#like kristen IS a good friend and she DOES appreciate riz and fig but she is a mess

[littlebitofdnd]

Sandra-Lynn and Sklonda are having a "What Do We Do About Kristen" phone call as we speak

[mulligans-tavern]

https://www.tumblr.com/doomed-to-wanda/747617028751474688?source=share

Inspiration above

TW death, grief

---

Five Funerals

They lose Fig first.

Comes with the territory when you're an archdevil - somebody's always looking to take your spot. "Don't worry about it," she says, opening a Planeshift to the recording studio. "It's just the usual rebellious fiends. Icythorz and Bolhondrus and the rest. I'll be back before you know it." She looks resplendent in black leather, the Unfaithable Bass slung across her back, riding the fiery Daymare surrounded in jagged red shards.

Adaine knows before everyone else, but can't believe the vision to be true until she learns that Ayda is gone, too. She scratched every memory of Fig out of her notes before starting over - it was too much pain to bear. The five of them know how it feels.

---5---

It's a few years before they take another hit. Another mission to the Mountains of Chaos, another world-ending calamity to be stopped because Who Else Is Going To Save The World? A small misstep, a miscalculation (six where there should be five, they're only five now) and suddenly the routine becomes deadly.

Riz takes the fall. "It's easier this way," he says, in his last moments. "I'll still see you." And he does. Agent Gukgak Jr., now, with some extra responsibility. But he still comes by. Sometimes. Every so often. Often enough.

---4---

Kristen is next. Only one thing could bring down the most gifted cleric of the age - sacrificing herself for her friends. Third time's the charm when it comes to death, it turns out.

Gorgug is the most hopeful that she'll come back, that she'll find a way again, like in the Nightmare Forest. But Adaine knows this is the end. Even Arthur Aguefort agrees. He quotes Alanis Morissette at her funeral. The followers of Cassandra pull out all the stops.

Adaine, Fabian, and Gorgug have their own ceremony at Ashgrove, next to the Gukgak family plot. It's quiet. Bucky cries into Ragh's shoulder. Aelwyn, Jawbone, and Gertie collect flowers. Tracker stays for a few minutes to say goodbye.

---3---

They quit adventuring after Kristen's funeral. And they don't lose anyone else for a long time. Riz still visits, every few years. They talk about the good old days, how silly it was that Baron was so terrifying when at the end of the day it was an honest conversation that finally did him in. There's rumours that Kristen has ascended to goddesshood herself - Adaine doesn't buy it. She's not the type to be revered.

They come out of retirement for the only reason they would - to bring back one of their own. They finally found Fig's soul, trapped in a ruby in the darkest levels of the Abyss. They can't ask anyone to come with them - it's too dangerous, it's too personal. It's missions like this that kill people.

And when it's all over, when Adaine carries Fabian's burnt, unconscious body back to Morded Manor, they have another funeral to plan.

Gorbag and Roz have already passed, and Wilma and Digby are too old to make preparations, so it falls to Jawbone to organize it. He knows they don't want a lot of fanfare. It's at Ashgrove again, just Adaine and Fabian and the Thistlesprings, and Aelwyn and Ragh. Sandra-Lynn is back in Solace - she sends Adaine a heartfelt text saying she appreciates the invitation, but she can't bring herself to come.

Riz doesn't show for the ceremony - he's desperately scouring the heavenly realms, trying to make sure Gorgug ended up somewhere he wasn't afraid of. Orcish heaven doesn't have him, he reports, and neither does Cassandra.

If he's trapped in the Abyss with Fig, at least they have each other.

---2---

Adaine sees Fabian's death the night of Gorgug's funeral. She needs to prepare, she tells herself. She knows it's going to be hard. She needs all the time she can get, and she needs to know which goodbye will be their last.

They grow old together. Not romantically, although some speculate. Fabian becomes a multiclass advisor at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Adaine works in Bastion City as an archivist, with occasional trips to Fallinel for Oracle services. They go for vacations sometimes, but never for too long. The memories find them no matter where they go. Sometimes Adaine wishes she could be Ayda, scrape off the old wounds and start fresh. Arthur talks about her sometimes. She's never had the same spark as that one lifetime, he says.

Adaine watches the wrinkles grow beside Fabian's eye, watches his hair turn grey, watches the Future of Dance become its Mentor. He trades his Battlesheet for a cane-sword, then a regular cane. He takes to wearing the Gregorian necktie to classes, no matter how much it clashes with his outfit. They both wonder how many of their own teachers lost party members.

Adaine holds Fabian's wrinkled hand on his deathbed, in his old room at Seacaster Manor. He grins, flashes the same perfect teeth as on the first day of Freshman Year. "Bet you didn't see this one coming, did you?"

"I did," she whispers, tears streaming down her young elven face. "I knew it would end like this. But I always hoped it would last forever."

They're the last words he hears.

It's not the first funeral Adaine organizes. All the Bad Kids held one for Buddy Dawn, back in high school. She and Fabian worked together on the services for Jawbone, Ragh, and Chungledown Bim - who finally caught up to Fabian in both of their old ages. It is the first funeral she has to organize alone.

Some of Fabian's students attend. Arthur Aguefort gives a short speech, and a few students hear the story of Kalvaxus' return for the first time. Adaine sits with Aelwyn in the front row, a few seats down from Hallariel. Gilear records the service to show Telemaine later. Riz is somewhere deep undercover - he maybe hasn't even heard yet.

She always knew she'd be the last. She didn't expect it to hurt so much.

---1---

Adaine stumbles through a few years before she finds herself again. They pass so fast without a mortal lifespan to hold up against them. She drifts between Fallinel and Bastion City for the most part, with occasional return trips to Elmville. Aelwyn always has a place for her to stay. Seacaster Manor was turned into a dormitory for Aguefort students who needed a place to study, or sleep, or stay away from home for a while. Tracker converted Morded Manor into a temple/bed-and-breakfast for worshipers of Galicaea. Strongtower Luxury Apartments was demolished soon after Fabian started teaching at Aguefort. It seems like everything is different now.

Adaine visits Leviathan once, on a whim. The Compass Points hasn't changed a bit. On a chance meeting in the stacks, Ayda looks at her with a spark of familiarity.

"Adaine Abernant?"

"Yes... you remember me?"

Ayda shakes her head. "There are mentions of you in my journals. I leave journals for when I regenerate-"

"I know. I remember."

Ayda looks intrigued. "I wrote that you were a great wizard, and a good friend. I hear from other sources that you are the Elven Oracle. Perhaps you can shed some light on why the pages around yours are torn to shreds or redacted to the point of unreadability?"

Adaine places a gentle hand on Ayda's shoulder. "I don't know if you'd want that. You lost someone you cared about, so much that you thought it was better to forget her than to bear the pain of losing her."

Ayda considers this. "Is it better to forget?" she asks. "Would you give up the memories of those you lost, in order to keep a logical mind?"

"No. Not for anything."

"Then we should talk."

Adaine smiles. "I'd like that."

---2---

*end

Thanks for reading all the way through! I wrote most of this at 2am and the conclusion the next morning. Please take a reblog to share with your friends or drop a like to let me know you enjoyed - or hated - the story!

Ask me anything about it, please, I love discussing these kinds of theories!!!

[deconstructthesoup]

I've seen some good ones floating around, so here's my take on a Fantasy High Swap Class AU:

Adaine: She's a College of Creation bard, something that stemmed from needing something to keep herself sane growing up in the Abernant home. She channeled her studies of the cosmos and magic into songs, and she actually managed to pass herself off as a Conjuration wizard... until she got found out and sent to Aguefort. Luckily, it's the perfect place for her to hone her craft, and she winds up becoming an incredibly well-known songwriter---more on the indie folk side of things than punk rock, but still. (And she does also become the Elven Oracle, if only by accident.)

Kristen: She starts out as a Zealot barbarian under the Church of Helio, but it doesn't take long for her faith to waver, and she eventually falls into the unpredictability and beautiful chaos of the Path of Wild Magic---and eventually multiclasses into an Oath of the Ancients paladin, inspired by claiming Cassandra as a deity. She's got a lot of righteous fury and craziness at her disposal, and she's never gonna back down from a fight.

Fig: While still keeping her rebellious attitude, she decided to still accept the girly side of herself when her horns grew in and be more pastel-punk (kinda like K Tanaka), and she embraced her devil side by becoming a Trickster Domain cleric---specifically, a cleric of Asmodeus. She's still a lover of disguises, a shameless flirt, and has a shaky relationship with the truth, but it's cranked up to eleven due to her serving a deity of all that. She does eventually multiclass into being an Alchemist artificer, which is... just as chaotic as you might expect.

Riz: He's still a detective at heart, of course, but he winds up using his smarts and sneakery to become a School of Illusion wizard. This actually makes him perfectly suited to being the guy who's always trying to figure out the truth, even if his disguise habit is almost as bad as Fig's sometimes, and he takes on his secret-agent style way earlier than in canon. He's not strictly lawful---he's a big fan of finding out loopholes---but he's definitely the team's designated "smart guy."

Gorgug: His subclass was the hardest to figure out, but I decided he would be good as a Cavalier fighter---his martial prowess is still focused on helping and supporting his friends, regardless of whether it's through rage or skill. Eventually, though, he gets inspired by Adaine's creative ways of using magic and multiclasses into a College of Valor bard. And yes, he uses these skills in part to become a band member of hers. Fig is also part of the band.

Fabian: And last but not least, our Fabian got inspired by both Cathilda and a much more sober Hallariel to become a Swashbuckler rogue. His story is kind of an inverse of canon, with him learning from his mother and mother figure more than his father---partly due to the fact that Bill died before canon in this---and gaining a lot more pride from that (and yeah, that includes him introducing himself as "Fabian Seacaster, son of Hallariel Seacaster, the greatest swordfighter who's ever lived!"). But after his Bad Day, he realizes that there's worth in appreciating what his father has to offer, and he becomes a Fiend warlock of Old Bill---Pact of the Chain, of course, so the Hangman can be his familiar.

So, uh... yeah!

[everywishway]

Headcanons for Junior Year

Cassandra still has Kalina as a familiar. I have two ideas for this

Number one is Kalina was hurting the whole time due to being a literal plague and she was also under the influence of the Nightmare King's power so she's better now. Still standoffish and a trickster but in more of a "tired, goth older sister" way

Number two is that she's a grouchy house cat and is stuck in this tiny body that has a love/hate relationship with the Bad Kids (especially Riz). Like one day she's wrapped around his neck till she claws his nose and runs off. She can't talk either so all that pent-up anger is in a tiny body

I just want more Riz and Kalina pls! They were so good together SY

Garthy Obrien and Aguefort have a nice, long "chat" behind closed doors… It ends up with the both of them deciding how they are going to Co-parent Ayda but Aguefort does end up with a scar in his abdomen.

Ayda substitute teaches a Magical Theory class Adaine and Fig have to take when the teacher leaves for maternity. Hijinx ensue.

Fabian and Aelwyn break up or have already broken up by the time JY starts (i love how most of the fandom doesn't like these two together, lol)

Kristen and Tracker go on break while Tracker is away and Kristen is suffering in silence while Tracker is partying and having a lot of fun (same vibes as Priya and Pete)

All of Fig's Dads (Jawbone, Gilear, and Gorthalax) go get drinks every other month, one-month Sandra-Lynn and Garthy come and drink them all under the table (Sandra-Lynn was banned after that. Garthy still occasionally comes around)

When those nights happen all of the Bad Kids have a giant sleepover and completely take over the first floor of Mordred Manor (Jawbone proceeding to play hopscotch around them to not wake up his spare children)

Nobody actually addresses the Night Yorb during Junior Year and if somebody does Brennan goes in his true New York accent "what Night Yorb?????"

Fabian and Zelda go to both dance classes and kickboxing together, becoming friends around the winter of Sophmore Year

Fabian and Sam do not get along well. Mostly due to the fact, they are both dramatic rich bitches who are fighting over Zelda but also over the fact Sam is mean to Gorgug and Fabian goes "only I am allowed to be a bitch with my friends? Fuck off, Nightingale."

Antiope and Riz shared some sort of stealth elective class and accidentally became good friends? Like, they both watch their gangs of idiots tiredly and corral them up and take them to get ice cream.

On the other hand, Kristen kinda dreads her religious studies course due to Ostentasia being loud and snarky but also kinda appreciates it? Like, you know those class clowns that get on your nerves but they state the obvious when everyone is done with the teacher's shit? Yeah, that's their relationship

She does chill with Yelle tho, like they both smoke weed then go to pet stores and animal shelters and play with animals until they pass out on the floor.

Penny and Adaine are both nerds and Penny is Adaine's tutor when it comes to the history of spells, who made them and why (because Adaine is a practical caster <3)

I have way too many ideas, some of them are on the bingo board :)

[cactusnymph]

Prompt fill #11 for @dimension20alphabet:

Kitten / King / Kiss

With the help of Ayda, Gorgug has made a checklist about his feelings and how to approach them. Ayda is very good at making organized lists and she understands his difficulty to talk to people about feelings. Plus, she was endearingly delighted and moved when Gorgug asked her for help.

 “I shall do my best to help you with your romantic endeavors!”, she had said seriously with one hand on his shoulder. “It is an honor to be of assistance to the greatest wizard of our age.”

 Gorgug doesn’t feel like much of a great wizard at the moment as he’s staring down at his list.

 1) Talk to Zelda about polyamory √

2) Read Jawbone’s book √

3) Talk to friends about Ragh √

4) Talk to Ragh

The first draft had many more steps in between that had stressed Gorgug out, so Ayda helped him narrow it down to the four most essential steps. So far, Gorgug feels pretty good about his progress.

 He spent a whole day with Zelda up in the Thistlespring tree with just the occasional pee and snack break. Yet again Zelda turned out to be an amazing girlfriend—listening without judging, patiently waiting until Gorgug found his words. He had been so nervous the whole time leading up to this talk and in the end it was one of the best days he spent with Zelda.

 Gorgug adds a small step in between his first and second step—which is to thank his parents to teach him that talking about feelings isn’t embarrassing or shameful. They both immediately start crying of course and Gorgug feels awkward, but they hug him and tell him they love him and he feels like he should thank them more often for being so full of love and support for everything he does.

 All his friends were just as supportive.

 Sometimes Gorgug feels a little overwhelmed by all the love he receives. After entering High School he suddenly had two sets of parents, a group of friends and a girlfriend for the very first time. Overall he feels like his life is going pretty well, considering the fact that he regularly gets into mortal danger as an adventuring student at Aguefort.

 Something Gorgug has taken note of is that most of his friends were under the impression that Ragh likes Gorgug back. Even Adaine, who usually just rolls her eyes about all of this relationship stuff, thinks that Ragh “is into” Gorgug.

 The only person who didn’t comment was Riz.

 “I don’t even know if my own friends like me most of the time, dude, I wish I could read people better.”

 That had ended in a big tirade about how much everyone loved and appreciated Riz.

 Gorgug loves all of them so very much.

 And he feels like the more people he loves, the bigger his love gets.

 It’s the same with Zelda and Ragh.

 The fact that he likes Ragh hasn’t diminished his feelings for Zelda at all—if anything, he likes her even more now. And he feels like there is still more love he has to give.

 So right now, holding his list in his hand, he’s standing in front of Mordred Manor, trying to work up the courage to talk to Ragh. Unfortunately his plans are being thwarted by something Gorgug didn’t expect.

 Ragh is in the garden—as he often is—but he’s not alone.

 There is a small, black kitten sitting in his lap and Ragh is very obviously talking to it while feeding it some snacks.

 Gorgug feels like his heart might explode from seeing Ragh—big, burly, buff Ragh—with this tiny ball of fur. He doesn’t want to interrupt, but at the same time he wants to run across the lawn, grab Ragh and kiss him again. This time with a little more feeling than he did at prom last year.

 Finally he works up the courage to enter the garden and walk towards Ragh and his new friend.

 “—amazing, dude. You’re going to be the best cat ever. You’re already the best kitten, man!”

 Gorgug thinks he might pass out because it’s so cute.

 Why is this happening.

 “Oh hey, Gorgug, brother, what’s up?”, Ragh says with a smile as he notices Gorgug and Gorgug’s feet carry him over to Ragh until he’s right in front of him and sits down cross-legged, gently holding out one big finger to the kitten. The kitten sniffs his finger full of interest and starts nibbling on it.

 “Hey”, he says softly. “Who are you?”

 “This is King, I found him this morning. Someone left him in a box, dude. Can you imagine? I mean, look at this little furball. Who would just leave him?”

 “I don’t know. But I guess he has a nice home now?”, Gorgug says and watches as Ragh lifts the kitten up and holds it up to Gorgug’s face.

 “Yes, dude, Imma be the best kitten dad ever. I already talked to my mom and Jawbone and we’ll get a litter box and some toys and everything later! Man, I’m so pumped for this little man!”

 Gorgug looks at Ragh’s happy face and he thinks about how far Ragh has come—and how far they have come and he feels his heart expand in his chest.

 He had everything planned out.

 Knew everything he had wanted to say.

 But now all the words are gone as he watches Ragh beam down at this tiny living thing in his big, big hands.

 “Hey Ragh”, Gorgug says quietly.

 “Hm?”

 “Can I kiss you?”

 There is a beat of silence as the smile on Ragh’s face falters for a second as he looks up, confused.

 “Uh—“, he starts and his face is suddenly turning a dark green color. Gorgug is not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign. He raises his hands hastily.

 “Um—I. Okay, this is going all wrong, I wanted—um. I wanted to talk to you actually? But you are very cute with this kitten and. And it’s really hard to concentrate. Um—“

 “But—uh. Zelda?”, Ragh says and blinks at him sheepishly and Gorgug feels a rush of relief. Maybe Ragh isn’t freaked out about the whole kissing idea in general, just about Gorgug kissing him while he’s with Zelda.

 “I—um. I talked to Zelda. About this. And to Jawbone. Because, I... I like both—both of you? Like, you know? How Jawbone is poly? Like that. And Zelda said she wishes me luck and um—and she made me a little good luck charm before I came here and everything.”

 Ragh stares at him as if his brain has frozen over and he’s having a hard time processing any of the things Gorgug said. Gorgug is nervously fidgeting with his shoelaces and his eyes flicker from Ragh’s face down to the kitten and back.

 Then, suddenly, there’s movement and Gorgug needs a second to realize that Ragh has surged forward to grab Gorgug’s face with both of his hands, leaving the kitten sitting in his lap as he presses his lips against Gorgug’s mouth.

 Gorgug makes a gurgling sound before his eyes fall shut and he gently puts his hands on either side of Ragh’s neck.

 Oh, he thinks. This is so different. But just as nice.

 “Fuck yeah, Gorgug! You go!”, Fig’s voice shouts from above.

 “Way to go, Ragh!”, Kristen screams.

 Multiple cheers go up behind them and as Ragh and Gorgug separate and turn around almost all of Morded Manor’s inhabitants are lurking at different, opened windows.

 “I’m happy for you, sweetheart!”, Lydia shouts from one of the windows and Ragh grins sheepishly, the green blush on his cheeks darkening.

 “Maybe we can—uh—go somewhere else?”, Gorgug says, embarrassed and happy at the same time.

 “Yeah, sure, man. Uh—is it cool if I bring King?”

