Twitch streams wise this happens between Session 7 and Session 8.
Everyone enjoys a victory party thrown at the rebel HQ, we try to see Adele but we're told she's too busy right now trying to get the power vacuum left by Charles under control, though on asking about if we can get the league of janitors wiped out we're informed they've already up and left.
We decide to all head to the league's HQ to check it out, the door is open.. and inside is an extremely empty room.
Rezcow senses something strange coming from one of the rooms further down a corridor, like the other rooms it's empty but he can still feel a strange sensation, something that feels like the obelisk King Charles destroyed.
Van takes one quick look around the room for any trapdoors or switches and gives up extremely easily, however Rezcow feels it very strongly in a corner of the room, and smashes the wall and the floor to hell with his hammer, this reveals a hidden corridor under the floor with a flickering fire-like light at the end of it.
We all jump down to investigate and find a room ablaze in flames, one giant pile of documents, artifacts and carvings on fire. Jakeyboy uses his weather-making magic to make it rain, putting most of the fire out. He grabs an artifact for his efforts.
Said artifact is a pin with a holy symbol on it, none of us recognise this symbol other than it looks like a snowflake. We decide to pass it around the group to see if wearing it does anything, Hannah puts it on and doesn't feel any different.
Jakeyboy puts it on and feels like something is looking at him, when Van tries it on he just feels a weird sensation.
Though when Rezcow puts it on, he feels the same as Jakeyboy but perceives it clearer, he feels many eyes watching him with interest, no malicious intentions.. just curiousity on what will happen next. He gets the feeling the 'things' watching him are impossibly huge, like he's being watched by planet-sized beings.
Van takes this opportunity to mutter to the group that there were no gods before he came to ASMT, and that he kinda misses the simpler life.
Also Van recalls he hadn't relayed the stuff Sharon spoke to him and Hannah about at the Charles ball, fighting the King and then having a party after made it slip his mind. He tells Rezcow that Sharon spoke to him during the party and that the hostage situation needs to be resolved today, and that she'd be sending a contact.
Rezcow doesn't understand what Van is saying and questions why Sharon even knows Carlos. Van tries to explain that Sharon is with the kidnappers, to which Rezcow interprets as Sharon was kidnapped as well... not working for the enemy. Van facepalms. (or rather, Maskpalms)
Either way he understands we need to go back to HQ to wait for the contact to arrive. Meanwhile ASMT is going to shit, and fast. Lots of fighting in the streets and general disorder.
Back at the HQ Rezcow crafts up a fake flower, trying to pass it as the heirloom flower that Sharon wants for the exchange, Rezcow thinks he did a good job, Van and Jakeyboy can clearly tell its fake.. but that it might work at a distance, we think of possible plans of action such as giving them the real flower and then using he time-stop magic item to get it back... but then decide if we're going to do that anyway, we should just murder them all for kidnapping Carlos in the first place.
With a little time to spare, Rezcow continues his creative mood by writing a fanfic about Carlos and Carlos (his Carlos and Jakeyboy's Carlos). We all read it, Hannah thinks its alright... Van finds it confusing and strange (actually critfailed to read it...) and lies to Rezcow, telling him it was sad when Carlos dies, despite that not happening in the fanfic. Rezcow is dissapointed.
Jakeyboy however likes the fanfic and thinks it was very skillfully written, he finger-guns Rezcow on a job well done.
Around this point there's a knock on the door, it's Adele, she speaks through the door.. Rezcow giving her some sass because she was too busy to talk to us at the party. She says its urgent buisness, we stall opening the door for a bit just to annoy her, then Hannah lets her in.
Adele comes in... with Sharon in tow. Jakeyboy asks her how her bottlecap collection is going and she excitedly says she has three new ones, showing off a commemorative bottlecap of King Charles IV, signed by King Charles himself.
She asks us to hand over the flower, we tell her that's not how the deal was supposed to happen and ask where Carlos is, she says on Rezcow's boat.
Sharon is apparently doubtful if she can trust us to do the deal properly, since we're a very powerful group. Rezcow is hurt at the distrust. She says she can bring Carlos here but it might take a while to arrange that, Rezcow and Jakeyboy insist she do it quicker so we can get the deal done with already, Jakeyboy nudges Van to get him to agree as well.
In an attempt to rectify, Sharon notices the pin Rezcow's wearing and says we can keep the flower and just give her the pin to get Carlos and the boat back. Rezcow instantly gets suspicious of this, and after she insists he slowly removes it and puts it in his pocket to hide away.
