Disgraceland: The Climactic Battle

We have improbable allies plucked from various points in the multiverse and the timestream, and Shaz must die. 

Adonis the centaur cleric; Possum the halfling street druid; Olen Mosk the half-fiend bard; and Mistress Eden the pixie dominatrix. And since Porsephorine has pronounced that we can't possibly do this alone... "Courtesy of my master, Mephistopheles, may I present..." He gestures, and a portal opens. A terrifying woman with a spiked chain walks through, then an effete human bard, and then suddenly there's an elf in black and gray standing next to them. Finally, a half-orc comes through... and begins singing us the Ballad of Camacho. Because yes, this is Camacho, and this is Don't Cry For Me, Barovia.

Applause follows. People have come out of nowhere to salute this artistic effort. 

We go to consult Chuck about our plan of attack. We step through Porsephorine's gateway into Chuck's penthouse. The place has been wrecked, and Balaam is tied up in the middle of the room with a ball gag. We take it off. "We got him! Oh shit! They got him! They fucking got Chuck."

Pazuzu and Demogorgon took him... somewhere. Vendril cuts Balaam loose. Olen opens a portal to the whorehouse, and we head into Malkethet's realm. In addition to the succubi and incubi, there are some regular workers hanging around. Camacho starts hitting on one of the imps. the grabs one and starts kissing it. Possum grabs the tray and slips it under her cloak. Camacho opens his eyes to find that she's still a particularly busty imp. Camacho is deeply disappointed and promptly insults her, which is exactly when Malkethet. 

She's willing to get involved. She snaps her finger, and some more of her people approach. These aren't succubi, or at least they're disguised -- Vendril and Mistress Eden notice. They quickly change into attractive humanoids, but their eyes are completely black. They sprout wings. "Should we alert Miss Fierna, Malkothet?" Malkothet agrees. 

They depart momentarily, and return in the company of this incredibly hot demon woman. Fierna looks us over, then turns to Balaam -- who is clearly terrified of her. He goes straight to blubbering and begging for his existence. 

Fierna ignores Camacho and says, "If you can get Chuck away from my unfortunate exes, and stop them from doing whatever they're planning to do, I'll give you one night here in the boudoir. But maybe I could do one more thing... They have broken some of the rules of this place, and I can arrange it so that for anyone except Shaz, you will go to the arena. Oh, and one more thing: I'm going to let Mephiosto know."

Malkethet flicks her wing back and presents an open door to the Wendigo. We go through.

It's a very upscale, very forest lodge in its vibe: illusions of nighttime skies out the windows, a casino floor all around us. Right here in front of us is a hulking frost giant wendigo: "Time to die!"

We charge him in unison, and all of a sudden we're in the arena. And the reason the casino was empty is that everyone is here. Marshall Mercy has come with us, but he's planning to hang back and stay out of the direct combat. 

Camacho continues charging the frost giant wendigo. Wendigo regenerate and have all sorts of infectious disease kinds of effects. Camacho power attacks and hits, doing substantial damage. 

Mistress Eden turns invisible and tries a sleep arrow on the wendigo; she misses and flies away. Baldy starts a song of courage and backs away... Vendril manages to stab the wendigo, but can't sneak attack because he's not actually flanking. He starts moving to flank the wendigo. Olen attacks with his rapier, but misses; Possum tosses the Wand of Death Ward to Marshall and shouts, "get to work!" Adonis manages to hit with two arrow;  then Jenny wades in. 

She lashes out with her spiked chain, and shows us all what damage actually looks like. Camacho attacks again, doing decent damage. The Wendigo screams: everyone take 2 Wisdom damage and are now slightly affected by wendigo-ness. We're now demoralized/afraid, and then he attacks Jenny. Marshall tags Jenny with the Death Ward wand. 

Mistress Eden tries another sleep arrow. Baldy tries an arrow as well. Vendril is paralyzed, but Olen manages to stab for a bit of damage. Camacho decides that the wendigo is female, but too angry for him to Mac on. We do him some more damage, and he is pissed. He lashes out at Jenny, doing a lot of damage. Jenny goes down; she doesn't stay down. 

Mistress Eden misses; Uncle Baldy casts Haste. Vendril comes to his senses and just pincushions him. He teeters, then falls; the audience boos. Camacho removes the head, just to be safe; but mainly so he can wear it as a helmet. 

We return back to the pit floor at the Wendigo Casino. Where the Wendigo's bones have fallen, there's a room key. Possum pulls out the tray and Jenny starts pulling healing potions while the rest of us heal our Wisdom damage. We head up to the wendigo's master suite. We Death Ward everybody on the way, and prepare to recast Haste just before we kick in the door. 

The elevator opens into the penthouse. Camacho stops us before we can go up, and sends a packaged loaf of bread up with the label "To Strahd". It's one of his cumlaches. Vendril: "We're going to be fighting doubly-powerful succubi when we get up there." 

The elevator has come back down, and someone has drawn Camacho's head impaled on Adonis' cock on the back of the elevator. 

We go up, and Baldy launches into suitably inspring music: the well-known ballad Highway To The Danger Zone. 

We reach the penthouse suite. We are Death Warded, Hasted, and Olen has Mirror Image in place. So we've got a +3 bonus to hit (+5 for Vendril), +2 to damage, and +1 to AC. The bell dings, and we roll for initiative. 

The doors open up and we see a really long hallway of fire and brimstone, and it's packed to the gills with lemur -- maybe thirty of them. Adonis starts loosing arrows and takes down three of them. Jenny lashes out with the chain and takes down three more. Camacho wades in and takes down three more... I'm sensing a theme here. Possum kills three more, and then they come at us. Fortunately for us, they suck. 

Mistress Eden fires off her longbow and kills another one. Baldy fires off his crossbow and kills one. Vendril takes out six, and Olen drops Displacement on Jenny. Adonis kills three more. We're a fucking avalanche pouring down this corridor. Jenny wipes out the remaining four. 

