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I'm gonna get jacked up on corn dogs and Dippin' Dots
We're going to the carnival this week in…
… The Adventure Zone.
~~~~
Leon the Artificer greets the three Reclaimers, the three adventurers, the Tres Horny Boys, as they roll on up to the Magical Gachepon to spend their hard-earned tokens.
"Hello," says Leon, "welcome back! Do you have any tokens to throw in the Magical Gachepon? Test your luck, see what —! You do, you got them. Be careful, they're quite heavy."
Merle goes first. He puts in his token, pulls the lever, and acquires a capsule the size of a shoe box from the prize chamber. Appropriately enough, there are shoes inside, a pair of fuzzy slippers with tiny aesthetic wings on the back. Leon looks them over approvingly, cracks open his giant reference tome, and scans the pages until he finds it. "Let's see, let's see… these are your Slippies of Haste! And these are very wondrous magic items. While you're wearing these, if you ever find yourself in danger, or about to enter combat, you'll be able to move a little bit faster than those who are trying to get the drop on you."
Merle puts them on right away. They turn out to be a perfect fit. Funny how that works.
Magnus goes next, and despite his quiet murmurs of "shield, shield, shield, shield!", he receives a capsule that is decidedly not shield-sized. It's more the size of a volleyball. Inside is a green cloth glove, which Leon quickly tries to identify.
"Let's see, it's not under 'g' for green… ah! This is a magic item called a Fletcher's Mitt! What this does is if you ever find yourself on the receiving end of an arrow or a crossbow bolt, this mitt will give you a little help in avoiding or even catching the projectile being fired at you."
Taako goes next — he walks up and hands his token to Leon.
Leon stares at it. "No, no — how can this be —? I can't believe —"
"I'm ready!" Taako informs him cheerfully.
Leon hands the token back to the elven wizard. "Sweetheart, I want you to pop it into the machine and turn it yourself. I can't do it for you. Remember the monologue I did last time? About how I can't give you magical items, and — OK, no, no , Taako, if you hand this to me one more time I'm going to have to take it away from you. You won't get a magic item, and you'll be very sad."
Magnus rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Leon, trust me, just do it."
"I can't —!"
"Be cool , Leon."
"This machine has been sanctified by the gods. If you get a magic item, it is like the gods are giving it to you. If I do it, and something dope drops out, it's my thing ! Do you understand?"
Taako frowns. "But you didn't hurt the guy with the stinky hand. I hurt him."
"Yes, you hurted him great. Here's your coin. Put it in the machine. Turn that there knob. And Bob's your uncle."
"All right!" Taako puts the coin into the machine. "Now, which way do I turn it?"
Leon, who looks increasingly like he'd rather be anywhere but here, dealing with this, takes a deep breath. "To the right. I want you to take both your hands, and make Ls with them, and the one that looks like an L is the left hand."
"OK," says Taako. "Is that clockwise, or counter-clockwise?"
"It is clockwise ."
"I don't understand clockwise."
" Why did you ask the question between the two!? "
"I'm still trying to figure it out! I use learning opportunities! I'll put my hands on the crank and you just turn my hands, OK?"
On the other side of the room, Merle shoots arrows at Magnus using Magnus's bow, and Magnus gleefully practises snatching the arrows out of the air with his Fletcher's Mitt. One shot doesn't work the way it's meant to and the arrow falls harmlessly to the ground — Magnus walks over, picks it up, and crows: "I did it!"
When Taako is finally successfully bored of needling Leon and turns the lever properly, he receives a small cylinder with a handheld folding fan inside, elegantly painted in shades of blue to form a tableau of clouds. Leon flips through his book, and says: " This — oh, this is a fun item! This is the Gustmaster 5000 . This fan is capable of, once per day, producing an incredibly powerful gust of wind. You can use it to, say, knock back a foe, or put out a flame, or send some dishes flying, or, uh… anything you could do with a stiff breeze."
