Tootie looks at Aila and replies, “Ironhead? Oh, yes. I am indeed the Zexen Knight [Tootie]. But who is this little girl?” Drink! Aila introduces herself with her name, clan, serial number, and her favorite Zexen crime against her people. Tootie, like Borus, seems genuinely sorry about how that whole thing went down. He calls it a “plan gone sour,” but because nobody in this game believes in trust and openness, he won’t elaborate, and instead moves on to their business. “[Geddy], the information you and Wyatt sent me has been very useful.” Wyatt? As in Wyatt Lightfellow? Um, duh. It makes a certain amount of sense that Tootie is the Ambiguously Gay Trio’s Fifth Beatle, or more accurately, Fourth Ugly Guy Jerking Off in a Corner.

But not so fast. Aila has had it with people parceling out information tidbits at a time, has not given up on hearing about this plan, and is going to yell at Tootie until he listens to her. So he closes his eyes, mentally intones, “Serenity now,” and lays it out for her. “There were those who were not in favor of the armistice between Grassland and Zexen. Just prior to the treaty being signed, the chief of the Lizard Clan was assassinated and thus, the whole thing turned ugly.” And now shit is going to get weird, no matter what Jacques wanted. Ace snarls at Tootie, “We were there when the Lizard Clan chief was assassinated. We even fought against you knights. Whose plan was this then?” Boy flatly states that it wasn’t them, but Queen just as flatly states that they saw Chris in the Great Hollow. “Chris was with us at the signing of the armistice,” Tootie says. “Even Chief Lucia saw her there.”

This, at long last, leads us to the twist that the entire game has been building toward: Tootie tells them, “Among the enemy is someone who possesses powerful magic. The power to create illusions.” I have to admire the balls of showing the plot from multiple perspectives, only to insert overt falsehoods into every single one of those narratives. “Learn the truth by seeing it through the eyes of three different heroes! Hahaha, no, just kidding.”

Joker has never heard of this sort of magic, and while I’m struggling to come up with an already established rune that does what–spoiler–Sarah is doing, there are enough of them that I’d think illusory magic would be covered in the mythos somewhere. But Jacques has been thinking about this, and mutters, “Footsteps… The knights we saw at the Lizard Clan didn’t make any sounds when they walked. No footsteps.” Jacques did in fact point all this out in the moment, as did I, but Jacques isn’t a time-traveling wizard like I am, so he gets the bulk of the credit. Tootie finishes the story: “After that, the Lizard Clan was in upheaval, and…it shames me to admit this, but…our knights went on a rampage against the Karaya Clan… This is behavior that we never allow. I can feel the power of someone in the shadows even here.” Aila’s takeaway? “Then, that woman… That sorceress was responsible…” She can’t blame the ironheads, but at least she can blame Sarah! Girl just needs someone to be mad at. Joker speaks for the group that they’re getting a clearer picture now, between this, what Duke just told them, and their confrontation with the Mask and Sarah. But Tootie adds, “[Geddy]…I am sure that you were aware of all this.” And for good reason! It’s not like Geddy has a history of being forthcoming with his toadies.

“Yes,” he replies. Oh. “But I didn’t come all the way out here to meet with you just so you could tell me something I already know. Tell me something new, [Tootie].” Well, somebody hasn’t had his coffee yet today. Tootie evenly replies, “All right. If the enemy is a Harmonian bishop, we can expect an eventual invasion by the Harmonian Regular Army. If that happens, Grassland as we know it will be conquered in the blink of an eye.” Since I have a terrible record on keeping all this straight: is this before or after Harmonia has subjugated the Safir Clan and moved on Chisha? We know it’s after the first thing, since Franz left for that mission in Geddy’s last chapter. Does Geddy have to ask twice? NEW INFO, PLZ. As for Zexen, Tootie goes on at Joker’s prompt, “Harmonia probably considers us, the Zexen Federation, with our mere few decades of independence, as no more than an offshoot of a Grassland tribe. However, within the Council are people who are pushing us to make a secret pact with Harmonia, with the aim of splitting up Grassland between Harmonia and Zexen.” So, basically exactly what Nash was counseling Chris to do earlier, and what dickheads like Babyface Official and Frodo’s dad have clearly been working toward. But those guys are all so nice!

But Tootie, thanks to never sleeping in favor of staring out a window at all hours of the night, has a plan. “First,” he says, “I’ll ask the pro-Harmonian faction within the Council to push for a treaty with Grassland. Then we’ll join forces with the other Harmonian troops to resist the warmongers.” First of all, what? Second, why would the Council do that? Third, what incentive would the non-shitty Harmonians have for going along with this? Fourth, what? Geddy asks none of these pressing questions, but only asks what he and his crew should do. In response, Tootie leads them outside to the cliff overlooking the lake. Where he will push Geddy to his death, the Mask will emerge from a portal, and they will high-five.

Nope. Sigh. Tootie actually wants to show them scenic Buttfuck Castle. “The master of that castle has mounted a rebellion, and we Knights have been sent in to suppress it.” Hahahahaha. What is he rebelling against, Cogsworth using half-and-half instead of heavy cream in the scones for afternoon tea?