We get to the end of the hallway and the doors open up to a grand penthouse. Shaz is sitting here in the middle of it. Camacho: "My queen! My love! My sun and moon!" He reaches into his pants and pulls out another poem. It's a love poem, and he drops his pants in the middle of it. He reaches the, um dramatic climax and ends with his fists on his hips and his pants at his feet. 

He has persuaded her. She will leave him alive... and she will take him with her. It's a triumph? Of a sort? I guess? She's going to try to kill the rest of us. Over her shoulder, Chuck is being held by Pazuzu and the Demogorgon. 

Possum throws a rock at her, but Vendril gestures and it turns into a dagger in mid air. It misses. 

She pulls out this huge, gaudy thing of perfume and fills the room with it, and everyone except Camacho and Jenny are subject to Mind Fog if we get within thirty feet of her. 

Mistress Eden casts Otto's Irresistible Striptease, and manages -- just barely, and with help from Chuck's Tokens -- manages to get through her spell resistance. Baldy shoots her with a crossbow, but misses. Vendril hits with a dagger, doing a bit of damage; Olen convinces Camacho that attacking her is going to be like foreplay and he should go for it. Marshall tries to dispel the cloud, but fails. 

Adonis fires off a bunch of arrows, hitting and smiting with one. Jenny moves in to flank and starts swinging at her with the chain. She does a bit of damage. Camacho sashays in and attacks -- it's foreplay! -- and misses. Trash Panda considers her options... We know she resistant to cold, and a bunch of other things; we don't want to get scratched by its claws and we don't want to get caught in its scream. 

Possum heads off to to Malkothet's to retrieve Balaam. Mistress Eden looks temporarily baffled; Baldy hits Jenny with Heroism. Possum pulls out the tray... and finds silversheen on it. Camacho's valet silversheens his greatsword, and Olen does the same for Jenny. Adonis pours silversheen into his quiver to coat his arrows. 

Jenny hits twice, doing a bunch of damage that actually sticks this time. Jenny laughs. "All right! I can finally hit zis bitch!" 

Balaam moves in and attacks with a claw, making a critical hit and doing a lot of damage. Mistress Eden delivers silversheen to Baldy; Baldy shoots and misses. Vendril lands another dagger and does some damage; Olen can't think of anything useful to do. Jenny attacks and hits twice a, doing another chunk of damage. Camacho thrusts manfully at her, hitting once... and she goes down. He cradles her in his arms. "Baby! Hold on! Be strong!" She's dead. 

"She said she was going to take me away! She said she was going to take me away from Barovia! Marshall, you bring her back! You bring her back!" 

With the Death of Shaz, He kisses her, and her body turns into fire and brimstone, and shadowy figured drag her down to hell. Pazuzu and the Demogorgon slowly lower Chuck to the ground. Chuck snaps awake. "Holy fucking shit! You idiots did it! You guys killed my ex's ex! THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST PARTY EVER!"

Balaam starts dancing, against his will; Camacho joins in. "You guys have done me such a solid. Tell you what, any time you want to come back here -- except for you, Camacho -- you just hang onto your chips." He opens a portal, and before he can go through, Fierna and Malkothet come through. They'r holding hands. 

"Well, boys and girls, you did it. You took care of our problem with Shaz, It's actually quite sad. In your future," she points at Jenny. "Shaz would have put you in charge of the sin thread. Chuck... such a good little puppet. You're going to be in charge of the sin thread, for now. Until I'm done with you. And then, well, we'll see what happens. But in the meantime, have your fun. And remember, you belong to me." Camacho: "Me?" Fierna: "No, you belong to Strahd." Malkothet: "Give him a night. He can spend some time with the girls before he goes back." The rest of us are up for the party of our lives, with the option to come back at some point. 

Disgraceland: The Investigation Continues

Reminder: Coins (Chuck's Luck Token) offer 1 reroll, one +1d4, one open door to the whorehouse, and two fifty-fifty winner-take-all results per session.

We've been checking through the VIP area, investigating things for Chuck. Possum slips into the kitchen and starts rooting through the trash, while Adonis is off sleeping with the two women for information. She asks about why they all disappeared during the event. All three of them lose all expression and say in concert: "We needed to refresh drinks."

She asks about hours d'oerves, and one of the servers comes up with a tray of them. Possum immediately grabs the tray and starts snacking, but the imp wrests the tray from her hand. Possum emerges and tells Mistress Eden to get a tray for us. The imps tell her not to come back, and if she does she should talk to Skizz. Who is Skizz? Well, he's the rotund bald imp.

Olen, meanwhile, is out asking around about Mephistopeles. He's... very secluded. Unlike other leaders of the Nine Hells he doesn't get out and do much; he's kind of the scientist of the Nine Hells. He will seek out experiments, run tests, and like that. He's legit trying to increase his own knowledge; that learning makes him more powerful is a welcome outcome. Porsephorine is a direct conduit to Mephistopheles and a loyal supporter of his work. 

Olen: "Have you recently seen Porsephorine?"

Skizz: "Um... no. I run the kitchens."

When we came into the kitchen area, Mistress Eden noted that this was probably a pocket space that connects to a lot of places. Probably servers a lot of places. Looking around, she notes that this place has a shitload of doors, and they cannot all be going to where they look like they're going to. Skizz runs the kitchen for all of Chucks Vegas. 

Skizz sends us through another door, and we come back out of the kitchen and into the blood rave anyway. These are imp-only doors -- only imps can use them to move around the island. Olen asks what makes the door work for the imps; they show him their concierge badges. The badges are all cursed, but the curse is actually dwindling now. Olen: "Who supplies the badges?" 

Skizz glasses over again. "Chuck gives them to us." So somebody probably subverted the staff through their  access badges. 