She tells us the pin is a dangerous thing, at this point Van gets annoyed at all the back and forth and points his staff at Sharon.
Sharon : Oh, you should be careful. You could put an eye out with that thing.
Van : You know... we've only just really met, but I 'really' don't like you
In retort, Sharon blurts out that Van is under the influence of the stonemind, giving a very unconvincing 'oops' after. Van pauses for a moment and says that the woman talks in nothing but lies. She says that Van can be freed if he helps her.
Van can tell that Sharon has changed from calm to nervous in regards to the pin because of his bracelet.
Van : (With a smug grin) Losing your composure there Sharon?
Sharon : Oh no. I never lose my composure.
Getting increasingly annoyed at her, Van threatens to have the team grab her so he can interrogate her and finally loosen her tongue. Adele interjects and forbids it, saying Sharon helped the resistance a lot.
During all this talk Hannah has been death-staring Van since talk of stonemind happened. Jakeyboy asks Van to take off his mask to which Van vehimently refuses, saying Shyguys do not show their faces to people and that it was extremely culturally insensitive to even ask. Rezcow backs Van up saying he's super embarrassed that Jakeyboy asked that, he apologies and lets it go.
Van brings up a hand to block Hannah from his sight, but can still feel her staring at him.
We argue a little more with Hannah, both sides convinced we're going to screw each other over, Sharon once again tries to sway Van by offering him release from the influence.
Rezcow asks Van if he's on drugs, misunderstanding. He says he isn't. Then Van nonchalantly asks Rezcow if he can see the pin real quick... Rezcow refuses.. saying the atmosphere got really tense all of a sudden. (Meanwhile Jakeyboy has started playing solitaire with his cardpack)
Van : I don't know what you mean Rezcow, we're all calm here.
Van tries to reason with Rezcow, that we only just got the pin and asking what's the worst that could happen if we just gave it to her, he's worried they might be able to manipulate or otherwise use the beings he felt watching him.
Rezcow offers Sharon the movie rights to his fanfic... this does not work.
(OOC we think putting a snowflake symbol onto a bottlecap might be enough to trick Sharon into thinking we had another holy artifact of the same type... and a bottlecap to sweeten the deal with her!)
Jakeyboy looks for a bottlecap in the room, he can't find any but realises the room is really dusty... so he and Hannah leave the room to get paper towels in the kitchen. (and also to look for bottlecaps)
After a bit of awkward silence, Rezcow tells Van he can tell him anything, since something is clearly on his mind.
Jakeyboy returns and starts cleaning the room.
Van sighs and looks at Rezcow.
Van : Look, Rezcow... don't overreact when I tell you this. But I am unwillingly under the influence of the Stonemind, I'm going to be dead in one month if I don't get it out of me.
He goes on to tell what happened when Van and Hannah were trapped in the bad room in the prison camp. Hannah's parents attacked them and basically nearly beat Van to death, Hannah tried to protect him but got knocked out. At this point Van's choices were get killed or join with the Stonemind, to which he reluctantly agreed to.
Despite how worried Van was about revealing this, Rezcow took it very well, satisfied that he's telling the truth. (Saying Van helped in taking down King Charles with them so there's no reason he shouldn't trust him)
Jakeyboy asks Sharon how she knew Van was in the stonemind collective, she says that Van might not want that information public. Van leans into her to ask and she just winks at him... Van literally has no idea what she means by that.
She also bizzarely mentions that stonemind follows smell like flat pepsi.
Sharon tells us it's really not good for us to have the pin, and asks Rezcow to go into fire mode with it in his possession. The rest of us get out of the room and he tries to turn it on, but it spurts and sputters.. not able to fully turn on.
Jakeyboy puts it on and finds his ice bullets don't work... Hannah puts it on and approaches Rezcow in fire mode, though it doesn't turn it off or anything, Hannah is perfectly fine getting close to him. So we come to the conclusion this pin is some kind of god-power nullifier.
Van brings up possibly deal alteration, that Sharon would give her bottlecap collection as collateral until we get Carlos back and purge Van of the stonemind. That way she can't betray us.
We all agree this plan is fine, Sharon gives over her bottlecaps and Hannah gives Sharon the pin. She asks Van to come over and tells him it's going to hurt a lot.. and will be very spooky for everyone else, like halloween.
Van goes over to her and tells her to get on with it, she slams it into his forehead, cracking the mask slightly and causing him to bleed profusely.
Van screams bloody murder and quickly thousands of other voices start screaming in tandem, black ooze seeping out of his forehead.