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Yes, yes, I know this is just the Zexen narrative of whatever nonsense Babyface Official has trumped up against the Buttfuckians, but still. Hilarious. The 12th Unit folks are confused as to why Tootie would ask them to subjugate a bunch of sad poors, but Tootie clarifies, “Exactly the opposite. I want you to support their rebellion.” Oh, well that makes WAY more sense. Tootie exposits at nauseating length about the free trade utopia across the water from them, the retrograde and stupid opinions of the Zexen Council on same, and the complete overlap between the assholes who want to shut down Buttfuck and the assholes who want to enter a back-room deal with Harmonia. Joker gets the idea: “If they’re not able to stop a rebellion at such a small castle…” Tootie finishes for him, “The power structure within the Council will likely change.” It took us a long time to set up the dominos to get to this point, but I’m now all for knocking them down if it makes those rich fucks look stupid. Ace weakly counters that they kind of work for Harmonia, but Tootie throws a chip into the pot for him as well: “If Grassland disappears, there’ll be no further need for a Frontier Defense Force.” OH NO! Unlike me, Queen agrees that that would not be great.

Their plans all set, Tootie and Boy leave, the camera following them for at least 20 seconds as they walk out of the cave, making me think one of them is going to turn around and say one last thing, but that doesn’t happen. People walking slowly! Take another drink. Joker is all impressed at the checklist of famous fuckbuddies Geddy has, including “one of the Six Mighty Knights of Zexen.” WELL, you haven’t seen anything yet, bub. Geddy “mysteriously” says, “I’ve been around for a while, see.” By Geddy standards, this is tantamount to telling his life story.

AUDIENCE SURROGATE ALERT

Ace fetches Aila, who is still staring at the lake like she’s never seen water before, and the party returns to the cavern entrance. Ace says he’ll return to V. del Sexay for supplies, seemingly only so Joker can snit, “Sure, and to flirt with more women.” OH MY GOD, YOU TWO. I want to say I could listen to Joker play the jealous boyfriend forever, but it’s starting to get sad. Get a room! Charge it to the 14th Unit if that’ll spice things up!

Other than taking more treasure bosses to school, Geddy doesn’t have a damn thing to do but advance the plot, so 20 minutes and a lot of jogging and random battles later, the 12th Unit arrives at Buttfuck Castle, right in the middle of what passes for a plot in this backwater.

Samwise is facing away from the stairs, in battle stance, shouting defiantly, “I, the commander of the guards of [Buttfuck] Castle, will not allow [Frodo] to be taken!” So we already knew this was roughly when the 12th Unit arrived here, but now that I’m thinking about it, let’s all give Aila an advance round of applause for being in the vicinity of ironheads for this entire ordeal and not making a total jackass of herself or blowing their cover. I’m proud of her.

So, the scene proceeds exactly as it did before, until the moment Frodo tells Sam to stand down, and we pan out to see Ace hiding behind Martha’s lottery numbers easel. “The sweetness of youth!” he sighs. “I remember it so well….” The rest of the gang is huddled, comically, against the wall of Martha’s shack, and Joker, Ace’s own sweet Frodo, hisses, “Hey! Stop that melodrama! Can you find anything out?” Ace summarizes that Bubba and Percy are giving Frodo his pink slip. As Geddy wonders in a very meta fashion if the plot Tootie explained to them has happened yet, Ace tells them that more shit is happening, as now the rest of the Buttfuck players have come to their master’s defense. If this whole thing is going to be the 12th Unit watching and commenting upon a scene I’ve already seen, I could do with more MSTing and popcorn-munching.

‘But not now. Oh my, no.’

Instead, they mutter to themselves about carrying out Tootie’s plan and how they have to keep their identities on the downlow, like anyone even knows who the fuck they are. No one is going to spot Ace and go, “It’s a member of the Harmonian Defense Force!” Nobody even knows what that is, man. Then Joker tells Ace to shut up because Bubba and Percy are coming back toward them. And only after peeping for a moment does Ace realize that his friends all ran away without him, so he follows suit. I was about to complain that this was just in time for us not to see a new scene from Bubba and Percy’s point-of-view, because god forbid we don’t just recycle the same scenes a million fucking times, but after the screen fades to black on Ace, it comes back to Bubba and Percy on the steps. Fine, game, you win.

“We still serve the Council, Percival,” Bubba is saying. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like.” Percy counters, “And sometimes you need to bend a little, [Bubba].” Wait, what are we really talking about here? Is Bubba not game for something? Does he not want to share Percy with Borus? “I think [Tootie] is up to something!” Percy goes on. Oh. Well, obviously. “We should keep an eye on everyone. You never know when someone working for the Council may do something stupid.” WHAT? That never happens. The Zexen Council is noble and competent above all! Bubba still doesn’t know what to make of all this, but goes along with Percy’s take on things anyway. He’s probably still distracted by the fear of Lurch stealing his soul.

Okay, this conversation is DEFINITELY about two things.

The 12th Unit watches the knights go, and Ace says, “Interesting,” when the only thing we learned from that scene was that, while Tootie is in cahoots with them, he has not kept his own trusted comrades in the loop. What kind of duplicitous ass would behave that way, Geddy.

