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jq37 · 8 months ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 11

Bad Kids Have a Normal Time in Fallinel Challenge (Impossible)

Welcome back to the longest episode of this season so far–a delight as a fan of this show but an absolute notetaking nightmare as your resident recapper. But a LOT of noteworthy things happened this episode so let’s get going!

We’ll start off with Riz and Fig tagging along with Sklonda to investigate Loam Farm. Before they head out, Fig (with help from Riz) sends an email to Lola hitting up Ruben about the “podcast” from a burner account. Lola emails Fig back saying he’s booked for the rest of the year, but will have a lot of availability in the new year.

Once they’re on their way, Riz asks his mom about the Spies Tongue Curse and she doesn’t know anything but points out that maybe it’s actually Spy’s Tongue Curse. Riz shoots Adaine a text so she can investigate. When they arrive, Riz casts Invisibility on Skonda (sensible) and Fig disguises herself as an orangutan (sure) and then they get investigating. Here’s a rundown of what they find:

The backyard of the farm is beautiful and Sklonda says the animals are being sold off since the Loams’ kids aren’t farmers. Fig wonders if this was some kind of gambit so someone could buy the farm for cheap.

With his spy tech, Riz pings powerful infernal presence and magic coming from behind the home. When they check it out they find the back porch demolished in a way that’s similar to the scene at the lake. Sklonda says this is where the bodies were found.

On a Nat 20 Investigation, Riz sees that there’s this red glass dust crushed into the soil of the crime scene that is identical to the shade of the rage shatter stars. He feels that there’s some connection to some earlier case and maybe a photo he has but he can’t quite make the connection and he feels like if he could investigate the Loams’ bodies, he’ll be able to figure something out.

Fig prestidigitations a shatter star missing a tiny bit and one of the shards in the ground floats up and connects to her illusion. As her mental state is a bit agitated and confused because of all her self-discovery stuff that she’s going through, the star darts around in a bit of a confused manner before quickly stabbing her. She and Riz wonder if this reaction means the stars are more nuanced than just being about rage.

Riz asks his mom if there’s a way they can look at the bodies and she goes off to make a phone call.

Molman texts, apologizes for freaking out, and tells Riz that he tested the soil and it has some weird extraplanar mineral elements. He’s only seen it in one other place in town which is 1223 Ashgrove Blvd–Ragh’s old place that was destroyed during Sophomore Year while they were at Leviathan.

Sklonda reports what she learned from her cop contacts: The Loams died from force damage, their blood carbonized and turned to red crystal. Riz thinks maybe they just hulked out and burned out–the damage came from within. This is bolstered when Sklonda said they didn’t have any defensive wounds.

It’s late but Fig and Riz have everyone meet up so they can discuss. Adaine insists they meet at Basrar’s cause she’s working (girl you need better shifts). The detective duo reports everything they learned and Kristen wants to compare her Cass shards to the sample of crushed red dust Fig brought from Loam Farm. As she does this, Adaine casts Identify. Brennan asks what all three girls are feeling. The answers: Post-emotion tired from work (Adaine), Naked Curiosity (Fig), Concern (Kristen).

A lot of things happen at once. The red dust whips around the Cass shards and glows, making a “concerned ball” looking for some kind of opening to enter. The Identify spell freaks out and says that it’s a lot of power but seems very confused or overwhelmed about what’s happening. When Kristen asks if it’s two power sources or one, the spell waffles on an answer: 2 in 1? 1 in 2?

On a 28 Insight Kristen notes that the red shards acted in an assertive and aggressive way but didn’t attack the Cass shards or anyone else. However, when Adaine casts Identify, they do attack her. Kristen shoots off a Banishment and then hits a Nat 20 Perception, saving Adaine from damage and getting a glimpse at where these red shards are presumably from.

