Tatterdemalion

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

SLAM.

The door hits the doorstop so hard it bounces and nearly hits Sara in the face as she dramatically storms in and points a finger at Victor.

”You.”

She advances on him like the wrath of the Angel of the LORD, and she’s actually got an honest-to-God halo around her? It’s the showmanship of someone who’s here to put the fear of @SARAHPHIM into everyone.

“So, Brainstorm, when were you going to clue us in that you made an evil computer that Vicki’s using to help take over our jobs right now, as we speak? Did that maybe, possibly, slip your mind??” She doesn’t touch him. It’s somehow scarier that she’s not touching him. “Is the buyout of AEGIS another step in its plan to dissolve Disflix? Are you in charge of the whole operation?”

And because this is the most vital time for a frank discussion about Prometheus, its origins, why Victor has kept it quiet, and what they’re going to do about him... this is the perfect time for the captain to turn on the fasten seatbelts sign.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Grimalkin!

This is the best programming that Eupheria Productions has produced in the past fifty keplon. (A keplon is "however long it is for Eupheria to decide that it's time for a new one," naturally.) Sure, the game of Heist! was boring and ridiculous, but watching Mittens the Kitten crush the competition with your heat vision is delightful. She moves like a flickering star, leaving a trail of her flushed cheeks dwindling behind her. It's been impossible not to see her ever since she landed on the Dance of the Thousand Web Vipers.

Every keplon is going to be like this from here on out. You and your family are going to get to bring the good news of Eupheria to the rest of Hyperborea. ("Congratulations! Have you ever thought that everything was too ordinary, mundane and boring? Well, you'll never have to worry about that again!") You'll be her hands and eyes and ears all throughout the world, bringing her new agendas and ideas and whims to her new forever kingdom, and, yes, there'll be Truth or Dare whenever Eupheria wants.

(The king wiggling out of her Truth by saying that Somebody, who always left the tap open but also always brought her flowers, was her favorite daughter, may have been boring, but Eska's interpretative friendship dance was worth the price of admission alone, and Rita's own admission that she really did like pears on her lemon cakes had been scandalous!)

The bell signaling that Alina Cascade has made her seventh score begins to chime, low and deep, and you hop to your feet cheering: "IN THE PIT! IN THE PIT! IN THE PIT!"

***

Adila!

Your keen senses allow you a moment to drag your claws down the side of the pit after it opens up beneath you. Eupheria might have gotten you once by surprise, but she won't get you twice! No, you will clamber back up and demand she let you back into the labyrinth by a more dignified--

That's when Dandy's butt lands right on your snout, and with a surprised yelp you fall, tucking yourself in around her in order to shield her fall. Down and sideways and up you tumble until you shoot right out into a muddy, murky swamp. It smells awful, and Dandy wrinkles her nose as you manage to hold her up over the bog, though for how long you can keep her from it is anyone's guess, with the way you're slowly sinking into it.

"Thanks for the catch, sugarcube," she says, giving you a very comforting pat on your tumtum. "Sakes alive, I wish that witch would give us a little more warning before she tosses us around!" Then, she freezes up, and says, in a hoarse whisper, "There's more of those freaky black centaurs here, but I don't think they've spotted us yet..."

***

Kathelia!

You land in a twisting maze of crystal tunnels, each one slowly building in magical power. Every now and then, one will shoot off a beam of magic, doubtlessly very dangerous to get hit by. There are two extra problems to consider, too. One is that Eska is here too, and has managed to land some distance away. She's the most likely competitor to turn on you and leave you encased in crystal or dangling from the ceiling to "weed out the competition."

The other problem is, well...

"HERE WE ARE, A PERFECT TEAM! TRY TO AVOID THE LASER BEAM!"

There is a cheerleader on top of you and thinking is hard and, wow, is she wearing perfume to cover up the fact she's been sweating as she cheered for you all? And is she wiggling, and, agh, no, you need to be thinking about Eska, not about bouncy foxes with beautiful smiles and how she's looking at you even though you're a tiny dweeb and aaaaaaah

***

Alina!

Azora cheers and gives you a smothering hug, and that's how you miss the part where Eupheria claps her hands and all the other princesses fall into pits. By the time you manage to wriggle your way out of her arms, hissing a little, the nightmare creatures up on the bleachers are vacating, making sure to litter as much as possible on their way out, and Eupheria is standing very, very close in her bridal gown, and suddenly it's just the four of you: Azora, Adila I, Eupheria and you.

