[#spoiler=Part 1]
Time passed in the Ego Realm. The players quickly learned it was best not to upset the Demon Lord, Sissus. He expected attention from everyone around him, and would act up if ever ignored. Everyone generally decided it was best to stay away from his planet to avoid drawing his notice to this star system, though he would still pop up seemingly at random and demand they gather to him.
Today was one of those days. The players were currently floating around planet Sissus, reluctantly listening to him speak.
[Sissus's theme:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuyfBgr10Vw]"Tomorrow's the day! The day you've all been waiting for!" Sissus paused for audience reaction. Presumably everyone was getting too emotional to respond, though. It happened sometimes, around him. "That's right: tomorrow is the day of the annual Sissus Festival!" He posed dramatically, while a musical flair played in the background. "The yearly festival devoted solely to me, your beloved Demon Lord Sissus! I expect some great things from you all. You've got some tough competition. The guys who used to live here had some really spectacular ideas, let me tell you!
"Of course, the festival isn't all about me. I mean, it is, but one of you shall be special too! Whoever entertains me the most tomorrow will get a special prize from yours truly! As the Demon Lord of Ego, I rule over all things handsome and beautiful. Are you tired of your face? Your wimpy muscles? Your undersized human genitalia? Or maybe you're just tired of being human at all! Well I can change that. I can change you into anything you want to be! Stronger, sexier, smarter - okay maybe not the last one - it could be yours! All you need to do... is win my favour." Sissus winked; an odd, fishy wink.
"Don't believe me? Let me tell you all a story... the story of Maxwell Auguste." For once this drew an actual reaction from the crowd. Did he say Auguste? Many of the players knew that name: Maxwell Auguste was a prominent politician back on Earth. "There's many demon realms, you know. Not even sure how many there are, myself. The Contract Game those two from the Chaos Realm do every few years has a lot of realms to visit, and only so few players to visit with. Which means, sad to say, I don't get very many visits myself. I know, I know, dry those tears, it doesn't bother me
too greatly. Anyway, the last time a Contract Game toured through here was... what was it, two, maybe three hundred years ago. And Maxwell was one of the players that time!
"Yes, the Maxwell you know is a man who's
far exceeded one of your tiny human lifespans. Has to steal it from people around him, but it's a price he was willing to pay. And his immortality is just the beginning! That handsome face on all the campaign posters? My reward, to him! That strength, that speed, that 24/7 energy? All me! In fact, I gave him a whole list of improvements. Guy had a lot of desires. I think he went on to found some elite assassin group or something too? Never was quite the same after all the killing he saw in the Game, I guess. Point is, this is a truly lifechanging reward! So, do your best!"
[/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Part 2]
After Sissus let them go, everyone gathered on Ingrass to discuss the upcoming festival. Opinions were divided as to how to handle it.
"Not doing it," Caitlin said flatly.
"If we set up that festival, all we do is encourage him," Hawk agreed. "Besides, I refuse to bend my knee to a demon."
"Come on, guys, we can make it fun!" Yugi pleaded. "We don't have to make it fish-themed. Just think of it as an excuse to hold a festival!"
"The dance was enough. We don't need another big event so soon, especially not in service of that fish-headed freak," Faye said firmly.
"Great. Of all the people ta see reason, it was the rabbit," Caitlin grumbled. "Come on, anyone else with me? We can jus' come up with an excuse when he starts bawlin'!"
"I think this is a terrible idea, but I don't have anything better to do. I can help organise stuff!" Ige spoke up.
"I... am conflicted. Caught between a rock and my family," Mikoto said with a frown. "I do not want to leave you out to dry, my friends, but I do not think I am comfortable organising a celebration for a demon..."
Yugi nodded a bit too emphatically. "I won't ask you to do anything against your beliefs! You can sit this one out. There's plenty of events on the calendar!" As usual, she clearly hadn't been getting enough sleep. "Anyone who wants to do this, let's hold a meeting in the town hall! Participation is completely voluntary!"
In the end, Caitlin, Hawk, Faye and Mikoto were the only ones refusing to participate. Everyone else gathered in the nearby hall to discuss preparations. The festival would start at 16:00 (4pm) the next day. They would start preparing today, get a good night's rest and then finish getting everything ready in the morning.
Naturally, Felix volunteered to cook for the event. Neuron and Su-Ah both seemed interested in demonstrating some local specialties from their hometowns, too. Yugi decided that Felix would bake some things in the Sitie bakery, and assigned Nico to help him. Meanwhile, Neuron and Su-Ah would use the kitchen on Sahra for their dishes.
There were two other things needed for the festival. Calvin, Yves and Ige were assigned to decorating duty. Meanwhile she dragged a weakly-protesting Hella into an idea she'd had: they would put on a performance for Sissus, with Korrigan providing the music. Perhaps she felt the need to make up for the dance party?
Everyone's duties assigned, they all split into groups and headed off to prepare. The four abstainers meanwhile did their own thing, occasionally stopping by to chat with the others. The day was quite productive, and by the end everyone went to bed satisfied with their progress.
[/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Part 3]
The next day, the festival-preppers met outside the town hall for another meeting at around 10:00. Ingrass, with its large, open, pleasant spaces made for the perfect festival location. They started setting up tables, fences and things. (Hawk, Caitlin, Faye and Mikoto were off-planet, doing stuff by themselves.)
