Games Logs

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

Morning light struggles through the shutters of the Blue Water Inn, catching the dust motes above tables still scarred from the werewolf assault. The companions gather in the main room, battle-worn but resolute, and lay out their plan to Urwin Martikov: back to the old windmill, to hunt down the last of the night hags. Urwin listens, wiping the same tankard he’s been wiping for the better part of ten minutes. “You’re going back there,” he says. It isn’t quite a question. “We

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 afternoon settles over Strixhaven with a particular heaviness. The day has already asked too much of everyone. Tomorrow’s assignments lo

The campus feels borrowed. The architecture is right — the Hex Tower doors swing open for them as they always have — but something in the

The office is close and warm. The soup on the long table has stopped steaming. Murgaxor sits behind it, watching the Hexmates with flat, unr

“So you have decided to go back to 1487. “Sigurd sets down his wrench and leans against the Witherbloom sink he has been repairing. “I appre

The halls of Strixhaven echo with confusion and chaos as the hexmates find themselves scattered across campus, each dealing with their own b

Horse-Reyna’s hooves clatter on the marble pathway as she canters into Silverquill Quad. The elegant colonnade rises before her, its pristin

The battle ends. Reyna crouches halfway up the spiral staircase leading to the dormitory rooms while Rubina sits just above her, shaking her

The Crown sneers. “Well, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. There would be no more trouble if you just kept us some of us magical

Victory still seems very distant. Even as Vex flings open the door to flee, it’s apparent the polymorphing waves remain in effect. The spell

All in the Common Room hold their breath. High above them, they can hear the pounding of Titania’s feet as they ascend the spiral staircase

The friends rise late on Sunday morning, having a lazy start to their day in the Hex. As they finish their Reyna-made pancakes and coffee, a