Possum promptly grabs Skizz's badge. Olen asks him the question again. Chuck does supply the badges, but before the event opened they had to get them shined. So who shined them? He thinks it was one of Shaz's people. Who's Shaz? Olen thinks about it... Skizz says, "Shaz. Um. You know. Shazaria, the devil, the Polarian... She's one of... She has a lot of very close relationships with some of the Heads of the Nine Hells. They had someone polish our badges." Who does Shaz work for? Skizz doesn't really know. 

Olen asks him about Mephistopeles. "He's not a problem. He's always moving around. Always has a lot going on. Not a big deal." He wouldn't deal with something this petty, but he is responsible for creating the Sin Thread, which among other things serves as a highway through the multiverse -- but only for the worst.

We could, however, use Chuck's Tokens to move through the Hall of Door in Malfeset's. 

We suddenly appear in Chuck's penthouse suite. Venus -- the Jensenian who stayed with Chuck -- is still here, dressed as the Goblin Queen. We hand the badge to CHuck and tell him his staff is compromised. He chews out Balaam. 

Chuck decides that he's going to disconnect the Sin Thread. We've got five hours until it reconnects. But Chuck can't see the concierge badge at all. We explain about Shazaria, and Chuck just fucking melts down. Shaz was jealous, she's a slut, she broke up Chuck and Fierna. Chuck is pissed. "I think we know what's going on now. Shaz is trying to fuck me, but she's not going to fuck me. I'm going to fuck her. Balaam, get over here! You're with them for the rest of the time they're here." He looks at us. "Two things you got to do. That stupid Wendigo fuck has been helping them. You gotta chase him down. Then go talk to Porsephorine, 'cause he can hook you up. Then go kill that bitch. But don't try to do it without talking to Porsephorine, you will end up dead. Enjoy the show!" He snaps, and we're off to Z, the Cirque du So Lame, to find Porsephorine: zombies diving through flaming hoops and illusionists drawing images from the River Styx. Porsephorine has a permanent box for this show. 

We show up at the box level. The bartender for the box level is a tattooed succubus, Adonis immediately starts trying to seduce her. Olen moves around asking about Porsephorine, Mistress Eden is listening for the scuttlebutt, and Possum is questioning the bartender about the Blood Rave. Balaam summons more succubi to distract Adonis. 

Possum asks the bartender about who and why on the Blood Rave; the succubus doesn't know anything. Holy shit, Fierna's the boss here: she's the one who runs the Z show. Balaam suddenly turns innocent and oblivious; he checks out when Chuck is the topic. 

Mistress Eden spots Porsephorine as people start to move towards the show. The rest of us notice a bank of loose-looking slot machines. Adonis goes over and finds Marlin Marlene, a literal cougar, playing at the slots. He hands her some money and starts sweet-talking her and rubbing her shoulders. 

She pulls the handle... 

...And all Hell breaks loose. The slots machine suddenly sprouts a giant maw, teeth, and a long purple tongue. The rest of the slot machines transform as well. They're mimics. 

Mistress Eden immediately uses Greater Invisibility and flies around to check the scene. Balaam -- in this small, fancy room with these fancy people -- summons a pair of bone devils to deal with this. Or he tries to... when he snaps his fingers, nothing happens. Mistress Eden: "It's because Chuck disconnected the Sin Thread!" 

Olen Mosk Starts speaking affirmations and steps back; he's supervising. "You're strong! You're powerful! You can fight! And your boss will FIRE YOU if you don't!"

The mimics attack, but only really hit Adonis. Possum drops Hold Monster and freezes a mimic in its place. She then hides behind the bar and continues eating cherries. Adonis leans across the bar, kisses the succubus, and then says. "Sorry, Baby, I got to go to work." He turns around and attacks with his spiked chain. hitting twice; then he steps back.

Mistress Eden casts Entangle, and vines wrap around one of the mimics. Balaam drops a fireball, scorching all of them. Mosk continues calling encouragements. Mimics hit several of us. Possum comes up with a crossbow and puts some bolts in them. Adonis eases back and looses an arrow, badly injuring one of them very badly. He follows up, and with a little help from his token he finishes it off. 

Mistress Eden notices that these mimics are unusually strong and currently trying to retreat into other rooms to be other machines. Balaam decides to grab one of them and rip it apart. He shreds it. Olen steps back further, still speaking encouragements. Possum scoots back and shoots her crossbow again. She hits twice, doing some damage. Adonis fires off a couple of arrows, suitably inspired by Olen. Mistress Eden fires off a sleep arrow at the remaining mobile mimic. So we now have two dead mimics, one sleeping mimic, and one entangled mimic. Balaam constricts the entangled one with his tail and reduces it to paste. 

Possum attacks the remaining one, and crits twice. She basically just hops on top of it, finishes it off and hides behind the bar again. "Rule 32: double-tap."

Adonis converts the last one to a pin cushion. No, I'm not sure about the math on this either. 

We do meet Porsephorine at the end of this; the slot machines are on the outside of his private box. Marlene comes in. Possum: "Dude, your slot machines are fucked." 

Olen: "We need your help. Shaz is trying to fuck this deal, and Chuck wants us to deal with it." 

He snaps his finger and an older man appears with a snake in each hand. "Y'all are gonna need some help... and Ah know just how to provide it..."

It's Marshall Mercy. There are a few other people with him: 

Jenny is here, a muscular woman with a spiked chain. Durest is here, with Bob the Frost Giant Skeleton. This is all wrong for the timeline, but here we all are. 

On Monday, everybody can come with their favorite Level 10 Character. Unless it's Camacho; he's locked in his own Universe. Or no, wait... yeah, given the alternatives, Camacho can escape.

Disgraceland: The Dance Floor Battle and the Aftermath

The Dance Floor Battle continues!

There are eight lemures left, four something-elses left, and the demon in the center is irresistibly dancing. Our centaur fires off a bunch of arrows and takes out three of the lemures, then poses; unfortunately, there’s nobody close enough to really be looking at him. 

