08 - The Bal's Night

Someone steps up on the stage after a few minutes, which happens to be a very pale but beautiful elven goth woman (Creep), the crowd cheers as she sits on the left chair.
The halfling climbs up too, and people cheer even more, and he sits on the right chair.
The crowd goes silent. Another person gets up, where we see the cane first (Mr. Laughton).
[Perception check - Pass ✔] He's not moving entirely on his own. (someone invisible to help him?)
When he turns and raises his hand, the crowd claps (in a more polite way).
The lights are dimming. The stage is brightens up. The curtain opens, and we see Lord Wringer fully dressed in purple with golden bordures, looking really rich and flashy.
He announces that event is going to have twice as participants due to some Lieutenants being MiA (whoops.), which means there's going to be 20 participants for a total of 4 openings as Lieutenants of the Collars.
We also realize that the Bal is a beauty pageant.

Lord Wringer introduces the judges, who happen to be Creep, Zen and Mr. Laughton (and thus confirming intel about Creep and Zen).
Along that, the contestant who will end up in the first place will have a special prize, which happens to be a crystal ball. Lord Wringer precise that it's an eye of a cyclops (probably Bron's eye we have to recover). He puts the eye next to Mr. Laughton inside a glass case for display purposes.
We also realize that the disguised voice is Lord Wringer.

The party regroups and discuss about the plan (minus Reylynn). We're not sure what to do as we have a new objective: Getting the eye back.
Upon discussing, we thought about getting the eye during the show, or stealing the eye from the winner, or pretending to be a contestant. For the latter, as we're unsure how it would go, we decide for now to be on the stand-by and see how it would.
Meanwhile, Raina mentions she despites Lord Wringer and he's not having a good time recently to Reylynn.

We are introduced to the contestants. From the contestants, only a few catches our attention:

• Henmuri Bonefury, a really strong Goliath
• Diggle Harfoot, an halfling
• Lazar Zayne, a ridiculously hot Goblin
• An Owlbear
• Skraccut, a kenku
• Mettius Vitellius Bassus, a Tiefling.

During this category:

• Owlbear manages it.
• Diggle gets boo'd.
• Skraccut gets confused
• The others are ok.

After that, Lord Wringer mentions that the participants will display their unique talent. (Where also realize that 14 of them are singers, and correct ones, except 2 who nails it).

The Owlbear paints Lord Wringer's portrait in 60s (and a pretty nice one).
Diggle does competitive eating (and get boo'd again).
Skraccut screeches loudly for a few minutes then leaves.
Henmuri Bonefury does a bodybuilder act, as he breaks a brick in half, then goes with stacked bricks in one hit (respectively 10, 20 and finally 30).
Then he goes to break a barrel filled with bricks.
He ends up picking a pig claiming "I know what you're probably thinking, but BONEFURY RESPECTS ALL LIFE", ending his claim by throwing the pig into the private boxes, which makes it fall to the ground.
[Dexterity save + Acrobatic check - Double pass ✔] Reylynn lands without issue or harm.
Raina also lands without harm, and gets mostly dusty from the crash.
The crowd gasps from the fall, and even more when they realize Raina was inside the box. She yells "WRINGER", to which he responds with a timid "Yes ?".
"You owe me a new coat", then slowly walks out the Bal, in a calm manner.

After the scene, the pig gets out unharmed too. Graath gives a treat to the pig, which follows him all the time now (and got named Waterloo).
Upon that, the show resumes.

Lazar Zayne removes his shirt (and the crowd goes crazy).
Mettius presents a magic show (to which Persy and Reylynn moves closer). He does basic magic tricks, until he pulls out a dove, then decapitates it (which does blood fountain) with another dove getting out from the corpse, but covered in blood. And he resumes his regular simple magic tricks.
For his next trick, he asks the Cyclops' eye from Mr. Laughton, to make it disappear. And he makes it disappear with a trick.
[Perception check - Pass ✔] Reylynn notices that the cyclops eye rolled away from the top of the scene, and ended up below the scene.
[Stealth check - Pass ✔] Reylynn went to get it quietly.
Mettius starts to do the show, and tries to pull it from his pocket, but realizes it's not there. Then he asks to jury to look under their siege. He tries to save his face, and rips again the head of the dove, which ends up in a bloody fountain again, but no eye appearing.
Reylynn doesn't say a word yet.
The crowd starts to wonder where it went and starts to be upset.
Lord Wringer raises his hand and the crowd stops. "Do you know where the Cyclops' eye went?".
Reylynn gets out furtively from below the stage, still hiding the eye.
Mettius mentions that it could've rolled below, and when checking, doesn't find it.
"You've been disqualified", says Mr. Laughton, then throws an axe right in the face and kills Mettius on the spot.
[Perception check] Persy doesn't hear anything.

