Less time on Cloudfall. With bellies full of mediocre hotel soup, the party planned their next moves together. The blight has clearly taken root on Backsy, and they've infiltrated the top 10. Instead of beating them all to a pulp, the party has decided to join those among the social elite and compete to become the best in backseat. Poppy's first move was getting her wagon in order and heading for the gardens with her party in tow.
But Doran has something else he needs to do first just real quick. The 5 of you had just split up. The rest of the party headed towards the gardens, and I think that's what we'll settle into first. Like I said, the streets of Backsyar are well equipped for wagon travel so all of you are easily kind of plodding along in the rolling pin now disguised as cross my hearth, a dark themed bakery establishment.
Journey, are you pulling the wagon with me?
Go on.
I am. Okay. Great.
Are you disguised? I don't remember.
I'm fully hooded.
Aaron catches up to the group and finds them.
Yeah. We're probably not moving that fast.
Yeah. Yeah. Hello.
Hey. Do you guys need a hand?
I mean, I think We're okay.
Do you like what Poppy's done with the place?
Yeah. It's pretty cool. It's a little more my style, I would say. I thought of you. Thanks, Poppy.
Alright. So game plan. I sell cakes. Right?
Yes.
And interact with customers and kind of get a feel for what people are looking for, how I can be
the best baker. Right? I still wanna keep an eye out for phenom. Dorn had to run an errand that he was insistent upon, so he's doing that.
Is he not joining us then?
He will later, I think.
Okay.
Need to take care of something.
Okay. He'll be fine, though. Right? I mean, we have we have the bell. Yeah.
Who else can we expect to see at the garden?
I'm hoping Cindy Buns is there.
Yes. Your primary
Poppy enemy number 1.
Yes.
As you're all walking together and talking over the kind of game plan for the night, you notice how much backseat really comes alive in the evening. And there's lamps glowing everywhere. Those hologram crystals are shining bright on the canvases, showing little clips, kind of the most famous clips of the day that came from that crystal, and watching intently, sure enough, you see the clip of Oscar come up on half these screens just for a flash. Mabel, you say your heart is down here. It's tied to vaccine now.
Well, well, I'm down here too. Right here with you. And I'm always gonna be. Doesn't matter how high you go. Doesn't matter where your life takes you.
I'm right here with you, Mabel. But Oscar confessing his love, you kind of it echo through the streets of Maxey. And people are paying attention, but most of them are just half interested like they would for anything else. It seems nothing really impresses anyone here. And again, you guys are occasionally made the center of attention as buskers and groups of dancers kind of pass by you.
There's a duo that just stops and sings at you, like, right in your way for a couple of minutes and doesn't let you move.
Every time a group of dancers or busker comes by, Erin as dancer at the Tabaxi is, like, wiggling their little cat butt around and dancing and having a good time and just, like, kind of enjoying the party vibes. I'm always imagining, like, the French quarter in Mhmm. New Orleans. So that's sort of the vibe I'm getting at night.
And it
is alive. I mean, there's people, like, drinking and eating in the streets and just kind of like grouped off into little clusters. And, you know, Backseat is a like, especially the upper. It's a wealthy city, and it's it's well-to-do, it's beautiful and well maintained, and it seems that their lives are built for entertainment. It's a real Jellicle ball.
You guys take your Jellicle balls to the gardens. And here, in the middle of the park in the gardens, is a sizable plaza. You see circles of cobblestones ringed around a lush twisting cherry tree at its center, and it's growing out of a fountain. You see, a 100 small colorful birds are crowded around that fountain. They are perched in the branches of the tree or splashing in the water, and you can see Tabaxi, of all men, are seated on benches and watching the birds excitedly, just kind of, like, staring at them, and then looking at each other and talking, and then staring at the birds again just with wide open eyes.
You can feel a beautiful night breeze streaming between your fingertips as you walk, and there's a smell of delicious food in the air between the scent of flowering trees. There is kind of this park plaza here, and it seems that continuous circle of wagons that goes around the park has, like, circled the wagons here. You see 12 wagons all parked in a circle, and this is it. This is the happening spot.
Is there a space for another cart?
Yeah. You have to kind of push your way in a little bit, but you find a spot for yourself.
Poppy, are you ready to move in?
I I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
Let's go, Jurnee. We have to kinda muscle our way in here.
Right. Give me just one second, and, I'm gonna tuck myself behind the cart, and then I cast disguise self. And I'm just gonna look like the, dark skinned human woman that I did, when we were in Farewell. That's just my default go to when I just wanna not appear as. And then I come back out, and I help put the cart in place.
