In the “present” as we see it. 2 of 4 children have left earth via a video game SBURB. This is a good thing as the earth is currently getting pelted with millions of meteors. Somehow years in the future the earth has new inhabitants. We’ve met 3 capricians. There’s a Wayward Vagabond (WV), a Peregrine Mendicant (PM) and an Aimless Renegade (AR). WV and PM had both found rockets that lead them to some ancient frog ruins. This place in the Present is next to the home of Jade Harley. But currently these ruins are home to an Aimless Renegade (AR). There is a huge stash of weapons and ammo left by Jade’s Grandfather. AR is not happy that WV and PM are on his turf. AR is also a gun nut who has no idea how to aim.

It seems that the PM’s rocket ship isn’t defenseless. It has mechanical defense worms that blast lasers at AR’s direction. As such there is a lot of collateral damage to the ruins. But eventually AR switches to homing missiles and takes out the worms. He gets his crosshairs on WV next but stops. Something about the icon on the WV pumpkin bindle makes him freak out. The icon shaped like the head of Jades ‘pet’, the omnipotent god dog Bec. AR jumps out of his defensive position in a tower and tries frantically to talk to WV. PM who is still armed with an awesome black sword. PM jumps onto and subdues AR, sword drawn.

Meanwhile, closer to present times, in about the same place, Jade has received an odd gift. Jade’s forbidden to enter the frog ruins by Bec. Today she decided to go there anyway, she knew she needed to. We didn’t get to see much of what was in there. We do know Jade found a huge lotus with a timer. At the same moment Rose entered the game, and John entered the first gate, the lotus opened. The lotus had Dave’s copy of the SBURB beta. It has Dave’s name and orange juice stains on it. How it somehow ended up in a lotus in some ruins in the middle of the Pacific isn’t yet known. Jade does mention the lotus will regrow in about 413 years. Jade needs this Beta though, as Jade doesn’t own a copy of the game. She isn’t even into video games.

In typical Jade fashion she proceeds to screw around with her inventory. She attempted the Jenga modus but that worked terribly. Then she tries the Pictionary modus. This is interesting as she can draw something, if it’s recognized and nearby then it’s stored. If it’s not nearby it makes a ghost card with a code. If she had the crafting items in SBURB this would mean that she could draw anything then replicate it. But this modus is really bad at guessing. Jade is then caught by Bec. She’s teleported to her room and loses most of her gear. This includes her advanced bass guitar. We saw this was still there in the future when AR was looking around. She still has her laptop and the beta though.

Jade installs the beta. She is doing this preemptively knowing she will need it soon. While doing this Many trolls are trying to contact her on Pesterchum. carcinoGeneticist, arachnidsGrip, and terminallyCapricious. Jade ignores them for now.