Kristen sees endless red, thrumming blood and smells rot. She hears screams of horror. It’s the interior of some kind of vast, horrifying body beyond the astral plane. Presumably the dead god. She yells, “Cassandra!” and purple, misty light rushes in to extinguish some of the red, fiery light in the body. There is movement and Kristen hears a gasp before the vision fades.

They speculate a bit Gorgug wonders if the reaction to the name is the dead god reacting to hearing their wife’s name. They wonder if this dead god went through a similar archfeyification to Cass (which is what happened when Cass became the Nightmare King) and became this scary entity. They then check out Ragh’s house and Riz on a 24 Investigation finds that the destruction, though cleared, is similar to what they saw at Loam farm. Adaine with Arcana sees traces of the shatter star dust in the soil here, just like Molman said. It seems to track with where the impact craters are.

Kristen picks up some of the infected dust and thinks about things that make her angry (specifically how Buddy talks to her and Bobby Dawn maybe being the new cleric teacher) and on a dirty 20 insight, her Cass shards glow in almost sympathy but the red shards form a glass spear that hover near her eye. She releases the rage, thinking that they’re not worth it and the spear stabs her cheek for 5 points of damage. Gorgug grabs it before it can do any more damage and it turns back to sand.

It’s late so everyone heads home except for Adaine who scooters over to Aelwyn’s place to pick her brain/check on her. Aelwyn answers, wearing a snuggie, and ushers Adaine in for the classic sister tradition of eating ice cream and watching reality TV together (in this case specifically a cooking show with a Gordon Ramsy-esque host). Aelwyn asks Adaine about her love life (Adaine refuses to elaborate) Adaine asks Aelwyn about her social life (nonexistent). They both get really emotional about Aelwyn adopting 10, old, unloved shelter cats to fill the hole in her heart and Adaine invites Aelwyn to do crimes with her and her crew instead of doing the lone wolf thing.

With regard to actual business items Aelwyn says that, much like Ruben, KP told her that she's not going to need her until the new year. Adaine offhandedly mentions the Gilear curse and realizes that her sister is an extremely powerful and knowledgeable wizard who spent the last two years enmeshed in evil plots so she probably knows tons about curses and is very eager to help. Obviously she should ask Aelwyn about all their curse stuff! Put a pin in that because, later, Aelwyn says she’ll handle that once they get to Fallinel. But there are two last bits of business from this conversation. Aelwyn said she got a job offer to work at the Compass Points Library to fill in for Ayda which Adaine heavily approves of. And Aelwyn also haltingly says that Adaine coming to visit her and watching TV was the best part of her day. Awwww!

Fig continues her mental warfare against Ruben that night and enters his dream disguised as KP. She makes the dream look like the crime scene and says that someone has to take the fall and it can’t be her. It has to be him. Adaine throws her a portent to help her get her Persuasion roll to a 23 which results in Adaine appearing in the vision ethereally, full elven oracle. Ruben puts his hands over his mouth and this red, blood looking liquid oozes from between his fingers. Spooky!

The next morning they have the last day of school before winter break. Kristen wants to check into Ambrosia and Devil’s Nectar. Ambrosia, she remembers her parents talking about as special corn that Helio would grow and food of the gods. Devil’s Nectar she is able to learn more about from Gertie on a campaign stop (who, btw, is fully working for KP now–clearly Fabian needs to be stopped). She says that Devil’s Nectar can be used to make a special red honey (which I’ll just call Devil’s Honey for ease) that allows you to be more persuasive and lie to beings that usually can’t be lied to. However, it has a side effect of making you so persuasive that if you overuse it, you can start to believe your own lies (she doesn’t say how much would be overuse). Kristen asks if she’s made any recently and she said she did for some food trucks (which seems like a wild thing to do just food safety wise but I guess Solace is a wild place). Fig wonders if what she saw dripping from Ruben’s mouth was actually devil’s honey, not blood. Kristen makes out with Gertie who has apparently had a crush on her this whole time. Normal Kristen behavior.

