Prologue: The Barony of Harkenwold

After seeing her reaction to Kat's handshake, Carlos shakes her hand too just for the fun of it. - "I'll just... look at these two's faces to see how awed i should be at that whole time thing."

He takes a seat when prompted, then answers Kat. - "You kidding? I gotta see how this one ends!"

Kath happily slams the table.

"Then it's settled! Don't worry Illyana, we'll get you home. It's gotta be easier than freeing Eni from her curse."

"Well, I'm glad I get a say," Hunter grumbles. "As long as we aren't spreading ourselves thin. She might still be able to help us, and this world does kinda need its Ilyanna back, anyway. So how 'bout it, miss?"

"Wow, what can I say except yes! This should be soooo much easier with help! But I have so many questions! Who's Eni? Why does Hunter look like a Devil? (No offense) Who's Hunter's cousin and what is his name? What do you use on your beard to make it so silky Carlos? Why does your Ilyanna have a whole lab dedicated to candy manufacture? Why is your planet called Arda instead of some variation of Oerth (pronounced Earth)? Why do your chickens taste like pork and your pork taste like chickens?" And finally, as an extreme afterthought, "Oh and what do you need my help with again?"

Kathryn is eager to answer all of Illyana's questions, but when reminded of the bullywugs, she becomes a little more serious. There's a lot of killing that needs to be done.

"Ugh, bullywugs. Gross! I have an idea for that.

But I also have no idea where your Ilyanna is. What I do have is a theory. When I activated my Interspacial Fantabulous Mallow-Mallow Wall Piercer, or IFMMWP for short, I believe it made contact with your world and somehow switched our places. So she's probably in my world right where I was: in the remains of the IFMMWP!"

"...you made that name up, didn't you?"

"Of course! It's all part of my graduating thesis!"

"And now it's broken? That's tough. Sounds like you'll have to build another. Wait, how did you..." He shakes his head. "No, we can talk about it later. Tell us about your idea. Is it a bomb?"

Kathryn is fascinated by this device Oerth Illyana has built, but she stops herself from getting carried away again.

"Yeah, I think that's what Ranger Howard wanted our Illyana to make," she says. "But you were thinking about doing something else?"

"Not in the sense you are thinking Hunter but it should do the job. Solution 17 is a complete failure for piercing the M-M Wall but it should blow up whatever you need just fine. It just so happens, I'm cooking some in Lab 3 right now!"

Carlos looks a bit worried - "It's not gonna come alive and try to eat us again, is it?"

"What? No, no. Sample 3267 is dead, remember? The most that could happen is that-it-will-explode..." She turns pale. "We need to turn it off immediately!" She springs to her feet, launching her chair into the counter behind her, and runs out of the room back the way you guys came.

Hunter runs off with her.

Carlos springs to her feet, launching his chair behind him and runs out of the room back the way the party came.

Kathryn doesn't waste any time and runs as fast as she can into the hallway. "Zoe! Jojo!" she yells. "Get away from the building!"

As Ilyanna, Hunter, Carlos, and Kat run by the original lab, Kat shouts a warning to the others through the door. They were laughing at a story John was telling when this happened so they didn't hear all of it. "What did she just say?"

Jojo shrugs. "I don't know but it sounded serious."

"It must have been important, they were running. I'm going to go see what the fuss is about." says Zoe, moving to the door and then following you guys down the hallway at a quick walk.

Meanwhile, Ilyanna leads you guys to the end of the hallway and through a door on the right. The room looks identical to the other lab except it is not blown up. The complicated beaker setup is currently cooking several different chemical concoctions at the same time and feeding it slowly into a collector. The young would-be alchemist runs up to the one cooking the red solution and turns off the burner. "Oh jeeze, that was close. It was almost done!" She laughs in relief.

That is when Zoe walks in. "Hey guys, what's happening? Were you able to get her help?"

"We were." He turns to Ilyanna. "Does that mean it's ready?"

"Zoe?" Kathryn exclaims in surprise. "I told you to run away—wait, you didn't hear me, right?"

She sighs at her own mistake.

"Sorry Kit Kat. John was telling us a funny story about your brother. He totally forgot to get his wife a gift for their anniversary and John had to cover for him while he rode around the villages trying to find her favorite perfume. Ended up spending a small fortune paying some halfling widow in Tor's Hold for her's!" says Zoe, laughing at the idea.

Meanwhile, Ilyanna answers Hunter. "It mostly is yeah. Way I figure it, if you use this junk--she indicates the dark purple liquid in the collector--for the explosive and this crap--she indicates the red solution--for the igniter, that should make for a pretty good bomb. I just need to rig something that will dump the crap into the junk when you need it and give whoever sets it enough time to get away!"

"So, uh..." - Carlos scratches his head - "...why were you making this stuff, anyway?"

Kathryn can't help but laugh, even though she just went through a stressing event. It might have done her some good too. "That does sound like Griffin. I always had to remind him about the birthdays of our siblings and parents."

She catches the end of Illyana's explanation, which gets her attention. She approaches the young alchemist and asks, "Oh, sorry, can you also explain how the bomb works again?"

OOC:

The alchemist is more than happy to repeat her explanation for Kat and Zoe who are now up to speed on how the bomb will eventually work. To Carlos she says, "Well, I'm trying to go home so I figured I'd try recreating the conditions that sent me here in the first place but that didn't work. So then I theorized that the solution for penetrating the dimensional barrier might be different on this side so I've been trying new solutions ever since. This stuff was number 17."

"Wait, what?" says Zoe. "What do you mean other dimensions? Like traveling in the planes?"

"Kind of. Imagine a copy of the universe existing in parallel with another. They both have a material plane where we are now and the other planes like the Feywild, which we call Fairy, or your Shadowfell, which we call the Plane of Shadow. While that stuff is the same, the details aren't. We both have the god Pelor for instance, but I'd never heard of the Raven Queen prior to my trip here. We still have Nerull, whom she usurped power from in your timeline. And that's just the gods! From maps I've seen of the former Nerath Empire this part of the world doesn't match the landscape of mine at all! The land where I come from is to the west of a mountain range like this one but the similarities end there. For one it's much warmer than the Vale and none of the towns or villages are the same."

Zoe nods in understanding. "Well, that explains your behavior earlier."

Ilyanna affects a pained smile, her cheeks burning in embarrassment. "Sorry about that. I've never been very good at lying and I didn't know what you guys wanted from me. I was trying to keep a low profile while I solved this problem."