The Ticket Story Thus Far...

[Old Gobbo]

Could anyone post a "story thus far" of the current Ticket storyline for those that may not have been following it closely (or like me, have just arrived)?

[The Jenn]

An excellent request, and one I'm hoping a member can fulfill. Who's paying attention...?

[Harpsdesire]

This is my attempt at a “story so far” post! Since there’s a LOT going on in the various threads, I’m really just trying to hit what I see as the high points. Any characters/threads who are not mentioned please do not be offended, instead, summarize what you think should be included and I will edit the post to add it.

Bold = PCs
Green = NPCs

It all started when Donalda, The Queen of Spades, received a message from the Mayor of Selkie Lakes informing her that there had been a rich oil strike in the Lakes, surely a boon to the economy of all the realms. She traveled for a dedication of the new wells with the artists Michael and her stow-away daughter Sophie. Along the way, they met up with little Illyria and the wealthy businessman Graeme McDuck. The group stayed in the Fallen Wing Inn, where they encountered several strange magical items and an unsettling feeling.

Meanwhile, Colin, a titled Jack in Donalda’s court, invited Dania, (a bookseller and restorer of old volumes) to spruce up the rather neglected Spades Court library. Dania arrived with her assistant Joel to discover that there were strange whispers and voices in the halls. Before long, even stranger things were happening, with all other inhabitants of the place either vanished or comatose. When Zane found himself outside the palace and magically barred from entering, he flew through a storm to seek help at the Diamond Court, receiving a ride in Elodie’s carriage when he could fly no more. The disembodied whispers eventually lead the three cards inside the palace to find Faust, a lost and confused card who appeared from nowhere bearing the scars of recent brain surgery. While exploring the palace, both Colin and Dania unexpectedly ranked up to queen-- rather ominous considering the many stuffed bodies of former queens they found in the attic! Now the queens have come alive and seem determined to eliminate the attic intruders.

Outside the Spades Court, not far from where Zane awakened, a group of rabbits are searching for the lost doe Fleur. They aren’t aware that she met her demise at the explosive birth of her daughter Devika, who arrived not as a young rabbit, but a card! Wulfram and Zekki, unable to enter the court of Spades, took the full-grown ‘newborn’ along as they traveled to the Court of Hearts in search of answers.

Things are not much better in the other courts. When Zane and Elodie arrived, they found that in the Court of Diamonds many of the nobles have fallen into the same inexplicable sleep, and Zane and Kushrenada perished horribly, leaving behind improbable ‘babies’ with bodies and minds much older than they should be. Some of the other nobles who remain awake aren’t feeling well either, almost as if they were swelling from the inside. There is also a strange king by the name of Yarrast hanging about; his behavior is certainly suspicious…

The court of hearts is also no stranger to bizarre goings on. When Zekki, Wulfram and Devika arrive from Spades, they find all the nobility oddly frozen, like statues. Zekki is worried for the safety of his sweetheart, Virtute, who is among the frozen. Elsewhere in the Palace of Hearts, there are cards stirring. A group of lowlanders are embroiled in a fight with some higher-ranked civilians of the court. Could this have something to do with the strange surge in anti-lowlands sentiment Vaska has recently noticed? And why can he suddenly see Wiglaf, a ghost who is usually invisible to all but his chosen haunt?

Just outside the palace, Jerome and Jarvis awake with pounding heads to fine that the other hearts court gaurds are either gone, comatose, or beheaded out in the garden. There are no obvious signs of who - or what - killed them.

Mephista, a titled King of Hearts, has gone quite mad and headed out of her usual dungeon to see prey elsewhere. Frighteningly, she’s reached the capital, where her run-in with Arkady and Farran sent the children running to meet a most displeased Rosewood. Along they way, they found Conall tied up and disoriented, and the group sought the relative safety of Dr. Zenon’s lab. While there, they discovered a strange moving inkblot and Rosewood was haunted by a ghostly apparition who pointed and slavered.

The police station next door seemed to be deserted, perhaps because the cops are out on calls. Inside, the group finds not only more of the dark little blobs, but also what appears to be a pair of toves with glowing eyes. Outside, something rotten is circling the building.

Officer Rodney made his way to the Fallen Wing Pub, where a murder had just been committed. His investigation is complicated by the arrival of Beraht and Pascha, who followed a strange, spicy smell into the bar. Rodney has no idea who did the fox in, but earlier in the evening Kaden and Eurwen saw the killer, a mysterious woman named Resta with unexpected powers. Leaving the scene of the crime in search of Eurwen’s admirer Aiden, the pair encountered a strange zombie-like monster, and narrowly escaped with a little help from a band of Jossigies, eventually reaching the fountain in the city’s center, where they met up with Aiden.