We tie up some loose ends before we head for Fallinel:

Riz gets a 3 sp stipend from Jace for all the work he’s done with all the clubs. It is apparently one of the few things keeping the school together. Riz is not only the backbone of the Bad Kids, he’s the backbone of the whole damn school. As a result, he is now interim staff. Wild.

Kristen asks Mazey what she thinks about Bobby Dawn being the new cleric teacher. She’s already acting principal and she wants to vet him with every cleric student before she gives a yes. Kristen doesn’t like the idea but she knows pass/fail will be really bad for her party so she can’t in good conscience say no. She also asks for (and gets) a copy of the bylaws and the previous bylaws when Mazey says they were changed over the summer. Suspicious.

Adaine is told she’ll have to do a research paper by her professor and she says she might want to do it on hard to break curses. Her teacher, Tiberia Runestaff, says she can get 10 points of extra credit if she does research over the break on harnessing the power of broken curses. (Note: First time this has come up so it feels like a slight mystery nudge from Brennan) To help, she points Adaine in the direction of some relevant books.

Gorgug is starting to make some breakthroughs on connecting his Barb and Artificer stuff. During a conversation with Henry, he realizes that he has the same last name as Ruben and Henry confirms that Ruben is his nephew. Suspicious, Gorgug does an Insight check and on a 11 just gets nice vibes from Henry. He asks about whether he helped with making Grix and Henry says that he consulted but obviously he didn’t want him to go nuts and try to kill his nephew. Gorgug looks around for anything related to Grix and on a Nat 20 perception sees a glimpse of Grix’s motherboard in Genry’s desk drawer while he’s distracted. Gorgug notes it but doesn’t grab it because he doesn’t think he has the time.

Finally, Fig has a little chat with Zara and says that she’s better at pledging herself to others than herself so she hasn’t figured out her pact yet. Zara says that will put her a bit behind but is very supportive and gives her a book on pre-Celestial pagan deities on her request. She also mentions that she plans to stay her holidays in the Celestial Heights with her divine patron/paramour. Talk about mixing business and pleasure. Get it girl!

Off to Fallinel! Everyone is coming including Zayne–they brought his gravestone along since he’s tethered to it. Telemaine is bringing his weird energy as usual and Hilariel seems strangely concerned about whether Fabian was throwing parties or not considering she seems OK with it in a wink wink nudge nudge kinda way when she left. Gilear sidebars with Fig because he’s freaked out about his string of good luck. He found a puppy that grants wishes. He used the wishes to stop 3 apocalypses. He keeps getting the key to the city. It’s madness! Fig tries to soothe him by telling him he deserves all of the good luck but it’s not helping. He misses the yogurt on his shirt.

It happens to be winter in Fallinel which is notable because it’s been summer for the past 1000 years or so–guess the weather matches the unchanging nature of the island’s occupants. Hilariel says that the change of the seasons is Tracker’s doing though she’s not 100% clear on the mechanics. With the mention of Tracker, Riz tries to scan the moon to get the same read as he did when he got the lock on Bakur from Lydia but he’s not getting anything which he figures might be because of range. He says he’ll try again on Tracker or another moon cleric.

They also ask about Tracker’s new girlfriend, Nara, and a couple of people know her. Telemaine knows of her but gives an answer so long-winded that he entirely loses the plot. Ragh met her when he was evangelizing with Tracker and thinks she’s nice and Aelwyn also knows her. She, being Aelwyn, offers to help deal with her in a way that sounds like killing her is not off the table but they decided that they should proooooobably try just talking first.

Sandra-Lynn has a little aside with Fig where she pleads with her to take her curse a bit more seriously because it’s majorly stressing her out to see her only daughter in the world suffering under an unknown curse. She also apologizes for how short she was with Fig when her horns first started growing in and is understanding about Fig’s struggles with introspection and navigating such a big shift in identity. She suggests that Fig might want to talk to her friends about how she’s been struggling and get their take on it because she’s found that others are often kinder mirrors than one’s own self image but Fig thinks that nakedly asking such a vulnerable question sounds mortifying.