The demons close ranks and continue advancing on Chuck, shoving the dancing demon along with them. They’re in more of a hurry now, shoving people aside and ripping them up, but the crowd doesn’t seem to find this terribly unusual. Possum calls another bolt of lightning, and zaps the dancing demon just as he’s unbuckling his belt. 

Olen notices that the servants are nowhere to be seen, and it is impossible for him to get a drink now. He fires off Glitterdust, and the lemures are all blinded and glowing. Adonis the centaur takes out more lemures. The two remaining lemures, blind, continue advancing, still flailing ahead of them. The other demons follow. The four central demons hoist the dancing demon onto the stage. It’s a bone devil, by the way. They follow him onto the stage. 

So Adonis and Possum are at the back of the room, Olen is next to the DJ booth, and the demons are now on the stage. Possum throws more lightning, using her coin to reroll the resistance check. (Coins offer 1 reroll, one +1d4, one open door to the whorehouse, and one fifty-fifty winner-take-all result per session.) The central demon takes the hit, and sparks burst all around him. He is looking rather less sexy. 

Olen studies the demons and decides that they’re willing to die to get that central demon on stage. Olen shouts at them, attempting to intimidating them into stopping. His shouting and waving fails to faze them, but does get the attention of Balaam, who’s over in the wings offstage. He turns around and puts his hand to his ear. Olen’s work here is done. 

Adonis gallops forward, trying to weave between the attendees,  He misses some of them, then leaps over the rest of the crowd and attack the dancing demon. It inconveniently fails to die. Fortunately, Olen called the help. Balaam bolts out: “Look out! He’s got a thing!” Balaam leaps on and rips him in half; the thing drops something and Balaam throws himself on top of it. A burst of sunlight is faintly visible from underneath him. 

The lemures are still causing trouble, and Adonis takes them both out, then stops to mug. The baarbezu are climbing the stage and thus vulnerable; they get hit with the spiked chain as well. They finish climbing up and drawing weapons. Possum calls more lightning. Olen takes to the air, and attacks one of the baarbezu – and misses. They slice at him with their glaives as he flies in. Three of them miss, and the other takes out one of his mirror images. 

Adonis smites one of the baarbezu, taking it down to the edge of collapse. Balaam attacks, but misses completely. The Barbezu attack, two of them going after Olen. One of them hits him, and the other takes out another mirror image. He takes some damage and acquires an infernal wound. The other two attack Adonis, who suffers similarly. Possum calls another lightning bolt but fails to get through; Olen stabs and misses. 

Adonis finishes the one he wounded, and the smites the other, which is badly damaged. Balaam attacks, and hits the one that hadn’t yet been damaged; he does a number on it. A baarbezu attacks Olen and loses his footing and falls right off the stage, right next to Adonis, who wraps it in spiked chain without missing a beat… and rips it to bits before it hits the ground. The remaining baarbezu hits Adonis for a bit of damage and another wound. Possum tries more lightning, and fails to connect. 

Olen disengages and flies back. Adonis slams the last baarbezu with his chain, then leaps up and smites him. Adonis: “Are you not entertained???” The crowd erupts in appreciation of the show we’ve just put on. 

Adonis uses Lay on Hands to heal himself; he’s concerned that we didn’t all end up in the arena. Possum thinks it’s really odd that these things would have had a Daylight weapon in here. Olen notices that Chuck is really focused on his set. 

As Adonis leaps out to the dancefloor, the imps flow out of the kitchen to reserve their service. Possum notices that a lot of people around Adonis are licking their lips. However, Chuck had assured us that no vampire will drink from us here; he keeps dancing. Olen flaps down and hands Balaam a shiny gold piece for his good work. 

Balaam says, “What was this? What happened?”

Olen: “I think they tried to murder your boss.” Balaam goes over to Chuck and tries to get his attention, fails, and then cries: “That isn’t even his equipment! Where’s Chuck?” The DJ booth is overflowing in magic, as Olen turns on Detect Magic; Balaam picks him up and shakes him, and he finally snaps out of it. 

Chuck: “What the fucking fuck was that.” He points to each of us. “You. You. You. My table! Now!”

Adonis: “Sorry, I’ve got to go to the big table.” The vampires are suddenly merely lascivious, rather than lusting after his blood. 

Chuck: “No guests!”

We head over while Adonis tells the girls where our room is. The rooms behind the stage are for Very Important Demons; the room to the left of center holds a single vampire with long dark hair, with noble garb. He’s accompanied by four blonde women, also vampires. To the right of Chuck, Adonis spots a private area with two figures in it: one winged, and another with two heads and spiked tendrils for its four arms; they’re busily conversing.

We get back to Chuck’s HIV room (Highly Important Vampire) and admits that he blacked out when he touched the DJ booth. Mistress Eden cinches Adonis’ mouth closed, and we discuss what just happened. Chuck is pissed. He tells Balaam to move to high security. Mistress Eden treats Balaam to a bit of whip-based domination, in that demeaning way that only a pixie can dom a pit fiend. 

“Listen, there’s a bunch of very important people, very powerful people. At this point, I don’t know who I can trust.” Olen tries to convince him to drop his stake in whatever this is and invest in his company instead; Chuck says the Sin Thread will give him access to the Multiverse. If this goes through, Chuck will get to control access to Polvos and from Polvos to anywhere else. It’s a conglomerate. Apparently he’s been politicking it up for the last few years; he wants to get “out there”. If he does, Chuck’s going to be a much bigger name. 

Mistress Eden: “We’d love to help you. Assume you’d help us in return?” 

Chuck. “Yes. But this soft launch: if it goes poorly, the consortium collapses and they drop the connection. This has to work.” He sends us out to find out what’s going on. We bargain a bit, and then head out. Adonis wants a rigged fight against Balaam in the arena, Olen wants more money and a contract to provide Chuck with spelljammers. Possum just wants to be in charge of the sewers.