 “Yeah. I don’t think he’ll holler at us.”

 Ragh laughs, beams at him and pumps one of his fists into the air.

 “Man. This is the best day ever. Berserker Babes, fuck yeah!”

[pricemarshfield]

A quick Fabian & Adaine friendship fic for @adairable-dirks , which they requested literally months ago. (Hints of unrequited Aydaine and discussion of Fabian/Aelwyn but really not a ship fic for either.) SLIGHT season 2 spoilers Adair but nothing super plot-relevant.

They pretty much all stay at Mordred, at this point.

Obviously Fig and Kristen live here with Adaine, but it’s easier to get Riz to sleep when they can tempt him with sleepovers, and Gorgug appreciates the opportunity to stretch in his sleep every now and then, and Fabian...

Well, his thing with Aelwyn’s still going, Adaine supposes.

She doesn’t hate it as much as she used to, but she’s still not a fan. Aelwyn’s making an effort to improve herself, and Fabian’s gotten far less egocentric since Leviathan, but the two together is still...strange.

“It’s not that you’re into Fabian, are you?” Aelwyn asks, and Adaine gags so hard that Tracker laughs.

“Absolutely not,” Adaine says after she can regain her composure. “I’m not even a little interested in Fabian, what gave you that idea?”

Aelwyn looks at her, calculating and cautious in a way that’s far from the casual cruelty she used to treat Adaine with but similar enough to set Adaine on edge, just a little. “What about your other friend? The one from break? What’s her name again?”

Tracker sits up slightly from where she’s leaning against the wall, eyes flicking between the two of them.

“You saw nothing,” Adaine says to her adoptive cousin, and casts Ray of Sickness at her sister. (For old times’ sake--she’s got plenty of better spells now.)

Aelwyn manages to resist the spell, but lets the topic drop.

So she’s thinking of Fabian and Aelwyn later, is the thing, so it’s not actually indicative of what she thinks of Aelwyn later when Fabian knocks on her door, eyes red, and Adaine immediately says, “I will punch her for you.”

“What?” Fabian says, and his voice isn’t raw and scratchy, but a quiet kind of hoarse that Adaine’s familiar with.

“Oh,” Adaine says. “Nothing, never mind, what’s wrong? Aelwyn’s not here right now, you can come in.” Fabian’s shoulders drop a little. Adaine notices the bags under his eyes, the way he’s holding his arm, and asks, “Are you...okay?”

“Of course,” Fabian says, but as charismatic as he is, Adaine knows him well.

“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” Adaine says, because she’s not the nice one of her friend group, and she’s not good at comforting anyone.

Fabian knows her, though. Knows what she’s like, and came here anyway. Or...wait.

“Were you here for Aelwyn?” Adaine asks, stepping aside so he can walk in. Fabian doesn’t answer, which is almost definitely a yes. “I can go get her?”

“No,” Fabian says quickly. “No, it’s--fine.”

Adaine closes the door and walks him towards their new couch. The bed is still new enough that it’s a little sawdusty, and there’s something very weird about sitting with her friend and her sister’s maybe-boyfriend on a bed her sister sleeps in, so. Couch. That’s smart, right? Get him sitting? He seems tired.

“It’s obviously not fine,” she says, too late for it to seem natural, and Fabian chuckles a little. “You don’t have to talk to me, but I’m here.”

Fabian’s quiet for a bit, leaning into the arm of the couch. It bends slightly; Adaine casts Mending and it snaps back into place. Fabian doesn’t wince in pain, so it’s probably not physical.

That’s not great. Adaine can handle physical. (She took a couple classes in medicine, after Aelwyn in the forest, after what it felt like to not be able to help, for all her magic.)

“Cathilda’s a hundred and fifteen years old,” Fabian says eventually.

“Oh,” Adaine says. “That’s still not too old, for a halfling.”

“I’m going to live until I’m 180, probably,” Fabian says, voice dull in a way it hasn’t been since right after Leviathan. Adaine forces herself to think about something other than her lifespan and how it compares to almost two centuries. “I don’t--”

He doesn’t cry. Adaine wouldn’t have told anyone if he did, but he doesn’t. He does stop talking abruptly, take a deep breath.

“I always knew I was going to outlive my father,” Fabian says. “He made sure to tell me often. But Cathilda...I never really thought about her not being in my life.”

“I’m--” Adaine says, and cuts herself off. “I won’t say I’m sorry because that just...falls flat. But if I could change it? I would.”

“That’s what I said,” Fabian says, eyes wide, sitting up suddenly enough that Adaine startles. “Kristen could revivify, and I’m sure soon enough we’ll be able to do true resurrections, and you can polymorph her younger!” (Adaine takes that idea, makes a note of it, thinking of Jawbone and Ayda and everyone, of them with her forever, for as long as she hold them closer.) “She told me she doesn’t--”

Fabian stops talking again.

“Doesn’t what?” Adaine asks after a full minute passes. (She counts, when she’s nervous. A trick Jawbone taught her.)

“I’m her boy,” Fabian says, and even though he’s clearly having a bad day, there’s an undercurrent of pride in that. “But she’s had other children. She wants to see them, one day.”

Adaine shrugs. “We can plane shift to heaven every now and then. She doesn’t have to. You know.”

Fabian nods slowly. “I...suppose I’ll ask her that.”

“I can still get Kristen or Fig if you want to talk to someone more...you know,” Adaine says.

“No,” Fabian says. “I mean, I didn’t come here for--I just wanted to be distracted.”

“Disgusting,” Adaine says. “Horrific. Never say that to me again. I should throw you out the window.”

Fabian laughs. “As if you could.”

“I am strong now,” Adaine reminds him, nudging him gently with her elbow.

“You are,” Fabian says, smiling at her. “But talking to you did help, Adaine.”

“Good,” Adaine says. “I’m glad.”

“Could I crash on this couch tonight?” Fabian asks. “I’d go home but I think Cathilda might need some space. The conversation got rather...hectic.”

“Sure,” Adaine says. “If you do anything with my sister while I’m in here, I swear to Cassandra I will use Adaine’s Furious Fists to punch you both.”

Fabian nods, and says, “A spell from Ayda, hm?”

Without any magic at all, Adaine decks him.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

tangled up in your old bedsheets

Summary:  Fabian wraps Riz in his sheet a lot, The Hangman is strangely jealous all of a sudden, and Riz figures some things out on his own.

~

It takes maybe a lot longer than it should for Fabian to understand exactly what’s happening with the whole “wrapping Riz up in his sheet all the time” thing. In his defense, there’s a lot of shit going down when it first happens. Riz has just been revivified only to be kicked off a fucking cliff by Kalina and the world is in peril and Fabian is stretching, stretching, stretching, to reach Riz before he’s lost to him forever. So when the fire elemental snags the goblin out of the air and kisses his cheek and Fabian curls his best friend into himself, swaddling him like a newborn, the half-elf doesn’t think much of it other than thank the gods you’re alright.

But then it happens again. And again. And again. And no matter what, even when Fabian doles out gifts and aggressively supports all his friends, Riz is the only one who ever seems to end up wrapped in Fabian’s sheet.

Fabian realizes this the summer after sophomore year and then aggressively stops thinking about what it could mean.

~

When the Night Yorb is defeated, Riz dies again. Thankfully Kristen is standing right next to him when he goes down so their rogue isn’t out for long but Fabian feels it deep in his bones. He sees the light go out of Riz’s eyes, watches, like he had just last spring, as his best friend falls, limp, to the ground. He sees him die and is unable to do anything about it. Again.

That evening, they have a bonfire. The final showdown had happened on the beach, where the Night Yorb had been ready to extend its power from the shores of Solace to Leviathan to Fallinel and beyond until the Bad Kids stopped it.

Now, Kristen and Fig are teaching Ayda how to shotgun a beer with mixed results. Adaine and Aelwyn are curled together, Aelwyn already trancing after using every ounce of her abjuration magic to keep her sister from being completely obliterated in the last ten minutes of the battle. Gorgug had almost immediately been mobbed with invasive, uncomfortable relationship advice from the Seven Maidens, who had come to help in the last fight after Riz had cracked the code which revealed the location of the Night Yorb’s power source with Zelda’s help. The half-orc seems fine, if a little overwhelmed by their chattering--Zelda is at least acting as something of a buffer.

Fabian and Riz had been side by side to strike the finishing blow to the Night Yorb when it went down. He’d turned and looked at Riz and had seen the bruises and the blood and the lines of pain in his face and had pulled out his sheet without hesitation. Riz hadn’t even pretended to protest.

Now, as they sit in the shadows, the fire’s light flickering over the bags under Riz’s eyes and the hollows of his cheeks, Fabian doesn’t pretend to resist the urge he has to pull the fabric tighter around Riz, tucking it between his arms and chest so it can’t pull free when the goblin shifts. He’s pressed up against Fabian’s side, half on top of him as Fabian drapes his arms around him and pulls one knee up against his back. His other leg extends out towards the fire and they’d both kicked off their shoes like everyone else had a long time ago. He digs his toes into the cold sand and lets it remind him he’s alive. They have survived.

“You know, I’m not actually that cold,” Riz mutters. His ears are drooping with exhaustion. Fabian hums and leans his chin on the crown of his head. Riz’s hair smells like seasalt. “You could take your blanket back now.”

“Battle sheet,” Fabian corrects absentmindedly. “You uncomfortable?”

“No.” His voice is so soft. He wriggles one hand out of the sheet--Fabian feels an unhappy rumble begin in his chest--and curls his clawed fingers around Fabian's hand, splayed in the sand beside Riz’s sheet-encased hip for balance. Fabian tightened his grip immediately. The rumble dies in his throat. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.” Fabian tugs the sheet just a little more, secures it, and rests.

~

It happens when they’re not in mortal danger or coming down from a battle high, too. The first time Fabian notices it--and when he notices Riz noticing it--is movie night. All the Bad Kids as well as Ragh, Tracker, Ayda and Aelwyn are gathered at Mordred Manor, sprawled over couches and armchairs and across the floor. Fabian is cuddled up to Aelwyn on the couch, Adaine on her other side, when he is chosen to be the first sacrifice in the name of snack refills. Naturally, he tells everyone goodnaturedly that he hates them, and goes.

Fabian isn’t even really thinking about it when he does it.

He comes back and sets the popcorn in Tracker’s lap and hands the sodas out and then he realizes that his spot next to Aelwyn has been filled by Fig, who is sitting with Ayda in her lap and very much not paying attention to the crystal screen. Both Abernant sisters do not look like they appreciate this development, but neither are very likely to say anything in the name of keeping the peace.

So Fabian shrugs and begrudgingly lopes over to the cushy armchair with the winged back where Riz is curled up with his knees to his chest. The Ball looks up, startled, but doesn’t make a sound when Fabian picks him right up, plops down in the armchair and then sets The Ball down beside him. Without even really looking away from the movie, the half-elf digs out his sheet and unfolds it, letting the sparks settle before he spreads it over both of them. Riz is wedged between his left thigh and the armrest, small enough that he doesn’t have to fully sit in Fabian’s lap to share the space. He does have to lean into Fabian’s side to see the screen around him though; Fabian feels more than sees The Ball glance at him out of the corner of his eye. His tail slaps once, twice against Fabian’s side, and Fabian drops his arm onto The Ball’s back in response, quelling the detective’s squirming. The Ball leans harder into his side and mutters to himself.

“What?” Fabian asks, defensive and not really understanding why.

“You know you could’ve just asked to sit down,” Riz says. What he means is, what the fuck, Fabian?

“Can we just watch the movie in peace, please?” Fabian replies. What he means is, please don’t call attention to this.

Riz shuts up. They watch the movie in peace.

Fabian catches Aelwyn looking at him that night, a strange gleam in her eye; it’s the one she gets when she’s mastered an overly complicated piece of magic that’s been elusive for a long time. Fabian shifts, but doesn’t let go of Riz, who is tucked even more tightly into his side as the night wears on, his head on Fabian’s chest and the sheet tangled up between them.

He shakes it off; there’s nothing here for Aelwyn to understand.

Nothing.

~

After that, it’s just an easy way of keeping track of Riz. The rogue has such high sleight of hand and stealth; he’s really a menace to society. Fabian is doing the authorities a favor, honestly. It also helps him get used to how to whip the sheet in a non-lethal capacity, teaches him how hard to snap the fabric around someone’s ankle to send them careening back to their spot on the couch, or how to flick it around their waist to pull them back to his side without leaving bruises. He even gets good enough to snag Riz’s tail and yank him back from the curb when he went to step into the road without looking up from his clues, which is probably the coolest thing Fabian does that week.

Riz complains and pouts and never tells him directly to stop, which he would if it were a real issue. But since he is a gentleman first Fabian asks, just to make sure.

“I don’t--really mind, actually,” Riz says haltingly. The tips of his ears are slowly turning turquoise. Fabian is extremely interested in this development. For science, of course. “It’s nice, knowing--uh, knowing you’re there to, like, catch me. If I fall. Or something. And the elemental keeps the sheet really warm, so. It’s nice. I don’t mind.”

Fabian grins, and something strange and pleasant settles in his chest.

~

The first time he really has to confront the idea that maybe it’s not just Fabian being paranoid about the amount of time he spends wrapping Riz in a sheet is when Aelwyn breaks up with him. It’s been coming for a long time, so obvious it’s like staring down an oncoming train. Aelwyn is trying to be kinder now, has been working on being gentler with people, and so of course she comes to their meeting at the ice cream shop with a delicately worded bullet point list on why they can’t be together anymore.

“And really, we did both acknowledge exactly how unhealthy for each other we are when we got into this,” she finishes, looking up at him over the rims of her new catlike glasses. She and Adaine match now. “I mean, I very explicitly stated how bad an idea this was and you agreed.”

“Yeah,” Fabian says, because he did. It still doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

“Honestly Fabian, sometimes I--I wonder why you even said yes in the first place. It’s not like you don’t have another, probably better, option hanging around all the time.”

He has no fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean. “I have no fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

Aelwyn looks at him, shrewd and calculating, and then sighs. “Men. You’re all so useless.”

“Hey,” Fabian says, halfhearted. She just broke up with him; it’d be nice of her to display a little consideration.

Her mouth presses into a thin line, and even though he knows she’s not happy about this either, Fabian gets the distinct feeling she’s laughing at him. Just a little. “How come you never wrap me in your sheet?”

“Wh-what?”

“You always wrap Riz in your battle sheet. Constantly. I’ve counted three times this week, Fabian, and it’s only Thursday. How come you never wrap me in your precious battle sheet? I was your girlfriend up until this moment, wasn’t I?”

“I have no idea what The Ball has to do with you breaking up with me,” Fabian tells her honestly.

“Everything, my dear.” Aelwyn says as she stands and tosses a five dollar bill on their table in Basrar’s. “Absolutely everything. Think about it.”

~

The Ball has nothing to do with this.

“You have nothing to do with this.” Fabian tells him when Riz rushes into his room in Seacaster Manor, armed with dvds and ice cream and a grim expression Fabian recognizes from the moment before he ate Kalvaxus’s face off.

“Well if you didn’t want me here why did you call me?” Riz asks, looking affronted. He takes a step towards the door but wavers, looking back and forth between the hallway beyond and Fabian’s teary, red face. “Look, I wanna help, but if you need some time alone--”

“No! That’s not what I meant.” Fabian flaps one arm at him frantically. “I just-- it’s just stupid, never mind, just get over here, The Ball.”

Riz dumps the items in his arms and bounds over, sympathy leaking over his expression. He stops by the foot of the bed which is too far away and Fabian would roll his eyes and whip the sheet out for him if he weren’t already wrapped up in it and trying not to look like he’s been crying for the past hour and a half. He has not. He has only been crying for an hour and twenty minutes, thank you very much.

“I’m really sorry, Fabian,” Riz says, soft and kind and what Fabian needs to hear and what he wants none of at the same time. “I know you really like Aelwyn.”

Something in The Ball’s expression shifts, a little, drops down and gets even more serious and Fabian feels that instinctive, commonplace need to know more about him. Fabian fails an insight roll though, and shakes his head. He reaches out again. “Just, just come here, The Ball, gods--”

“I’m standing right next to you--” is all The Ball can get out before he lets out a high little yelp and gets lifted into the air. He’s so light Fabian can manhandle him onto the mattress and into the sheet with one arm. Fabian wonders if he’s getting enough to eat, if he’s spiraling in his office too much, if he hasn’t been sleeping lately. After the Night Yorb incident, he and The Ball had slept in the same bed on and off, on the promise to wake each other up when they had nightmares. It was a terrible few weeks.

The only thing Fabian misses, he admits to himself as he sets The Ball down on the mattress next to him and drapes half of the sheet across his shoulders, is the warmth he woke up to every morning. Riz is a familiar, reassuring weight against Fabian’s side; he didn’t realize after the nightmares went away and The Ball started sleeping over on the weekends rather than every night how much he would miss this.

Riz is, as always, game once he realizes what the plan is. He curls up under the sheet with a familiarity that makes the pressure in Fabian’s cracked chest ease just a little. He wraps his arms around Fabian’s middle and his tail flicks up to curl loosely around Fabian’s wrist where his arm is hooked around The Ball’s shoulders. The sheet is soft as cream and silvery in the low light as it folds around them both; it is on autopilot that Fabian takes the edges of the sheet and tucks them around his friend, until they are nothing more than a weirdly shaped lump of fabric.

“I’m supposed to comfort you right now, not the other way around,” The Ball points out, humor coloring his tone even as he keeps his voice low. Fabian leans harder against him and Riz grunts.

“You are,” Fabian says. “You are.”

He’s not okay, but he will be.

~

Fabian gets over Aelwyn relatively quickly, which should probably be a sign of how serious he actually was about her. But there’s still something strange in not looking forward to meeting her now, after a year of striving to get information on her, a year of striving to get her out of prison, a year of striving to come off as anything besides an awkward teenage boy when she kisses him. It leaves Fabian at a bit of a loose end.

So, naturally, he makes it The Ball’s problem. Or not-problem. It’s more like a solution. He is the solution to The Ball’s depressing self-care mystery. The Ball, it is unsurprising to note, is terrible at taking care of himself. Fabian, on the other hand, has literally trained all his life to protect and fight for others; he’s gotten very good at turning this innate urge into making sure The Ball eats enough and sleeps enough and takes a goddamn break every once in a while.

Case in point.

“Come on, The Ball,” Fabian whines. “This place is honestly so depressing, you reek, and I know for a fact you haven’t slept in three days. It is time to go home.”

“My mom asked me to help her, Fabian,” Riz says. He doesn’t turn to look at Fabian when he speaks, nimble fingers spidering across a map of Elmville he has set up on the wall. There are strings of different colors connecting seemingly random locations together, but Fabian does not doubt they make sense to The Ball. It must be a serious case, anyway; The Ball only loses his hat and tie when it’s serious business. “I can’t give up now.”

“It’s not giving up. Why do you always have to assume that stopping for a little while makes everything worse?”

“Sure feels like it.”

Okay. Time to pull out the big guns. Fabian takes a deep breath and prays Riz won’t hate him for this tomorrow. “Your mom is worried about you. Again.”

