Ep. 11 - 27: Dakilai Arc "Buckback's Big Bluff"

The party makes their way into the casino, with Moon Planter and Colbolt hanging back from the newly self-dubbed ‘A Pimp Named Shabaka’ and his hoes as per the plan. The interior of the casino is exactly as Tabu described - extravagant, glamorous, and because it’s nighttime all the ‘interesting’ people are out and about.

 

The party arrives at The Revenge of the Roc

A Pimp Named Shabaka’s harem moves to an area near the billiards to try and ‘blend in’ by selling themselves. A Pimp Named Shabaka ends up starting a game of 21 with another Persian. Cher, completely ‘forgetting’ that she’s supposed to be subservient to her ‘pimp’ decides she wants to buy in because she likes gambling, unwittingly giving Shabaka an opportunity to really prove he’s A Pimp Named Shabaka by backhanding her.

Tangent tries her best but having no sense of what a piece of ass goes for in the world of the super-rich, she comes off as ‘having a few crayons missing from the box’, which Cher detects is why some onlooking persians look to have less-than-noble ideas regarding the Suncat. She exploits this and basically offers to sell Tangent into slavery for 100 Gold, which the ner-do-wells reluctantly accept.

Shabaka meanwhile loses 100G in one hand and it emotionally wounds his inner capitalist, but he notices a shadowy figure in the upper floor with a familiar looking big hat looking back right at him, before quickly drawing the curtains.

Moon Planter finally enters and makes a beeline for the one he thinks is the events coordinator. He bribes the clockwork pit boss 20G for information about where to sign up for the pit fights, learning that the form is on the second floor where management is. As he arrives, he finds four figures around a poker table that has another clockwork pony as the dealer - two Kirin mares, a persian, and a gryphon wearing a big fancy hat with a pink feather.

Feeling gutsy, Moon Planter strolls right up to the table and puts down 5 Platinum pieces, immediately getting the attention of everyone at the table. The dealer addresses the hat wearing griffin - both the dealer and griffin incidentally confirming that the latter is A Pimp Named Buckback to Moon Planter from A Pimp Named Buckback’s angry retort about getting his name wrong (as one ‘must say the whole damn thing’) - and asks if this is allowed, but Buckback seems willing to entertain the newcomer who has ponied up a pretty chunk of change to play ‘Hand of Fate’ (the Astillon version of No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em poker) with the big boys.

 

“Moon Planter makes a dangerous gamble to get to know Buckback

The two kirins step back, making it a three-way game between Moon Planter, Buckback, and the unnamed persian, though by the first round of betting the persian quickly folds. Buckback calls him a pussy then counters Moon Planter’s initial 20g raise with 17 platinum (equal to 170 gold). Moon Planter is not intimidated and makes the call to the bet. He ends up losing the hand to Buckback, but seems to earn his respect as Buckback indirectly compliments him on ‘not being a bitch’ like the persian, then asks for the bat pony’s name. Moon Planter replies with ‘Big Blind’ - the gambling name he chose earlier back at the High Rollers HQ.

Buckback then openly suggests that it would be a shame if somebody like Big Blind went and took the other pimp in the casino that night - the disguised Shabaka - and beat the shit out of him in a back alley to ‘teach him a lesson,’ with the offer of the bat pony spending the night with both of the kirins Buckback had with him. Seizing the opportunity to get closer to Buckback’s inner circle, Moon Planter immediately takes up the offer and walks out to accost A Pimp Named Shabaka, with Planter whispering to Shabaka what the real deal was to make sure everybody was on the same page. Shabaka goes along with the ruse.

Seeing A Pimp Named Shabaka getting bat-handled, the ner-do-wells who had designs on some ‘fun’ with Tangent call off the deal since now the ire of Buckback could land on them through indirect association.

Tangent, ever oblivious, had in the meantime simply just wandered outside, before deciding to try getting back into the casino from the rear. Finding the door locked, in lieu of any lockpicking abilities, Tangent instead uses her ‘heat metal’ spell to simply melt the handle off. All she succeeds is rendering the door handle and by extension the door it was attached to completely inoperable.

At the same time, inside the casino, the pair of dancers on stage finish their routine, take a bow, and proceed to try and leave the establishment through the very door Tangent just rendered into a door shaped wall. Suddenly, Buckback himself descends from the second floor, flanked by his Kirin hoes, and the whole floor goes silent as he declares that ‘it has come to his attention somebody is trying to get in through the back door,’ with the threat of his cane being used as a tool of violence if he finds out who is disrespecting his establishment. He then sends his bitches to go get drinks while he remains watching the crowd on the stairs.

Cobalt tries to make small talk with one of them, but makes a poor choice of trying to talk about math. This leads to the kirins stating that they are “Number 4” and “Number 6” seemingly randomly. Dayspring jokingly pipes up that she’s “Number 5” only to be told that the actual Number 5 is ‘back home with the family’. Continuing to make bad decisions, Cobolt asks the kirins if ‘there’s anything they would do against Buckback, what would that be’, only for Buckback himself to appear and looking very displeased at what Cobolt just asked.The altercation continues for several minutes with Cobolt digging himself deeper and deeper before Buckback shouts for Cobolt to leave his establishment before he ‘pulls those hushpuppies out of your ass’, to which the steelheart complies with.

Buckback then approaches Cher and says that if he’s going to ply her trade, she will work for him. Cher’s initial denials about what she was doing are trumped by Buckback explaining he’d been watching her from his upstairs window and one of the persians she’d tried to sell Tangent to had flat out just told him, much to Cher’s annoyance. However, after Buckback also forcibly drafts Tangent as ‘Number 69’, Cher non-verbally communicates with Tangent to play along as this could work in their favor of trying to investigate Buckback. Especially since the original plan of having Cobolt run around as a rogue failed miserably before it could really even start.

After some brief talking to learn about Cher where she falsely claims to be 16 (when she’s really 18), Buckback reconsiders and upgrades Tangent’s number to ‘Number 6’ and promotes the former holder of that designation to Number 5. He then gives Cher the designation Number 9, and says that the cat and the unicorn complement each other so well, they’re not to be apart from each other until he tells them otherwise.

