The next half hour went by pretty smoothly. 

Agatha swooned a bit over Barrel approving her dress choice. Barrel shot her a thumbs up.

Lillith mixed up the pumpkin punch in a bowl and took the bottle from her sister just long enough to give the drink a small kick. The two of them then made use of the trio’s least-chipped ceramic goblets, alternating between the punch and straight blood wine.

Agatha surprised everyone by pulling a bottle of high-end vodquila out of her bag. She offered to add some to the punch to increase the flavor range, but Carver recommended against it, citing some science-y jargon that seemed to indicate that the chemical interactions would negatively impact the concoction. Lock backed them up; he didn’t want to admit that he wouldn’t be able to safely drink the punch if it got [i]too[/i] alcoholic.

Shock kicked on the music and the party got into swing. Literally, in Carver’s case; he decided to hang himself from the eight ball ceiling contraption and mix upside down high-fiving of his friends with vine flails that passed for dancing.

Even Carmilla was starting to loosen up. She stood at the edge of the roulette wheel with a mildly grumpy expression on her face, tapping her feet and bobbing her head to the beat of the music.

“Yooooooo!” A voice interrupted as a rosy cheeked face popped in through the window. “The Chad is here! The party can now [i]officially[/i] begin!”

A moment later, said individual reached to grab the ladder, missed, and fell into the lair. 

Barrel, who had been emphatically gesturing as he explained to a politely nodding Sobki how to make jellied slugs without accidentally making slug jelly, suddenly had a mildly heavy box land in his outstretched arms. He looked down and read the label: Bludlite Select.

“Nice catch, bab-BARREL!” Agatha corrected herself quickly. “Nice catch, Barrel!” Internally, she beamed. As much as the youngest trickster tended to play dumb to avoid having his siblings catch on when he was sabatoging their pranks, he clearly was constantly paying more attention to hs surroundings than anyone else. And those reflexes! He didn’t hesitate or even have to look to catch the 12-pack that came flying!

Chad popped up to sitting position immediately after landing on his back. “Woooo! Party boi’s in the ho-ouse!”