Ep. 61: The Stolen Century - Chapter Two

"And so our heroes find themselves leaping from world to world. Hoping each time that their next leap will be the leap home. ...Or something like that. It’s the Adventure Zone!"

Synopsis
Full transcript available here.

''Our heroes find themselves crossing between strange, deadly, beautiful worlds, pursued by a foe they cannot comprehend. Can they grow strong enough to defeat their cosmic enemy? Or will their journey take them down a road from which they can never return? Magnus leads an expedition. Taako is tempted. Merle leads his congregation.''

Cycle Eight
It's the eighth cycle that the Red Robes have been on and they're still on the run from The Hunger. At this point, a few basic rules about The Hunger and the nature of the loops have been established: The Red Robes find themselves in a world where the land is 80% covered with giant bioluminescent mushrooms, that glow in bright neon hues at night and emit thick clouds of spores. Lucretia takes a particular liking to these mushrooms and illustrates them in her journal. Davenport hesitantly brings The Starblaster through the smog of spores and into the world below. On this land are a few settlements occupied by races such as Halflings, Dwarves, and Gnomes, all of whom are trying their hardest to make a living on this mushroom covered plane. These settlers wear masks to keep themselves from inhaling the spores, which are fatal, and they have scorch teams who go out with low-tech flamethrowers every night in order to hold back the ever-growing forest and stave off being overrun by mushrooms, which the group learns are cultivated by living human-sized mushroom beings who wander the forest during the day.
 * At the end of every year, when The Hunger attacks, all of them, even those that have died, will return to the ship exactly as they were when the journey started.
 * The Light of Creation lands a few days after they arrive on the world.
 * If they take The Light of Creation with them when they leave, the world will be damaged by The Hunger, but will not be consumed. However, they will lose it once they cross over to the next plane.

The Red Robes are accepted into one of these small settlements, called New Fungston, and are outfitted with the masks and gear required to survive in this world. A few days later, the Light of Creation lands somewhere far, far beyond the border of the mushrooms and a few days after that The Hunger's scout finds them and disappears. The group now has an entire year to spend. Merle stays in the settlement so he can give the downtrodden people of Fungston some spiritual enlightenment and act as a beacon of hope for them. Merle achieves this by proselytizing out in Fungston's town square, which collects a small congregation of people interested in the good word of Pan. Merle is so successful in bringing back hope to the settlement that he causes the people of Fungston to build The First Church of Fungston, a big, grand, wooden cathedral made partially from mushroom, and Merle is made an unofficial leader of the town. The Red Robes, minus Taako and Merle, and a scorch team head out South on the Starblaster to the general location to where the Light landed. The crew lands the ship far away from the Light's location and try to get to it on foot, with Barry, Lup, and Davenport work together on tracking and triangulating the location of the Light. One day, Magnus lies down to rest and, without thinking, takes his mask off so he can eat some hard candy and breaths in some of the toxic spores in the air.For the rest of the trip, Magnus gets progressively sicker
 * Merle Roll: 10 (Complete Success)
 * Merle
 * EXP: 0
 * ASSETS: 0
 * BONDS: 4
 * Magnus Roll: 8 (Mixed Success)

WIP

The Money Zone
Pending

Featured NPCs

 * Lucretia
 * Davenport
 * Barry Bluejeans
 * Lup
 * The Hunger

Featured Music

 * "Sorcerer" by Mort Garson
 * The First Church of Fungston
 * The Capital City

Featured Locations

 * The Mushroom Kingdom
 * The Capital City of Jaden-Province