"Congratulations on winning the Princess Olympics," she says, grinning, shaking all three of you by the hand and giving you all head pats. "First place gets... tea with me! Aren't the three of you just the luckiest little girls in all of Hyperborea?"

She raises the Caduceus and a terrible hissing, screeching noise fills the arena. One of the walls dilates into a tunnel, and a harsh light shines forth. A gleaming parody of a goblin locomotive comes hurtling out, laying down track in front of itself with giant gloved hands reminiscent of Eupheria's own. It comes shuddering to a halt right in front of you, and the doors in its sides shudder open with an unpleasantly wet squelch. It rocks from side to side, full of barely contained energy, as Eupheria gestures for you to enter the dining car.

Congratulations on your victory!

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"So, this Prometheus... Victor has him back at his base, right? Is he like a supercomputer he's been tinkering on?" Okay, she can see the theme naming. Prometheus, the Bound Eagle, it's all connected. She'll have to tease Victor about being such a nerd later. And, more to the point, she might be able to twist his arm into using some of that processing power to help them when they go in to take down Vicki.

Because this is 100% the first time she's heard anything about this Prometheus.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens!

"You understand nothing," Adila I snaps back, and if you're cool, she's just been cleaved off an iceberg. "Her love is selfish, cloying, and possessive. There is nothing so foolish in all the world as to make one person your whole world, when love is meant for one's brothers and sisters in arms, one's family, and one's community. By love you fulfilled your duty to your people, Cascade, and by love you still struggle against Eupheria for the sake of your mother. If you were relying solely on your love for the Askaian, you would have failed already."

She stands, stiff and formal, glowering down at you. "And my duty is not to Eupheria. My duty is not to coddle her or take responsibility for her obsession. My duty is to the people of the Bazaar lost in this labyrinth, to the members of the Watch who follow my creed, and to all of Hyperborea. It has always been to this world entire, you selfish, short-sighted, spoiled child."

"Is it the stick wedged up your butt that's causing you to say such nonsense?" Azora Howl delivers the line with the smug smile of someone who's sure her zinger is the wittiest thing that's ever been said, and it makes Adila I scowl and storm out of the tent, hands clenched into angry fists.

Well. There it is. There's one of the walls that stands between Eupheria and Adila I: Euphie sees people, Adila sees communities. When Eupheria looked at Adila, she saw the strong, stubborn, beautiful warrior. When Adila looked at Eupheria, she saw one of my followers, who is part of my larger social circle. It's stupid and frustrating and... and it's the kind of worldview you cling to harder and harder when you worry that you're wrong. A shield to hold up to defend you from yourself more than others, especially when everyone else around you falls in love and you've never felt what they feel.

Has Adila I ever been in love? Can she be in love with someone the way you love Rita, the way Eupheria loves you? Or are her feelings of guilt and loss and stubborn pride what you might feel if you'd had to put down Jessamine?

***

Adila!

Brightball! The noble sport!

Dandy adjusts her sash, trying to make it look a little less like a feed bag, while Team Spankies come back out from the Winner's Tent. Azora and Alina are still holding hands, and Adila I is stalking out in front of them, walking like she intends to burn the court down. Eupheria deliberately doesn't look at her, but an ambulatory bit of turf still manages to trip Adila I over and she faceplants in the dirt. Oof. You are going to have to work very hard to hand Alina this win, even if she is one of the best Brightball players in Hyperborea!

"Now," Eupheria trills, taking a seat in mid-air, shoe dangling from her toes above your heads, "let the game begin!"

And with a snap of her fingers, each one of the hoops grows a plethora of legs and starts scampering away. Oh. Oh, boy. This game suddenly got a lot more unpredictable.

[Brightball is played with +Grace!]

***

Hornet!

The other princesses left you behind. They're all getting salves and amulets and preparing to face the heat of the Gulch, which might be a crack inside, but that seems like it'll be a pain, and how are they going to get everyone back out? They have to think about practical questions like this, after all. What's more likely is that the Wicked Queen's Nightmare Army is going to be waiting inside and they're going to bop the princesses over the head one by one as they squeeze through the sweltering crack in the dome. If you were in the Wicked Queen's slippers, that's what you'd do. And you'd have an Effacious Wrappinator to toss the princesses into, one that didn't have a tendency to keep wrapping until it broke down, because if you were the Wicked Queen, all your inventions would work just the way you wanted them to.

