After dealing with the Blue Chamber’s attempts to pull them back, Ursa, Merlin, and Nora head back into the old slaughterhouse on Death 49. It takes Merlin a couple of attempts, considering his inability to perform athletically. But it’s ok after Nora gives him a leg up.
Inside, they find themselves in an old cleanroom, and make their way towards the shop floor proper – only for Ursa to hear voices on the other side. As well as a suspiciously cheerful little beeping noise.
‘Look, Panacea, I’m not going to help you assassinate the president.’
‘Alkahest. You have seen what’s happened to our home. It’s fuckin’ embarrassing.’
‘I don’t give a shit if you’re embarrassed. I don’t got time for your trying to save face. It doesn’t matter. You interrupted an important family dinner.’
At this point Merlin messages to say they’re here to help, and this obviously shows on Alkahest’s face. Panacea notices.
‘What’s with the face?’
‘…Oh. Uh. You know me, I just started thinking about dinner. Hot dogs. You know?’
‘You’re disgusting. Don’t change the subject.’
‘I’m tied to a chair, Panacea. I’m exercising my remaining freedom by thinking about eating a hot dog. It’s alI can do right now.’
‘Hey, if you didn’t want to be tied to a chair you shoulda woken up before me.’
‘Yeah, I shoulda. If only. Mmm, it’s got imaginary mustard and crispy onions on it. Wowza.’
‘Enough with the fuckin’ hot dog tulpa, man.’
‘Fine. But I still ain’t helping you kill the president.’
‘Aw come on! We’ll be in and out in like ten minutes! What the fuck is wrong with you!’
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’
‘Fuck you!’
‘Fuck you!’
‘Fuck you!! I’m going for a smoke. Don’t go anywhere.’
‘…Fuck you.’
Panacea heads towards the room with our heroes in it, and they scramble to hide. Merlin turns himself invisible and hides behind the door, while Ursa and Nora dash outside and hide behind a couple of bushes.
As Panacea gets close, Merlin’s invisibility disappears, ironically enough, reapplying itself once she moves past. He takes the opportunity to message Nora and Ursa to tell them that proximity to Panacea seemed to negate magic.
At the window, Panacea is smoking and staring at the bush with Nora behind it. Nora decides the best course of action is to Disguise Self into the old lady from the B&B, and go through a sort of facade about following some ruffians who stole from her. Which. did happen, I guess.
‘What?’ says Panacea, staring at an old woman in a bush. ‘No I didn’t see nobody. I only just got banished here, and that only happened because my stupid tamagotchi fuckin’ died again.’
Panacea is mostly bemused during the exchange, eventually telling the old woman to fuck off and walking away. But Nora shouts back that she’s a cunt, and Panacea demonstrates her temper by putting on her game face (similar to Alkahest’s open mouth and shadow, but with burning light spilling from it instead) and immediately lunging through the window for her. She’s taken back the Frostbrand sword Alkahest took from her. Nora fires back, but the shots from her Mantlepiece fizzle out against the antimagic.
Ursa pipes up with a bunch of rats but Panacea is in too much of a rage to care, so Ursa instead interposes herself and tells her to chill. Realising who’s here, Panacea says ‘Oh fuck,’ and sprints back to her captive.
Meanwhile, Merlin has been working at the steel cables binding Alkahest to the similarly steel chair. He manages to heat them up and break them with firebolts and his new knife, then misty step to safety when he hears footsteps sprinting up behind him. He retreats to a dark corner and waits for his moment.
Nora and Ursa catch up and tackle Panacea to the ground, but don’t manage to take the tamagotchi. Alkahest gets up and so does Panacea.
Ursa opens her mouth to take the diplomatic approach, but Merlin in the corner summons a fear shadowspawn and gets it to do a shriek.
Upon hearing it, Panacea flips out and flies into a rage, going from game face to full release in a second. She misses her attack on the shadowspawn because Merlin dismisses it, but her form being made of light means Merlin can’t hide, and all he can do when faced with antimagic – the tamagotchi producing it obscured by her release form – is try to get away. He does try to stab her but it does basically nothing.
Ursa tries to heal him up and Nora looks for an exit, going for the nearby roller door. Alkahest manages to dampen her power through their connection, but she’s still chasing the gnome down.
Eventually though, they calm her enough to listen to reason, with Merlin only staying conscious thanks to Ursa’s healing. Ursa offers to have everyone work together to depose the president, if that means they can all walk away happy, and Panacea almost seems like she’s going to go for it… until Merlin says they can go for coffee and Nora proffers some whisky as a peace offering.
Panacea is loudly and theatrically disgusted by these heterotrophs and mostly insults Alkahest for being friends with them, and for making flyers and stuff instead of just killing people. She thought after he’d finally mustered up the balls to trap her in a book for seven years he’d have made something of himself, but apparently not.
At this point Nora snatches the tamagotchi and stuffs it down her top.
Panacea doesn’t even blink and critically cuts off Nora’s arm. Nora passes out and sprays blood everywhere. Her own magic – like her ring of regeneration – stops working thanks to the tamagotchi’s power.
Ursa shoves Panacea off with a crit of her own, and Merlin tries to fish out the tamagotchi from Nora’s top with a magehand… that the tamagotchi dispels. So he has to get it manually, much to his dismay.
Once it’s clear, Ursa gives the unconscious Nora a blast of healing, and when Panacea lunges for her in turn, Alkahest swoops in and hits his sister with the steel chair.
With the help of the Ring of Regeneration, Ursa is able to reattach Nora’s arm. Merlin tries and fails to destroy the tamagotchi itself – it’s too potent to be broken, like some kind of One Ring but it’s a virtual pet.
Panacea, pinned down by Alkahest, says she’ll let them all go if they give it back. She traded for that and is damned if she’ll let it go to waste.
They agree, and learn that she got it via Mr. Pyrite by trading the Infernomicon she’d climbed out of for it. Presumably Pyrite knows a guy. Panacea tells them if she ever sees any of them again, she’ll fucking kill them, and then says she’s off to kill the president while flipping the bird.
Alkahest spins Ursa around and gives her a big ol’ smooch, and they all decide they’ll head back to the hotel where they killed that old woman to get some rest before figuring out how to get back to Fulcrum without ending up in Fulcrum’s America. Alkahest says they’ll get some hot dogs, his treat. Ursa suggest bagels, so they’re going to get hot dogs AND bagels. New York, baby!!!
Roll History 