Arc 5: Lives of the Party

Official illustration for Arc 5 Episode 1

Arc 5 is a level 5 festival arc DMed by Haley. It takes place at the Festival of the Dawnfather's Rest in the city of Solaris.

The arc is not meant as a direct spin-off of the previous arcs, and instead goes about 200 years back in time, to the year 21 AP. There is, however, probably some orbula played at the festival, connecting the arc to Arc 4, although it is not mentioned or shown during the actual arc. Generally, the arc is connected to the other ones more on an emotional level than with actual physical connections.

Longer campaigns often have a festival episode, or beach episode, which usually is a rest between long and dramatic story arcs. Since a concept like that does not really work for this podcast, Haley decided to just have a full festival arc, and just not make the festival just fun and peaceful.

For this Arc, again, every character gets a free Expertise. Also, in Episode 0, Haley lets the players pre-roll something that might become important later on: a Wisdom Save. Results: 21 (Chris), 17 (James), 11 (Gus), 5 (Pax), 3 that was a Nat 1 (Owen). The thing they try to save against has nothing to do with being charmed or with dreaming.

## Arc Characters and Players

Characters and Players in order of introduction in Episode 0:

**DM** (Haley - She/Her\*)

**Onyx Mayfell** (He/Him) (played by Pax - He/Him) is an anxious Tabaxi Eldritch Knight Fighter with the built of a cheetah. He is a smith by trade, and at the festival because he hopes to be able to apply to an exclusive commune of smiths and other artisans. While he is quite skinny, his work also made him surprisingly strong.

**Omen Haxolpenny** (He/Him) (played by Chris - He/Him) is a Kalashtar Warlock with a Pact of the Chain Master and a Fey patron, who happens to be his own adoptive mother, a witch. He was raised by her in the Whispering Woodlands, and left to find her a girlfriend. He has shaggy bright pink hair and wears comfortable robes.

**Booker Sailship** (He/Him) (played by Owen - He/Him) is a High Elf Bladesinger Wizard that grew up in Glaceria, went to the Arcane Academy in Tyle, and then became a pirate as a quartermaster on the Plague Rat to pay off his debt. He managed to do that this year, but still holds on to the job. At the moment, he is on leave, and visits the festival in his free time. Booker has short red hair and wears and eyepatch.

**Wren Forrester** (She/They) (played by James - She/They) is a High Elf Paladin following the Oath of the Ancients. She is a protector of the Whispering Woodlands, and has come to the festival as a volunteer guard, helping out travelling merchants, including her maybe-girlfriend, who has a flower stand. She has red hair and can be recognized by her volunteer guard's chain mail.

**Sougle Wackamole** (He/Him) (played by Gus - He/Him) is a Hobgoblin of the Feywild Arcane Trickster Rogue. He works at the festival for a carnival booth game, and is quite bored of his job. He cares about nothing in the world but his pair of sneakers, which he has been modifying over the course of many years. He has black hair with a white streak and a "pathetic" beard.

The icebreaker for this arc was: What is your favorite thing to do at a state or renaissance fair?

* Haley: likes to walk around in circles and just enjoy the ambience. It's the best part, it doesn't cost any extra money, and everyone is dressed nicely.
* Gus: has been to a state fair once, and the only thing he remembers is that he made a bet with one of his brother's friends, went on one of the giant swings that also spun around in a circle about 8 times, and then threw up. He then called his mum and asked her to pick him up and drive him home.
* Pax: also likes to just absorb the ambience, and also likes the look at all the things that do cost extra money. It usually makes him sad, because he doesn't have that much, but he loves to see the wares.
* Owen: doesn't have a lot of experience with fairs. He has been to a ren fair once, and liked to go around and look at things, particularly clothing, admire them, but also not have enough money to pay for them.
* James: enjoys to really get into the joust at the ren fair. They usually get assigned a knight, and then they make rooting for them a personality trait. She thinks it's fun to scream at a knight she'll never see in her life again.
* Chris: loves the food. He distinctly remembers getting as much food as he can and then just leaving the fair.

\*Haley has since changed their pronouns to She/Any.

