Party Politics is the sixth episode of Fantasy High: Junior Year.
Intro[]
"Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes had to leap to action as Adaine, working her part-time job at Oodles of Strudel, happened to witness the sudden, horrifying transformation of Cassandra, Kristen's goddess of doubt, mystery, and the night. The presence of Kalina the Shadow Cat, as the newly resurrected familiar of this goddess, seemed horrified by what now happened as sort of chittering, shifting, tinkling orbs of sharp, razor crystal, glowing red, emerged from the chest of this goddess, her blood pooling on the floor as the shards took control of a series of mages around the Synod Mall's food court."
"Many brave mages fell in the advance of the rage-stars, even Conor Counterspell, whom we remember fondly. ... Moments before being taken over by one of the shatter-stars, Kalina looked at Riz and grunted the name "Ragh Barkrock" through pain and effort. Cassandra, looking out into the distance and addressing someone we coudl not see, seemed to say, "I thought you were dead." And in a moment of bardic inspiration, a shrimp was offered from a platter to Fig Faeth, who, knocking the platter, sent a shrimp spiraling through the air into Cassandra's throat as a wet-floor sign from the upper deck of a rage mage was kicked and hit her in the head, stunning her. A harrowing amount of bad luck for the goddess with one cleric, one follower, and a shrimp allergy. ..."
"She's gone. And as she departed, a number of glowing diamond shards of purple twilight energy are all that Kristen has left as you arrive. But the sudden seeming destruction of a divinity and the sundering of the synod's food court with the wizards' mall within the Astral Realm -- yes, that was a harrowing experience. But I'll tell you what wasn't: the ultimate shrimp jump! ..."
"Arriving back at the party, there were also sinister words in Kristen's mind as the rotting body of the god YES! was sort of shunted into the Material Plane briefly, slimy and corpulent, before it was banished back by Kristen into the Astral Realm. All of that happened last time. But the party has kicked off! Oh, baby, let's go!"
Synopsis[]
The party continues to rage an hour after Fig's shrimp jump in disguise as Kristen, who is still hiding in invisibility and contemplating the shards of Cassandra. Adaine gets a text from Oodles of Strudel corporate saying her position is terminated and she owes the balance on her uniform, and brings Kristen a milk-vodka mixture to commiserate over. Meanwhile, Gorgug stands in line to wrestle Ragh to get a chance to talk to him, and Riz calls for the Bad Kids to keep a lookout for the Rat Grinders.
The Bad Kids rule out the attendance of Kipperlilly, Ruben, and Mary Ann. But out back, Fabian finds Shellford and Skrank playing beer pong with another pair of Aguefort students, with Buddy Dawn, the Rat Grinders' Helio-worshiping cleric, looking on from the sidelines. Fabian fills all everyone's beer cans with spiked milk and calls them "bad babies", but Buddy refuses the vodka mixture, saying he's a "good baby". Invisible Kristen whispers to Buddy in the guise of Helio, nearly deceiving him into drinking the bad baby milk. Buddy makes conversation full of veiled criticism of Bill Seacaster and Kristen, and Fabian and Adaine snipe back, defending the two. To avoid getting wrapped into the conversation, Fig-as-Kristen enlists the Hangman to pretend to make another shrimp jump, but tells him to burn the ramp instead.
Fabian asks where the other Rat Grinders are, and Buddy mentions he only just moved from Highcourt and just joined the party over the summer. He says they specifically requested him, and Kristen and Fig both go to find a yearbook to investigate what happened to the Rat Grinders' previous cleric.
Meanwhile, a handful of representatives of clubs Riz joined, including Molman Holden of the Soil Club and Sprak LeFevre of the Aguefort Aviation League, approach Riz to thank him for joining and express their clubs' support for Kristen's presidential campaign.
Adaine strikes up a conversation with the dragonborn Oisin Hakinvar, a fellow wizard student, and Ivy Embra. She asks Oisin about how he dealt with the 10 barrels of diamonds requirement, and he says he got his from his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, who lives on a mountain of treasure. He and Ivy ask about Adaine's family, and she unconvincingly pretends she isn't struggling and still has access to her family wealth. Oisin sees through her and offers to let her borrow some diamonds, but Adaine refuses and runs away.
Gorgug gets to the front of Ragh's line, where he is still undefeated crab king after 10 wrestling matches on the "crab mountain" (Fabian's pool table). Gorgug nearly wins but then lets Ragh knock him off, and Ragh retires to lay down and talk. Gorgug asks about Ragh's mom's gem and the fact that Kalina had said Ragh's name. The latter alarms Ragh, who goes out onto the lawn to puke. Riz helps Gorgug explain the situation, saying they thought Kalina's words were meant in a tone expressing that Ragh would be a savior. Ragh is flattered but does not understand the connection to his mom's gem. He invites them over tomorrow, on Saturday, to talk with Lydia.
Up in Fabian's room, Fig steals some of Fabian's dirty clothes in case she needs to disguise herslef as him. She and Kristen find a yearbook from freshman year, showing that the Rat Grinders used to be called the High 5 Heroes. Their photo includes Kipperlilly, Ruben, Mary Ann, Oisin, Ivy, and a tall frost genasi cleric named Lucy Frostblade. Before heading back down to the party, Kristen and Fig brainstorm campaign ideas, settling on a promise to get Fetty Wap at homecoming.
Down at the party, Fig disguises herself as Lucy Frostblade to try to get a reaction from Oisin and Ivy; the latter clocks her and gives her a look. Meanwhile, Adaine drunkenly conjures some ice mephits to keep the drinks cool, then goes out to the pool and sees in the reflection, Kristen giving a victory speech in the midst of birthday decorations. Adaine realizes how drunk she is, tells Kristen about her vision, and vomits on her shoes. Max Durden offers to take the Bad Kids down to the basement to smoke gorgenfern, but they decline.