Ige was rushed off his feet, trying to act as everyone's assistant at the same time. When Calvin needed some help hanging up a banner, he climbed up a ladder and precariously leaned over to hold the other side. His puppy familiar, uselessly running around in circles below, saw him leaning over and wanted to help. He put his front paws on the lower ladder rung, trying to work out how to climb it, before settling for trying to jump up it. The ladder slipped. Ige was now supported only by the banner he was holding on to one end of, which swung down with him under it. He swung shrieking in an arc, before losing his grip on the banner and hurtling into the town hall wall, crashing with a cartoon thud. Adding insult to injury, as he shakily got to his feet, a brick which had gotten worked loose fell out of the wall and landed with a crack on his head. He immediately collapsed into a heap.
Everyone rushed over to help. Somehow Ige wasn't too badly hurt, and insisted he could continue the preparations. Then Hella noticed something in the wall he'd crashed into. "Hey, what's this?" she said, drawing everyone's attention to the gap left by the loose brick. It appeared someone long ago had hidden something inside the cavity, before sealing it back up again. It must have been preserved there for all these years, until now. Hella reached in and took out the only object inside: a simple note, written in some demonic language. As everyone present stared at it, the strange symbols shimmered and then reformed into words they understood. Weird.
They don't know what I know! This will be my secret, and I'll take it with me to my grave! There's a secret, yes, even Lord Sissus doesn't know about it.
The bubble keeps us all out, even though we just want to show our love! But there's a weak point. On the other side of the planet, directly opposite Lord Sissus's stage, the bubble is thinnest!
No-one else knows this. They all just bounce off. But not me! If I hit that spot with just enough force, I go straight through!
I've already left Lord Sissus some gifts. They're mine, all mine! None of the others can leave him gifts so directly. I'm his biggest fan!
Next time I'll try retrieving one of his scales when it flakes off during a performance!!There was silence for a few moments as everyone stared blankly at the words they'd just read. Then Hella obliterated the note with a
Tân (Fire) heat ray. "We never read that," she said brightly. "This never happened."
"If word got back to Sissus about this, he'd never quiet down about it," Korrigan agreed. "We've already got enough to deal with, holding an entire festival for him."
Everyone agreed with the sentiment. Best not to mention it to anyone, and just forget about it.
Some time passed leisurely. By the time 11:00 rolled around, they had finished up their initial preparations on Ingrass. It was time to split up and resume their assigned tasks. Neuron, Yugi, Korrigan and Hella flew off with their familiars. Nico and Felix stayed for a bit longer to discuss a recipe Calvin had proposed. Ige and Yves continued decorating, as did Su-Ah whose artistic sense wasn't quite satisfied with the arrangement yet.
"Oh, I know what's missing!" Su-Ah said, before running to the storage shack and emerging with a metal weight. "
Metel!" she yelled, shaping the weight into a miniature Sissus replica. She spent a few moments positioning it
just right in the centre of the display, then cast
Gwlad Hud (Wonderland) on it to significantly scale it up. "There! A centrepiece like this ought to satisfy that narcissist, right?"
This was the finishing touch she'd been looking for. Around this time, Nico and Felix had finished their conversation with Calvin, so the three of them took off from the planet together, before going their separate ways. They left the planet at 11:10.
[/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Part 4]
Everyone was occupied by their assignments. Hawk, Caitlin, Faye and Mikoto steadfastly refused to participate, though they continued to occasionally meet up to chat with the others, or each other.
Felix and Nico were presumably hard at work baking treats for the festival on Sitie. Neuron and Su-Ah were likewise probably cooking up a storm in the Sahra kitchen.
Calvin, Yves and Ige remained on Ingrass, creating and putting up decorations. This was a festival for Sissus, who wasn't one for restraint. The more, the better.
Korrigan, Yugi and Hella continued to practice their performance. They had eventually concluded that the restaurant on Sahra was a good place to practice: once the tables and chairs were moved aside, it gave them a large, flat-surfaced space that was also somewhat isolated from prying eyes. Yugi and Hella didn't feel confident enough yet to practice right in front of others. Sleep-deprived Yugi in particular kept messing up.
After prep on Ingrass was finished, the performance group had headed to Sahra alongside Neuron. They could see the building he'd entered through the restaurant windows, but the curvature of the miniature planet was so tight that they could only really see the other building's upper floor. They generally had a good view of it the entire time they were practising.
At 15:00 they heard a distant thud from the direction of the other building. They weren't really sure what it was. Shortly after this, they saw what appeared to be a cloaked figure flying out of the other building's upper-floor window.
That was certainly strange. The small group started to get a little worried. A few minutes passed as they discussed whether to go and check, at which point at 15:03 they heard a bell ringing. There was a bell set up outside the kitchen, loud enough to be heard even on other planets. Presumably it had been installed to tell people food was ready, but now it must have been rung to call for help. Korrigan, Yugi and Hella rushed out the restaurant and over to the other building.
They saw Su-Ah outside without her familiar, near the bell. She beckoned to the group, then ran back into the kitchen ahead of them. They followed after, but stumbled to a halt when they took in the scene inside.
[/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Part 5]
A giant, carved, fish-headed statue, like those in the temple but vastly scaled up, was juxtaposed against the surrounding kitchen. A horrendous amount of blood was splashed all around it. A tray of food lay upturned on the floor near the open oven. Jang-Mi, Su-Ah's spider familiar, quaked as it stood between the new arrivals and the scene, bravely standing guard. Su-Ah reached down to pet it and calm its nerves, her skin pale from shock.
Neuron was nowhere to be seen.
Korrigan's hand shook as he cast
Golau (Light) at the statue. The spell confirmed it. Neuron Itsunoi was dead, crushed underneath the hefty stone carving.
[/spoiler]