"Oh," says Taako, sounding less than enthused.
"That'll come in handy when your soup's too hot!" Merle calls from the other end of the room, as he nocks another arrow.
"Yeah," says Taako. "Thrilling. You know, between this fan and this fancy umbrella, I'm one 17' waist away from Scarlett O'Hara!"
Merle and Magnus burst out laughing. Leon eyes the umbrella thoughtfully as Taako bandies it about. "Actually," he says, "let me see your umbrella there. It looks like there's something different than the last time? This item is — very interesting."
Taako lights up. "Yeah! It ate somebody else!"
"Your staff… ate sombody?"
"Well, it eats their magic, I think. Their wand?"
"Oh! Right. So the Umbrastaff staves are capable of devouring the power of the magical objects used by any wizard that you defeat in combat. Let me see it —" Leon takes the umbrella and examines the handle. "Did you notice this sigil of an umbrella appear?"
"I did, yeah!"
"This is interesting. This Umbrastaff is now capable of, at any time, casting Slow Fall on yourself and your adventuring party, when ever you need it."
"Ooooh."
"Well, thanks for stopping by, it's always nice to see you three."
"Can we have some more stuff?" asks Magnus.
"No. No no no."
Magnus holds up his Fletcher's Mitt and the arrow he just snatched out of thin air. "But I really like this stuff!"
"Go earn some more tokens! If you get an A+ on your report card, maybe you'll get some for free!"
~~~~
FANTASY COSTCO, WHERE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE
GOT A DEAL FOR YOU
The now-familiar jingle plays as Magnus, Taako, and Merle step through the magic automatic sliding doors into the Fantasy Costco dome. While Magnus and Merle browse the aisles with a giant shopping cart, Taako slips away and sells the valuables he salvaged from the CryptSafe to the Fantasy Costco's current sales representative — oddly, an anthropomorphic cat wearing a hooded cloak just far enough over his face that it's difficult to make out much more than a whisper of fur and whiskers. His name, he tells Taako gleefully, is Garfield the Deals Warlock. He claims to be a new hire at the Fantasy Costco, and furthermore, that the benefits are terrible .
Garfield certainly has that particular gift of salesmanship which makes everything he says sound like gleeful upselling, even when it's the most mundane of greetings and introductions.
"Oh, this ," Garfield says, eyes widening as he finds Angus McDonald's silverware set. " This could be worth thousands — tens of thousands — this is a very rare mint — oh, wait. One second." He leans over the silverware with a squint. "Seems like a fork is missing from this set."
"Yeah, I gave it to some idiot baby."
"Oh, dear. That is so unfortunate. A full set of this extremely rare true silverware we could have exchanged for twenty, maybe thirty thousand gold pieces! Unfortunately, because a piece is missing, I can only give you, uh… two hundred and eighty?"
"Oh, fine."
"And you want that in store credit, or cash?"
"Just give it to me in cash. Please hurry — my friends are nearby."
"In cash it'll only be fifteen."
"OK, store credit."
"Taako!" Merle calls out.
"Yeah, I'll be there in a second!"
"Taako! Come on! They got free cheese!"
"OK, I'll come get some cheese, just hold on!"
Upon the conclusion of the shopping trip, all three of them have bought sparkling new items for them to inevitably forget they possess the next time they get into a sticky situation. Taako buys a miniature pocket spa, and chills out inside it while the others finish their shopping. It resembles something of an instant fold-out tent, but with inter-dimensional magic infused into it, making the inside bigger than the outside so it can fit amenities like a mud bath.
Magnus brings to the counter the Lens of Straight Creeping (capable of finding hidden footprints, tracks, and markings); the Tankard of Potent Drink (capable of making any liquid drunk from it more alcoholic, unless said liquid is water, in which case it sobers the drinker immediately); and a small patchwork leather Mystery Bag about the size of a softball. "I'm taking these," he announces to Garfield.
