Episode 32: Balthazar di Marte (PART TWO)

**Episode 32: Balthazar di Marte (PART TWO)** (C1E32) is the thirty-second episode of the first campaign of The Table is Yours: A Role-playing Adventure Show. The sun is covered by blood, vampire spawns thrive in the dark, and undead are surrounding the area - can The Faded Fates stop Balthazar and fix this?

## Synopsis

### Raging at the Summit

Terry fights off rats while One shoots them from a distance. Wash is pinned by Bryson when Krenar casts a darkness spell, blinding the party even with their own light sources. This confuses Terry, who only knows that the command word for his magic lantern is “bam”. He repeats this as he fumbles his way through the darkness until he reaches someone’s body. He palms the top of this person’s head and, upon realizing that none of his friends have a shaved head and pointy ears, he swings his trashcan around with a “BAM!”. He knocks Bryson off of Wash and back a few feet. He continues to hit him until he is knocked out of the radius of darkness.

Isa, off in the distance, stands face to face with Guy as he lunges forward and grabs her shoulder. It is hard for Isa to comprehend exactly what is going on; either she is stuck in a fog or simply doesn’t want to believe what she is seeing. As he grabs her and his fingers pierce her skin, she lets out a pained exhale, but doesn’t move. She can’t. From the shadows, and beyond the darkness spell, Shae hears her friend being hurt. She moves around to see what is happening and, from her perspective, Isa is being attacked by one of the members of the undead army. Determined to help Isa, Shae throws out two daggers that go straight into Guy’s eyes, knocking him down and keeping him there. Isa stares down at the, once again, lifeless body of her late lover and a rage starts to bubble within her, as if there is still a bit of The Scarred Warlord’s anger left inside her heart. Shae watches in horror as ethereal red horns erupt from Isa’s eyes as she glares at Shae. Thankfully, Isa sets her sights on Balthazar, who is still watching everything from atop the roof of the graduation hall as if to taunt them all. In a flash, Isa darts from space to space; she gets to Balthazar incomprehensibly fast. As she appears behind him he turns around, startled. Her eyes glow red with the horns that grew out of them as she growls, “what have you DONE?”. She swings her ax across his chest in an X-shape, lifts her boot to his chest, and kicks him off the roof with such force that he crashes into the ground like a meteorite. Isa heaves as the horns dissipate from her eyes, and she keeps her eyes on Balthazar.

As Balthazar crashes into the midst of the fight, Cazamir whispers an incantation to Krenar, causing him to writhe in pain and drop his darkness spell. Fiara uses the book to cast Eviscerate Undead and eliminates the four other vampires before they can make a move. Isa, still on top of the roof, turns to see Balthazar’s beast, Cyprus, growling at her. She lunges at Isa and scratches her across the chest. Isa takes this opportunity to get down and misty steps to the ground below. She looks up as she appears on the ground and locks eyes again with Balthazar, who seems much more angry than before. Fire begins to form in his hands as he prepares the spell Fireball, directed right at Isa. Isa covers her face as the spell leaves his hands, but just in the nick of time, Codex casts Counterspell. It appears as a giant, pink arcane shark that swallows his spell before it can hit. He turns his rage-fueled gaze now, to Codex.

### Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

One stands at the back of the fray, shooting at Krenar and his rats. She sends v2 to attack as Krenar splits himself in two, each side forming into large rodents. V2 manages to catch one, but the other attempts to make an escape. Meanwhile, Terry continues beating Bryson with his trash can. He slams it over Bryson’s head and knocks him back. The vampire removes the can from his head and the last thing he sees is Terry’s fist crashing towards his face. Terry reaches out a bloody hand to help Wash up as Bryson takes his last breath on the ground.

It is at this point that Wash notices Codex approaching a rage-fueled Balthazar. He quickly puts himself in between the two of them, only to be met with Balthazar’s foot swinging up to the side of his neck and pinning him to the ground. Balthazar lets out a menacing laugh, posing a question to The Faded Fates; did they really think they would be able to beat him? From behind him a boom of thunder goes off. No one can see through the darkness, but Isa throws Cyprus off of her with Thunderwave and emerges from the darkness next to Fiara. Balthazar looks out at all of them and decides to end this once and for all. He starts to cast the spell Destructive Wave at everyone, including his siblings. Codex, seeing how hurt some of her party members are, refuses to let it end that way. As Balthazar raises his foot to cast the spell into Wash’s neck, a burst of pink arcane energy erupts from Codex. The form of a long, eastern dragon bursts from her chest; its form wraps around all of her allies, protecting them from the spell’s blast and absorbing the damage. The blast from Destructive Wave shoots directly into Codex, knocking her back and on to the ground, unconscious or possibly dead. As she hits the ground, the dragon dissipates. Wash looks around and sees Codex down. Feeling the intense pain of seeing the person he cares about most hit the ground, the gold radiance that was already pouring from his eyes burns with a white hot intensity and tears streaming down his cheeks. The flow of radiant energy moves from his head to his right hand as he reaches up and grabs Balthazar’s ankle, pulsing all the radiance he can muster into this attack. He pushes Balthazar away from him, but as he rolls away, his hand hits the ground with a thud and the glow from Wash ceases.

### A Wish is a Dream Your Diamond Makes

One looks at the ring on her finger and around at her friends. She doesn’t know for sure if Wash and Codex are breathing, but it doesn’t matter, she just wants them to be okay. She has one chance to make this wish work for her. She thinks for a second and demands, “I wish all my friends could see the sun again”. The diamond bursts and shoots upward, and a glint shines in the center of the blood red sky as a beam of sunlight peeks through a now forming crack. The blood begins to melt away, revealing the sun in a blinding light. At the same time, Wash and Codex stir, feeling worse for wear, but alive. Balthazar lets out an enraged scream and orders his remaining lackeys to kill The Faded Fates. Cylia, who is closest to Wash, rushes to him to knock him out again. Terry, who is also close to Wash, charges up to her and grabs her by the hair, sayings, “don’t hurt my fucking friends” as he smashes her head into the pavement, killing her on impact. v2 is still under the command to kill Krenar, so he charges after the rat that is trying to escape, picks him up by the tail, and crushes him in his giant maw.

While The Faded Fates are taking care of the remaining vampires, Fiara takes the opportunity to incant the binding spell; white chains erupt from the ground, wrap around Balthazar’s wrists, and pull him to the ground. He gets one last word; the guards’ eyes widen as he screams out that the di Martes are vampires, all of them, including the Bull of The Neremont Society. Quickly, the Volguard surround Fiara, Cazamir, and Balthazar with their weapons drawn. Isa and One came forward to try and defend them, but it is Shae who holds them back, expressing faux-surprise at the concept of their patron being a vampire. She knows that it will be better for them in the long run to feign ignorance. The Volguard tells the di Martes that they will need to be put on trial if they are, in fact, vampires. Fiara asks what the punishment will be, and the head guard in the group explains that they will be executed, burned at the stake. Fiara sighs and looks at Cazamir and says, “I guess I’ll just save you the trouble… page four”. She reads out from the book as flames start to form at their feet. In a wave of heat, all three di Martes, and their beasts, evaporate in flames and are gone.