Cursed Out is the tenth episode of Fantasy High: Junior Year.
Intro[]
"Last we left off, boy, last one was a thick 'sode, gang. Started at the Vulture Dimension, bebopped over to the Thistlespring Tree to wrap up the battle with Interim Emergency Backup Principal Arcturus Grix, slew him where he hovered, and then discovered secret goings-on underneath the stage, these sort of red stingers and a 24-point constellation underneath the stage. We went into the Far Haven Woods looking for some clues of the Rat Grinders, and indeed found the body of one of the Rat Grinders, aka the High 5 Heroes as long ago they were once known, as well as the body of Yolanda Badgood, who apparently, to the best of your knowledge, had come here seeking the body of her former student, Lucy Frostblade."
"Finding both of those bodies and then giving an anonymous tip-off to let the authorities know where they were so that the families could be informed, all of you headed back into observing whatever strange mystery is now unfolding in this place. Weird connections, the strange shatter-stars emerging from Cassandra as she fell in the wizards' food court, goings-on with Bakur and the gem inside of Lydia Barkrock's chest and the notes from her former adventuring party members, Cormyr and Rana, and various other odds and ends all coming together surrounding this group, the Rat Grinders, and Kipperlilly Copperkettle and her campaign for student body president."
"At the end of last session, Riz got in a car with his mom to talk about Frostyfaire and this sort of embezzlement case that sort of followed up on after the events at Frostyfaire. Gorgug, hitting the books once again with an A+ in barbarian classes this time around. Grades slipping on the more advanced artificer stuff, but you got your MCAT signed for the back half of the year. ... And Riz and Gorgug got some extra stress tokens at the end of the last sesh. ... We also had Adaine furious at the seemingly unwinnable state of economic affairs for teen employees in Elmville. Turns out, you can't become rich working at a soda fountain! But we got in touch with Aelwyn Abernant, our wonderful Adaine's sister, who revealed she's been working for the enemy. Again!"
Synopsis[]
Chasing the mystery[]
Adaine and Aelwyn visit their old home in Clearbrook, which remains burned down and untouched because of diplomatic issues with Fallinel. Aelwyn, having admitted she's working for Kipperlilly, says the girl is very rich on her own somehow, not through inheritance. Aelwyn says as far as she knows, Kipperlilly is using her to smuggle material components for Oisin, including arcanotech. Aelwyn mentions that Kipperlilly had brought up obtaining schematics for a Cloud Rider, not wanting a record of her searching for it online herself. Aelwyn says Kipperlilly has only communicated with her in person, never via text. Adaine begs to be able to spy on their next meeting and Aelwyn agrees she can scry on it. Adaine mentions two unusual things Kipperlilly had asked for: devil's nectar and ambrosia. On the way to drop Adaine back off, Aelwyn stops briefly at her apartment and Adaine notices it seems smelly and filthy. Adaine offers to let her stay with her at Mordred Manor, but Aelwyn turns her down, saying the niceness is just too much.
On the way to an extracurricular, Riz and Sklonda discuss the Frostyfaire Folk Festival. Sklonda explains her defense case was suspended because her clients were murdered, she thinks. Her clients -- a married firbolg couple called Alonso and Hespia Loam -- were supposed to host Frostyfaire outside town at Loam Farm, but during the long night over the summer, they were charged with embezzlement and the fair pulled out. Sklonda says she believed them when they said they were innocent, and was building a slam dunk case in their defense, but she doesn't know why they were being framed. Sklonda mentions that the embezzlement traced back to a masked VPN in Bastion City, and the fair moved to the Thistlespring Tree based on a recommendation from Lola Embers. An exhausted Riz falls asleep while discussing this, and when he wakes up, Sklonda asks him concernedly about his heavy workload. She suggests reaching out to authority figures for help, but Riz says they can't, since Yolanda Badgood had gotten killed for trying to look into the mystery. Sklonda expresses worry about how much Kristen's presidential campaign is adding to his stress, angry that he might be getting taken advantage of by people who call him "The Ball". Riz waves off these concerns and decides to add to his plate by checking out Loam Farm.