While Tangent and Cher immediately learn the horror that is Buckback’s hoes not being allowed to buy drinks at the bar unless their pimp tells them they can, Moon Planter seeks payment for his job of kicking out A Pimp Named Shabaka. He gets another platinum coin for the trouble but Buckback seems unwilling to give him more work. As the two converse, Buckback reveals that he’s only called the owner because he runs the establishment - a privilege he is given by the real owner of The Revenge of the Roc. He is receptive to the proposition of potentially profitable business, however, and invites Moon Planter back upstairs to discuss details.

Shabaka and Cobolt, having been left outside, have the means of getting in through the door that Tangent rendered impassible, but find the two stage performers from earlier on the other side blocking the way back into the casino.

Running his mouth before really thinking, Cobolt immediately claims that he and the Persian are in fact the next act. Which, based on the performers interpreting the pair’s clothes as tearaways, leads to the impression that the next act was going to be male strippers. However, Shabaka rolls with it, picking up a spare costume that happens to be lying around, and manages to convince the performers to let him use the office as a dressing room.

Using the opportunity, Shabaka quickly finds a leger lying around and Cobolt pockets it using his vast inventory space, while the performers outside think it’s taking so long for the ‘costume change’ due to the pair actually having a quick reacharound, before they emerge and are ‘ready to perform’. Incredibly, the two Bannermanes put on a decent enough performance to sell the ruse, though only the crowd that would appreciate a knock-off Chippendales performance remains when the pair are told to wrap up the act.

Back upstairs and oblivious to the low budget Magic Mike show going on, Buckback and ‘Big Blind’ talk business. Always in need of new muscle, Buckback offers a job to guard an undisclosed ‘shipment’ he has coming in from Crimin Isle, not stating what is being shipped or where the shipment is going. Moon Planter immediately accepts. Buckback then asks Moon Planter to dress ‘professionally’ which is defined as not the gold sequined speedo he is currently wearing.

Back on the first floor, Tangent tries to work around the whole ‘bitches can’t drink without permission’ through turning water into wine, but after a brief miscommunication with New Number 5 who thinks it’s initially lube, both Number 5 and Number 4 consume the majority of the wine much to Tangent’s chagrin. While drunk, they reveal they ‘don’t talk’ about Number 1, while also mentioning that the individual's name is ‘Clarity’ before passing out. Without much other choice, Cher and Tangent take Number 4 and Number 5 to the nearest sleazy looking motel - the Brass Bull. The party, having since convened, chooses to stay the night there to maintain cover.

The Brass Bull

Episodes 17 - 19

It is revealed that Grot slept in while the party was off doing their infiltration of Buckback’s casino, waking up much later and remembering she was supposed to be a guard dog, so she spent the evening running around Dakilai and biting ankles. Which is not that different from normal Gobbo behavior so she was really good at it. She rejoins the party in the morning, having tracked the ‘unique’ scent of Cher’s hat.

The two kirin hoes - their names now known as Jinx (Number 4) and Misty (Number 5) - are still badly hungover from the previous night, which Shabaka takes advantage of by asking them in their compromised state if he can probe their minds. Jinx agrees and Shabaka dives into her head, looking for the first time the kirin met Buckback, but beyond an agreement for the pimp to pay her with seemingly rare candies, nothing new is learned, and Jinx refuses to allow more memory diving without being paid a sizable sum of 150 gold. Cobolt tries to use his appraisal skill, but he decides that their cooches are ideal for USB insertion as a result.

The two kirins then take their leave, stumbling out of the cheap hotel room as they are still working off a hangover. Once they are gone, Moon Planter gives the party a quick rundown of the job he was given by Buckback; he is to report to Dock 9 at midnight to meet with a designated contact regarding unknown cargo - which Planter suspects may be living cargo but is not certain. Shabaka and Cobolt then disclose their findings from the recovered leger - between unremarkable entries expected of a casino, there are a few entries that jump out - generous amounts attributed to just ‘Blessings from Kara,’ transactions with a party named ‘The Old Man,’ and cryptically two things simply described as ‘The Hazel Lady’ and ‘The Sweeps.’

Cher postulates that the ‘blessings’ are the drug candies that Jinx and Misty seem to covet, and suggests the party go around looking into local churches seeing as Moon Planter has a whole day before his scheduled contact. Shabaka reasons that due to the ‘teachings’ of the Temple of Kara, the best place to look would be around a Red Light District in the city.

The Temple of Kara

The party arrives at the temple, finding it artificially rendered low visibility inside, and are welcomed by a priestess that doesn’t even try to hide the temple’s more sultry nature. Indeed, the party is reminded that, due to a legal loophole to respect the religion, prostitution in Dakali is legal for priestesses of the Kara religion. Cher, having basically been fed this reminder through one ear just to have it go out the other, starts talking to the welcoming priestess like she’s going to repent from a lifetime of sin and debauchery. She is easily tripped up after claiming Buckback is her sponsor, however, forgetting that actual girls under the pimp’s employ all call him ‘daddy.’

Grot, meanwhile, detects the same ‘sweet’ smell she detected on the kirins earlier and quickly notifies Moon Planter while the prestress is distracted with Cher. However, the party does not have the freedom to openly explore the temple to investigate.

Cher meanwhile seems to be facing a crisis, as all signs seem to indicate that the priestess wants Cher to give her trademark ushanka as an offering, but the hat is of incalculable value to the unicorn. With extreme reluctance, the blue unicorn surrenders the prized accessory. Moon Planter, unsuccessfully, tries to give Cher a chance to argue that the hat is part of her ‘character’ which, as one of Buckback’s working ladies, means the hat belongs to the pimp and is not Cher’s to give, but fails to convince the priestess.

Meanwhile, Grot stealths around the temple in search of the source of the smell. She succeeds in locating a desk in a side room, with a copious amount of paper with writing on them. Her anathema against all forms of the written word kicking in, she stuffs all the paper on the desk into her mouth for later destruction. However, finding the desk so obviously enchanted that even her gobbo brain can recognize trying to break into it is a bad idea, she instead makes her way back to Moon Planter with the papers in her mouth.

As it then immediately turned out, some of the papers snatched by Grot were, in fact, the initiation paperwork for Cher to be brought into the Temple of Kara. The priestess, unsure of what happened, says she’ll have to make new paperwork and tells the party to return in about an hour.

The party retreats to the tavern they stayed the previous night - the Brass Bull - and in a quiet corner look at the papers Grot stole. Among the papers is a draft of a thank you letter addressed to Buckback’s casino for a donation to the temple, likely one of the entries in the ledger. Several other papers are identified as incomplete religious geas spells. Cher realizes that this implies that Buckback’s use of geas casting to keep his minions tightlipped has him tied closer to the Temple of Kara more than was initially believed.

