Hugo now has the opportunity to approach the soldiers at the front gate and turn himself in, but that would be colossally stupid even for Hugo, so he picks the option that will not get his ass thrown in prison. The soldiers–one of whom knows for a fact that Hugo is the person they’re looking for–just go, “Sorry for the trouble.” This is embarrassing for absolutely everyone involved, except for Fubie. None of this is his fault. Dumber still, Hugo and friends return to the manor to talk to Frodo again, and after Hugo explains that he talked to the Zexens (Frodo asks, “The Zexens out there?” and I hate him so much right now), Lilly says, “They sent us back here! It’s not us they want.” But…um…what? That is not what happened just now. Am I having an aneurysm? Can boredom cause brain damage?

Caesar picks this moment to emerge from a moldy crack in the manor wall and explain to these complete strangers, “If they took you from here, they’d have no excuse to come storming in again to arrest you and spy on us. They’re pretty tricky.” Oh, I get it–the game is assuming I had Hugo turn himself in, and the soldiers refused him. I can’t believe I fell for the old Choice That’s Not a Choice! Silly me. Though it is patently absurd that Caesar thinks the Zexens require an excuse to fuck with Frodo. Anyway, Caesar and Apple introduce themselves all over again, Caesar noting that he’s got “a strategist’s blood and training,” as if he’s carrying around Shu’s blood in a little vial around his neck. Clearly this is not at all like the earlier scene in which they met Frodo, but I think I’m just going to cut my losses and stop expecting this shit to line up properly.

After running everybody through the (again, illogical) inextricable link between Hugo and the Zexen siege, Caesar dismisses Hugo’s crew to go over the plan with Frodo’s crew, so at least there’s one scene I don’t have to watch again. Hugo spends a few more pointless minutes running around the castle grounds before returning to the manor–Christ almighty–to talk with Caesar, who asks if Hugo is ready. Ready to leave, I guess, because that is the only part of Caesar’s plan that Hugo knows anything about. Then again, I am trying and failing to think of a time Hugo has ever been well-informed about anything. So this should be fine.

*dreamy sigh*

But once Hugo has told Caesar he is in fact ready, and the meeting seems to be over, he stands there sighing and shuffling his feet until Caesar asks what’s bothering him. “Tell me,” he asks, “Lord [Frodo] has ties with Zexen ironheads, right? So why is he protecting us from them?” Ugh, even if I didn’t already know the answer, I could not care less about this question. Caesar is all, “How the fuck should I know?” and tells him to go ask Frodo himself if it’s so goddamn important. Another conversation with Frodo! I cannot think of a more exciting thing that has ever happened in my life.

I waste time searching the manor for Frodo, since it is about time for second breakfast and he should be sitting in his office with a plate of bangers and mash or something, but Hugo doesn’t find him until he walks down the stairs five feet away from where he was talking with Caesar. God dammit. And then Frodo just protests that he’s too busy to talk and walks toward the manor while Hugo stands there, silent. Double god dammit.

Oh my God, you’re a fucking landlord.

This begins a game of dim cat and dull mouse in which Hugo seeks Frodo thrice more (twice in the manor, once out by the entrance) and each time Frodo brushes him off with increasingly dickheaded proclamations of how busy and important he is. Finally he implores Hugo to find him that evening, when he will be finished with his business and will have time to entertain Hugo while enjoying his nightly pipeweed. Was Frodo always this much of a smug, punchable cock, and I just didn’t notice?

Let’s just jump to that evening, mostly because I paused my recording at this point and it skips to this scene. Reed and Samus whine that they have always been skeptical of the Fire Bringer a) existing and b) living in such a dump, while Sarge and Hugo figure it wouldn’t matter if the Fire Bringer were here, since they are now being forced to leave anyway. Lilly saunters off to bed, after bickering with Sarge like an old married couple about whether she’ll sleep in tomorrow. Sarge suggests to Hugo that they go to sleep as well, but Hugo leaves Sarge to masturbate resentfully while he heads to the manor to talk to Frodo.