After about a minute the screaming stops, and Van feels oddly lonely. He grabs his forehead and shakely holds out his other hand, asking weakly for the heirloom flower. He manages to almost fully recover the trauma damage he took from all that.
Sharon gives Rezcow directions to where the boat is, she says the crew it tied up "Kind of like a game where they can't move", and to leave the bottlecaps with the new first mate on the way out after we get Carlos.
A week or two pass on a roadtrip to get to the boat. There's basically nothing but static on the radio, though one broadcast was still singing about King Charles. "King Charles was the greatest! He was just the best!"
During this trip Rezcow gets some mortar shells from the resistance HQ and Jakeyboy crafts up some more ice bullets.
Van asks Hannah to fix the crack in his mask, slipping it under her door at some point during the trip and immediately running off to hide his maskless self, she doesn't do a fantastic job but it's good enough.
We decide to all head to the league's HQ to check it out, the door is open.. and inside is an extremely empty room.
Rezcow senses something strange coming from one of the rooms further down a corridor, like the other rooms it's empty but he can still feel a strange sensation, something that feels like the obelisk King Charles destroyed.
Van takes one quick look around the room for any trapdoors or switches and gives up extremely easily, however Rezcow feels it very strongly in a corner of the room, and smashes the wall and the floor to hell with his hammer, this reveals a hidden corridor under the floor with a flickering fire-like light at the end of it.
We all jump down to investigate and find a room ablaze in flames, one giant pile of documents, artifacts and carvings on fire. Jakeyboy uses his weather-making magic to make it rain, putting most of the fire out. He grabs an artifact for his efforts.
Said artifact is a pin with a holy symbol on it, none of us recognise this symbol other than it looks like a snowflake. We decide to pass it around the group to see if wearing it does anything, Hannah puts it on and doesn't feel any different.
Jakeyboy puts it on and feels like something is looking at him, when Van tries it on he just feels a weird sensation.
Though when Rezcow puts it on, he feels the same as Jakeyboy but perceives it clearer, he feels many eyes watching him with interest, no malicious intentions.. just curiousity on what will happen next. He gets the feeling the 'things' watching him are impossibly huge, like he's being watched by planet-sized beings.
Van takes this opportunity to mutter to the group that there were no gods before he came to ASMT, and that he kinda misses the simpler life.
Also Van recalls he hadn't relayed the stuff Sharon spoke to him and Hannah about at the Charles ball, fighting the King and then having a party after made it slip his mind. He tells Rezcow that Sharon spoke to him during the party and that the hostage situation needs to be resolved today, and that she'd be sending a contact.
Rezcow doesn't understand what Van is saying and questions why Sharon even knows Carlos. Van tries to explain that Sharon is with the kidnappers, to which Rezcow interprets as Sharon was kidnapped as well... not working for the enemy. Van facepalms. (or rather, Maskpalms)
Either way he understands we need to go back to HQ to wait for the contact to arrive. Meanwhile ASMT is going to shit, and fast. Lots of fighting in the streets and general disorder.
Back at the HQ Rezcow crafts up a fake flower, trying to pass it as the heirloom flower that Sharon wants for the exchange, Rezcow thinks he did a good job, Van and Jakeyboy can clearly tell its fake.. but that it might work at a distance, we think of possible plans of action such as giving them the real flower and then using he time-stop magic item to get it back... but then decide if we're going to do that anyway, we should just murder them all for kidnapping Carlos in the first place.
With a little time to spare, Rezcow continues his creative mood by writing a fanfic about Carlos and Carlos (his Carlos and Jakeyboy's Carlos). We all read it, Hannah thinks its alright... Van finds it confusing and strange (actually critfailed to read it...) and lies to Rezcow, telling him it was sad when Carlos dies, despite that not happening in the fanfic. Rezcow is dissapointed.
Jakeyboy however likes the fanfic and thinks it was very skillfully written, he finger-guns Rezcow on a job well done.
Around this point there's a knock on the door, it's Adele, she speaks through the door.. Rezcow giving her some sass because she was too busy to talk to us at the party. She says its urgent buisness, we stall opening the door for a bit just to annoy her, then Hannah lets her in.
Adele comes in... with Sharon in tow. Jakeyboy asks her how her bottlecap collection is going and she excitedly says she has three new ones, showing off a commemorative bottlecap of King Charles IV, signed by King Charles himself.
She asks us to hand over the flower, we tell her that's not how the deal was supposed to happen and ask where Carlos is, she says on Rezcow's boat.
