Recovering from several people dying and being revived by Silas, the party found themselves in the middle of the woods with some important decisions to make. They were battered and broken, but had found a few trinkets dropped by the knight who attacked them to make up for it.
Having suffered the roadside attack last session, the party needed to decide whether they were going to continue on, attending the tournament as planned, or whether they should abandon the tournament and go home after the attack, which seemed somehow linked to the monarchy of Ciloria. Ultimately, in part due to Salt expressing his preference for it, the group decided to attend the tournament anyway as a power play.
Silas pulled aside Laura, and expressed that he was sorry they had gotten off to a rough start, and that while they were together in this hostile, foreign land, the whole delegation would have to stick together. Laura offered that she was thinking of moving her roost back in Beggar's Hole, before trying to insinuate that the Church of Lathander might be on the hook for a PR crisis given the oath left behind by the Cilorian knight that the party fought.
Simultaneously, Aquor pulled Salt aside and told him that he thought the party was in deep shit. This whole scenario reminded him of the intense drama that the noble houses got into back home, and it's clear that someone with a lot of resources was trying pretty hard to get the party killed with that little attack.
Inej was pulled aside by Lucifer's mom, who was very happy that her baby girl was saved from being literally dead and gone on account of Inej killing the last bandit. At the same time, Meat Boy pulled Lucifer aside to ask how she felt about dying, but got rebuffed because they don't really know each other very well and he came off as weird.
As the party was approaching Maetrigar a few days later, they stopped a few miles short on the road to discuss their grand entrance. Salt attired his orphans in their resplendent purple robes, Lucifer decided she would be glaring at everyone as they went past, and in a shock to all onlookers, Laura decided that, for Silas's sake, she would wash off some of her caked on bird shit in order to be more presentable.
Shockingly, Laura managed to break through the months of shit cocoon, and the party kept on moving towards the city. As they entered, however, they were struck by the realization that Maetrigar was in the midst of a massive bread riot. The party started trying to fight their way through the crowds towards the palace, but ran into numerous challenges along the way.
First, the sheer size and weight of the crowd was an obstacle. Though Salt tried to announce the arrival of the delegation from Beggar's Hole, he was met not by cheers or an open path, but jeers and a thrown rock. Noticeably, Salt heard the crowd blaming the ongoing famine in Ciloria on Johnny Boats and his shipping business.
Coming upon a scene of peasants looting, Laura took charge by busting open some bakeries for them to ransack, which opened a window for the party to move further into the city.
Next, the party came upon a group of guards lining up to break the riot. Lucifer used her magical abilities to threaten one of the guards, who opened up a gap in the line. The party squeezed through, and continued fighting towards the palace.
Coming upon another scene of explicit violence, this time between peasants and guards, Laura once again stepped up to the plate. She threatened both sides with grave injury if they didn't let the party through, which turned out to be absolutely perfect for convincing a group of violent combatants that there were better people to piss off.
Lucifer then doused a flaming barricade with a deluge of sleet, which opened the path for the party to run directly into a more peaceful protest. Seeing a chain of protestors linking arms, Salt, clad in a purple robe, tried to use his astral arms to link in and then to force open a pathway for his compatriots to keep moving. Unfortunately, he was called out for "co-opting the movement", and the party was delayed as they found a path around the roadblock.
Finally, the party came upon the gates to the royal palace. Inej used her insane competency with acrobatics to vault over the gate, leaving behind a crowd of rioters with a decent number of half chubs, several full chubs, and one man who fully cummed in his pants.
Inside, a retainer greeted the party, and on hearing who they were, ran off to announce them with a look of surprise. The party were announced (per their request) as "The Champions of the People of Beggar's Hole". They were greeted inside the palace by looks of confusion and surprise from the assembled nobles, but were shown to their quarters. The great hall was lined with murals and statues of Ciloria's kings, and Laura was able to notice that all of the murals showed kings with a red ruby at the center of their crown, save for a single massive mural at the head of the great hall of Ravenor, the first king of Ciloria. Rather than a ruby, Ravenor's crown in the mural was mounted with a purple gem at its center.
