The Dubious Debacle of the Dastardly Dessert

=== Tweet description : ===
Zero, Lucien, and Simmond embark on a quest to locate a pastry thief. Steal some new shiny gear and find out meet a dancing Ogre child. Along the way they find that the FDA really does allow a certain PPM of bug parts.
=== NPC: ===
* Illyana Holaris
* Fosseal Fulez
* Pateeo Lanturns
* Felix Friendly
=== CAST: ===
* Lucien Dumare
* Simmond the Kind
* Zero Luminous
== Plot Summary ==
Our story begins in the FBK guild hall, on an otherwise lazy morning. There appears to be only 3 occupants at the time, Lucien, Simmond, and Zero, each simply doing their own thing.
Lucien completed his latest infusion, a homunculus servant in the shape of a raven he dubbed Clink, much to Simmond's intrigue. On the other side of the room, Zero spotted a strange door with a broken lock. As he went up to investigate, he caught Lucien's eye, making him aware of the door as well. The two investigated, and ultimately concluded that someone had accidently broken the lock, and probably not even noticed. Curious, they both walked in, and were soon after followed by Simmond. The room seemed to be a long abandoned armory that had not been used in quite some time. The first thing to catch everyone's attention was a set of five whispering voices, and the next was a special magical pull that seemed to draw each kitten to different parts of the room. They would first find 3 magic items, which they all borrowed, for the time being at least. Lucien found an all-purpose tool, Simmond a scale mail made from a red dragon's scales, and Zero a large belt infused with the power of lightning, a stormgirdle.
The trio's attention was then only left to those 5 disembodied whispers, which Zero followed to an interesting looking hat. As he put it on, all the voices stopped. Well they did for the others at least. Zero unfortunately picked up what would be identified as a tiamhat, a cursed magic hat that had animated puppets of each of Tiamat's 5 heads on them. The 5 voices would all give conflicting instructions and fill Zero's mind with whispers just loud enough to break his focus at all hours of the night and day. While Lucien and Simmond tried to think of a solution, and exasperated Zero went to the quest board, and found 3 postings. The first notified them of the local buster festival going on today, the second from an Illyana Holaris, a quest paying 80,000 gold for what simply sounded like finding some lost bread. The final note was from Nulisag, notifying everyone that the lock on the armory had broken, and to please not go inside. Zero immediately removed his belt and felt rather terrible, believing to have violated his paladin oaths. Lucien promptly did the guild a "favor", and repaired the lock magically, in a way that no one would be likely to open the armory ever again, and would therefore never be able to return the borrowed items. Simmond did perhaps the most cunning thing and simply pretended he always had the dragon scale mail and drew no attention to himself.
Wanting to push off his chores for the day and possibly create a decent alibi, Lucien strongly encouraged that the trio go and investigate this case of missing bread, and off they went. Their walk through town on a uniquely cheerful and sunny Niqamui morning would lead them to the esteemed Those Buns Dough bakery, and the lovely proprietor, Illyana. The rather flustered lass was rushing to bake more goods, as she quickly informed the kittens that overnight, half her goods were stolen. Illyana and her assistant had been busy all week, preparing for the busking festival, and her assistant had already gone to the venue with whatever baked goods were left. With some quick questioning and investigation, the group ended up towards the back door of the bakery, where evidence seemed to almost imply the baked goods themselves simply walked away!
About this time is when Simmond spotted a ferocious looking cupcake, that wasn't too unsimilar to a mimic. The cupcake rushed out of the alley behind the bakery and attacked the kittens, though it hardly did them much harm. Before long, the poor thing was squished, chopped, set ablaze, contained in a magic hamster ball and finally splattered against the broad of Zero's smiting sword. As Illyana came out to investigate the racket, she also provided the kittens with one more clue: a bag of assorted spices. As she told it, a kind old lady walked in just the other day and offered the spices for use in all the bakery's products, which Illyana and her assistant in fact had used in all the baked goods that had gone missing, and most that were at the festival. Upon inspecting the spice closely, Lucien and Simmond recognized a golden dust that was mixed in, Ekenblim dust. Putting two and two together, Lucien gave everyone the ability to fly and the trio soared over to the festival, expecting to find a sugarcoated and chaotic scene.