The trick, you consider, as you wheel the Ultimate Tunnel Digger up towards the dome, is going to be making sure the tunnel is just through the dome. As long as your Insurmountable Stop Button works properly, you should be able to stop the Digger from digging right through Hyperborea and into the void beyond Ouroboros. And though you haven't had time to test the Stop Button, in theory it should work to Stop just about anything!

You're going to show them all. You're going to show them all. You're going to make a tunnel an entire host of Princesses could march an entire Bazaar's worth of civilians through, and it's not going to punch holes through anything it's not supposed to, and then Adila's going to feel so ashamed for ignoring her official friend, and she'll even maybe want to hang out with you even when she's not required to by contract. As long as the machine works. So it has to work. The Digger will dig and the Stop Button will stop, and you're going to save the day for once.

Yeah. For once.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

A paper box hits you right between the eyes. The audience is fuming and furious, and Eupheria seems as coiled and dangerous as a snake. Literally, some of her limbs are all noodly and curled up, and she looks down at you through contemptuous lashes.

The Sphinx arises again with a howl, and Dandy sighs with resignation. “A’right, I’ll go first.”

“DO THE SILLY SUNFLOWER DANCE.”

“Tarnation!”

***

Alina!

Rita makes sure to give you a kiss as she lets you loose, and you make sure to hold her cheeks with your paw— with your hands for a moment after that.

“Don’t worry,” she says, resting her head against yours. “We’ll get out. I promise.” She smells of water flowers. You briefly consider dragging her back to the Winner’s Tent with you, surely she wouldn’t be missed?

But you have a much more important date in there. One that could save everyone.

***

Jessamine!

“Report!”

You hop off your pegasus, frazzled and singed from where you slammed into the reality warping barrier around the bazaar. Around you is arrayed the Princess Confederation, reborn out of the celebrations at Castle Thessia. At one end of the tent, Helya glowers over the basic map of the situation: one circle, representing the dome.

There’s one way left. One you haven’t even tried because of how foolish and dangerous it is, not just to you, but to your pegasus. You wouldn’t even be considering it if Alina wasn’t in there, probably fighting the Wicked Queen right now all alone. You wouldn’t even be in Jedad again, this soon, and especially not with Princess Ninian herself looking up to you, waiting for you to tell everyone your plan.

“There’s one way in,” you sigh. “And no one is going to like it.”

“We’ll do anything,” Tashanna says, resolutely. The confidence in her voice rouses everyone in the room, except for Hornet, who has her hand raised.

“We have to go through the Gulch.”

“Impossible!”

“Are you out of your mind, Jessamine?”

“Difficult.”

“Or, or, or!” Hornet unfolds her parchment. “I use my Ultimate Tunnel Digger to dig through the dome and hopefully just the dome!”

There is a moment of worried silence as she beams.

“Hornet, prepare the Digger. If we can’t get in through the Gulch,” Helya says, squaring her shoulders, “your tunnel will have to get us there.”

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Take Cruel, Timmy. By the time this story makes the rounds, it’s somehow going to be “Timothy turned Elodie down so hard she died!!”

Also for the record “k.” is so much more brutal than “k”

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET
OUT OF STRINGS ON TIMMY

Out. Out out out out. The room is closing in on her, the walls are shrinking, she’s being packed in a box that’s going to be shipped to Margot and Timmy— Timothy is never going to speak to her again and “the vampire made me do it” is such a lame excuse and, and her throat is tight, the room is hot and tight and small and Annalee and Timmy are together and she’s still stupid second place went too fast tried to catch him before he left her behind but now it’s over it’s done she can’t ever have the picket fence because she’s broken and stupid and the room is spinning and where’s a door where’s a door she knows the knock where is the door

Elodie Faucher shrieks. It’s the shriek of the ghost standing behind you in the mirror. It’s the shriek of Death abjured by a doctor. It’s the shriek of rusty hedge trimmers and shed hinges in a field that’s never finished the harvest. It is a dead shriek, and when she turns and flies to the window it is with the jerky motion of a thing that is not alive.

She slams it open, and the darkness of The Forest is on the other side. You know the one. The Black Forest, Sherwood, Mirkwood, the Hercynian. She flings herself through, into the underbrush, and flees. Her wail is almost immediately choked out by the thickness of the wood.

She is going to be in very big trouble when she is found, but she doesn’t care. What else can they do to her? Lock her up with Margot until she’s properly tamed and has an appropriate relationship? Ha, joke’s on them, that’s going to happen whether or not she wants it!

[Looking Glass, 12. She can make her way back whenever she wants, and nothing comes back Through.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia!

