by Nataliya "Shader" Kostenko
So, here me and the dudes are,
arriving outside some fancy mansion wondering just how deep the lore is. The
note from the beautiful Fish Lady was dang mysterious, and when our adventuring
squad met her in person she wasn’t any less mysterious. Dramatically, her son
Shane took off his hood. I guess some of these cats already knew him, but I
couldn’t even see the family resemblance. He and his Ma are all like “We need
something super important, but we can’t tell you [fools] what it is. So, get in
there [and maybe kick some butt or maybe just hit ‘em with some mad diplomacy].”
Also by this point I wasn’t feeling too hot, because I guess someone struck us
with some WHACK malediction.
So, squad plus Shane rolls in.
Inside we got a real swaggy courtyard and a whole line up of guard boyz. I
wanted to hang back ‘til the real action started but Katya and Asharn wanted to
practice their diplomacy skills so we strolled up to one of them. We were all
fast friends, and our new homeboy Hubert told us about how the chain of command
works: it turns out, he reports to the Captain of the Guard, who reports to
someone, who reports to the butler, who reports to someone else, who reports to
someone else, who reports to the Lady of the house. We tried to ask him for the
name of this house Lady, but good ole’ Hotdog just patiently explained that he
reports to the Captain of the Guard, who reports to someone, who reports to the
butler, who reports to someone else, who reports to still someone else, who
reports to the stubbornly unnamed Lady of the house. Then I saw some
Folkestoners start fighting the guards on the other side of the courtyard, so
regrettably, I stabbed Humperdink and everybody got to throwing down.
After
finishing off Hugo and his friends, we squadded up with errybody else again.
Resident cool lady Freesia said we had two options: sneak or full frontal. Of
course, I was ready to bust down the door, but here were K-dawg and A-hole,
telling me they wanna go on a Secret Mission, complete with song and everything.
So, the three of us took up the front, stealthily sliding into the nameless
Lady’s DMs—her dangerous mansion. We didn’t even get through one verse of our
sneaking song when more guards spotted us. Naturally, we booked it back toward
the door, but it was too late and the bodies were already starting to pile up.
In the doorway. Like, they blocked the doorway. We got raised, died, got raised,
and died some more until we finally removed corpse squad from the door so
reinforcements could ride in. Then they went down like it was real Shandar
hours, but Shandar wasn’t even there (where even are you, Stabdad?). At this
point Starbro (ps—Kite says where her money at?) assembled the Oaken troops and
company to teach them how to properly breach a door.
Still
mourning Hudson, we moved deeper into the mansion, properly breaching every
door in our path. Next we hit up a tavern in which the party was lit. Gerald
maybe Pony Crusher, maybe Bone Crusher (unconfirmed, too loud in room) was a
mighty champion—lost every fight, but nothing if not mighty persistent. Asharn
went in on every song, arm wrestling and real wrestling. The tavern patrons did
shots, and there was a dance-off. Some troll-looking hater stabbed me in the
leg like three times, but they didn’t let me throw down for real. After popping
Asharn’s rib back in, we went further into the nameless Lady’s nameless mansion
bowels.
I think
next we found the guard barracks because the peeps in there looked like more of
Huang’s buddies. They were pissed we got blood on their mattresses, but it was
nothing a little medieval Windex couldn’t take care of. Alas, there was no one
left to fetch the Windex because we murdered them all. While I was tearing it
up on the battlefield, Hammond Cheese, Gywyth Sord, Freija, and some other
homeboys were over at the mystical doohickey responsible for the malediction.
Eventually they broke the spell and everybody felt way less WHACK.
Behind
the next door was the Lady’s library, complete with dat old scroll smell. Next
to the old scrolls there was a runway-ready Demon dude with horns and powerful
cheekbones. The only thing cramping his style was a collar (whatever you’re
into, dude…). It turned out, though, that he wasn’t into it. Ya girl the
nameless Lady and/or her (inferior) cultists had him imprisoned there. We dug
around in the scrolls for a while and found some useful info and some less
useful info: stuff on Titania, a couple of nice sea shanties, and how to break
out the horned man. By this time, the other adventurizzles cracked the flower
puzzle on the door and on we rolled.
Demonbro
had beef with some Auroran “cultists” who were also chillin’ in this mansion for
some reason—so we went to their shrine. The cultists were ticked off that we
brought their #1 fan with us; as is the way, fighting broke out. Asharn stood
in the back the whole time, singing and drinking sea water to heal everybody. This fight was a good one, I wish Hussein
could’ve seen it.
Finally,
the real bass dropped. We were in the vault. As we entered the room, the Lord
of the manor greeted us with hostility, since we broke into his house and all.
Gotta hand it to this Lady, he honestly had no idea what was going downtown in
his own home. She could’ve had so many affairs. Innocent as he was, though, he
messed with this crowd, so we ended that sucker (that innocent, innocent
sucker). Then, the Lady of the hour finally showed up. Her power-hungriness?
WHACK. Her magic flower? WHACK. The way she sold her name to the Fae? WHACK.
Folkestone and co.? They’re tight as FUCK. Meanwhile, on the less important
side of the room, Katya was trying to join the guards. Unfortunately, Humberhumberhumbert
wasn’t there to write her a recommendation, because I killed him. The Captain
of the Guard (who reports to someone, who reports to the butler, who reports to
someone, who reports to someone, who reports to the Lady of the Manor) came
over and told her to drop and give him ten push-ups. Katya can’t even do one push-up,
so Asharn stole her thunder and her job. The next minute, though, everyone was
out of a job because Folkecompany had destroyed the Lady’s power flower and
sent her back to Shane’s fish Ma.
Finally,
we emerged from the manor and met back up with Lorelai. She dropped why we had
to wreck this Manor Lady in the first place. Turns out, there was a skinless
baby. And we were like “Dang, that baby got no skin!” He was Shane’s baby—a
selkie born without his selkie skin. When we returned it to his Fishy Grandmama
she was like “Thanx.” And we were like “We accept”.
And now she owes us a boon.
In summary:
We arrive at the mansion
·
Swords: out
·
Humphrey: correctly named
·
Guards: slaughtered
·
Lady: killed
·
Baby: skinned
We are forcibly removed from the mansion.