Lord Wringer pulls out a joke to about cleaning the blood, and closes this section, along announcing an intermezzo to clean up and figuring out what happened to the eye..

The party fully regroup. We start to mention about this case that that magician could be crossing them, but also make us wonder how to get the eye before them.
After asking how is Reylynn, she reveals she has the eye with her, and feels bad about the death of Mettius (the party recomforts her).
We decide to hide the eye into the portable hole to have it extracted easier. When going outside, we're asked to stay in the lighted area, due to the eye missing. We manage to go to the piss alley (which happens to be dark), Graath uses his talent to go invisible and puts the eye into the portable hole.
After this short break outside, we decide to go back inside, to know at least who are going to be the future lieutenants, to have an idea who we're going to face in a close future.

Also known as the boring section, as they always end up mentioning the Collars' supremacy, which makes the crowd cheer.
The Owlbear doesn't speak common, but still manages conveys his emotions.
Skraccut gets back into a purple dress. Lord Wringer observes, pauses, and asks:
"What the fuck are you doing? I said that purple is my color, and you're wearing purple."
Skraccut really looks confused and doesn't understand what is happening.
Lord Wringer starts to look angry, then turns out to the judges. Mr. Laughton mentions that he has to be disqualified. Lord Wringer's' right side is being coated in fire, then launches it to Skraccut, who dies from the hit. He beats up the corpse with the cane, as he's loosing his temper. He gets called by Mr. Laughton, snaps back, and resumes the show.

Diggle gets boo'd again (the team cheers him up again).
Lazar Zayne has the crowd on his side due to his magnetic charisma.

And from this presentation, it is announced that the judges are deliberating as it was the final category.
We decide to stick around for the ending (and confirming the next four future lieutenants).

Lord Wringer announces that instead of the Cyclops' eye, the first place will have so many gems from the Collars' HQ instead to compensate.
We get the winners announced, and by the occasion, the faces and names of the new Lieutenants.

The winners:

• 🏆 4th: Random person
• 🥉 3rd: Lazar Zayne
• 🥈 2nd: Owlbear
• 🥇 1st: An underdog girl named Deirdre.

Henmuri Bonefury being mad that he isn't in the list, picks up Deirdre and throws her away, and claims to be the winner (which doesn't seem to bother much the judges and the crowd).

The actual winners:

• 🏆 4th: Random person
• 🥉 3rd: Lazar Zayne
• 🥈 2nd: Owlbear
• 🥇 1st: Deirdre Henmuri Bonefury

After that, they crown this year's Meatbag, aka the contestant who scored the lowest. Without any surprise, it happens to be Diggle.
He gets dumped a bucket of bloody meat on him, then a second. They follow with a rope to tie him around his waist. From that, the crowd steps on the side. We notice a horse is on the other side of the rope.
"We're closing the night with a hell run!" yells Lord Wringer, and the horse is going out, with Diggle being dragged, and the crowd starts to chase him.

Persy being more reactive and faster goes after Diggle. He drops his Tiefling form (Disguise Self) and attacks the rope (and lands the hit), reaches Diggle and turn him invisible using Invisibility. He makes him free from the rope and instructs him to run away.
From that, the crowd are searching within the streets to see where the meatbag could've been gone, then retreats safely to the warehouse.

In the meantime, the rest of the party observes what's happening from inside.
[Perception check - Pass ✔] Reylynn hears about the judges discussing, and notices that someone carries Mr. Laughton the royal way, revealing his incapacity to move freely.

Nesvalyn goes to confort Deirdre the ex-first place and convinces her to follow her dreams, and she leaves hopeful, thanking the lizardman, and leaving.

From that, the party gets back safely to the warehouse.
Graath discuss with Waterloo, which decides to get back into the woods, but he will be there if we need him.

Next session: 09 - Withering of a Jonquil