## Arc Plot (Full Arc Spoilers)

### Episode 1

The episode begins with the Festival of the Dawnfather's Rest starting at sunset. Wren helps Lily with her last-minute preparations, and Omen arrives in Solaris, where he starts approaching random women and ask them if they would be interested in dating his mother. Doing that, he runs right into Wren, who just finished setting up the flower stand. Lily convinces Wren that it might be best if someone keeps an eye on Omen and stops him from randomly going up to people and asking them personal questions, so Wren and Omen walk around the festival together.

In the meantime, Booker leaves his ship for the first time in months and arrives in Solaris. There, he finds his acquaintance Onyx loosing a game and nearly running away in panic. They continue their walk around the game booths of the festival together, also meeting Sougle at the Ice Knife booth.

Wren and Omen also go through the games quarter, and Omen wins his way through game after game by cheating with his magic. As he wins at Ice Knife twice in a row, Sougle has to give up the big prize he was not supposed to loose, especially not this early, and decides to put up a sign that says "Out of Order" and steal himself away to Snowdrop, which he wanted to see anyways. Omen and Wren follow him, even though he tries to get rid of them.

Meanwhile, Onyx and Booker were picked out of the crowd of bystanders to compete in the strength contest, and while Booker does not manage to do more than one good pull-up, Onyx can throw his metal ball farther than the strong woman that challenged him, and thus gets the chance to compete at Snowdrop himself. He sprints off to the stadium where the competition will take place just a few minutes later.

### Episode 2

Onyx goes to Snowdrop to compete, and Booker accompanies him to the stadium, where Onyx leaves to the room for the competitors, and Booker goes to the stands. There, he meets Omen, Wren, and Sougle, who also came to see Snowdrop, and witnessed him arguing with a sky pirate.

Onyx, in the meantime, gets prepared to compete. Nobody really tells him what is going to happen, and he starts to get very anxious, until he meets the favourite of the competition, Igor Rose, who explains some things to him and manages to calm him down. Then, the competition starts. On his turn to present himself, people actually cheer for him, which he did not expect. He does really well, but not enough to continue to round 2, so he joins Booker in the stands and gets introduced to his new companions.

As round 2, the bloodsports, begins, Omen lays eyes on the referee, a very strong woman, who might be his mom's type, and turns invisible to get to her. He gets to the middle of the stadium and teleports up the podium as the bloodsports begins, turning visible again. Before he can really talk to her about whether she might be interested in finding love, she first smacks him down from the podium, and then drags him back to the stands.

After the bloodsports, the party leaves to see Fulldark together with Lily. As they arrive at Fulldark, all seems well at first, until suddenly, they are caught in a time loop, and thrown back to the beginning of the festival.

### Episode 3

The episode begins with Booker arriving at the second loop of the festival, with no memories not only of the first loop, but of the last few decades. Confused about where he is and how he got there, he walks into the festival, and is happy to find Onyx in front of the Whac-A-Gnoll game booth. Onyx remembers most things from the first loop, and is concerned to find Booker in this state. His theory is that it might have been some kind of mass hallucination. They decide to stick together and try to find the others, starting with Sougle, who is not hard to find, sitting at the game booth opposite from them. First, Sougle tries to deny what happened and convince himself that it was last year, but soon he realises that that is not possible. They come up with a new theory, that it might have been an evil mage who cursed Booker specifically, and somehow also affected them. Booker and Onyx convince Sougle to leave his post again and join them on their search for Omen and Wren.

In the meantime, Wren stands at Lily's flower stand again. She remembers everything, including a scream she heard, and tries to convince Lily and Birk that some weird magic is happening, but they cannot remember anything weird happening at all. Wren can, however, convince Birk to get Omen and bring him to her. Birk finds him in the middle of the street, calling his brother Samuel through a shadowy illusion-like spell. Samuel tells him that nobody of their family is trying to fuck with Omen, and Omen allows him to tell their mother about him being gone and trapped in a time loop, hoping that she might know what to do. Birk brings him to Wren, who is equally happy and concerned that Omen seems to be the only person to understand her, and who also heard the scream. The two of them first try to find Sougle at his game booth, then using the Locate Object spell on Sougle's priced sneakers, which leads them towards the petting zoo.

