"I'm telling you, Finn, the physics of this 'roughhouse' don't make sense," I muttered, leaning against a giant, sweat-stained table.
We were deep in the Marauder Village. The air smelled like squid ink and testosterone. Everywhere I looked, massive men were smashing mugs over each other's heads. My Accelerated Learning was having a field day—I'd already mastered three different styles of Marauder-brawl and a recipe for fermented squid ink just by watching the bartender for five minutes.
"It's not about physics, Kael! It's about guts!" Finn shouted, right before the Head Marauder tossed him into a pile of barrels.
"Guts!" the Head Marauder roared.
Suddenly, Finn froze. His ears perked up. "Jake! Kael! Do you hear that?"
Jake, who was currently being used as a trampoline by a half-stag marauder, bounced into the air. "What'd you say? Whoa!"
"Someone's crying," Finn said, his face going dead serious. He knocked the Head Marauder off him like he was a pesky fly. "I gotta go find out where that crying is coming from!"
The Boom Boom Vow
As we ran toward the sound of the wailing, Finn gave the Marauders his big speech about the "boom boom on a leaf." I stood there, rubbing my temples. My Magic Resistance didn't help with the psychic damage of hearing my little brother talk about his baby-poop trauma to a group of hardened warriors.
"And that's why I need to go!" Finn finished, tears in his eyes.
The Marauders started clapping. I just sighed and followed them up the mountain. "You know, Finn, most people just get a therapist, they don't vow to solve every minor inconvenience in the world."
"That's 'cause most people aren't heroes, Kael!" Finn yelled back.
The Mountain of Sadness
We found the source: Mountain Man. A literal mountain with a face, crying boulders.
"Please! No roughhousing!" Mountain Man wailed. "It... m-makes... me... soooo... SAD!"
"He's crying because the roughhousing is 'raunchy and maddening,'" Jake whispered.
I stepped forward, my Elemental Attunement feeling the literal tectonic plates of the mountain shifting with every sob. "Listen, Mountain Man, if we can't roughhouse, we just need a workaround. A compromise."
Finn, in his infinite wisdom, decided the solution was... ducks. He tied ducks to the Marauders' hands and pigs to their knees.
"Pigs on my knees! Pigs on my knees!" the Head Marauder shouted, kneed a guy in the face, and the pig went OINK.
I watched from the sidelines, horrified. My brain was rapidly calculating the animal rights violations. "Finn, this is worse. Now it's just animal cruelty with extra steps."
"You're right!" Mountain Man sobbed harder. "It's worse!"
Next came the petting. Finn started petting the Marauders. Then they started petting each other.
"Pet pet!" Finn laughed.
"This is awesome!" a Marauder yelled, stroking his friend's beard.
I stood in the center of the village as fifty massive, muscular men began a giant, synchronized petting circle. My Magic Resistance was the only thing keeping me from getting "petted" into a trance.
"It's getting weird, Finn," I said, dodging a stray hand. "They're getting rashy. Look at them! They're petting themselves raw!"
The Head Marauder looked miserable. "Stop that! We are done with that! We're going back to roughhousing!
Then, the floodgates opened. Everyone had a problem. The Mushroom Creatures wanted to dance. The Cactus needed pollination. The Dragon had an itchy butt. The Coal Man wanted silence.
"Everybody please! One problem at a time!" Finn screamed, his head spinning.
I looked at the chaos. My Accelerated Learning kicked into overdrive. I saw the strings, the wind currents, the heating points of the dragon's breath, and the vibration of the mushrooms. The entire mountain was a giant, unsolved equation.
"Finn! Jake!" I shouted over the noise. "Stop trying to talk to them! We need to build a Rube Goldberg machine!"
"A Rube-what?" Finn asked.
"A giant chain reaction! Jake, I need you to be the pulley system. Finn, get those strings!"
Under my direction, we turned the Land of Ooo into a giant clock. The Marauders roughhoused, but their punches pulled strings. The strings moved fans that blew flies off the fish. The fans played music for the mushrooms. The mushrooms pollinated the cactus. The dragon scratched his butt on the cactus thorns and breathed fire to melt the ice for the Ice Cube creature.
The steam from the melting ice rose up, creating a thick fog.
"Hey! I can't see anything!" Mountain Man shouted from above. "Is anyone roughhousing?"
"NO!" Jake yelled from the fog.
"RADICAL!" Mountain Man laughed, finally happy.
Behind him, Mountain 2 sighed in relief. "And I can still see this gorgeous back!"
We ended the day riding a dolphin through the water. Finn was exhausted but beaming.
"We did it, Kael! Everyone's happy!"
I looked back at the mountain, which was now a giant, steam-covered mess of interconnected animals and machines. It was the most illogical, messy, and beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"Yeah, Finn," I said, feeling the cool ocean spray against my skin. "Everyone's happy. But next time, if someone has a 'boom boom' problem, let's just buy them some tissues, okay?"
Finn just laughed and splashed me. "Adventure Time!"