Does Chuck know of any enemies? Well, a couple. “The frost giant in charge of the Windy-go casino, Aveshthu, is the only one who’s been getting on Chuck’s business. It’s kind of apparent that Chuck doesn’t really understand why anybody would dislike him. 

What did the imps say? Well, they think this whole Sin Thread thing is just going to be more work with no more benefits. Olen thinks that this is typical worker bullshit; they always complain and they never want to work. 

Chuck asks if we know anything about how the devils work. We know a little about devils; we narrow it down to a handful of very powerful demons and devils who could have summoned that group, plus a few mid-range ones. A lot of the baatezu are able to summon that exact group. Chuck insists that it can’t be Balaam, but maybe one of the pit fiends at the Abs of Steel show, as could pretty much any arch-devil. Could be a guest of a guest, too. 

Chuck drops our concealment, and everything around us starts to move again. The most like suspects are the folks in the booths behind him. 

Adonis decides to start with black-haired vampire, looks him over and says, “If you’re going to enter my realm while covered in blood, you should come closer. Do please, enter freely. He draws in Adonis and his entire entourage. “To what do I owe the pleasure of friends of Chuck; he is quite an amusing man. These women, they are gifts from Chuck?”

Adonis explains about how they’re priestesses of a sex cult, Olen tries to sell him on investing, and the conversation turns to Chuck. Strahd is… unimpressed. Chuck doesn’t even approach his power; he’s only here because this is a nexus point and he can find new Minas. He thinks it would be funny to watch Chuck fuck up, so long as it doesn’t destroy the nexus. 

Adonis petitions his help. 

Strahd agrees to grant us one boon, since we stopped the sun bomb. It would have been uncomfortable for him. There are only two people present who are capable of doing that. Both left right before the blood rave started. Olen: “Who?” 

“The Wendigo, and then there was also Prosephorine, but he and Chuck have special arrangements. Prosephorine is a devil.” He would gladly tell us where they are, in exchange for Adonis’ entourage.”

He agrees to keep them only for a single night, with the reassurance that they will spread word of him to future lovers. “It will be hard to meet with the Wendigo; he does not see just anybody.”

Prosephorine, on the other hand, is a fan of the Abs of Steel show and attends every single showing of Z in their own private box – the Cirque du So Lame show. We bid farewell to the priestesses, and depart. 

We head to the next box, with the winged figure and the tentacled thing. They’re speaking in Abyssal as we approach: “--the fool.” Then they cut off abruptly. Adonis attempts to introduce himself in Common, then in Sylvan. They are Pazuzu (presents male) and Demogorgon (presents hentai). Pazuzu introduces itself: “You may have heard of me. Giver of temptations, Sprayer of Chaos. I am the dark angel of the four winds and the prince of the lower aerial kingdoms… and guest, to Chuck. This is Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons and quite a beautiful creation if I do say so myself.”

Olen knows a bit about both of them. Pazuzu runs the six wings of Pazrael, six Baalors in command of thousands of Vrocks in their battalions. He’s a duke of the nine hells. Demogorgon was a creation of some of the most powerful folks in the abyss. He was created by two of the greater lords of the Abyss, as a foil for Orcus. He is now the keeper of the Great Maw in the Abyss. 

Olen mentions how honored they are; Pazuzu thinks our concern for the Sin Thread is cute. But we were brave. Demogorgon punches into Adonis’ brain: DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE INFINITE MAW? Adonis abruptly realizes that nothing good will come of attempting to make this into a threesome. Mistress Eden calls him away. Do they have any idea what mmight have led to that crass display earlier? Well, demons and devils are very competitive, the fool Chuck is an easy mark. 

Do they know who summoned those devils? Pazuzu might, but we have nothing that would possibly entice him. They, however, had nothing to do with; they remained wholeheartedly neutral and we get the literal Hell out of there.

Mistress Eden: “What if… we went and questioned some people who aren’t gods?” 

We decide to check out the other, lesser VIP areas. We start working the rooms, checking up on people after that crass display. Up here there’s a lot of hobnobbing, and the closer we get to Chuck the more important the people get. Everyone here has an angle. We’re getting to lower devils and other denizens of the multiverse. A really soft chameleon-skinned woman takes an interest in Adonis. She’s not like a succubus, she’s more motherly; and she lets slip that Chuck had a tryst and it didn’t work out. You know, when you start making deals and you open yourself up to… commitments. 

Presephorine – they – are very sweet. Another woman, this one leans in: “I heard the Presephoine works directly for Mephistopheles, and this whole thing might be an experiment. Chuck’s fling wasn’t with her, but with someone very important from the outer world.”

Adonis takes the two women off with him for a night of carnal gymnastics. Possum heads into the kitchen to see what she can get from the imps. Olen stays out to see what he can learn about Mephistopheles from the guests. 

The cat-woman and the bird woman are relatively impressed with Adonis, and he’s completely drawn in. All things considered, it’s a pretty normal sexual encounter. Jensen is pleased. In the afterglow, she admits – and he did not hear it from her – that Chuck had a relationship with the one and only Fierna. She’s the princess of the Nine Hells, servant of Asmodeus. Adonis actively jealous. Chuck dated the daughter of Belial. Thing is, she picks her mates. Chuck thought it was more than it was.

There are a lot of folks talking about how important the Sin Thread is, and the importance of Sol Povos since it’s had a Vecna here.

Disgraceland: The Arrival

 

We arrive just outside of Chucks Vegas on the island of something-or-other. The island has changed; it is always night out, and covered in magical neon and elaborate carvings. It’s surprisingly clean and feels oddly safe; there are five major casinos here in Disgraceland. We are beckoned to Chuck’s Damnation Palace, a square tower covered in illusionary flames. 

Olen: “Why hello! You’re a particularly large horse… person. Person-horse.”

