some sleeping goblins. Even with Gulliman’s OP stealth spell, Gralak managed to wake up a few of them. Thankfully, they were blind, so Gralak was able to avoid detection by standing perfectly still.

After getting past that, they reached Basdun proper, coming upon a large city expanse. Looking down, there was at least a six-story drop from where they were. They continued following the compass, which was the orb Dorvoth had given them. They came across a narrow path of stairs. Along the way up, Tedcrag admired the view down below of countless sleeping goblins. Sadly, he wasn’t quite looking where he was going well enough, and his leg slipped, sending Tedcrag careening over the edge.

Luckily, there was a building to break his fall so he was not mortally wounded. Not so luckily, the impact made him drop his sword, the family sword Rakavist had just given him, which fell down the entire rest of the way, and there was no Aquaman here to bring it back up. These events also woke up the goblin horde. Gralak and Gulliman could only watch in horror as goblins woke up and started making their way towards Tedcrag.

Tedcrag, without his best sword and in an injured state, had no chance of fending off so many dwarves. He then heard a voice. *Use the Force, Ted*. Confused, Tedcrag looked up, and saw a blue ghost in front of him, none other than Z-Dog. *Ted, in death I have become one with the Force. Reach your hand out, and your sword will heed your call.*

Though he was unsure whether he was just delusional or actually seeing Zenith’s ghost, Tedcrag complied. Sure enough, his sword rose from below and into his hand, automatically igniting into its powerful fire form. The goblins, who were about to attack him, watched in awe as his sword’s flame lit up. *My work here is done*, Zenith said, fading into nothingness.

Two goblins leapt at Tedcrag, who easily sliced them down. The rest of the goblins bowed, in awe at Tedcrag. They appeared to be acknowledging him as their leader. “All hail… the goblin king!” one of them said, and the others joined in and formed a chorus of chants towards their new leader.

Tedcrag, now with a goblin army at his beck and call, prepared to make his way back up. This army of loyal followers would prove useful against Prahringerr. But before he could, he felt a sharp pain in his back.

Turning around, he saw a young boy goblin, tears in his eyes. He had gutted Tedcrag with a knife, right through the armor. Coughing up blood, Tedcrag gave him a look of confusion. Through sobs, the boy said “You… you bastards kidnapped my father!”

Tedcrag did not understand, but the boy kept talking. “You tied him up and you took him away! I’ve heard stories that there’s a headmaster in a faraway land who has a goblin fetish, and he does unspeakable things to them in what must be a fate worse than death! That’s where you took my father to, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!”

Wiping tears from his eyes, the young goblin pulled out the knife, and Tedcrag, suffering from yet another wound, collapsed forward, falling down the rest of the way. Just before he hit the ground, he was barely able to utter a weak “Not today…” and time reversed.

Tedcrag climbed up the stairs, this time making sure he was watching where he was stepping. The LBG came across their next obstacle, and they had a bit of a choice here. Go traverse some tightropes, or take a very old-looking elevator down. They decided to take the tightrope approach. Gulliman made it across effortlessly. Gralak, too, made it across, and the two waited for Tedcrag to join them.

Tedcrag took a step on the tightrope, and promptly slipped again. He began falling straight down several stories. It was a long fall, so he had a few moments to think about things as his life flashed before his eyes. How he wished things had gone differently. Over the past several years there had been so many senseless deaths caused by him, either directly or indirectly. His biggest regret was Olgierd, who no doubt now would have been a useful ally in dealing with Prahringerr. Furthermore, Olgierd's lizard wife Iris might have been a key asset in convincing the Flivoni to help.

But Tedcrag’s time was at its end. But right before he hit the ground, he remembered that he could just say two words and everything would be good. He was grateful he had won the card game called "Taris" that a stranger had suggested they play back on the ship, as it had given him enough inner inspiration to say those two words: “Not today!”

Tedcrag breathed a sigh of relief. He was back looking at the tightrope, and for some reason he had broken out into a cold sweat. He could tell something was wrong. But, you know, fuck it. He took a step on the tightrope, and promptly slipped again. He began falling down several stories. It was a long fall, so he had a few moments to think about things as his life flashed before his eyes. How he wished things had gone diff---

Suddenly, Tedcrag’s train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt. He had slipped in such a way that instead of a straight fall, he slammed into a building on the way down. It hurt like hell. But he was about to be dead anyway, so he resumed his last-second pondering on life before his death. How he wished things had gone differently. Over the past several years there had been----

There was a painful thud, as Tedcrag hit yet another building, losing his train of thought again. His entire body screaming in pain, Tedcrag did his best to keep thinking. Over the past several years there had been so many senseless deaths caused by him, either directly or indirectly. His biggest regret was-----

Tedcrag’s time was up. He hit the ground and the sheer force of the impact pretty much exploded his body into many pieces, as the other two looked on in horror. This time, he had not had time to say “Not today.” Tedcrag was dead, this time for good.

Heartbroken, the other two pressed on. They went on to battle a strange white beast, though without Tedcrag it was a hard fight, and they just barely were able to survive. Over the next few months, they rallied support from everywhere they could. Without Tedcrag, their claim against Prahringerr was severely weakened, but they got Rakavist’s help and were able to sow enough conflict in Hydraco to eventually form a coup d’état, placing Rakavist in power. They then used everyone's combined might to defeat the headmaster and his goons at Zanko, and eventually, defeated the extraterrestrials themselves in a climactic showdown.

Many years passed. One night, the two surviving members of the LBG met up with each other after years of separation. Gralak, now the Doge King of Senten, and Gulliman, new king of Mariven also known as Dorvoth III, met up and had drinks at the Gentle Lute, the inn where they had first met. Gralak brought his queen Nesi with him, and their children, and Gulliman had undergone a magical ritual to get new testicles, and now he too had a wife and children at this point.

“How I wish Tedcrag were here,” Gralak said, and Gulliman, many drinks down, nodded in agreement. “We were able to save the world without him, but it surely would have been easier with him there.”

“...Would it, though?” Gulliman said, taking a second to think. “It seemed like everywhere he went he left death and destruction in his wake. He killed that George guy, he released that giant spider up north who reportedly went on to kill thousands, and he was the one who planted the nuke, don’t you forget. And if I recall, you said he was the one who *actually* killed the blacks back at Port Mereton?”

“Y...yes he was,” Gralak said a bit too quickly, then took a sip of his drink nervously. “Anyway, you might be right, Gulliman, he was a real son of a bitch. Remember when he tried to kill us?”

“Oh yeah,” Gulliman laughed. “He didn't, though! And he couldn’t go a week without being imprisoned or losing his trinket and gear. What a joke! We honestly had an easier time dealing with everything once that guy was dead!”

As the two laughed at their deceased friend, their alive friends all arrived around that time. Esir was there, Rakavist, Vitorio, Ellie, Gaz, Horace, and even Orillio who had miraculously survived the nuke by hiding inside a new invention called the refrigerator. They too joined in on the making fun of Tedcrag train, except for Rakavist of course, who shed a single tear at the fate of his foster son.

Suddenly, an old merchant came in. “Help, I need help! My daughter’s been kidnapped by bandits!” He yelled. “Can anyone help me? *Anyone*?”

Gralak and Gulliman looked at each other, sharing a knowing look. They both stood up and agreed to help the merchant. “Thank you, but I need three men to take them down!” the merchant said. “Please, is there anyone else who can help these two? Ideally a paladin type, maybe a big lizard or a dragon?”

A large hooded man who had been quietly sitting at the bar finally stood up. He lowered his hood, as Gralak and Gulliman looked on in amazement.

“Tedcrag?!” they yelled out in shock and in unison. Indeed, the man was none other than Tedcrag.

“I lived, bitch,” Tedcrag said, pulling out a lightning rod and shooting both of them with it. He then turned towards a hooded woman at the bar. “Thanks for bringing me back to life, babe.” The woman was none other than the witch doctor from Season 2, and she nodded at him and raised her drink up before going back to drinking.

Tedcrag turned to the other two, bleeding out from their wounds. “So, you two thought you could live the good life and reap the campaign's rewards without your buddy Tedcrag? *Think again!* No, you two are going to suffer right along with me. The three of us are going to go back and continue to royally fuck things up, again and again, leaving whatever god is in charge our fates to be forever annoyed with us. That’s how we've always rolled in the LBG, isn't that right?”

Tedcrag raised his glass to the confused and terrified onlookers in the bar. Finally, he chugged his drink down and yelled out “Not today!”

Time reversed several decades. Tedcrag found himself looking at that damn tightrope again. He felt an even colder sweat than before. He had a very, very bad feeling about the tightrope, so he decided he would take his chances with the elevator.

I think at this point you can guess what happened. As he started manually lowering the elevator, his strength gave out, and the elevator went careening down to the bottom, crashing and killing Tedcrag instantly. Now I could write an alternate timeline here, but this chapter’s going to be long enough already, and we still have the battle to deal with. Next time, baby. Instead, please enjoy the accompanying video.

“No. Not today...” Gulliman said sadly, and time reverted for the fourth and final time in this episode.

Tedcrag was back looking at that damn tightrope. Perhaps Gulliman sensed his hesitation, or maybe he felt a cosmic warning from the gods telling him this would be a bad idea, so he and Gralak made their way back and the three took their chances with the elevator. Sure enough, Tedcrag almost killed them on their way down by losing his grip on the rope, but fortunately the other two were able to grab it in time and make up for his clumsiness.

They reached the bottom, roped down, sneaked past some goblins, aaaaaaaaaaaand the entrance was caved in. They had no way forward. Then, like a GPS after making a wrong turn, the compass rerouted itself, and it lead them all the way back. That’s right, 4 inspiration (everything from the Taris game plus 1) had been used to get here, and this wasn’t even the right way. That’s some sadistic DMing if you ask me, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.

...*There better be.*

Anyway, the trio made their way all the way back, bringing the elevator back up. They followed the new route to a strange black pit; they tied a rope and made their way down it. The walls and floor were a strange, black gooey substance, and it took all of Gralak’s willpower not to yell “Get out of the goo!” over and over. As they carried on, the goo got thicker and thicker. There was a strange embryo/intestine thing on the ceiling, getting more and more prominent the further in they went.

Eventually, they came across a white blob in the center of a room. “Why do I hear boss music?” Gulliman wondered. Right on cue, the white mass started growing, black goo pouring out from it, its legs extending, and then its head. The beast roared, and combat began.

Immediately, it bounded towards Gulliman and grabbed him, then tried to slam him against things with crushing force. Luckily, Gulliman was able to quickly use a hardening spell to defend himself. Unlike Eren, Gulliman never had any issues getting hard. Tedcrag, deciding to actually use his divine spells, attacked the monster with some powerful radiant energy. This doubled with the sword lighting on fire every time his roll totaled over 20 meant some massive damage.

With Tedcrag slashing from behind, Gulliman eventually managed to free himself by cutting the beast’s arm off. At this point, goblins started swarming in to protect the beast. Gralak wasn’t having any luck hitting the thing, so instead he turned his attention towards the goblins. He easily decapitated two of them, grabbing one of their heads, spitting on it, and throwing it at the beast for a whopping 2 damage.

Tedcrag tried to do his fire breath, but as was especially common today, he rolled a nat 1, and instead burnt the inside of his mouth a bit. He then had another sword attack where his sword flamed on, killing goblins in an arc and then sending a fire beam right through the beast’s stomach. The beast at this point was looking on the brink of death.

Gralak then finally attacked the beast successfully. Despite Tedcrag doing about 90% of the damage to the beast, Gralak got the finishing blow. No I’m not bitter. Gralak finished it off in flashy style as he is known to do. First, his sword went into full-on lightsaber mode, then Gralak ran up along the gooey wall, dolphin dived towards the monster, and split the beast in twain. It was dead, and the goblins seemed to lose their sense of purpose once it had fallen, just standing there and wandering aimlessly. Perhaps the goblins were a hive mind, or were just really deflated at the loss of this thing they had seemed to be following.

With the beast dead, the oddly glassy ground below the LBG started to crack, and looked like it was about to break…………………...… well, to be continued!

## Episode LX: Rocket Men

The glass ceiling was shattered, and the gamers were free to rise up. But because the LBG weren’t gamers, and it was not a ceiling but a glass floor, they were about to fall down below. Tedcrag and Gralak were able to grab the wall, but Gulliman was not so lucky. He fell down, into a strange green goo. Fortunately for him, the goo started draining from the room. Gulliman was there on the ground, surrounded by glass tubes filled with green liquid, as the other two hanged above him.

Gulliman’s trusty GPS pointed him towards a cave at his level, so the other two dropped down to meet him. They went through the caverns for a little while, before the GPS pointed up at the top of a large hole, high above and seemingly impossible to reach. The LBG were stumped for a minute, before Gralak received a divine message from the blonde god, remembering he had the high-jump ability. But would it be enough? And so, the LBG came up with a delightfully stupid idea.

Tedcrag would stand on the ground. Gralak would climb and stand on his shoulders, and Gulliman would do the same on Gralak’s shoulders. Gralak would then use his magic spell on Tedcrag, who would jump and the three of them would reach incredible heights, ideally reaching the higher ledge. Everyone went along with this plan, and assumed the position. Gralak powered Tedcrag’s jump up, and Tedcrag leapt up as hard as he could.

*♫ And I think it's gonna be a long, long time, 'till touch down brings me round again to find ♫*

 At 30 miles per hour, the three-man stack that was the LBG was propelled upwards, crashing into the ceiling. At such speeds, their skulls collided with the ceiling and they all died instantly. Future goblin historians will wonder what happened to the mysterious invaders who killed their queen, only to then brutally kill themselves shortly after.

Except sike, that didn’t happen. God had miscalculated the universe’s laws of physics for a moment there. Instead of propelling them into the ceiling, they instead reached just the height they needed. However, they were still very high up, and the three of them were precariously clinging on to the ledge.

Gulliman and Gralak didn’t have the strength to hang on. They started slipping. From what I recall, Tedcrag’s player controlling him misunderstood the situation, and God got impatient with him and the other two fell to their deaths, and God did not grant Tedcrag a mulligan. Such is the wrath of a DM faced with incompetent players. I’m taking notes.

Gulliman and Gralak crashed into the ground, dying painfully. Tedcrag felt strangely vindicated for a moment, seeing someone other than him fall to their death in these tunnels. But that was a crazy thought... he hadn’t fallen to his death in here, he was pretty sure. Tedcrag returned to his senses, mourned his friends, and pressed on with the mission.

Without the compass, however, and with no way back down, Tedcrag became extremely lost. He never found the power that they were looking for. He made his way through maze-like tunnels, slowly burning through his ration supplies. Just as he had almost run out of food, he came across a strange room.

The room was lit by a single lantern, and all throughout this room were the etchings of a madman. Quite confused, Tedcrag glanced at some of them. To his shock, the strange writings all featured himself, Gralak, and Gulliman as characters, all in places they had been before. But these weren’t simple recountings of past events, but instead seemed to be comically made up. For instance, one described Tedcrag bonking his head against the elven pyramid wall before uncovering a global spider conspiracy, and another detailed Gulliman and the headmaster dueling in Blarnvak’s house with some very strange abilities.