Riz’s head jerks around sharply enough that Fabian winces. There’s a sharp crack and Fabian watches as the ink from the broken pen in Riz’s clawed hand drips to the hardwood. Ah, well. That’s the least horrible thing that’s stained this floor. When the detective turns to him Fabian takes a hasty step back. The slits of his eyes dilate wildly, shrinking and growing in size rapidly.

“Did you,” Riz asks deliberately slowly, “just try to use my mom against me?”

“It’s true,” Fabian protests weakly. “She sent me here when I asked where you were. She thought you were with me anyway and she got really mad when she figured out you were still working. You gotta learn to take breaks, man.”

Just like that, Riz deflates. His shoulders relax from where they’ve been hunched around his ears since Fabian walked in and his hackles lower. He scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving trails of blue ink through the strands; Fig would probably call it a look . “I hate when I make her worry.”

“You make everyone worry,” Fabian says without thinking, before backpedaling like a champ at Riz’s scandalized look. “Wait! No! I didn’t--it’s just that you make her-- and me-- but you don’t mean to so it’s fine. Is it hot in here? I feel like it’s hot in here. We should go. Let’s go.”

“You worry about me?”

It’s the quiet way The Ball says it, quiet in the way he hasn’t heard often since the Nightmare King’s Forest, that makes Fabian square his shoulders and set his jaw in determination. He rolls initiative on a surprise round and succeeds. Nat twenty.

“Right.” Fabian declares, and reaches into his jacket. “We’re doing this.”

“What?” Riz’s eyes widen a second later, though, because his insight is crazy high and even his passive rolls are ridiculous. “Aw, no, Fabian, you don’t need to get the sheet out. I don’t need the sheet!”

“It’s too late. It’s already over.”

“Oh come on man, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“It's inescapable,” Fabian flourishes as the sheet unwinds and dances before him, obscuring The Ball’s view of him. “You’ve brought this on yourself.”

Between one blink and the next, Fabian has thrown the sheet about his best friend, movements fluid and expert from so much practice. He’s sure to leave Riz’s inky hand free, but he takes care to bundle his legs into the sheet. Fabian wraps one end of the sheet around the unoccupied arm before pulling it across his body gently and tucks the other end over his chest in the opposite direction before securing the free edge between Riz’s back and his own chest.

Riz is still so light in his arms as Fabian hoists him right off the ground and into a princess carry. Riz squawks and waves his one free hand in Fabian’s face, which makes Fabian grimace and lean back. Ink splatter across the desk.

“Spring break,” Fabian says. He meets Riz’s dark eyes, something in his gut sparking and fluttering and warming him all the way to his toes. “I believe in you.”

“Spring break, I believe in you,” Riz repeats, laughing and accepting the bardic inspiration before rolling his eyes. “It’s nearly winter, you dolt.” It makes something soft in Fabian curl up tight in his chest to hear his best friend laugh, to feel it reverberate in his own arms, in his own bones, and Fabian grins right back.

“The sentiment still stands. Just because you mess up every now and then doesn’t mean that you’re a bad son, The Ball. You’re just so passionate and conscientious and you want to make sure you do your work right the first time so no one gets hurt on your watch. That’s a noble thing to do. Your mom and me worrying about your well-being doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person; it’s just a sign of how much we love you.”

Fabian takes the stairs down to the parking lot as he speaks, focusing more on his feet than Riz’s face, because if he does focus on Riz and his wide eyes and the way his pupils are really fucking dilated right now and how his dumb hair is slicked back with ink and the way his ears are twitching and how he smells like coffee beans and old newspapers, the something in his gut will come up to his chest and constrict around his heart and then he’ll do something really stupid like lean in and--

Nope! Not dealing! Fabian gets his kisses in-- got his kisses in--enough already. No need to deal with all-- this.  

But then Fabian finishes his speech and The Ball makes a strange squeaking noise, and his hand comes to ball up under his own chin, and his eyes are still very wide and his face is so soft and he’s biting his lip, fuck.

Fabian’s hands are sweaty and he nearly fumbles his handful as he comes down hard off the last step, rolling a natural two on his athletics. He curses.

Sire! Are you alright? I will destroy the very stones which mock your footing until they are nothing but dust!

I’m fine, Hangman. Just tripped.

Shall we be escorting The Ball home, then?

“You can let me down now,” Riz says at that exact moment, just as Fabian goes to confirm with his bike. Whatever his expression meant before, the jolt seems to have knocked some sense into him before Fabian could roll insight, and the goblin shifts in his arms. Fabian tightens his grip reflexively, and Riz settles. “You don’t have to take me home.”

“Don’t have to?” Fabian repeats dumbly. Of course he has to! The Ball is his--his--The Ball is capable and brilliant, yes, but he is small and a rogue and Fabian is a martial class. He should be here, to make sure that The Ball is safe.

What do you mean we’re not taking The Ball home? The Hangman howls in the back of his mind. Fabian one hundred percent agrees with the bewildered sentiment.

“I have a bus pass now, I was going to take it home tonight anyway. You’re on the other side of town from me, so you'd just be going out of your way.”

Master! The Hangman exclaims, engines revving. The Ball must not stoop so low as to take the bus!

This is another development that Fabian didn’t really realize was happening until after the fact; The Hangman, for whatever reason, has gotten weirdly possessive of Riz. They’ve given more rides to the detective than the rest of the Bad Kids combined. The Hangvan has been the subject of more than a few arguments.

We are much more capable of protecting The Ball than this bus, Sire. With your battle sheet and my infernal soul, we will be an impenetrable defense!

Fabian isn’t sure what they’re defending Riz against, but he’s not going to disagree with The Hangman. They can protect Riz much better if he comes with them.

“The Hangman is right here, The Ball,” Fabian scoffs. “Don’t be silly. Just get on the bike.”

The Ball opens his mouth like he’s thinking of protesting but he’s also forgetting two very important facts: Fabian has eight points of Strength on him and has him wrapped in his battle sheet, effectively grappled. He hasn't got a chance unless he wants to take the fall damage from wrenching himself away from Fabian, which he would never do. Riz trusts Fabian.

A soft, golden glow starts up in Fabian’s chest at the thought. The Ball should trust Fabian. Fabian--Fabian wants to keep The Ball safe and warm and cared for, and like this, wrapped snugly in Fabian’s regard, The Ball is all of those things. It means a lot--so, so much--that The Ball trusts Fabian to provide this for him.

Okay, Fabian is getting off track again.

“You’re getting on the bike,” Fabian declares imperiously, and plops The Ball down on the seat before sliding on in front of him. He waits, The Hangman revving below them, until he feels The Ball curl up against his back. His arms worm their way around Fabian’s waist and his sharp chin digs into his shoulder; something in the half-elf loosens and expands and the warm glow gets brighter.

They’re silent on the drive home; he can feel Riz curl up tighter against the wind and the sheet flutters around the two of them. Sparks flicker across the fabric, retaining warmth against the night’s coming chill. Fabian purposefully drives slowly, lets the time tick by as Riz presses warm up against his back, safe and sound and wrapped in Fabian’s protection, with Fabian’s bardic inspiration flowing through him. He also purposefully does not consider why this is so very important to him.

It is only when they stop outside Riz’s apartment and he disembarks--The Hangman lets out a low rev of his engine, almost like a purr-- that they break the soft silence that’s descended.

“Back at my office,” Riz starts, faltering, as he hands the sheet back. “You said--you love me?”

Panic bursts like fireworks in Fabian’s chest. “Wh-uh?” He says. “Uh. Uh. You have ink in your hair.”

Then Fabian makes a tactical decision and runs the fuck away. It is not his best moment. (However, since Chungle-Down Bim isn’t there, it’s also not his worst.)

~

He is not avoiding The Ball. He is regrouping, coming up with a strategic return and possibly a retaliation for whatever weird, confusing, warm feelings Riz keeps setting fire to in his chest. This is strategy. This is war.

This, frankly, sucks. So much.

The Ball has called four times in the past week before giving up abruptly on Wednesday. It is Sunday afternoon. They usually spend Saturday night watching movies or going to Basrar’s together and then take Sunday to spar (for Fabian) and go over the latest town mystery (for Riz). They have done neither of these things; they also have not texted, spoken or passed each other on the street. Riz is supposed to come over for homework and hot chocolate on weekdays in the winter. He’s supposed to give The Ball rides home every day, to make sure he doesn’t have to walk home in the rain or snow. They’re supposed to be together--

And Fabian has no one to blame for their separation but himself. It twists his gut, seeing The Ball light up his phone so much before the calls stop and he’s left with nothing but unending silence. He can’t seem to stop trying to catch a glimpse of him in the halls at Aguefort, looking for a briefcase or a flat cap, anything, anything. But In the end, he’s the one avoiding The Ball. He’s the one not answering his phone.

He’s the one with weird feelings in his chest.

This cannot, Fabian realizes, possibly go on. He’s having trouble sleeping, and when he does he’s gone back to having nightmares about Riz falling during the Night Yorb debacle. He needs to sort this out, fast.

But Riz is a rogue and so his stealth rolls win out every damn time against Fabian’s perception, and  throughout the next week there’s no time between classes to catch him and he’s nowhere to be found at lunch.

Adaine doesn’t seem too happy with Fabian either, and hasn’t since this weekend. Riz must have said something to her about him, but she relents easily enough when she sees his frantic expression.

“He’s been skipping class to work on that case with his mom for a couple days,” she says. “He--doesn’t really want to see you that much, Fabian.”

It feels like his heart breaks at that, but Fabian smiles winningly anyway. “Who wouldn’t want to see me? I’m Fabian Aramais Seacaster.”

“Son of Bill Seacaster, yeah I know,” Adaine finishes, and at least she’s got that fond exasperation back. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you two, Fabian, but you’ve got to fix it. I can’t take Riz moping around much longer. He’s been insufferable.”

“Leave it to me,” Fabian says with more confidence than he’s feeling, and peels out of the parking lot with a roar from The Hangman.

He thinks maybe things are going to be okay, somehow; he’ll make a suitably dramatic entrance, and he’ll say all the right things to get Riz to forget that Fabian had some kind of crisis for a week and change and didn’t bother to let his best friend in on it and they’ll go back to Seacaster Manor and watch dumb B-movies and everything will be fine and Fabian won’t have to confront this weird thing growing perilously close to his heart.

And then he steps into Riz’s office and faces reality.

“What do you want?” Fabian winces at the flat tone of Riz’s voice, the way his eyes won’t meet Fabian’s, the way he’s crossed his arms over his chest and hunched in on himself.

“I--well--uh, that is--” Fabian pauses, breathes. “I just thought I’d check up on you, since last time I was here you were about to fall asleep on your feet. I heard you were working too late again.”

Riz’s mouth is a flat, thin line. “That’s what you want to talk about? My work habits?”

“Well--I--work-life balance is a very real, serious thing, The Ball. Not everyone can be as healthy and committed to self-care as I am. I thought I would help you out, like always.” This is the part where the movie hero would puff out his chest and the girl would fawn all over him and they’d live happily ever after. Fabian doesn’t really feel up to puffing out his chest when Riz’s eyes go hard and flinty like that.

“It didn’t really seem like you cared about my self-care when you were refusing to acknowledge you loved me.”

Oh. Oh.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? The last piece of the puzzle slots into place, and Fabian is absurdly glad Aelwyn isn’t here to cast Detect Thoughts and laugh at his misery as he realizes what she knew practically from the start. Because he’d said it before--toxic masculinity is over. He’s in touch with his emotions now, and he loves his friends and he’d had a hard time showing it or saying it in the beginning but these days his affirmations roll off his tongue like so much honey so why has he had such a hard time with The Ball?

Of course. Of course he loves Riz. It’s--it’s not even that much of a revelation somehow; it’s like he always knew somewhere deep in his soul that they’d end up like this, with Riz being brilliant and brave and kind and Fabian loving him and loving him and loving him. Admitting it to himself, for how hard it has been to see it clearly in the first place, is easy. It’s like saying the sky is blue or Arthur Aguefort is insane. It’s just a fact. Fabian Aramais Seacaster loves Riz Gukgak.

He’s in love with this strange little goblin man and he’s been so dumb about it.

“Okay, okay,” Fabian says, more to himself than The Ball. What happens now? What is he supposed to do? Should he just come out and say it? Or, no, Riz might think he’s joking, or trying to smooth things over. He'd hate it if Riz thought Fabian didn’t mean it the very first time Fabian says those words. Besides, they’re having an argument--a real one, which he doesn’t think they’ve ever had--and this is so not the time. No, he'll tell him after this is over, when they’ve made up and Fabian has taken care of Riz because he does really look like hell, all bags under his eyes and stiff limbs. He needs to apologize, probably, and then get The Ball somewhere safe and warm and comfortable and then he needs to do something grand and dramatic and then he can tell Riz Gukgak he’s in love with him.

“Look, I’m sorry, alright?” It comes out sharper than he intends, but he’s dealing with wave after wave of astonishment and fear and love and he could use a bit of a break, to be honest. “Can we just forget it?” He has to get this over with to get to the next step of his foolproof, ten second plan to woo The Ball in which nothing can possibly go wrong.

“Forget it?” Riz repeats, incredulous. This is not at all going the way Fabian needs it to go. “You want me to forget the time you took back saying you loved me--when you haven’t even called me your best friend, yet--and drove off and then didn’t talk to me for a week? That’s something you think can just be forgotten? You left Fabian!”

“The Ball--Riz--”

“I’m not just going to let this go, Fabian. No. But if you think that I’m just something to be so easily swept to the side and then picked up again when you feel like it, then--then--great! Great. I see clearly now where I stand with you.”

“Okay,” Fabian declares, because enough really is enough, “it’s sheet time.”

“No, Fabian!”

Riz has never raised his voice outside of crazy group antics before. Not to Fabian, at least. The sheet flutters out of his fingers as Fabian stares, open-mouthed. His chest is cracking again, like it did after Aelwyn broke up with him, but this is worse now; this crack is not just a hairline or a fissure, but a damn canyon. It feels like someone reached inside his ribcage and scooped his heart out.

Riz’s mouth twists and he hugs himself tighter, looking as miserable as Fabian feels. “I don’t want your goddamn sheet, okay? I don’t--I don’t need you to act like I’m some kind of burden or--or--”

“A burden--The Ball--”

“Or calling me The Ball all the time!” Riz’s voice rises again. His fists are clenched now. “I’m--I’m sick of you wrapping me up like a little kid. I’m not a baby, okay? I can take care of myself. I'm fine on my own.”

“Riz,” Fabian tries again, weakly. This can’t happen. Not now. Not to them.

“I think it’s best if you leave now,” Riz says grimly, and turns his back. He doesn’t look around when Fabian closes the door softly behind him.

~

“I’m sorry.”

Fabian blinks.

He and The Ball only had their fight two hours ago; he’d got on The Hangman and ignored the bike's probing questions, and gone home and cried and then he’d gotten up and done what he’d thought Riz would do in his place. He made a clue board.

First on the board is the picture of himself and Riz taken the night the Night Yorb was defeated; Fig had snapped a shot without them knowing, of the two of them talking in the firelight, Fabian craning his neck to look down at a swaddled, comfortable looking Riz who was looking up at him, mouth open seemingly in mid-sentence. His hair is in his face and Fabian always looks at it and remembers how seconds afterward he’d reached up and pushed the curls out of Riz’s eyes gently. That was the end of the summer--it’s the middle of winter now. He’s been in love with his best friend at least since then, maybe before.

Next on the board is his half of the best friend necklace; he’d actually stolen it out of Riz’s briefcase on their way to fight the Nightmare King. It was after Fallinel, when he was getting back to himself, reinventing how he saw the world. He’d wanted to know--to have something, just a small thing, that reminded Fabian who really loved him. And Riz had been there.

So. Maybe he was a little in love with Riz back then, too.

The third clue was actually absent from the board, but Fabian writes it on a post-it note and sticks that there in its place; my old letter jacket. He’d gotten a new one when he’d been on the team in the beginning of sophomore year; he’d filled out too much, built up enough muscle from practice that he hadn’t been able to keep using the one his father gave him freshman year. He’d given it to The Ball because he was complaining of the cold one day and then just. Never bothered to take it back.

Riz wears it to his games sometimes. It makes Fabian--feel. Certain things. It’s fine.

The final clue is, of course, the sheet. He almost doesn’t bother pinning that one up either, since it’s pretty fucking obvious. Aelwyn could see it all just from the way he wrapped Riz up in his sheet, after all; he really doesn't need to rest of his clues to figure this out. But there’s something soothing in this, in looking at the world the way he knows Riz looks at it.

He’s just working himself up to maybe crying again when Cathilda knocks on his door and lets Riz quietly into the room.

“What?” Fabian says, because what?

Riz is biting his lip, which is entirely too distracting, when he speaks again. “I was--unfair. And a dick. And I've been--going through some stuff and I put all that on you, and I’m sorry, man. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No, I--I mean, I’m sorry too. I mean--you don’t need to be sorry, because I should be sorry. I just left you hanging and then spaced on you and I didn’t even tell you why, I just wanted to go back to normal. So I’m the one who’s sorry and you can’t take that from me. I’ll fight you if you try, just so you know. Stop being sorry.”

And just like that, the corners of Riz’s mouth turn up which is a relief because Fabian love him and just figured out that he’s maybe been in love with him for over a year, but he also knows that even before he knew he was in love he’d have done just about anything to make sure Riz never looked as sad as he does right now. He’d kill to put a smile on Riz’s face.

“I don’t think you can just have a monopoly on apologizing, Fabian,” Riz says and the way his name sounds out of The Ball’s mouth, gods, how did Fabian not realize this sooner? “I’ve just been--I’ve been dealing with a lot and you’re my best friend, man, and I just...It sucks not talking to you.”

“Yeah,” Fabian agrees. “It really fucking does.”

And then, opening his arms tentatively, “Can I?”

Riz’s face twists horribly then, and Fabian’s heart has just enough time to sink to his stomach before Riz throws himself into Fabian’s arms. Fabian holds him and holds him and doesn’t ever want to let go now, he’s got Riz and he’s pressing his face into Riz’s hair and lifting him up and holding him close to his chest and Riz is wrapping his arms around Fabian’s shoulders, claws scratching at the back of Fabian’s neck, he’s whispering into that twitching ear, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” and he loves and loves and loves and he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to hurt so sweetly but it does.

“I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry,” Riz babbles into his shoulder and Fabian wants to tell him to stop but he’d have to interrupt to do that and he can’t, not when he knows Riz has such a hard time with the idea that his friends don’t listen to him. He folds at the knees instead, takes Riz with him to the ground and cradles him like something precious because that’s what The Ball is and has always been, precious and so important and, if he has his way, Fabian’s. “I’m sorry I acted like you didn’t care, I know you do, I just don’t want to ever make you feel like you have to do everything for me, like I’m weak or less than or like I don't get that you have other things, other people to take care of--”

And then Fabian does interrupt because like hell is he letting this slide. “Stop it, stop, I know you’re strong and you’re brave and you’re so smart, Riz, gods, you’re brilliant. I just-- I wanna take care of you, I know I don’t have to but I want to, I love to, I love you, I'm in love with you and I want to take care of you, please.”

It’s only when Riz rears his head back that Fabian realizes what just came tumbling out of his mouth.

“Oh, shit. Uh--I wasn’t supposed to say that yet.”

“Yet?” Riz squeaks and fuck it, Fabian decides. Fuck it all. In for a penny, in for a dime.

