nodogsonthemoon | Magnus Burnsides application

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Character Name: Magnus Burnsides

Series: The Adventure Zone

Timeline: Episode 56 during the Suffering Game. Right as he gets his "bad luck"

Canon Resource Link: Link

Character History:

The Stolen Century
Magnus Burnsides was born on an unnamed planted with two suns. As a child he once stopped some bullies from beating up a dog, but got beaten up instead in order to protect the dog. This was one of the earliest instances of Magnus taking the role as a protector, which is one of the core traits that he carries through his life.

When he is a young adult, he joins the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration (IPRE for short) as head of security on their two-month mission on the ship, the Starblaster. The expedition was to further study the planer system with the help of the Light of Creation. Once they leave their planet, they are confronted with an entity that is later named the Hunger, which consumes their home reality as they escape into another plane of existence. The crew lands once they escape from the Hunger and realize that they're on an unknown planet.

And so, their 100-year journey begins.

The first planet was an important one to Magnus, since in the group's search for the Light of Creation they met up with three large animals called the Royal Beasts. From the Royal Beast that represents power, who was a massive bear, Magnus trained under him and strengthened his body and learned what the true meaning of strength is. At the end of their first year on this planet, the Hunger catches up to them and since the IPRE did not obtain the Light of Creation (the Royal Beasts weren't sure if they should hand it over since it was a great benefit to their society) the Hunger consumed the plane and destroyed everything as the IPRE escaped on the Starblaster into another plane. Magnus stayed behind to try to protect as many animals as they could, but he was killed by the Hunger.

And then he found himself back on the Strablaster, with the same black eye that he had when they first started their journey on the Starblaster. It was at this moment that the IPRE realized that they were in a loop, going from cycle to cycle in order to escape the Hunger. They could die, but as long as one person escaped on the Starblaster at the end of the year (it would take the Hunger a year to find them each cycle) the entire crew would survive. They also find out that if they do obtain the Light of Creation before the Hunger does, they can escape with it and the Hunger, while it will damage the plane that they were last in, will not consume it entirely unlike the planes where they do not get the Light of Creation.

They go through these cycles many times. In their 8th cycle in the Fungus planet, Magnus leads an expedition to find the Light of Creation. While he dies from the poisonous spores during this cycle, the crew finds the Light and they are able to escape without the Hunger consuming everything.

In the 17th cycle, they come upon a planet that is mostly ruins of a once great civilization. They come across these robots that live seemingly normal lives, which they later find out is because the robots contain the souls of the former inhabitants of this plane. They come across a giant, powerful crystal and realize that it would be not great if the Hunger consumed its power. There's a debate among the crew on whether to destroy the crystal, which essentially would be killing the robotic inhabitants that rely on the crystal to live, or to leave it and risk the Hunger taking it. Magnus initially sides with destroying the crystal, looking for the greater good of the planer systems, telling Lup that it isn't an easy choice when she calls him out on his choice. Eventually, they leave it up to the robots to decide and some of them go back into the crystal with others staying behind in their robotic shells. Taako shrinks the crystal down and they take it with them. Back on the ship they have a lovely discussion lead by Lup about not killing entire civilizations to save the world. They all agree and have a nice little team moment.

The next cycle is a beach anime filler episode. Magnus spends it essentially scaring the crap out of his crewmates, in order to "keep them on their toes". Which means he sneaks up on them and screams "MAGNUS" at them. What a good protection boy.

During the 30th cycle, they land on the planet Tesseralia, a planet that has not known war for generations. While Merle is off at the First Monastery, learning and training under them in order to prove that they can handle the responsibility of the Light, Magnus decides to take a little break and becomes the coach of a children's sport team, called Rebound. He coaches the Tesseralia Losers and after giving them a "motivational" speech right before the big game, they go on to win the championship.

The next big cycle is when they land in the kingdom of Legato, a plane that contains many conservatories that create various works of art to submit to the Light of Creation. This is the first instance that the group runs into the Voidfish, technically many Voidfish though we do meet the one that we later know during the series. Each of the IPRE join the conservatory to create their own works of art to try to gain access to the Light of Creation. This is the plane where Magnus begins his carpentry skills. He makes a small wooden duck. It isn't amazing but it's the best that he could do. This is enough to gain access. After that, late that night, Magnus sneaks into the cave and comes across the large jellyfish creatures that live in the mountain and consume this art. Most are huge, except one tiny, baby jellyfish that Magnus immediately befriends (and the baby jellyfish, who Magnus names Fisher, is a fan of Magnus' duck).

He figures out that this isn't their Light of Creation, but just another phenomenon that his world happens to call the Light of Creation. Which means they're all kinda boned since they only have a few days til the Hunger arrives. They get the citizens of this world to help them look for the light without a lot of success. Magnus returns to visit the baby Voidfish with more ducks and Lucretia in tow. They both hang out with the voidfish and during this time Lucretia gets a bit of the liquid that the fish have been living in in her mouth, which becomes IMPORTANT LATER TMTMTM.

