EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR: Sweet Music

By sunset the loaded-down van containing our heroes and a large amount of musical equipment had arrived in the village of Yokka, which sits directly north of the summit of Mount Sabretooth. (At this point, our party is now 3/4 of the way to the mountain castle.) Daisuke drove the van to the motel where they had arranged to meet and stay the night. As everyone crawled out of the van and stretched out, another equally-scruffy character emerged from one of the rooms and said, "Woah, Dice! Where did you find Trick?"

Daisuke: "I found him and his friends in Mikka! Check this out, dude! These guys killed Liiche!"

Kevin: "Far out! That's awesome! Hey, where's Matt and Tony?"

Daisuke: "Uh... I thought they were riding with you!"

Kevin: "No... I left you a voicemail telling you I had to leave early and you needed to get them!"

Daisuke pulls his cellphone out of his pocket which shows 3 waiting voicemail messages: one from Kevin, and one each from Matt and Tony asking where the hell he was.

Kevin: "Dude! What's the point in having a cellphone if you're not gonna answer it?!?"

Daisuke: "Oh. I forgot I left it on silent. My bad!"

Kevin (pissed): "You stupid-fucker! We're all the way in Yokka, the competition starts early tomorrow, and our lead singer/guitar player and bass player are stranded in Mikka! After all the money we shelled out setting this up... just like that you flush it down the shitter!"

TRITHAL: "Cool it, guys. We'll think of something."

Kevin: "Like what?"

TRITHAL: "It's been a while, but I'll bet I can still pick up a bass; and our friend Axem claims to be apt on the electric guitar. Besides, we owe you for the ride."

Daisuke: "That's awesome, man! Almost like the good ol' days! But, who will sing lead?"

TRITHAL: "Idunno. We'll have to see who sings better."

And so, Daisuke (drums), Kevin (keys), AXEM (substitute lead guitar), TRITHAL (substitute bass), Ali (groupie), and CHRIS (...... comedy relief) enter the motel room and hammer out the plan to save the show.

The next morning, the competition began. The group watches from the audience while they await their turn. As they watch the first few bands, they realize that they'll have to try pretty hard to compete. Alot of the bands there are more experienced and have a better sound than the band they heard on the demo tape the day before. While they're pre-occupied with the concert, they fail to notice that CHRIS has parted from the group.

When it was time for our band to finally take the stage, Daisuke took the drums, Kevin took the keyboards, TRITHAL took the bass, AXEM took the guitar, and Ali took the front position. When they started playing, the crowd was dazzled by how good they were despite the fact that these individuals have not yet rehearsed as a band for longer than a day. They played their own renditions of a few recognizable metal songs by Evanescense (since they had Ali), Metallica, and System of A Down. They made some older songs sound better than they originally did, and played some originals... one of which happened to be a song Macha-Rei wrote more than 300 years ago but never had recorded. At the end of their set, the crowd gave a roaring ovation.

CHRIS re-appeared toward the end of the competetion. He was on-stage trying to do a comedy routine which all but one person disliked. That one person just felt sorry for his lame attempt so he gave him a pity chuckle. It was soon thereafter that he was booed off stage faster than someone could fall asleep watching one of his prized comedy movies. After nearly being hit by various projectiles, CHRIS rejoined the group.

When the competition was over, our band won the 2nd prize: 750,000 GP. Daisuke and Kevin insisted that AXEM, TRITHAL and Ali take most of it since they saved their asses. They also asked if they wanted to come on tour with them. Axem was down for it, but TRITHAL went into detail about why he couldn't because of his fuck-up with the catwalk, and Dice and Kev stopped him early on because they knew they were in for a long-winded tale about bullshit they didn't care about.

That night, the group stayed at the motel. The next morning, they had enough for train tickets to Itsuka, the town closest to the Mountain Castle. While on the train, TRITHAL said, "Ya know, what just happened had absolutely no bearing on our quest. Despite the fact we got a shitload of money, it was a total waste of time."

AXEM: "It was fun, though."

Ali: "Yeah, and now we're making alot of headway on our quest with this train ride."

CHRIS: "That competition sucked! No one there had a sense of humor."

TRITHAL: "That's because it wasn't a stand-up comedy competition, dumbass! It was a music show!"

CHRIS: "Well I don't see the difference...."

TRITHAL, AXEM and Ali all reach off-camera and whack CHRIS with pillows. CHRIS goes flying through the air like he did back at the Goblin Market, then immediately returned to his seat.