- In an alternate universe, Heph and Eden are attending
Ivalgo High, where honors students have been going missing
- Heph is similar to Heph from the beginning of the
campaign, innocent and curious
- His bracer was found in the attic, passed down from an artificer ancestor
- Although there is no school uniform, Eden is wearing her own
version of one, and she has green glasses, a satchel with her name
embroidered, and pink braces
- They walk off to gym class together, Heph expressing that gym is
a good time to talk to people about the missing students, but
Eden is happy to believe the official story
- Arriving at the class just as the bell rings, the teacher Ercion “The
Emperor” Hardotus yells at us for being late, and
Heph is a bit of a smart-ass in return, and makes us do a couple of
laps
- The rest of the students watch us with some annoyance but mostly sympathy
- Heph is barely winded despite his full armor, although
Eden is quite sweaty
- He selects Gurt Pelor and a young peppy kid named
Jarles to be the captains
- Jarles is an exchange student from Del Falor
and is attached to Heph and Eden at the hip
- Gurt picks Tal Overstream, both of
whom are greasers, still wearing their leather jackets
- Jarles immediately picks Heph, and
Gurt picks Eden, who is shocked not to be picked
last, and Gurt seems a bit impressed that she showed up
late
- There are a few Pegs-Leg Steve picked
- Heph and Eden look around for Ana,
knowing she’s usually in their gym class, and we notice one of the
dodgeballs in the center looks at us and winks
- Eden Messages Ana and says it’s a bad idea to be
a ball, and Hardotus clocks her casting Message and
calls her out, and she looks devastated in response
- Gurt looks at her and tells her not to worry about it,
authority only has the power she gives it, but she replies “But authority is
sacred!”
- The whistle blows and the game starts
- Eden gusts a ball towards her and hands it to
Gurt, who throws it as hard as possible at
Jarles, nailing him in the chest and scoring a point
- Eden compliments his shot, and then asks him is he has any idea
what is happening to the disappearing honors students, and he explains that
he doesn’t believe the official story
- Heph Mage Hands himself a dodgeball, points at a Peg-Leg Steve
and messages “duck”, as he says “Where?” Heph throws it and
misses wildly
- Heph turns to Jarles and asks him if he’s heard
anything about the missing honor’s students, but he believes the story
Principal Literi has put out about them getting
scholarships
- Something called the Kohlburg University Baccalaureate Endowment
- Heph points out there was no application process, and
Jarles says he heard there were scouts and teachers
recommending people
- Eden slows the majority of the opposing team, and a ball rolls up
to her feet, and she throws it at Heph, hitting him right in the
chest
- Gurt looks at her with respect, and when she prompts
further about the missing students, he tells her to go talk to Jimmy, who is
a freshman who sells illegal stuff, and he works for Tyvus Kenig
(TK)
- Gurt tells Eden that Jimmy will be selling
stolen iPod shuffles in the 2nd floor boys room between classes, and she
says “thank you very much for your--” and gets cut off by a dodgeball that
hits her in the face
- Heph was the one who hit her in the face with catapult and then
he attempts to Mage Hand the ball into Gurt, but
Eden counterspells and the ball drops
- Heph turns to a Peg-Leg Steve and asks if he thinks the
Endowments are weird, and Peg-Leg Steve responds that his cousin got one and
disappeared
- Apparently the students are getting called to the principal’s office before
disappearing, not saying anything to anyone and not going home at all first
- Heph gets a bit lost in thought, and gets hit in the face once
again
- The whistle blows, ending the game, Anonymous winning against Googly Eyes 2 to
1
- He seems disappointed that nobody is going to make the football team except
maybe Heph, and he says to Heph that he is impressed
that Heph can run in his armor and might make a good defender
- Heph responds that you never know when you might get hit
- They exchange their information about the disappearing kids and decide to go
find Jimmy, and head to the second story boys’ bathroom, skipping our next
class
- Eden is nervous to be skipping class, which is history
- Approaching the bathroom, we see Bloody Mary walking out
of the boys bathroom, wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie with an emblem of
someone running with a butcher’s knife
- She looks at both of us, looking bored, and continues with her new iPod
shuffle
- Eden is nervous to go in, and Heph suggests she
disguise herself, and she disguises herself as a generic halfling boy
- Jarles is impressed with Eden’s disguise and runs
off to his class, wanting us to catch him up later in the day
- Walking in, it smells terrible, and in one of the stalls Jimmy has a table set
up and is standing behind it
- He looks at us a little suspiciously and claims he is organizing his iPod
Shuffles
- Heph threatens to tell someone he is selling iPods if he doesn’t
tell us what he knows, and he says he has ways to get out of trouble
- Eden speaks up, claiming to be Eeric as Heph claims
she is Ethan, and she settles on Ethaneeric and proposes to trade her iPod
Touch for information
- He sees right through Eden’s disguise, but nevertheless seems
agreeable to trading information for the iPod Touch, and they bond a bit
over their love for the Jonas Brothers
- The fact that she has the music pre-loaded adds value so he doesn’t have to
pirate it on Limewire, and Heph and Jimmy explain to her that
it’s just a “discount” iTunes
- He accepts the deal and asks what we want to know, and Eden asks
him what he knows, explaining that we are just verifying the
Administration’s story
- He explains he has blackmail, and tells us Dean Haxa has been having an
affair with Bartolomeo Burton, and also that Mort, the
home ec teacher, is not really a teacher and just showed up one day
- He has no dirt on Literi whatsoever though, he spends
his whole day in his office
- He has been smuggling in some better food, and from that he knows that the