So, when the time comes for the Hunger to arrive, Magnus can't leave the baby voidfish behind. He pleads with Lup not to leave without him and goes to get the fish. He grabs the baby and hums to it to keep it calm while running back to the Starblaster. They escape with the baby and leave as the world is being destroyed. And with that, Fisher joins the party.

In the 65th cycle, Magnus doesn’t last very long. They are captured by people working for four giant judges who put them on trial for their past sins. Magnus is one of the ones that is found guilty and he argues with their judgement. He goes to attack them and is turned to stone and, surprise, is the first to die this cycle. Though his friends don't take very long to follow him. They all wake up the next year and see that Lucretia and the baby Voidfish had escaped capture and were on the run for the entire year. Lucretia, while she survived, didn't cope well with the solitude and being in constant fear of capture. This was her first steps in becoming Madame Director that we later see her becoming.

During cycle 82, Magnus spends more time with Fisher, taking him on a camping trip. His protective nature is coming out more while taking care of the baby voidfish, though unlike the rest of the crew Fisher is actually aging and isn't much of a baby anymore. Magnus spends time reading to Fisher and finds that the information he reads to Fisher doesn't always come back like it did at the conservatory. If he doesn't make it come back it just becomes static. They have a good father/fish-son bonding time reading/consuming information. This is also the cycle that Lup and Barry become liches, which is cool and all. But Magnus hung out with a fish so there's that.

In the next cycle they cover, they use the "bonds" that they have collected over the course of the century and create magical items (which they don't have til the finale so Magnus won't have any of these things). Magnus makes a helmet and a pendant, both bear themed since that's just what Magnus does. Everyone else makes some cool stuff, Lup creating the umbrastaff that Taako will later get from her skeleton, and this becomes the inspiration for them making the grand relics out of the Light of Creation. Barry figures out that the Hunger tracks them down because the Light has a "craveabliltiy" to it, so if they could split it into seven parts it would be very difficult for the Hunger to find them.

Several cycles later, which becomes the last cycle, they come upon the planet that becomes the home of the Adventure Zone. They find the Light very quickly and put their plan of splitting it to work. Magnus makes the Temporal Chalice, which has the power over time itself. Magnus goes to hide it in a remote location, gets lost and almost dies. He is found by Jack and June and brought to a village called Refuge and showed great kindness. He leaves it in their care.

Over the next year, these relics bring great devastation to this world, but the Hunger never comes. Magnus feels conflicted, he doesn't like the destruction that these relics have caused on this world and he himself feels aimless after having a singular goal for a century. It isn't long before things fall apart for the IPRE. Lup disappears, going to search for her relic and just never comes back. After that, Lucretia decides that she cannot stand for the destruction they have caused. She takes her journals, which have contained records of their journey. After editing them so her friends can have happy lives while she sorts this whole thing out, she feeds the documents to Fisher. The crew begins to forget.

Magnus enters the room just as Lucretia finishes feeding the information to Fisher. He starts to collapse as his world fades around him. Lucretia helps him to the ground, not wanting him to hurt himself, and apologizes and tells him that she loves him and their friends so much and that it's only temporary and she'll fix everything...

Here there be Gerblins
Magnus Burnsides was a successful carpenter who worked at the Hammer and Tongs in Raven's Roost, a town that had the world's greatest craftsmen. It is here that he meets his future wife, Julia Waxman, who is the daughter of the "Tongs" of the Hammer and Tongs, Steven Waxman, his mentor. They live happily for several years before conflict is brought by the rule of Govenor Kalen. Magnus helps lead a rebellion against the mad governor. The rebellion wins, but peace does not last for Magnus. He leaves for a carpentry competition (with an awesome chair that may or may not smell like grandmas) and when he returns he finds that Raven's Roost has been destroyed by Kalen's men. There are some survivors but Julia and Steven are not among them.

He leaves behind Raven's Roost at this point and becomes an adventurer.

Magnus comes across a job, described as "the last job you'll ever have to take" given out by a dwarf Gundren Rockseeker. He joins the wizard Taako and the cleric Merle Highchurch in escorting a wagon of goods to another town. Along the way they are attacked by gerblins and find out that Gundren and his partner, Barry Bluejeans, had been attacked and captured on their way ahead of them. After killing the gerblins, they follow the trail into a cave and stumble upon another group of gerblins holding Barry Bluejeans hostage. They speak to a gerblin named Yeemik and are asked to kill Yeemick's boss, a bugbear named Klaarg, in order to get Barry back. The boys "agree" to do this and fuck it up in all sorts of different ways. They find Klaarg, tell him about Yeemick's plan, Taako ends up charming Klaarg with magic, Klaarg one shot kills Yeemick, and they find out that Gundren was captured by a wizard called the Black Spider.