After some pre-planning on what to do in the event Cher is forced into a geas and fails a will save, by means of acquiring some meditation tea, Cher reluctantly goes back to the Temple and goes through the ritual to become a priestess of Kara. Cher is seemingly able to bluff her way through the ritual, and at the end does receive one of the mysterious candies that have been the center of investigation for the party. She is then dismissed, to be called upon by the still unnamed persian priestess.

Retreating to safety at the Brass Bull, the party is unable to determine just what the candy is. However, Cher tries a lick, and the rest of the party sees Cher’s eyelashes grow a few millimeters. After Cher splits the drug in half with Dayspring, Cher consumes her half and instantly gets a minor addiction, but also gets charisma boost at the cost of reduced intelligence.

Half the party returns to the High Rollers HQ while the other half go to Buckback’s Casino to keep up appearances. While the latter is largely Moon Planter and Grot killing time while Cher straight up just works as a whore (which the only real difference compared to her usual behavior is she’s asking to be paid for being so promiscuous), the former brings the still unidentified drug to Tabu. The Manestitch immediately recognizes the drug and takes the party to an inner room, where they make acquaintance with a rather testy kirin who seems to only allow the intrusion on the grounds of the matter being official Bannermanes business.

The kirin, who is referred to by Tabu as ‘Cici’, immediately recognizes and informs the party that the drug is known as a ‘Harlot Sweet’ - a lozenge-type steroid that increases the user’s agility and charisma, named for how they are commonly abused by prostitutes and the upper class. And unlike most things in Dakalai, Cici confirms they are in fact severely illegal and recommends that they dispose of the drug immediately.

Taking the opportunity, Dayspring updates Tabu on the progress of the party’s investigation into Buckback. While displeased that the ledger was stolen, since the Bannermanes as an organization were not above the law, Tabu does continue to support the party in their endeavor, giving them scrolls of disguise so they can quickly vanish into the crowds after leaving the headquarters.

Dock 9 - The Hazel Lady

When the hour of midnight approaches, Moon Planter and Grot show up at Dock 9 to find a ship, by the familiar name of The Hazel Lady, sitting at the dockside. Grot detects the smell of the candy from earlier (being that neither she nor Moon Planter know what Cici told the others) and lets Planter know.

Moon Planter is then met by a grizzled sea dog of a persian who is his job contact, who instructs him to board before the full details of the job are revealed. Planter and Grot board, and the ship soon takes off. The pair observes the crew is entirely made up of masked black pursians.

 

“Moon Planter and Grot arrive at Dock 9

The individual who had invited Moon Planter and Grot on board, who turned out to be the captain, starts talking about the business that Buckback sent him on, which seems to be about making somepony pay for transgressions against the pimp. The captain then has one of his underlings haul up a bound and gagged prisoner - none other than Fireheart. The leger that was stolen by Shabaka and Cobolt had not gone unnoticed, but Fireheart had unfortunately been looking around the casino at the time and was subsequently captured and blamed for the theft. Dubbing her a ‘traitor,’ despite her having no connection to Buckback’s operations, the captain suggests that Moon Planter send her to ‘scrub the ocean floor’ with a pair of cinderblocks tied to her legs.

Moon Planter, having learned to speak Gobbo, makes sure that Grot remembers that Fireheart is an ally they need to save (if only because she’s the mare that Grot keeps stealing the steaks from). He creates a noisy show of a distraction to ‘intimidate’ Fireheart, tying her up - secretly making sure the knot has a quick-release, while Grot hides in the shadows to get an idea of how many cats are crewing the ship.

Meanwhile, Tangent - who as always was prone to wandering off on her own from the party - wakes up and finds she ended up in a barrel that just so happened to be inside The Hazel Lady, having presumably crawled through a porthole earlier in the day.

The Captain, having gone off and then returned with two cannonballs (despite having mentioned using bricks earlier which would have been far easier to tie to somebody than giant heavy orbs), leaves Moon Planter to ‘toy’ with the kirin, saying to fetch him in his quarters when the time comes to finally send her to a watery grave.

However, almost immediately Moon Planter pitches her overboard anyway - primarily to ensure that the kirin doesn’t ignite in nirik form and set off the gunpowder stores Grot discovered below deck. Tangent, working off instinct upon hearing the splash, extradites herself from the barrel and uses a ranged Waterwalk spell as, fortunately enough, the kirin is within the range Tangent is capable of.

Moon Planter is surprised to see the kirin floating, but continues with his plan anyway as he starts hauling her back up. On deck, Moon Planter continues to taunt the still bound and damp Fireheart - using an opportunity to whisper in her ear about the quick release knot - before requesting the aid of three sailors nearby to help dump the cannonball laden kirin over one last time. Then, with some sneaky help from Grot, Moon Planter tricks the sailors into being thrown overboard with one failing to avoid being dragged down underwater entirely, and Fireheart manages to end up inside the ship through an opening. Tangent happens to also be nearby and undoes the kirin’s bindings.

The ship’s captain then appears on the top deck, having heard the splashing and voices his concern that he missed the spectacle, looking over the edge of the boat and seeing Moon Planter and the two waterlogged sailors. He did not notice Grot, who takes the opportunity to whip out her proportionally (to her) massive Dogslicer weapon and stabs the captain.

Chaos erupts as the ship’s crew turns out to be woefully overpowered and quickly are felled by the present party. Afterward, Moon Planter chews out Tangent for having wandered off out of pure curiosity and was lucky she’d ended up on the same ship as the rest of the team. With all hostels down, the party proceeds to do what all adventurers do and loot everything not nailed down. Despite the ship’s formidable armament, the team finds it was not carrying sufficient ammo to properly utilize its full cannon complement. Instead, the stores are filled mainly with alcohol, Harlot Sweets, and addiction suppressants.

During the looting, Fireheart details how she got caught up in all this mess - namely she wanted to check out the casinos and ended up at the ‘really cool looking’ Revenge of the Roc. Whereupon she ended up in conversation with two peculiar kirins (likely Jinx and Misty) who said ‘some really interesting things’ and Fireheart took that as an excuse to go snooping around, ultimately getting hit in the head with a cane.