There, Sougle, Onyx and Booker had hoped to find Omen, knowing that he is always looking for "hot moms" who might want to date his mother, and knowing that the woman running the petting zoo, Katrina Talon, might be exactly that. Sougle casually walks up to her and talks with her. She lets him pet a unicorn pony, and while Omen and Wren are not there yet, Katrina gives him the tip of maybe asking Ginger Sprite, who runs the mirror maze, for advice, since she is a mage who "has answers".

Wren and Omen arrive, and Omen finds out that Katrina actually knows his mother, but is not interested in dating her. With their new information, the group decides to go to the mirror maze and see Ginger Sprite.

### Episode 4

The party makes their way to the mirror maze, where they talk to Ginger Sprite, a one foot tall fairy. While she herself does not have answers for them, she tells them that the maze might, but also warns them that it is dangerous, and that it's not really comparable to a fun carnival game, but only there for people who want something, preferably not a physical something. Since they are looking for answers, and Booker's memories, they enter the maze, not together, since that is not allowed, but each on their own.

In the maze, they wander around, a bit clueless at first. Booker and Sougle end up at the exit without having found anything, and decide to go back in and try again. Onyx has the feeling that something is moving behind him, but cannot make out what it is.

Omen is the first to have an encounter. He hears something behind him, and then gets stabbed in the shoulder by the claws of a man who does not appear in the mirrors around him. The vampire tells him to leave, but Omen refuses, saying that he is looking for answers, and gets carried away by the vampire. Onyx first tries to outrun the vampire woman chasing him, but when she catches and claws at him, he also refuses to leave before he has answers and Booker his memories, so the woman carries him away, too. Similar things happen to Booker and Wren. Only Sougle turns and leaves as he sees the vampire, clawed hand covered in blood, and he first argues with Ginger about endangering all of them, then storms off to Katrina.

While Sougle is arguing with Katrina for sending them towards Ginger and the vampire maze, the other four each awake in their own closed off room, facing another mirror. This time, the mirror does not show them as they are, though, but a version of themselves that they could have become in the worst possible timeline. Omen sees himself as sad, alone, devoid of all happiness, and instead overcome by his secret anxieties. Onyx also sees himself alone, not even Ann besides him, even though in the real room, she is right next to him. The mirror version of him has no hammer, no magical focus, no bag of weapons, and just looks lost. The version of himself Booker sees in the mirror does not have the eyepatch, he is standing straight and tall, looking at him like he is something disgusting, while the real Booker is nearly bleeding to death. As he tries to destroy the mirror, there is another mirror right behind it, showing the same thing. Wren sees herself as the version she would have been if she had never left, a paler woman, all put together, dressed in finery. As she touches the mirror, her mirror version for a moment moves to touch it, too, put then pulls back the hand and clasps it again.

As all of them faced the worst versions of themselves, the mirrors slide away and reveal a garden they all enter. Wren quickly heals Booker and Omen, then they inspect the giant flower in the centre. It has two petals, one that opens by day, one that opens by night. As it is night, that one is open, and reveals the face of an old woman. The flower is named Therum, and while she does not know much about time loops, she feels it pulling at the fabric of this place, and recommends the party to look for a powerful someone who is feeling a terrible amount of something, maybe distress. Then, she gives Booker back his memories, which is painful, but he is nonetheless glad to remember the last sixty years again. Therum offers them to rest in the garden, but it is close to midnight, and they need to find Sougle again, too.

Outside, Sougle is waiting, a bag of popcorn in hand. He helps Omen remember that the scream he and Wren heard came from north of the festival, and then, with about 36.4 miles per hour runs north to hopefully get a hint on what might have happened. In the distance, he sees the ocean and another bay, and there is something large, white, and motionsless, and from further away then should be possible to hear, he hears a scream, and the sun sets again as the next loop starts.