Okay. The 2 of you kind of force the cart in, like, narrow in between a couple other carts. There's that bulbal tea cart that you saw earlier, and then one right next to it is called the cream screamer. And you guys find just a little narrow space in between. Why? Once you kinda work your way in there, the 2 next to you are kind of like, oh, alright. I guess you're here now, and they sort of, you know, make room for you.
I do.
Thank you.
Poppy, just glancing around here, you can see that people are doing a lot of hard candies, pretzels, fried street food, and some of it's really incredible, stuff you have never seen. Some of the kiosks have signage saying that their recipes are straight from saffron, and you can see a little drawing of a heavyset elf that says master choli approved.
We're rubbing shoulders with some grates here, I think.
Well, they are about to rub our shoulders, puppy.
I sure hope so.
And at the same time, taking in the scene, Aaron, I need a perception check out of you.
Okay. Let's do a new die. New die.
You have an advantage. I'm sorry.
Oh, 14. Okay.
Yeah. You, every every now and then, are just looking over your shoulder for the blights, as is kind of your way of life. Has been for a while, but especially now. And you don't see anybody immediately. You do notice movement among some of the higher tree branches, and what your eyes settle on is a little black shadow with golden eyes, a cloud Kip, yowling in the distance.
It's in the cherry tree?
Yeah.
Oh my god.
And then
I can tell it's a cloud kip.
Yep. Big, fluffy tail just like you had seen on lower. Looking up in that tree, you can see there's, like, half a dozen of them.
Okay. Aaron's gonna go up to 1 of the, Tabaxi sitting on the benches watching the cherry tree
Mhmm.
And just say, hey. Good evening.
Hello.
You smell lovely.
Oh, aren't you so sweet?
I noticed there are some cloud tips in the cherry tree.
Beautiful creatures. Yes?
Yeah. Yeah. Do they, are they, like, taken care of in these gardens? Do they belong to somebody?
Of course. Honored guests. We we do our best.
The the cloud kips are honored guests.
Of course.
No one owns them, though. They don't they're not, like, owned by the person who owns the gardens or anything.
You see, the heftier tabaxi on your left kind of chuckle. Nobody owns a cloud cube.
So they're just wild.
Of course. They're perhaps the most wild thing in the clouds, except for
me. Alright. He
he's right. You can't own a cloud, Kip. They'll never stay with you. They're want to float.
Oh, I see. Very good. What do you know what brings them to the cherry tree?
Perhaps the birds or some berries. Who knows? Maybe they just like being looked at from afar. Berries. That's right.
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. And Aaron just finds a spot to stand and stares at the tree, making little sounds like
They just kinda shake their head at you, like, what is she doing?
We lost Erin.
That's kind of your first impression of the gardens, and we're back to Doran.
Oh, no.
But Doran's not where we left him. Where are you, Doran?
It's on his 4th pod of coffee.
He's like he's like, gonna go after the blight? Just one more cup of coffee. Just getting my nerves up.
Yeah. Finishes the a second cup of coffee for sure. Yeah. And leaving the scratching post.
Why sunbeam?
And so still in disguise, I basically look like a blonde haired Cloud Strife, essentially. Mhmm. Yeah. And I'm trying to hide the hot rod in my,
John. Baggy pants?
Baggy pants. Yeah.
John, you were just like,
I'm just gonna hide it right in here.
Mhmm. Just just tucking it in.
Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Just do
the old tuck.
Tuck your hot rod.
Oh, god.
And, make my way over to the dive.
Okay. You walk by that familiar strip again, and you see, some other bars you didn't notice before. There's one called So Fe, there's one called Midnight Oxygen, The Brass Saucer, Club Milk, After Party, Salz, and then finally Oh. You get to the dive. Okay. Blackened windows. There's kind of a smoky, dungeon air coming out of it almost. You see somebody open the door and stare straight at you.
My like, I lose my breath for a second, but then try to I continuing walking, I grab my composure again, and I'm just going to stare back and walk straight up to the entrance.
He's just, like, like, mean mugging you. He just chose one eyeball and is just glaring at you.
I give a really quick smiling nod, and try to walk in.
He gets kinda close to you, and puts his hands up a little bit, like, onto your shoulders, and then you hear him go, and he just starts throwing up. You see him. He's just wasted.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. Alright. Kind of like slumps off of you onto the side of the building and falls over.
I pat him on the back, and then I walk him
the rest of the way. K.
What do I see walking in at first?