"Oh, sure, why don't you just take everything in the store without paying for any of it —"
"I'll give you 700 for these three items in total."
"Oh!" Garfield grins. "Prepare to contest me , Garfield the Deals Warlock, in a test of mercantile wits! Have at thee!"
Neither of them speak for several seconds, and then Garfield slumps. "OK, fine. Don't tell my boss, though. We have a very strict bottom line."
"Sure thing. What's in the mystery bag?" Magnus pulls the top of the bag open and takes out — a glass sphere, filled with water and a goldfish.
It's not a dog, which dampens the surprise somewhat, but it <i>is</i> a pet. Magnus considers the goldfish thoughtfully and, in so doing, forms an immediate bond with it.
Merle goes for the Ring of Recall, which is capable of granting a free extra try of a failed spellcasting attempt without expending any further magical energy, and thus is more expensive than the gold Merle has at his disposal.
"I shall meet you in a test of wits as well!" Garfield assures him. "Wits and wagers, if you so choose! But if you lose , your first child is mine!"
"Alright."
The seconds tick by.
"You have lost, I will have your child! I will name her Gregory. Tsk, tsk, if only you had an extra hundred gold pieces…!"
Taako rolls his eyes. "Merle, here, I have an extra one hundred gold pieces for you to use."
"You got the pocket spa for six hundred !?" Merle asks, eyes wide. "That's amazing!"
"Yes, Taako really beat me in a test of wits and wagers~" Garfield says, winking very slowly at Taako.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Taako says quickly. "Just remember, you owe me, this is a loan."
Magnus spends the remainder of the day in Taako's brand-new pocket spa with his new goldfish friend, whose name, he has decided, is Lord Steven Q. Fletcher Esquire, The Goldfish. Steven if you're a coward, or if you're in a hurry, or if you just wait a couple of chapters.
~~~~
The Director, in her infinite wisdom regarding the needs of her employees, throws a Midsummer Solstice festival on the moon base.
The highlight of this annual holiday is a bizarre astrological event defying the explanation of even the toughest of astrologers: a total solar eclipse at high noon. This solar eclipse features in many of the world's religions as a deeply spiritual event, making the Midsummer Solstice a panreligious holiday nearly everyone is guaranteed to celebrate in some form or another.
Vendors and carnival games line the paths and alleys of the moon base. The smell of fried food hangs in the air like an awkward conversation. In the middle of the campus is a roped-off dance floor, where Johann plays some tunes on his fiddle both sombre and joyful. Pringles the roommate is running an open bar nearby. Every Bureau of Balance employee is wearing a costume as they wander the carnival, an age-old tradition meant to ward off spirits to ensure good harvests. Like all age-old traditions, it's utterly useless here — there are no agricultural harvests on the moon to worry about — but the tradition persists nonetheless.
Magnus dresses like Taako. No one gets it without extensive explanation, due in part to Taako's clothes being far too small for Magnus, and Magnus grows more and more frustrated as the festival wears on, to Taako's deep amusement. Merle is dressed like Ursula from The Little Mermaid, which also requires extensive explanation, because no one's ever heard of The Little Mermaid and no one understands how a busty octopus lady is both able to talk and a villain. Taako's dressed as Judge Lance Ito, Hero of the Realm. By the time anyone gets through Magnus's and Merle's explanations for their costumes, they're miraculously suddenly called away from the conversation, so by default, Taako's costume gets no explanation.
No one enters prize livestock into quirky competitions, because there are no animals on the moon, a fact which continues to depress Magnus to no end.
There's a giant vat of bubbling golden oil over a large flame in one of the brightly-coloured tents, manned by a dwarven woman wearing wizards' garb. "Hello, hello!" she greets the three adventurers, with a voice that immediately puts them in mind of sleazy car salesmen and baudy fortune-tellers. "Step forward! Step forward! What would you like? I'm Petrilda, and I am the Fried Conjurer! Name any foodstuff you can imagine, and I will conjure it up and fry it for you so right!"