Adaine hits up Aelwyn and Zayne (who is, hello, an ex-bad guy and a literal necromancer) about curse stuff and they have some good info!

Aelwyn is very familiar with Spy’s Tongue Curse. It’s a “handshake curse” where two people enter into an agreement (it has to be willing) and once it’s in effect, neither of them can name their co-conspirator (even just writing the name).

Aelwyn had to modify that spell for Kalina in order to make it work on non-humanoids but she doesn’t know who she used it on. It might have been on herself. This was near the end of Freshman year. It was the vibe of Kalina wanting to work with people who wouldn’t work with her unless they were under the protection of Spy's Tongue. Best Aelwyn knows, it was involved with some of her Hotel Cavelier contacts (Note: This is where the BK’s fought a bunch of demons in SY Ep 3). Kalina was very annoyed about it.

The last thing that Aelwyn impresses on them is that names are extremely magically powerful and Fallinel is extremely old with great records so, if they’re looking for names, this is a pretty good place.

Riz is frustrated by the similarities between all these mechanisms to make people not be able to say a name of forget information (Spy’s Tongue, Oblivati Mori, Devil’s Honey) that seem connected but don’t quite line up yet. I am feeling similarly.

The Bad Kids plus the Reformed Villain Squad head to the Wolfsong HQ and see it’s all the way decked out like (as Kristen gets on a Nat 20 Insight check) Narnia Burning Man. There are all the comfy yurts, high elves serving hot chocolate with flavored marshmallows, and a giant snowball fight. Clearly someone has invested a LOT of money in this. Fig and Fabian right away head to the snowball course but the others meet up with Tracker who’s with Nara. Tracker explains what happened with the snow: some of the trad clerics were saying that all her talk of change was heresy so she performed a miracle and made the seasons change as kind of a checkmate. “If our goddess is so against change then explain this.”

They rapid fire fish for some info–Tracker talks to Galicaea (which I’m gonna shorten to Gal from now on) about once a week, Gal has good relationships with pretty much all non-evil gods and is only isolated insomuch as her followers isolated her, Adaine checks to see if Nara can read/speak the word Kalina and she can.

Kristen pulls Tracker aside to ask about the clear influx of cash and Tracker says that Nara’s parents are kind of bankrolling the whole operation. Which is kind of wild because they originally send Nara to keep an eye on her. Kristen is deeply suspicious and a bit put off by what seems to her like selling out. When she pushes Tracker on the topic, Tracker gets a little defensive and asks if it would be better if the cocoa had dirt in it or if it was just her in a basement alone with Craig. On a dirty 20 insight, Kristen sees that Tracker was deeply bothered by the line of questioning. Kristen is stinging from the comeback but doesn’t fly off the handle and she ends up having a productive little dialogue about what “success” means in this field which ends with a hug. Adaine clocks that Nara looks a bit hurt by their continued closeness. Riz notices that Nara is texting someone on a crystal (something she must have picked up from Tracker) and wants to check it out if he can because he thinks that even if she’s on the level she might be working with sketch people unknowingly.

Nearby, the party notices this circle of ancient lichen covered standing stones that are kind of away from the more commercial, rowdy parts of the camp. Fig uses her Divine Sense to ping that it’s radiating some serious diving energy and correctly guesses that it has the effect of the Hallow spell. There’s a lot of Sylvan writing but also proto-Sylvan and it’s dedicated to Galicaea but also other pre-Gal deities (including Giant ones). The sense is that this circle was already here and holy before Gal and co showed up.

The gang has a secret Sylvan gift exchange (that was organized by Siobhan in the last Adventuring Party)! Here’s what everyone gets:

Adaine gets Fabian a pipe that lets him call rats.

Fabian gets Adaine an “earworm” which horrifically burrows into her brain but can be used to cast Detect Thoughts and DIssonant Whispers using its charges.

Fig gets Kristen an “Immovable Pull up Bar” (reskinned Immovable Rod of course).

