 |
Are you my dad? Am I my OWN dad!? |
| This article is incomplete! You can give someone advantage on their next Investigation check by helping us expand it! This article still needs: Synopsis; Locations |
"Nothing bad is ever going to happen to us." ― Kingston Brown
Parade of Peril is the seventh episode of season 7, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II.
Recap[]
"Well, last we left our heroes, the champions of New York were busy in preparation, both with the Gramercy Occult Society and the Order of the Concrete Fist, pooling resources for a possible expedition into Nod to see if the source could not be found of the appearance of raw Umbra in New York City, the material that composes the Umbral Arcana. The substance from the dreaming that prevents people from seeing or noticing magic had been showing up in the city and bringing with it a wash of things from the dreaming realm, antipopuli, raw misery, misanthropy, hatred of New York's customs and norms, aboard the subway train, veins and currents of the stuff connecting other nodes of magic, including the now-defeated Jersey Devil, and strange forces appearing around the city, including beings that had been noticed by Pete, Vox Phantasma, in a harrowing confrontation."
"Our last episode left off with getting ready for the Macy's Day Parade, where Wally Claus] is gonna be on the last float, wavin' hi to all the kids. He wants to say hi to everybody! And you guys all wanted to go see Wally, but also that morning, Sofia Lee tailing Tony Simos, original First Fist of the Monastery of the Midnight Sun, having a tense confrontation in which Sofia's criticism of her order's mantra, saying it is not what it is, it is what it could be, was recorded by Tony Simos in this stark confrontation. So we pick up where we left off, but we're actually gonna cut over to Pete sleepin' in that morning."
Synopsis[]
Pete Conlan visits Nod, the Sixth Borough, while he sleeps. The Woman in the Moon greets him and points him toward a cloud where Nod is sleeping & recovering from injuries. The Night Owl and Pizza Rat are there with Nod, and they tell Pete how Nod became injured. A couple of months before, Nod began to plan to venture into deeper Dreaming to help Nuria, one of their multiple siblings. They left for a time, then were scared when they returned, as though they'd been on a dangerous journey and someone had noticed them or even followed them back from their trip. Pizza Rat says that some of the beings in the Sixth Borough began to disappear. Pete rustles Nod awake, and Nod tells him that he's feeling okay, but he would like to see Pete in person. They also tell Pete that Nuria is "gone now" and that one of their older siblings found Nuria before Nod could save them. Pete understands that he needs to visit the Sixth Borough in person to heal Nod fully. He also notes that The Sixth Borough feels flattened, pressed closer to the waking world. It has a hole in it, leaking raw umbra into the waking world.
Pete wakes up on Thanksgiving Day, and joins Kingston Brown, Ricky Matsui, Cody Walsh, and Iga Lisowski, along with her husband Oskar and kids Jessica and Nick, at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While Iga and family are there to fulfill a family tradition, the rest of the Heroes are here to see Wally Kugrich, who is now Santa Claus, at the end of the parade. Jessica asks Iga if they can enter Iga's chest and explore the castle together later that day, and Iga agrees. Meanwhile, the float sponsored by Gladiator passes by the group, surrounded by a fleet of Sparties, Gladiator's plastic-cased delivery drones. Cody throws a Big Gulp at the float and gets approached by Officer Brunson, the same police officer who confronted him near the mall. Kingston, leveraging his position as Vox Populi, convinces him to back off. The Sparties are throwing cans of Cipher Energy Fluid, an energy drink, to the crowd.