You had some time to work this up into some sort of nightmare in your mind, but it's pretty humble. You see a cramped bar strip with just a few booths in it, and then there's a more open area with a few tables towards the back, but there's also this sticky stink of burning drugs and unwashed floors.
Is there a clear, like, bartender or someone?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's still functions as a regular bar. You just know the kind of conversations that happen here.
Okay. I'm gonna walk straight up to the actual bar
Mhmm.
And, lean in and look at the barkeep. Is it a Tabaxi or
this is a, a genasi, an air genasi, if you'd have to guess. Hey, you new in town?
Been here a day or so. Name's, Doran Driscoll. I'd like to speak to the owner of this establishment. Is it, Lirion? Is that right? Because Diver's dead, so it's probably Lirion now. Right?
No. What are you doing?
This is some James Bond shit.
I hate this. I'm frightened.
He
as soon as you said Doran, he just he stopped moving, he stopped cleaning the mug that he is obligated to clean, and then he sets it down on the bar, and he looks up at you and he goes, straight to the point. I can appreciate that.
Before anyone gets any funny ideas, I reach into my shirt and I pull out the hot rod, and I just hold it at the table.
Every card on the table. What?
You hear chairs being scooted back in a couple different places.
Everyone can just stay where they're at. Just here to speak to Lirion.
Yeah. Lirion's not in. Okay. Not gonna be.
Who's in charge here? I run the place day to day. But who's, like, actually in charge? Lerian. Okay.
He's a little too busy for this place right now. He's got a lot going on. What is it you wanna have said, Driscoll?
I just have a couple questions.
I'm happy to answer them, then you can leave and go home. We'll see.
First off, I happened to notice and hear that myself and Aaron were getting tailed around back sea here.
How'd you hear that?
It's easy to learn what the blight is up to. Let's be honest. And I know that we are to be killed on-site. That's inconvenient for myself and the rest of my party. I'd imagine so. I'd like to have that lifted.
Sorry. I'm, I'm a lowling. Not a lot I can do.
I'm gonna take a second to look around and just see what else is happening in the bar here. You said chairs scooted. Is everyone kind of
Yes. Chairs have scooted. People are ready to stand up. Everyone stopped talking, but nobody is looking at you. Everyone's, like, looking out of the corner of their eye and just watching you.
Can I get a read if he was telling the truth about Lirion being not here and nobody else here that would be in charge?
Just a sec.
Yeah. Okay.
19. It definitely sounded like he's under orders to turn away anybody looking for the owner.
Okay. Well, that's a shame. Probably explains why you told me Lirion's not here. There's gotta be someone useful here. I know you're probably under orders not to say they're here, but it'd be probably convenient for this establishment if I do get to speak with someone.
He looks at the bar and shakes his head and he goes, kid, you are on borrowed time and you don't even know it. What the fuck are you doing in here?
I don't even know, really. All I know is I can blow this fucking shithole up at any point. So why don't you go get Lirian or someone who can actually talk to me and say something useful?
You didn't notice everybody stand up, but they are. And you hear a slow creaking door open, and you took Ganymede off, and that's why you didn't hear it on your way here. But you hear it now. And you did make a wisdom save, a charisma save, and an intelligence save.
No. That's a lot of saves.
Can we flash back to the others? Can we come back to us? I'm so scared. No.
It's okay.
Then we just gotta vamp until
If we distract him, Dorne will
never die.
Forget to not Dorne.
So I gotta make some rolls here.
Mhmm. This,
D and D cover
buster. Yes.
I'm not done
with my time.
And a further thing.
I said the wrong stats. I need con, wisdom, and int.
Doesn't matter that it's gonna fail at least one of these. Okay. Hold on. Let me just make sure there's nothing yeah. No. There's nothing I can do about this. Fuck. Alright. First one. Constitution? 10? Nope. Alright. Second one? Wisdom. Wisdom, we got a 17. Passed. K. And third one was? Int. Int. 12.
Failed. Doran, you are sick to vomiting, and you can't stop rambling.
I know the skyline's gonna fall, and it's so important to figure out who hired the Blight to kill my brother. What? Scarlet?
What do you mean Skylynn falls? Skylynn's gonna
fall just like the last one, and I didn't realize that I had to come here now because there's not many people that know and I have to figure this out. So could you tell me who killed Nael? And I'm not really looking at anyone in particular. And then I'm gonna grab, like, the mug that Barkeep was, drinking from, and I'm gonna try to drink it, and then you know, just because I'm sick as well.
Yeah.
And then I set it down, and then I grab the hot rod, and I'm looking nervous.
