Session 125 Report

General Summary

Spirits are high as the models exit the runway. Good sportsmanship is shared between other models, and the party makes a heartfelt attempt to cheer up Misty after her blunder on the stage. The party began to learn of the waves that were made from Koh-I-Noor’s criticism of Magnifique’s outfit that Eugene Mango had presented. Everyone in the party also began to grow confused about spending time with the real Eugene Mango, not having realized the swap that Swift had pulled off. The party made their way to the Rosebud banquet hall for the fashion show afterparty. Once entering the opulent banquet hall, they found a rather quiet Magnifique talking to the media alongside Nettlekiss. Triple met up with Lisa and they compared their won wages before rejoining the party while sharing with each other how much fun they had together during the ball. In the middle of the press conference between Nettlekiss and Magnifique, Moon Planter decided to step in and speak his praise for Magnifique and the passion of fashion she had inspired in him. He then helped Nettlekiss find Mango, much to her dismay, and was brought to Cammy. A stunned silence befell the room when Mango said he did not care about the Crystal Dragon’s opinions. The blissfully unaware Mango was questioned about why he, as Nettlekiss’s model, was wearing one of Magnifique’s designs. Swift Sail intentionally neglected to tell him or the party why. Before Mango could say more, Ivory Drop burst into the party and pulled him away in a panic. When everyone settled back down, the next issue of the Kalidaily was published for everyone to read. A wonderful telling of the heroics in our party. The topic of Shabaka was brought up once more by Triple. He wanted to come up with a plan to break him free while speaking his mind on the unfairness of Shabaka being cast to stone. Belle Hop agreed to help Triple by taking up the case of these fake gems. When Sarsaparilla and Belle Hop decided to get back to work, they were met with the health inspector who had been one of the missing ponies that were rescued, but dedicated to her job as ever she wanted to ensure things in the ball were up to code. She had breadcrumbs of the latent drug use that Sarsy had brought into the ball, but Sarsy was able to shake her off for the time being. They then got to work baking the Odyssey cake they had planned the previous night. Upon presenting it to the party, Sarsy busted out of the cake! Moon Planter was able to see the fake Eugene Mango outside of the banquet hall and overhear them asking for Buckback, to which they were told he was seen with Swift Sail going off together.