“Yeah, yet,” Fabian rushes. His fingers clench and release the fabric over Riz’s spine rhythmically and he can feel the goblin shivering against his chest and without thinking Fabian pulls down his sheet and wraps them both in it. Riz’s skin stands out dark and forest green against the silvery material and he hopes he likes it, hopes it is soft and warm against the thin, fragile surface of Riz’s cheek because Riz is so good and Fabian loves him and he deserves nice things. “I--I was gonna make a plan and strategize and not tell you until I’ve done at least three heroic deeds in your name, dude. I had so many ideas.”

“Ideas?” Riz’s voice is faint.

Fabian nods solemnly. “There were also schematics for a dramatic duel on the clifftops, but we’ve already done that a couple times, so I scrapped it.”

“Too much of a Nightmare King-Night Yorb repeat.”

“Yeah,” Fabian nods. “Exactly. So uh. Just. If you could pretend I haven’t said that yet, I can get on the heroic deeds and we can revisit this. Conversation. Uh, later.”

“Right,” Riz says, nodding slowly too. “Or we could, like, do it right now. Since I'm in love with you too and everything.”

Fabian’s brain stops working.

“Oh.”

“'Oh?' That’s it?”

“I, uh, didn’t plan for this.”

“You didn’t plan for me maybe liking you back? Dude, everybody knows already.”

Fabian draws further away at that, blinking wildly. (His hands stay on Riz’s hip and back because he’s got him now, he’s got him, Riz is in his home and his arms and his heart and wrapped in Fabian’s protection and he’s never leaving if Fabian has anything to say about it.) “Everyone?”

Riz scuffs the back of his neck and his ears are turning turquoise again. “Uh, yeah, man. Adaine told me if I complain about how much I like your eyes to her one more time she’s gonna get Fig to hex me. I um, I thought maybe you were doing the whole sheet thing to, like, let me down easy. Make me see you didn’t think of me as more than like, a kid or someone who needs your help or something.”

“Oh my gods. That is so dumb,” Fabian blurts, because what the fuck, The Ball, seriously. “That is so dumb The Ball. You’re so dumb.”

“Gee, thanks. I really feel like you love me right now, just so you know. Just overwhelming amounts of love pouring out right now.”

“Oh shut up.” Fabian says, laughing. “I wrap you in my sheet because I love you, The Ball. Like, more than I think I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s how Aelwyn knew we were over.”

“Huh?”

“She broke up with me and told me I never wrapped her in my sheet because I was always doing that to you.” Fabian explains, not even bothering to be embarrassed. “Because I've been in love with you for like, forever, man. She just realized it first because I always wanted to use the sheet on you and not my own girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Riz replies, sounding breathless. All things considered, Fabian’s going to take that as a good sign. He leans in now, presses his forehead to the crook of Riz’s neck, and breathes. Riz smells like newspaper and ink and old coffee and Fabian loves him so much. He tilts his head, nosing at the detective’s collar, and slides his lips over warm skin. He lets his teeth catch there, just a hint. “Oh.”

And then, before Fabian can even move, Riz’s hand is in his hair, tangled up in the strands, and he says, very fast, “By the way I’m demisexual, it’s on the asexuality spectrum and I was also being weird because I didn’t know how to deal with how attracted I am to you!”

“Okay,” Fabian says easily, drawing back. “Do you want to have a conversation about it? Because I don’t think I’m your guy for that, but we could go to the LGBT group meeting with Kristen next week and see if they have any resources. Jawbone could probably help too.”

Riz’s pupils are dilating slowly and his mouth hangs open before he snaps out of it. He looks less miserable now but still unsure and it’s not a good look on him. Fabian desperately wants to erase it. “That’s it? You’re not--you don’t think I’m weird?”

“Of course you’re weird, The Ball, but not for that. Besides, I think starting a relationship--we are starting a relationship, right--” Riz nods frantically, the beginnings of a grin forming, and Fabian pauses to lean in and press his mouth to the corner of Riz’s, “with the only problem being you don’t know what to do with all the insanely hot attraction you have for me is, like, the opposite of a hardship, dude.”

He stops then, considers, and then something terrible occurs to Fabian. He pulls even farther back and splays his fingers across Riz’s chest, feels his heart rabbiting there under his fingertips, and says quickly, “Not that I need you to have any kind of--any of that kind of attraction to me, Riz. I’d be okay, you know, with just this. Although you may have to tell me how hot I am from time to time. For, you know, moral support.”

Tension seems to drain out of Riz, has been since Fabian first started speaking, and this time it’s his turn to lean in and brush his lips across Fabian’s mouth. Fabian lets out a breath, takes in the scent of old newsprint and coffee and realizes he could die happy here. “You are, in fact, very hot, Fabian. And--thank you. For understanding. I might--I’m not super interested in sex, but. It’s a maybe. If you’d like it to be, for the future.”

“Of course I would, you’re incredibly attractive. But it’s not that big a deal,” Fabian says, and he picks them both up off the floor.

The sheet comes with them, sparks playing along the skin of his forearms but never burning him as he sets Riz down on the mattress because Riz is good and perfect and loves Fabian and deserves better than to sit on the floor. He doesn’t hesitate like he usually would now, and curls up around Riz, pulls the sheet over them both, encases them and pulls Riz close, closer, closest. “I love you. I’m probably not going to stop saying it now, just so you know. I’m going to be very annoying about it.”

Riz reaches up and brushes his claws lightly over Fabian’s brow and his smile is so soft something in Fabian melts. “It’s a good thing I love you then, or I’d never be able to put up with it.”

[swimmingnewsie]

The Bad Kids!Beach Day

Insomnia and intense anxiety strike again so here I am with more headcanons I can't piece together into a coherent fic.

It's a kids only day. Jawbone insisted they have one last day in the sun before junior year started. So every climbs into the Hangvan (or in Fabian and Riz's case the Hangman) and head to a beach outside of Bastion City

Kristen contemplates the necessity of sunblock on goblins, half-orcs, and tieflings before Adaine get thier asses in line and makes them all lather up

Tracker entices Kristen into sunblock with the promise of "you can get my chest"

They then run off and get their kisses in

Fabian is dramatic and asks if he can get his kisses in with Aelwyn even though they both know they are Not dating.

"Not on your life, loverboy."

*Cue Fabian dramatically falling into the sand* "I'm CRUSHED."

"Good."

Gorgug and Zelda take off to themselves pretty early to collect seashells and enjoy the sun. When they get tired, they put on some heavy metal and get to work on a beautiful sand castle

Fig, Fabian, Riz, and Ragh stay in the water till thier skin wrinkles out. They attempt to play Chicken but Ragh's tusks and Fig's horns keep getting caught in uncomfortable places. Aelwyn floats nearby absorbing the sun's warm days and relaxing

Until Fabian dunks her under the water leading to a full on splash war.

Kristen "I have a 4 in DEX" tries to get in on the fight but trips over her feet on the way. She and Tracker go to help Gorgug and Zelda on their sand castle

Adaine stays under an umbrella far from the water. She doesn't want to talk about it, but she is still very afraid of water and ships.

Ayda (claiming that the ocean would be bad for her wings- while on the contrary, Ayda has no issue with water) stays with Adaine at their base. Her best friend is scared of the ocean and Ayda isn't going to leave her to be scared alone. They read and rest and talk all day and Ayda doesn't even need her spell to know that Adaine appreciates it.

Riz loses his towel at some point in the day and goes full conspiracy mode trying to find it. He claims that crabs have stolen it and that the crabs are hoarding hundreds of towels, before passing out on the sheet from lack of sleep. No one is really sure where the towel went, but it does show up by the end of the day with some suspicious claw marks.

The days feels like it lasts forever and for once, there is peace.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 12

Fig And Ayda Sitting in a Spiky Infernal Nightmare Tree

Welcome back to Fantasy High, where Brennan and Emily are giving the gays everything they want but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, the Bad Kids have just arrived in Arborly which is this ancient, twisty, mysterious forest town with buildings kind of built into the trees in such a way that makes it hard to tell it’s a town at first glance. Anyway, they get to Hollyhill--the family home of Fig’s gnome business-friend--Grover Tillythatch--which is basically this very dope hollowed out tree. At the edge of the forest (maybe a 30 min walk away), there is a place where the trees grow and twist together into an 80 foot high wall, barbed with razor sharp briars and super ominous looking. Très Sleeping Beauty.  

They unlock the gate but then realize they have to do something with the Hangvan. Gorgug thinks there’s a way to, with his Artificer skills, give the Van the availability to shrink, but that’ll be a whole project for later. What we have to deal with now though is the fact that Gilear is caught up in the wheel well of the Van, apple stuck in his mouth like a roast pig. Through a series of insane and very Gilear events (not a teleportation mishap like I initially thought), he ended up stuck there and has been since they woke up. He fully missed Hilariel and this is the first anyone noticed he was missing.The kids help Gilear out and give him a little makeover, courtesy of Adaine’s jacket--very needed because he 100% pissed his pants while jammed up (and way too soon after getting stuck).

Kristen knows that the temple she read about is extremely close to where they are. Adaine does a quick Locate Creature and can tell the elf from her Scry isn’t within the 1000 foot range. Plus, the forest they’re in just looks different.  

Anyway, once they’re in Ragh starts grabbing food. Sandra-Lynn gives Gilear a massage because that dude needs some TLC. Tracker is sticking with Kristen and in a weird headspace over the Galakaya info. And, turns out Ayda didn’t just stay in Leviathan. She teleported with them to see them off so she’s around too. The gang does a little investigation of the house where Riz finds out Grover is abusing his company expense account and Adaine pings a crazy amount of infernal energy from the spooky briar wall. Adaine also senses a strong but old (300 year-ish) aura of druidic magic in Arborly--from the reclamation efforts that took Arborly back from being behind the wall that separates Sylvere from the outside. It’s really the only progress that’s been made and it seems like it took a lot out of whoever did it. One more thing: There is a real gnomish energy around town (similar to the vibe at Gorgug’s place), even though Arborly is supposed to be very wood elf heavy.

Throughout all I’ve been describing, there have been rumblings of maybe throwing a party and Fig invites Ayda who enthusiastically accepts. The adults go to bed in the Van for safety (Sandra-Lynn puts the Hangman in charge while they’re gone) and the teens do what teens do when they have no adult supervision: They wild out. But not in a Golden Gardens “Let’s get tattoos and do drugs” kinda way. In a real, teenager kind of way. In an “I’m making crab nachos because my parents never let me,” kind of way. But that “they” doesn’t include Fig because she is doing the other thing teens do when they have no adult supervision: Sneaking out. Specifically to look at the briar wall. She can hear these faint whispers coming from the wall and Emily manages to get jump scared in a D&D game by Ayda who is suddenly standing next to Fig, having followed her because the party got overwhelming. 

They have a talk which I can and will describe but that needs to be seen in full to really appreciate the intimacy and tenderness but also fumbling awkwardness that’s happening. So while the rest of the Bad Kids are drinking and doing crab-stands and pretending to be shrimp (go with it) Fig tells Ayda that she sometimes does stuff like pretend to be other people and indulge in loud nonsense to cover up negative thoughts, like the ones that come from your dad being shoved in a gem and then getting kidnapped. Ayda can’t understand the disguising as a coping mechanism: “If I were you I wouldn’t want to be anyone else because you are very exceptional.” She then offers to give Fig a better look at the wall and, when Fig accepts, she turns them both invisible and flies them to it. 

Fig, upon watching Ayda do that very dope thing says that there’s no reason for Ayda to think she’s special when she can do cool stuff like that. Ayda, as we already know, thinks Fig is super dope too, both in abilities and personality. Ayda analyzes the briar wall and finds out mostly stuff we already knew--it keeps people from getting in or out, including through magical means like Dimension Door and it’s keyed to powerful devils. When she reaches for the thorns, they grow out to stab her and she flinches back before they can. When Fig does the same, the thorns don’t grow out. And, when she does a less intense Burning Hands, a charred handprint is left behind and the heat and energy travels somewhere else. The aura the wall is giving out doesn’t seem to bother her as much as it probably would someone else. Ayda finds it very cool, as she’s found everything Fig has done. They dip back into heart to heart mode and Ayda reveals something that we already knew from Brennan on the Discord: Ayda is technically about 150 years old due to her Phoenix cycling and she’s been working on building the Compass Points Library across her lifetimes, aided by notes left to herself by her previous incarnations. Fig asks why she would do that instead of just reinventing herself and Ayda says she doesn’t have a lot of self confidence and doesn’t want to make mistakes. Fig throws up in anticipation of saying something sincere, says she thinks Ayda is perfect the way she is, and then--as she is wont to do--skateboards away (successfully and 80 feet down the briar wall with a 22 acrobatics check).

Ayda flies down, compliments her on the sick trick then asks her to sign a binding contract that says she has info that she will give Fig but Fig can’t make any assumptions based on it or judge her. (The cast at this point is losing their minds and has been for the past couple of minutes.) Fig signs it and then Ayda gives her the information which is as follows: “At any waking moment outside of combat that you and I have been together, if you had tried to kiss me on the mouth, it would have been received favorably.” Fig drafts a contract (as a lawyer I’m using that term extremely loosely) that says that if Ayda makes fun of her, Fig will give her a wet willy. Ayda says that it’s more of a threat than a contract and Fig abruptly kisses her and then skateboards away and hides. Ayda doesn’t really have a good frame of reference for how this is supposed to go and Fig is throwing out all sorts of mixed signals but Fig comes out from hiding and apologizes and says that she’s having trouble being vulnerable since she hasn’t really done this as herself before. Ayda asks if they can go again because she thinks she can do better. Ally and Lou howl and cheer and bless the Union. Murph is clapping. Siobhan and Zac are full gone. Fig says that she only wanted to have a party so Ayda would stay longer. Ayda says she only stayed to hang out with Fig. Ayda says this is the best moment of her current life. Fig says she’s going for best, period--past incarnations included. They make out some more until Ayda has to go. Ayda says she needs to go so she can research the Planeshift spell for Fig (for free!). She doesn’t even care about shrinking down the library. Before she leaves, Ayda pulls out one of her feathers and says that if Fig holds it up and says her name, she’ll hear it and be able to come and help. Fig does the same with one of her ear-cuffs but it’s more of a gesture than an actual magical effect (though the cuff is bloody and mark my words, this is exactly the kind of goof that becomes plot relevant later). Fig comes back to the insanity the house has dissolved to and goes to use the hot tub.     

No comment. 

They all eventually go outside to sleep on a mattress, by the Van to get the protection of the Hallow spell. It’s a little glossed over but we learn when Fabian gives Riz Bardic Inspiration to remember to sleep outside that he’s taken a level of bard! In the morning (by which I mean afternoon), they all wake up to see Sandra-Lynn and Gilear speaking to, like, 40 wood-elf rangers. They’re mainly talking to an intense lady who seems to have a pretty high rank and this older looking fox. Fig steps up to speak for the group since they’re there on her invite and the elven woman is instantly wary of her horns, plus the Hangman is right there. She clearly doesn’t trust the infernal. With Guidance from Kristen, she gets a 27 Persuasion which tells her this lady (whose name we learn is Mira) will never like her BUT that’s OK because she’s not in charge. The fox actually outranks her. 

Fig shakes hands with the fox whose name is Nuathra and who is very charmed. The Bad Kids follow suit with the politeness and Nuathra is won over. He fends off Mira’s suspicions and is so chill that Fig decides (after consulting with Adaine) to just tell him they’re going into the nightmare forest. That gets bows pulled on them and Adaine steps in and identifies herself as the elven Oracle and says that they have to do it for prophecy reasons. The elves start whispering and Nuathra, who believes she is who she says she is, asks if she knows about any other high elves who look like her slinking around. Adaine says that yeah, she does, but she’s not working with them. Kristen tries to cut in and it makes Mira super aggro--seems like she doesn’t like beings that are devil adjacent or humans either. She also makes a dismissive comment aimed at high elves in response to Adaine’s statement about morality being complex.

Nuathra tells her to cool her jets and says that things are kinda tense because for the past few months, a high elven woman (Adaine’s mom) showed up, took a room at the Owl and Harp (a gnomish tavern), and hired a local wood elf drunkard named Killian. She kept to herself mostly but did do some business at the local gnomish Tinkerer’s Hall (possibly for spell components). Two nights ago, another high (extremely gassy) elven woman showed up and then they vanished (figuratively) with Killian.

When Tinkerer’s Hall is mentioned, Gorgug cuts in to get more info on that. Nuathra says that there is a gnomish population in Arborly because the Druid who gave their life to reclaim Arborly (Crafty Rootdrinker) was a gnome so now gnomes kind of have protected status. Nuathra starts tearing up a little and we later find out (via Gorgug’s intuition) that Nuathra was their Awakened animal companion (Awakened means you give a plant or animal average human intelligence and the ability to speak a language). Nuathra asks why they want to go into the forest and Gorgug says it’s because the Nightmare King might be coming back. After being horrified to learn that the NK’s crown wasn’t in magical Fort Knox and instead was just in some dude’s desk, Nuathra says that all the town’s resources are at their disposal. He points out the three obvious places to check out: (1) the tavern, (2) the tinkerer’s hall, and (3) a shrine which is a possible entrance to the forest of the NK (the Shrine of Thorns which is just on the edge of the forest--mostly still in the forest--and dedicated to a mysterious goddess).

Adaine asks about the dude in her vision and realizes quickly it’s not Killian. Then, following a comment Fig makes about honesty being the right move and spurred by their out of character knowledge, start poking at Fig for an answer to what’s different about her today. Riz rolls a 28 Investigate and Fig burns 2 luck points and a guidance to beat it with like a 31. Wild. Then they split up like this:

Gorgug, Ragh, and Fabian (with the Hangman) go to the tinkerer’s hall.

Adaine and Riz go to the tavern.

Kristen, Tracker and Fig go to the shrine (ferried by Sandra-Lynn who wants to then scout around on Baxter).       

Gilear makes lunch.              

But before they leave, Adaine Scrys on her mom and sees her, Aelwen, and Killian with a gem embedded in his open and bloody chest (clearly a puppet after the ritual that almost claimed RIz) traveling through a forest so twisted it looks like it’s underground. Adaine clocks some curse scarring on her mom and on a 15 arcana check wonders if the curse her mom got broken by Garthy was actually the Crown’s curse or maybe something the Falinel put on it for security (which could mean that the Curse on the crown is actually the goddess’s sanctum mentioned last ep). Almost immediately, Aelwen dispels the Scry and it ends. Adaine on a 25 Insight realizes that Aelwen didn’t actually sense the Scry. It was like someone told her it was happening and then she reacted to that. Adaine thinks Kalina might be around.         

On a nat 20 Perception check, Kristen sees Kalina’s eyes in the shadows. Riz--and the rest of the group--can’t see her, but she steps out of the shadows. Kalina starts slinging death threats--at the group and Tracker specifically--and Kristen does her classic Kristen thing of staring down a life or death situation with an insane casualness. Kalina says the only reason the gang is still alive is because they haven’t gotten directly in the way of her and what she wants yet. What does she want? Kristen asks. For them to stay out of the f-ing forest. Kalina vanishes. Kristen immediately loses all bravado and makes her friends dog pile her for comfort which they happily do.               