As you put the mug back down, you turn to see who opened that door and who made that noise and who's got you so worked up. And you hear, Is there a problem back here? Excuse me, sir.
And I'm looking for the anyone that's still alive, Diver's dead, and
No. No. No.
Who was after
If you're gonna talk about my partner, we gotta talk in private. You understand me, boy?
I just feel so sick.
Can you can you turn it off, whatever is
doing this? Clear out. Feel like within an instant, you feel this rush of people moving by you and Doran. You're thinking this is it, I'm dead. Here it goes. And they all just walk past you out the door. Okay. And this place is empty. Okay. And it's you and Valorant Breeze.
Do I still feel sick and nauseous?
Yes. A little bit, but it's wearing off now.
Thank you. Whatever that was had me really worked out. Couldn't even think straight. Couldn't even I couldn't even think straight.
Calm down, boy. Give me your words. What do you got?
I'm here because I know the blight is tailing me and Aaron. We have bigger things we wanna deal with, but I'm here for a selfish reason too. I need to know who hired the Blight to to kill Nail.
He looks at you and he says, look at me. And we're back in the gardens.
Fuck. Fuck.
So wait. Is Lirion supposed to be Valeryn?
Yes. Okay. Same person.
Same person, and he's making the noise that makes you sick. Right?
Yes. Fuck. Which he didn't hear. Got it.
Because he needed to dual wield fireballs.
Yep. Hubris. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Alright. Poppy, what's the strategy here?
Well, I'm going to put my open sign up.
Yeah. Yeah.
Bold strategy.
Yeah. Got some gorilla some gorilla marketing fees. Right.
You, you put up your open sign, and like always, you expect people to just line up and be there, and it doesn't happen. People are just walking right on by.
Aren't they supposed to come here and buy the
Yeah. That's treats now?
That's kinda how it usually works. Mhmm. What are the other carts doing?
Really good. They're doing really good in business. You see next to you, you got bubble tea and cream screamer. And then next to those, you see Cindy Bunt's establishment. It's called PurBaked.
That's cute. That's real cute. Yeah.
That's oh, that's good. Shit.
And then finally, you see the most incredible looking cart here. Is called Scrumdiddly Sweets. It looks like a palace made of candy all stacked together, and you realize it's elegant glass work and sculptures that are illuminated from the inside to look like this candy palace.
Aw, cute. Well, I'm just not flashy enough.
Could be it. You also notice they have all of their, foods kind of advertised on big flashy signs, and there seems to be a format here. What you notice right away is everyone is advertising magical effects. You see at Scrumdiddly Suites, you can get Vox mockmallows, and they change your voice to a random, sultry, attractive voice. You see adventure scones, and they make your voice echo twice.
You can see brood scales of magic. They make you scaly and horny, and you see dimension honey that actually lets you look into other dimensions.
Oh my god.
I need all of these foods. Yeah.
We just gotta figure out how to get these other fuckers to come to our booth.
Okay. So I've never large scale imbued anything. I don't even know if I can do it after it's been baked. Mhmm.
Aaron, is gonna come wandering back from the cloud kip tree and sort of sees the other carts with all their dazzling signage and everything going on, and no one at Poppy's cart. And Aaron walks up to Poppy's cart and says, hey. You know, something that these Tabaxi might like is to give away some free samples. I know when I didn't have any money,
I would Go to the market on Sunday.
Yeah. And you get some free samples, and then they can remember your your substance.
Are we inviting them to steal from our cart?
No. No. No. It's it's like, sampling the wares. Like like when we did that heist, and and I went door to door with cookies to, like
Oh, yes. Yeah. It's like And then you killed them.
I didn't kill anybody. I don't I don't I I don't think I've ever done that before.
That was me.
Right. Journey. Yes.
I don't I don't know if
that journey kills them.
Yes. Let's try not to I'm
not gonna be killing anyone today. I don't think Okay.
Do you think as this, the major image is being maintained, I can, like, shift a little bit of it?
Sure.
Yeah. Okay. Because I'd like to put up a sign.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool.
And I will advertise the coffin cakes. Mhmm. And underneath it, it will say, so delicious, you think you've died.
K. Yeah. You you get a little, semblance of what must have been feeling, you know, when he was rapidly changing your cart. And for a second, you kinda feel like god because you can make anything true right now with
that long as you The power.
You're just kind of refining the design on that sign with a lot of alliteration and rhyme.
I'll make it light up a little bit too, like, be flashy.