Our boys take Barry back into town and then go off to find Gundren, who is being held in Wave Echo Cave, which is an ancestral cave that belongs to the Rockseeker clan. Luckily, Merle one of Gundren's many, many cousins and can access parts of the cave that non Rockseekers would not be able to.

Inside they run into an orc woman named Killian, who tell them to leave the cave and not to meddle, and eventually a dark elf named Brian, who is also the Black Spider (he is also called Magic Brian since his large, actual spider is also named Brian). Magnus also totally saves the day by giving Taako a healing potion when he was about to die. So even though Taako killed Magic Brian, Magnus totally was the reason it happened.

Once they get Gundren back safely, he leads them to some vault doors, saying that his birthright that he's been looking for is behind the doors. The doors open to reveal the skeleton of his father, with a cool ass gauntlet on its skeletal arm. Gundren takes it and is taken over by the power of the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, which we would later find out is one of the grand relics. The power of the gauntlet takes him over and he flies away.

Also Taako finds a magic umbrella off a different skeleton, but Magnus didn't try to take it so it doesn't really matter. Nope not at all.

The boys plus Killian chase him back to Phandalin, stopping to save an orc boy from a bunch of bandits that they totally murder and loot from. They get back to the city but oops the boy they saved totally shoots Gundren in the back with a bow, which causes Gundren to lose even more control (and after the boys were just starting to calm him down...kinda). Magnus, Taako, Merle, and Killian all jump into a deep well as Gundren is consumed by flames, which destroys the city of Phandalin and everyone that lived there, including our dear Barry Bluejeans. But hey, now they can grab the gauntlet, which Taako does with little trouble.

They exit the well and Killian tells them that she's part of an organization that stops things like this from happening. And since the boys seem to be resistant to the thrall of the gauntlet (wow wonder how that is), it might be a good idea for them to meet her boss. And with that, the boys go to the moon.

Moonlighting
The boys arrive on the moon and are brought to the chambers of...something. Initially they cannot see what is in the giant tank and are told by the sad bard Johann that they need to drink the liquid from inside the tank to understand what's going on. Magnus decides to drink while the other boys are debating whether or not they're going to drink it. He suddenly gains the knowledge of a terrible war that was waged over the grand relics that thousands of people have died fighting in. He also remembers the words that Killian and Magic Brian had said to them that initially were static, about the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet and the Bureau of Balance. He also can see the giant jellyfish in the tank for what it is and his mind is clear. There's a possible moment of Magnus being turned on by this, but it passes since he's a more vanilla man.

He encourages the other boys to drink once he gains all of this knowledge. Once they have all drank the Voidfish's liquid, they go and are introduced to the Director of the Bureau. She tells them about the organization and how they are trying to collect these relics that once created a great threat to this world and to destroy them. How they were able to hide the existence of the war and the relics themselves to protect people from their thrall. Only those who had been inoculating by the Voidfish's juice could remember what had happened.

The Director then offers them the jobs of Reclaimers, which would make it their job to actually go out and collect the relics. She makes them take the world's worst job interview and they pass, though not before Magnus destroys a bunch of robots and discovers his love of ripping the arms off of them. But they pass and are official members of the BOB. Though Magnus is denied a dog on the base, since apparently the darn things just keep running off the side of it.

They get their bracers, an item each from the fantasy gashapon (hello Railsplitter). They also make a few purchases from the Fantasy Costco.

Murder on the Rockport Limited

The boys get settled into life at the BOB, after a brief debate on who will be on the top or bottom bunks in their dorm room. The Director eventually gives them their first mission, going to retrieve one of the relics off of a train, since the Reclaimer who had originally gotten a hold of it was kinda sort of murdered before he could finish his task. They're sent to impersonate the murdered man in order to get access to the train and get the relic back. And so, they set off on their first official adventure (but not before Magnus gets shit faced on some hair of the dog potion which is not advised to do before getting shot back down to earth).

They land in swamp and fight some leeches and once they get into town they meet Tom Bodett and get cleaned up before getting on the choo choo train. Once they get on the train, they meet a few fellow train riders, the important ones being Jenkins, who works on the train and is relentlessly bullied by the boys, and Angus McDonald, fancy boy and the world's greatest detective. Lots of things happen, they fight a big crab monster, the engineer gets murdered and they find out Jenkins was the real murderer all along! What a twist!

So, they eventually realize they need to get into the cargo cart since Jenkins is trying to steal all the valuables, which would kind of include that relic that they need to get. Magnus ends up doing some sweet parkouring on the side of the train and somehow doesn't die a horrible death as he makes his way to the back of the train. The boys fight Jenkins and a few gross flesh golem things he made and totally win. They get the relic and end up having to bail off the side of the train while it speeds toward Neverwinter. Magnus used all his good rolls on the side of the train earlier, and he gets 2 damage while jumping off the side of the train.

