Quick facts
Campaign: The Wonders of Arlia (Campaign 1) · Where: West City, The FeyWild, North City · Previous: C1 Chapter 10 · Next: C1 Chapter 12
The Cacklers went back to West City with Sophie, Goku, and Master Toshi to finish King Piccolo. Toshi died trying to seal him, Sophie died twice, and Greene finally got Piccolo into the jar with help from Juliette and an owl.
The Demon King waits
Piccolo was waiting at his West City mansion, as smug as ever. He promised to pluck the Star Orbs off their corpses one way or another and invited them to make any heroic speeches before he killed them. His first attacks tore into Sophie and Greene. “You son of a bitch,” Greene said. Piccolo laughed off their fighting styles: “your stupid martial tricks aren’t going to work on me.”
He went after the healers first, as he had promised. “I keep my word. You know, always take out the healers first.” He stunned Oolong and landed a crushing hit on Terra Misu.
Toshi’s Mafuba
With the party about to collapse, Master Toshi, already worn down from earlier battles, set a small jar on the ground and performed the forbidden Mafuba, giving his life to seal Piccolo again. The swirling energy caught Piccolo and stretched him toward the jar, but the jar tipped over before the seal closed. Piccolo got up. “Well, if you ask me, Mafuba is a very poor choice of last words,” he said, and killed the unconscious Toshi.
He turned his anger on Sophie and struck her down until she died. Oolong brought her back, and Piccolo screamed, “What’s so special about this fucking dwarf?” and kicked her in the head, dropping her again.
”Is that a jar?”
Piccolo grew into his final form, three stories tall. Greene set the jar down. Piccolo looked at it with resigned eyes and asked, “Is that a jar?”
The Mafuba failed again, but it shrank Piccolo back to normal size next to the toppled jar. Greene angled himself into the gap and fired a kamehameha that burned a hole clean through Piccolo’s stomach. A purple and black ball shot out of the wound, skittered across the roof, and turned to stone: the Star Orb Piccolo had swallowed in West City. The orb turning to stone meant Piccolo, and with him Kami, had died.
Then Muffin, Oolong’s owl, made its contribution. A small blot of white liquid landed on Piccolo’s face and drooped into his mouth. As Oolong put it, “Muffin shits in Piccolo’s mouth.”
When Piccolo’s soul tried to escape, Juliette used magic to drag the unwilling soul back into his body. “What? How dare you?” Piccolo said. Back in his body, and tasting owl droppings, he could finally be sealed. Greene guided the green and yellow swirl of Mafuba energy into the jar and closed it with Toshi’s magical talisman. Bringing Piccolo back also brought Kami back, so the guardian of Arlia and his Star Orbs survived.
After the battle
Goku found Toshi’s body. “Master Toshi, wake up. It’s not fair.” Oolong pushed Goku aside and cast reincarnate. After a few tense seconds, a younger, muscular man sprang up from the spiraling leaves, still bald and still mustached. Toshi said he felt “amazing” and immediately started helping everyone else clean up.
The others were not doing well. Terra apologized to Sophie: “I’m so sorry. You were right. This was no joke.” Sophie said she “didn’t want to come here” and “I can’t keep doing this.” She saw Piccolo’s face every time she closed her eyes. Oolong concluded, “Turns out dying twice is not good for you.”
A promise in the FeyWild
Terra decided to send Sophie home to her father to be safe, but first she kept a promise. She took Sophie into The FeyWild through a portrait in the Collector’s Mansion. Their absence felt short on the Arlia side, but far more time had passed in the FeyWild. “Oh, fuck,” Sophie said when she worked it out.
Terra also learned something dark about the captive kenku: their names were slave names. “Kenku” is “Uknek” spelled backwards. She set that aside and gave Sophie the Ring of Shooting Stars. “I’m not leaving you ever again,” she promised. Sophie promised in tears to come back once “this is all said and done.”
They returned to North City holding hands. Oolong walked up between them and asked, “So, did y’all kiss?”
Juliette then reported that the Dragon Radar was working and showed two beeps: the last two Star Orbs.
Previous: Chapter 10: The Occupation of North City · Next: Chapter 12: Rice Town and Grimscale Tower