Ep. 48: The Eleventh Hour - Chapter Eight

"Let me do some quick calculations. According to my math, there’s a zero percent chance the boys don’t wang this one up. It’s the Adventure Zone!"

Synopsis
Full transcript available here.

''Could you resist the power to go back and change your very worst mistake? What if it meant unraveling some of the non-mistakes you've made since? Also: Imagine, for the sake of this hypothetical, that you're a complete goober. Merle runs out for smokes. Taako takes the show on the road. Magnus goes home.''

The Tres Horny Boys have taken up the Temporal Chalice's offer to at least see what it has to offer them before taking it back to home base to be destroyed. Let's hope they don't fuck this one up.

Merle
Merle finds himself standing alone in a white space. Standing in front of him is a slightly less older June, who is holding the Temporal Chalice and who is deep in concentration as she scans through Merle's memories, which Merle can also see everywhere around him as if was being projected in front of him. While this happens, Clint expands a bit on Merle's backstory:

BEGIN FLASHBACK

Merle comes from a wooded enclave away from most of society. He was born into a Panite commune and comes from a religious family of beach dwarves. Merle's father, who was also a Panite, had forced him to many religious functions, every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, Summer Pan Camp etc. which Merle did not enjoy, but dealt with it so he wouldn't disappoint his father or get grounded. Because of this, his religion is something he's inherited and therefore has mixed feelings on Pan.

Later on in his life, Merle would end up in an arranged, loveless marriage with his now somewhat ex-wife, Hekuba Roughridge, in order to keep the dwarven bloodline pure. Hekuba had had a daughter named Mavis with another dwarf before marrying Merle. During their marriage, Merle and his wife would have a son named Mookie. After years of putting up with each other, Merle ended up abandoning his family, saying he was going to the Dwarf Store to get smokes and never looking back. Because they never properly divorced, Merle is still legally married to Hekuba and is now a "dwarf on the run".

END FLASHBACK

As Clint is relaying all this, "June" is rewinding through these specific points of Merle's life, eventually running into a long, unbroken period of static before managing to rewind past it. "June" eventually stops at a certain point in Merle's memories, and Merle finds himself back in Lucas's lab with his past self in front of him about to grab one of the pink crystals, a move that led to the loss of his arm.

Taako
Taako and "June" are standing in the white space going through his memories and running into the same long period of static along the way. After getting past the static, the pictures return and Taako sees an adolescent version of himself standing in front of him.

BEGIN FLASHBACK

Taako had been on the road since the age of 12. He made his living with troupes of performers and mercenaries, trying to find a place where he belonged. Taako served as a chef with these traveling crews in order to pay his way. During this time, he picked up enough magical techniques from wizards in the party to be dangerous.

Taako would later become a TV cook on the show 'Sizzle It Up with Taako'. As television does not exist in The Adventure Zone universe, this was a road show that traveled from town to town. When he noticed that audiences were flagging, he began learning magic in order to spice up his performances. He taught himself magic from books he picked up and from wizards he traveled around with. He toured with Sazed, who acted as his driver, roadie, stage manager, and right-hand man. Sazed thought Taako "hung the moon" and learned how to cook during their travels together. As the show grew in popularity, Sazed asked to do more and more with the show, even asking to co-host the show and change the name to Sizzle It Up with Taako and Sazed.

Cut to the infamous Glamorsprings show, which put an end to Taako's career forever. The town had enjoyed the show before and forty people attended the show that day. He prepared his famous 30 Garlic Clove Chicken for his audience that day.

END FLASHBACK

"June" pauses the memory just as people are gathering around the wagon and she takes Taako just behind the stagecoach into the storage area where she shows Taako a nervous looking Sazed holding a bottle of arsenic in his hand.

BEGIN FLASHBACK

Taako and Sazed ran as the people of Glamoursprings began to die, with Taako assuming that the garnish of elderberries he had used on the chicken had been unwittingly transmuted into deadly nightshade. The two of them drove for two days together, but Sazed abandoned him as soon as he had the opportunity.

END FLASHBACK

Magnus
Magnus stands in the white space with "June", who encounters the same long period of static that both Merle and Taako had.

BEGIN FLASHBACK

Magnus's introduction to being a 'protector' was defending a mongrel dog from three bullies and being beaten up to protect the dog, allowing it to escape. This solidified his need to defend those that are weaker than him.

Five years before his adventure with Merle and Taako began, Magnus led a revolt against Mad Governor Kalen. When the city of Raven's Roost had been founded, people stood behind Kalen, but Kalen saw his power as endless and become corrupt. In retaliation, Magnus gathered people together and defeated Kalen and his soldiers in battle. Unfortunately, Kalen managed to escape and was subsequently forgotten about in the months to pass.