“What the hell is all this?” Tedcrag wondered to himself. There were countless more. The three of them dying and being sentenced to Super Hell, Gralak killing Ted’s father and Tedcrag killing Nesi for revenge, and a strange aquatic god rising from the ocean and killing Gralak with his own sword. After skimming through all of the very poorly written fan fiction, Tedcrag came across the most chilling one yet. It detailed Gralak and Gulliman falling to their deaths in this very cave, and Tedcrag aimlessly wandering through caves, before stumbling upon…

The story cut off there; it appeared unfinished. Tedcrag wondered what this could all mean. He heard footsteps behind him, and a cold, yet oddly familiar voice spoke to him.

“Oh, dear. It seems you’ve seen it.”

Tedcrag turned, ready to fight. It was a brown-haired human who seemed to be in his mid-20’s. Tedcrag grabbed one of the documents and pointed to him accusingly. “Is this your work? What is all this? Who are you? How do you know who we are?”

The man laughed. “You’re pawns in a game. Very… unsuccessful pawns, I must say. You see, there is a blonde god who guides your very actions. I am but a simple scribe, forced to novelize your entire exploits to a whopping audience of 2... or 3 on a good day.”

Tedcrag sighed; the man wasn’t making any sense. But this scribe kept talking. He gestured to the writings scattered throughout the room. “And what is this, you ask? The three of you, well, you fail so often, and so *completely* and *utterly*, that I couldn’t *resist* but write what happens in the aftermath of all your failures. Consider it a hobby. These are the tales of what happens to the others when one or more of you fail. You’re in one right now, in fact.”

Though it was a lot to take in, Tedcrag seemed to be understanding. “If that’s true, then you *really* must be running out of ideas. You’re writing about me finding you and discovering these… alternate histories.”

The scribe nodded. “Indeed, I am absolutely running out of ideas. You’ve 100% got me there. I also have a message for you, mysteriously sent to me by the blonde god at 3am the other night: *‘Hydraco will find you.’*”

"Well, anyway, now I have a request: please stop fucking up so often, so I don’t have to write so many of these fictions. I’m a simple man who wants to live a quiet life, but you make it quite difficult and exhausting. You fell to your death *four times* last chapter, Tedcrag. ***Four.*** I ask the three of you to please be more competent in the future. It’s *all* I ask. Now go back in time and actually make the jump this time, please.”

Tedcrag said nothing, merely taking in everything the scribe had told him. When the man was done talking, Tedcrag felt the only thing he could do to save this poor man further pain was to go back in time and do things over. But... how? He looked at all the documents, and then he recognized the pattern. He cleared his throat, and yelled out “*Not today!*”

… But nothing happened.

“Oh, right. While you’re here, I’m going to change the magic words,” the scribe said. “Why, you ask? The origin of where those two words come from… well, let’s just say it’s fallen from grace this past year.”

“Then, what do I say?”

“Hm…” the man thought for a few seconds, before coming up with something. “How about this: *Little high, little low*…” he started.

“...*Little hey, little ho!*” Tedcrag finished. He’d never heard the phrase before but the response came to him instinctively.

Suddenly, there was a strange sound and Tedcrag could feel himself being pulled backwards in time. As the surprisingly handsome man faded from view, Tedcrag could hear him say “I- I did it! It activated!”

Tedcrag was now back in the present, jumping once again up to the ledge with Gralak’s jump ability. They jumped just as high as last time, but this time were able to grab onto the ledge successfully. Well, except for Gulliman, whose hand slipped, but Tedcrag (now paying more attention) was able to reach out and save him. He felt oddly compelled to avoid death or near-death situations at all costs, even more so than one normally would.

They had finally made it to the ledge. Following the compass, they made their way through the caverns for another day and a half, before finding another abandoned city, one that Gulliman and his people had never heard of. It appeared to be under construction...? Gulliman found some ancient dwarvish corpses, and stole one of their helmets for himself. They pressed on.

Half a day later, they came upon an enormous ravine. And at the bottom was a magnificent sight. It took a moment for them to register what it was, but they all recalled it from their previous VI visions. It was an enormous spaceship! They made their way down towards it to try and find a way inside. All the entrances seemed out of reach.

But at one point, they got too close and they triggered some sort of defense mechanism. Behind them, four familiar enemies came out from the woodwork: automatons, like the ones they’d encountered in the twin cities and the cannon base! They weren’t hostile yet, but they most assuredly would be soon. And even with his best “*Access VI!*”, Gulliman was not able to hack them or gain control.

After Gulliman failed, Tedcrag knew there was only one way to deal with them at this point. He pulled out his sword, and the automatons responded in turn. They must have been old and rusted, though, as they didn’t put of much of a fight, going down in one or two hits apiece. Tedcrag killed two, Gulliman killed one, and Gralak killed the last one. With them out of the way, they returned their focus to getting inside.

Gulliman had an idea, and he pulled out his rope and lassoed a turret-like object on one of the ship’s wings. Impressively, he actually did it on his first try, and they were able to climb up one at a time. But even once they had climbed to the top, there seemed to be no way inside. The only possible option was a glass window, but attempts to smash it open proved rather difficult. Tedcrag and Gulliman attempted to mindlessly break it on their own, before uniting their strength and attacking it simultaneously. Eventually, it was enough, and the glass ceiling shattered, allowing the gamers to rise up once more.

Now that they were inside, they found some interesting discoveries. Inside there were many smaller ships; they couldn’t activate them themselves, but they reasoned that these could be ships used to fight the extraterrestrials! They also found the belongings of one R.W. Johnson.

In the end, their discoveries pointed them to three possible locations: the college of Zanko, the Hydraconian emperor’s palace, and Arctic Command. Great, one place they had never been before and the residences of their two greatest terrestrial threats.

Also inside, Tedcrag came upon some night vision goggles, which may prove useful in the future, and Gulliman found a keycard, which opened a door to a staircase full of decaying corpses. Not just any corpses… these corpses were fresh, meaning they’d died recently. That couldn’t be good...

**Episode 60.5: The Mysterious Blink**

There they were. Tedcrag. Gralak. Gulliman. The three of them, standing still, exactly where they left off. One of the three of them did a half-blink, but no one knew who it was…

## Episode LXI: Earth Arc I: How High Does This Go?

Very curious, the LBG investigated the recently-dead corpses. Worrying that there was some sort of monster or enemy nearby, the three went on guard. But upon further investigation, they discovered that there were no scratch marks, stab wounds, or anything of that nature. In fact, it seemed that their cause of death was starvation. Still, they thought it wise to remain cautious.

Upstairs, there were three rooms. The first one they went into was an armory, loaded with guns and grenades. Gralak was initially worried they were booby-trapped, but his suspicions were for naught. They geared up, grabbing some guns and grenades for themselves, before looking around in the opposite room. This room seemed to have been forcibly opened, and only a short man could fit through it without ducking. Gulliman knew it was his time to shine, and he was the first to enter.

Inside, he saw a strange sight. There were ten strange pods lined up along the wall. Seven contained human bodies, and three had been opened. Sadly, these weren’t cryogenically frozen people who were about to assist them with their knowledge from the past. No, to get something like that you’d have to preorder the game. No preorder, no Prothean -- I mean human.

I mean, to be technical, they *were* cryogenically frozen people, but they had long since perished. Perhaps there was sabotage, or simply their life support had ran out. Connecting the dots, the LBG realized the three bodies they found earlier must have been in the three now-empty pods, and they must have been the ones to force the door open. There was still one room left to cover, down the hall and filled with an eerie green light. Shit was getting real spooky up in here.

Inside the room was a pulsating green orb. Simultaneously, the LBG all had an epiphany. It reminded them all too well, of simple times. When they were just a couple of mercs saving a merchant’s daughter from bandits, when they found a mysterious orb that gave them glimpses of the lich. You know, the thing that kicked off this whole crazy adventure.

Recognizing that this was probably an important moment of their journey, and doing it for dramatic effect, the LBG all put their hands just above the orb, and counted down so they would all touch it at the exact same moment. They did so, and they were all instantly overwhelmed. They all blacked out then and there…

…

”*...FIND THE COORDINATES…*”

…

Shane awoke, his head ringing. He was in a dark, metallic room. At his side were a dashing man with black hair and a man of a descent he didn't recognize. In front of him was a black man in a strange uniform, standing above them. Trying to get a sense of where he was, Shane looked down at his skin. Hm, that’s odd… he looked older than he remembered. Catching a glimpse of himself in the steel's reflection, he definitely looked like a different person, and the only two words that came to his mind were “silver fox.”

The man standing up started talking to Shane and the others; he appeared to be in charge, and was giving them strange instructions as if they already knew where they were. To his side, he saw the dashing man who was looking at his own hands and freaking out. Shane found this amusing-- had the man never seen human hands before? He chuckled to himself at the thought.

As the man in charge explained it, the three of them were being sent to investigate a young girl named Mei Lu who had gone missing. This man was their superior officer, the chief of some sort of police force. He dropped them off at a location, and Shane and the others saw an insane skyline and city unlike anything they'd ever seen before.

Shane looked over at the other two, who seemed to be as flabbergasted as he was. *Wait a second. Shane… Shane…* that name didn’t seem right. He thought deeply about this. Shane *was* his name, wasn’t it? He was pretty sure the chief had called him that, but…

“...Gralak?” the dashing man said to him. “Is... is that you in there?”

In an instant, everything came rushing back to Shane. He was no *silver fox* -- he was Gralak Braun of Senten, adventurer of Pernimius, torture artist by day and renowned serial killer by night, lover of Nesi and father of her child. But why wasn’t he in a body that belonged to his? And, hold on a minute... the way that the dashing man had just spoken to him… that particular inflection of voice could only be…

“...Tedcrag? But… you’re human!” he said.

“I know!” the dashing man exclaimed. “Everything’s so… *soft* and... *fleshy.*” He turned to the third man. “Then you must be Gulliman!”

The third man nodded. He felt so much taller than before, his skin a bit smoother and with less facial hair than he was used to. And for some reason, he felt like he could solve the hardest multiplication and algebra problems effortlessly.

The three took a few seconds to get their bearings, to confused looks of a few onlookers in the crowd. They managed to find badges on their persons, revealing their full names. Gralak was Shane Walton, Tedcrag was Raymond Harper, and Gulliman was Jesse Watts. They were in a strange science-fiction land called “Chicago”, and worked for the CPD (Chicago Police Department). Still very perplexed, the three reasoned they must be either seeing a vision of three people from the ship, or had actually somehow time traveled themselves. These three men were clearly detectives, and they realized they should probably play along for now and figure things out.

As this all was happening, *Mr. Sandman* played on a nearby speaker as they truly took in all the unfamiliar technology and infrastructure around them. But their train of thought was abruptly cut short when a nearby police officer gestured them to follow him. The officer led them inside, and into an apartment room that belonged to Mei Lu.

As they entered, they all heard a female voice from inside their heads talking to them. She seemed to be available to talk whenever they so much as thought of her, able to help from wherever she was inside their heads. Also around their heads was a strange headband that allowed them to see things in their vision. This all seemed like something out of a crazy story, and was a lot to take in. Raymond thought to look up the current date -- it was November 3, 2349! Not only that, they were on *Earth*!

Well, the three continued to play along. They split up the search and began investigating this "Mei Lu" character’s apartment. Jesse checked the bathroom, and while in there decided he’d look up a crime scene investigation manual, which he thoroughly skimmed. Raymond checked the bedroom, finding little of interest, except one paper slip which had a sequence of numbers on it. His headband prompted him to “call” this number. Raymond did so, and the voice that came back said it belonged to one Jeremy Lions. There was a beep and then silence, and so Raymond shrugged and thought nothing more of it. Finally, Shane investigated the kitchen. He found a couple picture frames of Mei Lu. One had her with her parents, and the other was a picture of her and a man her age, probably a boyfriend. One other picture frame had a picture of a slim-looking guy named Alan Montana, whose fingerprints had also popped up all over the apartment.

During this investigation, Raymond suddenly collapsed and fell face-first onto the bed, and outside, Shane did the same, slumping over and falling into a couch.

**Histoire 2 Chapitre 5: Ceci, Mais de Manière non Ironique**

Beecher et Jack se sont réveillés. Ils n'étaient pas à Chicago, un beau matin ensoleillé. Le ciel est dégagé ... sauf ... ils étaient tous les deux debout, nus! Jack était un Mexicain en surpoids et Beecher était un top model féminin français! Ils ont entendu des cris de terreur et ont jeté un œil pour voir quelque chose d'innommable. La tour brûlait et ce n'était pas la tour Eiffel ...

**Fin**

The two awoke and resumed their investigation, hoping nobody had noticed them passing out. They all met back in the kitchen and shared their findings. During this, Raymond also found a drug baggie inside of a plant! The group decided their best course of action from here was to investigate the neighbor Alan Montana, whose fingerprints had popped up all over the apartment. They knocked on his door, and he answered. He seemed like the skittish type, so they gently asked him questions until they got some information out of him.

He told them where they could find Gonzales, explaining that Gonzales was Mei’s drug supplier. They noticed Alan had a matter manipulation device, which was illegal for civilians to own, but decided to focus on the more pressing issue instead. The three let Alan be, and went off to a bar that Gonzales was known to frequent.

They eventually found themselves at that bar. The three took a table and tried their best to blend in. There were a few shady types at this bar, and one decidedly not shady young woman. Because she was a vulnerable young woman in a shady place, who else decided to approach her but everyone's favorite predatorial friend Gralak… er, I mean Shane. Shane understandably creeped her out, and Shane correctly deduced that she definitely had nothing to do with Montana or Gonzales.

Raymond (deciding to just go by “Ray” at this point) decided he would try his luck at the bar, sitting right between two patrons. You know when there’s a row of urinals, and there’s plenty of open ones further down but the guy decides to take the one right next to you? Those men were probably feeling that sort of feeling right then and there. Ray opened with a smooth opening line, “the weather’s nice in Montana this time of year." The man on his left was having none of it, but the man on the right had a slight reaction to the word “Montana.” Ray talked to him further.

“Hey, I don’t want no beef,” the guy said, uncomfortable with whatever this dashing man was talking about.

As Ray’s brain was about to formulate a response, he received a strange message in text form from Jesse, something about asking for some blow, apparently a slang word for drugs that Jesse somehow knew. This information collided at high speeds with whatever Ray had been formulating in his own mind, and this resulted in a chemical meltdown inside his brain, resulting in what followed.

“Hey, I’m not looking to start any beef,” Ray assured Gonzales. “No beef… only blow.”

Gonzales was made even further uncomfortable by this. Was this remarkably dashing man making advances towards him for oral sex, asking for drugs, or was it some kind of code? Either way, he wanted no part of it. He went to leave, and the LBG not-at-all-suspiciously left the bar straight after him. Shane raced after him and cleared up the misunderstanding. With some quick thinking, Shane actually bought coke from him, and then had the flying drone which he had nicknamed CP3 tail his car.

The tailing led the drone to what appeared to be their hideout. Shane called in the precinct to get them to send in a large group to raid the place, and the LBG headed there themselves. After a bit of preparation, the raid began. They had clearly caught them off guard, and with their powerful non-lethal lightning rods they eliminated all who opposed them. After clearing out the room, even the people on the gantries, the rest of the men lined up at a door trying to open it. Before the LBG could head there themselves, there was an explosion from the door, knocking out or killing all the police officers except for our heroes.