Frodo is in the middle of one of the five thousand items he had to attend to today when Hugo enters his bedroom. This sounds like the setup to the most tedious gay sex scene imaginable, but that is not where this is headed. Hugo gets right to the point, asking, “Why are you helping to keep the ironheads away from us?” Frodo goes, “Excuse me?” because he isn’t so deep in the racial politics of the region that this is an obvious question to him. Also, he has never heard the term “ironhead” before, somehow. But eventually he explains to Hugo, and again to me, that he is actually from the Northern Outlands and that his only tie to Zexen is his deadbeat dad. Hugo says, “So that’s why…” only for Frodo to cut him off with, “No, that’s not why.” Then why did you tell him about it? Jesus, Baggins.

Obviously, the real reason Frodo is helping Hugo is much lamer. “It’s because I want this castle to be a place where people can come and go freely. Anyone, from anywhere,” he rhapsodizes. I should have called this place Cheers and been done with it. Hugo is not so great with nuanced attitudes, so he reads this as broadly as possible and asks, “You want to make the Zexens your allies?” Sigh. Frodo patiently explains that he just wants them to “understand” each other more and sing “Kumbaya” around a campfire. The camera closes in on Hugo’s left hand as he processes this. After a pause, the hand balls into a fist. “I…can’t,” he tells Frodo. “They killed Lulu. I must…do what I feel is right.” What I feel is right is either pretending Lulu never existed or giving Chris a medal for snuffing him out, but since when has Hugo considered my feelings?

Here, though, Frodo drops a bomb on Hugo’s sad black-and-white worldview. After determining that Lulu was Hugo’s “close friend” (no, I am not putting that in quotes because I think they were screwing, don’t think such terrible things), Frodo murmurs, as if it’s not even a big deal, “My mother was killed, too. By a group of Grassland bandits.” Woof. I so want him to add, “It was two Karayans, a duck, and a griffin,” just so this takes a weird dark turn, but no. Hugo is aghast, but Frodo just stares at him placidly. “Hugo, it is…late,” he finally says. “Go and get some rest.” Your mom might have murdered Frodo’s mom! Sweet dreams, asshole!

Lilly Pendragon is all of us.

In the morning, Caesar is ready to hatch his plan and get them all out of there, which leads to a rehash of sorts of the army battle from Frodo’s last chapter. It only lasts three rounds, and all I have to do is stay put and read the same dialogue about Babyface Official over again, so I’m not even sure why I had to do it at all. The battle ends without Hugo even having to move onto the path out of the castle, and he winds up back at the entrance, with Samwise asking him why the fuck he’s still here. Look, I don’t know, lady. Without further ado, Hugo leaves Buttfuck Castle, hopefully forever but sadly not.

But out on the Yaza Plain, Hugo gets to reenact that exciting move to a different marker on the battle map in real time, against real soldiers! How thrilling. And hilarious, since the whole point of Caesar’s plan was to get them out quietly, so that Frodo could invite the Zexens to check the premises and see that no sign of a Karayan fugitive exists. Aren’t these knights, once they’re done getting clobbered by a boy and his griffin, going to report back to a superior about the wanted Grasslanders sneaking out of the castle? Whatever. After three such encounters, Caesar declares the group in the clear, and everybody repeats their dialogue from before, including Apple whining about how long of a walk it is, which is even dumber now since she and Caesar just stood there and did nothing while the others fought three waves of armed soldiers.

Lilly wonders what’s next on the agenda, and I’m still unsure why she even wants to hang around at this point. She herself points out, “We don’t have any leads. No money, either.” That sounds like good enough reason for her to go home, but she’s such a true friend with a heart of gold that she remains at Hugo’s side. Caesar says, out of the blue, “Sergeant, we’re going to visit your village.” Good lord, why? Sarge makes a face, since he knows how irritating his own people are. But this terrible idea is, of course, Apple’s brainchild. “I have a reason. I’m gathering knowledge on cultures from all over Grassland and Zexen,” Apple explains. “Oh really, that’s so interesting,” replies no one. Sarge promises her that Duck Village is boring and has no culture, but Caesar says they’re going there anyway. The two of them are actually heading there alone, but will meet up with Hugo and pals later. Then why were we even having this group conversation about where to go? I want to shake these people.