Yeah. Oh, perfect. Yeah. There's, like, the little, like marquee, like, lights all around it kind of thing. Yeah.
But I want it, like, blood red.
Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I'll put out some of the coffin cakes and say free samples. I promise you these are the most delicious treats you'll ever have.
And that does get some attention. You see people, interested in the offer of free, being that everything in backseat tries to squeeze you for just a little bit of coin. They see the sign that you just made, and one of them goes, that's a little macabre. The other one goes, I think it's macabre.
Oh, you won't actually die. It's just, like, heavenly or hellish, if you like that more.
They look at your coffin cakes and see them all kind of lined up on the tray there, and then they look over at the cream screamer, and you see somebody holding this cone of ice cream. The ice cream itself is literally rapidly changing colors with a special gradient. It's covered with these sprinkles that are literally illuminating it and giving off light, and it's almost got this, like, sparkler effect where it's shedding sparks at the same time. And then they look back at your coffin cakes, and a lot of them are a little bit lopsided or
kinda strangely
baked, but Rude. That's the aesthetic, and they can't pass up free. They take one bite, and they kinda look around at the park, and then all of a sudden, you see both of them turn around and stare at you, Poppy.
Are are they good? I I
These don't look like much, but oh my god.
This is
the best thing I've ever had. Oh,
thank you. I know.
You see somebody at the cream screamer at the working the counter just kind of, like, lean out and look at your cart for a sec.
The the fun thing is if you cut them open, they look like they're bleeding.
Oh, that's cute. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's nothing special, but holy god. This is this probably tastes better than than anything. You see him kind of walk up to a stranger, and he goes, and the stranger's just like, what
do you want?
And he kind of walks away. I
think the free samples have worked.
I think so. Try it. You'll like it. Try it.
I'm not
great at this.
I'm I'm gonna go up to the counter and, Poppy, do you want me to take some of these free samples around?
Oh, that would be that would be great.
I put my hood even further down. I'm like, I I kinda fit in with the theme.
Awesome. And tell them tell them to come to me. Rat. Rat.
So I'm gonna take, like, a tray of, like, small samples Yeah. And just walk around and walk up behind people and go, try your luck.
What are you buying? What are you selling?
Make a stealth check.
Oh. 18. Yeah.
The first person you walk up to is, like, eating a cream screamer, and you're just, like,
excuse me.
And you're, like, and they just they shove it into their own face, and they're looking at you with just ice cream all over their face. And you go, what?
Try. You like it. Are you still wearing, like, your
hood and everything too? Yes. That's
so funny. They take the, the coffin cake sample, and, they move it to 2 inches to their mouth that you're holding it away from them, and, they they just kind of like swallow as if they're being quizzed, and they go, yeah, it's it's it's good. Oh, holy shit. That's good. Where are these from? Cross my hearth.
Head on over to Cross my hearth.
Yeah. And they start heading off that direction.
I just keep doing that over and over again, walking up behind people and going, try, you like it.
Yeah. You, you pass by perbaked, and you see a, a, a reddish colored Tabaxi with with green eyes and short fur, a pretty petite small Tabaxi as well. Catches you walking down. She goes, excuse me. Hi. Hi. Oh, Hi. Hi. Can I try one of those?
Absolutely. Try it. You'll like it. Yeah. Sounds good.
She eats it. She's doing it different, though. She, like, takes one little nibble of it, and then she licks the compote inside. And she goes okay. Okay. And so this was from the wagon right there? Right. Cross my heart. Cross my heart. Very clever. Okay. Anyway, it's great to meet you. My name's Cindy Buns. I, I run this place right here, and, I don't remember you guys getting a license to sell. I keep a close eye on the ledgers.
Well, this is a free sample, so I'm not selling anything.
Oh, snap. Uh-huh.
But it was nice to meet you. I'm I gotta pass these out, so I'll see you around.
Yeah. Really nice to meet you. Super great to have new faces around.
Oh, so nice. Yeah. It's it's real good. Yes.
Really brilliant.
Okay. I like your card, and and, oh, you smell wonderful.
Thank you. And she's just, like, glaring at you as you walk away.
I give one last cheerful wave and then go up to another person and go, try
your life.
Beautiful.
You know
who would love these cakes? Doreen.
Yeah.
You need a transition.
Perfect. God, I fucking love when you guys do that. Doran. Leryan Hale, otherwise known as misterbballoranbreeze. Lirion's staring at you from just a couple feet away. You guys are seated next to each other at the long bar here. You had just asked him who hired the assassins to take out your brother, as you put it. He looks at you, and he says, nobody. If you were looking for the terminus of your investigation, you found him. You did it. I'm enough of a man to admit when I made a mistake.
