Quoted By:
>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
Your expedition to rescue Madrigal has gone awry, as you and Gil have found yourselves stuck in a recreation of a religious festival 200 years ago. Separated from the rest of your party, the two of you set off to rehydrate your shrink-dried worm Annie. Then you discover that the sacred waterfall has an 8-hour line.
You send most of Gil off to go stand in the line while you and the rest of Gil investigate the volunteer tents set up by the "liaisons" of the sea gods. To Gil's consternation, you can barely fight the compulsion to murder one of the liaisons, instead invoking the divine 'red stuff' inside you to ultra-commune with him. You wind up underneath(?) the goo ocean, where you have a surprisingly civil and pleasant conversation with "Us," a hivemind of several thousand people who drowned and were rendered into goo. Us tells you that the the festival is a comforting "dream" created from their collective memories, and that you're free to stay or go from it, provided you don't disturb anything. You awaken back inside the "dream" and find Gil missing.
As (most of) Gil, you're pissy about having to stand in line, and have gone off instead to get your divine blessing permanently extracted. You accidentally have a spiritual awakening instead.
As Madrigal, you are very wet and very bemused when Lester Six attempts to trick you into opening the mysteriously blocked STORAGE door. You work on learning how to work your goo body, which pleases Pat. She opens up about her situation-- she's under death threats from the inhuman(?) Management, who also kidnapped the real Lester. You're unsympathetic and blow up on her when she proposes experimenting on you to get the goo snake done faster. Pat gives you the cold shoulder the rest of the night, and you pass out on the couch.
Back as Charlotte, you find Gil, then find... Gil, who is acting all weird and uppity. He magycks you, causing you to cough up what looks awfully like a dead Richard-snake, then prompts you to admit to the whole ritual murder fiasco. He's confused about why you're so upset about it, Richard being Richard, but hugs you supportively when you start ugly crying. You calm down in time to spot a plume of smoke rising from elsewhere in the festival.
Your investigation of the smoke is stopped by some random guy. Pissed off by his audacity, you're overtaken by the red stuff and twist him into being your (and the Wyrm's) mindless servant. You don't snap out of it after, forcing Gil to tackle and magyck you. You commune with the "dream" and convince it the fire-- the *real* fire, almost certainly set by Lucky-- is totally normal and sensical. This works, and you're warped across the festival: you've been arrested on suspect of starting the fire, and Lucky is your interrogator. You snap him out of it, then go find Arledge. Finally reunited, the four of you attempt to rehydrate Annie... except that somebody's been murdered atop the sacred waterfall!