### Episode 5

The episode starts with a new loop. Sougle finds a cricket, kills it, and sets it on the counter of his booth to be able to observe whether it stays dead for the next loop. Then, he goes up to his boss Waggle and tries to convince him that Ginger Sprite is killing people with her mirror maze and needs to be stopped. Waggle, overwhelmed by this, does not really know what to do, and Sougle tells him that he quits, storms off disappointedly, and goes to the mirror maze himself.

At the maze, he finds Omen with a rock in his hand and revenge in his hand. Before they decide to bring revenge upon Ginger together, Omen first calls home and finds out that for his brother, time did not loop, but simply continued since Omen's last call. Then, Sougle tells Omen about the white lumph he saw at the beach. The two of them enter the mirror maze, where Sougle disguises himself as the vampire he saw, and Omen makes himself look badly hurt. Sougle carries him out, and they put up a performance playing that Omen had been sent in by Ginger and dangerously hurt by the vampire. People come and try to help Omen, including a cleric, but he refuses, since his injuries are not actually real. Ginger easily sees through the performance, though, and alerts the real vampires. Sougle, who ran back into the mirror maze as soon as he realised that Ginger saw through his spiel, gets attacked by Victoria Bites. He provokes her further, and positions himself in a way that the people outside have to see her attacking him. This time, though, she is not willing to just let him go, and drags him back into the mirror maze as he tries to flee, where she kills him.

Omen, in shock, cannot really help Sougle, but sends the cleric in to save him. Then, he disguises himself as a generic man to be able to escape the horrified crowd, and tries to find the others.

In the meantime, Onyx again did not win at Whac-A-Gnoll, and then went to find the Dinferni. After walking a few rounds to mentally prepare himself, he asks a member of them whether they are hiring. The man, Briar Ashborn, examines and praises his work, gives him a few tips to further improve it, and shows him who is responsible for hiring, but the dwarf Solri is occupied at the moment. Onyx leaves a few weapons for reference with Briar and leaves.

Wren had hoped that they would all meet up together, but could only find Booker. They just hope to be able to find the others, and go around the merchant's quarter, buying bottomless hot chocolate and visiting Lily. Concerned about the others, they go towards Snowdrop, where they meet Onyx, and also the sky pirate again, who tells them that she saw a big mess around the games' area. Booker's familiar Samuel tells them similar things when sent out to look, and they decide to go there, now even more concerned. There, they meet a guard, who tells them that someone with colourful shoes has probably died, and a Cleric went into the maze, but has not yet come out, either. Onyx lets Ann pick up Omen's scent, and she leads them to a very generic man, who, upon seeing Ann, turns back into Omen, breaks down and hugs her.

After Omen told them what happened, he also informs them about the white lumph Sougle saw, and about the fact that the time loop seems to be locally restricted. They decide to go to the beach to see the lumph for themselves. On the way, Wren proposes that they meet up at Sougle's booth for the next loop. Also, Omen asks her to stay back a bit, and has a short, but honest talk with her, asking her if he is a bad person.

At the beach, Booker is the first one to hear a chirping sound. Then, the Eirden lands, pirate on his back. She slides off his back, and they hear a panicked "No! No!", then she screams, and the loop starts again.

### Episode 6

As the new loop begins, Onyx immediately drops what he is holding and turns around to look out for Sougle, who is alive and as physically well as always, even though his death did take a toll on his mental well-being. Booker and Wren join them soon, but Omen is still missing. He, in the meantime, went up to the mirror maze again, only to see that Ginger Sprite is not in her booth, where she usually was. Instead, right where she would be, there is a weird apparition that looks like a wrinkle in reality and seems to be connected to the Fey in some way. He finally decides to join the others at Sougle's booth and tells them about the wrinkle, and all together, the party plans on investigating the wrinkle further.