Kristen gets Riz Riddler themed Bracers of defense which are of questionable fashion sense but soooo tactical (+2 to AC when not wearing armor).

RIz gets Gorgug a Potion of Giant Strength in the form of a gnarly energy drink that ups his strength to 25 for an hour. (It is VERY not legal)

Gorgug gets Fig the Mask of Beasts which lets her cast Animal Friendship. It is shaped like an orangutan.

Fabian summons some rats. Fig makes them sexy. They show hole. Regular Bad Kid antics. In the midst of the chaos, Fabian texts Mazey a selfie of everyone (warning her not to zoom into the rats) and says that he hopes she’s having a good break and maybe they can hang out when he’s back. He then puts his phone in airplane mode as quickly as he can.

They’re heading to bed but Nara checks on them. Specifically, she wants to talk to Kristen and says she’s happy that she came and she hopes they can be friends. Kristen gets the vibe that she’s here trying to be the bigger person after maybe having some messy thoughts earlier. Not really nefarious but very measured and trying to say the right thing. Nara reveals that she tried to do a revival as well but her follow through wasn’t great and it fell apart. Kristen realizes that Nara is a lot like her except with enough money to have a lot more support. She also mentions that her parents are clerics (which we kinda knew) but they’re more like deacons or office workers than miracle workers like Kristen or Tracker. They weren’t huge fans of Tracker to start with but Nara said they came around and hey, they are funding everything with their deep elven pockets. When Kristen asks about the pre-Gal origins of the standing stones, Nara doesn’t seem to know anything about them and the Bad Kids figure they should stop pushing and check it out themselves. The ex-villain trio set up a perimeter and the Bad Kids check out the stones.

First some quick theories:

Riz wonders if Nara’s parents (or someone else) is doing all this funding to try and make Tracker’s worthy cause seem less serious.

Fabian wonders if there is some kind of plot to get this movement all big and then merge something else into it.

Fig wonders if with all the mind trickery happening, there are maybe gods who think they’re gods but aren’t really.

Because Fig has determined that this Hallow spell isn’t gonna hurt them as it’s not a wartime Hallow spell (lmao for those of you who know what’s coming next) they feel safe enough to both check out the stones and call over Nara and Tracker for more info. Nara says that this is where Tracker usually communes with Gal and Adaine confirms with Nara that a skilled druid or cleric could use this circle to planeshift. Adaine and Riz roll Arcana and Investigation respectively on the stones and they get an impressive 28 and a nat 20 for a 32! Brennan has to spill everything!

Riz finds that the stones are very protected. There are all these runes and an old scorch mark. Sunk in the ground, he finds carved a wedding contract–the wedding of Cass and her mystery god partner. (Note: Brennan says that the name written is Cass even though I’d have assumed that the name would be whatever Cass’ name was previously since Cass is a name Kristen gave her but this could just be a continuity blip that we should Time Quangle handwave away. Just wanted to mention it). Riz sees the name of Sol as officiant, Ruvina and Gal as maids of honor, Cass as the bride, and then a name sunk under the earth where the other person getting married would logically be.

Fig gets the rats who were showing hole earlier to dig deeper into the ground and persuades Tracker and Nara to not freak out (which is maaaaybe a mistake considering what’s about to happen). With all her studying, Adaine is the only one who’s able to properly read the name once the rats dig it up and in her scholarly haze, she just says it without thinking.

Ankarna.

A lot of things happen very quickly so we’re going to bullets. Buckle up:

The stone circle glows red. Riz can see through his spy glasses that it's filling with fiendish energy. It feels safe in the circle so everyone jumps inside.

The BK's phones start blowing up and Ragh runs over to them, on the phone. Adaine urges him along with Aelwyn and Zayn who have shown up to get in the circle. They all try but Zayn, as a ghost, is abjured.

Ragh is on the phone because something is wrong with the gem in his mom's chest. Adaine is instantly horrified by what she might have done

The stone circle begins to shake and the moon glows incredibly bright.