Once they figure out the train thing, Taako transports it to destroy Jenkins' precious garden, Magnus gets patched up since he was very very close to death. They eventually return to the base and give the Director the relic that they found and collect that sweet, sweet Bureau money.

Lunar Interlude 1
Magnus eats some unicorn dick on a stick, dresses up as in a Taako costume, and sees some weird fucking shit in the sky. Initially he thinks he's tripping on the unicorn dick, but the other boys saw the eyes in the sky and the loud, creepy voice noises. The Director tells them not to tell anyone else what they saw which...probably isn't a good sign.

Petals to the Metal

The next relic the boys are sent to retrieve is the Gaia Sash, which was being used by a criminal called The Raven in the city of Goldcliff. They're sent down and meet up with Captain Bain of the local militia and agree to help stop a bank robbery in progress by The Raven. Magnus tries to chop down the various vines that encase the bank, but to no avail. Merle ends up getting the boys through the doors in a much more unconventional but "sexy" way. They get in the building, fight a tree (Magnus kills it with his trusty axe), almost die to an elevator, and finally make their way up to where The Raven is.

The Raven tries to get them to leave, but the boys don't so she attacks them. Before she can kill them, since the boys were getting their butts handed to themselves very thoroughly, they are saved by the halfing monk Hurley (who is also part of the militia and also The Raven, aka Sloane's, secret racing partner). Once the boys are safe from battle, Hurley comes up with a plan: if they can beat The Raven in the battle wagon races, that would prove that she is not truly all powerful and that might be enough to snap her out of the relic's control.

Hurley already has a battle wagon ready (with Magnus early on calling shotgun), but is missing the arcane core that is needed to power it. But she knows of a rival battle wagon gang, The Hammerheads, that have one coming in. So the boys are sent to steal it, given the task to also not kill anyone while doing it which...doesn't go well. At all.

Their attempts at sneakily sneaking in don't quite work so well and Magnus ends up chopping a guard pretty much in half. They chuck him off the side of one of the many cliffs in Goldcliff in order to find the boy, but not before searching the slain guard's pockets for loot (and they find a picture of him and his family, but they look like fantasy racists so it's okay that they killed him). After that, they sneak around the compound for a bit before they find Hammerhead uniforms to disguise themselves. With their new uniforms on, they head over to the main garage in order to find the arcane core.

Once they're in the garage, they see the bugbear that they encountered in their first adventure, Klaarg, who had been captured by the gang. Unsurprisingly, the ruse of them being "new recruits" doesn't last long and there's a fight in the garage and a few gang boys may or may not get killed during the fight (Magnus insists a few of them had at least one hit point left). The boys also free Klaarg, who is like super pissed about the situation and seeing the boys again, and Klaarg hops on one the bikes in the garage and rides away. When the battle is done, our boys get the core and head back to Hurley in order to finish the wagon and get ready for the race.

That night they go over what will happen during the race and each receive a job to do. Magnus, being the strong boy that he is, gets put in charge of security and to take care of anyone who tries to board the wagon. It is also a tradition to wear masks during the races, since they're technically illegal, and Magnus requests a grizzly bear as his mask since, again, he is a ruff boi. Magnus and Merle do make fun of Taako's choice in masks, a mongoose, and Taako retorts back something about being fully realized and dildos and whatever.

And so, the next morning the race begins! These are the main things Magnus does during the race.

While he does do a decent job keeping other cars off of their wagon, when Merle gets pulled onto the octopus wagon, Magnus leaps onto the other car (mostly without looking and barely manages to grab on) and shatters the glass on the dome that houses the octopus, which results in him, Merle, and the octopus hanging onto the back of the wagon for dear life. He and Merle manage to get back up and leap back onto Hurley's wagon. Magnus, being awesome and rolling a 19, makes it just fine, but Merle has to be saved by Taako's phantom steed, Garyl.

Magnus boards two other wagons during the race, one being the boar wagon (which he does steer briefly after throwing the driver off) and onto the Hammerhead's wagon. He gives Maarvey, the Hammerhead's leader, a few good wacks with Railsplitter and also damages the control panel of the wagon. Maarvey falls off of the wagon and probably dies, but Magnus is too busy jumping back onto Hurley's wagon. Once he's secure back on the wagon, Merle hits the big button in the front and they go super speed.

The race to the finish ends up neck and neck between Hurley, Sloane, and Taako (who ended up on a motorcycle separate from the group). It's actually Taako who wins, using his wand of switcharoo, switching places with Sloane.