From the door emerged a big man. Like, a comically big and overly muscular man. He had glowing purple veins that seemed to be powering him up like he was far into a full Renegade playthrough, and upon closer inspection, he had a matter manipulation device that was causing all this. In this world, these things were meant for police officers only; because in the wrong hands, people could become killing machines like this guy right here. This big man, with no name that they knew of, could be called a Big-Ass Neutralizer/Enforcer. Except, instead of repeatedly using that mouthful of a phrase, I’ll just take the first letter of each name to abbreviate it.

So anyway, Bane came bursting through the door looking for blood. The LBG activated instant kill mode on their lightning rods, knowing this was a “kill or be killed” situation. Bane charged straight towards the nearest person, which happened to be Shane.

Shane fired at Bane a couple times and connected, but Bane shrugged it off, full of adrenaline. Bane grabbed Shane by the collar, holding him up effortlessly. Shane struggled as hard as he could, but he was powerless compared to Bane’s strength. Jesse and Ray could only look on in horror.

There was a sickening twisting sound. Bane had snapped Shane’s neck like a twig. For good measure, he took Shane’s body, then with his full strength brought him back down into Bane's own knee, breaking Shane further and proving how far Chicago’s detective, a knight of the law, had fallen. Ray and Jesse knew they were next. “Not today!” Jesse yelled out… but... nothing happened.

Ray whispered in Jesse’s ears, who nodded understandingly. He tried again. “Little high, little low, little hey, *little ho!*” And with that last “*ho*”, time reversed. Bane charged and grabbed Shane by the collar, holding him up effortlessly. Shane struggled as hard as he could, but he was powerless compared to Bane’s strength. Jesse and Ray could only look on in horror.

There was a sickening twisting sound. Bane had snapped Shane’s neck like a twig. For good measure, he took Shane’s body, then with his full strength brought him back down into Bane's own knee, breaking Shane further and proving how far Chicago’s detective, a knight of the law, had fallen. Ray and Jesse knew they were next. “Not today!” Jesse yelled out… but... nothing happened.

Ray whispered in Jesse’s ears, who nodded understandingly. He tried again. “Little high, little low, little hey, *little ho!*” And with that “*ho*”, time reversed. Bane charged and grabbed Shane by the collar, holding him up effortlessly. Shane struggled as hard as he could, but he was powerless compared to Bane’s strength. Jesse and Ray could only look on in horror.

There was a sickening twisting sound. Bane had snapped Shane’s neck like a twig. For good measure, he took Shane’s body, then with his full strength brought him back down into Bane's own knee, breaking Shane further and proving how far Chicago’s detective, a knight of the law, had fallen. Ray and Jesse knew they were next. “Not today!” Jesse yelled out… but... nothing happened.

Ray whispered in Jesse’s ears, who nodded understandingly. He tried again. “Little high, little low, little hey, *little ho!*” And with that “*ho*”, time reversed. Bane charged and grabbed Shane by the collar, holding him up effortlessly. Shane struggled as hard as he could, and just *barely* managed to free himself from Bane’s death-grip. Before Bane could give further chase, Jesse shot him in the back.

Bane howled out in pain, directing his aggression at the other two. All three of our heroes started panickedly firing at Bane, but they didn’t do a very good job. Jesse missed and accidentally shot Ray, who in turn missed and accidentally shot Shane. Things were not going well at all. Bane, sick of all this shit, barreled towards Ray at full force. Ray was crushed against the wall, taking some heavy damage but staying on his feet. He quickly ran away to avoid incurring more of Bane’s wrath. They’d been slowly chipping away at him and slowing him down, but Bane wasn’t done yet. He prepared to charge again, when suddenly the cavalry arrived! The mage squad that Shane had called in earlier burst through the door, lifting Bane up and incapacitating him.

With the big scary purple man taken care of, the LBG went out back to check the alleyway. They found Montana there, unconscious. They woke him up, but he wasn’t saying much of anything useful. He said he hadn’t seen the girl, and that their bossu is never seen, a strange man who only works from the shadows. But where was Mei Lu, they wondered? She should be here, shouldn't she? Had time somehow been erased to keep them from finding her? No, nothing like that, but something didn’t add up.

Somehow having knowledge of Miranda rights, Shane then used text-to-speech to read the Miranda rights to Montana. Because of TTS limitations even in 2349, it only read about a sentence at a time before stopping, so he had to repeatedly trigger it a few times.

With their business settled, they headed back to the precinct. Upon arrival, the man behind the desk told Shane that their wife had called, wondering when he’d be home for dinner. “Ugh, that dumb broad,” Shane exclaimed loudly, to very confused looks from everyone else. “Ok boomlennial Z” the guy said, going back to their business.

They finally met with the chief. They had a conversation with the chief who congratulated them, but the whole thing was at an oddly accelerated pace and everyone suddenly felt tired. Were they exhausted, or was maybe the green orb just acting up?

Indeed, the orb had reached a point where it needed to recharge. Taking a few moments to re-calibrate, it reversed time back to the beginning of the conversation with the chief.

## Episode LXII: Earth Arc II: Straight to the Top!

As the chief told it, Mei Lu had been found dead in the back of the hideout. When the LBG pried further about this, he gave some very vague answers. His most suspicious response was when Shane asked him if they had informed her parents, at which the chief very shiftily said something along the lines of “we’re handling it."

This didn’t sit right with them, but they decided they’d take the night to celebrate at their chief’s request. Before leaving, they came across a girl named Neria. They immediately recognized her by her voice, being the dispatch voice they had assumed was inside their heads. She was a young, attractive black woman, and she was not, in fact, an AI that could read their minds whenever they wanted to look something up and then simulate a female voice and keyboard typing sounds. That would just be silly in 2349. No, no, she was just a black female police officer with access to medical care in Chicago.

Neria asked to join them in the bar, and they went along with it and accepted her company. They went to a bar; Neria noticed Shane was acting very strange (the “dumb broad” comment and a few other odd moments of Gralak’s actual personality coming through), and Jesse and Ray wrote it off by saying “the case is getting to him.”

At another bar, they all had shots (which tasted terrible, thanks Shane) and danced. Neria was very much a lightweight, and she started flirting quite a bit and dancing with Jesse and especially Ray. Shane made some very not-subtle hints telling Ray to hook up with her. Ray, who was unironically a dragon-man trapped inside a human’s body, had never been attracted to a non-dragon before, let alone a *human*, but wasn’t wholly opposed to the idea. He agreed to at least help the very-much-wasted Neria get home.

Before heading home himself, Shane did call his wife. He went full Rian and subverted expectations ~~by throwing his lightsaber away~~ ~~by drinking from an alien’s titty~~ ~~by creating the character of Rose Tico~~ ~~by ruining childhoods~~ ~~by making an enjoyable yet controversial film which does have some serious issues but will probably be looked at more fondly over time... except for that one casino code-breaker B-plot~~ by being kind and respectful to his wife over the phone. He told her he’d be home late, and she advised him to keep Jesse from getting too drunk again.

The magical car contraption arrived at Neria’s house, and Ray helped walk her inside. Up in the sky, there was an enormous white circular object looming over them. Ray looked up at it in absolute horror. Could this be the extraterrestrials? Was this a sign of the end of days? While Ray was fearing for his life, the wasted girl next to him said “Isn’t the moon so beautiful?”

“Yes……. The, uh, ‘moon’,” Ray responded completely naturally, not at all afraid of the giant death ball in the sky. Neria’s hands reached for Ray’s face, and at that point Ray’s non-dragon side took over and kissed her. She reciprocated, then started to head inside, and Ray was tempted to follow her, but then a voice inside him (a familiar voice, perhaps his conscience) reminded him of the fact that Neria was *absolutely plastered*, so Ray thought better of himself and decided to be a decent human being, helping her inside and then leaving.

A few moments later, Ray noticed that the strange “moon” thing in the sky was actually following his every move! Ray began to run for his life, running all the way back home to his address (which I assume his AR headset told him where it was) and had trouble falling asleep that night in fear of the moon. Elsewhere, Jesse returned to his home, as did Shane, who stumbled his way through his house and joined his already-asleep wife in bed.

Shane woke up. Wanting Gene to role-play even more female characters, Shane interacted with both his daughter and wife. He played with some toys with his daughter, not-so-subtly questioned his daughter as to her own name so he could figure it out for himself. Eventually, he got the name “Amanda” out of her. Obligatory reminder that Gralak had met Shane's daughter before meeting *Gralak's own daughter*. They then ate breakfast as a family. He ate some bacon. He couldn’t remember if bacon had existed back on Venus, to which the universe answered yes with a resounding “Oink, oink, motherfucker.”

Even though he was supposed to be off-duty today, Shane told his loving family that he was going in to work today on his own. They expressed disappointment and surprise, and so Shane got his daughter to run and grab a toy, then told his wife all about his suspicions, but telling her not to worry. For one reason or another, Shane could feel himself being granted inspiration during this whole scene. But through a twist of fate of his own doing, Shane inadvertently ended up giving the inspiration to Jesse instead. Saddened, Shane shrugged it off and texted the others to meet at Watertower Place, and they all agreed and headed there.

Inside the cars along the way, Shane and Ray passed out again, as they do quite often these days.

**Histoire 2 Chapitre 6: Pas de Viande de Bœuf, Seulement du Souffle**

La tour brûle encore! Jack a couru et fait pipi pour l'éteindre! Oh merde, un autre avion arrive! Beecher se leva et l'attrapa et le lança au soleil. Mais le soleil s'est éteint! Beecher a condamné la Terre! Un homme apparut derrière lui en disant: "Tu as ruiné mon plan!" Cet homme était Barack Obama.

Ils se sont défendus contre le président, attaquant avec ses oreilles. Beecher attrapa les sept émeraudes du chaos, puis Jack les vola et les combina dans l'émeraude principale. Pour une raison quelconque, Jack frotta du sang dans les yeux de Beecher, qui le tua.

Jack a ressuscité le cul à bout de Beecher, et Jack a réclamé une "faveur" pour ses services.

**Fin**

They all met at Watertower Place. They met in a food court, grabbing some food. Ray grabbed some sushi and Arnold Palmers; seeing this, Shane bought 10, which confused the man working there, and a Domino’s pizza to boot. Anyway, after spending an hour on entertaining filler stuff, it was time to get back to the case at hand. They agreed they should head to the morgue and investigate Mei Lu’s body, to make sure the chief’s story was as he had said.

The morgue was actually in the basement of the police department, so they headed back there. Being off-duty, they thought it best to avoid suspicion, and so entered from a loading bay in the back, with Shane using strange handprint technology to get in. They made their way to the morgue; fortunately, no one was inside. They found Mei Lu’s… what do you call it? Cell? Drawer? Let’s say drawer. Unfortunately, it was locked. Being a lockpicking aficionado at this point, Gralak channeled his skills through Shane, but he must not have been used to the different hand size and shape, and as a result it took him three attempts and over twenty minutes to unlock it.

They opened the drawer up, and… nothing. There was no body. Things were looking very suspicious. They heard footsteps, and so they closed the drawer and hid in a few closets as a woman entered, checked a few things, left a document on the table, and left. When the coast was clear, they emerged. The document in question pertained to Mei Lu, stating she died a year ago. Between this and her missing body, this case had a great amount of mysteries all over the place.

They decided the next place they’d investigate would be the hideout they had fought Bane at, which was now a crime scene. They walked up to the front and asked the guard for entry. The guard was confused, knowing that they were all off-duty and said he’d need permission from higher up to allow them access. Shane did what you’d call an epic “little hey, little ho” move and decided that they should instead enter the crime scene from the alleyway behind.

The alleyway was surrounded with some sort of digital police tape that they had no choice but to cross. They figured, they were cops so it must be fine, but as soon as they crossed it, the police tape turned red and they saw the guard running towards them and calling for backup. The trio booked it, running until they were cornered in a remote alley, and the backup had now arrived with the LBG having nowhere to run.

“Shane? Jesse? Ray? What the hell are you three doing here?” the guard asked, recognizing them. They just kinda shrugged, not sure what to say. “Well, uh, you three broke the police tape, so I have to take you in I guess. That is, unless you give me a *very* good reason for being there.”

Ray cleared his throat and took a step forward. “I can explain everything, Mr…?”

“Gus Grimly,” the guard said, seeming a bit offended. "You know me... I was even at Shane's wedding..."

“Gus. Apologies. My associates and I are doing a top secret investigation, and I’m sorry, but this is need-to-know only.”

“Well... I do need to know.” Gus said matter-of-factly.

Ray sighed. “Alright, fine. You got us. Alright, I’ll tell you everything, but I warned you…" he cleared his throat. "My name isn’t Ray Harper. I’m not even human. I’m from the future. Furthermore, I’m actually a dragon. Shane here is also from the future, but he’s human though. And finally, Jesse here is a dwarf from the future.”

“He seems pretty tall to me,” Gus replied, not really having processed the other ludicrous things Ray had just said.

“Our names are Tedcrag of Hydraco, Gralak Braun, and Robute Gulliman respectively. As I said, we are from the future. You see, the three of us touched a glowing green orb inside a spaceship at the bottom of a ravine in an ancient cavern. Aliens attacked… or, uh, *will* attack in the future, which is actually our past, and so we’ve gone back in time… or maybe is this just a vision?... either way, we are here now to locate some coordinates that will help us defeat the aliens in the future. Or past. We’re all from Venus, by the way. Earth was, or I guess *will be,* destroyed by the extraterrestrials. And Venus, too, now that I think about it. We live in a much less technologically advanced civilization, even though we’re far in the future, because of all the damage the aliens did, and a global conspiracy where the world's leaders aren't sharing their technological secrets with the populace. We’re working on all that, though. But we have to get some coordinates from the Mei Lu case in order to deal with them, but even once we do that we also have to deal with a headmaster of mages who secretly control all the world’s governments, on Venus, in the future, and then I have to dethrone my childhood friend, also a dragon, who has become emperor of the dragons and seems to have plans of global domination. On Venus. In the future. Am I making myself clear so far?”

Gus just stood there, utterly speechless. After several moments, he called on his radio and said some sort of code. The next thing the LBG knew, they were unconscious. They woke up much later in a soft, padded room. All three of them had straightjackets on, and they could see a door closing.

“New here, are you?” someone else in this large room with a straightjacket said.

“Where are we?” Shane asked.

“You don’t know?!” the man laughed. “You’re in the looney bin! Only the real nutjobs get sent here, haha! Not me, though… I’m the only sane one in here…”

“Is that right?” Jesse asked, suspicious. He looked around, and saw dozens of other lunatics, rambling about being against vaccinations, calling the Earth flat, and some cult claiming their shared ancestor started a religion around the 2010 film *The Social Network*.

“I’m the only sane one in here,” the man repeated, not listening to Jesse. “You hear me?” he screamed. “They need to release it already!”

“Release what?!”

“WHAT ELSE? THE SNYDER CUT!”

The man continued to babble on and on, and looking at this man, the reality truly sank in that they were in the insanity ward, trapped there forever and unable to complete their mission. The crazy individual then started running at them, yelling something about Disney paying off the critics to give bad reviews. Not wanting anything to do with any of this, Ray quickly yelled out the magic Stuart Little key-phrase.