After the rebellion, Magnus worked in Hammer and Tongs, the pride of the Craftsman Corridor in Raven's Roost. His mentor and blacksmith/general craftsman, Steven Waxmen, had taken Magnus in after a promising apprenticeship. Magnus worked on a black oak rocking chair with a lavender polish imbued into it, that he would submit to the Continental Craftsmen Showcase that took place in Neverwinter, a ten days drive from Raven's Roost. Julia, Steven's daughter and Magnus's new bride, entered the shop, talked as they usually did, and brought Magnus out to the cart that she had prepared for him. Magnus left with his rocking chair for the showcase, after shaking Steven's hand and kissing Julia and telling her the last words he ever spoke to her:

Two days into his travel to Neverwinter, Kalen returned to Raven's Roost, with an "If I can't have this city, no one can" mentality, and bombed the support column for the Craftsmen Corridor. 76 people were killed, including Julia and Steven. Hammer and Tong were destroyed and in the time it took Magnus to return to Raven's Roost, the town had been evacuated, due to fear of a repeat attack, and has now become a ghost town.

END FLASHBACK

[Money Zone]

The boys and "June", who now looks like a little girl again, appear back in the Davy Lamp version of the white space. Here she explains the three rules they will have to follow if they take the Chalice for themselves: And with that "June" picks up the Chalice and places it in the middle of the boys' table.
 * 1) They will not be able to walk the same path they walked in their current timeline, meaning they will have never joined the Bureau of Balance.
 * 2) They will forfeit their place in their current timeline completely, which means no backsies.
 * 3) They need to want every single thing - good or bad - that happens in the new timeline or else it won't hold.

Magnus is the first to answer and he answers with a pass, as he believes that, while its something he would want, it's not what Julia would want. Merle passes also and states that he has no regrets about his past and figures that "you make your best choices with the information at hand, and you live with the consequences." Last but not least is Taako, who... also passes on "June's" offer due to his discovery that the biggest mistake of his life was not actually his fault lifting a heavy weight off his conscience. Because of this, he feels no obligation to go back and fix his past as, from his perspective, this is "the best possible timeline for Taako".

"June" stands up from the table and grabs the cup, and the group finds themselves suddenly transported back to a pivotal moment in their first adventure. Specifically, their choice to free Kurtze, the orc boy, from his imprisonment, a choice that indirectly led to the destruction of the entirety of Phandalin.

The boys start discussing whether or not they should save Phandalin, and when it seems they are trying to spin its destruction in a positive light, as it was a "very explosive beginning" to their journey, "June" teleports them to a tavern in Phandalin, which a very on fire Gundren Rockseeker is about to destroy while Barry Bluejeans attempts to calm him down, and then the tavern's storeroom, where a halfling woman hides in fear. In the hand of this halfling woman is a barrel of booze labeled Redcheeks Farms, revealing her to be a pre-robot Noelle.

Each of the boys once again takes a pass on the Chalice's offer; Merle because he doesn't want to lose the good times they had, Magnus because, like Merle, he wants to look forward in his life instead of backwards, and Taako because "If I wasn’t gonna use this to clean up a mess that was half my fault, I’m certainly not going to use it to clean up a mess that’s one third my fault - at best!" A disappointed "June", realizing that - not only are the boys not going to take this offer - but they don't even seem to be taking any of the offers seriously, finally gives up.

The following is a direct transcript:

"June and the cup disappear. And time starts to back up again, but it’s moving painfully slowly. And you watch as a wall of fire consumes the stockroom of this tavern, and everything and everyone inside of it. And then the scene changes, and you’re standing in the home of a young couple, and you see a man cooking a stew in the kitchen, and his partner - she’s reading a book in bed - and the wave of fire consumes this home as well.

And then you see a woman playing with her dog in the garden. And you see a kind-looking blacksmith cleaning his shop after closing. And you see a young hedge wizard practicing his spells. And you see all of these scenes of Phandalin’s citizens which, maybe out of spite, the Chalice is forcing you to witness all of their destruction.

And then you’re standing at the epicenter. Right in front of Gundren’s blackened bones. His arm - with the gauntlet on it - held up to the sky in the center of this roaring, expanding pillar of fire. And you are forced to watch Phandalin’s end as you didn’t see it before. And it is absolute and vicious, and quick as it reduces this city into a perfect circle of black glass. And you’re back, at the top of shaft B. And you see June in front of you and she’s young again. And she falls to her hands and knees. And the cup rolls away from her and falls off the platform, and bounces once with a heavy clunk, and lands perfectly at your feet."

[End of Episode]

Featured NPCs

 * Barry Bluejeans (flashback)
 * Gundren Rockseeker (flashback)
 * Hekuba Roughridge (flashback)
 * Julia Burnsides (flashback)
 * June
 * NO-3113 (flashback)
 * Sazed (flashback)
 * Steven Waxmen (flashback)

Featured Music

 * The Chalice

Featured Locations

 * Raven's Roost
 * Phandalin