Kristen gives an arguably Inspiring Speech to give everyone 16 temp HP. Riz on a 28 Investigation roll notices that the grass where Kalina was standing isn’t bent. (The background music goes *BWANG* like Brennan planned it). Riz thinks Kalina wasn’t physically there. In fact, she might not have ever been physically there. He remembers that, in the photo, Pok’s sleeve isn’t bent where Kalina is touching him and people who can’t see Kalina don’t see the wrinkled sleeve they way they would if she was just invisible. And she’s not holding a glass in the photo. She’s holding up her hand and pretending she’s holding one. She might not exist physically at all. He thinks that the thing Aelwen and Arianwyn are doing is to give her corporeal form. They also put together than even if Kalina is somehow in their heads, she can’t really by *in* their heads because she keeps asking questions she would know the answers to already if she could read their minds. Kristen wants to chain up Tracker in the Van to keep her safe from Kalina but Tracker puts the kibosh on that with a quickness (revealing things we kinda already knew about their sex life in the process).

Anyway, let’s split up!

Tinkerer’s Hall

The Owlbear group and the Hangman kinda freak out the gnomes who think they’re being mugged or something but Gorgug wins them over with his gnomish last name and cool Solesian gadgets. They find out Killian needed wax to make candles and some basic spell components.

Tavern

The two Bad Kids possibly least equipped to go to the bar go there and try to get access to Adaine’s mom’s room. They pay Arianwyn’s tab (she left abruptly without paying) and bribe the bartender with an amount of money that will for sure get them put on a watchlist, sweating bullets the entire time, but eventually make it up there to the top suite.

The room is blood spattered, full of candle wax and arcane symbols, and there’s an image Adaine knows her mom drew of a robed, skeletal figure, wearing a crown, etched into the wall. Yikes. 

Shrine

Sandra-Lynn drops off the girls. Tracker casts a light spell and then has to step out. It’s like a vampire at the doorway of a church thing. Kristen sees a religious symbol on the wall and an ancient depiction of a woman in a dark robe and cape, holding a book and a broomstick, next to a small dwelling, black cat on her shoulder. 

Fig sees a charred handprint on the briars in the shrine and recognizes it as her own. She casts Burning Hands on her handprint that’s here for some reason and the fire catches and spreads. Brennan has a lot of fun making fire sound effects. A fiery doorway opens and a woman in armor, with horns and skeletal wings (plus flayed skin under the armor from what they can see--except for her face which is intact and beautiful) walks out and asks for Fig. When Fig identifies herself, the woman says she’s Vraz the Mean from the Nine Hells and Fig has been served. As in legally. As in a subpoena. 

Wild. 

Detention

Fig for Using up Two Luck Points Pre-Excursion Into a Doom Forest to Conceal a Crush 

I adore both Fig generally and Fig in this episode specifically but, truly, what a waste of Luck points at the cusp what possibly could be such a dire moment. And she won’t get those back before a long rest. This storyline is going so slowly. I’ve written (as I’m writing this sentence) 48k words worth of Report Cards and it’s been like what? A week? Less than that? She might not get those back for a while.

Now do I wish she’d made a different decision? Absolutely not. Emily, as always, is ride or die for the roleplay and I both love and respect it. 

But I can high-key see this biting her in the ass.  

Honor Roll

Kristen for Holding her Own Against Kalina

I think this marks K-girl’s first appearance on the Honor Roll and in my opinion (mine being the only one that matters I guess since I have no oversight and am Czar of this arbitrary award) she really earned it. First that clutch perception nat 20 to spot her and then having to hold the entire conversation by herself with no backup because she was the only one who could see her. I think this was actually a really good time for her to use her wild downplaying attitude and she was able to keep Kalina occupied for long enough for Riz to gather some of the most interesting pieces of info about Kalina yet. Very clutch.    

Random Thoughts

For a closer look into character/location descriptions from this episode, you can check out @jamiebluewind‘s posts here and here.

“Has your girl ever not delivered?”/”Yes.”/”Multiple times.”/”I mean, it’s always entertaining when you don’t.”

Lou and Siobhan Re the Hangan: “Can it turn into a Gundam?”/”Is it a transformer?”

Shoutout to Brennan for heading off flying Van shenanigans at the pass. That would have been an Immediate Problem. 

“I have never touched my Dad’s butt, nor do I want to.”

Brennan breaking himself during his first Gilear line of the ep. I wonder if he goes into any Gilear sentence knowing where he’s going, or if it’s all freeform improvisational jazz.

I think it’s really interesting that Fig fully loves Gilear but also still calls him Gilear and not Dad. Not deep meta point or anything. I just think it’s an interesting quirk of the character.   

Fig fully intending to eat an obvious death mushroom and every other party member at the same time slapping it out of her hands. 

I think I’ve mentioned on several occasions that I’m not really a shipper. Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy romantic relationships in media. It’s just that it’s usually pretty clear which relationship the narrative is setting up so I really don’t get the point in basically campaigning for something that’s clearly going to happen (in which case, just enjoy the progression) or campaigning for something that’s clearly not going to happen and then being disappointed. But I gotta say, this Fig and Ayda has been a ride, I think largely because there was really no way to see this was coming when Ayda was introduced. Like, Tracker for instance was clearly introduced with Kristen in mind, down to being the Moon Cleric to her former Sun Cleric. Not only was Ayda not set up as a romanceable NPC, she very easily could have been skipped as even an option for befriending at all. She didn’t really make herself super available for it and it wasn’t even Fig who struck up a friendship with her initially. It was Adaine. And then Adaine got kidnapped which pushed the two resident Adaine stans together and, what do you know? Sparks (and not just from Ayda’s hair). The organic-ness of the relationship really added something that makes it really interesting and special. 

Also, lol that Fig finally found an age appropriate relationship but she’s also technically 150.

“I’m not gonna mend your piss pants.” 

For Adaine, the peak of luxury is access to fluffy robes which, mood.

OK, just to explicitly state my current pet theory that I alluded to last week, it seems pretty darn likely that Kalina is the familiar of the Mystery goddess. I said that cats are the most iconic witch’s familiar and, this ep, we saw the goddess depicted with a black cat. Plus, Brennan casually but very specifically noted that Kalina isn’t a big-cat. She’s like the tabaxi version of a house cat. And we learned that Kalina seems to be intangible which takes away one thing that was a little off for me--it seemed more like she was spreading a virus but the fact that she is intangible and just visible to people who are “infected” makes it seem more like she herself is the virus. AND, we were introduced to the concept of an Awakened, Sentient animal companion this episode which would be a great thing to do if you’re setting up the fact that this witch goddess turned her cat into a full sentient being and then a tabaxi and then a virus.  

Lol at Tracker giving Sandra-Lynn a Shovel Talk re: Jawbone. 

Riz, upon being questioned by Kristen where he got the photo of her for the “Casual” conspiracy wall he’s making: Look, you take pictures you hang them.

I want the Bad Kids to keep the motto of, “Spring Break!” year round. I want them to use it forever. I want them to be in their 30s--well out of school--and run into a deadly situation in the middle of Winter yelling, “I believe in you! Spring Break!” while very, very confused bystanders watch them. That’s really what friendship is about. Confusing the hell out of strangers with your in-jokes. 

Between last week of Fantasy High and this week of CritRole, I think a lot of people just learned what the Hallow spell is. 

“Just by being here we’re stealing. I’m like Robin Hood.”

Hangman: No rules!/Adaine: Some rules!

Guys I was SO concerned that Fig was gonna pull a Fabian and do something Concerning without any party support. So happy she decided to just get her kisses in instead. And then at the end of the ep when the two most chaotic party members were given a hell door that it 1000% seemed like they were gonna jump through but were ust handed legal paperwork instead.  

Figs comment about one of the best parts of friendship being getting to be a “chorus of nonsense” together without regard for what’s being said is so real.

I love the D&D gag of the party members who are not at an intense moment interjecting with whatever nonsense they’re doing. 

Everyone holding their collective breaths and then breaking as Emily succumbs to the urge to Touch a Thing. “You simply must.”

Ayda thinks “Choke on grapes, bitch,” is an excellent threat, and I agree.

Who cares for Ayda when she’s a newborn? Or is she reborn old enough to take care of herself? Also, update: Aguefort even worse dad than initially thought. 

Fig skateboarding away and dropping invisibility so Ayda can see and then later kissing her and Ayda going full visible are such cinematic moments. Well, the second one is at least. The first is just extremely funny. 

“I’m not gonna kiss the shrimp, Kristen. It’s dead, and we killed it.”

“I desperately and only want you to stay. And the only thing I want to do more than stay is do something for you” Why does Brennan keep dropping these raw ass lines casually in his high school D&D game?

“Can I get a help action from the jets of the hot tub?”

One little moment I loved from this ep was Mira being confused by the concept of a rock star and Adaine translating that she’s a bard/troubadour. I also just love the word troubadour. We shouldn’t have ever stopped using it. 

“That makes me nervous. Everything makes me nervous. Sure, why not.” Mood.

Mira also makes a comment about how diverse the group is that did *not* sound like a positive or even neutral statement and, listen, I’m getting Daybreak vibes my dudes.

Very funny every time we’re reminded that the reason the Bad Kids are doing this is because it’s a school project. 

Interesting character detail that Adaine started off talking about Aelwen and Arianwyn with distancing language but eventually slipped back into just calling them her mom and sister. 

A note in case it’s relevant later: Nuathra said that Crafty--his druid companion--was not a fan of cleric stuff, thought it was nonsense, and tried to avoid it at all costs. 

Fabian re Nuathra: What did the fox say?

Kristen asks Kalina’s name and she says, “You can call me Kalina,” which is subtly different than, “My name is Kalina,” which is probably just a turn of phrase and not plot relevant but I’ve been reading a lot of Fae stuff recently and a hyper-aware of weasel-out wording right now. 

“You good?”/”Now that I’m being pressed into the grass by all my friends? Yes.”

Adaine to Riz’s earlier encounter with Kalina: That was all you? You did all that damage to yourself?

I love Fig’s outrage at Adaine joking that she uses Detect Thoughts. The idea of, “We kill people and break into places and Catfish adult men but we DO NOT Detect Thoughts on each other that is the LINE.”

Kristen giving herself a sexy roleplay promotions from Officer up to Colonel was killing me. That whole thing was such a good bit and Ally and Brennan were on the same page immediately.  

Can’t wait to see the demonic (or is that devilish?) legal system so I can tell y’all how accurate it is and use something I learned in law school for once in my life. (Note: I am a lawyer, but you’d be surprised how unhelpful law school is to actually being a lawyer). 

Wonder what that subpoena was for. Maybe something involving Gorthalax or the wall? I’m trying to think of what they’d have jurisdiction over. She said the dude she works under is on the Sloth level of hell. 

Siobhan mentioned she has good Portent rolls right now which is comforting to hear. Lol, imagine if she had also decided to go full teenager this episode and use them to ferret out Fig’s crush.   

I need you to know that, in this same week (all within 48 hours of each other), between CritRole, Naddpod, The Good Place finale, I was really just drowning in content and emotions. 

The only crit of the ep is a nat 20 from Kristen. 

[ratthumbsup]

How do you think Bev would get along with each of the Bad Kids?

well, first it’s very funny to imagine pre-adventure green teen beverly with the bad kids because he would be dunked on mercilessly. he’s was a sweet little boy scout that shouted “touch hands!!!” every time he would lay hands. this is a kid who respected denny, a man who would be emotionally murdered by the bad kids immediately. prime teasing material. bev would not be cool enough, or willing to get into enough trouble, to be a bad kid. 

but, mid-adventure beverly is different. keep in mind that i’m still in the middle of tales from the crick so i’m sure he’s grown even more in the next ~40 episodes so i’m basing this on crick-era bev. even though bev is around the same age as the bad kids, 15/16, in some ways he feels younger than them, and high school doesn’t exist in bahumia, so bev isn’t around his peers unless it’s the green teens, who are significantly less experienced than him at this point, so he’s not super great at interacting with other teens.

fig: she would spot his social ineptitudes immediately and i think she would have a soft spot for him, like she does with other awkward people in her life (gilear, gorgug) but wouldn’t consider him worthy of helping/joining the party until learning he 1. has a tooth collection which she would think is sick as fuck and 2. is resistant to fire damage which is something they would have in common and 3. plays an instrument, so she would invite him to join the band. they both also have a lot of dads. beverly is willing to pull crazy shit which fig would love. i think they would get along really, really well and maybe egg each other on a little too much. 

gorgug: this one is definitely hardest for me to conceptualize but they’re both Very Good Boys! i think beverly would get exasperated by gorgug’s lack of common sense but gorgug is easy to get along with. beverly would not trust gorgug’s parents at all, bahumian gnomes are too tricky. otherwise i think they’d just be pals. 

adaine: she’s a bubble girl, so i think she and bev would find common ground in their squishy rich-kid backgrounds. bev’s parents are obviously nicer than adaine’s, but they both definitely come from similar class backgrounds. i think beverly’s willingness to pull very dangerous goofs and stunts would give her a lot of anxiety but i think he and adaine both have a desire for some quiet and order at home, too. in general they would get long. she would drag him straight to hell if he did a bad goof though. 

fabian: i think fabian would remind bev of hardwon. like they’re both fighters who are desperate for attention, love their friends, have pirate dads and hardwon is generally somehow the one who keeps things on the rails which fabian does too. now obviously hardwon has a lot more childhood trauma and is much more willing to be vocal about his care for his friends. but beverly would like fabain a lot! on the other hand because bev is Young and also a Weird Kid fabian would dunk on him all the time and not take him very seriously. fabian would not be seen with bev in public. so definitely not best friends. bev would have a fabian dream for sure, though. 

kristen: they’re both gay so there’s gonna be some mutual respect and camaraderie no matter what. but bev is still relatively unquestioningly devoted and faithful to pelor (compared to kristen and helio) and his few questions have nothing to do with his sexuality and i think that would shock kristen. but honestly she might become a pelor convert. like a party sun god who’s cool with gay people? count her in! and bev would love that. 

riz: they’re both major Weird Kids just in different ways. bev’s not a briefcase carrier and riz isn’t a boy scout but they have a similar energy. i think riz would like bev’s tooth collection, too. riz would probably also appreciate that beverly would be bottom of the totem pole in the group. and if bev just appeared in elmville from bahumia riz would LOVE to solve the mystery of how to get him home. but beverly is full of shenanigans and is very trusting and riz is as no-nonsense as a d&d character can be and is very distrustful, so they would definitely butt heads in those respects. 

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 16

Into the Woods

We rejoin our Bad Kids (minus Riz, who we’ll get to in a bit) who are still on the Goldenrod while chaos happens around them. Fig adds to the chaos by successfully (with a 30!) pretending to be one of Goldenhoard’s minions to no real plot significant effect. I just feel the need to mention every time Fig rolls a 30+. The kids get Gilear out of his hiding place--a sarcophagus--right before it’s launched out as ammo. His safety proves short-lived however because, when Ayda pings that Riz is no longer on the same plane as them, Fabian recklessly sails the Goldenrod directly into Riz’s last known location, instantly killing both himself and Gilear. So he’s for sure back to his old self. 

Kristen brings them back up and passes some heals out generally while she’s at it. Meanwhile, with a Nat 20, Adaine fully Oracles out and knows exactly where Riz was being held. There, they find a smear of blood (which they taste???? even though they know the disease is communicable by blood???) and Riz’s briefcase, but no body. Plus Tracker smells Celestial energy and Ayda senses conjuration magic. But all that subtle sleuthing is made pointless by Kristen getting a Nat 20 (of course) to just stumble into the next room and find a room full of footage of exactly what happened. Wild. 

Bill can’t get them to where Riz is. The best he can do is get them to the Astral Plane. Fig remembers to check on the stuff she stole from Vraz. Baby just got a to-do list but Fig conveniently grabbed a scroll which will create a portal back to Arborly. Then, they cast Zone of Truth on Goldenhoard who gives them this information before they get to the Astral Plane:

Arianwyn was never working with him.

He repeats what we already knew about the NK giving him a coin as part of them working together in the past. He adds that his money being spent would mean it would come back to him 5 fold and also increase the spread of the NK’s power. 

He thinks the NK is a creep and says he never talks and only appears in weird dreams. At Fig’s prompting, he says he does look a lot like the skeletal figure in Adaine’s Scry on the Shadowcat. He also says he never dealt directly with the Shadowcat and can’t see her in the photo. However, the Shadowcat did put him in touch with Aelwen. 

The NK had more followers in Elmville but Goldenhoard doesn’t know who else was because he refused to join the Shadowcat network, which was a requirement. (I wonder if they include whoever the couple in Sandra-Lnn’s past was)

He let the NK have Sylvere when he was taking over the world because he didn’t care about it. 

Meanwhile, our little Angel Riz is en route to heaven with his dad who is happy-shocked to see him. Pok calls in that he’s coming in with a “good aligned, possible CI,” and it’s immediately clear based on the reaction of the person on the other side of the call that Pok talks about Riz all the time in glowing terms. They arrive in heaven and Riz sees that he has a little chair set up at a copy of his grave so he can sit and listen when Riz and Sklonda come and talk to him. Ally is almost crying. Lou is almost crying. I’m almost crying. 

Heaven--or at least this version of heaven--is set up like an office but outside. I’m picturing the classic Window’s XP background. We learn that Pok is a part of a special force called the Lower Planar Recon Task Force. Basically, it’s full of traditionally evil aligned races (like goblins and gnolls) who are perfect for infiltrating places like Hell. We also see that Pok has a plaque for getting his death avenged by his son.

Anyway, we see where Riz gets his attitude from when Pok kicks puts his gameface on (“Clues first, friends later.”) and has an extended puzzle solving scene with Riz (sprinkled with some father/son stuff). Highlights:

Heaven actually didn’t know about the Kalina=Disease thing. Riz and the gang cracked that for them. Kalina doesn’t ping a Detect Good/Evil but Pok thinks she would ping a Detect Poison/Disease.

He started seeing Kalina about 22 years ago after a mission with the Third Ring (see below). No, he didn’t cheat on Sklonda. If it happened via sexual contact, it would have been pre-meeting her.  

Kalina can’t pick things up but she can create the sensation of weight and substance by hijacking your nervous system. So, to his knowledge at the time, Pok had touched her.

He was introduced to Kalina by someone he already knew and trusted from the Third Ring (Falinel government agency). 

Kalina doesn’t have godly intelligence or omniscience. The way she blew her cover was accidentally mentioning seeing something firsthand she would have had no way of seeing (a river being in a certain place). He didn’t call her out then but he clocked it and started looking into her extra-governmentally.

Kalina got Sklonda her job in Elmville--which directly put Pok in the path of Goldenhoard, who ate him. He also strongly suspects that he got Pok’s citizenship revoked--an action that allowed Goldenhoard to harm him.

Pok thinks that, despite the Bad Kids’ focus on the sex aspect of the Shadowcat plague, it’s a lot more general than that (see eg: the life transference spell moving it from Sandra-Lynn to Tracker). 

Father/Son Interlude #1: Riz mentions that all of his friends are super horny all the time and he’s not about that. Pok says that he was a super late bloomer so it’s fine if he’s not into that now or if he’s not into it period--though he selfishly does want grandkids. 