Oh, well, no hard feelings then.
Yeah. Cool.
Doreen, make a perception check.
13. Would have been a lot
better if you had Ganymede with you.
Oh, John.
It says, we killed the wrong boy. Make a dexterity check.
No. Check.
Shit. Dexterity check.
Oh, okay. 24.
Tim really wanted to kill you.
You did not notice the familiar sound of bismite forming into a weapon. Okay. You see a long silvery spear that Lyrian had formed behind him while he was talking to you. He jerks his body out of the way, and it comes straight for you, and you just cock your head to the side right past you into the wall, and then you hear that same noise as it turns back into a liquid and races back towards Lirion. What do you do?
How fucking dare you. And I, going to cast fireball. Okay.
Yes.
So, yeah. I'm gonna try to target in the back of the room. Yep. Knowing full well it'll probably still hit me, but, yeah. Fireball. Yeah. Using the hot rod first. Yep. So yeah. Yep. It's going to be a save against I don't know if it's my spell casting. This would be yours. Yep. Okay. So my spell cost spell costing.
Spell costume.
16. D c 16? Yeah. He fails it. Sweet. Okay. Jesus.
That's full damage on 8 d 6.
Alright. Sweet.
Jesus Christ. Just feel the competition
before we have to race him. Yeah. 11, 14, 17. So that's 35 fire damage for the first one.
K. Okay. Alright. The first one. Yeah. The fireball hits the back of the room. It kind of clatters up against that door that is slowly swinging back the whole time that you guys were talking. And when it does, you just see the fire roll back into this room. And you see it kind of like consume the bar towards you and towards you. And then you're just smiling as it consumes Lirion, and then you just let it consume you too.
Okay. Lirion takes full damage. You take half as you are farther out of the blast, halved again by your resistance to fire.
Sweet. Sweet. Okay. So 35 halved would be, 17. Yeah. We'll call that 17. And then halved again would be 8. Okay. So I take 8 damage. Right?
You know
who else uses fire? Poppy when she's baking.
It's interesting. Nice try. Yeah.
I'm filibustering. Okay.
Okay. I'm reclaiming very time.
Is it initiative time or what's,
Not a lot of reason for it. You guys have established an order here.
Okay. So, yeah, smiling at him, and I take a couple steps back.
Lirion's standing among the flames, and you see that spear reform in his hand. He goes, You don't wanna do this. I could give a shit about this bar. I could give a shit about this Skylin'.
Makes me feel good.
I'm glad you got it out of your system. Now you listen here. You probably was a problem for me and mine. It's nothing personal, kid. You're just an obstacle. So is she.
You got a big problem. You killed a big part of me already, and all that's left is trying to kill you now. With the blast, did I you said the windows were kinda boarded up and stuff. Yeah. Did anything kind of bust loose?
Yeah. I would say with the pressure of that blast, there's no way they didn't just get blown out, the windows.
Okay.
Yeah. It's open air, and some people are kind of concerned. The building is on fire. People are looking into this building. I mean, it's just burning behind Valorant, but neither of you really care that you're in a burning building together because on a larger scale, you're in a burning building together.
This isn't what I thought I came here for, Balerion, but I want you to know that brass are, looking closer at this place, and I think you got your work cut out for yourself. And I'm going to misty step out through the one of the windows.
As soon as you land outside, you hear a rush of footsteps moving near you. Thinking it's the blight, you look up and see a column of brass pouring into this tavern. And the last word you hear is, fucking coward.
I'm gonna run towards the gardens. I'm gonna try to, drop disguise as well k. And just become Dorn again. Kinda rub out the stuff in my hair and whatever. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You just kind of thrash at your hair and all the locks, you know, kind of come undone, so it's just sort of downing in your face again. You know, you you you, peel off the unfamiliar clothes that had been on you, and you're a little more yourself, you know, kind of moving through the city here with your cloak wrapped around you.
Okay. Just running towards the garden.
Yeah. Back at the gardens. Fuck. Things are going well. Journey's sales are up for her free sample giving and her quick legal work.
I'm glad these cakes are starting to sell. I was very worried.
Poppy, the people are starting to come to you. Your gorilla tactics here with Journey out on the streets is working.
Being a creeper.
Welcome.
People are starting to line up, and they are paying customers who are looking to buy.
Step right up.
They, happily exchange money. And, I mean, you're before 5 minutes is up. You are out of stock. Oh,
thank you for I'm I I seem to be out
now. Poppy, you can just shut the window.