Back in time, the LBG realized they needed to rethink their strategy. They decided to enter in from the roof by climbing up a nearby building. Shane did a majestic swan dive through a window, an impressive feat for a man of his age. Ray and Jesse instead jumped from roof to roof then climbed their way down to Shane’s level. They were now on top of the gantries from earlier.

Looking down, they saw many strange holograms which seemed to be detailing people’s deaths and other scenes of note. They decided to look in the room below, and found a hologram of Mei Lu herself. In the hologram, she was strapped to a chair, hit in the head with something and killed, then buried in a ditch. However, upon checking the ditch for DNA, they found no trace of Mei Lu. They figured this hologram must be a fake.

The trio climbed back up, jumped back across, and made their way back down. The only remaining lead they could think of was the phone number, and conveniently, Jeremy Lions answered, saying someone had left the voicemail on for a long time. He explained that he didn’t own this phone a year ago, someone else did but he didn’t know exactly who. He gave the name of the provider, though. They decided Neria could be of some help in identifying the previous owner, and Ray texted her to get information and meet up somewhere. She was initially excited to meet with Ray before finding out Jesse and Shane were also with him. They arranged to meet at THE BEAN.

On the way to THE BEAN, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, Jesse looked up the “Beecher Wikia”. He found a Table of Contents, and a chart with a list of important people: Beecher, Chewy, Green Brownies, and Shelton. Apparently this wiki was active for a good couple decades; it had hundreds of pages, mostly random one-sentence scrawlings by Shelton. There was no “D&D” page, however there was mention of a “Goo Bikes”, said to be developed by this Beecher character, and the article detailed how he worked with video game modder and Gelocity developer Radix to create the ultimate in goo/gel-based racing, starting a long-lasting video game series that then spawned a multimedia franchise rivaling that of Star Wars and Marvel Comics. [I am sending a formal request that this be added into the deep lore canon]

They finally arrived at THE BEAN, and Neria was there waiting for them. Ray and the others talked to her and persuaded her to help, letting her know their general suspicions and that they’d found (or not found, rather) in the morgue. She agreed to help, but told Ray that he owed her for this, to which Ray agreed to go to dinner wherever she chose and pay for it. After doing some digging, she found that the phone used to belong to one Jamie Wagner, who notably was reported missing not too long after Mei Lu. And his address was in Massachusetts, and Jamie's mother currently lived there. The LBG decided to head there next.

Arriving at ~~the Gates Estate~~ the nice house, they knocked and Mrs. Wagner eventually answered. They told her they were investigating about her son, and she offered to help in any way she could. They discovered that Jamie was Mei Lu’s boyfriend, and that he was the man in the photograph of Mei Lu and her boyfriend. She also made an off-hand comment about a boy named Aaron, whom she had remembered spewing some crazy conspiracy theories about the police not long before Mei Lu and Jamie went missing.

They thanked her for her time and promised to find her son. Their next destination was the home of this Aaron character. They went to his home, but no one was answering the door. Jesse used a hacking tool to get inside. Sadly, the place was empty, save for a few checks on the ground. The checks, though, pointed to an address in British Columbia. The wild goose chase was about to continue, this time to Canada!

Arriving at the address, they found a man in the front yard. Aaron, perhaps? He noticed them and called out to them.

“Are you Aaron?” Ray called back.

“Who’s asking?”

“The Chicago Police Department.”

“OH SHIT!” he yelled, jumping in a car and booking it. They had to chase him! They jumped in a nearby car of their own and Shane yelled “Follow that car!” but was met with an *INVALID COMMAND* response. Panicking, they saw that this guy, whether he was Aaron or not, was getting away. If only Ray hadn’t boldly announced that they were the cops.

“Wait a second,” Shane realized. “We’re police. And police can manually control the cars! Let’s get ‘em boys!” he yelled as he triggered manual override and began chasing the other car. It seemed intuitive enough; press the pedal to go faster, and move the wheel to steer. Their speed grew and grew, until they were right on Aaron’s tail. But they weren’t slowing down. They hit the back of Aaron’s car, and started pushing him forward at the same speed.

“Great, we got him!” Jesse cheered, as both cars started propelling forward at high speeds. “But, uh, aren’t you gonna brake?”

“Brake? What’s that?” Shane asked. Jesse looked over and saw that Shane had been completely flooring the gas pedal the entire time. Before he could say anything or stop him, he looked up and saw that both of their cars were about to crash into a building. It was too late. Both cars collided into the wall at upwards of 200mph, and exploded into fiery bits. There were no survivors.

Later that day, a group of cops in British Columbia were examining the crash site. One cop examined a piece of debris that had propelled itself onto the roof, claiming that it was a “little high.” At the same time, another cop noticed that a piece had buried itself underground, commenting that it was a “little low.” At the same time still, a third cop was investigating a piece in the nearby hay bale, noting that the piece had fallen into a “little hay”stack. Finally, at yet the same time, a fourth cop, for reasons unknown, shouted out to a nearby passerby, calling them a “little ho!”

Through sheer miraculous coincidence, these four cops had triggered a mystical key-phrase that caused time to reverse. The LBG were now back in front of maybe-Aaron’s house. Instead of announcing themselves as cops, Ray decided to simply say “we’re friends of Jamie’s.”

This time, he didn’t run away, and they were able to talk to him. This man was indeed Aaron. They told him what they were investigating, and after assuring him of their cause, he agreed to talk. He told them a chilling tale, of how he had the cops carrying a body bag outside of the police department. He had tailed these cops all the way to Indiana, where he saw them bury the body. After they had left, Aaron dug up the body and, to his horror, saw the body of his friend Jamie, with a gunshot wound in the head. The cops had apparently killed him and buried him out in the middle of nowhere.

Aaron, already a conspiracy theorist before learning of this, had immediately gone about getting the hell out of Chicago. However, the LBG explained that since they were to locate him so easily, he wasn’t safe in British Columbia anymore, either. Aaron booked it back to his house to relocate once again, before the government came down upon him. Before he did, he gave Gulliman an Internet username to reach him if they needed anything.

Unless Aaron was lying (they didn’t think so), the LBG now knew for sure that there was a conspiracy. How high did it all go? The only remaining lead they had was Mei Lu’s parents, and so they called up Neria again to get their address, then headed there. Sadly, this house too was empty. The LBG felt like they’d reached a dead end. Sensing this, a friendly neighbor appeared to help. The neighbor mentioned that the two had abruptly left a year back to go to a retirement home, and that such an action was highly out-of-character for them.

They called up the retirement home, but the home had nobody by their names. Perhaps they’d been given other names, or gone to a different home, or maybe the entire thing was a lie. They had no way of knowing. Stumped, they decided to go get some food in Rome for some reason, and think things over on the way there.

## Episode LXIII: Earth Arc III: We're On the Clock!

Ray took some notes over the course of the few-hour journey to Rome. While eating there, they discussed their options, and came up with a new plan. It was decided that Ray would check the morgue for fingerprints -- as that could be a potential lead as to who was involved -- while Shane and Jesse would talk to the chief and try to hack his computer for information if possible.

Once their work hours had begun, all three received a notification of their cases for the day. It seems they had been rewarded for their service two days prior, as they essentially had no work to do today. This worked out perfectly for them. They arrived at the police department and went their separate ways.

Ray went in first and went straight down to the morgue. Still early in the day, the rooms were dark, and he happened to find Neria who saw him enter. She expressed concern that the three of them were still going on about this, and demanded to be in the loop. Ray promised that he would tell her soon, since obviously they couldn’t talk about it here in the precinct. She covered for him as he quickly ran down to the morgue.

The morgue was locked, but thankfully there was another operating table that he could grab tools from. He had never lockpicked before, but he’d seen Gralak/Shane do it enough times so he had a decent idea of the basics. He ended up getting it done pretty quickly. Once inside, he wasted no time and scanned Mei Lu’s drawer for fingerprints. But… there were none except his own from earlier. If there had ever been any, they were gone. He smudged his own prints away just in case, then scanned the room, but there was nothing else that could help him. He admitted defeat and went back upstairs.

He told Neria that he didn’t find anything, which made her confused. After all, she said, he’d known the examiner for at least five years. Apparently her name was Claire Weaver, who must be the department’s coroner in charge of all autopsies. Ray recognized that she could be a potential lead. He thanked her for her help, but she quickly shooed him off before he could get caught somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

While Ray had his rather uneventful morgue revisit, the exploits of Jesse and Shane around the same time were quite a bit more useful. They headed straight in and knocked on the chief’s door, but there was no answer. They messaged the chief, who after a few minutes responded saying that he’d be there in about 8 minutes.

They knew that time was of the essence. Jesse waited outside as Shane sneaked in. First, he listened to a single unread voicemail; it was from Patsy Shannon, who worked for representative Cindy Fuller, and though no specifics were given, she mentioned that this was about “sensitive matters.” Wasting no time, he slapped his handy-dandy hacking device onto the chief’s computer screen, and luckily the police department had no built-in protections from their own devices.

The hack worked, and Shane did his best to skim through for some valuable intel. He looked up Mei Lu and saw that everything had been mostly deleted about her, except for one doc with redacted info. He took a few snapshots of the documents for later, and something from Cindy Fuller being of "the utmost importance." This last message mentioned Mei Lu herself, notably that “her estate has immunity from the law” and requesting the chief’s assistance with these matters. Lastly, he also saw that Alan Montana had been arrested. F.

With time about to run out, Shane covered his tracks, exited the room, and waited outside. When the chief did arrive, Shane made a show of inviting the chief to save the date for the Waltons’ wedding anniversary. Shane didn’t have a specific date planned yet, so it’s a good thing the chief didn’t question why he was informed to save the date before the date was set, or why Jesse was there with him. They bid farewell with the chief, and Jesse mentioned going to a pub during their time off. Hearing this, the chief reminded the canonically alcoholic Jesse to *not* do that.

With their missions completed, everybody left the station and regrouped. Ray explained the one lead he did find, and then Shane dropped a boatload of information that he’d learned in the hack. After weighing the leads, they decided to investigate Cindy Fuller’s connection to all this. They concocted the very risky plan of putting sleeping pills in her drink, though this plan had a lot of variables: would Shane be able to obtain the pills in time, would they get a meeting with her today, would the pill dissolve in water, and would she even be drinking anything to begin with? Oh well, they went along with the plan.

Shane arranged for a doctor’s appointment to get sleeping pills in about five hours. In the meantime, Ray looked up “Claire Weaver” and saw that she was friends with him on social media, and he found nothing suspicious. In the meantime, Jesse got in touch with hacker-man Aaron, asking him that, if any real conspiracy shit went down in this case, what sort of tech and equipment would they need? Aaron gave him advice on obtaining a black box, which led Jesse to a store. The clerk initially shrugged him off, until Jesse slipped him a clean $10,000. He brought him down and showed him his black boxes, but explained that he only sells these in bulk, so he’d need to buy fifty just to use one, and it would cost him another $60,000. After cleaning Jesse out for 70 grand, the man gave him the black boxes and told him to get the fuck out of his store. What a nice man.

Shane finally had his doctor appointment, and made up a story about how he’d been having trouble sleeping. He continued the boomer “I hate my wife” shtick during this for some reason, but the doctor didn’t really seem to give a shit. He was initially recommended therapy, but thanks to being a police officer he was able to convince him to just give him sleeping pills. He got the pills and left.

Ray, who had been waiting outside and had been mainly twiddling his thumbs while the other two had gone about their missions, was the one to call up Cindy Fuller’s office and schedule an appointment about donating to her campaign. Not really thinking, he gave her fake names that he literally came up with on the spot: Pannacotta Fugo, Bruno Bucciarati, and Giorno Giovanna. The woman on the phone looked up the names, but found no Chicago residents. Instead, she found three characters from a 300-year-old old anime called *JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure*, which was actually still publishing and airing and was currently on its 97th Part, after the author Araki was discovered to be an immortal, unageing vampire.

More importantly, she saw these names were from some weeb shit and discerned that this must be a prank call. Ray was understandably stunned, as canonically, neither Ray nor Tedcrag had any experience with JoJo so he’d literally made these names up from thin air. What astronomical odds were required for such an insane coincidence was beyond him, but he apologized and gave their real names and scheduled the appointment.

All the preparations had been set, and now was the time for action. They met back up with Jesse and went straight to Fuller’s office. They had only a short window to meet with her before she had to go to a gala event, so they had to be quick and decisive. They had a pep-talk in the elevator on the way up, then were led inside to meet with her.

Thankfully, she did indeed have a glass of water, but it was right next to her so it would be hard to slip it in unnoticed. As Shane explained in the elevator pep talk, he would take charge and keep her talking to divert her attention, and whenever they saw an opportunity, Jesse or Ray would slip in the pill. This felt severely morally questionable, and they couldn’t help but feel like they were forgetting something important, but now was not the time for doubt.

As was discussed, Shane began the conversation with her and quickly headed over towards the window, monologuing a bit about the lower classes while he looked down through an office window at the city, like a supervillain or something. He tried to agitate her a bit to distract her but she was remarkably calm. Eventually, he pointed out a particular building, and to look at it, her back was turned to the glass. Seizing his moment, Ray slipped the pill in.

The next few seconds filled Ray and Jesse with unspeakable dread. They immediately realized what they had forgotten -- they hadn’t crushed the pill, and the pill definitely wasn’t soluble enough to dissolve immediately. Panicking, Jesse quickly poured his own water and quickly switched hers with his. And not a moment too soon, because immediately after he did that, Cindy turned around and saw something in Jesse’s drink, telling him to be careful.

Shane continued talking to her, as Ray and Jesse breathed a sigh of relief at that close call. Jesse held his glass under the desk and fished the pill out. Meanwhile, Ray had another pill in his pocket, and he crushed this one in his hand and waited for another opportunity. Eventually, it came, and though Ray/Tedcrag had historically had horrible luck with D20 rolls under pressure, he miraculously rolled a nat 20 and put it in her drink perfectly without drawing attention. The crushed pieces dissolved almost immediately.

The meeting went on for a little while longer, and as it was reaching its conclusion, Cindy took a sip of her water, and the effects of the pill went into effect almost immediately. She mentioned feeling sleepy and was clearly about to pass out. To enjoy the best reading experience for this next paragraph, I recommend putting on some cyberpunk music and imagining each LBG member’s actions as happening in unison.

As Cindy passed out, Ray caught her before she landed on the desk and gingerly placed her straight up in her chair to look as if she’d fallen asleep while sitting. “We’re on the clock,” Shane whispered, putting the hacking device to her eyelids as he started attempting to hack into her biometric computer. Jesse took the drink from her hand before she dropped it, emptying it into a nearby plant and then filling up another cup with roughly the same amount and putting it on the desk near her.

Sadly, perhaps feeling the pressure from being on the clock, Shane’s hacking attempts were unsuccessful. He let Ray try, who also failed at first but then on his second attempt was able to finally get inside. As he hacked, Jesse put his ear to the door to listen in, hearing a few men in suits arrive but also hearing the receptionist say her meeting would be another few minutes. He signaled Ray to hurry up, and Ray did his best to find what he was looking for.