Sloane is not pleased with the ending of the race and becomes consumed by the Gaia Sash, creating a giant tornado of vines at the side of the cliff. Hurley decides to go in after Sloane, which Magnus immediately agrees to help with (the other boys are a little slower to help but decide to help in the end). They end up fighting a giant monster for a bit (Magnus does punch it in the face!) but in the end Hurley sacrifices herself to save Sloane and ends up poisoned by the plants, but does manage to pull Sloane from the Gaia Sash's influence.

In the end, Sloane cannot save Hurley's life, instead she and Hurley become a beautiful cherry blossom tree in the middle of town. Before she transforms, Sloane makes the boys promise that if there are more items like this in the world to destroy them. And with that, Sloane and Hurley are gone. The boys collect the sash (not before Taako critically fails to get it and Merle has to take it from him) and head back to Captain Bane.

Captain Bain tries to insist that they drink to their victory, but all the boys refuse. They do find out, after Bain poisons himself, that he was being controlled by a red robed figure, who says some weird/creepy stuff before disappearing. The boys, of course being very respectful, loot Bain's body (Magnus takes his badge) before heading back to the moon.

Lunar Interlude 2

The Tres Horny Boys tell the Director about the fate of Captain Captain Bain and about the creepy red robe dude that they saw in his office. The Director freaks out and tells them to avoid the red robe if they ever come across him again. They are promoted to the sole group of reclaimers and also learn that Angus McDonald will now be joining the BOB. Magnus tries to put the boy in his inventory, but fails.

Crystal Kingdom
Candlenights (aka Christmas) has arrived in the world of the Adventure Zone, though the celebration is cut short by a relic related crisis. Lucas, who is a consultant for the BoB, calls up the Director with a small, possibly world ending problem. Lucas reveals that he has one of the grand relics, the Philosopher's Sone, and has been experimenting with it for a while now, which royally pisses off the Director. The Philosopher's Stone, which controls transmutation magic, slowly has been turning his floating lab into crystal and if that crystal lab touches the surface of the earth, it would make the world turn to crystal. Which would not be a good thing.

Though before they are sent off, they do open a gift that is for "their eyes only". Magnus opens the box and takes out three iron on patches that the boys...can't really wrap their heads around. Like the lettering in the center of the patch in in some language that they just don't know or can't comprehend. But whatever, onto the plot!

So, the Director sends the Reclaimers off to get the relic and the Regulators (Killian, her dragonborn rogue girlfriend Carey, and their dwarven teammate Boyland) are sent with them to extract Lucas and bring him back to the moon base. They're all outfitted with null suits, which nullify the effects of the relic so they can move around safely.

Once they land on the lab, they make their way inside and are very quickly greeted by a super creepy and weird synthetic sounding song and a crystal golem (which Magnus tries to intimidate and kinda succeeds a little tiny bit maybe). They fight the golem and win (and don't, you know, spend part of the fight debating on whether or not to run away) before heading to the next room, which is the Magical World of Elevators!

After squishing two cockroaches, which is relevant, the boys are asked by Lucas (who has been communicating with them through their stones of farspeech) to go through the demo of the Elevator of Tomorrow to shut down the power of this area to buy the lab some more time and energy. Taako refuses, so that leaves Magnus and Merle to ride the elevator. Instead of going up or down, it actually shrinks them down into a tiny display city where the fight the one cockroach that didn't get squished. They manage to not get eaten by a cockroach and are largely unimpressed by Lucas' Elevator of Tomorrow. Next they head to the airlock that reads Lil’ Genius Buddy Bot R&D.

In this area they meet a little robot named Hodge Podge, who asks them riddles and trivia in order to go through its demo mode. They somehow end up on the highest difficulty and fuck up a lot. Eventually, they have to ask the robot one question that it doesn't know the answer to. Which...takes the boys a lot longer to figure out than it really should have. Taako does figure it out and once the robot is defeated, the room shuts down and they are back in contact with the bureau (who they had been disconnected from in this room because they were "cheating"). Angus is clearly upset about almost getting the boys killed by helping them cheat, but Magnus just tells the Director to slap him to calm the little boy down (which...kinda works but is totally a HR violation). Also, Magnus does take one of Hodge Podge's arm as a trophy, because of reasons.

After this, the boys run into a robot named NO-3113, who heals Merle and offers her help to them. They do sort of con her into letting them into Lucas' private quarters, which is where they find an emerald compact, which when opened shows into the plane of thought (aka our world). Magnus points out that this is how Lucas and his family have gotten the "ideas" for their inventions, by stealing them from this world. Magnus also steals various knickknacks from Lucas' drawers. Once they're done rummaging through Lucas' things, they leave the room and another crystal drops from a rift and turns the room into crystal and they hear another verse of the super creepy song. Weird.

