Quoted By:
>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
Having accepted Richard as your quasi-father, you finish hugging him, but continue to feel a little weird about the whole thing. Back in real life, Pat interrogates you about your "exploding Headspace" plan, and you settle on Step #1: interrogating Rudy Donahy, the Headspace project lead who allegedly lives in Hellsbells.
Dragging Gil with you, you locate Rudy, who's a bizarre recluse; pretty soon you and Gil determine he's not the actual guy, but a mirror-copy similar to Fake Ellery. You commune with Fake Rudy, which drops you into the mind of *Real* Rudy, inside Headspace... but all you can do is watch him go about his business. You observe a fragment of a meeting, but your presence affects Rudy badly; Richard extracts you and demonstrates proper technique before letting you back in.
You observe a Headspace dinner (nutritious mush). One of Rudy's coworkers speculates that Management is just about to wrap everything up, "terminating" all the employees, but a trio of actual Management stopping by shuts the conversation down fast. Rudy returns to his pod and attempts to communicate with you; you respond by violently possessing him, rifling through his memories, invading his manse, and bailing before you're caught.
Back in your own body, you reassure a worried Gil and Richard, abandon the puddled Fake Rudy, and go find the gang, whom you debrief on the Rudy/Headspace info. With their input, you flesh out the "explosion" plan: you intend to smash the Headspace manse into the ex-Namway facility to allow a route of escape, and you will possess an employee for as long as you can to gather intel. Richard is enthusiastic about that last point, waxing on bizarrely for a bit before lapsing into confusion. Earl asks if you wouldn't mind going on a "job" with him that night, and you agree.
You engage in "social interaction" for some time, then return to Earl's place, warn Gil that you're heading out, and sleep. Earl awakens you and leads you to the heist meeting spot, where you encounter Felicia (bitchy fish from the last heist) and Wayne (some guy). Wayne is nearly as chuuni as you are, but more pretentious, and allows you to join the heist squad so he can observe your magyck's power level. He's searching for a "seal" in the Mud Flats' archeological dig, and hands out familiar gold masks as disguises.
Earl uses blood magic to become monstrous and slow-witted, though friendly and obedient. A short time later, you both have become separated from Wayne and Felicia: you are hiding out in some ruins from patrolling mud-skimmers. You opt to use your EARTH POWERS to figure out where everybody is, fail, and are sucked into a metaphysical vortex(?). You're spat out... somewhere red, where you, your words, your red stuff, and your safety rope are all made literal. When you make your sun literal, too, you awaken a gigantic eye, which SEES THROUGH you-- disassembling you and sorting you into your constituent parts.