Kaden headed back toward the pub where he met up with a few others and headed out to the Selkie to escape the strange oppressive air of the capital. They arrived at the Rising Wing, which seems to be oddly uninhabited. Someone spilled ink on the counter and just… left…

Meanwhile, Eurwen met up with several other cards, had another run-in with the lowland/torquehelm ‘zombie’ and led her group to the fountain once again, where something strange is going on. Sathre and Lilac have found that the fountain is iced over, and someone is beneath the ice!

Earlier in the evening, the same fountain was the site of a romantic encounter between Helena and Apocalypse that went sour when the King of Hearts flew into a magically induced rage. His summoned weapon saved Helena and the odd-looking child she seems to have… coughed up?

That strange mobile blob of ink that appeared in Zenon’s lab seems to have fellows elsewhere, including in the outer bazaar, where one was chased by Fenzik, and in a little second-hand-store, where they appeared in sudden profusion and include a blue blot which moves faster than the others. Nova has managed to catch one of the blobs: what can it be?

In other parts of the city, small groups have formed, as the air is heavy and a sense of paranoia makes everyone seek out safety in numbers. On such group as found a large pile of bodies: a wholesale slaughtering of lowlanders, including the well-known baker, Mrs. Lovett. Although Orrin, a Jossigy, is hardly bothered by the idea of killing lowland scum, the rest of the group is appalled. They decided to investigate the area. Even though there is no sign of a living soul, the air smells of tempting baked goods.

Another group encountered an equally gruesome sight. A large number of cards from Selkie lakes have been murdered and left stacked and hung all over a pub. Oddly, there’s a strange brownish discoloration of their coats and a discharge from their eyes that smells a little like ink. Bristol, another card born full grown from the grisly remains of his parent, Sergi, Catastrophe and Zhenya tried to go after a strange sound they heard on the roof without success, then a strong sense of foreboding and a dreadful smell chased them down a smoke-filled alley, where they discovered that the source of the smoke was a drugged-out Ercole, his small smoke ability over performing to an alarming degree.

In Anubis’s warren, the rabbits are faring no better than the cards. A whirlwind carried Maeve to the Jack’s feet, where she helped him fight off the smoke-like spectral creatures who were terrifying his leverets and afflicting his does with exhaustion and paranoia. Although her bladed tail seemed to disperse the lesser monsters, one that was larger and more frightening than the rest made off with Anubis’s prized doe Yasmine. The Jack and newly acquired leveret chased after her in vain, but then…

A pile of rabbits awakened in a grassy highland meadow, each arriving there by magical means of one sort of another. Maeve finds herself among them, along with Yasmin, who is seemingly unharmed. In the distance is a warren, a promise of safety, but when they arrive they find it had been dreadfully torn up, the interior in disarray and spattered with gore. No survivors are evident, but there is a smell of baking coming from the leveret’s rooms… and a dreadful smell from the does’. While investigating, Alicia discovers a hidden room filled with the corpses of the ravaged warren’s does. Some are fresh; some look as though they’ve been there for a while. To add to the horror, the leveret Jala explodes, leaving a strange, fully-grown doe behind. Both Yasmin and the Brighid have begun to feel terribly ill, and it looks like a similar fate could be in store for them…

[Shinigami]

Oh wow! Thank you so much! This helps so freaking much. I was kind of worried when I posted Iria being awake in the Court of Diamonds, and this explains a lot. And yeah, poor Iria does have a burdened ticket on her... >.>

[Yuiven]

*claps heartily in approval* Bravo Harps! Your current summary of the Tickets Contest is concise, yet across-the-board, and, to make it even better, thoroughly engaging. Thank you for taking the time to compile all of this together for our reference. It's very much appreciated. ^_^

[Harpsdesire]

Glad you're enjoying it!

*gasps* Forgot rabbit court boards! I will edit with that soon(-ish).

Added the Bunnehs! Did I miss anything else crucial?

[Lucca]

o.o holy CRAP Harps. I applaud you. That is very thorough and just...wow. Wow. You're amazing.

[Greenie]

You're missing like all my threads somehow XDD

-Pascha/Beraht
-Diamonds thread (Diamonds nobles + Elodie)
-Bunnies outside Spades

[Nathalia]

Harps?
Maybe...just maybe, I ought to be worshiping you.

Thank you so much for doing this, you have no idea. Can you edit it as we go along for others to keep up with?
I will, of course, reward you for doing so. <3
Seriously, with how badly I've been devoured this weekend, I sincerely appreciate this. It's utterly amazing.

<3


~Nathalia

[Callypso]

Woah. Harps. Just... just awesome! Not only was this incredibly well done, but it was super fun to read as well. Great job, dude! Thanks so much for putting this together!

Also... I think you're missing the thread with Helena and Apocolypse and there's one that hasn't gone very far with Courante and Iso. Both those threads are in the Capital, I think?