Oh, thank you. I'll be back tomorrow.
Hi. Hi. Just one more, customer. Well Oh,
I don't I don't have anymore.
Nope. That's fine. I'll be not really a customer, I suppose. I just wanted to say hi and welcome.
Thank you.
Welcome. Who are you?
Hi. Sorry. My name is Cindy Buns. I run, PerBaked. It's just a little little shop over there.
I have heard of you.
Really? Yes. That flatters me to no end. You would not believe.
You smell lovely.
Oh, such manners as well. Incredible. I, you know, I've never really met many Mainlanders, and usually, they're pretty rude and stupid. So Well,
I I try to learn about the cultures that I visit.
Uh-huh.
My name is Dahlia.
Oh, Yeah. Hi. Cindy, so listen. I don't wanna spill the milk saucer, but do you have a license to sell here? I'm so sorry.
Oh, I have I pull out my, merchant's license from the mainland. Yeah. I'm I'm registered as a a business. Uh-huh. I have Yeah. Food licensing.
What's a? Anyway, so things are a little different here in the Skylands, and it's totally understandable that you wouldn't know any of that, but you do have to register with the local Merchant's Guild in order to sell here.
Oh oh my goodness. I had no idea.
Yeah. I'm so sorry.
Where would I find them?
So, you'd have to wait until tomorrow, or, it might actually be next week. Or, actually, I thought they had closed recently. So for renovations, it might be a month before you'd be able to register.
And So the the building is closed for renovations, but the people would still exist.
Maybe. I'm not sure, though. Anyway, I just think maybe you should stop.
Right. Well, my friend Phenom will hear about this.
Oh, I see. Oh, you Phenom, you have a great night.
Thank you. You as well. It was lovely to meet you.
Oh, it was so good to meet you. Mhmm. Bitch. Okay. What was that? What's that?
What, I
It's so nice to meet you.
Yes. Nice to beat you.
She kinda storms off, and, Poppy, you're watching her contentedly as she's just angrily marching away from you. And,
I slammed the shutter down.
Yeah. Okay. Closed for business.
Yes. Guy is cleaning some, some dishes. What what was that about, Poppy?
Oh, well, you know.
Another satisfied customer.
I wouldn't say satisfied. What? That was Cindy Buns.
Cindy Buns.
She does not seem to like that I'm here.
Does this make you the best in Baxi?
I think it might be a good sign. Right? But we do have a problem. If I continue to sell, I might need a license to sell.
A license.
Yeah. But we did make really, really good impression, I think, already.
The people seem to be clamoring for these cakes.
Yeah. See, it pays to just have a really good quality product even if it doesn't look flashy or anything.
Think every single person that got one of your samples came right on over here for more.
Success.
Doreen, as you're on your way back to the gardens, you're sort of near the entrance to the gardens. It's a long ramp that takes you down this lamplit walkway here, and it's it's beautiful. And even in your heightened states, with everything that had just happened, it's hard not to let the beauty of the skylines just occasionally overwhelm you. Looking over this vista of the beautiful gardens and you can smell the food cooking there and the night upon you that would be just really charming under any other circumstance. You feel a tap on your shoulder.
I slow down and suddenly become very, like, conscious in an instant of how, like, anxious and high strung I appear in this setting. So I try to, like, give a calm demeanor and then turn around.
My friend. Hello. It's Bobka. Bobka. Kind of gesturing towards himself. We met earlier today.
Could not forget you. How's my loot treating you?
A beautiful sound. Well taken care of. He looks at it again. Well loved, but beautiful nonetheless.
Walk with me. I was just heading to my friend's wagon. May
I walk with you?
Of course.
Yeah. He, it takes a long time to start talking again, and he's just walking alongside you, kind of, like, enjoying the night breeze. I'm thinking to myself,
like, breathe in. 123. Breathe out. Trying to calm myself down.
Yeah. Yeah. For just a second, he, like, takes his hand up to his eye patch and he lifts it a little bit. And he looks at you and lifts it back down. And he says, what has you anxious, my friend?
Babka, I do trust you. You should not. I know. But I've been pretty reckless tonight already. This could hardly be the worst thing I've done.
It's called the sunk cost fallacy, but continue.
I just met the man that killed my brother.
I see. That's
I think you should know that much of the roaches that have encroached upon this Skylands may be looking for me, and by you walking with me, you could be in danger
as well, and
I want you to be aware of that before we go any further.
