“Hi everyone and welcome to Panda Vison! The only talk show where your host is a both a Panda and a sage daemon.
“Joining me tonight is a close friend of mine, a superstar of the adventuring community who has warmed our hearts with their quirky personality and dedication to their favourite type of magic. I know her as the annoying second member of our Dissonant Flame party, but you probably just know her as Bell. Welcome to the show!”
The crowd cheered loudly as the scarlet robed fire mage trotted across the stage, waving with both hands, to take a seat next to Panda.
“Hi Panda, hi everyone,” she said with enthusiasm, “it’s so good to be here. I have always dreamed of being a guest on a talk show. Though I have to say, I am a little disappointed that you don’t have a jazz band.”
“We used to,” Panda replied, “but after Sally destroyed the set during the last show we had to make some cutbacks. The cost of living crisis affects us all and late night television doesn’t pay for itself.
“So, moving on… I’d like to start off the show with a little video I’ve prepared to explain the events that happened leading up to Kaleb and I meeting you during the adventurer exams. What do you say?”
“I say, roll the film!”
Two Books Ago, In A Memory Far, Far Away… (Book 1 Recap):
Kaleb woke up naked in a palm tree jungle. He wasn’t expecting this, having fallen asleep in the cab of his truck the night before.
A system message explained that he had been isekai’d to another world called Celestia and that he had a new tattoo on his back which was part of a cosmic treasure map.
Kaleb adventured through the jungle killing stag monsters, cultists and getting a series of snarky and often passive aggressive system messages along the way.
After being captured by a group of cultists our hero managed to break free but in doing so, he accidentally killed an outworlder named Brad and adsorbed his map piece.
Soon after this he met a strange god named Chrysus who seemed to have a vested interest in getting Kaleb to work for him, but Kaleb is an atheist so he declined the offer, much to the god’s dismay.
Kaleb then summoned a demon, which actually turned out to be a daemon, named Panda and the two of them escaped the cultists and found their way to Havar.
In Havar, Kaleb joined the Adventure Society, met people of difference races, finally got some clothes, and embarked on a series of three quests which he had to complete in order to take the exam to become a fully-fledged adventurer.
The first quest had him team up with a muscle-bound catonid named Sally. The trio ventured to a little-known island and murdered their way into the Goblin King Coronation ceremony.
The self-proclaimed charismatic Panda convinced the goblins that he and his team were foreign goblins who had travelled there to take part in the tournament. Somehow the ruse worked and Sally managed to convince the goblins to allow her to take part in a battle royale.
She nearly won this battle but was defeated until Kaleb ruined the tournament and breached the safe zone rules by killing the other competitor. As you can imagine, this mightily pissed off the enraged crowd who chased Kaleb through the mountain whilst he fled with an unconscious, and very heavy, catonid on his back.
Kaleb fought valiantly at the literal edge of a cliff until Director Lucas swooped in at the last second, saving the trio and taking them back to Havar.
In his next quest Kaleb wandered the local sewers, killing all the slime who lived there including taking on a slime queen and just about surviving. In the process he was stuck with a weird communist torch which made other economic groups dislike him and he once again lost all of his clothes.
His meditation techniques were coming on nicely by this point as well, a little too nicely if you ask the system. Through meditation, Kaleb managed to forcibly increase his stamina and was warned that if he tried this again he would die. He learnt a lesson that even the youngest Celestians know: never piss off the system.
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He was also invited to take part in a tournament to decide who would be Chrysus’ next high priest, an offer he promptly declined.
Having raised enough money for his dream armour, by murdering slimes, Kaleb returned to an armourer who he had made a deal with and collected his prize.
Soon after he embarked on the last of his three quests which took him to another island where he met a dryad child in an abandoned village which seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. The dryad led him into a tower where a strange magic activated and he found himself in the middle of The Orcish Inquisition where he was forced to watch the young dryad and her mother be brutally murdered by a callous orc.
Seeing such a tragedy, and with his pregnant wife never far from his mind, Kaleb had a bit of a mental breakdown and unlocked a strange and powerful soul attack which he used to torture and tear apart the orcish aggressor.
In his mind, he couldn’t distinguish between the dryad and his own family who were likely still back on Earth.
