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. Despite the effects of a little twig mask on poor Lyr, the group made to the mayor¡¦s house and then to the oil fields, which smell of petrol and ink.
It seems the Mayor was not entirely forthright with them, for he reveals that Selkies working on the wells have been mysteriously dying. As if this isn't complication enough for the day, Queen Donnie feels magically compelled to eat one of the little fruits that grew from the tree on Lyr's back and becomes a Diamond! While the adults are discussing the dangers posed by the oil wells with the Mayor, Sophie and Lyr go out to the garden to play, and are swallowed up by the mist.
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. They also get a glimpse of a mysterious wolf, who seems to vanish before they can get a good look. 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! A frantic battle with the reanimated queens left both Faust and Colin's tove Arpeggio gravely wounded.
Although Joel manages to patch them up well enough, the strange goings-on have not ceased: Dania has attracted the attention of the last undead queen, who is following her like a confused puppy, and Colin is filled with a surge of power and pride: Somehow, he knows that he's THE Queen now-- and that there is an intruder in the palace! Upon arriving in the court¡¦s main hall, a Calloo wolf biped sits upon a throne. Still upstairs, Dania tries her new Queen's ability on Faust, with
interesting results.
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! When her remains are discovered, Nadja finds herself attractively mutated, but
Somhairle meets a fate like Fleur's, dying at the appearance of a card child. They make their way into the basement of the court, where
Horatio is coming down the stairs after awakening on the floor above. The animated taxidermied queen that followed Dania down from the attic rushes downstairs, vanishing into the darkness of the cellar.
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¡K
Although Yarrast made his escape,
Ceren followed him to Queen
Iria's room and found her sleeping deeply, but able to awaken. The poor queen feels bloated and awful, much like Zane did before his demise and Ceren is starting to feel the symptoms, too. Yarrast admits that he had
something to do with the tragedies, although he didn't seem to expect any deaths as a result of his interference. Iria succumbs to the rapid growth of the child inside her, unmistakably Yarrast's daughter. When two of Ceren's children show up, the avian King is doing everything in her power to
end Yarrast.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group began poking around in
Queen Sadie's chamber. There is a strange box that smells of incense, an unsettlingly large number of cursed items around, and some little vials that smell of yarrow flowers and petrol. Above them all, a bell tolls even though the court has no bell tower. When
Morgan gets the box open, the smell fades, but Sadie still sleeps and the sound of the bell is only getting closer. They track the source of the sound to storage room that seems somehow bigger than it should be. Now a voice is speaking to Morgan, and a cabinet slowly opens to reveal only darkness.
Wulfram and
Zekki, finding themselves unable to enter the court of Spades, took the full-grown 'newborn' Devika along as they traveled to the Court of Hearts in search of answers.
The court of hearts is also no stranger to bizarre goings on. When Zekki, Wulfram and Devika arrive, 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, who fight them vigorously for a time, then seem to lose the will carry on. 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 guards are either gone, comatose, or beheaded out in the garden. There are no obvious signs of who - or what - killed them. The pair head inside, directly towards Wulfram's group.
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
Jovan], Kamina and several other young cards, had another run-in with the lowland/torquehelm 'zombie' (this time he managed to swallow poor Rigsy, and leave Mia behind, slimy and stinking) and led her group to the fountain once again, where something strange is going on. More and more cards keep showing up, all confused or afraid and looking for a place to hide and an answer to the madness in the city. Those Jossigys just keep coming and going, Aiden is rather painfully thrashed by Resta, and now a terrible creature made of pure ink has entered the hat shop where they hid. It seems largely immune to physical damage, and sprays the group with a slimy froth of ink.
Sathre and Lilac have found that the fountain is iced over, and someone is beneath the ice! In the process of trying to get her out, Lilac mutates terribly. Eventually, they break little Callie[/i] out of the ice, and she finds that she has also suffered a mutation.
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¡K coughed up? Just as Apocalypse calms down,
Menefer walks up. He found two little girls lying unconscious in an alley. They look like they need help, and soon.
Kristoph has different plans for the young females, but when Apocalypse shows up he had no choice but to use his carriage to take the whole group towards the hospital.
Mephista, a titled King of Hearts, has gone quite mad after a
frightening encounter and headed out of her usual dungeon to seek 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 and Conall has vanished into the fog. This time, the lowland zombie seems to want to talk. He considers himself the victim of a racist hate crime, and seems unwilling to accept that the police are nowhere to be found. He was content to discuss his woes with Rosewood until Farran panicked and attacked the creature. Rather than attacking as it did earlier, the oozing being started to cry!
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, but it escaped, merging with others of it's kind to form a creature of oozing blackness. Incensed by
Eldy's attack, the beast swallows Nova, soon bursting into flame and setting the whole shop ablaze!
Fenzik has a blob of his own, and it seems to be quickly cracking the jar he trapped it in. He is met by a small group of cards including
Othello, who is distraught by his sudden ability to see the present, a sight that is usually denied him. Before long, a Jossigy named
Farrago shows up, one of the group that earlier aided Eurwen. He seems to be on the lookout for Resta and his Jossigy buddies, and is unaware that from behind a crate, the leveret
Talaith watches silently.