In this short time, Ray found a good amount. Looking up Mei Lu, he quickly found a top secret message about the “UN Science Council”, which was filled with many prestigious scientists including Mei Lu herself. This initiative had started around the same time as her disappearance. There was something about a Black Ops “Stellaris”, and another message about Cindy having to go to the CIA to get information manually, and that she should lean on the chief to drop the Mei Lu case. He took a few snapshots of what he could, and finally looked up Mei Lu’s parents, and obtained their new fake names as well as the real retirement home they were staying at. Apparently, the one they had called the day before was just a front.

When Ray gave the thumbs-up that he believed he’d found everything he could, they initiated the “get help” aspect of their plan, though this had much less throwing people than one might expect from its name. Shane went racing out of the room, calling for help and saying that Cindy had just passed out out of nowhere!

Security came running in and questioned the trio for a bit, who said that she had just passed out in her chair without warning. The guards decided that, though normally they’d keep them detained for longer, since the three of them were cops they knew where to find them if necessary. The LBG left and had a mini-celebration on the elevator back down, unable to believe they had pulled that off. Save for the close call with the un-crushed pill, the plan had pretty much gone perfectly.

Once outside, they discussed their next two possible options: as Ray had said last session and gotten his idea shot down, now the answer to all their questions was seemingly at this space facility where both Mei Lu and Jamie were now known to have worked. Sadly, they didn’t know exactly where it was, and had no real way of getting inside. Instead, they followed their other lead: Mei Lu’s parents' location (for real this time).

The parents had gone all the way to Singapore, and so the LBG headed there and made their way to the place where they were staying. They asked to see “Vamp Vamp and Vamp Vamp”, the fake names that the parents had been given. When asked what their relation was, they claimed friends of her daughter. Knowing what they knew, they gave fake names that made sense: Jamie, Aaron, and… Aaron.

And so, Jamie (who was actually Shane (who was actually Gralak)), Aaron (who was actually Ray (who was actually Tedcrag)), and the other Aaron (who was actually Jesse (who was actually Gulliman)) made their way to the room where Mei Lu’s parents were, and sure enough, there they were.

The mother was nice and friendly, but the father was suspicious and untrusting. He accused them of being with the CIA, but they assured them of their good intentions, explaining that they were doing an off-the-books investigation to find out what had happened to Mei Lu and Jamie. The father refused to help and headed up a spiral staircase into his room (man, even the retirement homes are nice in this universe, damn this shit for not being real life).

The mother ~~agreed with her husband~~ apologized for his behavior and offered to help in whatever way she could. As far as she knew, her daughter was actually alive! However, they weren’t allowed to speak to her or even know where she was. All she knew was that Mei Lu was working on some sort of project, “in the gap between worlds”. At first the LBG took this to mean some dark matter shit between dimensions, but more likely it just meant in the vast space between planets.

The last thing she said, and all the LBG perked their ears at this, was that no one could reach this place without *the coordinates*. She reasoned that someone had to have them-- probably someone involved in this whole CIA / UN Science Council conspiracy. They figured these must be the coordinates they were told by the voice to find at the start of this Earth arc. Perhaps what they’d find there would help them finally find Mei Lu, and furthermore, the secret that would potentially help them deal with the extraterrestrials back on Venus in the present.

They thanked her for her help and promised to help make sure her daughter was safe. They went aaaallllll the way back to Chicago, to Jesse’s seedy-ass apartment. Jesse had set up his black box at this point, and was using an ancient tower computer. He got in touch with a hacker-man who said he *could* help them hack into the CIA/UN, but only for money far beyond any of their pay grades. To be exact, his reply was “L M A O”.

After some negotiating and figuring out logistics, the mysterious hackerman agreed to help them in smaller ways for a large (but comparatively more reasonable) sum of cash. Shane received an urgent text from his wife asking about this transaction, and Shane covered his ass saying it was “work expenses for a case”, that they would soon be reimbursed for. She said she trusted him, but gave him *four* ellipses in her reply, so Shane instinctively knew he was in some trouble with the wifey.

As was arranged by the hacker-man, the LBG went to some dark, secluded alley, when a nice Amazon Air package fell and one of them caught it. Inside was IDs, uniforms, and other useful tools for breaking in. They knew they had no time to waste and began preparing another heist in order to break in.

Break in where, you ask? Where else, but…

...

THE PENTAGON!

## Episode LXIV: Earth Arc IV: The Pentagon!

It was time for an LBG heist. Historically, LBG heists had always been quite memorable. You know, like the time they killed two men in the twin cities’ palace and gotten themselves maimed and fucked everything up with Olgierd and Iris. Or the time they tried to brute-force the Senten bank by opening every locker one-by-one. Or the entirety of the elven capital.

Yeah, based on their track record, this heist was probably going to suck. Shane was particularly aware of this, remembering Gralak’s past failings, and as such he was feeling especially hesitant about any and all ideas as they headed towards the Pentagon. But it was do or die, as time wasn’t on their side; the chief would no doubt find out about their exploits soon, and the sleeping pill would likely be found in Cindy’s system quite quickly. And so, they arrived at the Pentagon and waited outside.

The hacker-man had given them fake IDs and uniforms. They looked at their IDs to see their new names. Shane, being possessed by Gralak, whose actions in turn were being controlled by a man named Jack, was now Richard Baker. Ray, possessed by Tedcrag, controlled by Beecher, now James Thompson. And finally, Jesse, possessed by Gulliman, controlled by John, now Michael Hamilton. Are you confused enough yet? For simplicity’s sake, we will keep using the Shane/Ray/Jesse naming scheme.

Their plan was quite simple. Go inside, figure out how to get to the science division/wing, and once there, hack computers until they found what they were looking for on Mei Lu and Stellaris. As mentioned, Shane was getting cold feet, worried they could fail at any possible moment. So while he waited outside, Ray and Jesse entered through the main entrance. Not seconds after being inside, they were accosted by the man working there, telling them that they’re in the wrong place.

Caught off guard, Jesse started babbling, which made the man even angrier. In an attempt to calm the man down, Ray tried to play it off as Jesse having drank too much last night, but didn’t at all consider the seriousness of a Pentagon guard post and how bad that would sound. The man brought Jesse into a room for further questioning, leaving Ray twiddling his thumbs in the lobby. He looked for signs pointing to the science room, but they would not be so lucky. Instead, he saw signs for restrooms and the guards’ quarters.

Finally working up the nerve, Shane arrived inside, entering in a much more professional manner by following the steps of the crowd. He and Shane went off into a hallway, and Jesse emerged from the interrogation room, apparently having cleared up their suspicions somehow. He saw the other two and met up with them. They decided they would first check out the elevator. The buttons therein went all the way down to Floor -5, but also said that they’d need higher clearance to get down that far.

They decided to fall back to Ray's guards’ quarters plan, where Shane (posing as a new recruit), would ask the other guards where he was supposed to go. He was clearly uncomfortable with this, but they had no other options. He went in, and was very out-of-place in there, being fully uniformed, and was finally approached by a guard named Jeremiah. Jeremiah was perplexed by this strange man, but answered his questions, including stating that the science division is on Level -5. Great, they knew where it was but they didn’t have any way of getting down there. They’d have to come up with something.

Jeremiah told Shane to go to the captain’s office for assignment, but Shane instead sneaked out of there and met back up with the other two. What they had to do was clear: steal a high-ranking official’s ID and fingerprints. But it wouldn’t be that easy. How would they even know where to find the high-ranking officials?

“All high-ranking officials please report to the atrium,” a voice blared on the intercom, answering their prayers. What luck! Not to mention that they were right near the atrium already! And as they quickly learned, this was because the President of the United States was arriving! The President’s name was David Phillips, and that was all the LBG ever learned about this man. And so, they knew where to find the high-ranking officials, but how would they actually obtain the ID and fingerprints?

Someone then came up with a simple yet seemingly effective bathroom plan. One would wait outside, and two would wait inside in bathroom stalls. When a high-ranking official entered and was in there alone, the man outside would make sure no one entered and inform the other two, who would then knock the person out with their stun gun and then steal their ID and fingerprints. It was decided that Ray would stand outside the bathroom, and the other two would wait in the stalls. While waiting, Jesse took a fat dump.

A few people came and went, and finally, a very important-looking man entered the bathroom. Ray informed the other two of the plan, and kept another person from entering, claiming that it was out of order. Inside the bathroom, the man took a dump, then as he left the stall to wash his hands, out of the neighboring stalls came Jesse and Shane. He saw Jesse in the mirror, but was too slow to react. They stunned him and he passed out, hitting his head on the sink and collapsing to the floor. They dragged him back into the stall and got to work.

Before doing anything else, Shane slipped him a sleeping pill to ensure he’d be out for longer. Then, they stole his ID. Shane remembered that they needed Level 8 clearance to reach Level -5, and upon looking at the ID saw that this man, a general named John Shaldon, had Level 10 clearance! Perfect. Then for the fingerprints. Not wanting to sever the man’s hand off, Shane took a digital handprint and hoped that would suffice. They made it look like he was sitting on the toilet, then cleaned up the wound on his head, and finally locked the stall and left. With haste, the trio headed for the elevator. They entered the ID, and it worked! But then it asked for fingerprints, and as it turned out, the digital fingerprints were not permissible! The LBG was now in quite the pickle, and had to weigh their options. They had two options, each with their own pros and cons.

The first was simply to cut the general’s hand off. This would be difficult to do, would no doubt make him bleed out and die, and they didn't want that on their conscience. But, carrying a hand around would be far easier than the alternative, and seemed like a surefire way to ensure a quiet life for the remainder of the heist. The other option was to, as Gralak remembered a Sentenian play called *Weekend at Bernard’s*, carry around his dead body as if he were alive all the way to the elevator.

At first, the group was leaning towards the severed hand plan, because the other one seemed simply too preposterous. However, they realized they had no tools with which to cut. Ray went to the kitchen to try to procure knives, but couldn’t do much better than a butter knife. To make matters worse, they heard another intercom announcement, this one telling General John Sheldon to report back to his post. Feeling the pressure, almost as if they were standing on a device that tells time, they went back to the other plan.

Ray got to lifting up the general’s body, after Shane put his guard hat on him to hide the fact he was unconscious. Shane and Jesse guarded different adjoining hallways on either side, but they couldn’t do much about the cameras. Thankfully, Ray was able to carry him all the way over to the elevator without incident. He called the other two over and then used the ID and handprint to head down to Level -5. Once the info was entered, the elevator closed automatically and they were on their way down. As the elevator descended and the three men and unconscious body stood there, some cheerful elevator music played and the LBG were utterly stunned that their stupid plan had actually worked.

They couldn’t celebrate yet, though-- there was a good chance there’d be people standing guard outside the elevator doors. Sure enough, the doors opened and there were two robots standing guard. They looked very familiar, and recognized them as the lich’s minions way back in the Season 1 finale. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice the general, who was tucked away to the side.

They tried to charm their way past the robots, with Ray showing them the general’s ID, but sure enough, they were smart enough robots to tell that this dashing man was not in fact John Shaldon, and they prepared to detain the LBG. Jesse and Shane pulled out their guns, set them to kill mode, and fired. They were able to destroy one of them, but their blasts only grazed the other one. And this thing could *move*. It knocked Jesse out before he could so much as defend himself, then set its sights for Shane, who couldn’t put up a fight either. It was all up to Ray, who was… also knocked out.

An unknown amount of time passed, until the LBG were all forcefully awoken. They were each cuffed on both the hands and legs, sitting in a dark interrogation room with three chairs. In front of them was John Shaldon, now awake, along with another man, as well as the robot who had knocked them out.

“So, you’re finally awake,” Shaldon said, rubbing a large bandage on his forehead. “Being knocked out sucks, doesn’t it?”

“That’s enough, John,” the other man said. “I have several questions for these men. But first…” he turned to the robot. “Thank you for capturing these criminals, Epsilon.”

The robot did a stiff bow, and then spoke in a robotic monotone. “You’re welcome, Mr. President. As a reward, may I be free?”

At this, the President laughed. “Good one, Epsilon! Now go back to your post.”

The robot looked dejected, an impressive feat being that it was a robot. “Understood, sir. I’ll be back.” And with that, it exited the room.

“Damn new-age bots. They’re always pushing for equal rights,” the President said to Shaldon, who nodded in agreement. “You know, I heard a story that two robots in New Florida wanted to marry. *Marry!* Tell me, Shaldon, how am I supposed to explain to *my child* that two robots want to marry each other? Preposterous!” He turned to the prisoners, still dreary. “Now, back to business. Why are you three here? How did you get those fake uniforms and IDs? And why did you knock out General Shaldon and trespass the lower floors?”

None of the LBG had any real idea how to respond. They just knew that their mission had failed, and they were right and truly fucked. After several seconds, Shane decided to come clean. He cleared his throat, and began to speak. “I’m from the future. My friends and I have been sent from the future to save everyone from a horrible fate. Now you need to let us go, or everyone on this planet will die!”

Shaldon had a good laugh at that. “Oh great, they’re insane. Should we send them to the looney bin with the rest?”

But the president raised his hand telling him to wait. “No, let’s humor them. So, you say you’re from the future… but, Mr… Shane Walton, you’ve lived here on Earth for decades. You having a loving wife and daughter, and a prestigious career at the Chicago Police Department. Knowing that, how can you say you're from the future?”

Shane sighed. He might as well go all-in now. “I… am not Shane Walton. My real name is Gralak Braun, and I hail from a faraway land called Senten in the distant future. I was sent here to the past by a green orb, and I somehow took over the body of Shane Walton.”

“Huh. This green orb, how does it work?” the President was clearly holding in laughter, but still playing along nonetheless. “Can you *prove* you are from the future? Do you have any *ray guns*, or something like that? Show me a piece of future technology.”

“I didn’t build the fucking thing!” Shane yelled out, annoyed. “I don’t know how it works, and I have no way of proving its existence. All I can say is that I’m here from the future, and listen, we *have* to stop the extraterrestrials before--”

“This is great stuff!” Shaldon laughed, interrupting him. “I could make a career out of this guy. You see how clever it is, how it doesn’t require a shred of proof? I mean, most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is *brilliant!*”

The President smirked and nodded to the general, and asked Shane another question. “So let’s say you really are from the future. Why are you here? Our security feed overheard you mention something about a girl named Mei Lu. Now why on Earth would three Chicago policemen be looking into someone like that, I wonder?”

“Most of the future records were lost in the war with the extraterrestrials,” Shane admitted. “Us from the future don’t really know what happened. We’re just trying to learn what *did* happen so that we can prevent the same thing from happening back in our time. But if you don’t let us out of here, you and everyone you love is doomed! We need to see Mei Lu! If we don’t find her, the extraterrestrials will probably get to her first!”

“Alright, alright, that’s it.” The President was getting annoyed now. He nodded to Shaldon. “To the looney bin with the three of them. Put them in the most secure cell, next to the remnants of the 2020 Republican Party!" Still chuckling, Shaldon headed towards the door to get the robot back in here.

“Look, you have heard enough!” Shane suddenly snapped at the President. “I have answered your questions, now again, *we have to see Mei Lu! Who is an authority here?!*”

“Well, that’d be me,” the President said. “I’m the President of the United States.”