Tracker is rightfully freaked but then she and Nara are thrown from the circle and land hard, causing them both to start bleeding profusely. Tracker starts shifting as the moon becomes full.

Fig makes a Wis save and fails a Con save. The spectral, yellow armor appears around her and the moonlight that falls on them starts trying to rip it off, and not gently. It’s willing to kill her to abjure the curse. She takes 19 points of damage.

Kristen’s Cass shards start glowing blindingly and Adaine sees that mirrors are appearing to deflect the moonlight and protect Fig.

Riz gets the sense that multiple Divine Interventions are happening at once and he is first to act. His choice is to try and shove Fig into his briefcase of holding to try and protect her from the moonlight In doing so, he breaks one of the mirrors that was protecting Fig and Brennan gives anyone who wants a chance to Counterspell without the knowledge of why. Adaine, elven oracle and protective friend, takes that offer and, on a NAT 20, counterspells a god, saving Fig’s life and shattering the curse on Fig. That’s GOTTA be worth some extra credit, right? Riz, with the help action from Cass, successfully gets Fig into the briefcase and then dives in after her. Unfortunately, Baron shows up right away because Riz’s life was going just a liiiiitle too well I guess.

Fabian does an Insight check and doesn’t think he’ll be able to get Nara and Tracker back into the (supposedly safe) circle but he feels like maybe they were knocked out for their own protection. He casts Pyrotechnics to produce some smoke to help block the moonlight.

Gorgug jumps into the briefcase and casts Warding Bond on Fig.

Adaine locks eyes with Aelwyn who says that she’s alright and can teleport them all back to Kei Lumennura easier if they’re all in the briefcase since there’s a carry limit. At that assurance, Adaine and Fabian jump in.

Kristen looks into the chaos trying to find a trace of Cass but doesn’t find one. She does note that the mirrors which are protecting them are a symbol of Cass but specifically in her Nightmare King form which is troubling.

Tracker yells for Kristen in concern from outside the circle. Brennan offers Kristen a chance at a free Divine Intervention roll but it fails. Kristen jumps into the briefcase but, as she does, she casts Death Ward on Aelwyn (if she goes down to 0 she’ll actually drop to 1 HP–like half orc Relentless Endurance).

There is a flash of moonlight, darkness, a roar of flame, pained gasping, and then the briefcase finally shuts.

Woof. Huge breath. Because we’re not even done!

The Bad Kids are tumbling through the pocket space of RIz’s briefcase, through photos and case files and random items and Baron is there, taunting Riz: “The Nightmare King, very angry, once more in the arms of his loving partner.” He vanishes and leaves them in their precarious predicament with the knowledge that Cass has been corrupted once more.

The pieces of armor (Riz specifically notes that there are six) are still targeting Fig so she casts Mislead to create a doppelganger of herself with higher speed that falls faster. The armor is tricked and gloms onto the illusion which morphs into Gilear. Each bit of armor turns into something Gilear-related: a yogurt spoon, a Hawaiin shirt, sandals. Then the Gilear illusion hits the ground and shatters. They're about to hit the ground and shatter as well but then Kristen remembers her gift from Fig! She sets it in the air and, miracle of miracles, manages to make the Dex check! Between her and some fancy sheet whipping from Fabian, they’re able to set down with no damage. Where are they you might ask? Well, it’s a creepy, dilapidated version of Fig’s room in Mordred. And they don’t have time to parse what that means because the pride armor pieces turned Gilear items scatter and Brennan has everyone roll initiative! See you next time!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #I didn't do honor roll/detention bc this is literally going out day of and I have a busy day #but give them both to adaine for oopsie raising a dead god but the counterspelling a god to save fig #with an honorable mention to fig and kristen for 1) getting the best present ever and 2) using it to save everyone that same day respecti #i have a lot of speculation but I'm gonna save it for the next conspiracy board segment I think

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