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>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
You give Richard the get-well card to read, but it's completely illegible to you---it's written in snake language. Worse, Richard claims he can't read it either, even though he sort of *does* read it when you press him on it. When you press him harder, he pukes up black gunk and seawater. He clearly has some kind of mental block.
To try to break it, you explain to him exactly why he's nice now: you turned him into your father then killed him ritualistically. Richard is unperturbed... even when he develops a stab wound in his stomach. He starts talking nonsense about dying.
You realize that he's developed stab wounds before-- every time you've turned him into your father. The reason he's Nice now is because you turned him into your (nice) father, then killed him, and when he came back he still had fatherliness grafted on. And the reason for his mental block is *you*: you've been subconsciously trying to stop him from reverting back to regular Richard.
After you realize this, he's cured of the block, and happily answers your questions: he claims that he's totally fine with being Nice now; that regular Richard, contrary to appearances, actually loved you deep down; and that the lizard-thing/Herald is a nonexistent mythical creature. You decline his offer to remove your red stuff. You also ask him about the stab wounds, and he tells you that he can't/won't talk about them. He also gives some advice about dealing with #301 and Jean Ramsey.
Finally, he tells you that the mental block might be fixed, but the rest of him is still busted. You agree to let him take a few days off to fix himself. Then you go find Gil, who's completed the portability upgrade on the mini-siphon, and who embarrassedly attempts to hide that he was working with a duplicate Gil on it. You leave his manse together just in time for the raising of his new tent.
In the tent-raising crowd, you and Gil speak to Horse Face, who tells you some information about the seals (opening them means direct Wyrm exposure, which is bad news), the Wyrm ending the world (it'd need some way to escape its confinement first), and the Herald (apparently fish fear the apocalypse-causing "Harold"). Eloise makes the tent, and you invent some nice furniture to go inside it. After the tent-raising, Eloise grills you about Arledge, and you grill her about his gross paganness before Gil intervenes.
Once the tent is finished, an overwhelmed Gil thanks you sincerely for all you've done for him. Flustered, you thank him for being a good retainer and get out of there to go sleep. You have such a difficult time, though, that out of desperation you paralyze yourself with your new venom.