Father/Son Interlude #2: Pok also shares a story about his own relationship with his superficially distant but actually loving 1st gen immigrant dad the twin theses of which are “People show love in different ways,” and “Work is an act of love,” a sentiment that workaholic Riz appreciates. 

Most demons can see Kalina. 

Pok was in hell undercover to try and figure out how devils had been successful in keeping Kalina at bay. He showed up in the Bottomless Pit but he was trapped there for a while--presumably because Gorthalax was in a gem at that time (also Riz mentions for the first time that Sklonda is dating him which he takes OK). 

Pok has a new body so Kalina can’t tap into it. Kalina must have learned where Pok was because Sklonda infected Gorthalax once they started dating and she got the info from him. And since Kalina spurred him to come rescue Pok than she probably wanted him to blow his cover. 

Kalina avoided having her picture taken. Once it was taken, she wasn’t able to do certain things she was able to before.

Pok says that Riz probably won’t be able to visit him again without pretty powerful magic, but Riz isn’t too concerned because he has some pretty powerful friends. And, with that, Pok offers to hire Riz as a consultant for heaven which, you can imagine, he is very here for. He takes his son to get suited up. 

Back with the other Bad Kids, they look at the assorted things Bill has looted and find some Holy Water, which they pocket, and a birthday present for Fig, which she is pretty easily convinced to open early. It’s a sick new bass which doubles as a literal axe (OK, not an axe, it has serrated edges, I just like the idea of an axe-axe) and can shatter rubies. They then say bye to Bill and get back to Arborly (with the Hangman who is still knocked out, but not destroyed like before).

The group collectively decides to leave Gilear in Arborly for both his safety and the safety of Kristen’s high level spell slots. Adaine takes some of his blood so she can Scry on him if necessary. Sandra-Lynn and Gilear exercise their parental rights to make their daughter feel awkward about her love interest. Speaking of said love interest, we learn what Ayda was working on in secret: a spell for Adaine! It’s called Adaine’s Furious Fists and it essentially lets her magic punch people. Adaine can punch people now! I mean, she’s been doing it since S1 but now she can do it effectually! Love that for her!      

Back to Riz. He’s in with an angel called Isosceles (think quasi-eldritch horror Biblical angel, not Halloween costume angel) who is like the Q of the squad. Riz gets hooked up with some new gear:

Trick bullets (like how Green Arrow has trick arrows)

A grappling gun attachment for his gun

Arcadian Watch: Equipped w/ a saw, laser (1d4 radiant dmg) and lockpick 

Seraphim Vest: Basically a wingsuit (temp fly speed of 40 but only laterally and down, not up)

Gregorian Tie: Equipped with a spy camera 

Once he’s suited up, Pok calls up a door that will get Riz back to the moment in time it was called. But, since they’re in no rush now, he asks Riz to take a walk with him and fill him in on some of the boring, mundane, unimportant stuff he missed from RIz’s childhood. It’s very sweet.

Afterwards, Riz pops back up in Arborly and everyone is super happy to see him. Riz almost blurts out what he learned about his dad but wisely moves the conversation to the Van where he tells them everything except the personal family stuff. Based on the info from Riz, Adaine thinks that Kalina was probably introduced into eleven society a couple hundred years ago by Landrynn Lear (fake cleric spreading the Kalina virus they learned about a few eps ago) so it’s not super weird Aelwen and Arianwyn would have been working with her. It’s less weird than Pok working than them. 

Kristen latches onto the part about the picture being taken of her taking away some of her power and they all do checks to puzzle that out. Adaine (with Arcana) realizes that Kalina has to maintain herself in all these people all the time and, if a picture is taken of her--has to make it so that she can be seen by all of those people at all times which is a permanent spell effect which is-as we learned earlier this season--very hard to pull off. Her not being able to do certain things once the pic was taken was probably just her losing power from the strain of this extra magical effect (my takeaway: don’t let her destroy that photo--or, use it as a bargaining chip). Kristen (with Religion) thinks the 4 transubstantiations (familiar to plague and spellbook to curse and so on) are curses which overlap and create synergy (my takeaway: take them out one by one and watch them exponentially drop off in effectiveness). Gorgug (with a Tinkerer’s check) surmises that the way to take the most pics of Kalina and weaken her would be to take a video of her and broadcast it to as many people as possible.    

Gorgug also has another thought: He wants to know if them having and spending their cursed money is actively endangering him. At the prospect, he decides to give all of his money away to the Tinkerer’s Hall (without telling them it’s dragon money, which means the curse won’t get passed on). Kristen, Fig, and Riz follow suit, much to Fabian’s shock and horror. Adaine opts to keep her money since she has no caring family to fall back on. 

They also--I’m just gonna bluntly say this insane thing that Ally conceived of--have another shrimp party which they livestream in hopes that it will go viral, gain a following, and then when they have video of Kalina, they can get lots of people to watch it. And you know what the craziest part is? It’s not a bad plan. It’s c r a z y, but not illogical. To quote Mr. Lee Mulligan, “The charity shrimp party goes super viral.” Amazing. 

The next day, Adaine brings back Boggy (who poofed in the last fight) as an owl so he’ll be a little safer while in Sylvere. Don’t worry, he’s still spherical as ever. The Hangman (now healed) stays behind, as does the Van--but they do take it actual gem out and take it with them. Baby is there and does come with them. Ayda and GaF also come at Fig’s request.

Fig is able to open a passage into Sylvere and they can instantly feel the ambient badness. They decide to start looking for the three things they need to make the Kalina Vaccine: Starmoth chrysalis, Herrowgray nectar, and Lundgreen pollen. The jocks and Boggy go for the chrysalis, Sandra-Lynn, Fig, Adaine, and Ayda go for the nectar, while Kristen, Riz, and Tracker look for the pollen.

The boys don’t find anything but, suddenly, there’s an image of a super creepy witch’s cottage in the gem, and Zathriel (the Celestial inside) bugs out before the gem goes dark. And Ragh is suddenly gone.   

In her group, Sandra-Lynn flies off on Baxter in search of the nectar but the flapping noises that should be happening suddenly stop. Ayda offers to fly after her but then also becomes distressed, asking why they’re in a house (the others can’t see it) before also vanishing.  

Kristen, Riz, and Tracker are looking around stagnant water for the pollen and they see Kalina’s reflection in the water. Kristen starts to film her on her crystal. Kalina (who they can all see at the same time for once) says that in Sylvere, nightmares are real, something demonstrated when Tracker fully wolfs out without the presence of an actual full moon. Kristen tries to Dimension Door out but they're too far in. They try to subdue her but Trcker vanishes into moths (?). Kalina says that Tracker is chasing down what she thinks is Kristen to kill her (which would make sense as being her nightmare). She says that she said she’d kill them if they got into the forest and here they are. She does a little damage to Riz to underline the statement and Riz starts recording her secretly. Kalina is doing small bits of damage (like 1-4 I think) but it’s enough that it will kill them before they have the chance to make tinctures. 

The jocks find the chrysalis and then look for the others. Fig tries to use Ada’s feather to find her but, like the sapphire, it’s dead. Through Boggy, Adaine can see the jocks are flipping out and find the nectar and go find them.

Kristen casts Greater Restoration of Riz and tells him to find Tracker. The attacks stop on Riz and double on Kristen. She’ll be dead before she can employ any kind of healing mojo than can help significantly and the other healer is MIA. Everyone is running to find each other and then they suddenly hear, emanating from every corner of the forest creepy laughter and they all see a crowned skull. Concerning! 

Detention

Fabian for Crashing the Goldenrod

This was almost like the ribbon dancing sequence except Kristen had something to potentially gain from that and this was an absolutely insane course of action for no particular reason. 

Honor Roll

Kristen for Using Her One Greater Restoration on Riz

What a quintessential healer move. Having one heal and giving it away to your party member. Listen, she may have rejected Helio, but he picked her for a reason. Girl is a BAMF.  

 Random Thoughts

“You can't make these things up. You can. We did.”

Actual Crazy Person Bill Seacaseter: I had to kill Gilear as a matter of course but I love Gilear!

Bill tells Gilear to kill any man who looks askance at Hilariel. Fig (mirroring a comment to Bill from last season) questions what he should do if any woman looks at her. An enthusiastic, “Dealer’s choice!” is the answer.  

"If you die in hell do you die in real life?"

Is the message of this season just “Vaccinate your kids”?

Fabian offers to threaten someone who’s bullying Gilear. You know what that is? Growth.

Bill brought the Bad Kids to the Astral Plane but they wanted to get back to Arborly ASAP. I wonder if there was something Brennan expected them to do there and they didn’t.

Fig ripping the scroll was wild but, honestly, I might have thought that was how it worked too. It’s for sure a thing sometimes. But, in a similar vein, very concerned Fig is going to accidentally shatter Gorthalax’s gem prematurely with that bass. Feel like she’s not 100% clear on how that works.   

“I don’t have a crush one anyone. I just want to be rich.”

Riz took over from Adaine this episode in unpacking my high school experiences, lemme tell you.

Wondering where Baron fits into all this. It seems like the kind of effect that Sylvere would be able to produce but he wasn’t in Sylvere when that happened and I feel like that wouldn’t be Riz’s nightmare (unless it represented anxiety about his not dating or s/t like that). What was that about? Who exactly caused it and with what ability? Is that just a standard demon power?

Not important but last week when Brennan said a halo formed around Pok he distinctly motioned around his head and not over his head so I felt happy to have interpreted that correctly when he said this ep that the halo was one of those you see in old pics of like the Madonna and Child and not a modern-traditional angel halo.

The idea of a lower plane task force is extremely dope from a world building perspective. Like, that makes total sense. 

“Don’t even talk to me until my death’s avenged.” I knew that was going to be a real mug as soon as it was said. 

The stuff with Pok and Riz was so unbelievably sweet. Him having a chair set up to listen to his family talk at his grave? Him clearly being the proudest dad and talking about Riz all the time? Him wanting to just talk about unimportant stuff with Riz because it’s his important stuff. Ugh, my entire heart. And Riz immediately reverting to full, “My dad could beat up your dad,” mode. I love them so much.  

I feel like Siobhan took coming up with a spell for Ayda as an actual out of game homework assignment which she should because Brennan *will* let her do it and then Ayda will save the party with it. That’s how D&D works baby I don’t make the rules. Hit me up with your best ideas.

Adaine actually asked Gilear for some of his hair in order to Scry on him and he’s the one who offered blood instead because he couldn’t spare any more hair. Feel like there’s gotta be a spell for that

Siobhan just casually says the phrase, “Mycelium web,” once again just being Adaine.  

Couldn’t Kalina just say, “Screw it,” and stop showing up in pictures if the strain gets too much? Like, if your cover is blown, it’s blown. Or is it set up in such a way that it’s gonna screw her before she has the chance to turn it off?

It’s funny that Zac is playing such a low Int character because he’s actually figured out a lot of stuff this season and he’s the one who remembered that dragon madness won’t get passed on if the person who gets the money has no knowledge that it’s dragon money. I wonder if we’ll get to see him play a non-Himbo next season.

Adaine, predictably, has no social media presence. Speaking of social media, I love the naming convention of just sticking the word “fantasy” in front of things like Twitter and Google--as in, “You guys are all over Fantasy Twitter.” Like, why even complicate things? You know what this is. 

Goodbye card for Gilear: Outside--Gilear I need you/Inside--to get me a cortado.

I had a stray thought that Riz could possibly use the door to come back after having done angel training for like a month but (1) that’s a little meta-gamey and (2) they were making an exception for him to be there that short time as it was. Anything else probably would have been pushing it. 

Is Pok’s heaven affiliated with any deity or is it just where all the good workaholic secret agents go? To me, it seems like it liaises with all the other heavens more than being it’s own main heaven, you know?

Oh man. Ayda disappearing and Fig clutching her powerful feather, begging her to come back after indirectly putting her the situation she’s currently in? Heartbreaking dude. 

I wonder why the people who disappeared disappeared beyond just getting rid of the NPCs.

Edit: Forgot to mention the part where Kristen rolled a -1 with her trash Dex so Ayda had to give her a portent roll to not instantly blow everything. 

The Bad Kids are in a very precarious position right now. If I trusted Kalina to be someone of her word, I might try to bargain with her--destroy the picture in return for letting us leave. From a DM standpoint, I think it’s probably a good time for an Abernant Ex-Machina. They’re in the forest too as far as we know and they gotta come back into the story somehow. This could be the time. 

Everyone going off about how Riz is a little angel and he could have told them if he was a Celestial and how much he loves Gilear while he’s not in the scene and can’t say anything is peak D&D. 

Bill Seacaster saying a bunch of insane nonsense and then Adaine being like, “Nice seeing you Mr. Seacaster,” is also peak D&D. 

This episode, Adaine, Fig*, Kristen and Brennan (as Sandra-Lynn) each rolled a Nat 20. Adaine and FIg each rolled one Nat 1 that was canceled by disadvantage and Riz rolled one Nat 1 that stuck. 

*I actually am not 100% Fig rolled at Nat 20. Kristen did for sure but I don’t have a Tally for her so I might have flipped those by accident.  If you happen to know for some weird reason, lemme know. 

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 9

Bad Kids Family Reunion

Can you believe we’re on our last episode for the year? I feel like we just started! We may not have another episode until January, but we left off on a doozy this week so let’s get going. This ep is basically split into two parts: The bulk of the Bad Kids in the Land of the Lomenelda and Adaine in Catheldriel Tower. In the ep, we go back and forth a little, but I’ll just summarize each part separately to keep things simple. 

Lomenelda Family Reunion

As you probably remember, last week the group decided to teleport to the Land of the Lomenelda because Catheldriel Tower was too secure to get into directly and because The LotL is both close by to the Tower but also the ancestral home of Fabian’s mother’s side of the family. 

Once they arrive, they see it’s basically the most stereotypical elven forest ever. Pristine woods, beautiful animals, haunting music. Fig puts a clove cigarette on the ground as an offering to a deer that she thinks might be her creature (which she still hasn’t paid for as far as I know) which brings out an elf named Telemien to tell her to stop littering. Telemien is very Elrond-esque and he has all the classic elven traits--long-winded, breathy speech, weirdly inflected words, turning into sand to be dramatic. He also happens to be Fabian’s grand-dad. 

Gilear rolls very well on his diplomacy check and, combined with the fact that they’ve brought family, the group in welcomed into the forest with open arms. Fabian fills his grand-dad in on why they’re in his neck of the woods and Telemien informs him that the Abernant family has been disgraced, Adaine’s mom was found guilty of treason (though he doesn’t know the exact crime) and fled, and their land has been seized by the Court of Stars. While the Lomenelda are generally apolitical, Telemien doesn’t have a problem saying that he has a low opinion of the Abernant family and Anguin especially is an amoral, power-grabbing, sonuvabitch.  

Riz, who is shouldering the entire responsibility of keeping the Bad Kids on task since Adaine is currently locked up, rolls to see if anything weird is going on in the forest and we learn that the Lomenelda basically just drug their teenagers with magic grapes and sad music to keep them chill and not horned up (something he finds iffy until a day of herding his friends towards a very time sensitive rescue mission at which point he’s like maybe this guy is on to something). Still, Riz warns the group against eating anything, which is always a good rule of thumb when you’re dealing with fae-adjacent nonsense (and Kristen does ping faint fey/celestial energy when she casts a Detect Evil and Good).

Fig and Riz are willing to leave for their rescue mission pretty much right away but the group decides to get a full night’s sleep first so they can regain spell slots and stuff. Ragh goes to flirt with some elf teenagers and Tracker reminds Kristen that they need to have a chat vis a vis Garthy and Sandra-Lynn. So, four episodes after the fact, Kristen finally tells Tracker that Sandra-Lynn hooked up with Garthy but she does it in such a blase and offhanded way that I assume was an attempt to sell it as not a big deal to Tracker to prevent a trip to the doghouse. It’s not the strategy I would have suggested and clearly the dice agree with me because she hits double Nat 1s on her persuasion roll. Tracker gives her another shot to give the real reason why she kept the info from her (besides “I didn’t wanna tell a lot of people,” which is such weaksauce). Kristen says that “so much was happening” and just Tracker stalks off. 

Fig, having seen Tracker leave in a huff, asks what just went down and Kristen tells her. Fig takes Kristen’s side and is appreciative that Kristen was willing to let her mom’s business be her own business. Kristen decides to give Sandra-Lynn a heads up that Tracker knows what she did. Sandra-Lynn is distraught enough about the situation that she makes the mistake of briefly giving Kristen whisky before wising up and sending her to the Van, sans alcohol.  

Fig talks to Gilear who, if you remember, also noticed that something was up with Sandra-Lynn and Garthy. Fig doesn’t give details but basically confirms it and says that at least he can take solace in the fact that him getting cheated on was probably more on her than because of anything he did. Gilear responds by telling Fig a little about Sandra-Lynn’s short-lived adventuring career: Apparently, Sandra-Lynn was a rising star in the adventuring world back when she went to Aguefort but her career was thrown off the rails when she joined a party as a replacement and ended up romantically involved with one member of a couple. The couple was very powerful and the one she was with didn’t treat her very well. Eventually, she was kicked out of the party and her name was smeared by the couple. After that, she couldn’t really find another party to join which is why she works for the Ranger Corp now. Gilear knows who the couple in question is but declines to tell Fig.

And the Kristen/Tracker trainwreck continues. Kristen gathers flowers for Tracker and finds her sulking in wolf form. Kristen did a decent job on the flower picking but whiffs her persuasion roll with another Nat 1! Tracker says that Kristen is always going off about being introspective and doing the right thing, but sitting on this, paralyzed with inaction was just as much of a wrong choice as taking an action and, also, it just plain sucked. Kristen kind of tries to “yes, dear” her way through the lecture but then gives Tracker the flowers in such a way that implies that eventually Tracker will get over it which Tracker does not care for at all. She stalks off for a second time.

Fig decides to tell Telemien that Gilear is dating Hilariel (his daughter) and they leave to take a walk and talk about poetry. Gorgug (who is very exhausted by all of the elven nonsense going on) goes to the Van and asks Ayda if she can cast Sending for him to Zelda. After accosting him (you can take the girl out of the pirate city and so on I guess) she says she’ll do it for 150 gold. The message essentially says, “Hey. We’re safe. Sorry about screwing up. I’m working on it. Miss you.” He rolls Persuasion with disadvantage and a 12 gets him left on read all night. 

Tracker has cast the Moon Haven spell and everyone (except Gilear) piles into the Van. Kristen, who’s sleeping alone tonight for obvious reasons, walks into Ragh’s room and sees that he has brought a high elf teenager. She quickly leaves to give him privacy and then decides to take Adaine’s room for the night. While she’s awake, she notices that Gorgug is still awake too. He says he messaged Zelda and he hasn’t gotten a reply yet. Maybe it’s a time zone thing? Kristen is pretty sure it isn’t a time zone thing. Gorgug also notices that Kristen came out of Adaine’s room and not Tracker’s. They hug it out over both being in the doghouse with their respective partners.

Fabian, who had previously failed his Con save with an 8, gets to re-roll because of the super fine, elven forged, 800 thread count sheets he brought into the Moon Haven (that Riz refused because it seemed inappropriate while Adaine was in jail) and he got a modded 20, finally getting over his levels of Exhaustion. Our boy isn’t back to his old self but he’s getting there.

