The Nocturnum
Episode 3: Madness of the Twilight Queen
Brief Synopsis
Upon their return to Pittsburgh, Daniel is met with an e-mail from an old friend in trouble, and Anita gets a frantic phone call from Sandra, telling her that Carrie has gone missing. Both problems are related to a new, wildly popular designer drug called "Pixie Dust" that induces a shared hallucination among its users. As the cast investigates further, they uncover a mad downward spiral of madness, dimensional travel, and an ancient feud between two powerful beings, one of whom shares a lineage with the Evil at Miner's Folly...
Great Quotes:
Danel (calling Anita's cell phone): Hey, it's me. Daniel. I'm back in the 'Burgh. Um...what do you know about drugs?
Drake (calling Anita): Are you alive?
Anita (calls Alan): Alan? I need help. I need to contact the Cabal of Psyche.
Drake: Crystal Ball 3000! With Built-in Air Conditioning, a 5-disc CD changer...
Daniel: Man, at this rate they're gonna have Pixie Dust dispensers...like Pez!
Director: There are four of them. The two in the back have fire axes.
Daniel (to his friend, Jason Burke): So you tried this antidote of yours on a frat brother?
Drake: Oh! Tonto's in Pittsburgh? (off Anita's look) You know, stands very high, carries an axe...you're having a bad day, aren't you?
Drake: I'll drive! (off Anita's look). But I've been driving since before your parents were born!
(Daniel meets Anita and Cyan in the hallway of a Chemistry building. He has four Pixie heads tied up to chairs. Cyan looks at them, curiously)
Daniel (on his role in the group): Me breakum good!
Daniel (to Drake, re: Jason): Take him, and call me in the morning.
Drake (to Jason): No, I won't kill you, because my girlfriend won't let me sleep if I do.
Anita (to Jason): Look, it's either go with Drake, or go to my friend's house in the South Hills, and there's no telling what he'll do to you. He's British!
Daniel (to a gang member he'd threatened moments earlier): You know what? I like you. If you ever need help, you let me know. I'll beat the crap out of anyone who gives you trouble. (points to a random guy) Like that guy, over there. He bothering you?
(After Daniel threatens to remove the arms from a gang member)
Drake (to Daniel, on his size, weight, and, uh, volume): All I have to say is if she (points to Carrie) is a pint, then you're a kegger!
Daniel: And here we go. "I was chosen by the Twilight Queen, and all I got was this messed up birth mark!"
Drake (To drug dealer): Hello, you silly little boffin.
Daniel (to the sky): Hey, Mad God! You with us, or against us?
Anita: Last I checked. You need to be that way to drive.
Drake: Um...actually...
Anita: Never mind.
Alan: Well, we don't maintain contact with them, much. Why? What's wrong?
Anita: A friend has gone missing. I broke into her house last night and I didn't find any clues, and I'm at a loss for what to do. I think that she might be involved with the Cabal, so...
Alan: Hold on a second. Let's back up to the part about breaking into someone's house, shall we?
Anita: Yes. I had to; nobody was home.
Alan: Yes, but last I checked, breaking into someone's house was still a crime.
Daniel's Player: And I am going back into the room, locking the door, and pushing a couple of workbenches against it.
Jason: Yes. It worked perfectly.
Daniel: And was he, like, mad that you brought him out of his Pixie State?
Anita: Exactly! My parent's can't drive worth a crap! They're OLD!
Daniel: No, they're not here for lapdances.
(Cyan gives him the finger)
Cyan: He's not lying, either.
Gang Member (terrified): Naw, man, it's cool.
Daniel: You sure? Cuz I'll beat him down if you want me to.
Gang Member: Naw, it's cool. Uh, can I go, now?
Cyan: God! It's like Drake and Walter had a baby!
Great moments:
Upon their return to Pittsburgh, the group passes a wild-eyed woman, covered in blood, painting (in blood) on a canvas, "Welcome to the Twilight Lands." As they pass closer, they see that she is actually covered in red paint, and the words on the canvas aren't words at all, but abstract shapes. Anita wonders why they bothered coming home.Daniel lays out four dustheads in two rounds of combat. Later, Drake does the same to 8. It takes him 3 rounds.
Drake lays under a tarp in the back of Daniel's van, eating a waffle and talking to Anita on the phone. Daniel has added fangs and eyebrows to the waffle's "Smiley face" design, just for Drake.
Daniel threatens to remove an arm from a gang member, if the guy doesn't tell him the source of the drugs. After the guy fesses up, Daniel offers to beat the crap out of random people, to help the guy out, because he "likes him."
Daniel takes pixie dust to determine its exact effects, and gets the first view of the Twilight World from the group. He wakes up, desperately wanting more dust, but fights off the cravings and writes down what he saw.
The group wakes up with identical, mysterious birthmarks on their arms...birth marks that have been connected to three deaths in the last month. The marks are later revealed to be those of the Queen's chosen in her fight against the evil in Panther Hollow. Anita and Cyan find themselves afflicted with a mysterious illness the same day.
Daniel and Drake invade the drug dealer's lair, and find dozens of pixies lying on the floor, the drug being continuously fed to them intravenously. There are two brutally murdered bodies on the ground floor, among the pixies. Drake finds Carrie in a drug-induced stupor, covered in the blood of one of the victims (mostly because she's been writhing on the floor in it). He goes to get Daniel, who becomes possessed as a result of his trying the drug, and attacks Drake. A brutal battle ensues, resolved only by the intervention of Katherine, who renders Daniel unconscious.
Anita discovers an old, dilapidated mansion in the woods, which is home to a deformed, mentally handicapped boy, and has an alter to the Twilight Queen in the basement. The group finds a hidden room beneath the alter, holding the binding ritual that can end the conflict between the Queen and the evil. Anita has a hard decision to make: allow a demon to destroy the city, or deal with a Mad God to put a stop to it. In the end, after consulting the Twilight Order on the issue, she resolves that she can't let her friends face this thing alone, and goes to help.
Drake tears the drug den to the ground with his bare hands, and sends the "middle man" supplier running out of town.
The group casts the ritual of binding on the demon in the lake. The entire scene shifts, everyone is transported to the Twilight Realm, where the group (and the evil) comes face-to-face with the Twilight Queen, a tentacled horror from another dimension. Anita, Cyan, and Daniel fall unconscious as soon as they see her, leaving Drake to fight the evil from Panther Hollow alone. The demon, enraged at its imminent defeat, unleashes all of its fury upon Drake. The timely arrival of Katherine (solid in this universe, and still possessed of all her Slayer abilities) allows Drake to hold off the beast until the Queen can bind it and send them all home. Drake puts his companions in the truck and gets everyone out of there. Unfortunately, in the final conflict, Jason Burke dies at the hands of the defeated evil.