As the end of the parade approaches, Oskar points out the balloons of Bruina Bearheart, Chompsky's outfielder, a nutcracker, and "the caterpillar who became an astronaut but didn't know how or why". Iga feels the chest, which she has in her bag, is defending itself against being erased. She can feel not only the magic that the chest itself creates, but also the magic of something deep within the chest that has been trapped there for a long time. The group then spots Wally atop the Santa Claus's sleigh float, and he waves to his old friends. Kingston feels a pang in his chest, similar to the one he felt during the subway fight, as he spots the clowns marching in the parade and realizes they look identical to the ones that surround the Central Park carousel. He alerts Pete that something is happening with Nod again. Pete can tell that Nod is bubbling through into the waking world near Central Park, and what he and Kingston are seeing aren't normal clowns, but true clowns--scary visions from the dreaming world. The clowns are making balloon animals and weapons, and one of the clowns fires a balloon bow at Wally's head, which knocks him unconscious. The clowns then cut the lines of four of the balloons, grab Wally, and begin to float into the sky above the parade. Sofia Lee arrives from her botched attempt to trail Tony. She joins her friends in charging the parade and jumping on the balloons to try and rescue Wally. Ricky jumps onto the outfielder balloon with Kingston holding onto its line, Cody (with Misiek) and Pete (with Luna) grab onto one of the caterpillar balloon's lines, and Sofia makes it onto the caterpillar balloon as Iga flies above it.
Sofia acts first and casts Jump to leap from the caterpillar to the Bruina Bearheart Balloon, then casts Hexblade Curse on the clown nearest to Wally. Before Pete can act, he succumbs to a wild magic surge. He then carefully casts Fireball, killing three clowns, and shoots the seam on the nutcracker balloon, which starts to lose speed as it leaks helium. Ricky pulls Kingston up onto the outfielder balloon and onto his shoulders, taking an attack from a balloon beast. Though its latex fangs merely press into Ricky's leg in a seemingly harmless way, his leg then explodes with blood. Wally fails two of his death saves, so Iga uses her turn to cast Galder's Speedy Courier to conjure an air elemental, send herself and Wally into her chest, and have the air elemental deliver the chest to Kingston.
Clowns fly by and fire six balloon arrows at Pete, and one hits. Kingston is terrified of being up so high, and decides to cast Enhance Ability on himself and Ricky so he doesn't have to jump off of the outfielder balloon. Cody jumps up onto the caterpillar balloon, then eliminates another clown. Sofia uses Stunning Strike to stun a clown in midair, then attacks and stuns two balloon beasts. Pete casts Cone of Cold on the stunned dogs to defeat them. He sends Luna into Iga's chest to fully heal Wally, and Ricky uses Lay on Hands to assist. Ricky casts Sanctuary on Pete, completing a non-violent series of events that show him embracing his new persona without the Questing Blade.
Wally uses his powers to heal Iga, and Iga transports herself and Wally out of the chest and onto the outfielder balloon. She uses Misiek to cast Greater Invisibility on Pete, while taking damage in the process. Kingston casts Command on a balloon beast and an archer clown and uses the command "down", leading the clown to let go of his balloons and drop into the crowd below, while the beast just heels. Cody attempts to hit a stunned clown with ninja stars, but misses and the stars fall into the crowd. Sofia kicks the stunned clown in the chest as he releases his grip on his balloons and falls. Sofia grabs his balloons and floats back over to attack and stun another clown on the caterpillar balloon. The same clown is killed by Pete, who casts Fireball on it. Ricky traps the last clown in a box of fun house mirrors by casting Hypnotic Pattern. Kingston casts Guiding Bolt to injure the final balloon beast, which then charges him and knocks him off of the balloon. Sofia grabs one of the lines on the caterpillar balloon, swings into Kingston, and they both smash through the window of an office building. Iga uses Eldritch Blast to eliminate the final clown.
As Sofia and Kingston stand up inside the darkened office building, they realize they are inside the headquarters of Excelsior Dynamic Homes.
Locations[]
Characters[]
The Dream Team[]
- Kingston Brown
- Pete Conlan
- Sofia Lee
- Ricky Matsui
- Iga Lisowski
- Cody Walsh
- Rowan Berry (mentioned)
- Kugrash (†) (mentioned)
New[]
Returning[]
- Woman in the Moon
- The Night Owl
- Pizza Rat
- Luna
- Nod
- Oskar Lisowski
- Jessica Lisowski
- Officer Brunson
- Bazathrax
- Wally Kugrich
- Misiek
- La Gran Gata
Mentioned[]
Trivia[]
- Including bonus live and livestream campaign episodes, this is the 100th episode of Dimension 20!