Moon Planter then brings Fireheart up to speed regarding the investigation, surmising that The Hazel Lady is a sort of mobile headquarters that Buckback uses to conduct various business around the country, and that any instance of a ship the party has encountered in relation to Buckback happened on or in relation to the Hazel Lady, such as the memories from the extortionists back in Bleakburn. With Fireheart’s involvement and the actions the Bannermanes have taken thus far, Moon Planter’s plan to worm his way into Buckback’s inner circle no longer is viable with his cover blown. So, he opts to make Buckback hurt and instead wants to blow up the ship to cripple his operations.

Agreeing to leave the sailors who were still alive in a lifeboat set adrift, so that they’d eventually return to shore but not immediately, the dead were left on board and the Bannermanes departed in another lifeboat. The Hazel Lady was primed by Grot to become one big bomb that would send it plummeting to the inky depths.

 

“Grot really likes fire and also really hates boats. What happened was honestly inevitable

Fireheart, Tangent, Moon Planter, and Grot row their boat to a secluded spot that is out of view of Dakalai. The kirin immediately suggests that the party make haste to the High Rollers HQ lest the group befalls something that kills them all first

Dock 9

Separate from the rest of the party, Shabaka and Cher learn that a ship has left the place where Moon Planter mentioned he was going to be that evening, and head towards that direction to see if there’s anything about the matter that they need to intervene with. They unfortunately find that while the ship is no longer in port, it is not abandoned. Thus, Cher, in her continuing refusal to stick to her role, lands the pair in trouble with some of Buckback’s goons that were left guarding the dock when she fails to refer to the pimp as ‘daddy’ yet again.

Suddenly, a ship on the distant water erupts in a big fireball, the commotion and fire on the ship immediately gets the guards on alert and they draw swords on Shabaka and Cher. However, most of them immediately get taken out and it’s only the lack of viable attacks in their action economy (Cher forgetting Haste which could have solved this issue) that allows the last guard to run away. Unable to pursue, Cher and Shabaka tie up the goons still on the docks and discuss what their next moves should be since a witness got away. As they do so, however, they are met with a cloaked figure - the still unnamed persian cleric Cher was sworn to serve, and with her the bound form of the one goon who had escaped.

The Pursian priestess suggests to Cher that she should just ‘do away’ with the third dockworker who almost got away, while said dock worker (who is bound and gagged) gives Cher a pleading look to not kill him. Knowing the priestess works for Buckback, Cher questions why help cover up this action against his interests, to which the priestess claims she sees value in Cher beyond simply being another one of the pimp’s brainless money making prostitutes that inevitably become the priestress’s job to babysit. Unable to pawn the job off on Shabaka, Cher admits she didn’t actually care about the morality of killing so much as having to deal with the inevitable repercussion from the rest of the party (mainly Moon Planter) if they ever found out, then slits the throat of the guard before throwing him off the dockside. After some banter where Cher complains about being lightly forced by the priestess into cleaning up her own crimescene (because Cher kept forgetting Predgistation was a thing that made such tasks trivial), the priestess disappears in a cloud of inky smoke. Barking that was heard earlier and believed by both females to be approaching authorities instead turns out to be a dog, who upon realizing the death of the bound dock guard starts howling at the moon, evidently mourning the death of its master. Cher then departs to rejoin the party at the High Rollers HQ, ignoring the dog.

High Rollers HQ

The party members from the ship find most of the High Rollers - Tabu included - heading out to watch with the rest of the city as the Hazel Lady burns to the waterline in the distance. While headed to the now familiar secure room at the High Rollers HQ, Grot avails herself of all the abandoned meals lying around that have chicken, followed by a raw rotisserie in the kitchen.

Tabu, after casting his spells to secure the room, finds himself increasingly exasperated at the exploits the visiting Bannermanes have undertaken - up to and including the destruction of the Hazel Lady, a ship and crew that Tabu states he’s interacted with previously without knowing the connection to Buckback.

Much to Moon Planter’s consternation, however, all the documents confiscated from the ship before its destruction are specifically for the operations of the Black Cats crew that operated it - the considerable amount of gold being funneled towards the ship documented in the leger not being enough of a connection to Buckback even if the ledger’s illegal acquisition didn’t already disqualify it as evidence alone. Without further leads and knowing the pimp is probably very eager to exact revenge over losing a valuable asset like the Hazel Lady, Moon Planter decides the best course of action is for the party to immediately leave the city for their own safety,

Cher then finally returns, mysteriously without Shabaka anywhere in sight, and so she uses his absence as an opportunity to spin a tale about how he was gangraped to death by three guard dogs while she just watched and ate popcorn. Amazingly, the party does not find this story entirely unbelievable despite coming from Cher of all people, but that’s what happens when the liar rolls a higher deception check than everybody else’s perception.

However, Cher also is able to convince the party to stay in the city long enough to potentially work out an arrangement with the priestess, Moon Planter deciding that if they can at least curtail criminal activity from hitting Bleakburn then that would be suitable enough. As the party wraps up their meeting and prepares to rest for the night, the dog from earlier suddenly is heard scratching at the door. Once its let in, it shows some affinity towards Cher, with everybody generally getting the impression that by some manner or other this is now Cher’s familiar. Left with little choice, Cher does decide to keep the dog and names it ‘Amelia’.

The party makes their way early in the morning to visit the Temple of Kara - Dayspring and Cobolt having departed the group to attend to their own personal business elsewhere. In negotiating a deal with the priestess, she implies that Buckback’s assets are not necessarily those for him to give (as Buckback himself implied in an earlier conversation with a disguised Moon Planter about how he’s merely the manager of the Revenge of the Roc, not its true owner). She is also surprised to learn that the party’s objective is effectively retribution for Buckback’s criminal interests having reached the capital of Bleakburn, claiming that even somebody as powerful as the pimp would think twice about even getting on the wrong side of ‘that goose’ (a.k.a. Dr. Amden).

However, while the priestess is amicable to an agreement where the only thing she is responsible for is restraining Buckback’s business from that general direction, she refuses to allow Cher to get her precious ushanka back - seemingly making a game of antagonizing the unicorn over it as much as any real value it could have (and Cher being completely oblivious to how this is all likely over the priestess knowing full well of the deception of Cher ‘wanting’ to be a representative of Kara and dodging the geas spell earlier). Then, the priestess casually just reveals she is not a persian but, in fact, is a changeling by turning into a near mirror image of Cher, the one differing detail being the duplicate wearing the real Cher’s hat, further underscoring this surprising reveal by stating she is Buckback’s “Number One” - the same individual that was named as ‘Clarity’ to Tangent by the drunken Jinx and Misty during the casino infiltration a few days before.

