====== The Party at the End of the World ====== ===== Initial Brief ===== A note has gone up around many of Acryn’s more reputable drinking establishments. **The End is Nigh. Bertrand Eugene Terrec invites you to the last, greatest party this world has ever seen. Why fear the end of the world when you can see it out in style? Let others scramble like rats from a sinking ship: we will celebrate!** //(But first, calling any and all party planners and item gatherers of skill to assist in making this shindig a success. Your city needs you... to party! Wayfinders especially desirable.)// ===== PCs ===== [[user:seb:pc:hardy_quinn|Hardy Quinn]] - Seb\\ [[user:emmab:pc:lionel_collins|Lionel Collins]] - Emma\\ [[user:chaos:pc:dan_south|Dan South]] - Chaos\\ [[user:vickyh:pc:verro_of_the_sleeping_hills|Verro]] - Vicky\\ [[user:joew:pc:vermillion_magnifico|Vermillion Magnifico]] - Joe ===== Adventure Summary ===== The party's attempt to make arrangements for the party gets off to a rocky start when a group of the Lord Protector's soldiers recognise Hardy and arrest him. Lionel leads a one-man rescue mission, dropping in dramatically to free Hardy, unfortunately killing at least one guard in the process. The party reconvene at the warehouse where the party is planned to take place but, finding it infested by particularly vicious rats and unable to convince the Fear Golem not to be afraid of everything, they give it up as a bad idea and Vermillion instead raises a magnificent gothic building on the site of one of Acryn's previous disasters, incorporating a number of skeletons into the architecture. The invitations are delivered successfully but a slightly ill-conceived ritual to imprison the Essay Crisis results in a vengeful anomaly being trapped in a torture box while still able to inflict penalties for missed deadlines but unable to be heard telling anyone what the deadlines are in the first place. Hardy easily whips up some delicious clawfiend sliders for the buffet table and then everyone sets out into dragon flux in search of a particular vintage of wine from an old Terrec estate. Battling through horrific draconic creatures, they come to a great flux-shaped wall of creamy coloured stones, with blue slate conical spires topping the towers, colourful streamers flying from their tips. As the party battle against the draconic entities, a magnificent pink unicorn jumps down to help them and together they make it through the gates into the Terrec estate. There they meet a young girl named Isabelle who it turns out is a wayfinder with the unprecedented ability to shape dragon flux. Vermillion asks for her aid in restoring his heart and she does so, turning it to dragonflux and thus linking him to Vulknut. Descending into the wine cellar, the party deal with some alcoholic tentacle slug monsters which make them rather drunk. They are able to beat back the presence of something much larger that dwells in the cellar which Isabelle was unable to drive out. They are able to find the bottle of the correct vintage and reproduce it as a ridiculously oversized bottle, named the 'Vermillion'. The party constructs a number of armoured carriages, pulled by a herd of flux-shaped unicorns in a multitude of pastel shades and use them to evacuate the Terrec estate. Arriving back in Acryn, it is clear the party has started without them. They back up one of the carts to the doors of the gothic mansion and burst in, sliding out the vermillion of wine on a set of rollers. Alas, the party quickly deteriorates as it becomes apparent that the revellers have been drugged to dance themselves to death as part of a massive ritual. Vero saves one reveller but the others are less fortunate and their blood flows downwards toward the grand audience chamber. Riding the Vermillion of wine as blood fountains around them, the party speed toward the centre of the ritual where they find Bertrand Eugene Terrec and his master, Sigvald the Rampant. As the skeletons drop down from their pillars and burst from the floor and walls, Vermillion attempts a Builder miracle to trap the Rampant once more, with Vulknut's influence lending power to the act. The Rampant defiantly reflects the miracle such that everyone is affected. The walls become obsidian and begin closing in, threatening to trap everyone inside. After much confusion, Hardy and Lionel realise that if they don't stop Vermillion, they might all be forever encased in an obsidian box and so they take the decision to knock him out and in doing so, set the Rampant free. The party manage to escape, diving out of the mansion just as it becomes solid obsidian. ===== Debrief ===== An obsidian gothic mansion now stands in Acryn which may be entered but nothing can leave. Hardy was more affected by the slug tentacles' poison and is now a slug monkey. The antenae he had surgically removed regrow and he gains an aversion to salt. Verro and Vermillion report to the Watch all that has happened, recounting how Hardy and Lionel helped the Rampant escape once again. Lionel the Lion joins Hardy the Monkey at the top of Acryn's Most Wanted list. Lionel tells Ghita about his ability to deal with stasis. Ghita assures him that when the time comes, she will make use of him but until then, she'll have to publicly condemn him. She gives him a scribing book and Lionel goes into hiding with the Rampant. While Ghita's swift public condemnation does help her save some face, her reputation has suffered, swaying public opinion away from her plan. Dan is paid a small bonus by the Terrec family with the reminder that it would probably be best that they don't mention Bertrand Eugene Terrec's involvement in this to anyone. They then go and have a nice lie down. Verro checks on the reveller whose life he saved; they're in fair health but traumatised by the horrors they've witnessed. With Verro's help, the clockwork fear golem gradually overcomes some of their fear and chooses to step through the mirror. =====Consequences===== ====Hardy==== * Slug monkey * Most Wanted ====Verro==== * 100R ====Dan==== * 50R ====Lionel==== * Most Wanted ====Vermillion==== * Dragonflux heart, connection to Vulknut {{tag>"the party at the end of the world" hardy_quinn lionel_collins dan_south verro_of_the_sleeping_hills vermillion_magnifico adventure}}