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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 5677627" data-attributes="member: 5675">3rd SeptemberWith a sudden snap the nightmare ends and Leopold is dragged back from reality, the voice in his head quietens to a dull drone, is words too low and garbled to be understood but the effect still grates at his psyche. Slowly his mind refocuses; slotting events together… he was at the banquet, rushed through by the king, urging everyone to try the soup… he gazes around at the banquet hall… chaos. Half hidden by a broken table he sees his liege lord and half stumbles over “My lord?” he enquires turning his bloody face over to reveal the crushing wound that kill him, confused and grieving he stumbles along the bloody trail that leads out of the dining hall, into a bathroom and continues along a hidden passage that emerges into the throne room. Atop the dais he spies Ruby by the throne, near the headless body of the king and his brain freezes trying to process the events…the king… dead…Watching the bard he is unsure if her fingers are testing for a pulse or merely fingering the amulet around his stump. Halfway down the steps stomps Cricket, bloody blade in hand as he heads with purpose towards the doors leading out of the throne doom. The Half-Orc kicks open the door, points his huge blade forward “Now you die! He roars and charges off out of sight, only an ominous squelching sound suggests he collided with something. “What the hell is going on!” he shouts towards Arty and Urien who look almost as confused as he does.Atop the Dais the throne rumbles and pulses, the kings’ body slips from its seat to tumble messily down the stairs as his royal seat stretches impossibly into the form of MADNESS, a translucent swirling nest of fanged serpents dripping with slime and surges forwards to engulf Ruby within its slimy folds.Fight Highlights* Cricket (fighting alone in the hallway with one clone of MADNESS) is dominated, Leopold has the bright idea to close the door, leading to a “here’s Johnny” style moment of the barbarian trying to break his way through the doors before regaining the use of his body.* A third clone appears and retreats into the form of Nina Glibhammer, dashing off screaming “they’ve killed the king” hoping to reach the other guards posted several floors below and told not to interfere with the banquet.* Urien is dominated by one clone and charges Arty, who vanishes in a puff of smoke, reappearing on the other side of the throne room removing a large clockwork explosive device!* Having escaped the slimy reaches of MADNESS Ruby attempts to hide back down the secret tunnel to the water closet but gets a rather nasty shock at the clone within the hall vanishes and reforms (using the contents of the toilet….) and splashes all over her.* We manage to finally dispatch the Trillith shortly before its gnome clone reached the soldiers barracks, we find her body and spirit back to the dining room before anyone else recovers from the maddening effects of the banquet.In the throne room we find the book of lineage, the magical artefact that is bound to the nobility of Dassen and quickly skip to the final few pages where it has already recorded the death of the king but also flicking back a few pages Arty notices signs where the book itself has been tampered with. It would appear someone (we assume the Ragesian Envoy and Inquisitor, as we had notes of them mentioning their plan to destroy the nobility) had caused or nudged the kings’ descent into madness by writing events directly into the book!We also notice that Ruby is now on the list of succession to Dean as Lady Dean was killed during the banquet along with some of her other relatives. Ideas of bumping her up a few more notches by dealing with the unconscious nobles in the dining room are ignored.So we begin to rouse the sleeping nobles, taking advantage of their groggy and befuddled state to break the news of their kings’ death and the tragedy that had befallen him (at the hands of the Nefarious Ragesians!) and the take the news with a heavy heart.There is a rushed royal funeral in which the late King Steppengard is buried along with the rest of his family, ending his line and we are awkwardly presented as heroes and saviours to the sad populace of Bresk and awarded titles and lands as a gift from Lady Timor, elected to be the new Ruler of the Kingdom. Dassan officially joins with Seaquen against Ragesia, but with the turmoil of the kings’ death and the after-effects of their own near civil war means they are less than prepared for the war that is looming.We leave Bresk the next day, intent to leave Dassen as far as possible as we head south to Seaquen to tell them of our “good” work. We notice the snow has started to melt, winter is finally on the turn bringing green back to the world but also the knowledge the winter passes will soon be traversable by Leska’s Army.</blockquote>

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