Date in-game: 12th–13th of Kythorn, 1491 DR (running into the early hours)
The session opened with a reading of The Desert Road.
The party had split for the night.
Down in Cynders, beneath synth war music and laser-cut smoke, Barnaby, Bronn, and Strom stood unarmed in the fighting pit of The Spunny with the fey mushrooms peaking.
Up in the palace, Benny LeBeau and Blastran Starweave stepped onto the dance floor of the masquerade with their masks fixed and the King at the centre of every line of sight.
The Spore Haze
The dwarves across the pit were not dwarves anymore.
A Myconid Sovereign loomed where the leader had stood. An Ankheg surged at the edge of vision. A Myconid Adult pulsed and waited. The arena’s only rule — no magic — had dissolved with everything else.
Bronn tried to ground himself in the truth and failed. Whatever he was looking at, it was real to him. He drew on divine magic without a thought, wreathing himself in light, calling fire to his fists. The crowd above the pit cheered or jeered — neither group could tell which.
Strom stopped wondering. He charged. His blows landed on something — fungal, fleshy, splitting open under his hands — and the spores that bloomed from the wounds seemed to react, to speak, to suffer. He kept going.
Barnaby withdrew into his shell as the world bent around him, then emerged, claws-first, into the chaos. The Ankheg erupted from below, seized Bronn, and dragged him beneath the sand of the pit. In the dark, blind and choking, Bronn fought what he could not see — wards held up against breath and hunger.
Above, the others tore through the rest. Acid sprayed. Spores filled the air. The last creature tried to burrow away. It cried out — surrender, mercy, please — and they killed it anyway. Mercy belonged to a world they could not currently see.
Trip Visions
While the pit raged, the mushrooms pulled each of them somewhere else.
Strom stood in the carriage of his old life, throwing roses to a roaring crowd, and a horse — his horse, the horse — wheeled and reared beneath him. The win felt earned. The win felt promised.
Barnaby sat alone in the close warm dark of the Bag of Holding, the book open on his lap. He read seven chapters. The pages turned without sound. When he closed it, he was still inside.
Bronn saw the knight again. Kaldr — armour like running mercury, the face of him impossible to fix in memory — moved through the vision like weather. And behind him, half-lit, a girl with a soft purple light cupped in her hands. She did not speak. The light did.
What Was Left in the Pit
The bodies on the sand stopped moving.
The spores faded. The illusions did not. To Barnaby, Bronn, and Strom, the things they had killed were monsters — fungal abominations, an ankheg, a sovereign. The dwarf split clean in two, his hair braided into a pair of nunchucks where a body had been, was simply another transformation. Another trick of the spore-realm.
They left him there.
They had bet on themselves. They had won but not collected the spoils. But Bronn’s magic had been seen, and the prize was halved for it — the horse Strom had been promised was now a pony. They left their weapons at the door of The Spunny without remembering why, and walked out into the night with the trip still riding behind their eyes.
The figure in red and the woman in blue — the one who had spoken the word rubies — passed unfollowed. They did not chase them.
The Dance
In the palace, the dance had begun.
Benny LeBeau knew the patterns. He guided Blastran Starweave through the lines and the turns, the offered hands and the released ones, partners passing in and out of grasp on the count of music. Every step had to land. Mistakes accumulated. Mistakes got noticed.
The court drifted past in fragments of conversation, masks turned and overheard:
“It’s unlike Luxor to miss out on a dance. Maybe he’ll be at the one next week.”
“No, it can’t be an artifact, don’t be so silly — it’s just some natural phenomenon. I’m sure it’ll be in the report from the Observatory.” — Bilgrim.
“The light is probably Aldor up to no good again — isn’t he due another fire by now? Careless little rat.” — Neil the Magnificent.
“You wouldn’t believe it — twice over the asking price, delivered to some shit hole near the Spunny too.” — Esta Sigmond.
“Stop your worrying. It won’t be the same as last time. The boy doesn’t even have red hair.” — Lord Javier LeBeau.
“I’m unsure what I’m going to face — probably the glow of another ten-headed hydra. Someone’s got to be the dashing hero.” — Reginald Rorrim.
“The city watch will keep us safe. We sent a squad to check up on Dawnvale this morning. If the lads waited for Reginald to finish polishing his fancy armour they’d never do anything.” — Eldrick Stoneheart.
“It’s only just started construction, but when the Skyport is complete we’ll have access to the dwarven kingdom without having to worry about Redguard at all.”
“Isn’t this just the best? A real dance! Look at us go!” — Callie Tosslecobb, radiant, oblivious, in over her head.
The Goblet
The dance turned, and Benny LeBeau took the King’s hand.
The power hit him like a held breath. King Jorn Harlon was carrying the Chalice in his palm.
The whole court had been arranged around a relic he was carrying on his person.
The Veiled Woman
She found him in the lines.
A woman in a veil, moving against the count of the dance, leaned in close enough that Benny LeBeau could feel her certainty. She knew him on sight. She watched him through the eyeholes of her mask and let him see that she was watching.
He did not know her.
The masquerade was no longer secure.
Smoke and Switch
Benny LeBeau caused the chandler to fall and ignite a fire and filled the room with smoke.
Blastran Starweave moved first. He found Danton LeBeau in the press of the crowd, and in a sleight of hands and masks they swapped places — Blastran taking Danton’s mask, Danton taking his.
In the confusion, Danton LeBeau — wearing Blastran’s face to anyone watching — slipped out with Benny LeBeau, Zog Ironheart, and Callie Tosslecobb. The servant passages took them. The palace fractured behind them.
Outside the castle walls they stopped, breath ragged, just in time to see Strom ride past on a pony, topless, holding a baguette aloft like a sword.
Behind the Smoke
Inside, the trick held — but only outwardly.
The doors of the King’s safe room closed on Blastran Starweave still wearing Danton LeBeau’s mask. Around him stood King Jorn Harlon and Queen Athena Harlon, Lord Javier LeBeau and Lady Amelie LeBeau, Victoria Salem, a Reaper, and the King’s guard.
The induction was still going to happen — it was just going to happen to the wrong man.
Session ended split four ways:
- Bronn — still in the spore-dream, deep underground.
- Barnaby — inside the Bag of Holding, book just closed.
- Strom, Benny LeBeau, Zog Ironheart, Callie Tosslecobb, and Danton LeBeau — outside the castle, free.
- Blastran Starweave — alone behind the closed door of the King’s safe room, wearing the wrong face.