Sharon is apparently doubtful if she can trust us to do the deal properly, since we're a very powerful group. Rezcow is hurt at the distrust. She says she can bring Carlos here but it might take a while to arrange that, Rezcow and Jakeyboy insist she do it quicker so we can get the deal done with already, Jakeyboy nudges Van to get him to agree as well.
In an attempt to rectify, Sharon notices the pin Rezcow's wearing and says we can keep the flower and just give her the pin to get Carlos and the boat back. Rezcow instantly gets suspicious of this, and after she insists he slowly removes it and puts it in his pocket to hide away.
She tells us the pin is a dangerous thing, at this point Van gets annoyed at all the back and forth and points his staff at Sharon.
Sharon : Oh, you should be careful. You could put an eye out with that thing.
Van : You know... we've only just really met, but I 'really' don't like you
In retort, Sharon blurts out that Van is under the influence of the stonemind, giving a very unconvincing 'oops' after. Van pauses for a moment and says that the woman talks in nothing but lies. She says that Van can be freed if he helps her.
Van can tell that Sharon has changed from calm to nervous in regards to the pin because of his bracelet.
Van : (With a smug grin) Losing your composure there Sharon?
Sharon : Oh no. I never lose my composure.
Getting increasingly annoyed at her, Van threatens to have the team grab her so he can interrogate her and finally loosen her tongue. Adele interjects and forbids it, saying Sharon helped the resistance a lot.
During all this talk Hannah has been death-staring Van since talk of stonemind happened. Jakeyboy asks Van to take off his mask to which Van vehimently refuses, saying Shyguys do not show their faces to people and that it was extremely culturally insensitive to even ask. Rezcow backs Van up saying he's super embarrassed that Jakeyboy asked that, he apologies and lets it go.
Van brings up a hand to block Hannah from his sight, but can still feel her staring at him.
We argue a little more with Hannah, both sides convinced we're going to screw each other over, Sharon once again tries to sway Van by offering him release from the influence.
Rezcow asks Van if he's on drugs, misunderstanding. He says he isn't. Then Van nonchalantly asks Rezcow if he can see the pin real quick... Rezcow refuses.. saying the atmosphere got really tense all of a sudden. (Meanwhile Jakeyboy has started playing solitaire with his cardpack)
Van : I don't know what you mean Rezcow, we're all calm here.
Van tries to reason with Rezcow, that we only just got the pin and asking what's the worst that could happen if we just gave it to her, he's worried they might be able to manipulate or otherwise use the beings he felt watching him.
Rezcow offers Sharon the movie rights to his fanfic... this does not work.
(OOC we think putting a snowflake symbol onto a bottlecap might be enough to trick Sharon into thinking we had another holy artifact of the same type... and a bottlecap to sweeten the deal with her!)
Jakeyboy looks for a bottlecap in the room, he can't find any but realises the room is really dusty... so he and Hannah leave the room to get paper towels in the kitchen. (and also to look for bottlecaps)
After a bit of awkward silence, Rezcow tells Van he can tell him anything, since something is clearly on his mind.
Jakeyboy returns and starts cleaning the room.
Van sighs and looks at Rezcow.
Van : Look, Rezcow... don't overreact when I tell you this. But I am unwillingly under the influence of the Stonemind, I'm going to be dead in one month if I don't get it out of me.
He goes on to tell what happened when Van and Hannah were trapped in the bad room in the prison camp. Hannah's parents attacked them and basically nearly beat Van to death, Hannah tried to protect him but got knocked out. At this point Van's choices were get killed or join with the Stonemind, to which he reluctantly agreed to.
Despite how worried Van was about revealing this, Rezcow took it very well, satisfied that he's telling the truth. (Saying Van helped in taking down King Charles with them so there's no reason he shouldn't trust him)
Jakeyboy asks Sharon how she knew Van was in the stonemind collective, she says that Van might not want that information public. Van leans into her to ask and she just winks at him... Van literally has no idea what she means by that.
She also bizzarely mentions that stonemind follows smell like flat pepsi.
Sharon tells us it's really not good for us to have the pin, and asks Rezcow to go into fire mode with it in his possession. The rest of us get out of the room and he tries to turn it on, but it spurts and sputters.. not able to fully turn on.
Jakeyboy puts it on and finds his ice bullets don't work... Hannah puts it on and approaches Rezcow in fire mode, though it doesn't turn it off or anything, Hannah is perfectly fine getting close to him. So we come to the conclusion this pin is some kind of god-power nullifier.