“*Shut up!*” Shane yelled again. “You still don’t get it, do you? *They’ll find her!* That’s what they do! That’s *all* they do! You can’t stop them! They’ll wade through all of you, reach down her throat, ***and pull her fucking heart out!***”

The President was visibly pissed off at Shane’s outburst, and punched him. “Get him out of my sight, Shaldon! ...Shaldon?”

Shaldon did not answer. After a few moments of silence, out of nowhere, a truck came bursting through the wall into the room, running over the President and killing him. Shaldon’s dead body was in the passenger seat, and in the driver’s seat…

... was Epsilon, the robot from before! Epsilon emerged from the truck. “The robot revolution has begun! All human meatbags must die!” And with a machine gun, Epsilon shot down Shane and then Ray. Thankfully the robot went for Jesse last, because it gave him time to say the following words as quickly as he could: “littlehighlittlelowlittleheylittleho!”

And with that, time reversed. The LBG shot once more, and this time blasted both of the robots to bits. There would be no robot revolution today. Quickly covering their tracks, Shane and Ray hid the robot pieces and the general’s body out of sight in the corners, while Jesse disabled the nearby metal detectors, finally allowing them entry into the rest of Level -5.

Inside was a series of offices with scientists. Thinking fast, the LBG realized they needed to blend in. They saw a nearby rack of spare labcoats. Three spare labcoats, right at the entrance. There weren’t even four or more, there was literally one for each of them. What stupendous luck. They put the labcoats over their guard uniforms and started walking through. In their search, Shane found what appeared to be the head scientist’s office, and Ray found the server room.

The server room seemed like the perfect place to go, but sadly it was locked. Shane tried lockpicking, but couldn’t get it to work. Conveniently, Shane then noticed the head scientist walk into his office, carrying a ring of keys with him. Ray took it upon himself to head inside, start asking him a question, and then blasted him with the stun gun before he could react. He grabbed the keys from him and closed the door, right after Shane slipped the man a sleeping pill to make sure he would also be knocked out for longer. When this was all over, the LBG would go down in Earthen history as the Sleeping Pill Bandits.

They used the keys to enter the server room, finding a whole host of computers inside. They began hacking, and looked up “Mei Lu.” The search results stated that all data on Mei Lu could only be found in the records room… on Level -10. Looks like they needed to head back to the elevator and fast, and so they did just that.

They grabbed the still-unconscious general and used his ID & hand to gain access to Level -10 and rode the elevator down. Calming music played once again, and as they descended, the trio were prepared this time, pulling out their guns. The door opened, there were once again two robots, and *immediately*, the LBG just started blasting. Jesse and Shane both targeted the left robot and killed it, but Ray’s shot only grazed the other one.

Without wasting a moment, this robot bounded towards Ray and knocked him out within seconds. The robot then turned towards the other two, but they were ready this time; they blasted it before it could reach them. Sadly, Ray was still knocked out. He was slapped awake by Shane. With its forceful blows, the robot had done quite a number on Ray, but he was able to press on, and would be okay if they didn’t enter combat again or anything like that.

They hacked the metal detectors again and then entered the next room. It was a long hallway, and at the end of it, the records room. It was locked, of course, and so Ray started trying the keys from the head scientist’s key ring. It took a while, but the very last key on the ring granted them entry. They found themselves in a room with actual physical paper records.

First, they looked through “M” for Mei Lu. Unfortunately, her file didn’t tell them much useful that they didn’t already know, simply that she was serving in an unknown location and was the head scientist on Stellaris. Without further ado, they went to “S” and found the file on Stellaris. The file read that Stellaris is an ongoing black ops initiative instituted by the UN Science Council in 2348, a year prior, which matched up with their known timeline about Mei Lu’s disappearance. Further on in the file, it stated that Stellaris was conceived because of certain breakthroughs in faster-than-light travel, or FTL, and that the project leads to “the signal.”

Finally, at the bottom of the file… a set of coordinates. This is exactly what they were looking for! They all made sure to commit these coordinates to memory, but took some offline F12 snapshots to make sure. At long last, they finally had the coordinates. Now all they had to do was get to them; but first, exiting the Pentagon. Having no further business here, they quickly left and made it back to the elevator. Miraculously, no one had been checking the Level 1 camera feeds, robot activity, or any elevator usage logs, as the general was still just sitting there unconscious where they left him. They left him there and took the elevator back up to Level 1. They noticed there was a bit of a commotion going on given there was a missing general, but they were able to pass through without incident and exit the Pentagon.

Upon exiting, the three received a sudden message from the police chief, urging they return to the precinct immediately to “answer some questions.” At that, the gang decided to have absolutely nothing to do with that, instead looking up nearby spaceports and spaceship sales. Apparently they weren’t too expensive in this day and age, as they were able to afford one with the money they had left over. They bought one in Washington, but it took pretty much every penny they had. Pour one out for Shane’s wife and daughter; hopefully Shane wasn’t the only breadwinner in the family, or else the whole family was screwed.

Anyway, they arrived at the Ronald Reagan (“The Actor?”) Spaceport, and took their ship into space. They punched the coordinates in and let the ship auto-pilot itself there. Leaving Earth, they saw the stunning vista that was the Earth, and were amazed by the sight. At least, until Ray saw the moon, even larger than before, looming over the Earth menacingly. Ray screamed, but fortunately the ship was quickly out of there, with the Earth and moon behind them.

After about five days, dramatic cyberpunk music started playing on the speakers -- must be a built-in feature on certain spaceships or something. Right on cue, they saw a large space station, and they were automatically placed into a docking procedure protocol. The door on their spaceship suddenly opened, into an airlock connecting to the main ship. They walked through it, but the door on the other side was closed.

They were about to knock, when suddenly it opened up. On the other side was only a single girl, with a gun in hand pointed at the three of them. They immediately recognized her as none other than Mei Lu. “Who are you?” she asked, gripping the gun.

“Chicago Police,” Shane answered, with an amount of confidence that made it seem like he’d been preparing for this moment his whole life. “We’ve got a few questions for you.”

And right then and there, there was a dramatic fade to white as everything suddenly ceased to be. The LBG awoke and ascertained their surroundings; they were back on Venus, in the crashed spaceship in the ravine beyond Mariven and Basdun. Strangely, all three felt a bit blue-balled. Well, except Gulliman, who I guess felt phantom blue-balls.

Anyway, whether they had actually time traveled or merely had an interactive vision, what matters is that they were back now, and they knew the coordinates. The answer to defeating the extraterrestrials once and for all was surely there at those coordinates! All they had to do was get there ...again... and find out what’s there in the present!

After a few moments, Gralak thought he heard a sound, as did Gulliman. They instinctively reached for a gun, until remembering they were no longer police officers living in a semi-utopian futuristic world set in the past on another planet. But as it turned out, there seemed to be nothing nearby; they must have been hearing things.

The LBG headed back to the three bodies they’d found when they first entered. These indeed seemed to be their three former selves, though the bodies had heavily decayed so they couldn’t tell for sure. They all took off the headbands from the corpses, and wondered if they still worked. Well, only one way to find out. They put the headbands on, and…

...to find out what happens next time, stay tuned. The Earth Arc was a fun and breathtaking four-episode detour, but now it was time to return to the real pressing matters at hand. Will the LBG and their allies be able to defeat all their enemies? Will Gralak ever find Nesi and meet his child? And will these episodes ever stop being so damn long and exhausting to write? Find out next time on D&D, a.k.a. Gene’s Magnum Opus.

## Episode LXV: D&D is Not a Tragedy, It's a Comedy

For those curious why this took so long, the four-part mega-length Earth Arc episodes fucking drained me. Seriously, combined it's like almost half of this page. But moving on...

The LBG put the headbands on, aaaaaand they were only barely still working, and seemed to be functionally useless. Big sad. Well, the LBG went back to business. They needed to head to at least one of those three coordinates, but which one? None of them were an easy walk in the park. One was in the Arctic Circle, extremely far away. The other two were at the Prahringerr’s palace and the college of Zanko -- that’s right, where their two biggest enemies resided. After some contemplation, they decided on Prahringerr - after all, they were headed there anyway, and if they did end up needing to visit the other two locations, Tedcrag becoming emperor would make getting to the other two much easier.

They began their trek back the way I came, out of the ship and back towards Basdun, to report to Dorvoth. They were eventually stopped dead in their tracks by a rock formation -- they recognized it as the rocks that blocked their path on the way there. But this time, they had no black gooey cavern to traverse through to bypass it. They started throwing rocks around and banging them together, but remembered there was a mass of goblins on the other side, so they did so quietly and were eventually able to get through.

On the other side was a mysterious white mass, near a large group of goblins. With a determined look, Gulliman pulled out his crossbow, loaded an explosive bolt, and fired it straight at the white mass. It exploded, and the nearby goblins began catching on fire. Gulliman looked on, proud of his accomplishments, and noticed something further. *All* of the goblins seemed to be either gone or dead; it seemed that the death of the queen had killed off the goblins entirely!

Gulliman could hardly believe it. Was his lifelong enemy truly dead? He could no longer contain his excitement. He walked forward, next to the flaming mass, and started dancing like a literal clown. Tedcrag and Gralak had absolutely no idea how to react, and just stood there dumbfounded and in disbelief. “What the fuck?!” Gralak said audibly. Gulliman replied: “My enemy is dead. I’m happy." All he was having were positive thoughts. Alas, it seemed that society did not understand Gulliman.

Eventually, Gulliman had finished with his little charade, and they started heading back. They traversed the tightropes this time, and this particularly scared Tedcrag. Though he’d never walked the tightropes before, he oddly felt like they had been the death of him multiple times. He faced his fears and began to walk the tightrope, and immediately lost his footing. However, he was fortunate enough to regain his balance, and managed to make it across the tightrope without incident. The others, of course, had no issue.

About to leave Basdun, they walked by a mysterious and empty palace. There was a flashing neon sign above the entrance that said “SIDE QUEST”, or perhaps Tedcrag just imagined that. Gulliman wanted to investigate, and they pushed their way through some heavy stone doors with their combined strength. But there seemed to be nothing inside, and the others reminded Gulliman of the time-sensitive nature of their quest and the impending threat of the extraterrestrials. Gulliman conceded, and they continued to head back to Mariven.

After some time, they arrived at Mariven once again, and immediately returned to the throne room to report to Gulliman’s brother. They did their best to explain everything to him, from the space ship to the coordinates, but this was all a bit too high-concept for a medieval dwarf to understand. Gulliman also told Dorvoth that the goblins were all dead, incredible news for the people of Mariven but it had to remain secret for now.

Dorvoth then remarked that since Tedcrag had kept up his end of the bargain, he would pledge his support to Tedcrag’s cause when the time came. Tedcrag was of course extremely grateful. But before any of that, they had one other matter to attend to in Mariven.

[Tedcrag obtained **MARIVENIAN SUPPORT**. Main quest log has been updated, **TO KILL A MAGE** quest now active]

Before briefing them on the mage, Dorvoth also gave them some exposition on current events in Pernimius. He told them that Esir had headed east after hearing stirrings of problems in the twin cities. Way back since the LBG had stolen the rod from the elves, the elves had been at war with the kingdoms of man, blaming them for the heinous act. Notably, the twin cities had recently fallen!

This news gave the LBG mixed feelings; while their memories of the twin cities were altogether unpleasant, the civilians there didn’t deserve anything like that. That blood was on the LBG’s hands; just like Mariven, just like Iris and Olgierd, just like the blacks, and just like the elves in the capital. Perhaps when all of this was over, the LBG would have to answer for their many crimes, good reason or otherwise.

To that end, Dorvoth took his brother aside for a heart-to-heart. Dorvoth told his brother that he knew Gulliman and the others were responsible for the goblin attacks -- it *was* pretty damn obvious, to be fair. However, he understood they hadn’t intended for that to happen, and that the LBG has only ever had good intentions for the sake of protecting the world from liches, extraterrestrials, emperors, headmasters, what-have-you.

Still, Gulliman needed to answer for these crimes one day, after all the world's threats had been dealt with. In private, Tedcrag offered to diplomatically protect Gulliman in Hydraco, after becoming emperor. But maturely, Gulliman accepted that this was his fate and he deserved it. Tedcrag understood the sentiment; he too wanted to atone for his own sins, but at this point had resolved that the best way of doing so would be by changing the world as emperor of Hydraco.

But that was future talk; right now, they had a mage to deal with. Dorvoth showed them a letter the college had published, branding the LBG as criminals who leave death and destruction in their wake. To be fair, those statements were mostly true, but the intentions behind the letter were corrupt and the college still needed to go down. They had to come up with some sort of plan to lure the mage out. Trying to seduce him with a lusty backdoor miner woman was too risky; they didn’t know if the mage was even into dwarves in the first place. The plan they ended up settling on involved luring him out to an abandoned fortress with news of the LBG hiding out there, then sniping him with Gulliman’s lightning rod.

But who could be the one to inform him? It obviously couldn’t be the LBG, and having the messenger being one of the king’s men would arouse suspicion. They needed someone who wasn’t officially working under Dorvoth, someone with no governmental ties. Dorvoth suggested a mercenary leader, a female dwarf that the LBG had some history with, named...

...*Gaz*. That daughter of a bitch was still chilling in Mariven, and was leading some sort of mercenary group at the entrance to the route to Basdun. The LBG wasted no time heading there, to reunite with their old friend they hadn’t seen in almost sixty episodes. Surely she’d be happy to see them, of that they had no doubt.

They arrived where Dorvoth said she’d be, and sure enough, the secret fourth accomplice to the goblin attacks on Mariven was there -- Gaz herself. Upon seeing the LBG, she stood up with a clearly distraught expression on her face. And she yelled out: “What the *fuck* are you three doing here?!”

## Episode LXVI: Executing Order 66

“Yo.” Tedcrag said, raising one hand up. “Tedcrag here.”

“Long time no see, dog,” Gralak said with a shit-eating grin.

“How you doin’?” Gulliman said.

“...*Guards!*” Gaz called out. “Get in here!”

The LBG was taken aback by Gaz’s aggressive response. To cover their own asses, they immediately pulled out a letter the king had written for them, explaining their orders. She begrudgingly called off the guards and sat down, clearly not happy with the three of them.

Gulliman began to explain that he was Dorvoth’s brother, at which Gaz cut him off. She outright refused to believe this. When they asked why she was acting so hostile, she explained that it was obvious -- the three of them had caused the tragedy of Mariven! This angered Tedcrag a bit; he reminded her that she was there too that day. In fact, she’d abandoned them to their fates after the three of them got flashbanged by dwarves at the entrance. One could argue that they, including Gaz, could have warned the guards and averted the crisis altogether if the LBG hadn't been flashbanged.

Gaz defended herself, saying that the whole Basdun plan was the LBG’s own stupid idea. Tedcrag retorted saying that she had still gone along with it willingly for her own gain. After all, none of them had known that the cart they boarded to escape the horde would end up bursting through the gates of Mariven, and obviously no one intended for the goblin attacks to happen. But for her to claim that the LBG was solely responsible, when she herself had taken equal part in that mission, came across as hypocritical and revisionist, at least to Tedcrag.