Isolde smiles at you. It’s an exhausted, I am having the worst day of my life right now but I’m deliberately pushing it down because you’ve just told me something wonderful, regal smile. “If my Lina has a smart cookie like you for a friend, she’s choosing her company wisely. Although I’d rather she was in here than out there being mocked, but...” She shakes her head. “I can’t blame you for wiping the floor with those two fools she has for teammates. Now, I don’t think we have much time at all, but while Eupheria’s entertaining herself outside: please do not forget that this maze, these games are rigged. Eupheria trusted before, and it only brought her pain. She won’t make that mistake again.”

“So we cheat?” Dandy chews thoughtfully on her cake, and if you were feeling mean, you might compare it to the chewing of a barnyard animal.

“We play along, we buy time, and if any of us see an opening to separate her from the Caduceus, we take it, no matter the consequences.” She might have Eupheria’s bubbly voice, but it’s muted and serious. This is where Alina got her scariness from. “Promise me. No matter what. We have to end this for the good of Hyperborea.”

***

Adila!

Well, at least that’s over with, and at least Dandy didn’t have to watch. Or listen. The jeering from the stands nearly drowned out your voice anyway, as you sang the traditional Felorian children’s song.

One by one, the other members of the teams end up dragged up there. First, there’s Eska, who’s Dared to compliment everyone. (“Ugh. Adila, you’re... remarkably pliable. Crybaby, you’re... colorful.”)

Then there’s Rita, shimmering and swaying as she marches up to the Sphinx, demands a Truth, and is ordered to tell the world what her least favorite thing about Alina is.

“My heart... she blames herself for everything, especially things which aren’t her fault at all!” Shimmy, shimmy, swish swish. “She needs to learn to forgive herself, and—“

“LIES.”

”She only eats fish skinned and deboned and that’s so cowardly I’m so sorry Lina!!”

Then, finally, there’s Adila I, who resolutely decides on Dare, because not even wild bucking hippogriffs could induce her to pick Truth.

“APOLOGIZE TO EUPHERIA FOR YOUR SINS.”

“...I’m sorry that you misinterpreted my intentions in Jedad, Euphie. If you hadn’t jumped to the worst possible conclusion—“

***

Mittens!

You prance over to the smoldering crater on the far side of the field, holding hands with Azora, mostly because she can’t pick you up one-handed.

“Nice job,” Azora twitters, as Adila I pulls herself up with an aching groan. “Are you going to be okay to play, old hag, or did that swing from Caddy put you in need of a full body cast?”

“I’m fine,” Adila I lies, like a liar, and then faceplants into the grass.

...so, um, two-player Heist! You’ve won this before, but... well, you’ve won with Rita on your team, not Azora Howl.

[Your next event is Heist! which is rolled with Courage. You may roll without Despair if you have an undamaged stat. Yes, even Mittens.]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

“waugh Jesus Mary and Joseph,” Sara says, clutching her chest. “Bode, Jesus, don’t... give a girl some warning before you sneak up on her!” She reflexively switches the vid off as she turns to look at him.

Part of her wants to grin. The Creator. Okay. Victor made Bode— Bound Eagle— which rings a bell, like it’s a story or something.

“Sure. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself, though? I’ve known Victor for ages, but you’ve known him all your life, right?”

When she’d imagined Bode before, he was, like, an accountant. Early receding hairline, thin glasses, a bland puce suit. This was a whole lot different, but in its own way, it made a whole lot of sense. And now that she had the chance?

She wanted to know everything. Or at least close enough to be able to nod and say, “yeah, I know Bode, we’re super chill.”

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

“And here we see... the Great North American... Super-genius,” says Dame Sara Jimenez, Esq., in the most BBC voice imaginable. “Bereft of his limbs,” she explains to her camera, “during the all-important mating season, he meekly attempts... to elicit pity... in defiance of the Law of the Jungle.”

The documentary is a good way not to think about that hug. Like... that wasn’t a goodbye, I’m vanishing to protect you hug, right? And on the flipside, that wasn’t a come feed me chocolate and ask me out again hug. That was... Euna is just... aaagh, it’s too confusing. Physical touch was simpler when she initiated it.

“Once common throughout the Americas,” she drawls, grinning, “the Super-genius... faces new threats, such as chair legs to the face... which have restricted their habitat to the detention room in the Gears Foundation. It remains to be seen... whether they will overcome adversity, or end up being hit with a chair leg again...”

It is a crime that this is not being streamed, because Sara’s Documentary Voice is a gift to humanity.