Stress Tested is the seventh episode of Fantasy High: Junior Year.
Recap[]
"Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes threw the rager of the goddamn century. Maximum Legend. Fabian Aramais Seacaster with "Kristen Applebees" in quotation marks -- actually Figueroth Faeth -- landing an incredible shrimp jump, nat 20, to kick off the campaign announcement of all campaign announcements, Candidate Applebees, glad-handing, it's always happy hour when you're at Applebees, glad-handing, and the party was a smashing success. And we met some new characters as well. ... We met Oisin and Ivy, as well as Buddy Dawn, the last three members of the Rat Grinders who were present at the party. ..."
"We did some quick investigations. The yearbook had us discover that because Buddy had joined only this last summer, that there had been a previous member of the High 5 Heroes, aka the Rat Grinders, one Lucy Frostblade, a frost genasi who had passed away in a very slim window of time last year, in between whenever grades were submitted and the end of the school year 'cause of that in memoriam slip in the yearbook. We also met a number of other people that dedicated themselves to Kristen Applebees' candidacy. We met Sprak LeFevre, president of the Aguefort Aviation League. We met Molman Holden, president of the Soil Club. And we met Gertie Bladeshield of the Apiarists' Society. ..."
"We also found that there had been some weird goings-on at the party. You got down to the basement. You know, Max Durden let you know as the sun was coming up after this extraordinary party that some stuff got knocked over by ice mephits, which Adaine had summoned in a very cool popular kid move from Adaine to keep everyone's drinks frosty with some ice mephits. ... And the day after, went and had a huge delicious meal of chicken parmesans cooked by Lydia Barkrock over at Mordred Manor. ... So all of you went to Mordred Manor, where you learned about the pit fiend Bakur, a ritual that was subverted back in Lydia Barkrock's younger days, and the loss of her party, including two of her party members, Cormyr and Rana, and the ritual that they all stopped back in the Red Waste that led to Lydia putting the gem into her chest. She told you that she would try to track down her old party members as most of her heirlooms from them were sentimental, rather than research-oriented, but to get you as much information as possible about Bakur's ritual back in the day. With that, that Sunday, all of you had that nice big meal, sleep off whatever you need to sleep off, and return to the Aguefort Adventuring Academy Monday morning."
Synopsis[]
Monday morning[]
First thing Monday morning, the students at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy are called into the auditorium for a surprise assembly. Interim Backup Emergency Principal Arcturus Grix introduces the students to Agent Cuspin Clark, who immediately almost notices Fig disguise herself as Kristen, stopped only by Adaine's portent roll. Agent Clark lectures the students about the fraud of pretending to be someone you're not and the danger of doppelgangers. Grix tells the student body that only authorized uses of disguise magic will be permitted. He also, having heard about the hijinks at Fabian's party, scans everyone as a mandatory drug test. Max Durden and a few other students are apprehended, but the Bad Kids make it out unscathed. Riz uses an invisible mage hand spell to cut Max free of the net Grix entrapped him in. Max mentions that Ivy was the one who gave him the gorgenfern to smoke in the Seacaster Manor basement.
The Bad Kids see that outside the school, Kipperlilly Copperkettle has set up a fleet of food trucks with her campaign banners all over them as she makes a campaign speech nearby. Gorgug leads the Bad Kids in trying out the food, including delicious shrimp burritos. While investigating with detect magic to ensure the food isn't charmed, Adaine notices the food trucks' branding -- an OK with a green checkmark in the O -- is designed to subliminally encourage people to vote for Kipperlilly. The Bad Kids fill Kristen's giant cowboy hat with salsa to encourage students to dip chips in it as a counter campaign effort. Kipperlilly tells the Bad Kids she wasn't able to make it to the party because she was busy studying, and they are unable to determine whether she's lying. Kristen admits to Kipperlilly that Cassandra died, and Kipperlilly loudly projects it out to the entire student body. The Bad Kids try to cover this up with an abrupt, flashy distraction involving illusions, fireworks, and a jump spell, dispersing the entire food truck campaign rally.