Doran, you have you have made me confident in my own judgment. Thank you. K. Doran, when we made a deal earlier today, you made me a promise that at some point I would be able to cash in a favor of you, of my own description and severity. Yes. Yep. Doran. Stop walking? Yeah. Take me with you. Take take you with? Doran, long have I been on Baxi, but I cannot stay here any longer. I must leave this place. And my favor to you, my friend, as a traveler of the Skylands, I ask you take me with you.
I mean, that yeah. I You promised. Of course. Yeah. It's it's just strange because I just told you, like, a bunch of people are trying to kill me, and you're like, I'm gonna I wanna tag along. You gotta give me I mean, of course, I yes. You can come with, but why? Why would you want to to join us?
Because I feel we have perhaps common allies, perhaps common enemies. Right.
Yes. Do you want me to hold off on talking to the rest of the group about this first?
No. No. We keep this above board, as they say. K. You do what you must.
Okay. But perhaps we should get a bite to eat, you and I. Any kind of gestures to the corral of wagons here that are all lined up, and some of you might notice Doran in that moment, approaching the circle of wagons here, but something else gets your attention. Dorn, you noticed this from your perspective, and everybody else in the group here notices it from theirs as well. Even Poppy and Guy can see through a little, glass window in the rolling pin.
You see a huge Tabaxi that is on a chain with a collar around its neck being kind of led through the streets here. Just a really muscular looking Tabaxi with kind of close shaved fur in some places. And there's a few handlers that, like, literally are holding this chain trying to keep him, like, contained. The crowd is moving away to make room for this thing coming through. And then all of a sudden, the taxi just breaks off of the chain and, like, shatters it.
And you hear it clatter to the ground and gives this and just stares around the crowd here. And everybody kinda backs up with this and Doran, you hear. Here we go. You see the giant Tabaxi kind of look at the crowd on his left and goes and they all kind of like scare back and then looks at the crowd on his right and same thing and they all scare back. And then you notice sudden coordination.
You realize this this group, this large Tabaxi and this group of handlers, they've all positioned themselves standing in a triangle formation. A group of Tabaxi and Janasi dressed in extreme fashion that you barely understand, and then you hear 4 quick rhythmic taps, And they explode into dance. It's a flash mob. Oh my gosh. Dancing with absolute conviction, huge smiles on their faces that shift into furious frowns and they're aggressively jerking and twisting, all in flawless synchronicity.
And you hear this storm of words pour from the shortest dancer. This small, sly, gray Tabaxi just spitting fire like you've never heard. And you don't understand a word of it, any of you, because it's all spoken in Tabaksy. Just this rapid, kind of almost like purring growling that's falling out of his mouth. And after he gets the final verse out, the whole group switches to comic all of a sudden.
And they all go, Backsy's back. Alright. You see a bunch of young Tabaxi omelekers go, it's the Maxi boys.
You
see 2 of the, there's a couple extra Tabaxi on either side flanking this group, and they're just bobbing their heads. And you see up on their shoulders are these giant echo bells that are just projecting music out into the plaza here. And you see these genasi in the group. There's 1 fire genasi, 1 water genasi. They kind of take their own solo moment walking towards each other.
They look like they're about to fight, kind of putting up their fists. And then they grab each other behind the neck and they start pulling each other in close and close and then they just pull away from each other super abruptly And they just start twerking and jiving and dancing. Oh,
my God.
And then they move back into formation and then they jerk and pull their arms back hard like they're breaking through glass and a dancer comes busting through the middle of all of them. You see, the onlookers here are all whipping out Venus crystals and trying to record as much of this as they can, and then you see a lot of the younger ones immediately trying to imitate all of the dance moves that these people are doing. And then from farther behind you, you hear screams. Real screams. You see a gout of flame and you see people starting to run.
You hear the whistle of an arrow moving through the air and then you hear this strange, snarling howl. And right in the center of the plaza, into the water splashes this dark shadowy figure with jagged claws. It whips its head around looking for for something. It's hungry for something and it's here. You've seen this before.
It's another one of those shadow creatures, something that's been turned into one of these, and when it looks down at your party, you see the unmistakable face of Harley Brumlum. No. Transformed. And I think that's where we'll end it.
Oh my god. Oh
my god.
I literally was like, I hope she's gonna be okay. No.
Thanks everybody for listening. I'm Tim, your GM.
I'm Hannah playing Aaron.
I'm Tara, and I'm Journey, and I'm terrified.
I'm Thomas. I am Guy.
I'm John. I play Dorne.
I'm Maggie, and I'm Dahlia Maytag.
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