scholarships started coming in a couple of weeks after we got a new supplier
for the school meals
- We thank him for the info, he turns to Eden and says “Ethan I’m
always willing to trade”, and she responds “You’re not getting my Tamagachi”
and walks out
- The bell rings, and it is now lunch time, and Heph and
Eden head to the cafeteria
- Eden brought lunch and offers to share, but Heph says
buying lunch is a good opportunity to ask the cooks about the new supplier,
and Eden joins him
- We find Emeril Lagasse serving food he has claimed to invent (pizza), an
unidentifiable slop of some kind, and Eden casts Purify Food and
Drink on the slop
- There is a vat of grayish gloop and one of jiggling jello, and as she casts
the spell, the slop vat seems to become less diarrhea inducing, and the
jello vat seems to not require any purifying
- She senses that the stuff in the jello vat doesn’t really register as food,
and it registers to her as some sort of living thing
- Heph uses Detect Magic and detects some low level divination,
enchantment and conjuration magic coming from it
- As we get up to Emeril, Heph asks how he is doing, and he is
excited that he has improved his pizza recipe
- Heph asks him about the supplier, and he doesn’t know who decided
on the new supplier, but he thinks Literi would have approved it, and he
knows they are from Fleetwood
- Heph tells Emeril to have a good day and he’ll see him tomorrow,
and they head back to the table
- At the table, Darryl, Tertel, and Beth (wearing a hooded cloak) have sat
down at the table, and they say “Oh the owner of the food has returned”, and
Heph thanks them for keeping an eye on Eden’s food
- Tertel asks for a gift, and Heph gives him the purified slop, and
Eden pulls out a second iPod touch, and Darryl takes it excited
to listen to it on his run
- Heph takes the lunch time to ritual cast Identify on the jello,
and he learns it is a creature, and there are no spells affecting it
- He asks Darryl, Tertel, and Beth about it, and they think it’s not great
that it’s a currently living organism
- The strongest magic Heph sensed from it was divination, some sort
of psychic thing
- Just after the bell rings for the end of lunch, Literi
comes on the loudspeaker to announce that Jarles has been granted
the Endowment
- Heph suggests that Eden go find Ana
while Heph goes to head off Jarles, but
Ana pipes up from the next table
- Heph runs out to head off Jarles, getting
Eden and Ana to follow him
- We rush off to the entrance to the basement, arriving just as
Jarles is opening the door and about to head in, and
Eden casts Invisibility on herself, Heph and
Ana, and we follow Jarles in, trying to remain
unseen
- It is super dark past the door, and Jarles stops, hearing our
feet scuffling and Eden’s Tamagachi beeps, and
Jarles immediately notices us
- He is a bit relieved we are there to keep an eye on us, and we follow him
deep into the bowels of the school’s basement
- Finally some torchlight illuminates the door to Principal
Literi’s office
- Heph asks Jarles to head in first, and leave the
door open for a bit longer than necessary to let us sneak in
- He knocks on the door and calls in to the Principal,
and Literi tells him to come in over the PA
- He opens the door, which creaks open, and there is nobody in the room
- Heph notices some dripping coming from the ceiling as
Jarles walks in, and Heph grabs Eden’s
hand and points it at the ceiling
- As Jarles walks in, a massive cube of jello falls from the
ceiling, and he manages to narrowly avoid it landing on him
- Eden and Heph think back to their Magical Zoology taught
by Otto the minotaur (who does have Karrl the octopus
in his classroom)
- Eden casts Bigby’s Hand and has it grab the cube and crush it a
bit, dealing a chunk of damage
- Jarles gets away from the cube and goes a couple of stairs up
to get away
- Eden notices that the cube has bones and scraps of clothing and
backpacks from the honors students
- The cube emanates psychic energy, Heph managing to save and
noticing what’s happening he manages to help Ana save, but
Eden is stunned
- Heph also feels the jello he ate moving inside his body, and
although he manages to resist it, he is dealt additional damage, but a
psychic connection opens with the cube and Heph sees a flash of a
workshop deep in the Morenwald, a
chemist testing out different compounds and creating
the living jello, shipping it out to schools to be served
- The jello starts to seek out intelligence from all the students who are
ingesting it, and it forms into a cube and consumes
Literi and starts to project his voice through the PA
system to call more students down and absorb them
- Heph takes a few steps back and blasts the cube with a lightning
bolt
- Ana steps up to the cube and stabs it with her rapier and
then backs up
- Eden is stunned and cannot do anything
- Jarles keeps slowly working his way up the stairs
- The cube tries to smack Bigby’s Hand but misses, and then tries to dominate
Eden, but she resists it reaching into her mind
- Heph uses lightning bolt again and then puts some distance
between himself and the cube, trying to get out of range
- Ana runs up and hits it again, dealing another chunk of
damage, and then disengages and runs up the stairs towards Heph
and Jarles
- Eden looks back at the group as she crushes it with Bigby’s Hand
and says “don’t worry guys, I got this”, and then shoots a tiny spark through
the cube that seems to almost go out, but once it gets to the other side it
explodes in a giant ball of flame, causing the cube to explode in a burst of
goo
- As the spots clear from our eyes and we adjust again to the dim light, the
office is fully ruined, everything is burned or burning
- Eden instinctively covers herself and runs up against the wall to
dodge the exploding goo, managing to dodge it
- As she looks into the room, she sees some bones, clothing, shoes, a watch
and is absolutely terrified by the sight of the remnants of the students and
Literi
- Heph tries to calm her down, and as the fear wears off,
Heph tells Eden about his vision, and how there are
likely other schools dealing with this issue
- We see an invoice noting that a payment was due to Lucien
Dynastic, burning up