"Anything?" Magnus asks, squinting at the golden oil.
"Anything your heart desires! I can put it in your mouth! I'll fry it first for you, though."
"I would like some fried unicorn, please."
"Fried unicorn!"
"Just the horn. That's the best part. The horn and the dick."
"Oh! The unicorn double-barrel special! I see!" Petrilda looks around subversively and then leans in close to Magnus. "Now, you're not going to tell anyone about this, right? Because this is super, duper, duper illegal."
"Nah, we'll keep this dick just between us."
"OK!"
She holds two hands in the air. A beautiful, spiral, white ivory unicorn horn appears in one hand, and a unicorn penis appears in the other. She dunks them both into the golden oil, seemingly unconcerned for her bare hands, and subsequently pulls out two fried and somewhat identical cylindrical objects.
"Hope you kept track of which is which," Merle mutters.
Magnus grins. "I'm gonna eat them both, it doesn't matter!"
"Eat up!" Petrilda tells him cheerfully, handing him a styrofoam plate with both fried foodstuffs on it. "Mind the shards!"
"Can I get a little powdered sugar?"
"Oh, of course ."
Taako eyes Magnus's food with deep distrust. "I'm not in the mood for meat," he says. "Do you ever fry anything that's like — breadier? Something non-meaty?"
"Like what, dear? You have to be more specific!"
"Well, what bread do you have available?"
"I have sourdough —"
"No."
"— pumpernickel —"
"Ew, no."
"— I have…"
"Anything ethnic?"
"Yes, I have some non -bread I can toss in there!"
"You know what, never mind." Taako turns away from the cauldron feeling an odd sense of defeat.
They wander over to the minigames next, Magnus chewing on both his food items, which are equally difficult to eat, but in entirely different ways. Every single one of the carnival games looks like a rip-off, but that doesn't stop people from giving them a try anyway, laughing and making fun of each other when they lose. One particularly enticing vendor yells out: "Come, knock over these cans! Come knock over my cans! I betcha ya can't knock over these cans!"
"I'll do it," says Merle. "I'll knock over your cans."
"I betcha can't knock over these cans, I've got 'em stacked in a special way! My master trained for years to stack the cans in these ways, and he taught me how to stack these cans. You'll never knock them over! It's five thousand gold pieces to try and knock over these cans! But the prize is well worth it, I guarantee it! Five thousand gold pieces, sir? Try your hand, try your hand?"
Merle glances at the others. "Do I have five thousand gold pieces?"
Magnus raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. "No, Merle, I don't think we have five thousand gold pieces."
The vendor grins. "I'll tell you what, sir, I'll let you take this stab for free and you'll just owe me if you fail! Whaddya say, whaddya say?"
"What are the rules?" Taako asks.
"Knock over the cans!"
"How many cans are there?"
"There's a handful of cans! Six or seven, I'd say!"
Merle ponders the opportunity, stroking his chin. "How about if I take one practice throw for free?"
"I'll give ya a practice throw for free!"
"OK, I'll try it."
It's a small, solidly-constructed ball that the vendor hands Merle to make his practice throw. Merle eyes the distance, winds up, throws underhanded — and knocks three cans off the top of the pile.
"Ooh!" the vendor cries. "So close! Damn! That'll be five thousand gold pieces please."
"Hang on," Magnus says, incensed, "that was a practice throw!"
"I don't remember anything about a practice throw!"
Merle glares at him. "I have two burly witnesses here who remember you saying that."
"Easy, tiger, easy, tiger!"
"How about double or nothing?"
"Double or nothing sounds good! Ten thousand gold pieces today!"
"Alright, I'm ready . This time I'm throwin' overhand ." Merle takes the offered ball and bends down, preparing for the throw.