I know, I’m being obtuse–this is mostly a built-in story excuse for Hugo to take a break and do some recruitment, level grinding, and cash hoarding before picking up the story later. But after that déjà  vu trip with Frodo, I have been reduced to nothing but a pile of crotchety complaints in a barely sentient meat sack. Let me have this.

Of course, Hugo only has one actual recruit available to him before going to Duck Village anyway. And I would be rather happy if I could get the good ending without this one, but get him I must. Hugo returns to the Great Hollow and re-enters the secret passage that originally brought them there, which is now labeled as the Ancient Highway. In the center of the passage, where these chuckleheads earlier encountered the Mask and his crew, Hugo now happens upon someone even scarier: noted pedophile Guillaume.

Guillaume is standing in front of the huge stone doors that Sarah tried and failed to open, rapping on them with his trident, a horrible simpering expression of greed on his gross face. He is convinced that beyond these doors lies “a mountain of riches,” like there’s a Sindar day care back there. For extra horror, as he’s monologuing, the camera comes in tight below his face, as if he is looming over me. Well, I’m off to take five showers.

Whyyyyyyy

But Guillaume is also smart enough to know that this is Sindar construction, and worries that it could be booby trapped. “I won’t be caught! Ever!” he shouts at the doors, still poking at the slit between them with his weapon, and now I need five more showers. Several yards behind Guillaume, Hugo is not at all happy about running into this creep, but I am cruel and force him to walk closer. Guillaume finally turns around and, seeing a young boy, declares, “Ho ho ho ho! I’ve been waiting for you!” Oh my God, was he meeting someone down here? Does he have milkshakes and a teddy bear costume nearby? But he adds, since Hugo is either too old for him or not to the specifications in his Craigslist ad, “Who are you!?”

As if this could get any creepier, Guillaume decides that Hugo is some kind of Chris Hansen plant, and squeaks, “Egads! I’ve been seen!” I’m guessing (and hoping) he’s been in some trouble with the law ever since he chased Shabon around a public square and poked her in the butt. Guillaume runs past Hugo toward the exit, looking frightened, but then he turns around, levels his trident at Hugo, and says, “No debate needed… There must be no witnesses!” Jesus gingerbread Christ. Hugo needs an adult. Who is not Guillaume.

*vomits*

This, of course, leads to a third, final duel with Guillaume, which is as easy to win as the last one, since Guillaume is still a fan of explicitly declared deathblow attacks. On that subject, I will say that “Deathblow attack!!! Wet rainstorm!!!” makes me want to up that shower count to 15. Thankfully it only takes Hugo a few rounds to take him out. After his defeat, Guillaume starts shrieking and holding his head in his hands, while Hugo tells him, “Don’t threaten us or try any tricks. You don’t really look the type anyway.” I vehemently disagree. Guillaume randomly wonders if Hugo is trying to tell him to change his ways, which isn’t even a little bit what he said, but it allows Guillaume to say, while staring at the ground and going out of his way to look as pathetic as possible, “You mean return to being an unskilled appraiser? Ho ho.” A horribly long pause, pregnant with unspoken pleas of “ASK ME TO OPEN A SHOP AT BUTTFUCK,” hangs in the air, until Hugo finally goes, “Appraiser? Hmmm…” God dammit, Hugo, do not engage! This is what he wants! And indeed, Guillaume takes his cue. “I’m an appraiser by trade,” he says, all enthusiastic now, giving Hugo a seedy wink that should be illegal. “Oooh, do you have need for one? Ho ho ho! I’ll consider any business propositions if you ask nicely.” I’ll give you one guess what he would consider “asking nicely.”