Shortly after Frostyfaire, Vice Principal Jace Stardiamond announces the deaths of Principal Arcturus Grix and Yolanda Badgood to the Aguefort Adventuring Academy student body. As a result, cleric students will be moved to a pass/fail track unless a replacement cleric teacher is found before the Moonar Yulenear. This would mean the Bad Kids, the Rat Grinders, and most other adventuring parties would need to take the Last Stand exam if they wanted to get back off the pass/fail track.
After the auditorium, Fig gets a call from Hallariel, who says Gilear won a raffle and is king of a dance festival for a day. She offers to fly Fig and the rest of the Bad Kids out to join her, Gilear, and Fabian for a vacation over Moonar Yulenear. Fig easily persuades her to add Sklonda, Aelwyn, Wilma and Digby, Ragh and Lydia, Sandra Lynn, Cloaca and Clobica to the trip, all of them upgraded to business class.
The Bad Kids put their heads together about Loam Farm and whether it may be connected to the bad soil where Yolanda and Lucy Frostblade died, as well as the other mysteries they've found clues about. Adaine offers to try a remove curse spell to help Fig with her bad luck or at least narrow down what may be causing it.
Fabian gets a text from Mazey Phaedra offering "big news". When they meet, she compliments him on killing Grix, then tells him that Jace just told her that a quirk in the school bylaws means it's possible that as the student body president, she may be the next to be tapped as principal. Fabian is flattered that she trusts him with this concern. In the Bad Kids' text thread, they speculate that Kipperlilly may have arranged this and may want to kill Mazey.
After school, Fig tails Mazey as she heads over to Seacaster Manor to meet with Fabian again. She goes to kiss him, but he blurts out that someone might want to kill her. On a FaceTime call, Riz explains, but Mazey is skeptical of the reasoning based on the beef between the Bad Kids and the Rat Grinders. The Bad Kids are surprised to hear that the Rat Grinders have famously hated them for years. Mazey goes to head out, admitting she has a crush on Fabian but that she's concerned about his solitude.
Downtime, continued[]
Adaine and Boggy look into the mystery by studying giants and giantkin living in the Mountains of Chaos. She finds discussion of the bridegift at the visit of Galicaea and Cassandra to the giants as well as Sol's visit. Adaine's detective work finds the absence of a dead god, Ruvina's sibling and Cassandra's betrothed, who was likely a deity of the summer since Ruvina's fall and spring siblings are still alive. She finds evidence that the dead god's domain shifted at some point from summer to fire, and that the red shattering stars may have appeared in a similar time period as the god's death, but not necessarily as a direct result of it. Meanwhile, Adaine also takes another stress token to avoid losing her part-time job as elves seeking oracular advice continue to pester her. She also tries to lose a stress token with a relaxation roll, but fails as a massage from Lydia ends up stressing her more.
Kristen makes a campaign stop at Oakshield Middle School and takes a stress token to succeed on popularity. For her second track, Kristen rolls for relationships to reach out to Lydia and Buddy Dawn. Kristen asks Lydia whether there's a way to talk to Bakur; Lydia says Kristen could, but Lydia must not for her own safety. Kristen also informs Lydia about their research so far about the dead god, speculating that it was a good god who was corrupted. Lydia mentions that places like the Synod Mall that are outside Spyre may be easier for a dead god's influence to reach, and Kristen takes this to mean Kalina may have intentionally steered Cassandra into a vulnerable position. Lydia agrees to help Kristen and her friends talk to Bakur, and the Bad Kids get together to study the gem and try to find a safe way to have this conversation. As Fig uses her paladin divine sense for the first time as part of this study, Riz with his Gregori necktie sees a resemblance between part of Fig's fiendish aura and the Bakur aura, not the same thing but a similar one.