On their way to the maze, they go to the Dinferni, to get an expert on planar travel. Onyx introduces himself to Briar Ashborn again, and Wren finds her mentor Birk there and brings him, too. Briar is not quite sure about the time loop situation, but joins them nonetheless. As the party and their friends investigate the wrinkle, they can only guess that Ginger traveled to the Feywild, and could not be reached by the time loop, so instead, this inexplainable wrinkle happened. They bring up the idea that if they just manage to get far enough from Solaris, they could escape the time loop, and then help from the outside. To make sure that they could actually enter again, Omen calls his family again, to contact the most powerful magician they know, his mother. Elisabeth promises them that she will get on her way to them, but does not teleport into the city, since they are not really sure if that would be safe for her.

The party then follows their next lead, which is the sky pirate. They know that she always lands close to Snowdrop, so they make their way to the stadium to expect her there, and again, she lands there and recognises Booker as another pirate. This time, he starts a conversation with her. She introduces herself as Shi'elle, a quite powerful Sorcerer, and as Booker tells her about the time loop and that her Eirden might be in danger, she immediately decides to stay with the Eirden and get away from too many other people. Onyx, Booker, and Wren join her to keep an eye on the Eirden, Sougle decides to go watch Snowdrop on his own instead, and Omen follows him in disguise to look out for him.

At the beach, Shi'elle, Booker, Onyx, and Wren wait while continuing to watch out for the Eirden. Even though nothing happened to him, suddenly his eyes start to flutter. Wren casts Lesser Restoration on him, which does not seem to change anything. Shi'elle tries to find the reason for this sudden change in behaviour, but cannot find it, while he seems to get more and more sick. Finally, his breathing slows, and he curls in on himself and around Shi'elle, who starts shouting at the party, and then, his breathing stops. Desperate and angry, Shi'elle shouts that she can fix this, and then explodes.

### Episode 7

Before the episode starts, Chris gets to roll a d4 (he rolls a 2), without Haley telling him what it was for. Then, since it has been 24 hours for the party, everyone has to make a Constitution save, and only Wren succeeds, while the others get a level of exhaustion. Before the party meets up at Ice Knife, Wren and Lily decide that they want to finally tell people that they are girlfriends, and Booker convinces his captain, Phoenix Starfire, to gather the crew and get away from Solaris. He then goes to Ice Knife to meet the others. Onyx, in the meantime, hits a gnoll and wins a B'dooga plushie. At Ice Knife, Omen and Sougle decide to go to an inn and just sleep through this loop, Booker tells them that he will find his crew and get them out, and Wren and Onyx decide to continue their investigation by figuring out Shi'elle's schedule for the night.

The two of them find Shi'elle in the merchants quarter. She shows no signs of recognition of them, and they continue following her to Snowdrop, where they sit close to her. She does not seem to behave out of the ordinary in any way, except for the fact that she seems anxious in crowds. Other people generally avoid her, since she is very visibly a sky pirate, so she is pretty much alone for the festival.

Booker, in the meantime, gathered his crew and brought them on the ship. He promises Phoenix to catch up with them in a few days in Summerview, then watches them leave. As the ship sails away, though, suddenly it seems to glitch, and then it's gone. Omen and Sougle have a sleepover in the inn, and Sougle thanks Omen for being there for him.

Wren leaves Onyx and Shi'elle to try and contact their deity. Nylea is still there, but their presence is faint, and they cannot really help Wren, so they decide to go back to Lily and spend the rest of the loop with her. Onyx continues following Shi'elle, who goes to the Town Square to watch some performers, and then leaves towards the docks when a parent obviously puts themselves between her and their child. Shortly after, time loops again.

Before the second loop for the episode starts, James gets to roll a d20, without Haley telling her what it is for.

Booker starts the new loop leaving the ship again, with Phoenix winking and saluting at him. His disappointment is clearly visible to his captain, who offers him to go drink something together, which Booker agrees to. First, they go to Ice Knife, though, to catch up. Everyone shares what they found out so far, confusing Phoenix, but at this point, the party does not try to keep secrets anymore. Booker and Phoenix then leave to get drunk, and Onyx leaves to get some sleep, while Wren, Sougle, and Omen plan to find out how to befriend Shi'elle so that maybe her grief won't be as intense.