Since the previous scene was a prelude to a temporary lull in the “action” here at Buttfuck, the citizens seem relatively calm and normal as Geddy takes advantage of their services. Eventually the group enters the manor library, which Ace is entirely too impressed with. “Who would’ve thought I’d see this in such a run-down old fort?” he wonders. This is a manor, not a fort, but otherwise not inaccurate. Ace is clearly being appreciative in his way, so of course Joker gets all shitty-pointy-hands-mom on him. “Must be such an unfamiliar sight to you,” he says to his back. Ace insists that he reads “a lot,” and Joker rolls his eyes and replies, “Hm. Cheap adventure novels don’t count.” I love trashy novels, so I’m giving this round of “JUST FUCK ALREADY” to Ace. Which I would not have predicted when they started arguing about books of all things.

While Ace is muttering about how Joker thinks he’s so goddamn smart, Lurch creeps up behind him and asks, “…Please keep your voices low.” Ace reacts like all people react when Lurch breathes on their shoulders: he jumps backward five feet and stutters. To Ace’s surprise, Lurch has been in the room with them the entire time. “This guy’s got no aura,” he says to the others, while staring Lurch dead in the eyes. “…It’s weird! It’s like he’s not human.” And it’s like Ace is an asshole! I mean, really, wait until you get into the hallway to say this stuff, man.

Queen half-assedly apologizes for the noise, but Lurch is fine with it. “It’s okay…This is everyone’s library…” Then he makes a small bow and adds, “It’s a pleasure…Captain [Geddy].” This may surprise you, but the people who not five minutes ago were discussing the importance of remaining anonymous do not take this outing of their captain’s identity very well. Ace and Queen draw their weapons and charge, but stop short of gutting poor Lurch. But he’s weird and has no aura! What’s the problem? Lurch explains to Geddy, who is sure they’ve never met, “To better protect this castle, I checked many ancient texts. I found something explaining why this became common land…as well as the reason for the war between Zexen and Grassland. And I found a sketch along with a record of the day that this was established as common land.” Obviously Geddy’s name and face were in those documents, something even Ace already noticed, though he didn’t press the issue at the time. Ace and Queen lower their weapons, and Ace retcons and ruins his one and only instance of perceptiveness: “I didn’t know you had anything to do with this castle before, Captain. You should have said something.” I…but…sigh.

Back downstairs, Ace whines that they should be keeping a lower profile and not just talking to cave-dwelling serial killer librarians all willy-nilly. They decide to squat in one of the many empty rooms in the manor so they can rest before the coming battle. “Let’s just squat here for the night” is incidentally how most people come to live here at Buttfuck.

That night, Geddy is sitting by himself in the dark, cobwebbed tavern. For the record, I don’t think this is the room they’re squatting in, though that may be wishful thinking since it would be a spectacularly poor choice. Geddy clearly wants to be alone with his thoughts and his whiskey sour, but the camera pans around to show Joker watching him from the doorway. Joker tells his captain that the others are sleeping, except for Jacques, who has the watch. Translation: Joker couldn’t get any time alone with Ace with Jacques sitting there gawking at them, so he came to see his other beau.

There are only two possible reasons, given what we know about these people, that Joker would be sidling up to his boss, alone, in the middle of the night. One is macking, and the other is pumping him…for information. I mean, it can be both things, surely, but Joker’s purpose is the latter. “I’ve been in the Defense Force almost 20 years,” he tells Geddy. “I remember sneaking into Grassland by myself long ago. This castle looks pretty much the same as it did then, only more weathered.” But you know what doesn’t look any more weathered over that span of time? The other dude in this room. “I felt something was off,” Joker goes on, “so I took a look at that sketch in the library. I don’t know when it was made, but something baffles me.” Geddy finishes his thought for him. “…When the common land was established, I was present, along with a man who now calls himself Jimba. I was on the Grassland side. He was on the Zexen side.” Oooh, like gay North and South! “This is where Jimba and I said farewell to a man we considered a true friend. I wanted this place to remain free of anyone’s control. That’s also what our good friend desired.” He and his two “good friends” could have maybe done a better job of establishing those desires in plain legal terms, then. And in the present day, I’m not sure playing dumb about the place and only helping out when directly asked by a third party is the best move. But maybe he also wanted Buttfuck Castle to remain free of their own control? I don’t know. The point is, this used to be the vacation house Geddy shared with his two boyfriends, and he didn’t want Zexenites or Grasslanders hassling them about boating permits.

That, or it’s Geddy’s Apple Watch.

Joker is at least two steps behind me in putting this whole story together, so he wonders who this “friend” is. In response, Geddy holds his right hand to his chest, and it starts to glow with blue light. But where he’s been slow as shit with the rest of this tale, Joker immediately recognizes what that glow means, even without seeing the symbol like he got to see with the Mask. Geddy dispels all doubt: “Yes, the True Lightning Rune.” Joker magically infers from this that Geddy’s friend is therefore the Flame Champion. Was it already common knowledge that the bearers of these two True Runes were boyfriends? Or is he just going with the obvious here?