Kristen also reaches out to Buddy as he tags her locker with a Rat Grinders sticker. She probes him about anger and he denies ever feeling the emotion, citing "Leave wrath unto Sol". He asks to take Kristen into counsel and confides that he thinks her brother may be straying from the faith of Helio. He also says Sol had been very angry as a result of the Night Yorb and its endless night over the summer. Buddy suggests the idea of his grandfather, Bobby Dawn, a traveling televangelist for Sol, becoming the school's cleric teacher so the class can avoid reverting to pass/fail.
Fig rolls her downtime to get an A+ in paladin class, learning to smite from Porter Cliffbreaker, an A+ in bard class, and an A+ in warlock class. Zara Sool and Porter mention that Lucilla Lullaby is taking a sabbatical and grading based on just a brief essay. Zara and Porter identify a synergy between the pact required for warlock studies and the vow for paladin studies, helping Fig to find crossover between the two fields. They ask her to assign this pact and vow by midwinter break and suggest that Fig's intent toward Cassandra is not what's powering her. Fig jokingly suggests it's Kristen instead, and Porter and Zara take the suggestion seriously, pointing out that her support for her friends may indeed be what motivates her.
Fig also shadows Ruben Hopclap to engineer a run-in with him in disguise as Wanda Childa, listening to a podcast on Lucy Frostblade. When he sees what she's listening to, he appears to panic and presses her for details. He is surprised to hear that her body was found. Ruben calls Lucy "really noble", a really good person. Ruben gives "Wanda" his email address so she can forward him the information on where she got the podcast and asks her to send his agent's contact info to the podcast so they can interview him. "Wanda" tells Ruben she likes to be a little mysterious and dimension doors away as Agent Cuspin Clark chases the bus. Finishing her downtime, Fig fails to catch face time with Riz, but leaves him a "thinking of you" card and signs it Gorgug Thistlespring, leading Riz to break down and send a lengthy thank-you text to Gorgug. In return, Gorgug fashions Riz a medal of wit.
Fabian rolls first on popularity and secures maximum popularity by getting a gilded tattoo of the words Maximum Legend on his neck. Fabian uses this popularity and takes another stress token to get Skrank Douglas to help him get in contact with Bill Seacaster via an interplanar broadcast. Fabian accidentally upsets Skrank, though, and Shellford Turtleperson ends up being the one to set up the radio relay. Fabian is unable to immediately get in contact, but leaves a message to update his father on his exploits and seek help finding information about Fig's curse. Fabian gets a B in his fighter classes but struggles with the Owlbears. Faced with potentially taking a rage token, he instead takes Fig's cursed bardic inspiration to avoid failing bard classes, getting merely a D and shitting himself in the middle of dance class. One of the bard students, Quincy, is so horrified that he quits Aguefort.
At the end of the downtime, Riz and Fig plan to head out with Sklonda to Loam Farm.
Locations[]
Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
Returning[]
- Aelwyn Abernant
- Sklonda Gukgak
- Jace Stardiamond
- Ruben Hopclap
- Mazey Phaedra
- Oisin Hakinvar
- Kipperlilly Copperkettle
- Mary Ann Skuttle
- Ivy Embra
- Buddy Dawn
- Hallariel Seacaster
- Lydia Barkrock
- Jawbone O'Shaughnessey
- Sandra Lynn Faeth
- Porter Cliffbreaker
- Zara Sool
- Skrank Douglas
- Shellford Turtleperson
- Quincy
Mentioned[]
- Bakur
- Principal Arcturus Grix
- Lola Embers
- Gilear Faeth
- Telemaine Lomenelda
- Kalvaxus
- Yolanda Badgood
- Lucy Frostblade
- Sol
- Ruvina
- Max Durden
- Garthy O'Brien
- Bill Seacaster