The party returned to the great hall in time for King Aelfwine to announce the opening of the tournament, but were surprised to discover that the tournament's first event would be a group melee (the "*mêlée générale*"), and that if they wanted to avoid being disqualified from the tournament, they would need to provide a list of five champions to compete. This was announced in accordance with some ancient law, but came as a surprise to the whole room who had been expecting a tournament of only single person events.
While the party was able to pull up Salt, Laura, Lucifer, and Inej as a list, each of their other companions was dismissed with similar references to archaic and unenforced laws, some of which would have disqualified even other competitors already accepted into the tournament. Just when it seemed they would be disqualified from the tournament out of hand, the king's brother, The Duke of Ormand, rushed into the room and volunteered his champion Bellothe Chance, a purple Tiefling paladin to fight on the side of the Champions of the People.
Then, as the final entrants for the competition, the king called forth his own champions. First, he called Poivre, a Cilorian monk who called out "I love my parents". Then, he called out Barbie, a young sorceress clad all in hot pink. Third, he called out Gaius Cylindrus, a paladin who glared at Bellothe. Up next was Cassy Treeleaf, a very no-nonsense looking druid who merely nodded at her name being called. Finally, he called out Sir Raoul "the Heartbreaker", and the party heard an audible swoon from the crowd as the knight that had attacked them on the road stepped forward, glowing tattoos on full display.
Salt requested an audience between the party and the king, and on the way out of the great hall to wait, the party saw an old lady in the corner raving about how in these times of famine, everyone had better watch their backs, or "The Black Reaper" would come to take their souls.
The party returned to their chambers, and got up to a few more shenanigans. Inej hunted down Raoul's room, and tried to proposition him. Unfortunately for her, his previous flirtatious bluster had been mostly for show, and a detect thoughts revealed that his actual thoughts were more complex, and that he had trust issues somehow related to "Ammalia". She also found out that Raoul had been ordered to kill their party on orders that there would be a group of imposters approaching the capital posing as the diplomatic delegation, and they must be stopped. Finally, Inej learned that Raoul's original orders had borne a seal of a crown beneath a skull.
She returned to the party just in time for the full group to have their audience with the king. In their audience, the party found the king genuinely surprised they had arrived. He had heard from three unidentified messengers that Beggar's Hole was refusing participation in the tournament. Lucifer was detecting his thoughts throughout the conversation, and at least on the surface he seemed to be speaking genuinely. The party also learned that Aelfwine has a genuine religious hatred for the undead, that he had no knowledge of the attack against them on the road before they told him about it, and that he is a big supporter of sovereign territory, but perhaps with a different idea than the party about who is the legitimate sovereign over Beggar's Hole.
With that, the party returned to their rooms and got ready for bed. Inej told Lucifer about what she had discovered talking to Raoul, and they all went to sleep.
Bright and early, just as the sun was peeking over the walls of the castle, Laura was awoken by a loud rapping at her door. She cracked the door to find an incredibly strong maid there asking after her. Though Laura tried to hold firm, the maid forced her way into the room and began complaining about Laura's lingering stench. She grabbed Laura, and dragged her through the palace to a hidden bathing chamber where four more maids awaited. These five, veterans of the Great Latrine Disaster and of many battles to bathe feral druids and children had decided that Laura's still somewhat shit-caked demeanor would be unbefitting the masquerade ball scheduled for that evening.
Though she struggled mightily, wildshaping and resisting with all her might, Laura was beaten into unconsciousness by the maids, who then bathed her from head to toe before returning her to her bed. The immaculate spa treatment gave her the benefits of a long rest and she was fully recovered within an hour, just in time to wake up the rest of the party with her screams as she regained consciousness and saw what had been done to her.
The party rushed to Laura's aid, finding her incredibly clean and equally distraught. As they were discussing, Laura tried to find dirt on the ground to recover her dignity, but the lead maid returned and threatened that if she didn't keep herself clean until after the masquerade ball, the maid would hunt her down and clean her daily for the rest of her life. Just then, Emmalina entered the room, and the maid smelled dirt. Emmalina was likewise dragged off to be bathed, and then Salt dumped trash on himself. After a brief chase through the palace, Salt was cornered and surrendered himself to be bathed, as did the rest of his orphans. For the orphans and Salt, it was a lovely, relaxing experience, even as they saw Emmalina fighting like a demon to avoid being cleaned across the room.
With that, the party had about eight hours left to prepare for the masquerade ball that evening.
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