Apocalypse: Quest System recap

A failing fifth-dimensional weapon drives Jeb to seek Imperial aid, drawing him into Vresh's succession dispute, the Fairy Queen's ancient bargain, and a coup by Pikaku's undead father. Casey Thompson III is abducted as rival powers pursue her. Jeb helps Pikaku defeat the former Emperor, but learns the Fairy Queen has used Casey to claim humanity's mist. He signs the Destroyer's contract only after filling it with safeguards: Casey is freed, the mist tithe ends, the corrupted fae are cleansed, and the Destroyer becomes a constrained Destroyer of Evil. The weapon has already detonated through fifth-dimensional mechanics, with the contract as its consequential counterpart. Jeb accepts Vex's apprenticeship, straining his new relationship with Vresh because Vex killed her father.

Previously: Jebediah Trapper, usually called Jeb, became a powerful Mist user with ties to the gods and the Imperial court. A corrupted accolade left a nuclear weapon embedded in his fifth-dimensional form, turning his continued survival into a threat to those around him. Smartass is his fairy familiar, while Eddie and Ron are trusted technical allies. Vex is a formidable fifth-dimensional figure connected to Jeb's predicament. Pikaku rules the Empire, and Jeb already knows the noblewoman Vresh.

Jeb's worsening illness confirms that the weapon within his fifth-dimensional form may become lethal much sooner than expected. Vex refuses to remove it, and Jeb rejects a divine quest to kill the Fairy Queen in exchange for relief. He travels to the Imperial capital with Smartass and Eddie's zombot, hoping Pikaku can find a specialist. Once there, officials restrict the group while several factions approach Jeb. The Fairy Queen offers a suspiciously free cure, rebels seek his help overthrowing Pikaku, and a blue scroll kills two people at his hotel. Smartass secretly keeps a device supplied by the rebels. Meanwhile, Jeb visits Vresh and learns that her uncle is trying to control her family through a forced marriage and succession maneuver. Jeb proposes that Vresh adopt her uncle as her legal heir, transforming the dispute into a contest of survival. Pikaku preserves Jeb's audience despite the valet's death and supplies a young replacement from his own family.

A sworn servant discovers that genuine service to Jeb allows him to carry the lethal blue scroll safely. Jeb experiments with autonomous Mist constructs while Eddie advises him remotely. Pikaku agrees to seek a specialist for the weapon but bars Jeb from the capital and grants him rewards from the impossible tutorial. Before Jeb can leave normally, Smartass's hidden device disables the palace's magical defenses and a portal strands Jeb, Vresh, his servant, and the Imperial valet in the Deathwilds. The party survives shadow creatures and a corrupted fae, while the valet proves useful as a negotiator and healer. At the palace, Pikaku's undead father escapes secret imprisonment, devastates the Imperial harem, captures Smartass, and sharply reduces Pikaku's power. The Deathwilds steer Jeb's party into Elsewhere, where the Fairy Queen explains that the corruption afflicting the fae is tied to a failed ancient bargain. The Mist now harming her people originally belonged to humanity.

The Fairy Queen reveals that her allies received humanity's Mist through an ancient separation bargain. She kept a human infant outside time as leverage, and Jeb accepts responsibility for the child but refuses to preserve her rule in exchange for removal of his weapon. News of an undead outbreak and Casey Thompson III's disappearance draws him back from Elsewhere, where two weeks have passed outside. Jeb is wanted as the supposed cause of the disaster. He finds Smartass and learns that a conspirator manipulated her into disabling the palace defenses. After Jeb captures that conspirator, Pikaku executes him and makes a binding agreement with Jeb: Jeb must make his best effort to destroy the undead former Emperor and twelve corrupted damsels. Jeb joins Vresh, Imperial forces, and several younger allies in hunting the undead through the city. Their search leads to a mansion where Casey has been hidden. Three intelligent undead seize the child and subject Jeb to a mental attack. Casey emerges from the mansion with her caretaker, but Jeb's condition and the outcome of the battle remain unresolved.

Jeb escapes the mind prison and kills one undead damsel, but her death curse worsens the dangerous imbalance between his Body and Mist. Vresh kills another. The remaining leader escapes with Casey as a hostage, and Pikaku assigns an Imperial courier to track her. Jeb prepares tailored traps for the surviving targets while Vresh explains their different powers. The pursuit party is shot down into a mercenary ambush. Although wounded and depleted, they defeat another undead damsel, but the courier dies after pursuing the hostage alone and the trail disappears. Jeb recruits Eddie, Ron, Smartass, and an undead scientist to locate undead miasma with a recovered defense satellite. The Fairy Queen is secretly holding Casey and has obscured the trail. Eddie operates the satellite from low orbit, revealing a major undead concentration while Pikaku uses the deployment as bait for his father. Jeb helps counter the former Emperor's nerve gas, and Pikaku's forces dismember and restrain him. The defeated ruler does not know where Casey is, leaving her disappearance unresolved.

Jeb realizes that the Fairy Queen has taken Casey as humanity's representative for a species-wide bargain. Unable to explain safely, he is arrested by Pikaku and escapes, damaging their alliance. The Fairy Queen's deal strips most of humanity's Mist as an undead army besieges the city. Jeb responds by signing the Destroyer's contract only after an undead ally fills it with extensive conditions. Those clauses compel the Destroyer to meet Jeb's terms before claiming his service and place the Fairy Queen's court under mortal threat for defiance. The Fairy Queen cancels Casey's bargain, returns her to her mother, and purges the corruption afflicting the fae. The siege ends. The pantheon confirms that the contract prevents the Destroyer from ending reality, makes her a Destroyer of Evil, and requires recurring mortal lives without power or memory. Vex later explains that Jeb's nuclear weapon has already detonated through fifth-dimensional mechanics, with the contract becoming its real-world counterpart. Jeb accepts Vex's offer of magical apprenticeship. Vresh leaves upset because Vex killed her father, placing her new relationship with Jeb in immediate doubt.

Jeb's contract ends the immediate crises without requiring him to kill the Fairy Queen. Its conditions force her to cancel Casey Thompson III's bargain and return the child to her mother, end humanity's mist tithe, and purge the corruption afflicting her people. The undead siege also ends. The Destroyer is bound into the pantheon as a Destroyer of Evil, barred from ending reality, and subjected to recurring powerless mortal lives. Jeb owes future service only after the contract's many conditions are satisfied. Pikaku has restrained his undead father, but his alliance with Jeb is damaged because Jeb concealed Casey's location and escaped arrest. Vex reveals that the fifth-dimensional weapon has already detonated and that Jeb's contract is its real-world counterpart. Jeb agrees to become Vex's apprentice. Vresh, newly involved with Jeb, leaves upset because Vex killed her father, leaving their relationship uncertain.