"Sounds good!" says the vendor gleefully. "That's a very popular throwing direction!"
Merle knocks over all but one of the cans. In the split second before anyone realises it, Taako quickly casts Mage Hand behind his back and sends the last can flying off the table. An alarm immediately begins to ring inside the booth.
"Oh, magic alert, magic alert!" the vendor yells. "We've got a couple of cheaters here! Let me see your hands! Hold out your hands!"
"No, I mean, it was me ," says Taako. "I asked you for rules, and you said knock over the cans, so I was following the rules!"
"Well, I think it was implied that you had to use the ball to do it!"
"Implied, schmlied!" Merle snaps.
The vendor produces a giant rubber stamp that says CHEATER on it in big red letters. "Let me see your hands! No more carnival games for you!"
Taako sighs. "It's not the worst thing that's been stamped on my hand this week, let me tell you."
"You owe me twenty thousand gold pieces! Let's set up an instalment plan!"
"Alright," Merle says. "I'll pay you one gold piece a year for twenty thousand years."
"Sounds good to me!"
Magnus blinks in surprise. He'd been frustrated enough to full on knock the vendor out, potential Bureau of Balance investigation be damned. "Cool," he says with a smile. "Guess that was resolved easily."
~~~~
"Attention, everyone. The eclipse is about to take place. If you would like to join us in the yard for the viewing, it should be here in just a minute or so."
The Director's magically amplified voice carries easily throughout the entire carnival, and there's a general slow exodus towards the yard in question to watch the sky. Some stand, some sit, some fall straight onto their backs. Nearly everyone is drunk by this point. Magnus has a facepainted tattoo to look like a cat, and it's not because he's drunk, because he isn't. Volunteers wander through the groups of people to hand out free eclipse glasses.
Just as the real moon and the sun are aligning in the sky — just as a quiet hush falls over the crowd in anticipation — just as the sky begins to darken — Magnus, Taako, and Merle are blasted by a deafening supersonic shriek that immediately incapacitates everyone around them, boring straight through into peoples' heads with an almost tangible icepick-like intensity. People fall limply to the ground all throughout the yard like puppets with their strings cut — all except Taako, Magnus, and Merle, who stay conscious and shaken and utterly rooted to the spot with old, well-worn terror. All around them, the air shakes with noise like twenty different orchestras all playing at once, and thousands upon millions of whispers , so loud and tumultuous that not one of them can discern even a single word. The sky turns to pitch — not pitch-black, but pitch , a tangible ink, like someone spilled an ink well all over the parchment of the sky, slick oil dripping over the completely invisible eclipse.
Thirty seconds later, as the eclipse reaches its apex, the sky fills with thousands of bright white eyes, burning intensely. Less than a second later, they wink out — and the equinox passes — and the thundering noises fade — and then the sky brightens, and everything's back to normal, and not a single person in the yard moves one muscle for several utterly silent seconds.
The Director is the first person to move. She sits up and surveys the scene, expression unreadable.
"Everybody stay calm," Magnus murmurs. "If someone tries to sell you some bad unicorn dick, just say no . Say no to bad dick."
The Director looks over at them. For another several seconds, no one moves or says anything; then Magnus, having decided the whole thing probably wasn't a terrifying hallucination brought on by bad unicorn dick, leads the slow trek over to where she sits. "What," he says flatly, "was that. What in the world was that. Has that happened before, or…? Is it like a thing?"
She doesn't answer. She looks dazed. Magnus slaps her, and she immediately slaps him back. "No," she says as she focuses on them properly. "That was, uh… that was the first time — I need you all to debrief with me, in my office, but — first let's wake everyone up, let's make sure that everyone's alright."
It takes several minutes to follow her suggestion. People wake up dazed, disoriented, confused, and terrified in various measures. Slowly, the hum of conversation begins to return, as nearly everyone asks their next-door neighbour — what in the fuck was that ? The suggested debrief in the Director's office is delayed further and further as everyone in the Bureau bands together to make sure everyone has time to recuperate from the harrowing experience, with the result that it's several hours later when the three Reclaimers rendezvous with the Director in her office.