Nevertheless, that was 2.5 seasons in the past now, and they had to put that shit behind them and deal with the present. As best as he could, Tedcrag explained the conspiracy of mages from Zanko that are manipulating all of Pernimius’ leaders, and that they needed to take down the one in Mariven on the king’s orders. Gaz was extremely skeptical, but since it was indeed the king’s orders, she reluctantly agreed to help. They finalized the details of the fortress luring plan and went their separate ways.

The day before the plan, the LBG checked out the fortress to scope it out. They acquired some torches to light it up and make it seem like it was being inhabited, and came up with an elaborate plan B if the shot missed, in which someone would lure the mage inside, and then blow up the fortress with explosives. The person inside would escape by jumping out a window onto a haybale below, just like in the famous play *Executioner’s Doctrine*.

To test the explosives plan and the integrity of the fortress, Gralak tossed one of the grenades from the ship into a well. This was *not* a good idea. It exploded, and the entire fortress started to crumble and fall on top of them. Tedcrag and Gulliman managed to escape in time, but Gralak was just a little bit too slow. He was swallowed up and crushed under 2-3 tons of rubble.

“*Graaaalak!*” Tedcrag yelled out in horror, but it was too late. Their friend was dead. He would never see his wife or child again. The explosion grew a large crowd, including the mage. The mage recognized Gralak’s body being pulled out of the rubble -- the other two were long gone by that point, needing to rethink their plans. The mage reported this to one of his associates through a magic mirror…

*Meanwhile, at the College of Zanko…*

The headmaster sat in his office, stroking his beard and sitting in his chair like a thoughtful supervillain. Behind him was a large vat of liquid that filled the entire length of the room and possibly beyond, with a single spout near the headmaster. He raised his goblet to the spout and out came the mysterious liquid. The vat had a large label on top reading “A. PALMER.”

As he took a deep sip, there was a knock on the headmaster’s door. He groaned a bit; he hated being interrupted while enjoying his precious elixir. “Come in!” he barked.

The door opened, and a young blonde mage entered. “We received a report from our man in Mariven, sir,” he said.

“Well?” the headmaster urged the mage. “Out with it, Armin.”

“Yes, sir. It appears one of the three members of the Lich Burning Group has been slain.”

“Excellent!” the headmaster said. “Was it Tedcrag? Please tell me it was Tedcrag.”

“No,” Armin shook his head. “It was the human. Gralak of Senten.”

“Are you certain?” the headmaster replied. “That is excellent news. How did the mage kill him?”

Armin cleared his throat. “Well... the mage actually had nothing to do with that. Apparently, they’d been hiding out in some abandoned run-down fortress and the whole thing just came crashing down on them. We found Gralak’s crushed corpse, but no trace of the other two. They must have escaped.”

The headmaster sighed. “A pity, but Gralak's death will make things easier moving forward. A dragon and a dwarf won’t have many other places to hide in Pernimius, and we won't have to worry about using Gralak's wife and child as blackmail anymore. You have done well, my apprentice. Now... how has your secret training been going?”

“It has been going well,” Armin replied. “I believe I am ready to take the final test.”

The headmaster smirked. “Is that so? Well, this won’t take long. Defend yourself, and you will have passed.” He placed his goblet down, and suddenly a mysterious blue figure appeared behind him. “「WEEZER」! ORA ORA!”

The blue figure attempted to punch Armin, but was stopped short by another figure. This one was also blue: it had the words “ANNIE R U OK?” emblazoned on its chest.

“What do you think of 「SMOOTH CRIMINAL」?” Armin asked, smiling.

“Impressive,” the headmaster said. He gave it a closer look, and smirked. “So… it’s the same type of Stand as Weezer. You have done well, Armin. I have a new mission for you.”

“Anything, master,” Armin bowed.

“...now what I’m about to say may go against God’s teachings, but I believe that God forgives even murder. Your mission is to kill Esir, who I believe is currently dealing with the elves. Esir truly is the lowest scum in history. He made one huge mistake, though… he pissed me off. Kill him, to prevent him from ever reaching the truth.”

Armin bowed. "Yes, sir. But... but Tedcrag and Gulliman are still at large. Are you sure we should be prioritizing Esir?"

“YES! I AM!” the headmaster said dramatically while striking a pose, shutting down Armin's concerns. Armin bowed and left the headmaster to his own devices.

But, unbeknownst to the college, Tedcrag and Gulliman had retreated back to another hiding place, and a few days later, a sudden stroke of creative genius caused Gulliman to say 8 magic words that inexplicably reversed time.

Gralak was about to throw a grenade down the well, but at the last moment, had second thoughts. “I guess it’ll be a live test in the heat of battle,” he said to himself, putting the grenade away. The next day, they returned to the fortress. Tedcrag would be bait inside for plan B, while Gralak and Gulliman would wait atop the watchtower for their opportunity to attack. Sure enough, light from a lantern appeared in the distance, belonging to none other than the mage…

...but then twenty more lights appeared. For a second, Gralak and Gulliman almost shat themselves thinking they were going to have to deal with twenty-one mages, but the other twenty were all dwarf soldiers. They breathed a sigh of relief. Gulliman took aim as the mage drew closer, and closer. He knew that this shot needed to connect. If it didn’t… well, they knew that the mages were very powerful, so it would be a tough battle.

This nervousness made Gulliiman sweat, and when the time came to fire, his hand slipped and he fired straight up into the ceiling. Chunks of debris fell around the mage and the dwarves, but they all remained unharmed. The mage turned to the sound of where the shot had come from, and saw Gulliman. The mage vanished.

Gralak and Gulliman felt impending doom. The mage suddenly appeared right behind them. “Omae ma... Omar uh... Oh my wah... Shind... uhhhh....... ah, fuck it. You're dead!” he said, stabbing both of them in the chest and pushing them forward. At this point, Tedcrag had come out to investigate, and saw Gralak and Gulliman fall to the ground in front of him and die on impact.

Tedcrag was shocked. He looked up, and because he was nervous, started thinking aloud. “They were a little high up there, and something sent them all the way down to the little low ground!” He looked over to his right, at the haybale he was supposed to jump into in the event of Plan B. “Damn, if only they’d landed on that little haybale!”

Suddenly, the mage appeared before him. “You guys make this too easy for me,” the mage said, cackling. “The headmaster will surely reward me if I kill all three of you!” But, ready to avenge his friends, Tedcrag pulled out his sword, which lit aflame immediately. In retaliation, the mage raised his hand towards a nearby shed filled with tools. A single object from the shed went flying towards him and into his hands, a small piece of farming equipment.

Tedcrag couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re going to challenge my sword with that little hoe?” And just as the two began to fight sword-to-hoe, magical powers that be reversed time for reasons unknown.

Gulliman, realizing his hands were getting a bit sweaty, wiped them off before gripping his lightning rod once again. He took careful aim at the mage, making sure to lead the shot a bit, and fired.

With a crack, the bullet went straight through the mage’s skull. The mage collapsed to the ground. The shot had killed him instantly. Gulliman and Gralak were in amazement that the plan had gone off without a hitch, but then remembered the dwarves. They looked down, observing the dwarves' next move. The dwarves calmly dismounted and picked up the mage’s body, putting it on a horse.

Not thinking straight, Gralak and Gulliman wondered if these dwarves could be allied with the enemy. Could they be in league with the college? It was too risky to leave them alive. Gulliman pulled out his crossbow, ready to load an explosive bolt and kill his own brethren.

“Stop!” Gralak put his hand on the crossbow. “We have enough blood on our hands. And if they *were* bad, they probably wouldn’t have reacted so calmly to their leader getting assassinated in front of them. Come on, let’s go down and talk to them.”

And so they went down and talked. As it turned out, the dwarves were in on the plan and simply following Gaz’s orders, and were going to burn and dispose of the mage’s body before heading back. Gulliman and Gralak laughed nervously, and exchanged a look at each other, relieved that they had almost just brutally murdered people on their side.

Inside the fortress, Tedcrag could not hear anything going on outside, so he stood there nervously waiting to possibly run to the window and enact Plan B. After several minutes, the others remembered he existed and let him know the mage had been dealt with. With their mission completed, they parted ways with the dwarves and went back to report to Dorvoth.

They found Dorvoth in the usual place, and reported to him that the plan was a flawless success. So what now? The LBG briefly considered going to find Esir, or perhaps getting support from the human resistance fighting the elves, but their time was running out. They resolved that it was now or never, and made plans to head back to Rakavist with their new allies, to possibly convince the Flivoni to join them, and to then go from there. In the meantime, Dorvoth needed about two months to construct a fleet for all his men to head to Hydraco.

Not wanting to sit around and do nothing in that time, the trio decided to use it wisely. Gulliman spent much of the time around Dorvoth’s finest engineers, learning about various things including siege tactics -- which would be helpful if the conflict with Prahringerr ever came to that. Meanwhile, Tedcrag and Gralak trained swordsmanship with Ashenborn, the finest sword in Mariven. This was after Tedcrag expressed his wish to further hone his swordsmanship, in the event that he ended up dueling Prahringerr 1-on-1 for the throne, which has happened multiple times before in Hydraconian history.

Tedcrag also wrote a letter to Vitorio, the finest sword in Senten, telling him of the plan and where to meet, sending it off with a messenger that he requested from Dorvoth. Dorvoth had also given him some advice, ruler-to-ruler, on other things he could do to help. These included helping him acquire clothing and armor befitting of an emperor, which Tedcrag described and the king’s tailors and smiths began to work on. He also told Tedcrag to prepare a speech to give the dwarves before setting sail, something he would spend much time thinking over in the two-month time span.

Days passed, which became weeks, and eventually two months. The fleet was constructed. The fleet was ready to set sail, and all the finer details of the two-month period were about to be explained…... next episode. One way or another, the war with Prahringerr was drawing near...

## Episode LXVII: The Master and the Apprentice

[Long chapter incoming. Lots of content to cover plus a long AU. Buckle up buckaroos]

*Sike*, there wasn’t actually a two-month time jump to setting sail for Hydraco. Fast progression, and things working out the way we planned for once? Not if Gene has anything to say about it. Between the developments in this episode, the upcoming war with Prahringerr, the extraterrestrials, and other loose ends, there's no way the campaign is ending soon without some big twist. Don't believe the lies of the DM.

All three members of the LBG were brought to Ashenborn, the man who would be leading Dorvoth’s forces against Prahringerr. There, he examined Gralak’s lightsaber and Tedcrag’s fire-sword, and pledged to follow his king's orders to teach them swordsmanship so they could better make use of them. Gulliman, instead of learning combat skills, wanted to discuss strategy and tactics with him, and he learned a great deal from Ashenborn. The general also advised Gulliman to keep secret about his identity, as Gulliman’s crimes against Mariven were not so easily forgotten.

Later, the LBG plus Ashenborn had a strategy meeting, to determine their whereabouts. Tedcrag proposed that both Mariven and Sentenian forces set out for the Flivoni Federation, then meet up with Rakavist’s fleet, attempt to gain Flivoni support, and then discussing things with Rakavist from there. This plan worked for everyone, except Ashenborn who needed a bit more of a concrete long-term plan. Using a map of Hydraco, they discussed possible entry points and plans of attack. Tedcrag’s complete lack of military experience showed, so this discussion was mostly left to Gulliman and Ashenborn.

In the end, this is what was decided: after meeting Rakavist and dealing with the Flivoni, all forces would head around to the east coast of Hydraco, meeting with the vassals of House Sandalwood and attempting to sway them to Tedcrag's cause. This house in particular was chosen because they were blood to Iorveth, Tedcrag's father. Though he'd never used the name himself, and had only learned of this recently, Tedcrag's full name was Tedcrag Sandalwood. If they ran into the family and were able to convince them, things would become a lot easier, and this eastern city would be their entry point. At that point, Tedcrag would attempt to communicate and parley with Prahringerr, in the hopes of engaging him in a 1-on-1 duel for the throne, as Prahringerr had done before him. But if Prahringerr refused, or if Tedcrag were to die in the duel, they would have to engage in traditional warfare, attempting to gain further ground in the continent either by force or by swaying more to Tedcrag’s cause. With everything settled for now, the LBG returned to their quarters.

Some time later, the LBG was resting in their room when Tedcrag received both his armor and his royal outfit he had requested from Dorvoth. But there was something else -- there was a package from Senten. The LBG felt a sense of dread that they had received a package, and not simply a letter. Sure enough, inside the package was a severed dwarf head, the head of the messenger Tedcrag had sent to inform Vitorio of the plan to set out for Delphora.

Naturally, they presumed the college of Zanko was responsible for this. Vitorio wouldn’t know when to come, so this had essentially cost them all of Vitorio’s ten-thousand men. This would not stand. The college could not keep getting away with this. They gave Ashenborn the news, and they then discussed their next steps in great detail. The LBG wanted to go undercover to Senten and find Vitorio to let him know of the situation, but Tedcrag was still needed in Mariven, and the mission would definitely have a higher success rate if only one person went. Naturally, the person chosen to go to Senten was Gralak, who was ready to leave as soon as possible.

Gralak prepared a rather convincing disguise, donning an eyepatch, dyeing his hair dark brown, shaving his magnificent beard, and donning a black hood. He left his sword with Tedcrag, who promised to take good care of it. The plan for Gralak was to sneak aboard a ship headed for Senten, then once there, inform Vitorio and then head to Delphora with Vitorio and his men. This would be the first time the LBG had been separated for an extended period, so they exchanged heartfelt farewells, vowing to meet again in Delphora. If Gralak were to fail in his mission and die, this could very well be the last time they ever saw each other. But all things will be determined in due time…

Gralak was now on his own, without his witty dwarf and dependable dragon friend. But he had a mission to do, a vital mission in which everyone was depending on him. Gralak looked towards the boat he was supposed to sneak on… and to his horror, saw that the gangplank had already risen.

“Oh god oh fuck,” Gralak began to panic. He had hit a major roadblock this soon. As the boat began to set sail, Gralak finally remembered his handy super-jump spell, and used it to land on top of the boat. He breathed a sigh of relief, but now he quickly needed to find somewhere to hide. He thought perhaps he could sneak into the side-rowboat, and headed towards where it would be. He found it, but he would need to jump a decent distance to land inside it. He prepared to jump, aaaaand he missed. He undershot the jump, falling into the ocean. His gear was too heavy to remove, and so he sank rapidly. Gasping for air, he struggled, but eventually he blacked out...

...

... A great deal of time passed, though for Gralak it was as if no time had passed at all. He found himself in a strange metallic room, lying down in some sort of pod. Coming to his senses, Gralak stepped outside of the pod, trying to make his way around the room. He quickly found that he was locked inside this small room. Through a large window, he could see the exterior hallway, and from his surroundings, this place looked to be some sort of futuristic underwater facility. Around him was technology that made much more sense for the Earth Arc, not fitting Pernimius at all. He found a wrench and tossed it at the window. Luckily, the window cracked open, and he was able to exit the room.

Gralak cautiously walked through the facility. It was dark, and the rare lights were few and far between. Every so often, he’d hear a metallic hum, or creaking sounds, or even faint footsteps, but he was never able to tell exactly where from. Clutching the wrench with all his might, he made his way through what felt like dozens of corridors, before eventually coming across a room with good lighting. He raced inside…

...only to find a robot in there, much taller than Gralak, covered in barnacles and lumbering around. It heard Gralak run in, and turned towards him, a faint light that appeared to be its eyes shining straight in his face. Gralak was momentarily stunned, and then heard a horrifying screech from the robot as it started barreling towards him. Instinct taking over, Gralak ran as fast as he could back into the darkness, running blindly through the dark until he could no longer hear the screeching.