Director Lucas and another God named Diako were watching this incident and it seemed like Diako was happy with the development. This odd god has been pulling some kind of strings behind the scenes, probably, it wasn’t always clear… but something was definitely going on there.
Upon returning to the Adventure Society, Kaleb was promptly told that his examination would start immediately.
Continuation of PandaVision Episode 2 (book 2 recap):
“So Bell,” Panda said, taking a sip from a white coffee mug which said: World’s Best TV Show Host on it, “now you’ve heard about Kaleb’s life before he met you, why don’t you fill our lovely audience in on what happened after you met?”
“Well,” she began wistfully, “it was a warm summer’s day in Havar when I was asked to take the adventurer’s exam-”
“Let me stop you right there,” Panda said, reaching over and patting Bell’s leg patronisingly with his paw. “This isn’t a lifetime TV movie, try to keep it brief.”
The fireball mage gave Panda a deadpan glance before continuing:
“We took the exam together; the quest was a classic: kill a dragon. Though of course, things are never that simple. After trekking through the palm tree jungle for what seemed like forever we eventually discovered that the dragon in question was at the level cap and it royally kicked our asses before destroying half of Havar.
“In the end, Kaleb managed to defeat it using that weird soul power of his but only after Director Lucas weakened it. Then we met a king and got rewards, I got to wear this beautiful ball gown and everyone was looking at me with lustful expressions, even the women… especially the women-”
“I think you’re forgetting something pretty important…” Panda interrupted.
Bell stared at him with a blank expression before shrugging her shoulders.
“I literally died!” He shouted.
“Did you?” Bell replied, “then how are hosting this show? Is this heaven?”
“More like hell,” Panda murmured. “I’m here because Kaleb re-summoned me with the help of a shit tonne of money and the king’s court mage.”
“Oh yeah,” Bell said, taking over, “and that was around about the time when I got kidnapped by the Morningstar Collective. Kaleb rescued me and we met this cool international man of mystery in a 90’s trench coat. He had a gun. I liked him.
“Then we flew on Sally’s ship to a weird system worshipping island where we fought a kraken, twice, and was attacked by an entire town of zealots led by an elder litch.”
“We certainly did,” Panda said, “and if I remember correctly you and Kaleb indiscriminately slaughtered an entire town to save me from being sacrificed by those creeps.”
“And I’d do it again!” Bell said, lighting flames on her fingertips excitedly. “In fact, the litch was so powerful that we all nearly died at the end until Kaleb used a chaos seed to summon a demon who got rid of it for us.
“Then my favourite part happened. We got to meet Asmodeus the dragon. The demon lord disappeared leaving behind a small fragment of himself as an egg which Kaleb soul bonded with to hatch it. Thanks to that my cute little friend was born!”
“Actually, I was born centuries ago-”
“You’re old news Furball,” Bell said with a wink, “what happened after that?”
“We finally arrived on the continent to find it on the verge of civil war.” Panda said, taking over once more. “Director Lucas asked us to travel to Castalor to warn his father of an assassination attempt, which is why we were there in the first place. However, the gates were blocked by protestors and Director Freja gave us a quest to put a stop to them.
“That was when we got sucked into running around town like a bunch of tools trying to set up a negotiation between the communists and the capitalists. And that’s pretty much where our next story starts, in a room at the top of the Ivory Tower.
“The capitalists betrayed everyone, surprise, surprise, and ambushed us with hired mercenaries who captured the gnome and his communist friends, putting an end to the hostilities. Well, that was until the gnome blew up.”
“Oh yeah that’s right,” Bell said, nodding slowly. “Mr Gnome went all suicide bomber on us.”
“Yup… I wonder how we’ll get out of this one?” Panda said, copying the slow nod.
“Wait,” Bell asked, “isn’t that happening right now?”
“It certainly is…” Panda replied, still nodding slowly in a self-satisfied reverie at having finally completed a show without any disastrous interruptions.
“THEN WHY THE HELL ARE WE DOING A TALK SHOW!” Bell screamed, standing up and knocking her chair over.
The audience began clapping as Panda’s eyes went wide and he too jumped up from his seat.
“Oh shit, I guess that’s all we have time for folks, I’ll see you next time!” He said as the familiar red curtains closed across the stage.
“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” Bell screamed.