In the morning, Riz is very anxious to leave and very over all the elven and Bad Kid shenanigans. Ragh is also very ready to leave, but that’s mainly because he wants to escape his (first ever) hook-up who is a liiiitle too into him being a half-orc if you know what I mean. Kristen decides to give one of her classic, patented, inspiring speeches which is just a glorious trainwreck that’s half public apology, half total ramble, 100% uncomfortable for everyone involved. Then, she offhandedly asks Telemien if he can see Kalina in the photo. He can’t but, guess what? She can. She freaks and asks Tracker to hug her cause she’s freaking out. Tracker obliges until Kristen pushes her luck and asks if she’s slept off being mad at her, at which point she up and leaves for the THIRD TIME. Even Fig is like, “Yikes, girl.”

Ayda isn’t sure if this is a good time (it’s not) but she got a reply back from Zelda. Zelda said that she couldn’t answer because she was at a party and says trying to build a cell tower is crazy. “It’s all whatever Gorgug. I don’t blame you.” The gang walks Ayda through the nuance of the text and why the prognosis is looking negative on the Zelda front. She offers to hurt Zelda for Gorgug. Gorgug appreciates the sentiment but declines. Ayda also says she can research Planeshift for Fig once they’ve rescued Adaine. 

But back to the matter at hand. Telemien explains the defenses of Calethriel Tower: It’s defended by a lot of arcane spellcraft that will protect against most magic attacks but is vulnerable to physical attacks which the elves would see as too base to defend against. All of the defenses are powered by Elemental Pylons (which are basically like power transformers). Also, Gilear tries (and fails) to ask for Hilariel’s hand in marriage by inducing vomiting in himself which makes slightly more sense in context but only slightly. 

When they get to the edge of the valley where the tower is, Kristen sees that the Pylons are pretty far away from each other (like, miles away). There’s no way to hit both towers and then get to Adaine before someone realizing something’s up. The group mentions that they’re also supposed to be breaking out Aelwyn but Fabian is a lot less gung-ho about that part of the plan than he previously was, pre-existential crisis. They talk it out for a while and end up coming up with the following plan: The hirelings will go to one Pylon to destroy it. Gorgug, Fabian, and Riz will destroy the second Pylon at the same time. Once the Pylons are down and the magical defenses are weak enough that they can use magic without it being countered, Fig (disguise expert), Kristen (in case Adaine or Aelwyn need heals, which they will), and Ayda (who has teleportation and invisibility spells) will go in and get the sisters. Then, everyone will meet at the Van and teleport out (or at the very least, get together to plan a different way out). 

Abernant Family Reunion

Meanwhile, in Calethriel Towel, Adaine is having a Day. She’s been put in a Torture Orb which isn’t that bad for the time being but it is very annoying and Boggy is pretty upset. She’s actually not being prevented from casting spells because the elves wouldn’t expect her to have slots yet and she can’t really regain them without trancing. She can sense that the prison is full of permanent magical effects (powered by the Pylons she doesn’t know about) which is unusual since those are really hard to achieve. 

The elves’ hubris in not completely stopping her from casting spells works out to Adaine’s favor. She casts Dispel Magic and needs to hit a 15. She gets a 19 and her orb disappears. Unfortunately, that sets off an alarm. She needs to hide but she’s not exactly Riz. She decides (to my immediate delight) to hide in Aelwyn’s room. She only rolls a 6 but that only means that Aelwyn clocks her when she rushes in, not the guards. Speaking of the guards, on a 15 perception check, Adaine can see that there actually aren’t a ton of security mages. It just seems that way because they can immediately teleport to wherever the problem is from these doorless archways. 

Anyway, Kier rushes in with some green, 8ft tall, magical construct guards. As she does so, Aelwyn motions for Adaine to stay silent. Kier asks Aelwyn if she knows where Adaine is and Aelwyn basically says, “How should I know?” (which is a question and not an outright lie, smart in case any kind of lie detector spell was running). Once Kier is gone, Aelwyn telepathically messages Adaine (which is a cantrip she’d be able to do even without spell slots) and asks if Adaine has any spell slots left they can use to escape. Adaine says she has 4 first level spell slots and her frog, but her spellbook was taken (as was her jacket). Aelwyn says it was probably taken to the vault on the first floor but it would have been locked down because of the alarm was triggered. Then she and asks if their mom found her and Adaine said she did, briefly.

Up close, Adaine can see more clearly what she glimpsed for a second when she was brought in. Aelwyn is doing BAD. She’s shaking just from the effort of keeping upright and having trouble putting together thoughts. Completely unprompted, Adaine tells Aelwyn that nobody deserves the torture she’s going through and that it’s barbaric and undeserved. Aelwyn immediately starts tearing up (as much as she can being so dehydrated) and says that she can’t remember exactly what it is that she did--both to the world in general and to Adaine specifically--but it was also barbaric and undeserved. She apologizes and is self aware enough to realize how messed up she must have have been that it took months of literal torture to get her to a place where she realized that she had things to apologize for--even though she can’t really remember what they are at this point in her mental deterioration. Adaine, in turn, is aware enough to realize at this point that their parents didn’t just screw her up; they screwed up Aelwyn too by treating her like the golden child. Aelwyn reflexively defends their parents, saying that they tried their best and that they were just trying to make them better by having high expectations but Adaine, who’s had a year of therapy to unpack her trauma, gently rebuffs her. “Expectations without love? What’s that?”

At this point in the conversation, Aelwyn starts repeating herself like an NPC that’s run through all their scripted dialogue options. Adaine realizes but is very patient with her until she’s found and brought back to her cell. However, her cell is close enough to Aelwyn’s that they can message each other. She also uses Ray of Frost in her Orb to make a kind of Slip and Slide to keep her spirits up and she’s able to avoid taking a level of exhaustion in there.  

Later, Kier comes in with Adaine’s dad so they can talk. And by that I mainly mean so he can talk at her because she still wants nothing to do with him. Anguin tells Adaine to stop being stubborn and just do what’s asked of her to avoid execution. She also doesn’t know how he is OK with how they’re torturing to Aelwyn. He says she’s being a drama queen since Aelwyn committed treason and she’s not being literally physically beaten or injured. Adaine starts trying to respond to that and then decides to just demand a lawyer. Anguin thinks she’s being ridiculous because things like lawyers and democracy are Solesian concepts and ridiculous, unlike Falinel’s totally normal system government which involves immortal dancers and moon phases.  

Adaine, in probably the most high-elf-y display we’ve seen from her, formally curses her dad in the name of the seas and the moon and sun. Then she casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on her dad (wasting one of her very few spell slots in a very in character way) because she truly cannot help herself. After Kier quickly dispels it, she demands to see the Solesian Ambassador. But you’re a citizen of Falinel, says Kier (though she can’t hide that the threat gets to her a little). Yeah, but I go to Aguefort, says Adaine. As soon as his name is invoked, a hologram of Aguefort pops up like Clippy and says, “Hey, it seems like you’re F’ing with one of my students. Now, I’m the baddest bitch that’s ever lived. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” Kier smirks and chooses the hard way. The hologram blinks out, an alarm starts going off--

And that’s where we end for the year! 

*Note: Anguin and Adaine also were contenders for Detention and the Honor Roll respectively but it would have been for basically the same things as last week so I chose other people. 

Detention

Kristen for The Worst Apology Ever

I’ve been concerned about this whole Sandra-Lynn/Garthy thing blowing up since it happened, man. I read the writing on the wall. And I knew, if she didn’t get ahead of it, this was gonna splash back on Kristen. And then she decides, not only is she not going to get ahead of it, she’s gonna actively jog further behind it? Truly wild. 

And it’s even crazier because, yeah, it would be an awkward conversation to have but it wouldn’t have reflected badly on Kristen (who didn’t do anything), just on Sandra-Lynn. And, yeah, not great for group dynamics but, you know what’s way worse? Tracker being mad at Kristen AND Sandra-Lynn. Tracker’s not even so mad on her Uncle’s behalf as she is about how Kristen decided to handle the situation which, yeah! Duh! How did you think cutting your girlfriend out of the loop would go?

And, listen, a lot actually was going on. The Fabian ordeal then Ragh got possessed, Riz got ambushed by Kalina, they fought Wicklaw again and Adaine got kidnapped. All of these things happened very close together than they’re all #1 Priority type things. She for sure had time to tell Tracker (and should have) but it wasn’t the most pressing thing going on. There is an apology that includes the words “there was a lot going on” that actually works but DAMN, this was NOT it chief.

Honor Roll

Aguefort for Having his Students’ Back 

Listen. Aguefort is a crazy, mercurial, semi-feral agent of chaos who I would never leave children in the care of.

HOWEVER, when he comes through he REALLY comes through and man did he come through for Adaine.

Of course, it remains to be seen what his help will actually look like but he gets this spot for bringing a spot of hope into a pretty terrible situation in a very cool way. Well, that and the Drama of It All. 

Also, I’m just relieved he’s at least somewhat keeping track of the child assassins he’s sending out into the world.  

Random Thoughts

Adaine Re: Boggy: He’s with me how dare you?

Brennan says near the end of the ep something like, “I didn’t think we were gonna spend a whole episode dunking on eleves,” but, honestly? Valid. I really can’t stand elves in most media (even though I usually play elves or half-elves) because they’re so pompous and holier than thou and constantly talking about how fleeting everyone else's lives are. It drives me nuts. Moonshine in Naddpod is my favorite elven archetype in anything because she totally inverts the trope. 

“I can’t believe I’m half this.”/”You are not half this these are high elves.”

I love how Fig has absolutely no concept of how this “make me a creature” thing is supposed to work. Does she think Aguefort is just gonna release it into the world without telling her and she has to just, like, find it? Not that that doesn’t sound like something he might do, but still.

Gorgug gets so sick of the insane elven pronunciations and talk about how he’s gonna die at 20 and general nonsense that he has to go lie down in the Van which is The Mood.

Fabian receiving a long, elven greeting from his grandad and then giving the most kid-like response--“Yeah so I’m in high school and I have a school project I need help on and it’s like 60% of my grade”--was very funny.

A couple lore points from this episode:

Fabian’s grand-dad crafted a sword for the king of Falinel 3000 years ago which is why he was gifted the land they live on.

Calethriel Tower was originally a monument by a grieving widow to her husband died in war with Highcourt 500 years ago.

For more detailed physical descriptions and info on the lore, you can check out jamiebluewind’s post on that here.

And then you can also find new character descriptions here and transcripts of the two big RP scenes in Calethriel tower here and here. 

And I just wanna give another big shoutout to @jamiebluewind who saved me a lot of backtracking with these descriptions/transcripts. I really appreciate the effort it takes to do that and it’s a super useful resource to have.  

“Sheetsmith” High elves are truly insufferable. I’m with Gorgug on this.

I love Fig’s continuing efforts to be Gilear’s cheerleader. Their relationship is so great and it’s come a long way. I also love his brief moments of insight and competence (like, lol, remember in ep1 when Fig disguised herself as her mom and he drove her to school anyway? I loved that) so I was really cheering for him when he successfully did his diplomat stuff at the top of the ep and during his talk with Fig.

Fabian saying he wants his V-Card “removed” like it’s an infected appendix or something. I’m curious to see what, if anything, he says to Aelwyn when they see each other again, seeing as they’ve both hit rock bottom since the last time they met--which, to remind you, was at an insane house party where they were both at like a 14 out of 10.

I think it’s really great that, despite how much the Bad Kids clown on each other, they’re all super patient with explaining social nuances to Ayda. And I love that even though Ayda is pretty unclear about what the appropriate response is to anything, she is pretty ride or die but quick to rein it in once someone talks to her.

“It’s probably fine if Gilear has a grape.”

It’s very important for me to note that the funniest thing that happened this episode was a player action, not a character action and it was Siobhan--after about an hour of sitting in relative silence as the rest of the group did their thing--pulling out a present for Brennan--a set of Sugar and Dice Candy Dice. “So you can eat your fucking dice!” Amazing.

Brennan, as Telemien, recited some poetry and either Brennan just had that memorized or he was freestyling poetry with a consistent meter and rhyme scheme which is just too much for me to handle rn.

Kristen’s “inspiring” speech included the line, “Friendship is thicker than water and we need water to live.” Classic Kristen.

I truly cannot wait for Hilariel to re-enter the story. I want her takes on so many things and I want to know what her relationship with Gilear is like so so so bad. I wonder if he’s gonna tell her what happened with her dad. I didn’t really get the sense that she and Telemien stay in touch very much. But, in fairness, I don’t think she’s kept up with anything/one much in the past 20ish years. Imagine a wedding arc. Now that I’ve thought of it, I want it more than I can imagine. You know Fig would appoint herself Best Man.

The friend group thing where someone says your name wrong once and you pray it doesn’t become A Thing, even though someone’s already in the process of changing the group text title to that. Anyway, you know everyone’s gonna be spelling Fabian’s name Fah-Bee-Ahn in their group text for the foreseeable future.

Fig Re: Gorgug using the Pirate Sending Spell to Zelda: You can end with raunchy promises.

What party was Zelda going to in the Red Waste mid-quest? Was there even really a party? Or was it maybe a Gold Gardens type thing? Based on my experiences being a teenage girl, I would not be surprised if that text was written by committee. 

“She’ll come back?���/“Sure.” 

Kristen taking Adaine’s vacant room was such an evocative image. I can see it perfectly. Just her curled up alone in this immaculate room with little Adaine-y touches, sad about two things.

The Bad Kids in the forest had maybe the biggest Teenager energy that I’ve seen in any episode of FH so far. Like, that Tracker/Kristen argument alone.

“If you wanted me to build a cell tower I would do it immediately and I would know how.”

I don’t know if there really haven’t been many Kristen and Gorgug scenes or if I’m just forgetting but I loved their one on one in this ep. They’re good scene partners. 

I also really liked Gorgug’s talk with Ayda who has been a great addition to the squad. And I love how easily she jumped from, “You’re a good person from what I’ve seen” to that John Mulaney sketch where he’s like, “That guy sounds like he sucks. Do you want me to murder him for you?”

Brennan gave everyone some XP this ep so they’re very close to level 9. Lol at everyone suggesting they Fight Club each other to grind the last bit they need.

“My friend is kidnapped and the rest of my friends are just dancing and eating grapes!”

Telemien’s abject revulsion to the point of throwing up at the operation of a gun (which is why Gilear induced vomiting before asking for Hilariel’s hand btw) was a Choice on Brennan’s part.

“The body protects itself and secretes more hit points.”

Telemien offers to get the best eleven eyesmiths (sure) to make Fabian a new eye and it shouldn't even take long. Unfortunately, in elf-time, that could mean anything from 1 - 100 years.

WHY CAN KRISTEN SUDDENLY SEE THE SHADOWCAT? WHAT IS GOING ON? I’m like thisclose to thinking that it actually is transmitted through bodily fluids like some people were saying. But, seriously, what’s changed since last time the picture was taken out? This was post argument with Tracker. Is that a factor? Or does it just feel like it might be because it was the last major thing to happen before she was able to see it? I want to sit down during the break and make, like, a conspiracy theory board to put together all the data we have on this so far because I feel like every single new piece of info we get is something unexpected but I falso eel like we’re gonna hit ourselves when we realize what it is. 

Fig is very ride or die for Adaine this whole episode. She basically had no spell slots but was ready to go after Adaine right away, she offered to go in to get her alone as a “one woman Adaine retrieval team” while everyone else dealt with the Pylons, and when Ayda said Adaine was her best friend, she was like, “Well Adaine is kinda my best friend.”

“By the transitive property, are we best friends?” [Yes] “I grow richer by the day.” I love her so much. 

Even though Telemien is like more than a thousand years old, he’s apparently never met a goblin because he calls Riz a “strange, green, mouse thing.”

Riz: Who among us hasn't killed someone?

That "on mushrooms" bit had big "cell tower" energy.

Gorgug: Your grandfather is pissing me off.

Siobhan, to Lou who just Rolled an 8 on His Con Save: We're gonna get you new hands for Christmas. 

“It’s Gilear’s day baybee!”

I loved Riz and Fig teaming up to give Gilear as much help as possible for his botched attempt at asking for Hilariel’s hand. “Did he just call himself a throw-up boy?”

If you think about it, it actually is extremely funny that Adaine would demand a lawyer. She’s lived in Falinel almost her entire life but she studied abroad for one year and all of a sudden she’s like, “I have rights!”

Gilear very specifically said that Sandra-Lynn was with, "a member if the couple" and not which one it was. That was such an intentionally vague phrasing that I'm surprised Fig didn't call him on it. Also, I'm curious whether Fig actively knows who it is (maybe a teacher at school) or if he just knows she would go track them down for shenanigans once she had a name.

Also, speaking of Fig, wild that her Catfishing of Dr. Asha is one of the only relationships standing at this point. 

OK, I ate my vegetables now I get to talk about Abernant Family Drama.

Those of you who have been following me since I became active in the d20 fandom probably know that one of the first things I wrote were a series of meta-bordering-on-drabbles about what a future relationship between Adaine and Aelwyn could look like because, from episode one, my thought was, “There’s not one messed up sister in this house, there’s two.” I have been on the Abernant Sisters Against Their Parents train since S1 y’all and I thought it had a decent chance of happening but then Aelwyn’s iconic S1 episode happened and we learned she was working with Kalvaxus and she got thrown in jail so there wasn’t much time for development from her.

But then, it became clear that the Abernant family was gonna be all up in this arc and I got excited again. I mean, I tempered my expectations. The confrontation could have shaken out in a couple of different ways. And I would have enjoyed watching Adaine verbally destroy two family members instead of just the one, don’t get me wrong. But y’alllllllllll.

I thought Adaine and Aelwyn would put aside their differences and end up on the same side eventually but I wasn’t expecting Adaine, with absolutely no prompting, to take the path of compassion so quickly and absolutely. And, in turn, I didn’t expect Aelwyn to be as apologetic and forthright as she was. And, man, her whole situation is heartbreaking. The idea that you were so messed up that it took a year of torture to be able to recognize that you were living such a fundamentally flawed life? And then reaching that point but at the cost of your stability and the information needed to make things right? Literally not knowing what’s real and what your fevered brain has made up? That’s so tragic, man.

And Adaine was so gentle with her. The patience as she started repeating things and the kindness as she firmly cast away any remaining delusions Aelwyn had about their parents and upbringing. I am so constantly upset by how well the cast in general but Bren and Siobhan specifically just spit out these fully formed masterpieces that I would need to take a full hour to think through before even opening a Word Doc. It’s really magical.

I have no idea how much mental damage a healing spell can fix, if any, but I’m very interested to see what an even slightly more stable Aelwyn looks like, post all of this. Like, say she gets completely stable due to a combo of therapy and healing magic over time. What is her personality even like at that point? Does she revert back to a version of her old personality but with the acid aimed at someone who deserves it? Does she start from scratch from this baby deer learning to walk place she’s at right now? 

Very good DM move from Brennan to have Adaine’s low stealth roll to be Aelwyn noticing her and not the guards so we still got the Aelwyn confrontation and not a quick and frustrating capture. 

Aelwyn asked Adaine if, “mother found you,” which makes it sound like she checked in with Aelwyn before she fled. I continue to be very interested in the clues we’re getting to what that woman is up to. Maybe Aelwyn knows more info that the gang could get once she’s a little better or via a detect thoughts or something similar.