Banners Bust the Baddies

The city clocktower has always been a constant landmark of the city of Kalidai; one that stands to well... tell us the time and make sure each of us gets to and from where we are going on the minute exactly. Standing tall and proud, it's a monument to the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the creatures who built it. But just tonight, of all nights during the Krystal Ball itself, the clocktower was the site of a sinister plot that threatened to rock the city to its core. Now I know the lot of you all have heard tell of a person or two who might have gone missing in the last month or so, and you'll be glad to learn that all of them have been found safe. Well... less so 'found' safe and moreso rescued by none other than some of the very Bannermanes who are in attendance at the ball! That's right, a select couple of them, models even, had broken from the illustrious celebration and not a moment too soon... Thanks to the combined efforts of Moon Planter, Sarsaparilla Surprise, Belle Hop, Wicker Wind, and Balcony Blitz, not only have the missing citizens been found, but a nefarious plot to blow up our beloved clocktower was dutifully undone! With hardly any time to think about things in the moment, I was incredibly surprised to find that after the event was taken care of, Mrs. Belle Hop herself out of them seemed more than happy to give not only her account, but some of the photos for what had been a surprisingly long ongoing investigation of her own. "We arrived here in Kalidai a few days before the ball, the group was planning on enjoying a bit of downtime in the city when all of a sudden we meet this kirin! Odd fella that guy was… He looked worried, turns out he was running from the guards. They were going to escort him to the crystal ball, even though he did not want to attend, you can ask Mrs. Kafe about the details. Point is, his sudden escape led the guards to believe that he was behind the disappearance of all those ponies, nasty stuff. So with that in mind we decided to go and clear this guy’s name by looking into this case. And boy what a case this was! I’ve seen things I never would have dreamed of! Wind up puppets wearing pony skins, lots of bad actors, and a few tons of explosives! I’ll try to make it brief. Turns out that the missing people got kidnapped by these flesh wearing constructs, and for a while I was led to believe that these abominations were the what was left of them. Gee what a fool I was, that whole ordeal kept me running around in circles for a few days, fearing I’d turn into one of them. You see after our first encounter with the robots, we knew for certain was that all of the targets were service workers. And being in that line of business for quite a few years I started fearing for the worst…being skinned alive and getting turned into one of those… things… Regardless here’s what was really going on. The automatons were the former bodies of some people who wanted to attack the ball, don’t ask me how, they got a hold of some Goldenport tech, and had these things roam around the city kidnapping random service workers so that they could replace them. But it doesn't end there, the automatons were planted inside Mr. Baxterson’s home to try and frame him! But if the hostages were still alive, what did they do with them? They were going to be used as bargaining chips in case their attack failed. Good news is, with the help of my colleagues and the CIA we took care of them. Bad news was that now we had a few dozen ponies left unattended, probably starving to death, with no idea of where to find them. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing all day!” My respect for this Bellmare increases with each passing day. Seems like both her and myself have a sense of pride when it comes to informing the public about all the little details that stories like this have to offer. And it was CERTAINLY a case full of its own twists and turns, ending in a thematically heroic finale that, had they not been there to discover it, would have spelled disaster for those who had gone missing. So we begin. What had started as an investigation into the missing people had, in a shortened form, boiled down to the fact that a number of automatons had been used in a plot to wrest a number of service works from their posts, just about all of which had some job to do with the Krystal Ball itself. "It was then when I noticed something odd about those coins," says Belle Hop, explaining further. It was a statement that took me by surprise. Coins? Coins indeed. It was the final nail in the coffin when it came to how these robots were finding people. How they got there is still a bit of a mystery in itself, but Mrs. Hop was more than fine with the challenge. "One by one, we found some of those coins. Even Old Bird Baxterson had one crammed in those gears of his!" There was one question on my mind though that kept occurring to me though as I listened on to the account of the act. All of my readers should know me well enough to know that I'm a bit... nosey when it comes to some of those details, so I had to ask... "But how did you connect this to where those missing people were found?" It was a question that I'd not expect our interviewee to answer with more than a few statements or so, but as a journalist for years now, I have to say, I was shook by the literal case of notes, recordings, pictures, and other various clues that this astute Bellemare had collected. Many small things from addresses and letters, to the small timing issue present in the clocktower itself all collected, pointing in one inevitable direction. These coins, the people they were tracking... and of course, their location in the tower. It's there that Mrs. Hop began to spin into a tale about nearly being captured herself! Trapped in the tower with the doors shutting behind her, you'd think it couldn't get any more dangerous... but that's when she and the others noticed them... "There were explosives along the wall, running all the way up, and frankly, with five minutes left to go, i was just about ready to accept my fate, had it not been for the others slapping some sense into me" says Belle Hop, gesturing upwards as Sarsparilla Surprise adds to the seriousness of the situation. "We had to do something. The clock was ticking down!" Suddenly, it was a race against time. With each passing moment, the bombs grew closer to detonating, and as they reached the top floor, it was there, they found the hostages huddled together in fear, waiting for a rescue that they feared would never come. The Bannermanes had to act fast if they were going to save them. It was a perilous, and they had only seconds to diffuse them before they came to their explosive conclusion at the 8th chime of the clocktower. One wrong move, and it would have been over for not only the hostages, but likely themselves as well. But did that stop them? Not at all! Though how they did it, I can't even fathom. A number of bombs, diffused in seconds? Its unheard of! Truly we have some exceptional Bannermanes in this age, ones that even potentially rival the western Basin Sage Bannermane's best in notoriety! And while I may not have been at the scene of the action to behold how fast they acted, I am just thankful that our very own Belle Hop had taken it upon herself to not only document the case, but to deliver a wonderful shot of the happy results herself. Featured above, a picture done right as the last bombs had been diffused with a number of the other missing creatures still, thankfully, intact. And I know what you're all thinking of asking... You know I know what you've got on those minds of yours and I'm pleased and above all happy to say that we can officially pull Ms. Sarsaparilla off The "Unsightly" list. In fact, each hero involved, gets to be in their own category now... a Kammy Original. Not "The Good", not "The Bad... but "The Bold" They've certainly impressed all of us out here, it seems like really the only person left for them to impress... is Koh-i-Noor herself...! ~Kammy the Kamera Kirin

https://hobune.stream/videos/BtRB9ZzwBwQ

Campaign

The Bannermanes

Protagonists