Over dinner, Tom complains that the ruckus at the signing means he’ll never be invited back to that chain of bookshops again, but still, he’s too guilty to push things too far. Iris picks the anchovies off of her pizza while fishing for compliments from Tom, claiming that she’s been miserable and lonely ever since he stormed out on her. She also tells Tom that he’s the only one she trusts to hide something valuable for her: a jewel from the mines of Marleon, which she acquired while travelling with Jenny, the policewoman who got the runs whenever she travelled through Time. Iris claims to be on the run from powerful and dangerous forces, and she asks Tom to protect the crystal, into which she has placed all of her memories for safekeeping. Tom is distracted when a robber and his gang burst into the restaurant and begin, reasonably politely, to divest the diners of their jewellery. Iris gives Tom the crystal, thanks him for his help, and hitches a ride away with the leader of the bandits. The frustrated Tom realizes that, bizarre as it may seem, Iris is, typically, in league with Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

When Tom returns home, his stuffed Panda toy is waiting up for him. Panda is already rather upset about having been left behind while Tom went to the signing, and is even more upset to learn that he missed an opportunity to meet Iris. He also realises that Tom was half-hoping that Iris would whisk him off on another ludicrous adventure, and that Tom might very well have abandoned Panda had the opportunity arisen. Offended, Panda accuses Tom of exploiting Iris’ life in order to make a career writing schlocky novels, and Tom realises that he can’t defend himself. He feels even guiltier when he realises that she trusts him to protect the crystal containing all of her hopes and dreams, when he’s no better than the evil forces that she claimed were trying to steal her memories. In a way, this is exactly what Tom has been doing.

Meanwhile, Iris hides out in Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, who are sheltering her in exchange for her assistance in travelling through Time to rob the rich further afield. Unfortunately, their camp was left unguarded when they launched their raids on other eras, and Little John -- a tiny figure barely tall enough to make himself heard -- informs Robin that the Sheriff of Nottingham has raided the camp and kidnapped Maid Marion and Friar Tuck. The Sheriff is apparently offering to trade his hostages for Iris and her bus, and although Iris suggests running away, Robin instead has his men seize her and drag both her and the bus to the Sheriff’s castle. Iris vows revenge on her former ally as the Normans emerge from the castle and surround them both.

When Tom recovers from his hangover the next morning, he decides to tell his publisher, Mida Slike, that he’s decided to stop writing Iris Wildthyme novels. He reluctantly allows Panda to accompany him to the publishing house, Satan and Satan Ltd. Mida’s secretary, Lucretia, ushers them into the publisher’s office, and despite Tom’s efforts to silence him, Panda tries flirting with Mida and offers to submit his own memoirs for publication. Panda is subsequently offended when Mida dismisses him as a curiosity and changes the subject back to Tom’s novels. Tom’s mainstream sales skyrocketed when he blurted out, during a television interview, that all of his stories were true, thus acquiring a celebrity reputation as an eccentric alien abductee. However, he now admits to Mida that he started writing about Iris in a fit of pique, and now he feels guilty and has decided to stop. Mida doesn’t take this news well...

Iris finds the Sheriff’s castle creepy and unsettling, and is unnerved by the silent soldiers, who act like zombies or automata. Even Robin seems unnerved, and while he’s distracted, the Normans suddenly retreat, leaving both Iris and Robin locked up in the castle dungeons. As Robin tries to pick the lock, he questions Iris about the jewel she displayed the other night, and suggests that it might serve as recompense for all the trouble he’s been put to. Iris dismisses the jewel as a trinket with sentimental value only, but he continues to push her -- until she realises that he’s not Robin Hood at all, but an agent of her enemies. Robin drops his charming facade to reveal that he is in truth a rather weedy, officious bureaucrat in the employ of a higher power. Now that he has been found out, he drags Iris out of the dungeons to meet his master, an extra-dimensional entity that has taken the form of a talking, severed head on a spike. The Head teleports itself, Robin and Iris out of the castle to Iris’ bus, and offers to restore Iris’ freedom in exchange for the crystal containing her memories. It then finds that it can’t sense the crystal’s presence on her, but Robin realises that she must have given it to the man she met last night. The Head thus uses its eerie mental powers, compelling Iris to pilot the bus back to Tom...

Back in the publishing company, Mida reminds Tom that he’s locked into a watertight contract and committed to writing at least six more books about Iris. However, in her anger, she lets slip that she knows that Iris is real, and Tom realises that Mida must be in league with the dark forces that Iris claimed were pursuing her. He and Panda flee for their lives, pursued by Mida’s secretarial pool and realising somewhat belatedly that the name of the publishing company, “Satan and Satan,” was probably a bit of a giveaway. Mida and her secretaries catch Tom and Panda before they can escape, and Mida finally admits that she works for MIAOW, the Ministry for Incursions and other Alien Ontological Wonders; they are aware that dark forces are searching for Iris, and they set up this entire publishing company -- and Tom’s writing career -- in order to learn her secrets so they could get to her first.