Next, they go into the "hugbear" chambers, which Lucas tries to advise against but the boys are VERY excited to go into (Magnus does a few prehug stretches). The room inside is trashed, due to a fight between the Regulators and the "hugbears", which we find out are really bugbears but who work for Lucas. Though they not so much work for Lucas but were experiments in his lab. Lucas put inhibitor chips in their brains in order to suppress their more violent thoughts. Which, is very uncool. After making sure that the hugbears would be safe from the crystallization, the boys and NO-3113 move onto the next room.

Once they leave, it doesn't take them long to find the body of Boyland the dwarf, who had been crystallized completely. The boys...don't really care much since they didn't know him and thought he was an asshole. So they move onto the next room, where they fight a bunch of giant tardigrades. They survive that right, but shit starts to hit the fan after they go into the next area. Merle, who is tricked into catching a falling crystal from a rift, starts to crystalize starting with his arm. Magnus SAVES HIS DAMN LIFE AND CUTS HIS ARM OFF WHICH NO ONE REALLY APPRECIATES.

After Magnus very cleanly chops Merle's arm off, they run into Lucas in person finally and are able to get Merle patched up. Lucas even is able to provide Merle a sweet soul wood arm and Magnus is only a little jealous of it. Once Merle is finished getting patched up, Lucas shows them the Cosmoscope and starts talking about different planes of existence in their universe. Essentially, Lucas can, with the Cosmoscope, look into other planes of existence which is how his family has gotten ideas for inventions for generations (mostly taking them from the plane of thought). Lucas reveals that this is what he's been doing with the Philosopher's Stone, making more gems that can be used to see into other planes.

Time freezes at this moment, and the boys see the red robed figure again. The red robed figure is, again, very vague and creepy and Magnus tries to fight it but, since the red robe is incorporeal, the attacks don't work. The figure freaks out when he sees the umbrastaff Taako has and disappears, so they're left confused again by this weird guy that is supposed to be their enemy.

This is the moment that the remaining Regulators crash into the room, demanding that Lucas come with them. The group argues for a bit on what to do and Lucas activates something in their null suits that paralyzes them and escapes. This doesn't go over well and this is also the time that the crystal golem comes back and sings another verse in its creepy song. We do find out that the golem is named Kravitz and Magnus has to do the fight on the back of Garyl, since he's still mostly paralyzed. Kravitz gets weirded out during the fight and eventually escapes.

The boys and NO-3113 keep pushing forward and the next fight they get into is with three robots that are revealed to have the souls of Magic Brian, Marvey, and Jenkins. The fight is very funny, but the boys kill these guys for the second time and we all find out that Lucas has also been putting souls of the dead into robot bodies, which also explains NO-3113.

The group tracks Lucas down again shortly after the robot fight and they find Lucas in front of a crystalized stalactite containing a humanoid shaped robot, which we find out has the soul of Lucas' mother inside of it. Lucas' mother also has the Philosopher's Stone in one of her hands. Lucas begins to explain the truth of what is going on and shortly after Kravitz shows up again, though this time in a very handsome form rather than a crystal golem. We find out Kravitz is a bounty hunter working for the Raven Queen, essentially the grim reaper, and is here to collect the boys for a huge death out they apparently have but don't remember and Lucas for illegal necromancy.

But before Kravtiz can "take them in", he's slapped aside by a giant ghost hand and the boys are face to face with a giant Legion of ghosts from the astral plane that they have to fight (which end up being the "final battle" of this arc). They beat the ghost boss and free Lucas' mother, who gives the stone to Magnus after some convincing. Magnus decides the best way to transport the stone is to turn it into food with his glutton's fork and he just...eats it. Which doesn't end well for him later on but that's a problem for future Magnus.

Kravitz comes back once the battle is over and tells the boys and Lucas that since they did essentially save his job and help get those ghosts back into the astral plane, that he'll wipe their bounty and that they are free to go. Though he can't say the same for N0-3113 and Maureen, since they technically had both been in the astral plane before being brought back. They end up making a wager over a card game and Magnus beats Kravitz (while also trapped under a mirror). N0-3113 decides to come back to the moon base with them and become a member of the BoB, but Maureen decides to go back to the astral plane willingly. Magnus does ask Kravitz to tell Julia that he loves her and Kravitz promises to tell her for him.

With that, the boys and the Regulators all head back to the moon base. Magnus gets turned into a tube to pass the Grand Relic that is still in his stomach and he regrets all of his decisions.

Lunar Interlude 3

Magnus trains under Carey Fangbattle, one of the Regulators and the girlfriend of Killian, to become a Rogue. In exchange for learning some sweet rouge stuff, he teaches Carey some carpentry, since she wants to make something for a special someone.They do some thief training montages and carve a lot of wooden ducks together. They essentially become best friends forever.