I want Anguin to look me in the eye and tell me to my face that not letting someone rest for a full year and not letting them eat or drink and literally keeping them on the brink of death isn’t torture so I can jump through the computer screen into Falinel and strangle him with my bare hands. Like, boy, you’re not even going to go with, “This is justified torture?” You’re gonna say it just straight isn’t? Man I can’t wait for the Bad Kids and/or Aguefort Himself to get sicced on this bastard.

OK, I don’t wanna end on a point about Anguin so, instead, think about Adaine and Aelwyn keeping each other company from nearby cells via the Message cantrip. Isn’t that bittersweet? Closer than they’ve ever been but physically separated and it took literal torture for them to get there.

Oh! And, actually, I almost forgot but this is also a good note to end on. Shoutout to Adaine for switching from Elven to Common when talking to her dad, just to be that little bit more of an annoyance to him. You gotta rebel how you can. 

That's it for 2019, guys! We don't have another ep until January 8. Have a good New Years in the meantime and I'll see you then!

No Nat 20’s were rolled this ep. Gorgug rolled 1 Nat 1 and Kristen rolled 2 (or three if you count the one she rolled with disadvantage).

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 5

The One With Garthy O’ Brien

Welcome back you guys and a special shoutout to all of y’all who are fans of FH and CritRole. I don’t know about you but Matt and Brennan basically shaved a full year off of my life between Wednesday and Thursday with their DM machinations. Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that, but we can at least tackle the FH stuff so let’s jump right in.

Last we left off, the gang had just arrived at the floating pirate city of Leviathan. Pirates immediately start hauling them in and everyone turns to Fabian for a cue on how to react (at the exact same time, hilariously). Fabian tells them all to be mean and he makes a pirate cry immediately. Wild.  

They meet Jemina Joy who is a very cool Warforged (living automaton) pirate and also the boatswain of the city (pronounced “bosun”, they’re the boss of the crew and all the stuff on the boat, I was very into Monkey Island as a kid). One of her arms is a cannon and I need you to know that. Anyway, Fabian name drops his dad to try and get them some respect. It goes pretty OK but not as well as Adaine simply pointing out Cathilda’s presence. Jemina fully takes the knee and calls her, “Cathilda the Black, Terror of the Celestine Sea.”  Fig helps Cathilda disguise herself so she doesn’t draw any unnecessary attention. Despite the clout, Jemina still says she’s seizing the boat (it seems like they do this to get materials to keep the city afloat). Fig tries to move her with the power of rock because of course. She hits at 23 on a 20 DC check for that because of course. 

While she’s doing that nonsense, Adaine and Riz are--as always--trying to keep the party alive. Riz rolls a high perception check and noticed a pretty boy tiefling watching Fabian looking all hero worshippy. 

Thoroughly swayed between the name dropping and the rock and roll and the Cathilda of it all, Jemina offers to let them buy the Van-Boat back. Fabian, as always, is ready to throw any amount of cash at the problem and Adaine, as always, is trying to be responsible with their cash. After a hilariously long sidebar (which includes Fig, who introduced herself as a very famous rock star, saying they should “Act the part of the pauper,” which is a wild turn of phrase to just drop out of nowhere) the tiefling from before shows up and pays for the Van for them. He introduces himself as Alistair Ash and tells them that he paid with rocks magick’d to look like gold for ten minutes so they better book it. They have another long sidebar about whether they should pay or not with Adaine and wildly Fig on the side and of paying. They pay and Alistair agrees to take them to see Garthy O ’Brien (the pirate Bill had been dealing with).

On the way to see Garthy, the gang finds out that Allister is a warlock, his patron being none other than the damned madman himself--Bill Seacaster. Hilariously, Bill doesn’t take his charges souls. He makes them do microtransactions for their spells and recruit others like it’s a pyramid scheme. I don’t know what he’s gonna do will gold in HELL but it is on brand, I’ll give him that. 

A random dwarf calls Riz a slur so Fig and Kristen get him to jump to his death by turning into him and telling him he’s been dead for ten years, respectively.

Normal D&D stuff. 

Anyway, they make it to the Golden Gardens which is Garthy O’ Brien’s casino/brothel/resort (“Pirate Moulin Rogue” is how Brennan described it) and we learn that Brennan specifically made this character to F with the chat because they are this beefcake, non-binary,  aasimar/half-orc, tatted-up, succubus. My chat is usually on like a couple of seconds lag and I could have timed exactly how long the lag was by glancing over and counting off the seconds until the horned up comments started flooding in. You knew exactly what you were doing here Mr. Lee Mulligan. 

Garthy invites them in for drinks, drugs, and use of the facilities where Kristen accidentally takes the drink of a mindflayer (think, humanoid Cthulhu-monster). He’s James Whitlaw, Captain of the Crimson Claw and enemy of Bill Seacaster. The group tries to smooth things over but Fabian Sparta kicks him in the chest after he drags Bill. There’s a bit of a tousle but Garthy shuts that down before it can get out of hand. 

Post fight, the group questions Garthy and here are the highlights of that discussion:

They were supplying Bill with Palimpsests. Doing dead drops like the group assumed. 

The last time they were at the hotel, they got told by the new staff (ie: the demons in disguise) that Bill wasn’t coming and when Garthy wouldn’t play ball with them, the demons attacked them and took their pouch of gems. Garthy says the demons were probably there to ambush them for their gems. They especially wanted the Sapphire but was useless to them because it already had a Celestial inside of it.

The demons had been summoned and bound to the material plane by someone very powerful.  

Garthy doesn’t usually get gems from the Red Waste. 

Garthy has heard of the Shadowcat. They can’t see the Shadowcat in the pic (just Pok who they say is cute). Alistair also can’t see Kalina. 

Garthy tells Fig that, like they already knew, it would be super hard to break Gorthalax out. It would be hard for them to do, even considering curse breaking is one of their specialties. 

The crown of the Nightmare King passed through the Gold Gardens recently, brought by--surprise, surprise--Adaine’s mom. Adaine’s mom was coming in to get a curse broken--one placed on her by the crown. With it broken, she’d be able to handle it more easily. She tricked Garthy into doing it without revealing exactly what the curse was and was kicked out once it was revealed. Garthy’s not sure where she went but they know she was frustrated that she couldn’t just teleport there (because she hadn’t been there before and didn’t have a description of it). She left on a Falinel-bound ship. 

Garthy says Gorthalax is likely in a lot of pain in the gem he’s in.

The demons needed the gem for some kind of ritual sacrifice (namely, the one with Riz and Fig).

Also, Kristen is fully drunk for all of this. 

Post info-dump, Van-Boat (whose actual name is Zathriel btw, more info from Garthy) mindlinks with Gorgug to tell them that a fight has broken out. Gorgug has the Van drive towards them. The group pays for a suite and then Riz, Fig, and Adaine fly over to the Van (with Tracker following in her spectral wolf form). Riz jumps in the front seat, takes the wheel from Gilear, and commits a ton of vehicular manslaughter. During the fight, Sandra-Lynn gets shot and falls off of Baxter. She almost goes down but Tracker catches and heals her. 

They all make it back and proceed to reenact the house party scene from that one John Mulaney sketch (“a bunch of drunk toddlers”). People are getting wasted. People are getting tattoos. People are doing drugs. Kristen is riding Tracker like a horse (the G rated way, tyvm).  

Then, uh, something not super chill happens.

Sandra-Lynn gets totally wasted and decides she’s gonna teach Fig (who is a little cagey about if she likes anyone by the by) how to flirt without the use of disguise self and such. She decides she’s gonna demonstrate on Garthy which she does. Successfully. Sandra-Lynn who is in a relationship that is monogamous as her request. 

The drunk toddlers are herded into a room by Fig and Kristen. Kristen has Tracker cast the Moon Haven spell on the room and Fig and Adaine go to Garthy’s room to make sure Sandra-Lynn isn’t in trouble or anything. She’s not in trouble (yet) but, based on the way she’s clearly hastily redressed, she’s clearly about to run into some. Fig books it out of there, mortified. 

Fig and Adaine lie about where they’ve been to Gilear and then they report back to the group. Tracker--who is pretty out of it at this point--sleepily asks who Sandra-Lynn’s been kissing. Everyone realizes, Oh no, Jawbone is poly but the relationship is supposed to be monogamous. Big yikes. Kristen feeds Tracker a mumbly lie about how Sandra-Lynn is kissing Jawbone that I really hope doesn’t blow up in her face because then it will be the hat trick of main relationships imploding in as many episodes. Kristen and Riz go back to Garthy’s room because Kristen wants to cast something (Detect Good and Evil, the result of which we don’t see this ep--though I feel like it would have to ping Garthy since they have celestial blood, right?) and Kristen notices that someone cast Clairvoyance on her and Riz, meaning someone knows they were outside.   

Meanwhile, Fabian sneaks off to Crow’s Keep to be an emo pirate boy and talk to his dad while staring out into the sea. He’s suddenly surrounded by cloaked figures. Brennan rolls a bunch of dice, triggering Lou’s fight-or-flight, before revealing the cloaked dudes are just Alistair and the rest of his warlock friends who are all huge fans of their patron’s son. And we don’t get to find out what, if anything, they want from Fabian until next ep because that’s where Brennan ends the ep. 

Detention

Sandra-Lynn for Cheating on Jawbone

OK, there’s a lot to unpack here. 

I’ll start by saying we technically don’t know if she went through with it or not since Fig interrupted her before things could very far but we know she got naked which is more than far enough to be a betrayal imo. 

And it’s so wild because she for sure could have been in an open relationship. She’s the one who stipulated monogamy. 

On the one hand, I appreciate that Brennan is playing these NPCs as human (“human”) and failable and realistic but on the other hand, man I can’t stand cheating. And it’s not like she hasn’t cheated before. That’s, like, a major plot point. But it’s easier to gloss over something that happened a long time ago and we didn’t have to witness in real time.

Like, this isn’t good. It’s not gonna be good for the group. She forced Kristen into a position where she has to lie to/keep secrets from Tracker potentially. Also, Tracker is a wolf. There’s a non-zero chance she’s gonna be able to smell what happened. Do you really want one possibly both of the healers on the team mad at you? And they weren’t just dating They’re LIVING TOGETHER. And not just together. Together with like five--pending six--children (and pending one adult). That’s a lot of people that are gonna get forcible sucked into your drama. 

And poor Jawbone. I know he’s a trooper and he’s def been through worse but just because you can deal with something, doesn’t mean you should have to.

Anyway, Adaine said it best: Sandra-Lynn is both more and less cool than I thought she was. 

Honor Roll

Riz for His Driving Skills

I couldn’t tell you why but the phrase, “vehicular manslaughter” is so inherently funny to me.  Riz hitting a nat 20 to just mow down all the attackers in his path was hilarious. 

Note: I also could have given this spot to Garthy but I’m a little ambivalent on all the enabling of awful but hilarious life choices. 

Random Thoughts

Adaine trying to blend in by saying ahoy to everyone and getting a tricorner hat from her jacket was so good (big props to everyone who drew that, especially y’all who also gave Boggy a hat). Also, I’m glad she’s been using her jacket more in general so she’ll be more likely to remember it in an emergency.

@jamiebluewind made this really useful post with the descriptions of all the new characters and the tats the Bad Kids got which you can find here.

Also, @ttttttterrence shouted me out during the livestream so I’m returning the gesture. What’s up man!

I like that when the group is discussing how to split the cost of the suite, Fabian is just like, “I got it, don’t worry.” He clearly takes pride in being able to throw money around for his friends.

Fabian, who has for sure seen Cathilda in action during a fight: Maids can’t kill. 

Ally’s amused disbelief at the phrase, “Act the part of the pauper,” was sending me. 

Adaine: There’s no way you’re an only child. 

OK, this isn’t totally related to this ep, it’s more a point about FH in general that I don’t think I’ve brought up yet. How does a fantasy high school work in a world where races age at vastly different rates? Like goblins have a max age of about 60 and reach adulthood at 8. Meanwhile, elves reach physical maturity at the same age as humans but because they live to be like 700+ years old, they’re not considered adults until, like, the age of 100. At first I thought they were ignoring racial aging differences (like I do when I write fantasy I can’t be bothered with the implications usually) but in this and last ep, they were brought up. And I thought it might be that we were saying what everyones’ ages were in human years but, based on the info we’ve heard (like how far back Pok died for example) their ages have to be in normal years. Which brings me to theory 3: everyone ages physically and mentally at the same rate as humans to adulthood and then some races just decline more quickly than others afterwards. 

Fig: I sink into a deep depression. 

Alistair has an adorable cockney accent and he might be a little bit of a sociopath but let’s put a pin in that until next week. Oh, also, I was so sure he was gonna be Fabian’s brother too, just like half the table. 

Brennan so good at adding things in for flavor to make the world cooler. What prompted this comment is him saying that as Tracker travels in spectral wolf form, a forest path appears at her feet briefly. Very cool attention to detail.

Bill running a MLM warlock system where you pay by the spell is so, so funny. I actually am not sure if the MLM aspect of it was planned or if someone (one of the girls I think) said it as a joke and Brennan ran with it but that’s extremely funny. 

I know how leveling works in the above-game for balance but, in game, I feel like there’s no reason Bill and Gorthalax shouldn’t give everyone a level of Warlock. That would get them all 2 cantrips (eldritch blast, mage hand, and chill touch are options) and 2 level one spells (charm person, hellish rebuke, and charm person can be clutch).

Speaking of, I almost feel like this episode was setting up Fabian and Gorgug to multiclass. Fabian’s dad being a patron is a prime opportunity for him to get some warlock levels (and it would be very good for his aesthetic. I mean, magic pirate? Hell yeah). And Gorgug later in the episode says something like, “I could fix the van so fast if I had magic.” I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a level in a caster class soon. 

“Did you learn your magic in a book?”/”Yes!”/”Oh, lah-dih-dah. I can read.”

Fig: Adaine is the best at armies!

Forget if I mentioned this before but I’m very pleasantly surprised that Adaine’s mom is such a driving force this season. She’s one of the characters we explored the least last season which was a bummer for me because I really wanted to know what was going on in her head. Looks like we’re close to getting some insight soon. I’m guessing we might have another ep or half ep until we get there unless something else happens to sidetrack the group. 

I glossed over it in the actual recap but Fig casting disguise self on herself to look like the dwarf who was picking on Riz was just some peak Emily with an assist from chaos monster Ally. Here’s the scene. What’s funny is I thought I knew what Emily’s thought process was (If he sees himself, he’ll very likely be thrown off his rhythm) but then she was like, “I wanted to be someone from the area and he’s the only guy I’ve met.” Lol, bold of me to assume I have any idea what’s going on in her head. 

Adaine and, by extension, Siobhan just casually knows what a forecastle is (it’s “a raised deck at the bow of a ship”). Also, Brennan uses the word susurrous which means “full of whispering sounds”. That’s twice I had to reach for my dictionary (by which I mean Google). 

The whole concept of Garthy is extremely cool and I’m specifically talking about race. I’ve never heard of a half-orc aasimar because in fantasy books it’s usually the humans getting it on with everyone and making half-whatever babies but there’s no reason a half-orc couldn’t have celestial ancestry. The idea of a risen devil is also very dope and something I’ve only seen once (and as art, not in an RPG context--Edit: Actually, I’ve seen in twice. In one chapter of Ah My Goddess, Hell sticks a demon onto the main goddess to try and corrupt her and she ends up purifying the demon which was wild when I read it in high school but you’re not here for me to go off about my comfort manga so let’s keep moving). The idea that there are “bad” gods and so their opposition, their “demons” would be essentially angels is very clever and something I hadn’t really considered. Also the phrase  “The job is the fuck people into being decent basically,” is really A+. Well done Brennan. 

Also, my knowledge of CR Campaign 1 is very spotty so this may be very off but I feel like Brennan watched a bunch of Gilmore scenes and then snorted a line of coke before he created Garthy. 

Kristen: I’m proud of the choices I make. 

Emily: They eat brains but also drink beer?

Captain Whitlock has a peg leg tentacle on his face that he tries to face touch Kristen with and Tracker is not having ANY of that. “Under no circumstances.”

Poor Fabian, giving an awesome speech to Captain Whitlock and then rolling a 1 on his Sparta Kick. Luckily, Gorgug hit a 26 on a DC 25 challenge to give him the help action so Fabian didn’t eat it.

Sidenote, we learn there used to be a pirate king but Bill killed him. Sounds about right. 

I’m even more convinced that the rule is people who have seen Kalina before can see her in the picture after the conversation they had about it in this ep. Glad they decided to puzzle it out some more--even though I think it’s a little iffy to be spilling all your info to a pirate you literally just met (especially Fig--closed book my ass). 

Garthy mentions again that the NK defies categorization--something that came up in Adaine’s research. I’m wondering how that’s gonna come into play later. 

“I could tell you a very sweet lie, which is more my style.” I really like Garthy and I hope that continues to be the case.

Gorgug: That would be pretty disruptive...Yeah.

“Your name’s Van-Boat.”/”No!”

Riz, right before a nat 20 to commit Vehicular manslaughter: Get out of the way Gilear. I’ve killed people before, it’s fine.

I loved everyone being like, “Gilear you killed people! You’re officially an adventurer!”

Gilear, with the intensity of someone a firefighter has just pulled out of a burning building: I need the frog.

Tracker does like a crazy blood-brother type ritual for healing which is interesting because you’d think that would be bad what with the werewolf-ism but I guess it’s just through biting.

Fabian and Ragh peer pressuring Riz to do snuff, Ragh actually getting him to do it with a hippie speech about mind expansion, and Riz getting high as hell and getting Memento tats all over his body (NIGHT YORB--also, Sklonda is gonna LOVE this I bet) is such a wild series of events. 

Kristen casts a spell on Gilear so she’ll take all of his damage and he starts getting hurt the second he’s out of her eyeshot. Wild. 

“I cast friends on Gilear.”

I am going to murder Brennan for that cell tower gag. 

Sidebar: I don’t have a picture of the Leviathan map but if someone has it someone I’ll post the link here for anyone who could use it.

And while we’re side tracked, shoutout to the dude who made this song based on Gorgug’s last ep. The line, “My girlfriend's really mad and she's also a goat” is truly golden.

Oh! And someone randomly gifted me a twitch subscription to dropout! If you’re on here, thanks somePloops!

Kristen and Tracker getting neck tats of each others’ names is just so so much. 

Also, let’s pour one out for the fan-artists of FH that are also fans of CR and had to watch half the cast of both getting tatted up in back to back weeks, making any canon drawing that much more complicated. 

I don’t think I fully realized until this ep when Adaine was the only sober one of her friends in a bar reading a book how closely she’s tracking my high school/college experience. Her, “Everyone is drunk by which I mean everyone but me is drunk,” killed me because I have said that verbatim on so many occasions. Watching Siobhan play Adaine is like, therapy by proxy for me.

“I am a child.”

Adaine, lying badly: I have also taken drugs.

Kristen has a stealth of -3. Woof. 

Fig, Adaine and Riz each got nat 1 20 this ep. Fabian, Gorgug, and Adaine each rolled a nat 1 but Fabian’s was cancelled by Gorgug and Adaine’s was on initiative.