Adonis introduces himself, and his priestess Domino takes an immediate interest in Olen. Adonis is a centaur; Olen is half-demon; and Possum is a halfling riding on a giant, ridable raccoon. Adonis immediately bends down and tries to kiss her hand; she hisses at him. Adonis: “One of my best lovers was a halfling; it was quite a summer.”

Other travelers have come up beside us; it’s a cross-section of the multiverse. Adonis is a Jensen-worshipper, and his followers immediately spread out. It’s maybe a thousand people, plus demons and devils flitting around as if they live here – which they probably do. Olen starts trying to get people to invest in shitcoin. 

Chuck appears in a flash of purple lighting: “Welcome welcome welcome creatures of the multiverse! I cannot explain how happy I am to have you all here at opening night of the Sin Thread here at Disgraceland! This is Chuck’s Damnation Palace! Here you take part in all kinds of entertainment. There’s a party at Azrael’s Club Blood later this evening, so come join us for the blood rave. Entertainment-wise we have one of the best shows on the strip: Povian Pie, the story of Geddy Lee Geddy. Next up we have the Balaalgio Inferno, for the fancier of you; there’s a wonderful show called Z by Cirque du So-Lame, wonderful show, demons, zombies, wonderful fun. Abs of Steel, the Pit Fiend Follies, I put that together for a friend. That’s where our pit fiends show you their moves.” 

Somewhere in the background: “Fuck you man!”

“You can stay in any one of these. The Mirage of Madness, a personal favorite, with the Mind Flayer Mentalist, great show if you love magic and such, plus a bunch of other fun stuff. Windigo Resort and Casino, it’s absolutely the place for luxury and relaxation. It has the hellfire spa, the gladiatorial illusion, Payne Newton’s Danke Shien for Your Souls show. Our final casino is the Luxurious Pyramid Scam, which holds the Green Gill Group and the Divas of the Depths. We also have Malkenthet’s Pleasure Den, available in any casino from any room, you just have to get in – and I will teach you how. It’s run by Malkenthe the demon goddess of succubi – there’s nothing like it in the multiverse.”

A succubi queen in an incredibly gaudy leather dress appears next to Chuck. “All are welcome at the Please Den, and should you be ready we will take you all the way to the end.”

Chuck picks up: “Inside the Pleasure Den, there’s a Raucus Review – the Thunder from Down Underworld.” 

Malkenthet makes her exit. 

Chuck: “Welcome all, welcome all, I do have a one-on-one special greeting with some of you. Now, we know some of you came alone, so we made some arrangements. You’re all enchanted to be part of greeting groups. They’re your safety buddies. Speaking of safety, I did mention the arena earlier. So if anybody starts a brawl or even dies, we have ways of taking care of that. So the other part of this enchantment is, if you start a fight with anybody here you automatically get teleported to the arena; there will be betting, and you can bet on yourself before you start. Lots of shops, check those out. And the winner’s circle! Ever wanted to play like you couldn’t lose? There you go. There’s also the High Roller’s area if you want to buy your way in; just see your local High Roller Rep. This is my buddy Balaam–” He summons a pit fiend in a double-breasted suit.

“Um, Hi guys!” 

“Have a fucking great time!” yells the vampire, and then vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Olen: “So we’re just stuck together, with no regard for social class?” 

While we’re talking, the other groups poof away. “I want to see Abs of Steel,” Adonis says, and then we poof away – the last of the groups.”

“Oh heyyy,” says the white-haired vampire sorcerer, “I’m going to do your orientation! And what is your orientation?”

Adonis bows respectfully, and Chuck congratulates him, and then us, for being Number One on his list of people to invite. “Alignment,” says Chuck, “doesn’t matter here. We’ve designed a place that’s just fun. Some of the do-gooders would have a problem with that, but here’s the thing: nobody cares.” 

He’s trying to sell us on the idea that we’re special, hand-chosen by Chuck himself. He wants us to be his eyes and ears; this is the dry run for his opening, and he needs it to be impressive. He’s made some commitments to get the place hooked into the Sin Thread. Anything we hear, and demon or devil can hook us up with Chuck. Might take a little bit to get back to us, he’s got a lot going on. 

Adonis’ disciple Venus uses Disguise Self to make herself look paler and less alive, adds black lipstick and lots of eyeshadow. Chuck is definitely interested, but he continues: “So if you see something, say something. Second thing,” he flips his hands and produces three poker chips with his face on them. “These are Chuck’s luck. These’ll be what you show to anybody if you want to get in touch with me.” Mistress Eden, Adonis’ Pixie Dominatrix catches the coin and looks it over. Possum creeps up on her, thinking she’s food; she turns invisible. 

The coins also let us re-roll a roll once per session; flip the coin for a 50/50 on a skill roll twice a session; and add a D4 to any roll once per session. It also lets us open a door to Malkethet’s Pleasure Den once per session. 

He intoduces Balaam, his pet pit fiend, and this spindly, threadbare gentleman, the vampire Jafreeze. He tried to steal Chuck’s business once, and now he’s… like this… 

We need to decide where to stay, and we settle on the Presidential Suite in Chuck’s Palace. Venus stays with Chuck; the rest of us are teleported down to our new sweet suite. It is a five-bedroom palatial suite; there’s a kitchen with a trash slot. Unfortunately, it goes down to a fire pit, so Possum can’t sleep there. 

Adonis starts painting tiger stripes on himself in preparation for going down to Club Blood. Olen looks around the room, and Mistress Eden starts searching around the room as well. Adonis starts talking about the esteemed Crotchbra family from which he comes. His grandfather was the one who invented what centaurs now call the crotchbra. What really makes it such an achievement is the quick don-and-discard mechanism. 

Mistress Eden finds the room’s extradimensional safe. She also finds this weird U-shaped thing on a base that starts trying to talk to her when she picks it up. Olen finds the Welcome book, including the room service menu. He sets it aside because he has no attention span. 