Van brings up possibly deal alteration, that Sharon would give her bottlecap collection as collateral until we get Carlos back and purge Van of the stonemind. That way she can't betray us.
We all agree this plan is fine, Sharon gives over her bottlecaps and Hannah gives Sharon the pin. She asks Van to come over and tells him it's going to hurt a lot.. and will be very spooky for everyone else, like halloween.
Van goes over to her and tells her to get on with it, she slams it into his forehead, cracking the mask slightly and causing him to bleed profusely.
Van screams bloody murder and quickly thousands of other voices start screaming in tandem, black ooze seeping out of his forehead.
After about a minute the screaming stops, and Van feels oddly lonely. He grabs his forehead and shakely holds out his other hand, asking weakly for the heirloom flower. He manages to almost fully recover the trauma damage he took from all that.
Sharon gives Rezcow directions to where the boat is, she says the crew it tied up "Kind of like a game where they can't move", and to leave the bottlecaps with the new first mate on the way out after we get Carlos.
A week or two pass on a roadtrip to get to the boat. There's basically nothing but static on the radio, though one broadcast was still singing about King Charles. "King Charles was the greatest! He was just the best!"
During this trip Rezcow gets some mortar shells from the resistance HQ and Jakeyboy crafts up some more ice bullets.
Van asks Hannah to fix the crack in his mask, slipping it under her door at some point during the trip and immediately running off to hide his maskless self, she doesn't do a fantastic job but it's good enough.
The boat is out on the sea, we pass Van's telescope around to check it out. Van and Rezcow need to get their eyesight checked, but Jakeyboy manages to see a lot of tied up people and something that looks like King Charles.
Jakeyboy asks Rezcow what his friend looks like, he's a Birdo... and not on the deck of the ship. Hannah and Jakeyboy work together to craft together a raft, it takes about 12 hours.. and after two failures we finally get a somewhat decent raft.
Rezcow won't fit on the raft so we fashion a kind of lifesaver to tow him behind the raft. Van asks to borrow Rezcow's invisibility cloak so he can teleport to the ship to scout it out.
Jakeyboy keeps an eye on the boat with the telescope, he feels something is really off about the King Charles-looking guy but isn't sure what, and despite the odd bruise the crew are safe.
We get within 300 feet of the boat and Van teleports on, the plan being he'll use his staff to shoot a flare if he needs help. (And make a heart-shaped fireball if everything is good)
Van approaches the King Charles guy and it turns out to be a Sumo Brother in a King Charles costume..., he sneaks around him to search the cabins, all the doors are guarded, the closest one being guarded by a ninji.
Van grabs a nearby bucket and throws it towards the front of the ship, everyone freaks out and moves away from their posts to see what's up. He sneaks into the nearest door and down in the ship's hold there are a multitude of mushroom kingdom residents, about twenty in total, all guarding one tied up person, Carlos.
Spotting flammable barrels, Van briefly considers causing a fire-based distraction but thinks beter of it and heads back up the stairs, though pressing his ear at the door it would seem the ninji is back. But by sheer coincidence a plank nearby falls and makes a noise, spooking the guards once again at the presence of the 'ghost'.
Van makes his way to the back of the boat and flares up, Jakeyboy paddles with his little boo flippers and they get to the boat. The crew notice and shout 'Ahoy' down at them, asking who they are.
Hannah speaks up and says Sharon sent us, they say they don't know who that is but Jakeyboy knows they're lying. She mentions we have her bottlecaps and immediately they change their tone and know it's serious, though they are concerned and what to know Sharon isn't dead.
We explain the deal with Sharon to them and the pin, Jakeyboy starts doing carthwheels for some reason.
Rezcow pushes the point and asks for their boss to come out, the Sumo Brother dressed as King Charles comes over, his name is Lanz.
Seeing so many mushroom kingdom people, Rezcow is suddenly pretty happy, he asks how the Mushroom Kingdom is doing and apparently it's bad, the Koopa Kingdom has invaded, with Morton taking over desert world. (Yeah, SMB3's events)
They argue about who owns the boat, Rezcow adamant that now he's here it's his again. The show him the super rare bottlecap and that Sharon was happy with the deal with the pin. Lanz mentions that Sharon collects a lot of those occult items and that he doesn't trust them.
The kidnappers decide our story is straight and agree to give the boat back, Rezcow flips Sharon's prized bottlecap into the air and Lanz catches it, he warns that it's been very recently haunted however. Van throws another bucket just to screw with him, Hannah says its not a ghost but her "pirate crew-friend buckety".