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. Moving a counter within the shop revealed a stronger gust of cooking smells and a set of steps leading down to a hidden bakery with a suspicious meat grinder and a huge oven. Now more trouble has arrived in the form of an angry
Mr.Todd.
Another group encountered an equally gruesome massacre. 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.
While out for a bit of shopping, poor
Vishne found himself unexpectedly surrounded by lowlanders, including the mysterious
Gaurin, who seems to think there's a full on Jossigy/Lowland war afoot in the Capital, with most of the City's lowland inhabitants already evacuated.
Dr.
Iaso went out into the spice-scented streets seeking help, for she felt terribly unwell. Despite
Courante¡¦s best efforts, the doctor mutated, her body covered in an, inky black substance. Thus changed, she at least begins to feel better, although she's rather disturbed by the arrival of a group of cards who seem to drift in on the smoke. Ercole,
Takio and
Vanja aren't sure exactly how they got to this part of the city, but the Jossigy
Evan seemed more oriented to his surroundings: he headed this way after vanishing from the hat shop where Eurwen , Jovan and Kamina had holed up. He is surprised to find so many people still in the city: with the Jossigy-Lowland fighting that's been going on, they'd tried to evacuate the area, but it looks like the spell didn't work exactly as they'd hoped...
Office
Fetu has found herself in a bit of situation, as young
Tabby and
Davy have been separated from their families. Luckily, Queen
Sabe is willing to help. Resourceful Davy makes a
frightening discovery when he tries to contact his mother. Tabby wanders off and is lost in the mist, and then the small group comes upon a pair of noble Hearts who have poor Conall in tow. The cards decide to make their way to the Court of Hearts, taking the boy back to his family, even though he still can not remember who he is. Once there, they find the place empty, although a comatose avian ace lies in the courtyard, his skull ringed by rough black stitches. When
Alex the ace comes to, he's mutated rather horrifically, and something long and gaunt just flashed by the window, oh dear!
Guardian Amherst doesn't know what to make of the strange conditions in the city, but he's bound and determined to protect the two children he finds unattended outside the Fallen Wing. When they come across Resta and
Eir, he'll have to chose sides: Unbalanced Jossigy or long-necked cannibal? While Amherst is distracted by the fight, Josephine finds Othello further back in the alley, smelling of rot and drugs, unsure how he got here.
It seems Mephit's condition was only deteriorating as the evening wore on... now she's outside the Falling Wing Pub, attacking
Ichigo and
Thyme, who had just left the pub after noticing some very odd behavior on the part of their fellow patrons. They will have to defend young
Makenna and
Adrianne from the violently enraged king. Mephit seems to be losing her grip on reality more and more, but it looks like she'll be taking Ichigo and Thyme down with her. She managed quite a bit of damage on the pair before her child burst forth, taking her life.
Thyme vanished before long, and Ichigo set out with the newly born
Chandra, and
Nethanel, leaving severely mutated Adrianne and Kenna behind, unconscious. When Apocolypse¡¦s group comes by in the carriage, he takes in the girls and the body of King Mephit and heads full speed to the Court of Hearts with Helena and Simcha, leaving poor
Fate and
Neviah, who awaked feeling ill and bloated, to the care of Menefer and Kristoph on the cold, misty city streets.
Although his family evacuated for safer lands as soon as a hint of violence against lowlanders was on the wind,
Morpheus felt compelled to return to the city. He simply had to save his 'pet',
Khizr. When he arrives with a small group of hangers-on that he picked up along the way, he finds utter carnage... his queen is dead, and in his place a litter of half-starved babies. Moe knows they are his own, however strange it is for two red suits to give birth to spade children. Not only have the weakened litter resorted to cannibalism in the absence of food, but there's an oddly suspicious bloodstain on the floor. The kindly
Viast is discovered upstairs, and she offers to evacuate Mo and his family to safety, as the Lowland/Jossigy war is picking up in intensity, and violence has spread to the capital. She says that the leader of the lowlanders,
Cale, is standing by with a portal to take those of his realm out of danger.
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. Yasmin's death soon follows, also bringing an adult doe into the world.
Brighid has begun to feel terribly ill as well, and now a disembodied voice rings through the warren, challenging Aubis to fight.
Alicia, a little ahead of the others in exploring the leveret¡¦s rooms, is suddenly carried off by the same sort of whirlwind Maeve arrived on, and set down just in front Kaden,
Kendra and
Jordon outside of the deserted Rising Wing inn. Kaden captures the leveret easily, as yet unaware of the strange magic that is bringing cards and rabbits together. When they enter the building, a single employee shows up, giving them handfuls of keys in a haze, then vanishing. Before they can unlock a single room,
Suvius appears, practically a double of Jordon. It¡¦s not long before Sophie and Lyr also appear, emerging from the mist in the mayor¡¦s garden to find themselves miles away, at the inn where they had stayed the previous night.
Davy didn't look, he outright -stared- at Tabby. Was she crazy? She certainly seemed insane enough, talking about being able to see ghosts and somesuch. Not that Davy didn't believe in ghosts but… Not everyone who claimed such a thing necessarily was all right in the mind. His mother had only ever been able to see one without some help from the occult. 
