[b]Rita von Catabas![/b] You fall, bouncing off bronze breastplates and reorienting yourself as best you can in the chaos. Everything in you is yowling that down is still down, despite the nausea of falling sideways at high speed, and it’s all you can do not to lose your lunch. Blech! And right before you can fling yourself at high speeds at Eupheria to try and stop her... the lights go out. Everything winks out. You float in empty blackness, and when you yowl for Alina, there’s no sound. There’s nothing at all. Then the lights blink on, right in your eyes, and you flinch with a hiss as the fanfare plays. “Goooooood evening, everybody! This is Tonight With Queen Eupheria, presenting uh-live from her bespoke dungeon dimension!” When your eyes adjust, you realize you’re sitting on a couch next to Eska, who is— oh. Oh whiskers. She’s wearing a ruffled lace top and leather trousers, and her hair is pulled back in true swashbuckler chic. She was not wearing that a second ago, and she’s not supposed to be that hot. Gah! For what it’s worth, she in turn looks a little flustered by your ladybug-themed polka dot dress and the cute yellow bandana over your hair, with little holes for your ears. And, okay, there’s Lina in the floofiest dress you’ve ever seen and her hair up in a bun, sitting in a chair nearby, and Kazelia in a daring off-the-shoulder gown, and next to her the angriest little owl you’ve ever seen in your life, and Adila sitting on her own couch, wearing a peacock-patterned ball gown. And there’s Dandy in an oversized sweater with little bows on it and tights, and Isolde(?!?) in a Konkon-style kimono, too. “As we all know,” Eupheria says, her high heels clacking on the stage before the vast audience of her nightmare army, her awful gremlins and black glass knights and the huge figure of her glass dragon, “back when Adila locked me away and threw away the key, I promised you all that if someone came and saved me, saved [i]us,[/i] I’d do anything to thank them.” She’s wearing a sharp iridescent suit now, with loose sleeves that flop down to cover her hands, and she’s talking into the Caduceus, shrunk down to the size of a wand. Both her unnaturally garish lights and Alina’s pure, wholesome lights are swirling around her. “But nobody came.” For a moment... for that line... her voice is raw and small. Then she turns impossibly sharp on her heel to look at you all, the crowd booing viciously behind her, in command and in control once again. “Can you believe that? Nobody! Not one person in all of Hyperborea said to themselves, hey, maybe she’s getting cramped in there, how about we offer her parole? So I figured, if Hyperborea has turned its back on me, why not destroy everything when I got out, instead? And let me tell you, I made a [i]checklist.[/i] Boil the seas away to start things off, then chop down Argossa and use it for kindling, and then tear down every kingdom brick by brick until there’s nowhere left to hide for every stinking, miserable little wretch [i]who abandoned me![/i]” She looms over you all, suddenly ten feet tall, her teeth turning to hideous fangs as she screeches her fury, magenta hair lashing like a nest full of writhing snakes— And then she giggles, and it’s like flipping a switch. The fangs are gone, she’s shrunk down to merely being tall and willowy, and she’s back to being outrageously, ominously bubbly. “But then, you know, you think of one thing, then you think of another, and soon enough it’s like, bluh, how am I even supposed to choose, right? Soooo many options! That’s why I made the...” [b]“WHEEL! OF! FAAAAAAATE!!!”[/b] To the sound of the crowd’s roaring, she waves a hand and up out of the stage rises a huge, huge, [i]huge[/i] wheel. Every one of the little slices of the wheel has text in Eupheria’s wild handwriting and plenty of illustrations: [list][*]host a rainbow tea party for everyone in Hyperborea, let bygones be bygones! :) [*] BURN DOWN ARGOSSA AND BLOW THE SUN AND MOON OUT OF THE SKY, REPLACE EVERYTHING WITH MY FACE [*] Princess 2 Prince, Boy Extravaganza!!! [*] Everyone Is Cat (Except Askaians, Who Will Be Dog) [*] TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF SPARKLY TERROR [*] put everyone in their own personal dungeon dimension, see how [i]THEY[/i] like it [*] grant my gallant rescuer(s) their hearts’ desire! [*] LABYRINTH OF TORMENT, BROADCAST LIVE [*] everybody gets a limited edition Shadow War teacup and box of lemon cake mix :) [*] erase everyone’s hearts [*] make bridges between all the worlds so nobody