 

“Clarity’s true form - she never shows this to the party but this is included for the sake of the reader. Art by “thehuskylord”.

Next Steps

Episodes 20-22

Once the initial commotion dies down over the revelation that Clarity is the priestess of Kara, Moon Planter lays out what the party wants in return for helping Clarity potentially take over Buckback’s entire operation:

Any criminal activity is to be kept out of Bleakburn

The party needs hard evidence to sentence Buckback in Bleakburn

• Buckback has to be taken alive.

Cher also makes her additional demands, for along with her ushanka now she wants Jinx and Misty as well, despite her interactions with the twins maybe at most being a menage a trois lasting a single night. When pressured by Clarity that she’ll only agree to two of the three, Cher makes the surprising choice of both kirin sisters over the hat she’d been fighting to get back (qualified with a ’for now’).

Clarity finds the deal amicable, but questions the party on what the Party intends to do against Buckback that needs her support. When Moon Planter says they would like to get Buckback arrested legally, which would also allow them to muster the full strength of the authorities behind them, Clarity cryptically refers to a ‘tune’ that would lead them in the right direction. This is deduced to mean song sheets that were among the documents taken from the Hazel Lady.

Briefly, discussion is interrupted when Shabaka, very much not gangraped to death but instead accompanied by his new snake familiar Ebony, finds the group inside the temple. The merchant then subsequently learns of his supposed dog orgy demise, a now obvious lie, and the party demands an explanation of why Cher made it back while Shabaka didn’t. Cher’s excuses don’t fool the party who realize Cher abandoned Shabaka who had been keeping an eye out on the docks the whole time.

Once the party, with plenty of participation on part of Clarity doing mocking impersonations of the unicorn, is done chastising Cher, they start to head off on their updated quest. However, before they leave the temple, Grot pulls the party over and in a rare moment of gobbo insight points out that it could be a trap - the reasoning being that there’s no way the party could know that Clarity was even a real individual or was just another one of Buckback’s disguises…before then suggesting they use fire and pulls out a bottle of fire water to burn the temple down. Cher protests because of her hat still being in the building, admitting she just planned to steal it so she could have her Kirins and her hat. After some more tomfoolery, largely at Cher’s expense, Got gets Clarity’s scent committed to memory.

Following Clarity’s advice to follow ‘the music’ based on some sheet music that was among the documents retrieved off the Hazel Lady, the party departs on a hunch to see if they can find clues at the local bard college. Along the way, Shabaka is able to see invisible creatures who seem to be surveying the marketplaces of the city, but it is not clear who these hidden watchers are actually on the lookout for. Grot, once she is aware of these watchers, immediately starts screaming about ghosts.

This leads to the party being greeted by a pony named ‘Me’ who has compatriots named “Do” and “Ray” nearby, and promptly makes a lot of bad jokes that the party are less than amused by. A verbal slip by Shabaka ends up exposing the knowledge of the hidden watchers, which through impulsive action by Tangent with Farie Fire outlines one of the figures running away, though the chase is ended before it could really begin by Moon Planter’s flight speed and skillful use of bolas to trip up and incapacitate the target.

However, much to the party’s shock, they discover the invisible pony was none other than All-In. He is very uncooperative, refusing to drop his invisibility so the party can verify his identity as it is in public and in full view of the general public. Cher solves the problem by casting Cozy Cottage, spawning a whole-ass house in the middle of an alleyway, providing the seclusion All-In wants, and in short order Moon Planter confirms the captive is who he says he is with knowledge about their mission to gather Aetherstone.

The most that All In is willing to admit is that he was concealing himself while going to the black market to obtain less-than-legal materials for his own purposes, though also indirectly tells the party that his activities are not going to pose a problem for the Bannermanes as a whole. This is enough for the group to let All In off the hook since this means he is wholly unrelated to their business with Buckback and Clarity. However, after appealing to their common goal of needing to find Aetherstone for Dr. Amden’s pet portal project, All In begrudgingly points the party in the direction of Weldstone, north of Kalidai, where he’s heard rumors about weird magical disturbances that align with what is commonly known about the rare resource, along with the local Mainstitch ‘Shen’ having his Bannermanes constantly fighting off alleged Earth elementals.

All In then takes his leave, teleporting away (much to Tangent’s surprise that the pony working on the teleportation circle knows the spell Teleport), while the party returns to the Bardic College. They wander into a tavern and get some help from a decidedly homely (as far as the party’s perception rolls of her beauty go) looking unicorn that they should seek out a pair of male/female Ruminants (fae deer) named ‘Doe’

From the pair of bards, the party learns the music they’re supposed to follow is a song titled ‘The Children’ and is a sea shanty of sorts, the loose implication being the next destination should be the docks. However, Moon Planter elects to take a risk and trust the deer in keeping a secret, mentioning that the objective is to find ponies who are less-than-friendly to Buckback, in the hope this could glean more useful information.

The unicorn from earlier, who turns out to be the local bard guild leader, pipes up to say that Buckback is a very well known ‘patron of the arts’ who makes regular donations to the college and has students of the institution even come in to decorate his casino from time to time. Moon Planter then switches tactics and plays the angle that he also works for A Pimp named Buckback and is looking for a group who would do him harm. Curiously, the unicorn does not seem to be aware that Buckback is a pimp (let alone constantly demands he be addressed as ‘A Pimp Named Buckback’ by all except the whores who call him ‘daddy,’ suggesting a duplicity of the criminal when it comes to how he conducts business above the proverbial table), but says that if the party needs help keeping Buckback safe they just need to give her a call.

Moon Planter, having decided that the smell test from earlier confirmed Clarity was Buckback (it didn’t and she isn’t), decides the best course of action is to first commission minstrels to spread songs through the city that effectively make fun of both Buckback and the Temple of Kara. He fails to find anybody willing to do so, whereupon Cher ends up being the voice of reason and convinces him to put this weird plan aside until they can actually confirm this, especially since she herself is still Buckback’s Number 9 whore and can actually just schedule a meeting with the philanthropic crime boss.