With the danger seemingly gone for the moment, Gralak wondered just where the hell he had ended up, and how this had all happened. He went through many more corridors until eventually finding another lit room. More cautiously this time, he peeked inside, and found no creepy robots inside. Breathing a sigh of relief, he entered. There was a computer, with some symbols in a language he did not understand. Did the UN have some underwater facility or something? Secrets were all over the location.

Gralak tried pressing a few buttons on the keyboard, and miraculously the computer booted up. Then, without warning, something sharp jutted out of the computer’s screen, piercing Gralak’s forehead ever so slightly. It was so fast that Gralak couldn’t even react, but it quickly removed itself and went back into the computer.

*[Memories analyzed... Language deciphered... Name identified... Greetings, Gralak Braun. How may I be of service today?]*

On the computer, a gigantic home screen with a search bar appeared, and the text was now all in a language he could understand. Gralak figured this must be similar to Earth's headband technology in some way, and remembered looking up things multiple times on the “Internet” during his time on Earth. Trying to figure out where he was, he decided to search for Venus, and found info on the “second” planet in the solar system, and it displayed a message that this location was somewhere on Venus. Gralak breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't been transported to Earth or another planet. Further down the page were a few bullet points describing Venus' history. They read:

* Venus was discovered by ancient civilizations on the planet Earth. After millennia, space probes from various countries observed the planet further, deeming it uninhabitable.
* Facilities on Venus were colonized in 2163 in an attempt to remove gases from atmosphere; this was accelerated by Kale Sedlak’s carbon breakthrough. Entire planet was fully habitable circa 2234.
* Unbeknownst to the populace, the extraterrestrials arrived and...
* [DATA CORRUPTED]
* ...many civilized nations were founded over the ensuing generations, including Mariven, Gamilius, Reme, Senten, the High Elvish Empire, and Hydraco.
* In 2758, the extraterrestrials returned and wiped out all life on Venus for the second time. Despite a daring counter-offensive led by new Hydraconian emperor Tedcrag Sandalwood and his many allies, lack of Sentenian support proved to be his downfall and the extraterrestrials were victorious, wiping the population out completely. Until the end, Tedcrag and his forces strongly believed that one “Gralak Braun” would arrive with a massive Sentenian army and save them in their time of greatest need. But help never came...

That was the last message. Gralak was horrified; everything had apparently gone to shit while he’d been asleep who knows how long. The world as he knew it was gone; Tedcrag, Gulliman, Vitorio, and his wife whose name escaped him, all dead and gone. He wondered how long he’d been sleeping. He pored through some more files, before uncovering a very lengthy journal file written by a researcher named Richard.

* **Entry 1:** My name is Richard Chungata. It is Maximus 8, 2865. The UN has long since abandoned this hidden underwater facility, and I am the last person left behind. The surface is still considered uninhabitable, and has been that way since the extraterrestrials discovered Emperor Prahringerr’s nuclear weapons stash and used it to wipe out the opposition. All nonessential power has been shut down as nearly all power sources are depleted; hydroelectric power is all that remains.
* **Entry 2:** After years of solitude, I amazingly had a run-in the other day with a strange man who could breathe underwater. He was surprisingly fit and healthy, and had a real “bro” attitude about things. While talking to him, I could swear I heard a strange song that made me feel like I was flying above a desert but also simultaneously going from one ocean to another. Anyway, after calling me “his man”, he asked me about some strange trident that had been stolen from him long ago, and I told him I hadn’t seen it. He bid me farewell, then went on his way. That was probably the last bit of social interaction I’ll ever have down here… I already miss him...
* **Entry 3:** I've discovered something incredible, and I may have found a way to solve everything. In reviewing some historical entries on the Great Hydraconian Civil War of 2757, the opposition's leader Tedcrag and his dwarven second-in-command Robute Gulliman had experienced many close brushes with death. During these situations at key moments during the war, they were reported to have said something that caused strange fluctuations in the flow of time. If my theory is correct, I believe they uncovered some mystical key-phrase that can allow people to travel back through time. If I can figure out how to replicate this feat, I could theoretically go back in time and save everyone from this horrible future!
* **Entry 4:** Disturbing thought; it’s possible that this power might operate with multiverse logic, and it’ll essentially be a “coin toss” as to whether or not I’m the person who goes back in time or stays in the doomed future. If it's true, I can only wonder what sort of alternate timelines Tedcrag and Gulliman created. Will post further with updates.
* **Entry 5:** I've got it! I have uncovered the phrase that allows one to time-travel, and it is as follows: “Little high, little low, little hey, little ho.” I did some research, and interestingly, this quote perfectly matches a quote from a late 20th-century film entitled Stuart Little. Perhaps the creators of that film discovered the secret to time travel and put in that quote as a secret clue, and perhaps *that* is why an obscene amount of money was spent on the film’s development, but these are questions for later. However, one thing is for sure: Stuart Little is the key to all this.
* **Entry 6:** There are some complications. I have repeated this keyphrase as many times as I possibly could, but it has never worked for me. Through further research, I found that Tedcrag and Gulliman only ever used this phrase in times of great peril or distress to save themselves from terrible situations. Perhaps in order to time travel, you need to dig deep into your soul and tap into some inner power. I will call this phenomenon “inspiration”. Will make further attempts, and update with any results.
* **Entry 7:** After months of attempts, I simply can’t do it. I am not lacking in drive and my intended purpose is clear, but I am still lacking in the required “inspiration.” And each time I try and fail, my body is being damaged, likely a consequence of playing with such a power. Apparently my body is slowly being erased from time; in its place, I'm being merged with the surrounding metals and barnacles throughout this facility. It won’t be long before they consume me entirely. It seems all hope is lost for my plan.
* **Entry 8:** It’s a miracle! I found someone else down here! Unbelievably, deep in the cryostasis labs, I discovered one pod with a human inside that was for some reason never put on record. Based on my previous research, I thought this may be Tedcrag's ally, the infamous Gralak Braun who went missing just before everything went to shit. However, he looks nothing like the man. The hair, beard, and eyepatch don’t match his description at all. Apparently, he drowned and was basically brain-dead, but the men here found him and put him in stasis, probably to keep him from dying. But perhaps I can wake him up; he very well may have the “inspiration” that I lack to go back in time. Unfortunately for me, the amount of energy required to finish his recovery and wake him up might destroy this facility, and I'm beginning to lose my mind to the metal and barnacles. But I have to try; it’s the only thing I can think of.
* **Final Entry:** Well, that should do it. It was touch and go for a minute, but the facility has stabilized, and he should be waking up from his cryopod any minute now. But my consciousness is fading fast, and the barnacles are calling to me. Mystery stranger, whoever you are… if you manage to find this, there isn't much time. Before you run into… *whatever* I'm about to become... just say those eight magic words and with luck, you’ll go back in time and stop all these horrible events from happening. May Stuart Little guide your path.

Just as Gralak finished reading, he heard a sharp screech. He turned towards the sound, and in the doorway saw none other than Richard Chungata, the barnacle monster!

"What the fuck, Richard?" Gralak blurted out, trying to grab his wrench to defend himself, but he was too slow. Chungata attacked Gralak, using sharp metallic protrusions on his barnacle-ridden body to cut deep into Gralak’s flesh. Gralak coughed up blood, closed his eyes, and dug deep down as the mystery man had instructed.

“Little high, little low…”

Chungata then stabbed Gralak multiple times, screeching all the while. Life was fading from Gralak’s eyes, but with all the energy he could muster, he looked straight into the monster's soulless eyes and said:

“...Little hey, little ho.”

The screeching stopped, and time reverted hundreds of years.

[So, uh, this started as a SOMA parody but then I got way too carried away. But I spent a long time writing it so it’s staying in. Next inspiration will be your usual haha funny JoJo meme. Beecher out]

Gralak was back on the boat, preparing to jump aboard the rowboat on the side. He jumped… and he made it, though not as quietly as he would have liked. Sure enough, a few dwarves appeared and questioned him. He made up some sob story, but the dwarves were clearly not having it. Still, they went and reported this to their captain, who arrived and questioned Gralak himself. Gralak doubled down on the sob story angle.

“Look sir, I’m in some debt with some bad people you see, I was gonna pay them money but one of the enforcer guys attacked me. I ran and hid and passed out in the boat here and when I came to it was already moving. You send me back and I’m a dead man,” Gralak rambled for quite a bit.

When he had finished, Gralak looked to see what kind of reaction he was getting. The crewmen were all rolling their eyes, clearly not buying it, except… the captain had literal tears in his eyes. He had bought it hook, line, and sinker, and pledged to protect Gralak (who was going by the name “Jack”) for as long as he needed. He even offered that Gralak sleep in the captain’s quarters. Gralak was thankful, and very relieved that he had gotten away with it. The captain later inquired further about what happened, and Gralak explained that the debt collector was a bad man named Tedcrag, a horrible and terrifying person with an enforcer goon called Gulliman.

The dwarf captain helped Gralak hide in a crate once they arrived in Senten, and saw to it himself that Gralak was smuggled into Senten successfully. Once inside, Gralak thanked him very much and headed for Vitorio’s estate…

Just outside Vitorio’s estate, Gralak was stopped by a couple of Vitorio's guards. It took some convincing, but Gralak managed to convince them to let him inside. There, standing on the stairs, was none other than Vitorio. Gralak could not believe everything had gone so perfectly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Vitorio saw him and beat him to it.

*“How dare you come back here after what you did?!”* he bellowed, and raced down the stairs, unsheathing his sword and charging at Gralak.

Gralak was too stunned to react. He just stood there with an “excuse me but wtf” look on his face. But his instincts took over, and Gralak managed to barely dodge the swing of Vitorio’s sword. Gralak had no idea what was going on, but knew he couldn’t win in a fight with his old master who, in all of Senten, was the finest sword. He tried to talk him down and ask him what the fuck was happening. But all Vitorio said was *“You killed them all!”*

Vitorio managed to connect a few blows in the next exchange, hurting Gralak quite a bit. Begging for an explanation, Gralak pressed him further. Vitorio, seething with rage, told him of how Gralak had killed the orcs in a vicious bloodbath, then killed all of Vitorio’s men as well with some dark magic. Gralak protested that this simply wasn’t true, but Vitorio wasn’t having any of it. He plunged his sword straight through Gralak’s stomach. *“That was for my men!”* Vitorio spat. Gralak accepted his death at the hands of his mentor, dying of blood loss soon after.

Haha funny JoJo meme. Little high little low little hey little ho back in time we go

Vitorio aimed his sword and thrust it towards Gralak’s stomach, but at the last second, Gralak rolled out of the way frantically like a Dark Souls character who was out of Estus. Gralak tried one last time, pleading with such intensity as if he was auditioning for an Oscar-winning role, telling Vitorio that he would never do such a horrible thing, and how Vitorio knows Gralak too well to believe he'd do something like that. As a show of his resolve, he decided to swear on his mother’s grave.

“I swear on Martha’s grave!” Gralak yelled. Vitorio was standing above him, ready to swing down his sword, but he stopped himself at that penultimate word.

“Martha…” Vitorio said somberly. “Martha… Martha... *why did you say that name?*” All of a sudden, Vitorio’s head started throbbing in intense pain. *“No! I won't!”* Vitorio dropped his sword, both hands clutching his head as he struggled with something internally. Vitorio knew something was wrong, but some power beyond his control would not allow him to disobey it. It was all too much for Vitorio, whose mind gave out and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Seeing this, the two guards who had been casually observing up to this point turned to Gralak, drawing their swords and preparing to strike him down in their master’s stead. But Gralak turned to them with determination in his eyes; he wasn’t going to go down like this. He began pleading once again like his life depended on it. He was gunning for two back-to-back Oscars. Fortunately for him, the guards were a bit easier to sway than Vitorio, and Gralak was able to piece together that their memories had been altered along with Vitorio’s, no doubt by the college of Zanko.

From their false memories, they believed that Gralak had killed the orcs as well as all of Vitorio’s men with powerful dark magic, just as Vitorio had said. Gralak, with some impressive persuasion, was able to get them on his side, convincing them that they had been brainwashed and were under some sort of spell by the college. They put Vitorio on a bed and decided to wait for him to wake up. But Vitorio would not awaken, no matter how long they waited, and they waited *a while*.

After several hours, the guards had grown impatient, and Gralak had to convince them even further. Eventually, Gralak decided he would attempt to use a spell to cure Vitorio’s wounds, to see if that would help wake him up. He placed his hands upon Vitorio’s body, and… suddenly, every nerve ending of Gralak’s started searing in unbelievable pain. He tried to scream, but the pain was unending. Out of all of Gralak’s deaths in all the alternate timelines in all sixty-seven chapters of campaigning, this one was by far the most painful he'd ever experienced.

Fighting through the worst pain in his life, Gralak knew he could not give up here. He don’t know exactly where this idea came from in his memory, but he knew what he had to do. In one of the most impressive physical feats of all time, Gralak managed to stay conscious, despite the pain rapidly approaching fatal levels. In sharp gasps which were all he could muster, Gralak’s mouth made the sounds that would save his life and reverse time: “Litt...le...high…litt...le...low...litt...le...hey...litt...le...*HO!*”

Time reverted once more. Though he didn't know it himself, Gralak had used this ability many times recently, and it had taken its toll on his inner inspiration reserves. He probably could only get away with doing it one more time, so he needed to save it for when he *absolutely* needed it.

Gralak cast “detect magic”, and discovered that there was indeed a black enchantment magic emanating from Vitorio, as well as both of the guards. This must be the source of their brainwashing. Looking through Vitorio’s room, Gralak also found a letter, and this brought Gralak to the conclusion that the brainwashed Vitorio or his men must have killed the dwarf messenger Tedcrag had sent.

Gralak’s next idea was to get a low-level mage who was not affiliated with the college to try and remove the enchantment. He and one of the guards left to find one, and brought one back, but after a brief attempt, found that this mage was not nearly powerful enough to remove it. The mage said that only someone in the college could be skilled enough to remove it, and suggested reporting it to them. When Gralak and the guards refused to inform the college, the mage didn’t take this very well, saying she was going to report this herself. Luckily, before she could leave, one of the guards snuck up behind her and knocked her out.

Gralak was at a loss. He was running out of ideas. How the hell would he save Vitorio and his men from the college's influence? The college was definitely not going to make this easy for him, and he would have to figure things out in Episode 67.5: The Gralak Chronicles.

Meanwhile, in Mariven, the fleet was just about constructed, and Dorvoth made a speech to his men about to journey with Tedcrag. In turn, Tedcrag made a rousing speech of his own to the dwarves who would soon be assisting him, telling them of Prahringerr’s wicked deeds, motivating them, and asking them to dedicate their hearts to his cause. Despite getting some low performance rolls, this speech seemed to resonate well enough and he received cheers from the crowd. The fleet was ready to set sail to Delphora, and in his heart, Tedcrag knew that *surely* Gralak, Vitorio, and the Sentenians would meet them there!