Games Logs

Rampart lies on the common-room couch with an ice pack pressed above one tusk, the bruise beneath it already gone deep purple-black. Someone has draped a blanket over him that doesn't quite reach his feet. Alternate KFC finds him there. "Looks like somebody had an adventure," she says, and her tone tries for light and lands somewhere else entirely. "I didn't want to bother you, hon," Rampart says. "I tried sparring with Diro instead. It didn't work out." A beat. "It was two

The party is at the casino, where alternate KFC's and Rampart's wedding has apparently obligated the entire hex to serve as witnesses. Debbie sees the whole thing as a money-making opportunity. "But the House always wins!" alternate KFC points out. "Except when it doesn't," counters Debbie, and unspools her idea to the class valedictorian. Alternate KFC nods and settles into the chair beside her, hoping to play enough hands to guarantee a big win. The card-counting fails s

The Fire Jolt Café fills its last chairs as Debbie takes her final bow. The set has gone well — well enough that Quintelius corners her before she's finished packing up her gear and offers her a touring slot on the spot. A replacement spot until their regular guitar player can sort out his romantic entanglements. It is a convenient offer. This timeline's Debbie already owns the bus. There is a wedding coming between Rampart and this timeline's KFC. In the stretch of time

Aurora waits by the door while KFC hands off Otto, and Dr MacDonald is effusive about it. "Well done," he says, studying the dog and then studying KFC a beat too long, like he's checking the math on something. Uncomfortably, KFC fills the silence. "He's still pretty smelly. I tried to wash him, but I didn't have any soap…" She spreads her wing to gesture at Otto. Beaming, MacDonald tells her, "I've heard things about you, and none of that's true. You're perfectly lovely

Dawn breaks over Strixhaven, and KFC is smuggling a twelve-foot shambling mound down five flights of spiral staircase underneath a carpet. This is, she will insist to anyone who asks, a school project. Quintilius asks. He is coming up the stairs after an all-night band practice, guitar case flattened against the wall, and he wants to know why the project smells like something decomposing. KFC explains that it is a project *about* how magical creatures decompose, which is the

"Titania, do you have any answers? Where exactly have you been? You've been gone for days. I do think I'm owed answers." The Votress stands in the doorway of the Hex, glaring at a gawping Titania. They regard one another for a moment. Then the Votress's attention finds Squid. "Ayan, come say hello to your other mother!" She gestures the child toward her. Squid, wide-eyed, shakes their head. "Ayan! Come here and say hello!" As Squid stands, eyes brimming, a small chi

The dungeon beneath Witherbloom Tower smells of damp stone and, now, brimstone. Orestes the horned devil has left his post — the room where he keeps this timeline's Hexmates — and is standing in the corridor. He was drawn there by the sound of Alistir murmuring to a shambling mound. This is his second student interloper of the evening, and somewhere behind a door that is almost certainly not thick enough, two nearly identical sets of Hexmates are listening to him fume.

Diro comes back alone. He is calm about it, which is its own kind of information. He reports what happened below in the even tone of someone who has already processed the worst of it and moved on to logistics: there is a devil down there. He met it. He told it he was a student doing research. The devil — Orestes — let him leave. He told Orestes he was guarding captives. Diro pauses here, letting that land. He believes those captives are the alternates. Their versions, from

In a vault-ceilinged room, the shambling mound shuffles toward the Hexmates beneath Witherbloom Tower, smelling of wet soil and rot. Massive, its vines and branches are held together with some sort of mucus, and they appear just at the edge of decay, suspended by magic rather than nature. Fungi grow in clusters along the upper ridge of what might be called its head and shoulders, some of them faintly luminescent, throwing pale light across the room in uneven patches. Gaping m

The lecture hall smells of old parchment and the particular anxiety of students who have not slept enough. Morning light comes through the high windows at an angle that does nothing for anyone. The Hexmates are arranged, instead of their usual configuration, they are seated with their project partners. Only Quentillius and Alister sit with distance between them. Quentillius leans across the aisle toward Alister, his voice low and pointed, “Hey, Alister, have you finished you

The party finds themselves, displaced and uncomfortable, in this alternate timeline — a version of Strixhaven where things are subtly, somet

The librarian — cheerful, oblivious, and armed with an enormous key — locks the doors to the restricted section of the Biblioplex without a

The party reconvenes at the Hex and discuss needs for their upcoming trip to the past. Titania heads to a Mardac’s Pawn Shop. From a safe,