Adonis takes a sudden interest in the individual rooms, and walks into one… it immediately adjusts itself to his desires: a centaur-sized bed, heart-shaped; a bathroom with an extended shower, a bathtub large enough for coupling; and a teeny little pixie bed for Mistress Eden. Possum gets a sort of dirty, cramped little lair. Olen Mosk’s room suddenly looks like the bridge of a Star Destroyer if you made it into a bedroom. 

Mistress Eden, being the brains of the operation, starts going through the Welcome Book – including the menu, which is ridiculously expensive of course. However, as she’s looking things from Chuck’s Damnation Palace, they start getting crossed through and zeroed out. She thinks anything we order here is free. 

Adonis contacts room service and orders some of everything. Before long they’re rolling trays and trays of food into the room. We don’t feel super overfed, even though we’re eating a lot. The alcohol works just fine. Adonis finishes up his tiger stripes, while Olen changes into his noble clothes and Domino straightens him up, makes him leave the Sad Clown brooch behind. Meanwhile Kitty, one of the priestesses, uses Disguise Self to look much more like a raccoon or at least a cat-person, and then goes in and tries to talk Possum into looking nice. 

She… ends up talking to the raccoon. But, by the time she’s done the raccoon looks like a show poodle. Possum: “What the FUCK did you do to my raccoon?” Kitty, suddenly realizing that the Possum has been napping in the corner this whole time. “Um… friends?” 

Possum: “What did you do to Nibbles???”

Domino, however, manages to fix Olen’s hair into a suitably Zoolander style. Adonis: “Now that we look good, we can hit the town! Let’s roll out.” The one thing we really need to attend is the Blood Rave. 

We leave the room, and discover that there are only a handful of other rooms up here. There are other suites, but they look like they’re smaller than ours. Still big, but smaller than ours. We make it to the center and find a bank of doors; there’s a button beside it labelled “summon”. We press it, and a door opens. There’s a zombie inside standing on a glowing golden disk. We march the whole troop inside, and the elevator expands to fit. 

Zombie: “FLOOR ONE!” The door closes behind us and the zombie flips a switch. The disk plummets from our floor to the bottom. 

And then it stops and the doors open, revealing the vast, elegant expanse of the lobby. Zombie: “TIP!” 

Adonis punches him. 

We are all transported to the Windigo Grand Arena and Sportsbook. Adonis and the Zombie  are in the arena; the rest of us are in the audience. It is absolutely a coliseum-style setup. Adonis starts galloping around trying to work up the crowd. The rest of us got box seats up in the Sportsbooks; there are snacks, drinks, Elon asks about the odds, understands nothing the goblins tell him, and bets 100 gold on the horse… person… personhorse. Almost everybody is betting on Adonis. 

The zombie in the bellhop uniform swells up into this hulking zombie; it walks over to Adonis and swings at him but misses. Adonis disengages, and starts galloping around working up the crowd. He gets some traction, but a lot of people aren’t really paying attention. 

The zombie lumbers after him, and Adonis finally moves to engage it. The zombie punches him on the way in, but Adonis moves to grapple and successfully grabs him. The Zombie tries to break out but fails, so Adonis has him grappled. Adonis makes a big show of it, and is fairly convincing; the crowd gets a bit more involved. The zombie tries to break the grapple but again fails, and Adonis pins him. 

Adonis tries to rip his arms off… and does. He disengages, and gallops around the arena waving the arms. One of the arms promptly punches him in the eye. He throws the arms into the crowd, but they hit a wall of force and slide down to the floor of the arena. Adonis pulls his chain out, and goes back to attack. 

The chain whistles out, and cuts into the zombie; he then backs up. The zombie comes towards him, and Adonis swings the chain again, doing rather more damage. The zombie tries to bite him, and succeeds. Adonis steps back and attacks him twice, destroying him. 

“I’ve got a winner!” shouts a voice. “It’s this guy!” 

We’re immediately teleported back to the elevator, but now there’s a sign on the door that says, “Out of Service”. 

So now the other guests are kind of pissed at us. Adonis sees a golden star appear in front of him that says, “1x.” Adonis: “Um… could you heal me?” 

Possum stops to have a conversation with her raccoon. “I will heal you if you agree to wear that crotchbra on your head for the rest of our stay here.”

He asks one of the service imps if there’s a place to get healed around here. Turns out that the drinks on the floating trays are whatever you most desire, which for him is healing potions. Olen is meanwhile sipping champagne and adderall. Olen redirects him to the Thunder from Down Underworld Revue in the Pleasure Den. 

Adonis starts asking the most voluptuous bystanders he can find where there’s an entrance to the Pleasure Den. Adonis puts the mac on, and she is eating out of his hoof. Her name turns out to be Gemini, and she’s happy to join us in going there. She leads us up to the mid-level lobby and right to the entry to the Pleasure Den. Gemini is riding on his back and rubbing his nipples. 

Jensen will smile upon this day. As we enter into the pleasure den, we feel a wave come over us, and all of a sudden everything is cool and Olen suddenly develops a bit of a swagger; it feels like he’s back in college. We’re not sure why exactly, but it’s probably some kind of charm spell. 

There’s a reception area with a bunch of different doors leading off of it. There’s an older-looking succubi in a red sequined dress. “What room would you like?” 

Adonis: “The one you, me, and Gemini are going to.” 

She’s not having it, though, and Adonis’ attempt to use his Chuck coin falls flat. 

Her: “I do see you have one of those tokens, though. Flip!” 

An imp flies over. 

“Flip, can you please take these people to their table at the show?” 

“Yes Ma’am, I certainly can. Y’all are going to love this show! Follow! Follow!”

Adonis is pretty sure Gemini can last long enough to get to the show. The imp produces platters of drinks; jello shots for Adonis and champagne for Olen. We’re still passably sober, though. 