The Docks

As the party starts heading to the docks, news of the previous evening’s shenanigans start to become public knowledge as newspapers around the city speak of the destroyed ship just outside of Dakilai’s borders. They arrive at a tavern near the docks named ‘The Honest Pony’ which is loaded with a lot of disgruntled sailors - the local guard is treating the docks as a crime scene due to the Hazel Lady incident and as such many sailors can’t really do their jobs. Cher, fearful that she might get pulled aside as a pony of interest for killing some of the dock guards (despite the only one outside of the party knowing she was even there being Clarity), hides in the bathroom and dispatches her familiar; Amelia, a dog that takes the form of a very vampiric-looking mare, to be her representative with the party.

For the most part, the party only hears complaints about the mess at the docks causing all sorts of shipping delays and ruined personal plans. Inexplicably, Tangent decides now of all times is the perfect time to literally burst into the bathroom stall Cher is hiding in to administer addiction treatment magic, much to Cher’s confused disbelief. While Tangent and Cher are having an awkward recreation of the ‘Deep Wang’ scene from the film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Cher’s familiar Amelia is actually doing her job and chats up the bartender for information. This leads to the party speaking with a trio of sailors who had some quick banter with the bartender, being implied to have knowledge of the song of interest.

 

This is, basically, what Tangent and Cher are doing in the bathroom as the former tries to heal the latter

Like the Bard College, the information the party gleans from discussion paints a very different picture of Buckback the criminal. The least drunken of the three complains about how the loss of the Hazel Lady had a sort of ripple effect with how much business was dependent on its operations, with no other job opportunities in the city paying as much as what Buckback could (which likely were the ledger entries regarding that very ship). Moon Planter again tries to coerce somebody into his strange plan of making a song mocking Buckback with the same result of failure.

Shabaka, meanwhile, finally actually takes a look at the sheet music and very quickly understands from experience in the past that the song is, in fact, used as a kind of signal for ‘under the table’ trading. From the sailors, in less than kind language, he learns that the Black Market operates through that music which is why there were individuals going around disguised in masks, such as All-In from earlier. Cher then points out they could have skipped this entire trip had Shabaka actually looked at the paper earlier.

The Ruins of the Roc

Making their way from the bar, the party moves towards the Revenge of the Roc, to get Cher’s meeting with Buckback and finally answer the question of ‘are Buckback and Clarity the same person’ despite there not having been much reason to suspect this in the first place beyond the discovery of Clarity’s identity as a Changeling. However, even from a distance in the growing evening darkness, the usually bright and flashy casino instead has all the lights turned off and a gaggle of guards all around it.

Amelia swaps off with Cher again and tries to create a distraction with the guards, trying to convince the guards she’s a reporter for a rag known as ‘The Flat Truth’ and getting nowhere fast as the guards tell her a bunch of obvious nonsense involving roc eggs and ‘the biggest omelet’. Moon Planter tries using magic hoof gloves to open the door from a distance and just ends up contributing to the guard thinking that the Flat Truth is just doing some new kind of looney investigation technique.

Tangent, meanwhile, has taken the form of a gekko and slips inside the door through the bottom crack. She finds the casino is in a state of abandoned semi-dissaray with tables shoved aside and a broken window on the second floor - and above all else, in the dead center of the casino in line with the broken glass - Buckback’s pink feathered hat, but no pimp in sight. Ascending to the second level where Buckback’s private game room was, Tangent finds the tables there are similarly shifted inwards in a way suggesting that somebody shoved somebody through the glass, with a single piece of paper lying nearby. Unable to take the paper in her diminutive form, Tangent glances at it and finds another sheet of music - similar to ‘The Children’ but with the title ripped off.

 

“Around this time is when a proper map of Dakilai is given to the party”

Moon Planter and Grot try to create a distraction by throwing things off a nearby roof, but beyond Grot semi-accidently hitting one guard in the head with a rock, the guards do not move from their post. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Cher suggests that somebody invisible go and commit outright arson on a nearby building as a distraction. Tangent, not consulting the rest of the party, takes things into her own paws and following Cher’s rough idea, uses her fire magic on a random tree a block away before scampering off. This doesn’t work, as a guard uses a magically enchanted rock to report the arson and give a description of Tangent because her tail wasn’t very well concealed, and only one guard is drawn away to deal with the situation. Grot overhears the guard with the rockie-talkie also request several mages and, if available, the Mainstitch.

Somehow, amidst the chaos, Shabaka is able to send in his snake familiar with an invisibility into the casino under the front door and retrieve the sheet of music. With a rapid response arriving with Tabu at the head, the party is able to Solid Snake their various ways out of the scene undetected. Or so they thought, for as soon as they arrive at the High Rollers HQ, Tangent is arraigned by guards for questioning.

At the guard lockup, Tangent just refuses to give any answers to the guard questioning her, forcing him to call in a specialist interrogator. Somehow, against all odds, none other than Clarity enters the room. She makes a show of seemingly casting the spell ‘Zone of Truth’ but Tangent does not feel compelled to say the truth, and so easily continues to deny spontaneously setting a tree on fire. The guard, none the wiser, accepts that Tangent is not the guilty party and lets her free. Clarity then escorts Tangent back, idly commenting that the party really is quite bad at not being obvious and that she still isn’t quite sure how she’ll bail out Moon Planter if the need arises.

After dropping Tangent off, Clarity then is approached by Cher who requests additional help due to the general lack of leads the party has, not helped by Buckback’s casino having turned into a no-go zone. Clarity is surprised, grabbing a nearby newspaper to reveal that it’s front page news that the guy who seemingly is the city’s largest philanthropist has vanished into the wind. Cher asks what’s left of the deal if Buckback is no longer in the picture, but Clarity wants the party to make sure that if he’s gone, he’s gone. She also clues Cher and the party into the fact the ‘underground’ of Dakilai knows who they are and they are very much not fond of them, but Clarity can keep those forces at bay for the moment. Then once again, Cher asks for her hat back, which Clarity agrees to now return it once the Buckback situation is dealt with. Then Cher asks that Jinx and Misty be brought for Cher to collect now, despite Clarity pointing out what a dumb request this is in light of already being promised as part of the reward for their joint venture in the first place. The unicorn is insistent, seemingly obsessed over these kirin who Cher still has only had a single intimate night with and hasn’t seen since. Finding the situation somehow amusing, Clarity actually agrees to an adjusted fulfillment - she’ll send one of the sisters that night, with the other to follow the next evening, an arrangement Cher finds agreeable before the two then part ways.

