The weekend had arrived.
Matthew, An, and Bir had expected a grand, elegaion at the Wilderwood Capital Mansion, courtesy of the illustrious and enting Sator family. They could not have been more mistaken.
“Why does it keep chasing me?!” whimpered the madam of the Sator household, curled into a miserable ball on the sofa. Her ughter was entingly maniacal, her face a tear-soaked, blotchy mess of red from sheer humor. She cried and ughed in turns, a woman on the brink.
Oable was a slithering light animation that looked almost too realistic as it kept chasing a small figure of a character.
The marquis, a pilr of posure himself, pressed on. “The giant octopus wriggled and writhed, its tentacle—the peculiar one, shaped almost familiarly—spouted not ink, not bck, but white, someth—”
“I rolled a natural twenty,” interrupted the head of the Sator family, seething with a righteous, barely-tained rage. “I pu away from Momo. How many tickles does it take to make an octopus ugh? Ten tickle—”
“Ah, you pus peculiar tentacle!”
Burn burst out in anger, his fist to the table—“I said ten tickles, not testicles!”
Finn shook his head, “It’s the ninth tentacle. Not tenth.”
The madam, for her part, spiraled deeper into her delirium, her ugh a wail that tickled the air. She melodically shrieked, her body vulsing into a shapeless heap of bck hair and soft flesh. “Bunny ha—WASH YOUR HAND!”
The head of the Sator family turned an unnatural shade of green, ced with flickering bdertones. His eyes burned with a void-like glint as he stared into the abyss of his life choices. Gloomily, he said, “I ’t wash my hands yet, it’s not my turn to py!”
“BWHAHAHAHAH!”
“The monster is sin,” Finn coughed-ughed-choked, decred with sravity, “but at great cost. You’ve been cursed. The Curse of the Perpetual Sneeze. You shall forever teeter on the edge of sneezing, yet never find relief.”
Madam Bunny Fay, the devastatingly beautiful goddess of the Sator family, died in that instant. She simply couldn’t. She could not ugh anymore. “That…ha—was…—the curse… I… reended—”
Mante, however, seemed strangely revitalized. With an air icerity—no, of eternal love—he scooted closer to her on the sofa, his voice as smooth as molten honey, his expression as solemn as death itself. “Madam… are you alright? Haa… haa… ha-ha…” His breath hitched in maddening is, the looming sneeze always a moment away but never arriving. “I just saved you… from th—haa… haa… HACHH… ha…”
The madam screeched like a boiling bedazzled kettle, liquefying into a formless ic puddle on the sofa, her ughter now a haunting memory of its former self. “Stop… stop! Papa, I— I ’t…YOU HAVEN'T WASHED YOUR HAND! ROLL THE DICE TO WASH YOUR HAND WITH HOLY WATER!”
Even the marquis, the so-called master of this doomed campaign, y sprawled across the floor. He snorted, unceremoniously resembling a pig. “I ’t DM anymore,” he groaears streaking his face. “The two of you… you’re too good at this. It’s too much. It’s too funny…”
An, Matthew, and Bir turoward Evan. Their faces in silent disbelief.
The Marquis of Wilderwood, ander of ten thousands… the terrifying Maor, leader of the sed richest mert family in the ti… the devastatingly beautiful goddess Madame Bunny Fay—
Evan chuckled, “You guys wanna e join?”
“No!” Mante and Bunny immediately said.
Finn slowly rose from the floor. “This is an adult campaign. Young Master Evan, you prepare a separate campaign with your friends ter. I will help you DM.”
Bunny, still caught in the chaotic aftermath of the ridiculous py, made a feeble attempt to wipe her tears—though whether they were from ughter, despair, or both was anyone’s guess. Her efforts were as effective as using a sieve to scoop water, leaving streaks of moisture shimmering on her por cheeks.
She ughed, or maybe she cried—really, it was impossible to distinguish anymore. The sound that escaped her lips was a blend of mirth and misery, as though the universe itself couldn’t decide whether to gift her joy or torment.
And somehow, somehow, this unholy bination only made her look more devastatingly beautiful. Her disheveled hair framed her flushed face with the precision of a Renaissance painting, while her smudged mascara lehe tragic elegance of a doomed heroine from a gothiovel.
Even her hicg breaths seemed to harmoh the very fabric of existence, as though the os itself had arrahis moment purely to mock everyone else in the room with her unattainable perfe.
It was, frankly, infuriating.
Mante’s deep golden eyes, rid mesmerizing like molten amber, stayed fixed on Bunny with an iy that could have melted steel—or at least weakened someone’s resolve to remain annoyed.
Ever the chivalrous tormentor, he even produced an additional handkerchief, it with the kind of smug grace that only he could manage.
His expression was a masterpiece of yered emotions: the quiet satisfa of a man who had achieved his goal of making his wife ugh and the barely-tained mischief of someone who knew he’d pushed her to the brink of madness in the process.
It was a look that said, Yes, I’m proud of myself, and no, I don’t regret a thing.
The handkerchief itself was almost an insult, a token of faux-repentahat did nothing to mask the glint in his eyes. He was clearly enjoying the sight of her half-ughing, half-g, all while she tried—and failed—to maintain a shred of dignity.
The man aradox in a: charming, infuriating, and undeniably effective at onizing both.
Mante, ever the gentleman (and occasional meook her hand and helped her to her feet. Bunny, for her part, looked effortlessly radiant in a white silk summer dress that g with just the right amount of delicacy, held up by twin, ughably flimsy straps.
A trausement still lingered in her glittering eyes, and her velvety lips quivered slightly as she greeted them with the poise of a queen, “My dy alemen, I’m gd you came early. Where’s His Highness Prince Lo and Her Highness Princess Nahwu?”
Matthew and An turned redder than ripe tomatoes, while Bir fot how to fun altogether. As certified 12-year-olds, none of them had entered someone as absurdly beautiful and animated as Evan’s mom.
It was so unfair it bordered on criminal. The very cept of a “your mom” joke with her as the subject felt like an automatic self-burn to whoever dared attempt it.
“They said they’d e at lunchtime,” Bir mao choke out, her voice wobbling as if fighting gravity. Her blush deepened uhe madam’s kind, utterly disarming smile, which seemed desigo reduce children to babbling wrecks.
Mante, meanwhile, seemed less enthused but didn’t appear entirely opposed to hosting royalty. Finn, oher hand, was airely different story. He gasped dramatically, his face the perfect picture of betrayed disbelief. “What?! Who?! No oold me about this!”
Without waiting for an ahe man shot off like a maniac, frantically preparing for the arrival of not o two more royals to his already chaotision. He moved with the energy of someone hosting a surprise dinner party they’d only just heard about.
And that was the moment they heard it—a small, cheerful voice eg from the sed floor:
“Evan Bro! Evan Bro!”
.
.
.
.
.
---------------------------------
Burn: *rolled nat 20 but still unlucky*
Man: *rolled nat 1 and being the most unlucky*
Finn: *Laying on the ground dying*
