That's when the Game of Toads really began!
Ruby kissed Larry. (These are special friendly kisses BTW, not romantic ones.)
Larry was cured.
Bonnie kissed Mark, but something happened. Something I didn't even know COULD happen!
Instead of curing Mark, the kiss backfired and Bonnie became a toad too! OMG!
So I brought Holly over to kiss Mark.
No luck. It didn't work. But thankfully, Holly the witch is immune to being toadified. Next, Holly tried a kiss on Roy.
Which worked. Then Clyde tried kissing Bonnie.
Which backfired. Clyde was now a toad.
Roy kissed Bonnie next.
And she was cured.
Then Bonnie kissed Mark again. Another backfire. She got turned into a toad a second time.
Ruby kissed Clyde and turned herself into a toad. When would the madness end?!
On and on it went, back and forth. It was a nightmare! I finally stopped taking screenshots. The thing was, Holly wasn't high enough in spellcasting to cure anyone, and I had no other way to heal them except to cheat, which I avoid unless I have a special purpose in mind.
Eventually, Larry kicked them all outside. At one point everyone was a toad except Holly. And each time the kiss backfired, they got mad and I had to make them apologize to each other. ...Well, except for Ruby and Roy--no toad-kissing between them. Ruby pestered Roy all night long until they became fully red-barred.
Finally at 6:30 am, still in Larry's backyard, they were all cured.
I could safely send them home without fear of toad issues. They took 2 taxis back to base camp (Roy and Ruby wouldn't ride together). Then Mark called travel services.
I kept my fingers crossed, but everyone got home in one piece. Sort of. Ruby and Clyde no longer had their Eternally Faithful reps. Ruby had cheated and been betrayed. She and Roy hated each other more than ever. And Roy had another cheat and one more betrayal to his record. ...Oh yes, love these family vacations!
Good thing they didn't take the kids!
_____
Further repercussions from this vacation in Rinn Fada was that the Riverview household was finally split up. Roy, Holly, and Riley moved out and into the world of the Wild West. See the first Wild West story update: "01-01. Go West, Young Man."