Before they can get to that, though, they meet Waggle, who lost his memory. Haley later reveals that the d4 Chris rolled was to find out how many more loops it would take until people would be affected by it, and the d20 James rolled was to find out who would be affected. Wren, Sougle, and Omen decide to just let Waggle rest at the Ice Knife booth, and tell Smudge to look out for him.

They approach Shi'elle and, over the course of the day, easily befriend the sky pirate, who is excited about the chance to finally talk to people and make friends. They go to Snowdrop together, and to the Town Square afterwards, but still, Shi'elle is a bit anxious in big crowds, so they go to her Eirden again. As the Eirden dies, Wren tries to calm and comfort Shi'elle, who says "One more time", before she explodes again.

### Episode 8

Before the episode, Wren again has to make a Con save (which she succeeds), and James rolls a d20 to determine which NPC looses their memory (she rolls an 11).

The episode starts with Booker, who, as always, leaves his ship. He notices something flying over his head, which has always been there, but this time, the sky pirate has an emergency landing on the beach. He approaches her, and she has tears streaming down her face. She remembers Wren, but not much else, and Booker takes her with him to the Ice Knife booth to meet the others.

Before Wren got there, she told Lily to save her some flowers. Omen told Edward to steal some Eirden plushies, then got Flumph hats for the whole group, and wrote something into his notebook. Sougle found Waggle, still confused and without his memories, and brought him with. Onyx simply joins the group without doing anything beforehand. Shi'elle explains to them that she was just flying to the festival, and then suddenly started crying and having the feeling that something was wrong, but only remembers Wren's face and that she was kind to her. Wren and the party calmly explain to her that at Fulldark, her Eirden dies of old age, and she has caught them all in a time loop to prevent this, but cannot possibly change it. Omen reads a little script he wrote, attempting to console her, and drops the Disguise Self spell he had up constantly to reveal that he looks very similar to the mirror version of himself he saw in the maze.

The whole group, excluding Waggle, walks to the beach, back to Rin, as Shi'elle tries to process what she heard. Onyx introduces her to Ann and the connection he has with her, and suggests that she might find a different crew she could join, maybe even a sea pirate crew. Since Shi'elle does not want the emergency landing to be the last landing Rin remembers, they all have a ride together, just for fun. Then, Booker tells her his story, and she asks to later be allowed to apologise in person to his crew, even if they would not know what for.

While it hurts Shi'elle to bring up the topic while Rin is still alive, she is desperate for a way to give him a traditional sky funeral instead of a burial. Omen suggests asking the Dinferni to open a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air, and Onyx goes to Briar to ask him for help, and Briar comes with. All together, they spend the last few hours with Rin on the beach. Then, as they get closer to Fulldark and his breathing gets hoarser, Shi'elle carefully removes the saddle bags, Wren weaves the flowers she got from Lily into his feathers, and Briar opens the portal, so that he can fly into the Plane of Air to be able to die where he feels most at home.

As the portal closes, Shi'elle sobs, but this time, time does not reset again, and the song of Fulldark gets resolved as the group enters Solaris again to join. Shi'elle goes back to the docks to sit and think in peace. Sougle and Booker go to watch the third part of Snowdrop. Onyx has his job interview with the Dinferni, which accept him, and as he learns from Briar that the Snowdrop referee did not come to the second part of Snowdrop, he understands that Velda must have lost her memory and goes to find Wren so that they can help her. Wren, in the meantime, does some last-minute shopping for a gift for Lily. Omen finds his mother and siblings arriving in Solaris, and Elisabeth can find and help Velda Hammerthumb, and reconnect with her.

Finally, Wren goes to join Shi'elle for sunrise, so that she doesn't have to face the first day alone. As she goes, Omen has the same idea, and also brings everyone, not just the party, but also their old or newfound friends. Together, they see the sun rise again after 42 hours of darkness.

## Trivia

* This is the first arc that has recurring guests: Pax who played Deb in Arc 1, and Owen who played Diarmad in Arc 3.
* The Opening Monologue of Arc 5 is the first monologue Haley did not show to Gus beforehand.
* Shortly after Owen and James had met for the first time, they made a pact that they would always be on each other's side in an argument.
* This is the last Arc of 2021.