Top downtime priorities[]
The Bad Kids' first chunk of downtime begins as they go through their first month or so of school. They will be challenged with various skill checks, and if they fail, they can take a stress token to re-roll. They must make checks in order of what they're prioritizing in the categories of: academics, popularity, money/part-time jobs, extracurriculars, relationships, and the mystery they're trying to puzzle out. Students with an MCAT get advantage on academics rolls, while Fig and Kristen, being on the brink of expulsion, will be expelled if they fail academics badly enough.
Fabian starts a study hall at his house for the Bad Kids to give bardic inspiration for this downtime period.
Riz takes academics as his top priority and makes A+ in his rogue class. Adaine focuses on getting a job, which she secures as a server at Basrar's Soda Fountain (with the help of her sister providing a reference for Basrar), and makes some money but not as much as she'll need for her wizard class supplies. Fabian easily accumulates popularity, garnering an inside joke with all of his peers and a packed house every night for lo-fi study nights. Gorgug takes two stress tokens to assure an A+ in freshman artificer, a nat 20 A+ in sophomore artificer, another nat 20 A+ in junior artificer, and a C in barbarian class.
Kristen takes office hours with Yolanda Badgood about her deicide and her cleric classes, and Yolanda is noticeably interested in the mysterious voice that mocked her after Cassandra's death. Kristen expresses interest in another deity of mystery, Osmir. Yolanda sets her on an academic-heavy course load to offset her missing magic and tells her if she doesn't regain her spells by the end of the semester, Kristen will fail no matter how well she does in these academics. Yolanda also assigns Kristen to perform a miracle of doubt and mystery. For her downtime roll, Kristen takes a stress token in the extracurricular category to delve into Cassandra's shards and realizes the goddess hasn't been irrevocably destroyed but is merely beyond reach. With a late-night ceremony to Cassandra, Kristen is able to stop Craig from defecting to Wolfsong Revival.
Fig briefly debates becoming a paladin of Cassandra but instead attends warlock classes, where instructor Zara Sool offers Fig an MCAT and takes the class on a field trip to the Bottomless Pit. The devils ask Fig for rulings on what to do with a host of damned souls, whom Fig condemns all to rock, to the glee of Wretchrot. Zara identifies Fig as the provider of her own spells, and warns her of the danger that she may renege on her pact to herself. Meanwhile, Fig hears the mysterious voice of her stomach-gurgling pact coming from the Armor of Pride and tells Wretchrot to look into the armor's backstory. For her first academic track roll, Fig earns an A+ in her warlock class, to the pride of her mother and Jawbone.
Subsequent downtime checks[]
The Bad Kids continue with their other, lower priorities for their downtime. Gorgug takes another stress token but nevertheless bombs in an Owlbears game out of exhaustion from his classes. Fabian gets help from Mazey to study and gets A+s in both bard and fighter classes, but must take a stress token to stay afloat as captain of the Owlbears. Adaine makes an A+ in her wizard classes, starts a side business selling school supplies out of her Jacket of Useful Things to fellow students. She also takes a stress token but is still unable to get useful help from the AV club trying to figure out the mystery of the broken cloud rider, and blows off her Elven Oracle duties. Riz phones it in on attending every single extracurricular possible, but easily scrapes by being pleasant enough to keep them all on his resume.
In October, Riz and Gorgug's birthdays roll around, and they plan a joint birthday ice cream party at Basrar's. Gorbag and Roz plan to join them, and Gorgug enjoys compliments from artificer teacher Henry Hopclap on his academic performance. Fig approaches bard teacher Lucilla Lullaby but doesn't get her MCAT signed. At barbarian class, Fig tries and fails to trick barbarian teacher Porter Cliffbreaker into signing Gorgug's MCAT, and he instead signs Fig's where Lucilla's signature should go, telling her he's willing to revise her paperwork to have been a barbarian the whole time up until now. Porter also tells Gorgug he may sign his MCAT if he brings his C up to an A+.
Her MCAT in hand, Fig tries out paladin classes under teacher Halo St. Croix, where she pledges a vow to doubt and earns an A+, but is offput by Halo's personality. Grix confirms she has transferred to multiclass warlock/barbarian classes, and Fig transfers her paladin classes to be part of a multiclass track under Porter, who teaches rage as a principle of devotion to doubt.