has to lose their eyes again [*] turn Ouroboros into a worm, go fishing [*] FLIP HYPERBOREA UPSIDE DOWN SO EVERYONE HAS TO LIVE IN THE DARK NOW [*] turn everybody into me! :) [*] Crossover Episode? [*] [i]bees!!![/i] [*] turn Ourania into a puppy and then abandon her by the side of the road with a sign that says she’s a bad dog and everyone should ignore her and then go and kick her just to be sure she’s miserable for the rest of her life [*] retire to Axonia and make new bespoke parrots [*] turn everybody into dragons? no chance this will backfire!!!![/list] “Would my lovely assistant please come turn the wheel?” The spotlights fall on Azora’s body, dressed in a spangly leotard. The owl screeches furiously. Azora’s body curtseys, then takes the great slats of the wheels in both hands and sets it spinning with a mighty heave. Slowly, but gaining speed, it begins to spin, a little Caduceus-shaped needle up at the top indicating which one she intends to inflict on Hyperborea. Ooooh boy. [i]claka-claka-claka-claka-clack[/i] “While we’re waiting on the results, let’s hear from our intrepid guests! Go ahead, introduce yourselves— one at a time, please— and tell us all what brought you here! What your hopes and dreams are, what you think of your host, and why, after all that time, you’re setting me free now!” She taps the miniature Caduceus against her lips and grins. Her eyes are endless pits of swirling color that make you feel like you’re going to fall in, or maybe lose yourself trying to keep track of where one color ends and the other begins. “And no lies, please.” [i]claka-claka-claka-claka-clack[/i] “Hello,” you say, waving at the crowd, suddenly jolted from watching her eyes. No princess of Askaia will shirk from a challenge to be so cute and so adorable they win the hearts of a nightmare army! “My name’s Rita von Catabas, Princess of the Askaian Isles, and I’m Alina’s girlfriend! I’ve wanted to kiss her since we were both little kittens, and when she asked me out in Argossa, it was a dream come true! I didn’t feel I was worthy of it— I needed her help to save my home, wasn’t there when she needed me in Jedad, and couldn’t save a princess who saved me in turn in Feloria, but the way she looks at me makes me feel like the most special princess in the world.” You’re a little surprised you’re going into so much detail, but you turn and give Alina the sweetest smile in all of Hyperborea. “We didn’t mean to save you,” you continue, continuing onwards, feeling a weird pressure building in the back of your head, “because everyone thought you were dead, or just a story, and I actually have no clue how you’re still alive after all this time. And when I was just a little kitten the story of you and Princess Carmilla and how you made the brave cat princess into your pet made me so flustered that even now that I’m all grown up I fantasize about doing that with Alina even though my parents would be horrified if they found out but that’s okay because Alina knows and accepts that I’m into that!!” [i]claka-claka-claka-claka-clack[/i] You are going to melt. You are going to melt right through your seat and through the floor and all the way down to Devilhome. Eska is snickering loudly. You are blushing furiously and the hysterical roar of the crowd is like the crashing of the waves on the shore and you are actually starting to sniffle and cry and [i]why did you say that??[/i] “Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us,” Queen Eupheria says, hiding her laughter behind her hand, floating a signed souvenir picture of herself over to you captioned [i]to my adoring fan[/i], “who’s next~?” Now you can’t say anything else, can’t try to explain or complain. One At A Time, Please. All you can do is bury your face in your paws and sob with humiliation, but not at so loud a volume it would stop someone else from taking their turn. [i]claka-claka-claka-claka-clack[/i] [[b]Broken Heart[/b] — Eupheria cannot be Finished with Wisdom or Grace. Damage this stat when her heart is made whole. [b]Wicked Queen[/b] — Eupheria cannot be Finished with Blood, Sense or Courage. Damage this stat when she renounces her crown. [b]Caddy And I Are One[/b] — Eupheria may rewrite her own stats and tags. Damage this stat when she no longer possesses the Caduceus. The CADUCEUS is a Source of Power that allows the bearer to inflict Location Stats at will. Eupheria has inflicted the Location Stats [i]Zone of Compulsive Truth[/i] and [i]One At A Time, Please[/i] on the stage of Tonight With Eupheria.]