We get set up in a premier table with all the priestesses. Adonis orders the tapas, while Olen gets a “shark coochie” board – basically a sushi sampler – and Possum gets a bucket of trash. It’s almost showtime. 

Gemini leans in on Adonis; she’s startlingly strong, and Adonis is starting to wonder about her. His entourage remains oblivious, and Olen is distracted by Domino, who is now under the table. 

The show begins, and sure enough a mirror ball descends from the ceiling, though without anything to hold it up. The house lights go down; then the spots hit it, scattering light everywhere. A brass band swells up, raucous and fun. A woman comes down on the sparkly ball, and begins singing. Olen and Possum are utterly fascinated by this performance. Glamouried, in fact. 

Adonis notices that Satine on the ball is just hoovering up money from everybody who’s been glamoured. Adonis overhears the imps bitching about their jobs. “The Sin Thread’s not enough, I think it’s just going to be more work for us, and not any more money.” Domino, fortunately, is keeping Olen’s attention on her. Adonis doesn’t think it’s even really a spell; just an influence that encourages people to give. 

Then it goes into the revue: pit fiend drag burlesque with standup, chorus lines of dancing incubi, sucubi dancing in their inimitable fashion. People start to snap out of it as the show continues. People start to leave as it nears the end, and Adonis goes to find a room to have his way with Gemini. 

Adonis settles in and removes his crotchbra, then waits to be admired. Mistress Eden waits in the hall with Olen and Possum, while Gemini admires the goods and then displays her own. It is… sizeable. Adonis is very confused, and begins praying. Still, the worship of Jensen requires that one be open to these experiences, and the encounter proceeds. 

Afterwards, Gemini falls asleep and Adonis heads out. 

He’s just emerging when the Blood Rave announcement fills the air. Olen asks about a magic shop, and learns that there is one in the Mirage. Possum, who grew up in the sewer here. Turns out there’s a room where people’s sizes adjust for each other, and Olen wants to put Mistress Eden and Adonis in that room in hopes of creating a tiny little centaur with fairy wings. 

Adonis stops to seduce someone else, and asks her about the blood rave in mid coitus. She doesn’t know, but she’s having a great time. It’s the hottest party on the strip, but that’s what she knows. Afterwards he asks a dealer, who tells him that it’s a who’s who of everybody who matters. Possum asks this large, bearded-devil bartender. “Oh yeah, man. I’ve heard that they’re going to be crazy here. We’re talking blood rain, free champagne bottle for everybody, and if you go to one of the succubi waitresses and say ‘blink twice’ you get two bottles – you didn’t hear that from me. I hear the blood comes from Povian children.” 

Olen, meanwhile, wanders into the bar and finds a guy in a hoody, Olen: “So, are you ready for the blood rave?”

“Ah, you have found me!” 

“Oh yeah, I’ve been looking for you.” 

“Wait, I have been looking for you!” 

It’s Alexej. He’s left Fanaxia to warn us that something’s wrong in Disgraceland. Chuck has been doing lots of things with the Abyss and the Infernal plane. He doesn’t quite know what he’s gotten himself into. There is “trouble in, how you say, paradise?” He came to warn us about the Sin Thread. It connects all points of sin and debauchery through the multiverse, and they’ve established connection to Sol Povos here. This might be a little bit of a problem. Chuck has a couple of enemies; Alexej doesn’t know who they are. But apparently we’re part of the plan. 

He wants us to keep an eye open at the party, but keep our mouths shut so we don’t swallow the blood; he was never here. There was an orphanage that went missing; Olen manages not to say, “Well I guess that’s one less burden on society.”

We share our information and head into Azrael’s Club Blood. It’s a weird mix of Hellraiser and a Rob Zombie film. There's a glaabrezu DJ, an incubus doorman, who escorts us to our table. We have a private seating area with curtains around it, and Adonis starts scooping up champagne bottles. Our table is really close to a huge table up next to the stage. The DJ’s nearby, there’s plenty going on… We see clusters of people we saw earlier, groups of devils and demons talking to each other. We also see a giant covered in ice that’s just… huge, monstrous, and wrong. He comes up to the table right next to the DJ, along with Incubi, Succubi, and Pit Fiends in a very mafioso sort of way. 

There’s also a handful of demons that we haven’t seen before. 

Adonis immediately stands up to go talk to him. 

“If you do not get out of my private space, I will have you torn limb from limb for eternity, and you have a lot of limbs there buddy.” 

The music revs up, and all of a sudden Chuck appears at the DJ stand. Venus is with him, and she is looking hot in a black vinyl outfit. Chuck takes over the music booth, and as he does so… Mistress Eden starts tugging at Adonis. She slaps him across the face, grabs his nose, and angles him around to where he can see in the middle of the dance floor a handful of critters: a wide circle of lemures, flanked by more powerful demons. They make a beeline for Chuck, in a conspicuously aggressive fashion. 

Adonis moves first, and whips out his bow and shoots at the one in the middle. He hits, and also yells, “Chuck, watch out!”

The thing in the middle is a devil of some sort, Olen thinks. Possum fires off a light crossbow, and kills one of the lemure. Olen drops Mirror Image and starts towards Chuck; he gets about halfway there. 

The demon phalanx marches closer to Chuck; they’re moving through the crowd with some minimal subtlety. 

Adonis fires off another arrow and misses the devil; he fires a second time and also misses. Mistress Eden casts Otto’s Irresistible Strip-Dance on the central devil, gets past its magic resistance, and and runs the hell away as it starts dancing. 

Possum casts Lightning Storm… just as the blood rain starts. It’s an amazing effect. It hits the dancing devil in the middle, gets past his spell resistance, and shocks the poop out of him. He’s still looking pretty solid, though. Olen continues moving towards Chuck, and warns him that there are devils heading his way. 

Chuck: “Dude, you’re bringing me down!” He keeps spinning records.