The Bad Kids confer together about all the intel they've separately collected. As they go to check on the in memoriam pages of the yearbook, Ragh stops Kristen and mentions Tracker is blowing up his phone. Kristen vents about everything with Cassandra and cries as Ragh comforts her. Up in Fabian's room, the Bad Kids find a loose paper slip adding Lucy Frostblade to the sophomore year in memoriam page after it went to print. Ivy enters, making small talk about Fig's fishnets and skateboarding. She is followed by Mazey, whom Ivy insults for wanting to play Twister. Fig backs up Mazey and emcees Twister, and the other Bad Kids follow suit except Fabian, who stays back to smoke snuff with Ivy, and Kristen, who third wheels as long as possible with them.
As the party winds down, Fig and Mazey bond over bard stuff, Fig's new album, and the creation of art. Oisin comes to pull Ivy away, saying "Kipperlilly's calling." As Max leaves, he mentions having broken something in the basement, and Fabian and Gorgug see that something called a "cloud rider engine" was shattered beyond what a mending spell can fix. Gorgug identifies it as something that can make a ship capable of sky travel by riding on clouds. Riz determines that it wasn't an accidental roughhousing, but intentional damage, perhaps to take a part. Fabian checks his security camera footage, which shows ice mephits getting people riled up and tipping the box over suspiciously, but no smoking gun. Remembering that Max had offered them all drugs, Riz also wonders if the Rat Grinders were using him to get the Bad Kids in trouble with the strict Principal Arcturus Grix for drug use.
By sunup as the last partiers just won't leave, Jawbone checks in with Fabian on behalf of Gorgug's parents to check that everything's alright. Riz, Kristen and Fig work on a conspiracy board. One of the last stragglers, a firbolg named Gertie Bladeshield, expresses support for the Applebees campaign on behalf of the Apiarists' Society, who has no other members but herself, Riz, and now the other Bad Kids, who volunteer to join. Gertie gifts Kristen a pot of honey, but gets into a physical fight with Fabian after he says the honey is not that good. Disgusted, she leaves and declares Fabian a nemesis.
Kristen's phone rings from an unknown number, and it's Tracker, wanting to check in. Kristen understands that Tracker is trying to spare Kristen's feelings as she asks whether it's been enough time since their relationship ended before it would be long enough for it not to hurt if Tracker gets publicly into another relationship. Kristen uses the Cassandra situation as an excuse not to give her blessing, but says Tracker doesn't need her permission. Kristen asks for advice about clericking, and Tracker tells her that what Kristen needs to hear won't be fun to hear. Tracker says Kristen never truly grappled with her faith in Helio and that her jumping from god to god is a symptom of not wanting to do the hard work.
After hanging up, Kristen sees Tracker's post was posted almost immediately, announcing her relationship with Princess Naradriel of Fallinel, whom Adaine recognizes and shit-talks. Adaine suggests Tracker may have met her while they were all in Kei Lumennura during the Nightmare King quest, and Kristen thinks she may have possibly recognized Naradriel's face from back then.
Riz remembers the rule about switching to pass-fail after a member of your party dies, and the Bad Kids speculate whether Lucy's apparent death may have had something to do with Kipperlilly's presidential candidacy, perhaps to change that rule. Alternatively, they speculate that the Rat Grinders kicked Lucy out, either killing her or faking her death, in order to get a replacement cleric.
Returning to Mordred Manor, Jawbone comforts Kristen about the re-breakup. Lydia serves all the kids a feast of potato salad, pizza, and chicken parms, and asks what their concerns about her gem were. After the explanation of what happened, Lydia explains how her gem contains a fiend named Bakur, and her rage constantly hurts him to keep him at bay, so her situation is perhaps not the same as theirs. After the mention of the line "I thought you were dead," Lydia explains that Bakur was the right hand of a fallen god so old its name was forgotten. She says her party's sorcerer and cleric, Cormyr and Rana, respectively, knew more about it, but after their deaths, Lydia was the one who had to tie up the loose ends. Lydia explains that the fallen god's name is concealed partly so it cannot be worshiped again and resuscitated. Lydia says a god can only come back in a place a god had been born or created, meaning Bakur's decision to try to revive his fallen god in the Red Waste was fatal to his attempt. Lydia offers to go with Ragh down to Bastion City during tryouts to talk to Cormyr's and Rana's family to get some of her party members' old notes.
As the weekend ends, the Bad Kids get ready to go into a downtime phase to determine how they balance academics, popularity, money, extracurriculars, and relationships in the coming weeks, with the opportunity to take stress tokens to undo failing rolls.
Locations[]
Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
New[]
Returning[]
- Ragh Barkrock
- Skrank Douglas
- Shellford Turtleperson
- The Hangman
- Max Durden
- Mazey Phaedra
- Tracker O'Shaughnessey
- Jawbone O'Shaughnessey
- Lydia Barkrock
Mentioned[]
- Bill Seacaster
- Kipperlilly Copperkettle
- Ruben Hopclap
- Mary Ann Skuttle
- Mac and Donna Applebees
- Helio
- Cassandra
- Craig
- Coach Daybreak
- Angwyn Abernant
- Arianwen Abernant
- Kalina
- Lucy Frostblade
- Torek Railgrinder
- Corey Durden
- Arthur Aguefort
- Wilma and Digby Thistlespring
- Cathilda Ceíli
- YES!
- Princess Nara
- Galicaea
- Aelwyn Abernant
- Percival Nevelsvine
- Yolanda Badgood
- Chungledown Bim
- Bakur
- Unnamed Fallen God
- Cormyr
- Rana