22: The Midsummer Ball

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## Summary

### The 53rd Annual Midsummer Ball

On the evening of Hyllian Moon day 30, the party finds themselves in the fields outside K’nafay Castle awaiting entry to the Ball, where a massive crowd has gathered and is funneling slowly up the stony pathway to the castle, towards the courtyard and into the entry hall. With a little trickery from Mujie’s Disguise Self, they gang sneaks their bag of holding—seemingly a messenger bag empty but for a tin of mints and some non-weapons-based protection—past a prudish guardsman and through the security checkpoint.

The party ascends the staircase and enters the main hall, and it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen before: lush tapestries hang from the walls, Arklight illuminates the room from lanterns high above in the vaulted ceiling, and priceless pieces of art adorn the gallery halls on the opposite sides of a few giant archways. Up ahead, the hall opens up to a huge, beautiful ballroom, where people in gorgeous, flowing garments as well as those more modestly dressed pack in, the buzz of conversation and music and the clacking heels of dancing partygoers filling their ears.

At the end of the ballroom, in the distance, stands a grand staircase covered in purple rugs which leads to an upper wing of the castle. At its base, it forks, and in the middle lies a platform with throne-like chairs, where masked nobles sit and seem to observe the revelers: the K’nafay High Council. A cohort of city guardsmen, some mages among them, crowd behind the platform in tight ranks.

At the sound of a clinking glass, the music quiets and people turn to look for the source of the noise. A masked nobleman dressed in fine, deep purple robes stands from his seat, and addresses the crowd.

It’s a strange atmosphere: nobles and commoners alike, everyone seemingly here for different reasons. But, with the party in full swing, the gang decides to join in and embrace a night of celebration.

### Two Truths and a Bad Liar

The party finds Peeks, who previously excused himself to avoid an acquaintance, making company with two pretty women. The three of them are already drunk, somehow, and the party joins them for a game of Two Truths and a Lie. But somewhere along the way (and after learning some meaty tidbits about each other), when Mujie does what he does best—lying—the party realizes something isn’t right. Somehow, it’s the most obvious lie he’s ever told.

Cat manages to identify the source of their woes. As it turns out, the “major curiosities” they picked up from the Black Market carry some heavy curses with them: Mujie’s amulet prevents him from successfully lying, Cat’s bangle maximizes the potency of his spells at the expense of draining his resources, and Luca’s ring takes a blood price every time he casts a spell. No longer feeling up for fun and games, the gang gets back to their original objective: getting to the bottom of what Lillet’s doing in K’nafay, and finding the Meranhi emissary.

Cat heads across the ballroom to listen in on Lillet and Tai’s conversation undetected, but for all his successful sneaking, he only learns that Lillet has a deep interest in horticulture, and Tai definitely doesn’t, based on how badly she wants to leave.

Meanwhile, Luca chats up Crow, the antiques dealer from Lhoam, and learns of some curious rumors he’s heard: turns out some kind of “sticky, evil substance” was found under the cellars at the Academy in Lhoam shortly after the Spring was open.

Thinking he isn’t getting anywhere listening to Lillet and some old man drone on about garden management, Cat has another look around, and finally gets a glimpse of the Meranhi emissary they’ve spent the last week chasing across the South Coast. He saunters over and sits down, and they exchange a few confusing words about his reptilian mount before Mujie and the rest of the gang reconvene.

### Bingo!

Mujie opens with a direct appeal, telling the man they need to get to the Empire. He’s immediately suspicious, of course, and instead of carrying the dialogue any further, he turns to Tira, seemingly because he takes her to be the one “in charge.” He introduces himself as Damhir Daraan, an Empire soldier here to deliver trade terms from the Empress herself. Tira tells him the truth: she’s been told he can get them to the Empire safely, and there, they plan to reopen the Arkspring.

Slipping up, Damhir wonders aloud how they know the Spring is closed, but he quickly catches himself, instead redirecting to the fact that the party’s reputation precedes them. An elf he met at the Ark workshop in Lhoam told him about a group of travelers who opened what he calls the “Sacred Place in Hyllis”, and with that, he seems to be a little more amenable to the party’s request—that is, until he realizes his attendant, Ginger, has been gone a little long…

### The Kids are All Gone

Mujie scans the crowd and realizes that Teddy, too, is missing, and Peeks is nowhere to be seen, either. A few paces away, Damhir whistles a signal to Ginger to no response. The party follows him past a group of guards to the castle’s West Hall, where the guest rooms are located. In his and Ginger’s chambers, he takes up sword, and fails again to make contact with Ginger, this time through some kind of Ark device.

