41 - Once More, With Dessert
Previous session: 40 - Love, Death & Metal
And she leans down to Paildreo, in a style what she doesn't know what she does, but she saw mortal doing it and starts to pinch their cheek, but much stronger as Paildreo moves, making it awkward with some kind of motion.
When the group quickly check Nesvalyn, he seems away and processing what's happening.
She finally turns to the group after leaving Paildreo's cheeks (and moving them).
As she looks after all of us, she goes to Axel and press a finger on them, and pass though, which should be rude and she pulls her finger back, but Axel giggles of delight.
She recoils of terror.
Or snaps their fingers, and from now on we'll have to sing when we need to speak.
She express her delight in some childish way, and hops and claps when hearing the proposal.
Or has a hand on her Mother, and no longer holds Paildreo. They give a side eye to Nesvalyn and follows them two steps behind.
It takes 15 minutes to reach the courtyard, as we realize it's a really massive palace, as it seems to stretch forever. Every 10 feet, we notice one of these weird butlers.
The Lawn Games...
We finally arrive in a lash green grass patch, but underwater. As we walk through, the air looks water, but we're not moving through water, and not even our hair is impacted by this.
We notice a big barrel filled with lawn darts. In the field before us, are 3-4 servants with bright pastel colors. Or snaps their fingers and the servants starts pivoting side to side and move in a specific pattern.
She goes to do the first throw, removes one of her silk white glove and gives it to her seahorse elf, then grabs a lawn dart. She throws it and whips one servant, taking a chunk of its shoulder. They stand back up, pivot again while putting a hand on their shoulder.
Axel goes next and goes for one far away.
↪[Attack Roll - Pass ✔] The thing is hit in the chest.
When looking up, Axel has 2 points.
Persy steps forwards, and tries to throw dramatically to miss on purpose.
↪[Performance] It was an average, with Or ringing in Persy's head "Don't. Embarass. Me.", with Or giving the most anger look.
Cherry goes for the hardest shot, and when picking up the dart...
↪[Insight - Pass ✔] The dart feels so familiar in her hand, and when looking up, she has a déjà-vu feeling. Cherry is seeing this scene from another perspective, like watching from the other side, but as one of the targets. Cherry shakes off the sensation.
↪[Attack Roll - Pass with Deal with the Devil]
The dart goes directly in the neck of the target, and scores 10 points.
Balnorin goes next, and takes a look at the darts and goes for the one in mid-range.
↪[Attack Roll - Fail ❌] He misses, then shrugs.
We notice that every throw, the Queen claps every time.
Nesvalyn goes last. He aims and...
↪[Attack Roll - Fail ❌] the dart deviates at last minute. Or claps and says "Better luck next time.", while keeping an eye on Nesvalyn.
Paildreo picks a dart, throws it and hits with ease.
The round ends, and it's the Queen's turn, who's putting her silk gloves back, just to remove them for the shot.
She throws and hits the furthest one, who gets down... and doesn't get up again.
Croquet time...
We're moving on to the next activity, where we see a Croquet field has been put for us.
There's a maillet for each of us, and when looking at the field, the wickets are made from rib bones. The goal post is the head of one of the servants.
We all decide to play Croquet, as Or stared at us, inviting us hard enough to join.
The queen starts first with a small tap to the ball, and it zips, making it a quarter of the course.
For the rest of the party, it moves 6 inches at a time, except for Nesvalyn, the ball rolls away and does a Tee Hee~ sound, until finally hitting it after multiple attempts, for 6 inches too.
Or and the Queen make it in a standard time, but as it is Croquet, they'll have to wait that everybody finishes.
[Insight - Pass ✔] The Croquet field feels like a desert for Cherry, and she realizes the reason why it's taking so long to do it: we all shrunk in size. She also has the same feeling, like observing the scene and the group from another point of view.
Or passively/aggressively comments on each action Nesvalyn does, with sometimes replying and thanking them for their patience, while holding their stare, implying that they're part of the problem. Even with that, Nesvalyn takes a good time playing dumb and seeing what's happening.
Finally, we all finish, with Nesvalyn taking more time than the rest of the group.
The Queen lost interest of the game, and the servants made a chair for her to sit and they hold an umbrella.
We do the long walk back to the castle.
The diner...
We finally arrive in the dining room, being ridiculously long. There are 7 seats clustered on one side, and one seat far away, being Nesvalyn's seat. As he walks away, his footsteps make an echo sound to emphasize how isolate he will be for that part of the evening.
Axel grabs their chair and moves closer to Nesvalyn, but we all notice that they moved closer to the Queen instead.
The queen reacts when Axel sits, and tries to add a blush to make the scene warmer.
We are all served food hidden in silver cloches, which when removed, display really fancy and high chef quality food. Except Nesvalyn, who has a hand with gives the middle finger once the cloche is removed, making it even more obvious what message Or gives to the team.
[Perception - Pass ✔] Cherry looks down and sees a beautiful plated meal, who seems to be fish, with everything at perfection, the cooking, the sauce, the side dish. Everything. However, she blinks and sees a pile of organs instead.