They slowly evacuate their men with one of the lifeboats, Van uncloaks when they're gone and tells Rezcow about the tied up guy on his own in the hold.
Rezcow goes down and unties Carlos, who complains about him taking so long to rescue him and things got really bad while he was gone, he mentions that the Koopa Kingdom are basically trying to silence anything mushroom jesus-related and one of his religious friends got driven underground.
Rezcow assures him it'll be fine and that we're heading back there to speak with the angels, Carlos gives him a weird look.
Rezcow thanks Hannah and Van for their help in ASMT, assuming they're parting ways. They both say they're sticking around so they can finish their buisness with the stonemind, Hannah revenge for her parent's death, Van revenge for being forced into the stonemind's thrall.
And so our heroes return to the Mushroom Kingdom! For Book 2 : The Deepest Lore.
Jakeyboy asks Rezcow what his friend looks like, he's a Birdo... and not on the deck of the ship. Hannah and Jakeyboy work together to craft together a raft, it takes about 12 hours.. and after two failures we finally get a somewhat decent raft.
Rezcow won't fit on the raft so we fashion a kind of lifesaver to tow him behind the raft. Van asks to borrow Rezcow's invisibility cloak so he can teleport to the ship to scout it out.
Jakeyboy keeps an eye on the boat with the telescope, he feels something is really off about the King Charles-looking guy but isn't sure what, and despite the odd bruise the crew are safe.
We get within 300 feet of the boat and Van teleports on, the plan being he'll use his staff to shoot a flare if he needs help. (And make a heart-shaped fireball if everything is good)
Van approaches the King Charles guy and it turns out to be a Sumo Brother in a King Charles costume..., he sneaks around him to search the cabins, all the doors are guarded, the closest one being guarded by a ninji.
Van grabs a nearby bucket and throws it towards the front of the ship, everyone freaks out and moves away from their posts to see what's up. He sneaks into the nearest door and down in the ship's hold there are a multitude of mushroom kingdom residents, about twenty in total, all guarding one tied up person, Carlos.
Spotting flammable barrels, Van briefly considers causing a fire-based distraction but thinks beter of it and heads back up the stairs, though pressing his ear at the door it would seem the ninji is back. But by sheer coincidence a plank nearby falls and makes a noise, spooking the guards once again at the presence of the 'ghost'.
Van makes his way to the back of the boat and flares up, Jakeyboy paddles with his little boo flippers and they get to the boat. The crew notice and shout 'Ahoy' down at them, asking who they are.
Hannah speaks up and says Sharon sent us, they say they don't know who that is but Jakeyboy knows they're lying. She mentions we have her bottlecaps and immediately they change their tone and know it's serious, though they are concerned and what to know Sharon isn't dead.
We explain the deal with Sharon to them and the pin, Jakeyboy starts doing carthwheels for some reason.
Rezcow pushes the point and asks for their boss to come out, the Sumo Brother dressed as King Charles comes over, his name is Lanz.
Seeing so many mushroom kingdom people, Rezcow is suddenly pretty happy, he asks how the Mushroom Kingdom is doing and apparently it's bad, the Koopa Kingdom has invaded, with Morton taking over desert world. (Yeah, SMB3's events)
They argue about who owns the boat, Rezcow adamant that now he's here it's his again. The show him the super rare bottlecap and that Sharon was happy with the deal with the pin. Lanz mentions that Sharon collects a lot of those occult items and that he doesn't trust them.
The kidnappers decide our story is straight and agree to give the boat back, Rezcow flips Sharon's prized bottlecap into the air and Lanz catches it, he warns that it's been very recently haunted however. Van throws another bucket just to screw with him, Hannah says its not a ghost but her "pirate crew-friend buckety".
They slowly evacuate their men with one of the lifeboats, Van uncloaks when they're gone and tells Rezcow about the tied up guy on his own in the hold.
Rezcow goes down and unties Carlos, who complains about him taking so long to rescue him and things got really bad while he was gone, he mentions that the Koopa Kingdom are basically trying to silence anything mushroom jesus-related and one of his religious friends got driven underground.
Rezcow assures him it'll be fine and that we're heading back there to speak with the angels, Carlos gives him a weird look.
Rezcow thanks Hannah and Van for their help in ASMT, assuming they're parting ways. They both say they're sticking around so they can finish their buisness with the stonemind, Hannah revenge for her parent's death, Van revenge for being forced into the stonemind's thrall.
And so our heroes return to the Mushroom Kingdom! For Book 2 : The Deepest Lore.