Following the eerie flutesong, Bran and Mahi lead their ever-growing group to the cellars beyond the castle’s kitchens. Tira lights some torches as Damhir barrels on through a dusty hatch, clearly on edge. In the distance, the party locks gazes with a wererat scout, who scurries away down a forked path. But when the party—some distance behind Damhir—gives chase, the tunnel collapses, and they free-fall to a cavernous chamber deeper in the sewers. Following the sound of a crying girl, the party makes it to a large, round room with a strange fog blanketing the far corners.

### The Rat Queen's Lair

When Tira approaches the girl, the party finally comes face-to-face with the Rat Queen—a hideous, towering hag wearing the crudely stitched leathers of children she’d slain. As wererats pour in from the opposite entrance, they begin the battle.

With the strength of a giant, the hag crushes Tira in her arms, knocking her out in one go. But even as things get dicey, the rest of the party piles on the damage to the Rat Queen. Eventually, she vomits up a pile of Wrath, which attracts loose stone and rubble from the rest of the room and becomes a kind of stony golem known as a Construct. Tira again takes the brunt of their rage and goes down a second time, but Cat lands the killing blow on the hag thanks in part to his cursed bangle.

But the fight isn’t over—there are still some wererats left, hungry to avenge their fallen Queen. They slash and bite and Bran, but he resists their curse. Mujie isn’t so lucky—at the close of the battle, he becomes afflicted with wererat lycanthropy. Dark thoughts enter his mind, and he begins to sympathize with his new wererat brethren. But just as his desire for the flesh of innocents is piqued, Lillet enters the fray, and dispels his curse.

### Petty Standoff

At the sight of his old colleague, Cat goes invisible despite the bangle’s added cost. Lillet attempts to goad him into showing himself, but Cat prefers to have their argument face-to-air. With the mystery and suspicion surrounding the wererat problem and the new discovery of Wrath, Cat questions her motives right off the bat. She insists that the Collective is seeking out the fragments of the Godslayer weapon—the origin of this dark power known as Wrath—to destroy them, not to tamper with them. Annoyed and short on patience, Lillet decides to air Eton’s dirty laundry for all his new “friends” to see: he was blackballed from the Celestine Collective (and polymorphed by Garris) because he was conducting Ark experiments on live, human test subjects.

## Quotes

### *THIS ISN'T SUS AT ALL:*

> “Friends! Revelers! Travelers from far and wide—merchants and artisans, nobles and commoners, **stately guests**—and of course, our beloved K’nafay natives. On behalf of the High Council, welcome to the 53rd annual Midsummer Ball. We open our home to you tonight—enjoy the festivities!”
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*—Masked Nobleman*

### *BUT APPARENTLY PEEKS HAS:*

> “...never have I ever done pixie dust… off of a City Guardsman’s breastplate!”
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*—Carys*

### *SHOW ME YOUR TATS:*

> “And, uh, last… One time, I got real drunk with my best friend in Samsara and woke up 2 days later in a tattoo parlor all the way in Lhoam.”
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*—Peeks*

### *BUT YOU* HAVE *HEARD OF US:*

> “Wait, you’re—I thought he was just fucking with me, but you’re really them…”
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> “An elf we met in Lhoam. He told me about a group of travelers who opened the Sacred Place, in Hyllis. That they made company with a… … …I don’t know how to respectfully refer to you…”
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> "I can't promise anything, but... maybe, if you are who you say you are, maybe I can get you audience with the Empress."
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*—Damhir*

### *THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING:*

> LILLET: “Gods, it’s you, isn’t it. I recognize that haughty spellcasting of yours. Come out, Eton!”
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> ETON: "...No."
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### *LOOK WHAT THE COLLECTIVE DRAGGED IN:*

> “Garris must have addled your brain when he polymorphed you. Don’t remember why you were cast out? I’ll tell you. You were experimenting on live humans, against his orders. You thought we wouldn’t find out.”
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> “Well, Eton, it’s really none of your business anymore, what we’re doing here. But maybe I’ll be nice, for once. We’re looking for fragments of that ancient Godslayer so that we can destroy them. When you opened the Arkspring in the Wilds, we found one in the cellars underneath the Academy. Another mess you’ve left us with.”
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*—Lillet, to Eton*