As they arrived, the festival seemed to be going well, however. There were no signs of any monstrous pastries anywhere, and everyone currently at the festival seemed to be enjoying themselves. With the kittens at various levels of concern and alertness, they decided to venture around the festival for some time, to both investigate for signs of the cursed food, and take a look at the attractions. They would bump into an old tortle who was conjuring curious looking creatures and given children a rather bland ride around a pen. Lucien tried to convince Simmond to wildshape into something much more fun, like a velociraptor, but the tortle eventually convinced everyone a race would be more fitting. Evidently not the most consistent conjurer, the kittens were given three mounts, a 3 legged pony, a gilded and angry donkey, and a spider llama, which Zero, Lucien, and Simmond used respectively. The race actually proved rather intense and had a very tight finish, with Zero and his 3 legged horse winning. This spectacle drew a small crowd and all the kids now wanted to ride on their own 3 legged horses, which the tortle tried his best to reconjure. As the trio made their way elsewhere, they were intercepted by the mayor of Niqamui himself, Fosseal Fulez, along with his two bodyguards. The dragonborn seemed all business and simply requested that the kittens participate in the talent show, which at this point had only a single act lined up being performed by a young ogre. Eventually Lucien and Simmond agreed, however Zero was adamant that such displays were not befitting of a paladin like himself, and would sit in the crowd instead, keeping an eye for monstrous pies. The show was not for another 30 minutes, however, and Zero spotted and apple bobbing tub that was apparently more his speed, so that is where the group went next.
The attraction was being manned by another tortle, who the kittens really couldn't tell whether they were the same one as before. The tortle tossed in a few real apples, and then cast an illusion to fill the whole tub, before tossing a few more gold filled apples into the mix. Zero was the first to dive in, and perhaps due to the interference of his hat, he missed and came up with only a mouthful of dirty water. Simmond dove and managed to bring up one of the gold filled apples, and Lucien managed to bring up 2, though he promptly cleaned himself off and exchanged the gold apples for one nice and clean apple. With time ticking away, the group finally went to the talent show stage and found the ogre kid who was to be the third act. The kid, named Felix Friendly, informed them he would be performing a dancing act based off of his mother's favorite bard, Mike Magic. Simmond prepared himself for his act, and Lucien did some prep with speaking stones around the audience, and then the show was on. Zero took his seat in the audience, ready to observe and judge all. Lucien went up first, with a decently average magic show, with his voice and loud fanfare coming from the stones and acts involving transformations, illusions, knife throwing, and a large finale with 2 dragons, one made of fire, and one made of ice, having a battle above the audience's heads. Simmond then took to the stage and sang a song that drew the sound straight out of the audience's mouths, written for his longed for boyfriend at home. The silence was only shattered by a kid who didn't get the point leading to everyone getting a decent laugh. Simmond's act could only be topped by Felix Friendly, who took to the stage and danced his heart out. With those hips moving the way they were, the crowd could only look on in amazement or terror. Felix won the show, with Simmond coming in second, and Lucien in third. Zero seemingly had things to say about all 3 acts, but before that could be done, screams were heard from a distance side of the festival and escaping citizens bumped into him, shifting his attentions to what they had all suspected.
Crowds were running from where the bake off was meant to be, and the kittens could already see a massive animated cake, along with more of the monstrous cupcakes, and even some flying raptor like eclairs to boot. They would rush over and commence the battle. The large cake monster had Illyana's assistant in its grasp, which Simmond was able to free using vines. They may have allegedly told her they would try not to wreck the bake off area, though that was not exactly the highest priority at the time. With civilians out of the immediate danger zone, the trio pulled out all their stops to quell these baked monsters as soon as possible. Simmond would rupture the ozone layer above them, burning the monsters with the power of the sun, while Zero swung with his smiting powers to bring down the large cake. Simmond would also summon some tree spirits to attach the eclairs. Lucien would engage the cupcakes racing along the table full of baked goods by using his new Staff of the Magi to fire a lightning bolt down the length of the table, badly injuring the monsters but also practically destroying and igniting everything on the table. The monsters' attacks had minimal effect on the kittens, and in the next round, with Zero's efforts and the tree spirits' attacks, the eclairs were all slain. With a final act of the battle, Simmond summoned a storm cloud above the festival and crashed lightning down upon the remaining cupcakes, completely destroying the table, and ending combat.
Illyana's assistant came back only to see the bake out destroyed, and formerly quit by giving Zero her apron. The group figured it might be a good idea to leave, given the festival was all but abandoned after the large battle. Arriving back at Those Buns Dough, they informed Illyana about the events at the festival. In shock, she revealed that hundreds of orders made with the Ekenblim spice had already been shipped out, aside from the ones at the bake off. The kittens took their reward and returned to the guild hall, sticky with frosting and burdened with the news that not only might the Ekenblim infection now be spread to countless more Niqamui citizens, but there might be an unknown number of animated monster cakes running loose in the wilds.
Category:Episodes