They’ll Never Stop Looking

Back with the group within the High Rollers HQ, they go to the kitchen for food and debrief each other on what, if anything, was learned. Shabaka gets the nameless music in paw, but is unable to glean anything he did not already know from “The Children.” Of more pressing concern is that while inside the casino, his snake Ebony had also noted that the game tables had deep claw marks that were still crusted with ice that had not melted. Based on the description of the physical marks, Moon Planter postulates that it was a Black Cats crew member using an unarmed strike with magical augmentation, possibly in retaliation for what happened on the Hazel Lady. Though this is revised to possibly be anybody who would have had issue with the ship’s manifest being lost under Buckback’s watch.

 

“A calm dinner discussing anything but calm matters”

Ultimately, with Buckback’s whereabouts unknown and without any leads to follow up on, Moon Planter feels satisfied at the moment to put the crime lord on the backburner and return to their main mission of finding Aetherstone. However, the rest of the party feels the thread can’t be left loose and maybe the best course of action is to lay low for a while. Moon Planter suggests they just use the opportunity to play up being Bannermanes to get access to the now restricted casino and gather more evidence. The plan agreed upon, Cher departs for her usual seedy motel despite Moon Planter pointing out the High Rollers HQ being much more comfortable accommodations - the unicorn not having told the party about getting to meet with one of the kirins.

Alone with the kirin who showed up; Misty, Cher tells the kirin that Buckback has gone missing and tries to gaslight her into believing she has a target on her back as well. Misty starts weeping and wanting her ‘daddy’ which works in her favor as the fact that Misty is one of Buckback’s top lieutenants, meaning she likely knows exactly where Buckback is, has completely escaped Cher’s notice due to the unicorn’s obsession over Misty and Jinx as whores.

The next day, the party goes to find Tabu, learning that it is his ‘hot tub day’ and he is at the HQ’s private baths.

However, partially due to the shenanigans of the previous night, Tabu tells the party that even his sway as Mainstitch is not enough to get the local guards to allow the party into the casino which is now crawling with guards. He suggests the party find one of the few investigators who are allowed on site, a zebra by the name of Noir Blanc.

 

“Shabaka finds Tabu in the High Rollers Hot Tub”

The party quickly is able to make the zebra’s acquaintance, along with his partner; a smaller pink and blonde earth pony with a peculiar tin foil hat. Amazingly, the detective is very willing to let the party into the casino, against the orders of the guards, in return for the promise of more intel on the Buckback and Hazel Lady cases. Once inside, Grot is able to smell Buckback’s hat which is still on the ground, finding a different smell and confirming once and for all that Buckback and Clarity are two different individuals.

While the pink pony, eventually revealed to be Flat Earth, Astillon’s biggest conspiracy theorist and publisher of a tabloid known as ‘The Flat Truth,’ doesn’t stop accusing the whole party of various racist stereotypes and that all the security around the casino involves a giant Roc egg omelet (the exact same nonsense that the guard was telling Amelia the previous day), the gang uses the opportunity to look for more clues. Moon Planter verifies that the damage to the hat along with the upstairs area and the lack of glass shards inside the building suggests that Buckback was attacked and forced out of the casino through the window. However, Grot is unable to pick up any scent other than Buckback’s around the scene of the fight. Moon Planter identifies the claw markings as having been done by talons, potentially suggesting Buckback simply did all this damage himself to cover his tracks before going into hiding. But then on a hunch, noting all the tables on the first floor having been moved despite the fight being on the second, Moon Planter lifts the pimp hat to check the floorboards beneath it. His intellect is rewarded with a loose board being easily lifted with a single key attached to a nail on the bottom.

They Yearn for the Mines

Episode 23

Examination of the key by Moon Planter indicates that it is a durable key meant for a fairly robust lock, and the placement of the hat directly above it meant somebody was meant to find it. After some magical cleaning, the letter “N” is found carved into it. With help from Noir, the party figures the key’s as-found dirty state and the letter are clues to something located at a mine located in the northern docks of the city.

It is around this time that the party notices another zebra hanging around the security perimeter, this one with a visible Bannermanes badge. The party leaves to go meet this newcomer, who introduces himself as the bard Silver Tongue after Flat Earth interrupts his attempts to charm the guards. Things get off to a rocky start as a lack of basic information about his own chapter; the High Rollers, has the zebra admit he sort of left orientation earlier than he probably should have. Moon Planter is unimpressed and declares that until the party can get an external source to confirm that he is a Bannermane, Silver is to work with the party on their current job. At the same time, Noir Blanc sees the party off as he returns to the casino to look for more clues.

Upon arrival at the mine, the party finds it is not open due to being after hours, but the apparent foreman does happen to be present. He is an antean, a large variety of pony, and looks disapprovingly at the party with a shovel very clearly ready to be weaponized if need be. Silver strikes out in negotiations immediately, but Moon Planter is able to reverse his bad luck with diplomacy rolls and gets the foreman to allow the party access to the mines. Notably, the foreman produces a key similar to the one found at the casino, but with a big “S” instead of an “N”.

Inside the mines, the party finds a dig site that has not seen activity in some time, with dusty machines and no evidence of remaining gems to be harvested. The foreman explains it’s currently vacation season due to there being a lack of workers - the gems being mined by followers of Soft Whisper (mainly persians) who at this time of year are making pilgrimages to Wati, the center of Soft Whisper worship.

Moon Planter asks the foreman about the key found at the Casino, who mentions that it belongs to the other dig site in the city, a mine that only sphinxes were allowed into, and that it shouldn’t have left the possession of the sphinx foreman employed at said dig site.

At the other dig site, however, the party finds their path blocked by a young shorthooves mare who states she was given explicit instructions to not let anybody into the mine, something that Silver Tongue demonstrates a very clear difficulty in understanding the ‘anybody’ part. When asked for the foreman’s name, she takes a moment to get it written down because it’s in native Sphinx language, but it translates to ‘Nephys’ - a name Moon Planter immediately recognizes as it too was in the ledger as a source of outgoing payments alongside the Hazel Lady.

Regardless, the shorthooves mare proves to be one of the toughest obstacles the party has yet faced, second only to their own inability to form a cohesive plan as Silver, Tangent, and Shabaka try convincing the mare they’re a troupe of traveling Bannermanes bards while the others have no idea what that trio is trying to do.

