Episode 102: Starship Yggdrasil

DAVID awoke in a barnyard, where he found himself under the mad, watchful eye of THE GOAT OF CHAOS, who was standing on the roof of a 1959 Buick Electra. David fled to the barn, and after hiding himself in a hayloft, he gathered up a pitchfork and awaited some sort of an assault by the goat. When it never materialized, David emerged from his hiding place to find BEN FIRENZE trapped inside of the Buick, and David hid once more.

Ben, however, had some difficulty extracting himself from the vehicle, and David ignored his pleas for help. In fact, David attempted to flee to the roof of the barn, only to find that the Goat had beaten him there...

It was then that the Goat's mad eyes held David in their grip, and but for a voice urging him to 'let go', David surely would have been lost to all that was Madness and Chaos.

But David finally relaxed, let himself go, and found himself released from the Goat's mortal grip. He was now on the ground, sharing a glass of spiked lemonade with Ben, who began to tell him of how he had tracked XENO THE GNOME to this place, and how he thought that Xeno had broken the Universe...

When Xeno and the NAUTILOIDS had disappeared from the skies over PORT HARBOR, Ben immediately began looking for answers as to what had just occurred. Almost immediately, he discovered a strange blurring, or doubling, in the TEMPORAL PRIME. Curious as to what was causing this, Ben continued searching for Xeno, Xoe, Madmartigan and the monks - only to find their timeline no longer continuing from the point of the disappearance.

The Temporal Prime - Before Xeno

As the days of searching passed, the  blurring on the Temporal Prime worsened, until it became apparent that fully developed, separate universes were being replicated. Ben later learned that these universes were coming into being at regular intervals, not unlike shock waves traveling out from a common source - in this case, Port Harbor itself.

Ben's hard work eventually paid off, and he located Xeno's timeline - inexplicably multiplied in n dimensions. He eventually found the terminus of the main timeline, only instead of finding the arrogant gnome he knew so well, Ben found a gibbering, paranoid, middle-aged human holding a broom handle. David, still clinging fiercely to what little sanity he had left, agreed to Ben's suggestion of rejoining the rest of the party, and soon found himself in what looked like a HoJo's continental breakfast lounge. Sitting at a table were Karl, David, Alex and Josh.

The Temporal Prime - After Xeno

After much debate, explanation and gibbering, it was determined that the party had to seek out the end of the Universe so that the true, unbroken one could be restored to primacy. "Tying the knot" - or resolving all the multiple timelines - was the first solution suggested. But David also learned of the prophecy of St. Quentin - whereas the world will end when God is slain by a weapon made of sapient pearwood. Bells went off, and this fact, coupled with the standing wager on deicide for DCM, led everyone to sit up and come up with a plan.

Everyone filed into the Gift Shop.

After filling up on sapient pearwood letter openers and a box of D&D dice (no one had enough cash for the "I Really Diggdrasil Yggdrasil" t-shirts), everyone returned to the breakfast lounge to play D&D. Ben, after some coaching from Alex, agreed to DM the group, and they all sat down to resume the hunt. Luckily for them, Josh's Quantum Lodestone confirmed for everyone that they were on the right track when it started humming and thrumming at Ben...

The next thing they knew, the party was on the deck of a sailing ship - one of three, in fact. It would seem that Agatha, Dashiell and Arthur had made the journey as well, and Rodant too. Agatha informed the group that they were on their way to Skull Island, following the thrumming lodestone towards the next step on their path to the Chaos Star and the end of the Universe as they know it...