The Eleventh Hour

The Director debriefs the boys on their next mission, which is to collect the Temporal Chalice, which is a very dangerous relic since it has the ability to change time itself. They have tracked it down to a small town named Refuge which has been encased in a magical bubble that they had just figured out how to penetrate. So the boys head down planetside (but not before doing some summer shopping and getting cool summer outfits which is a very important step for this mission, despite what the Director thinks) and are essentially canon balled into the bubble, after they fight a bunch of giant purple worms which just kinda run away after a little while but who cares about them.

So into the town of Refuge they go! There are lots of cycles that happen during this arc, so I'll try to keep it brief. The boys find out that due to the grand relic, the town is stuck in an hour cycle and has been looping through it over and over again. At the end of the hour the whole town blows up and everyone there dies. Though, at the end the cycle rewinds and starts again, so the boys have several chances to fuck up while they are trying to solve this problem and find the relic (also, an old woman keeps popping up after they die during these cycles saying weird cryptic stuff...which people really have to stop doing around them, it happens way too often).

The boys go through the cycles, trying to piece together the mystery a little bit more with every passing cycle. Eventually, they figure out that they need to go to the Temple of Istus, the Goddess of Fate, for some more information. After another cycle or two of getting the temple back in working order (since it had been destroyed previously), the boys talk to Istus herself who is super pumped to see the three of them and asks them to help this town and essentially work for her in the long run. She gives the boys each a divine gift, Magnus' being the Chance Lance which can be summoned back to Magnus' hand no matter where he is. Which is pretty sweet.

They make it back to the mines in the next cycle and enter "final boss" territory. The three of them are confronted by the chalice itself and presented the opportunity to change their pasts, the worst part of their pasts, if they become the new host for the chalice. Magnus is given the option to save his wife from being killed and, despite being tempted, he refuses since it would not be what she wanted. Merle and Taako both refuse their own deals as well and the chalice allows itself to be captured, freeing the little girl, June, who had been its unwilling host.

Once the grand relic is secured, they go forth and pop the bubble and fight an even bigger worm than they did before (the biggest worm being the mommy worm to the three "baby" sized ones). They somehow manage to not kill the worm and reunite it with its children and also save the town from being destroyed completely. They watch the town catch up on the time it had lost (several years passing in the span of a few minutes) and they say their goodbyes to the townspeople. June gives Magnus a gift before they leave. Magnus opens the scroll to reveal...an image of him as a red robe. (Dun dun duuuun).

Lunar Interlude 4

So Magnus isn't taking what he saw on the scroll that June gave him very well. Like the fact that he is apparently a red robe just doesn't process in his mind. He's pretty sure he'd remember being a red robe but like...why does his mind go to static when he looks at this image?

He goes to visit the Voidfish late one night and ends up climbing into its tank to have a little swim. He ends up getting visions of his meeting with the Voidfish during the Stolen Century, but from the Voidfish's perspective (and also still not knowing why the hell he's even in the flashback). The Voidfish also starts to show him images of the IPRE symbol and the Hunger, but Magnus doesn't quite understand what its trying to tell him.

Magnus eventually leaves the tank, not quite having all the answers he would like, and he looks at one of the compositions that Johann was currently working on at the Voidfish's insistance. He finds a song called The Voidfish's Lament and figures out that the notes read E-G-G B-A-B-E. Magnus asks the Voidfish if it has a baby and in the distance, we hear an alarm bell go off...

The Suffering Game

After their mission at the town of Refuge, the Director throws the boys into a vigorous workout routine to prepare them for their next mission. When she briefs them on it, she apologizes for being so hard on them but she says that she knows exactly what they are going to face next. The next grand relic, the Animus Bell, is located in a place called Wonderland, advertised as somewhere you can get your "heart's desire". The Director had gone on her own to Wonderland before starting the BoB, but she failed to retrieve the relic and lost twenty years of her life in a game.

She sends them off to their mission after the debrief, but Magnus makes a quick detour to the brig to talk to Pringles, their former roommate who had been imprisoned for working with the red robes. Pringles tells Magnus that he was controlled and forced to break into the Director's office, but he was caught and didn't know what he was doing. Magnus also knocks a few guards out that were guarding Pringles and stores them in his pocket workshop to hide them from everyone else, but accidentally might have gotten them killed when trying to send them back to the base (we never get a confirmation so let's pretend that they're totally fine...)

The boys eventually make it to Wonderland and meet the elves running the place, named Edward and Lydia. Mangus notices every time that someone suffers or is angry about something, a bit of black smoke leaves their mouths, and eventually the group figures out that the entire place is run of the emotions of the people playing in Wonderland's games, specifically their suffering. While in Wonderland, the boys rotate between spinning the "Wheel of Sacrifice" and then participating in a challenge of varying difficulty (which is dependent on if they trust or forsake another team and vice versa for them).