Incredibly, the spontaneous performance goes over well enough that the mare actually thinks the whole thing is an elaborate way that the foreman from the North dig site is trying to ask her out on a date. Thinking quickly, Shabaka plays on this assumption and convinces her that yes, the foreman did ask her to go on a date at a time which just so happens to be very soon. As Shorthooves are by nature romantics at heart, she quickly puts on a cute dress and subsequently speeds off to the motel where the party told her the foreman was staying, shouting ‘Lashtada be Praised’ all the while. With the mare gone, the party quickly determines how they can detect the rather absurd number of magical alarms she had placed and safely navigate their way to the mine.

Having navigated the invisible minefield, the party tries to figure out how to get around an alarm placed directly on the lock of the mine, Grot attempts to scale a nearby house and sneak inside its chimney. She gets as far as her grapple ending up in the gutter which triggers an alarm. While Silver decides to try being louder than the alarm to hide the noise, saying he will be the fall guy for when the mare inevitably returns, Moon Planter goes ahead and opens the mine door since two alarms won’t have any more effect than one already does.

 

“The party enters the Southern Mines and Grot finds stored potatoes which, almost unsurprisingly, were also set with an alarm”

Outside, the triggered alarms have definitely drawn a crowd of authorities, and Silver provides a distraction to approaching figures with lights, using Darkness and Invisibility to evade his pursuers who look to be the same sphinxes and persians that initially responded to Tangent’s fire at the casino, and lures them away.

Back in the cave, the party makes it fairly deep into the cavern network when they start hearing - and Moon Planter with his special eyes that give him dark vision, sees - a female persian who appears to have their tail stuck under a rock and calling for help. The party immediately suspects it’s a trap given they only heard the cries for help the moment they came near, instead of earlier when it would have echoed through the caves.

The trapped persian says her name is Jade and that she’d stayed behind when everybody had left for the Wati pilgrimage to do a little more mining, but as a result she was trapped by rubble and there was nobody to help. The majority of the party is hesitant, wanting to make very sure that this isn’t a trap, but Cher decides to just go for it and frees the trapped kitty. Rumbling suddenly is heard from the caverns and before the group can properly prepare, an invisible assailant expertly strikes Tangent with a trio of critical hits that nearly downs her instantly.

 

“The party finds they are not alone in the mines”

The sudden attack, combined with the eventual (and entirely predicted by Moon Planter) betrayal of the trapped persian who the first attacker called Shocker, is a difficult battle that sees multiple party members fallen and Grot nearly die, but an endless barrage of magic missiles from Cher eventually kills the initial attacker. Shocker, visibly distraught at the death of the other persain, then almost becomes suicidal in the ferocity of her attacks and almost brings about the end of Moon Planter before an almost comically placed arrow from Grot knocks her out.

“Reinforcement from the Bannermares”

Episode 24

The party takes the opportunity to quickly patch themselves up before securing the heavily incapacitated Shocker. While Moon Planter and Tangent strap Shocker to a truss to drag her out of the caves, Shabaka and Cher investigate more of the crates, with Cher stealing a few emeralds based entirely on Shabaka’s estimated valuing of them as being worth hundreds of gold each.

In leaving the cave, the party finds a very well dressed blue pegasus standing outside the mine’s door, investigating the scene from information gleaned by the now incarcerated Silver Tongue who had been captured by the local authorities. He introduces himself as Swift Sail, a rapier-wielding swashbuckler bearing the badge of the Whitewater Bannermanes chapter, and offers to help escort the party back to the High Rollers HQ.

 

“Swift Sail joins the party”

Back at the HQ

After Cher’s attempt at pranking a sleeping Tabu critically fail and coat her in charcoal, and then her attempt to dump the ashes of the slain assailant from the mines into the pool (defeated by the fact she didn’t realize said ashes were in an air-tight mason jar), the party quickly recaps the events of the previous night and why there’s a nearly dead persian in the High Rollers private baths. Tabu seems to just be accepting that ‘those northerners’ just keep getting into weird shenanigans as he sets up the baths with his soundproofing spell.

After using a goodberry to bring Shocker back from the brink, her initial action of pretending to still be unconscious is rewarded with Moon Planter immediately starting the waterboarding with a wet blanket and the baths themselves.

After several more waterboarding rounds, some clever actions to remove a cyanide pill from the cat’s mouth, a brief respite overnight, before then finally using a Zone of Truth, the party is able to get from Shocker that Buckback had been onto them from the very start and the clues pointing toward the mine had been a set-up. She herself was merely a hired killer to dispatch the party and had no formal connection to Buckback’s operations.

 

“Moon Planter gives a startlingly detailed lesson in waterboarding with a very resistant non-volunteer”

Opting to let the High Rollers turn Shocker over to the authorities to be sent to Crimin Isle, the majority of the group agrees that the state of affairs regarding Buckback has been dealt with to their satisfaction, holding up their end of the agreement with Clarity that the door is open for her to take over Buckback’s operations with him currently out of the picture in hiding, and that they need to return to hunting aetherstone. The lone party member that still has business in the city is, obviously, Cher who wants to go collect her hat back from Clarity. She and Shabaka go off to the Temple of Kara to tell Clarity that Buckback has been permanently dealt with, even though that’s not really the case.

Notably, at the handoff, Cher requests that the geas the kirin sisters she’s “married” to be transferred to her directly so she has control over them, prompting the entire party outside of this narrative to point out this is literally worse than the waterboarding session they all just allowed to happen and that this will force an alignment change for Cher.

To quote Cher’s player:

“Cher’s not evil but she will do whatever she pleases.”

As one last order of business, Cher then sends her familiar Amelia to sell the stolen emeralds before leaving town. The familiar returns, having failed to sell the emeralds and having been chased by angry citizens, as well as reporting the gems were actually worthless. Cher is shocked as karma comes to bite her in the butt. Earlier, both Shabaka and Moon Planter had been convinced that the gems were valuable, so Cher took them at their word and not once even considered that they had both critically failed at their respective knowledge checks, even though it was established previously that any gems in the mine were both fairly worthless when uncut and they were pretty recognizable by any follower of Soft Whisper’s religion or related occupations (I.E. the jewelers who made the necklaces those gems were for).

The party then splits temporarily to take care of their own personal matters and prepare to set off to Weldstone.