"I was incapacitated," she tells them, back to her usual steady self, "by whatever happened out there. I need you all to describe to me what happened . Are we under attack?"
Taako tries first. "Uh, we… there was a loud… then a bright — no, bright first, then loud —"
"Mhm, yes," Magnus agrees, nodding.
"No," Merle disagrees. "Loud and then bright."
"Actually, I thought it was at the same time," says Magnus.
"It was sort of a confluence, right?" Taako says.
"Yeeeeah. And it sounded like a bunch of instruments? Like a bunch of string instruments, stringing…"
"A cacophany…"
"Yeah, there were coffins…"
"You know The Polyphonic Spree?"
Magnus snaps his fingers. "Yeah!"
The Director nods solemnly. "I love it. I mean, I prefer Tripping Daisy, but you know how —"
"Imagine," says Magnus with an air of finality, "you played two Polyphonic Spree albums at the same time, but like — just a little bit too fast."
"OK. Did you see anything?"
"It was a bunch of, like… ovals."
"Eyes," Merle interjects.
"Eyes! It was a bunch of eyes. It was eyeballs. And they looked… kind of glorious, but a little bit evil…"
"Bloodshot, they were bloodshot," Merle remembers.
"Bloodshot! Were they bloodshot?"
"Little bit."
The Director nods. "Our Seekers on the ground have reported back to us, and have told us that nobody on the surface of the world saw or heard anything peculiar. So whatever you saw… you were the only ones who saw it. This is not a worldwide phenomenon — it just happened to us . Up here, up on the moon."
"It was moon -wide," says Merle with an air of dramatic mystery.
"Could this be the work of, of — some kind of evil organisation?" Magnus asks. "Spying on us?"
The Director shakes her head. "I — I don't know what it was, but… I need you to not tell anybody what you've told me. Even inside the Bureau. Until we understand what we're up against."
"Right. We'll just tell Killian, and our roommate Pringles —"
"No. Don't tell — no. Pringles ?"
"Whatever his name was."
"Robbie."
"Robert."
Taako laughs. "He just wanted pringles one time , that can't define him for the rest of his life ."
"Well, sometimes , that's how you get a nickname," Magnus insists.
"I believe," the Director says sternly, "that this is an ill omen, and we must hasten our effort to gather the Relics, because if — if a storm is brewing, we cannot hope to weather it if we're busy putting out the fires that threaten to consume our world."
A brief pause follows her words.
"That sounded really cool," says Taako.
Magnus nods. "Yeah, that was good. Did you write that?"
"No, that was off the dome."
"Well, first," Merle interjects, "I think you oughta investigate that cans game bastard."
"Oh, yeah!" Taako agrees immediately. "That guy was a —"
"Yes, sorry, sorry," says the Director, "before we hasten our efforts to collect the Grand Relics that threaten to destroy our world, I'll look into a seedy carnival game owner."
"Foreshadowing, that's all I'm saying," Merle tells her.
"You're dismissed, please ."
Magnus blinks at her. "Are we fired?"
"No, just — go. I'm tired. I'm very, very sleepy."
"Got to get on the case tomorrow, huh?" Taako grins. "The case of the mysterious carnival operator! The Director's greatest case!"
She gives them all a silent, flat look until they finally take the hint and leave her in peace, laughing among themselves. Unbeknownst to the others, she stares after them for a very long time, almost like she's waiting for something that never ends up happening.
Perhaps it's because they don't take much very seriously, or because when you've inadvertently caused the total destruction of an entire town and all the souls living inside it, nothing else seems quite so important in comparison. But whatever the reason, it's oddly easy for Magnus, Merle, and Taako to forget about the incident completely in the following weeks.