The boys decide, once they realize how Wonderland works, to try and stay super positive through the whole experience so they don't feed into the suffering, to varying degrees of success. At one point, during a dating show that they get to play because they are able to "skip" a fighting round, Magnus is given True Seeing by Taako and realizes that Edward and Lydia are liches and that the Red Robe lich is also here, but seems to be helping them. Magnus trusts the Red Robe lich throughout the rest of Wonderland, since it seems to be one of the things actually helping them out here.

It isn't long after all of this that they realize that they have "beaten" all of the trials of Wonderland and are declared winners. The boys each take a turn walking down a sweet catwalk (to a bunch of adoring "fans" aka mannequins) and Mangus does a decent job at his walk, everyone is decently impressed. Now, before this room Magnus had sacrificed several things in order to make it through the challenges. His sacrifices were: losing his left pinky finger, losing ten years of his life, losing the memory of Govenor Kalen (he would know what he did, but not who did it), 20 hit points off his max HP, and "bad luck". In this final room is where his bad luck finally hits him. Lydia and Edward appear in front of the boys and talks for a few minutes about their pasts and how they became liches and the Animus Bell itself before addressing Magnus about his bad luck. In canon, Magnus' soul is ripped from his body and Edward takes his body over while Magnus' soul floats toward the astral plane. Though for this game, Magnus' will be pulled from the moment before his "bad luck" rips his soul out.

Abilities/Special Powers:
Magnus doesn't have any real special powers of abilities like his friends do,since he's a fighter and a beginner rogue. In D&D terms, he has a lot of abilities that allow him to do multiple attacks at a time and he's proficient with most weapons and armor (he's a good ruff boi). He also has vehicle proficiency (which he honestly doesn't use very much) and has a pretty high animal handling skill that he is proud of (but again, doesn't use a lot).

Third-Person Sample:

"Magnus," the lich Edward turned his attention to him. "You landed on skull in the last round, didn't you?"

"Yes," Magnus replies, ready for whatever she has prepared to throw at him next.

"Bad luck."

With that Magnus feels the force of some sort of energy hitting his chest and begins to stumble backwards. Suddenly everything around him starts to blur as he tries to steady himself after...whatever the hell Lydia just did to him. After a moment, the room comes back into focus and he lands gracelessly on his ass. He groans as he pulls himself back up, opening his eyes and expecting to see the liches and his friends in front of him.

He looks around and he realizes that he's no longer on the catwalk and that there is no one else around.

"What the fuck was that..." Magnus reaches for the Chance Lance as he looks around his new room. "Uh...Taako? Merle?"

This has to be another one of Wonderland's stupid games. Did his bad luck result in him getting separated from his party and having to do a round on his own? He was sure he had enough health to tank his way through another round if he really had to, but what happened to his friends? Were they also stuck in another round or were they just waiting for him while being forced to play another shitty dating game?

He waited in silence for a moment, readying his weapon and waiting for the litches to start explaining the next round just like they always have. But after a few minutes of silence, Magnus lowered the Chance Lance to his side and looked around the room again.

"Hello? Are we gonna get this started or are you gonna just make me stand here forever? Cause I'm not really suffering right now as much as I'm just getting bored."

Magnus notices an elaborately carved door on the other side of the room. It looked tacky enough for something the elves would have put in Wonderland, though he hadn't seen any doors like that before here.

"Okay," he starts making his way toward the door, lance still in hand. "Guess I'll go this way and see what shit you're gonna throw at me now. Taako and Merle, if you're listening, I'll catch up soon! Try not to die while I'm doing this, okay?"

He pauses for a second in front of the door. Magnus takes a deep breath and kicks the door down with all his considerable strength. He'll find a way out of this mess and get back to his friends. They'll get the relic and head back to the moon and everything will be fine.

Well...maybe not fine since he did break a fuck ton of rules on the base and maybe accidentally got two guards killed in that bubble but...he'll cross that bridge when he gets there. First he's got some lich ass to kick.

First-Person Sample:
[A large, burly man who appears to be in about his 40's stares into the communication device like he's never seen anything quite like it. The image him on the screen goes all over, sometimes even upside down, as he tries to figure out how to use it properly.]

This is the weirdest stone of farspeech I've ever seen...let's see if it'll work if I do this...

[He pushes a few more buttons and the device makes a couple odd noises before Magnus deems that yeah...maybe he did something right?]

Taako? Merle? Can either of you hear me? I know these aren't supposed to work in Wonderland, but maybe cause I'm in some weird "bad luck" challenge thing away from you guys it'll work? I don't even know how the hell this is supposed to be me having bad luck since I've just been wandering around bored with nothing to fight.

At least in the other challenges there was stuff for me to hit...though I guess I'm glad I didn't get a giant block thing dropped on me like Taako did.

[He sighs and adjusts the grip on the communicator, and with the new view (still slightly angled) it's clear to see a large ax on his back and a long lance that looks almost like the hand of an elaborate clock.]

So yeah, I guess just hang on and try not to die while I try to figure this shit out? That'd be real great.