Session Date: 06/17/2024
The party returns to where Faylen, Opal, Vim, Vigor, and Vogue are. Opal asks how things are and Tabby explains that they certainly got into trouble, which there is no shortage of. Mary explains that rather than a fight, there will be a contest to prove which troupe is the best performers. Vigor teases Opal saying that they have finally joined the clown dimension, and he and Bosch both start chanting “one of us!”
Opal asks what kind of performance will be done, and the group says that they haven’t figured it out yet. Opal offers to perform with us and when prompted about what he can do, he says he can do anything, and that they’re a fast learner. Tabby mentions that the townspeople are still charmed in some way, and Opal investigates and figures out that this was done by a ritual and likely required some very costly components, so they would not be able to just do this again on a whim. The townspeople’s minds, however, are safe: when they come to they will just be groggy, but they will suffer no harm. The intent of the ritual was to just keep them subdued so that the Cirque Étrange crew could rob them all blind.
Opal snaps in front of someone’s eyes to see if they come to, and they do not. He comments that this isn’t good. He’s aware that this spell will start to dissipate - the fireworks actually made them start to slip out of the spell, but Oddball the Clown somehow managed to sort of realign the spell. It’s clear that Oddball is scrambling because the plan is ruined. Opal knows that the performance will extend the ritual.
Mary says that doing the performance does sort of keep the innocent people out of the way. Mary does mention that she wants to free the rest of the animals as well, and the Beastmaster gentleman blubbers nearby trying to figure out where the elephant went, and Mary said that she’s safe and soon the other animals will be too. The man wanders off.
Faylen ultimately asks if we can trust Oddball and crew to uphold their end of the bargain if we do win, given they are criminals and tried to feed Opal and Vogue to shark-like water elementals. The group ultimately agrees that there may not be much we can do but we can make them prefer to be honest rather than try to cheat us.
The contest categories:
- Pie eating contest
- Jousting
- Insulting contest
Mary is concerned about the pies being poisoned, and Bosch points out in the recipe book he found notes about what you can do to pies without affecting the taste. Mary will definitely inspect the pies, and Opal offers to either freeze their pies or make them so hot they burn their mouths. We think these might be good ideas, but we’re unsure what to look at this.
Tabby says regardless, we should try to resolve this without having to fall into combat. We plan on who is going to do what - Bosch we assume will do the pie eating contest, Tabby thinks perhaps we should do jousting, and Opal and Tabby both may do the insulting contest.
We make it to the stadium and Opal and Oddball start to argue with each other via insults, and Faylen eventually has to step in to drag Opal away, telling him not to give in to the bait.
Bosch hops up and onto the table where the pies are and Oddball says that he got the pies out of the back of a cart, and we all realize they’ve been stolen. Mary notices that some of the pies have been tampered with and mentions to Faylen that it looks like some of them have had some sleep potion smeared on top of them. While this is being mentioned, Bosch starts juggling the pies and putting on a whole performance for the crowd, effectively shuffling the pies around so that it’s hard to tell where the tampered ones are.
Tabby ultimately decides to join and Faylen warns him about the tampered pies, and Mary explains what to look for on the pies. Tabby thanks them for the warning and goes up there, warning Bosch of it as well.
The contest:
- Our side:
- Bosch
- Tabby
- Opal
- Vigor
- Their side:
- Oddball
- Bubba the Strongman (Ogre in booty shorts)
The contest:
- Round 1
- Rolls:
- Oddball nat 1
- Bubba nat 20
- Opal 17
- Bosch 16
- Tabby 12
- Notable events:
- Oddball immediately eats a sleeping potion pie, so he sits back and stops eating.
- Bubba tilts the table and dumps all the contents in their mouth. After eating them, immediately falls asleep as he ate all of the sleeping pies as well.
- Bosch, still on the table, clambers atop Bubba and grabs what pies he can as they were dumped into Bubba’s mouth.
- Rolls:
Oddball says that this counts as a win for his side because Bubba actually ate the most pies. None of us can actually deny this because that is technically correct. Bosch rolls Bubba on his side so that he doesn’t choke if he gets sick.
Mary slips away from the group before the joust started in order to try to free the other animals.
We move on to jousting and there are no horses so someone has to be the mount, the other has to be the jouster. We choose Bosch as our horse, Tabby as our jouster. On their side, the Beast Tamer is the horse, and the gymnast is the jouster.
Tabby and Bosch charge and we win by a landslide, even to the point that Tabby manages to knock the hat off of the Beast Tamer. Tabby grabs the hat and puts it on his head as Bosch carries him around in a victory lap. The Beast Tamer chases after them trying to get his hat back, and Tabby eventually tosses the hat back to the Beast Tamer. While the hat is arcing through the air, Opal snaps his fingers and the hat catches fire midair. The Beast Tamer dumps the hat in a pie to try to save the hat, but it’s just the rim that’s left.
Oddball comments that we’re supposed to be the good guys here, and Bosch says that he didn’t think this was about good or bad guys. Opal clicks his heels and says this is the introduction for the insult contest.
Not long before the joust, Talitha comes back and says that she let the horses go and they are on our side. Mary slips away from the group and goes to the animal tent. The animals that are here - the holdfast isn’t here, but the bear and tiger are here. Mary opens the cage to one of the animals, but she still has to deal with the chain. She pulls the stake that the chain is attached to out of the ground right as the Beast Tamer walks in.
He asks what is going on, and Mary explains that she is going to send them home. He explains that this is their home, and she says no it’s not, and he insists that he owns them. She explains that they belong to themselves, and starts to walk out with the animals on either side of her. The Beast Tamer tries to say something, reaching for the whip on his belt, and the bear puts a paw on the man’s arm and shakes his head as if to say it’s a very bad idea. The tiger roars enough to spook the Beast Tamer.
They leave the tent and the tiger bows toward Mary in thanks, and the bear gets the chain removed. She has them wait in the forest while she returns to the group.
The insult contest is started with Opal and Tabby representing us against Oddball.
Opal starts out basically saying that Oddball has no teeth to his insults, that little girls on the playground have more spine than him. Tabby chimes in saying that in a battle of wits, it’s not fair when your opponent’s unarmed.
Faylen hears, very loudly, the jester bell from Kaymanth rings. He shrinks a little but tries to ignore it.
Oddball threatens them to say that they will lose if we do have to fight, and they are demoralized. Tabby fires back saying that it was his plan all along: Oddball knew he wouldn’t win, so he wanted to start combat. Bosch calls out asking if we expected this to go any other way, and Faylen has the “I told you so” expression on his face.
The clown speaks back up saying that we have had our fun and we can leave now: this is our only chance to get out without any combat. Tabby says that Oddball has the chance to leave now without the treasure if he wishes to get out of this fine, and Bosch yells out that this was always going to end with us beating him up. Bosch picks up the wheelbarrow and says, “I told you that I was going to throw this at someone!” Faylen stands and draws his rapier.
Opal, tired of all of this, snaps his fingers and casts thunderstrike Oddball, saying that he’s tired of playing games. Tabby takes a step back and says whoa! Don’t piss of f the pretty boy! (impressed)
Combat next session. :>