A Party of Angels and Demons

"A Party of Angels and Demons" (Ses 10) is the tenth session of The Exiled Abyss. NovaTome parties it up at the Ancestor Palace Ball until disaster strikes. Tiben is framed for a horrible crime and has 24 hours to clear herself.

A Dance of an Elf and a Half.
Recently receiving information that a Lord of Entropy was going to attend the Ancestor Palace Ball, our adventurers had fought to regain permission to go. This ball was already marked under a ton of suspicion. For starters, Ryevalene and Kywyn cooperations almost never happen, especially excluding any involvement from Lyria. This coupled with the fact that two anti-Lyrian counts were hosting the ball, Lyria needed people to investigate. Luckily NovaTome had a slight in. Tiben had a certain connection with the guest of honor, Princess Bryona Snowflower. NovaTome had been tasked with figuring out why the counts were hosing the ball, find this Lord of Entropy and gain favor where possible with Kywyn.

The night started off a bit rocky as our adventures were stopped at the door when their names weren’t on the list. However, the princess had shown up and recognized Tiben with a glowing expression on her face. She was able to convince the guard to let them slip through. During bag check, there were a few mishaps. Torglug was caught trying to sneak dead bodies in and a drow duchess had spotted and ripped their secret letter. Our group of adventurers also soon found out that the two counts were masked which made investigating them all the more difficult.

In addition to the goals they were set out with, NovaTome was also met with another challenge. They had to find dance partners. So after an evening of eavesdropping and entertaining: Tog managed to convince an Aasimar that he was a talented painter and gained a dance partner, Inxibis tried to get Sly to dance with her but he was to perform, she later settled for another Tiefling who was obsessed with sweets, Sarya got a dance with a rogueish Drow woman, Jenaveve danced with Torglug, Tiben stole a dance with the princess and Sog embarrassed himself.

During the dance, Sarya’s dance partner Gweli hinted at her knowledge of the Lords of Entropy. Afterward, Tiben and Princess Bryona snuck off to her room. Disaster struck as Princess Bryona was stabbed through the heart. Bryona’s bodyguard not wanting Bryona’s homosexuality to be thrown into a bad light gave Tiben until the rest of the night to find the abstain herself from the murder.

Murder of The People's Princess
The second phase of the night was off and our adventures were tasked with solving this murder. A few things were out of place. Evidence showed that there were two people involved besides Tiben and Bryona. Bryona was also dying of a terrible vire sickness. A red mask was left a the crime scene but the red count still retained his helm. Bryona’s brother Faehar was uncharacteristically drunk and both Sly and Gweli were nowhere to be found.

Later on in the night, Sarya and Inxibis were able to discern that the Red Count was the eleven Count Ladenburg and Count Blue was the Aasimar Count Zolright. Meanwhile, Torglug and Jenaveve found a major discrepancy, Sen had claimed that Faehar had retired to his room while he was apparently drunk downstairs. They went to investigate his room and were greeted with floating daggers. After a second these daggers dropped to the floor and Gweli had revealed herself. The room had dead Ryevallen assassins with Braveateer rapiers, they were attempting to frame a different murder. Unaware that the situation had gone to shit, Gweli had asked if our adventurers had found the Lord of Entropy. After a short discussion, our adventurers had learned that a Vire Heart had been planted within Bryona, this was the source of her sickness.

Before they could act on this new information a wounded Sen had burst into the room claiming that Bryona’s corpse had been stolen. Jenaveve, Torglug, and Tiben tried to give chase but were meet with the fake Faehar and the drow duchess Ranna. The fake Faehar turned out to be Sly and he along with our adventures were jumped by Ryvallen assassins. With the help of the rest of NovaTome they were able to fend of these assassins, but Ranna had escaped.

Sly explained that Gweli had tasked him with destroying the Vire Heart within Bryona while she handled the Ryevallen spies tasked with framing NovaTome with the murder of Faehar. He was as disgusted as Luvon, so Luvon would be blamed for destroying the Vire Heart. However, his hand was pulled back and he stabbed the wrong heart. Right after this explanation, Zega descends from the sky in front of our adventurers.