Kristen's next priority is to hit the bricks campaigning, and Riz takes two stress tokens to bring in all the clubs to support her and help her with everything she needs. She gets a C in religion classes, writing her first paper on Osmir, a god of mystery, and how his following focuses not on quantity of followers but the strength of devotion of fewer followers.
Mystery checks[]
Fig takes a stress token to delve into gossip and find out about Ruben's dating past and interests, finding that he's dated widely and is mainly into people he thinks are cool -- in particular, the mysterious Wanda, whom he's looking to meet at the Frostyfaire Folk Festival, where he'll be headlining. Using that inspiration, Fig casts dream to send Ruben nightly dreams of Wanda.
Fabian takes two stress tokens as he tries to reach out to Ivy to hang out, but she turns a cold shoulder to him. Riz pursues the timeline on Lydia Barkrock's backstory and finds that Ragh was already middle school aged by the time of the Bakur ritual. He also hunts down information on Lucy Frostblade, finding that she was confirmed dead via divination magic, but they never actually found her body, and she went missing near Lake Shimmerstone. He also finds that just before her disappearance, she filed to change her deity but then filed to change it back, but the record is blank as to what her deity was. Adaine takes a stress token to look into Grix but doesn't find anything in particular.
Kristen takes two more stress tokens to talk to Yolanda about what happened to Lucy. Yolanda says Lucy worshiped Ruvina, a giantkin goddess of winter and sorrow. Yolanda denies knowing about Lucy trying to switch, and says Lucy was deeply devoted. Yolanda appears disturbed by the existence of this deity-transfer paperwork and says she'll look further into it. When Kristen discourages going to Grix, Yolanda decides to go to Vice Principal Jace Stardiamond instead.
Using his dad's celestial spy gear, Riz realizes the form listing Lucy's prospective new god is not blank, but rather, what's written on it cannot be seen by mortal eyes.
Out of downtime[]
As November approaches, the Bad Kids take stock of their stress tokens and the fried feelings they're producing. Fig has one stress token, Riz and Adaine have two, and Gorgug, Kristen and Fabian have three. Fig is just going through the motions, Adaine is sacrificing her after-school social life, Riz describes running on mere inertia, Kristen becomes thrown off by secondhand grief over Lucy, Fabian struggles with his routines and schedules, and Gorgug struggles with feelings of letting his friends and team down.
The day arrives for the Frostyfaire Folk Festival, which will be held at the Thistlespring Tree. The Bad Kids hold a massive pre-game at Seacaster Manor, where the Applebees campaign members plan out how to tap the huge Sylvan voting bloc. Lydia brings to the table a huge trove of Bakur documents, which it turns out are all written not in Infernal, but in the language of giants.
Locations[]
Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
New[]
- Halo St. Croix
- Craig
- Lashra
Returning[]
- Principal Arcturus Grix
- Agent Cuspin Clark
- Terpsichore Skullcleaver
- Max Durden
- Jace Stardiamond
- Kipperlilly Copperkettle
- Mary Ann Skuttle
- Basrar
- Yolanda Badgood
- Zara Sool
- Wretchrot
- Jawbone O'Shaughnessey
- Sandra Lynn Faeth
- Henry Hopclap
- Cloaca
- Mazey Phaedra
- Boggy the Froggy
- Unit
- Porter Cliffbreaker
- Lucilla Lullaby
- Ivy Embra
- Gorthalax the Insatiable
- Lydia Barkrock
Mentioned[]
- Ficus
- Oisin Hakinvar
- Corey Durden
- The Rogue Teacher
- Cassandra
- Aelwyn Abernant
- YES!
- Galicaea
- Osmir
- Kalina
- Ragh Barkrock
- Bill Seacaster
- Gorbag
- Roz
- Buddy Dawn
- Ruben Hopclap
- Alston Hughes
- Bakur
- Lucy Frostblade
- Ruvina
- Pok Gukgak
- Rana
- Cormyr