She doesn't say a word about what she sees, and eats along the party (except Persy, who doesn't need to, and prefer to stand still).
As everybody (except Persy and Nesvalyn) eats the disguised organs, it tastes like a beautiful fish with the perfect sauce.
Or, the Queen and Paildreo are doing small talk about the upcoming marriage.
The queen asks the attention of everybody, except Nesvalyn who's too far away and doesn't hear it, but only notices that the tone changed, and asks often mentally what is being said and answered.
She turns to the group to the group again.
Nesvalyn receives no reply from his answer.
Or raises an eyebrow.
The diner keeps going, which led to some revelations, if they're all true, that means:
Paildreo nods silently. She stands up and walks over to the door.
The servants open the door, and the palace shrinks down and stops at the door, allowing to cross the corridor instantly. She passes the doors and the palace expands again.
The confrontation...
Or turns to all of us once it's only us remaining.
They snap and the table shrinks and Nesvalyn is with the party this time, and we no longer have to sing to express ourselves.
Paildreo looks really heartbroken.
They grab and licks Paildreo all over the face. Once Or is done, Paildreo looks as young before The Wyrd.
Or's black eyes are shining.
[Insight - Pass ✔] They're done, really.
After that, Nesvalyn consults the party mentally about what to do, where Axel and Persy seem to suggest that it's not a good idea to give the item to Or, especially with how they want it, even if the no one knows what the item does.
After a moment, Nesvalyn takes a deep breath and hold his cheeks, preparing to give his answer.
Nesvalyn starts to leave first, followed by the party
He stops and gives a side eye to them.
Back on known waters...
↪✒Main quest added: ✔ The Fey Heist
Persy get out his anger battling the mat.
Nesvalyn sits and cries out of anger and screams. After a while, he goes in his room, mentioning he needs to lay down. Cherry follows him for a while.
✒It's something... hard to talk about, but it has to be known by all of us.
Cherry casts [Hold Person] on Nesvalyn, who failed the save and is held.
Cherry picks Nesvalyn's shortsword and holds Nesvalyn in close contact.
↪[WIS Save - Fail ❌] Nesvalyn is still held.
[WIS Save - Fail ❌] Nesvalyn is still held.
Nesvalyn realizes with shock that this time, he indeed killed her, Cherry is actually Beryl.
[WIS Save - Fail ❌] Nesvalyn is still held.
After filling Cherry with holes, her body raises up and piecing back together, and after a flash, Reylynn is standing back in front us.
Nesvalyn hugs her and doesn't reply to her question.
Ludwig joins us downstairs.
We manage to convince everybody and we're clear to go, as apparently big space rats is a thing, and we apparently "did" the right thing.
And on these notes, the group accompanied by Ludwig fully embarks on the Waypoint.
Waypoint Barros...
Waypoint Barros is smaller than Waypoint Sinesteesa, as it's above the planet Minavra.
Minavra-B is a moon where most of the planet is dead. Long ago, residents escaped to the moon, and terraformed it. 95% of the moon is crawling with mega cities. The waypoint is essentially a SpellJammer stop outside the big city.
Nesvalyn, Axel and Persy go directly to the bar, whereas Balnorin mentions he has to do something first. Reylynn will follow Balnorin.
Balnorin and Reylynn looks for information on Death Inc.
↪[Investigation] It's one of the major players on the planet and the waypoint. They have a pretty big recycling center down the planet, along with the associated shady deals. We have the direction of the dealer.
Reylynn spots a poster "Brought to you by Death Inc.", and sees this: D3AD AG4IN, with four good looking undead, with one being Kaze.
Balnorin inspects more the poster.
He points the guitar more and her back, but Reylynn looks the scenery instead.
The other corporation is Druid Corps, they're the corporation that built most of the city below. It's the strongest government the planet has.
They're looking for items, but the only shop is the Fontanini Pawn Shop. They decide to head back to the team.
Back to the bar, Nesvalyn didn't touch his drink.
Persy used the robe of [Alter Self] as a Tiefling and drink as much as he can.
Axel drinks a bit.
Ludwig is standing on the scene singing.
Reylynn goes to play guitar to accompany him.
It's not that busy as it's the middle of the day.
Balnorin goes up to Nesvalyn and take the team in a corner booth.
We take everything from our ship, and Ludwig stays behind on the ship for now along with Sprigg.
We don't use the elevator (which would've cost 100 credits per character to have a ride (the back ride is included)) and use a charge of [Wind Walk] from Kaze's Guitar to reach the planet. The winds are pushing us in unpredictive directions once we're in the atmosphere. As we drift down and past the upper clouds, we have drifted a couple of miles away from the shaft, but we're still together.
We see below us a sprawling a magically powered megacity, filled with sky scrappers build of stones and trees who grew together, with many wind surfing boards to move around.
These big airships transports huge cargo loads, and when we're getting closer to the ground, we hear the sound of millions of people in one condensed place, and we land on the top of a building, and all we see wind surfing boards everywhere.
Even on this tall building, we aren't even on the tallest building, even if this one is already 150ft tall.
What troubles hence forth in this city?
Next session: 42 - Tourism on Minavra